Silent Voices

folk in the village? What did people make of her?’
    Veronica appeared to consider. ‘We didn’t really mix in the same circles. She probably wasn’t around much. She was at work all day and she had a long commute. I think it’s important to contribute if you live in a small community. You know the sort of thing: parish council, playgroup committee, board of first school governors. I’m on them all.’
    It must be nice to have the time. But Vera knew she’d rather stick pins in her eyes than become one of those professional rural committee members.
    ‘Are you a member of the Willows Health Club?’
    If Veronica was surprised by the question she didn’t show it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not my sort of place, actually. It was a lovely hotel once, but it’s definitely gone downmarket since the chain took over. I was taken there as a guest when the club first opened, but I found it rather tacky.’ She pursed her lips with distaste. ‘They actually expect members to take their own towels.’
    Despite her immediate dislike of the woman, Vera supposed it was over-optimistic to consider that Veronica could be a suspect. The inspector would be delighted to take her to the police station, make her wait with the regulars at the desk and question her in a stinking interview room, but of course Veronica would never strangle anybody. She’d bring them down with her superior looks and supercilious words.
    ‘Can you point me in the direction of someone who knew her well?’ Vera hoped there was someone outside her immediate family who was sorry Jenny was dead, someone who would drink to her memory and tell stories of the good times they’d shared together.
    ‘Really, Inspector, I don’t think I can help you. Jenny and I knew each other because our children are friends. We had nothing else in common.’ She stood up and walked out of the kitchen and down the corridor. Vera followed. ‘Of course you could try Connie Masters. I suppose they met through Jenny’s work.’ She gave a little triumphant smile, hesitated at the door in the hope of some response and, when none was forthcoming, she closed it and locked it carefully.
    Vera was so intrigued that she was tempted to bang on the door to demand information about Connie Masters. But that was clearly what Veronica had been hoping for, and Vera refused to give her the satisfaction. Instead she got into her car and drove away slowly, hoping the scatter of gravel wasn’t chipping the paintwork on her flash new car.
    At the crossroads at the edge of the village, she paused to take her bearings. In the cottage squatting in the low ground next to the river on the other side of the road an upstairs light was switched on. It made her realize that it was later than she’d thought. Looking at the clock on the dashboard, she supposed that Ashworth would have finished at the Willows and would already be on his way home to his neat little box on a neat little housing estate just outside Kimmerston. She’d catch up with him in the morning. In the cottage, silhouetted against the light behind, she saw a woman and a child, and was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss for a childhood she’d never experienced. The woman in the cottage stood with her arms wrapped around the girl as if protecting her from the world outside the window. Hector hadn’t meant to be cruel, but he’d been careless and Vera had been left to fend for herself.

 
Chapter Eight
     
    Ashworth wasn’t on his way home, as Vera had supposed. He was in the steam room, still looking down at Jenny Lister’s body, standing next to Keating the pathologist. The doctor was a rugby-playing Ulsterman usually given to plain speaking. Today, though, his tone was rather whimsical. It seemed he’d been in the hotel before. ‘We looked at the Willows as a possible venue for my daughter’s wedding. The grounds would have been glorious, but inside . . .’ He paused, distracted by his first view of the victim. ‘. . . rather sad, don’t you think? Impossible to keep up a place this size these days.’
    ‘The boss thought she’d been strangled,’ Ashworth said. Danny Shaw was waiting in the manager’s office, and he didn’t want the lad giving up and going away. He didn’t have time for small talk.
    ‘I’d say the boss is quite right. Not manually, though. Look at that mark. Fine rope or wire. Rope more likely, because the skin’s not been cut.’
    ‘Was she killed here or moved after death?’ Ashworth knew