Silent Voices

tonight she needed to get pleasantly pissed.
    ‘While Jenny Lister was besotted with her young lover, Michael Morgan had taken up with pretty little Freya. About the same sort of age difference between both couples, though we don’t talk about Jenny corrupting Simon, do we? Then Jenny found out from Mattie that Freya was pregnant and she became involved in the Morgan case again. It all got a bit close to home, didn’t it? Suddenly it would have hit her that she was screwing Mattie’s half-brother . . .’ Vera half closed her eyes and thought about chance and the coincidence of Jenny Lister and Veronica Eliot living in the same village. But Northumberland was the least-populated county in England and in small communities there were always connections. ‘She decided it had to stop. And being honourable and really stupid, she decided she’d have to come clean to Hannah. Simon couldn’t stand that. Hannah worshipped him. They were engaged, after all, a big commitment for a couple that young.’
    ‘Where did Danny Shaw come into it?’ Ashworth was suddenly getting impatient. Maybe there’d been a text from his wife, read surreptitiously under the table, asking where the hell he was.
    Vera opened her eyes and sat forward. ‘Ah, Danny Shaw, wild boy and charmer. And thief. Never got on with boys of his own age, always wanted to knock around with older people. If I were some sort of social worker I’d maybe diagnose a conflict with his father, but luckily I don’t go in for all that crap.’ She paused and tried to put into words the friendship between Danny and Simon. ‘Simon was everything Danny wanted to be: he went to the posh school in town, his father was a successful businessman, and Simon had the girl Danny had fallen for. But that didn’t make Danny resent Simon. It just made the younger boy admire him. Weird.’
    ‘So?’ Ashworth demanded. ‘I still don’t see why he had to die.’
    In the corner, the elderly couple got to their feet, and holding hands like teenagers they walked slowly out of the dining room.
    ‘That’s because you’re not very bright, pet. You don’t have a logical mind.’
    ‘Did Danny help Simon with the murder?’ Holly asked. ‘He was working there. He could get Simon through the turnstile and into the pool. He knew too much.’
    ‘Right!’ Vera gave Holly a little clap of approval because she knew it would wind up Ashworth.
    ‘But why would he do that?’ It was Ashworth, fighting back. ‘Why make himself an accessory to murder?’
    ‘Because he’s young and daft,’ Vera said. ‘Because he liked taking risks. Because his hero asked him to.’
    And maybe because he still blamed Jenny Lister for
    breaking up his relationship with Hannah. Or maybe at that point he didn’t even know Simon intended to kill the woman. Perhaps he thought it was a joke, a big game.
    ‘Talk us through that day,’ Charlie said. ‘Tell us what actually happened. No more psycho-babble.’ He slumped forward across the table.
    ‘Jenny came here a couple of times a week to use the pool before work. Not dead early, but before the cheap sessions started. Simon wanted to make sure she would be there that day, so he arranged to meet her for coffee before she went for her swim. Of course he didn’t show. He’d gone beyond the stage of deep and meaningful talking. She got changed as usual, leaving her clothes and bag in her locker, and went into the steam room as usual, but Simon was waiting for her.’
    ‘Danny had let him in,’ Holly said. ‘We know he’d stayed here overnight and was in the hotel that morning.’
    ‘Yes, Danny had let him in. Another anonymous swimmer. Who would notice? Simon’s a strong young man, a rower. He could strangle her and make no noise. There would always be a danger that someone would interrupt him, but I suspect Danny was keeping watch. Again, who takes notice of a cleaner? You see the mop, the bucket, even the overalls, but you don’t see the man. And nobody noticed Jenny’s body for more than an hour until I found her, which gave them both time to leave the hotel.’
    Vera leaned back in her chair. Had the two young men considered the enormity of what they’d planned? Or had it been an intellectual challenge for them? Like some project set at university?
    ‘Simon went into the gents’ changing rooms to get dressed, but of course there was a problem. Jenny’s bag was in her locker in the ladies’. And in her bag was her diary, her notes.