Silent Voices

biscuits. Possibly even home-made cake.
    ‘What did your mam do for a living?’ She’d plugged in the kettle and turned back towards Hannah, who was still staring into space. There was no indication in the house, no clues for Vera to pick up, but she thought something arty. The things in the house – the furniture, crockery, pictures – wouldn’t have cost much, but they were put together with flair.
    Hannah looked up very slowly. It was as if the question had taken hours to get through to her brain and she had only just remembered what had been asked. ‘She was a social worker. Fostering and adoption.’
    Vera had to readjust her ideas. She’d never thought much of social workers. Either interfering busybodies who wouldn’t let folk get on with their own lives or ineffective wimps. A social worker had come to visit when her own mother had died, though she’d called herself something different then. Child Welfare Officer, that was it. Hector had charmed her, said of course he’d be fine to look after his daughter, and that had been the last they’d seen of the woman. And even though Hector had been hardly what anyone would call a model father, Vera wasn’t convinced having a social worker involved would have improved things. She was saved the need to answer because there was a brief knock on the front door, then Simon let himself in. He must have his own key . The thought flashed into her mind as she watched the young man take Hannah into his arms. Though it was hardly relevant because Jenny hadn’t been killed at home, it made him seem somehow part of the family and the idea of the couple being engaged seemed less ridiculous.
    He was dark and big and towered over Hannah. Not conventionally good-looking, Vera thought. Slightly overweight, nerdy glasses, impossibly big feet. But there was a charge of attraction between them, even in this moment of the girl’s grief, that took Vera’s breath away and gave her a dark and destructive pang of jealousy. I’ve never experienced that in my life, and now I probably never will . He sat on one of the kitchen chairs and took Hannah onto his lap and began to stroke the hair away from her forehead, as if she were a small child. The gesture was so intimate that for a moment Vera was forced to look away.
    The student dragged his attention from his girlfriend and gave a little nod to Vera. ‘I’m Simon Eliot, Hannah’s fiancé.’
    ‘What did Jenny make of your engagement?’ She had to pull them into conversation, and it was impossible to ignore the relationship between them. It would have been impossible too, surely, for Jenny to ignore it.
    ‘She thought we were too young.’ Hannah slid from Simon’s knee and took the chair beside him, though her hand still rested on his leg. ‘We wanted to get married this summer, but she asked us to wait.’
    ‘And did you agree?’
    ‘In the end. At least until Simon gets his MA. Another year. It seems like a lifetime, but in the scheme of things . . .’
    ‘Why marry at all?’ Vera asked. ‘Why not just live together like everyone else?’
    ‘That’s just it!’ For the moment Hannah seemed to have forgotten her mother’s death. Her eyes gleamed. ‘We’re not like everyone else. What we have is so special. We wanted a special gesture to reflect that. We wanted everyone to know that we intend to spend the rest of our lives together.’
    Vera thought that Hannah’s parents had made similar promises when they married, but that relationship had hardly survived their daughter’s birth. They’d probably started off with ideals too. But Hannah was young and romantic, and it would have been cruel to disillusion her. Now, this student was all she had to cling on to.
    ‘But Jenny had nothing against Simon?’
    ‘Of course not! We all got on together very well. Mum was just over-protective. Since Dad left there’d only been the two of us. I suppose it was hard for her to accept that there was someone else in my life.’
    Vera turned to the man. ‘And your parents. What did they make of the prospect of your marrying so soon?’
    He gave a little shrug. ‘They weren’t over the moon. They’d have come round.’
    ‘Simon’s mother’s a snob,’ Hannah said. ‘A social worker’s daughter wasn’t quite what she had planned for him.’ She smiled to show there was no ill will.
    There was a pause. It seemed to Vera that they’d all been colluding in avoiding discussing Jenny Lister’s murder. For a moment