Silent Voices

the questions Vera would want answered.
    ‘Here, I’d say, though you’ll have to wait for the post-mortem before I can be certain.’
    ‘Thanks. Can I leave you to it? I’m still trying to interview the possible witnesses.’
    Keating must have picked up the trace of complaint in Ashworth’s voice. ‘Where’s the sweet and beautiful Vera?’
    ‘Gone to inform the next of kin.’
    ‘Bear with her, Joe. She’s the best detective I’ve ever worked with.’
    Ashworth was embarrassed. He wouldn’t have wanted Keating to think he was disloyal. ‘I know.’
    Danny Shaw sat in the manager’s office. Ashworth saw him through a window in the door, leaning back in his chair, nodding his head to the rhythm of music coming through his iPod. But something about the way the boy moved made Ashworth think this was a pose. The boy was too self-conscious, and not as cool and relaxed as he was trying to make out. He was wearing black combats and a loose black T-shirt, and looked to Ashworth a classic student. As soon as the door opened he took out the earplugs and straightened, half rose from his chair in a gesture of respect. Polite enough, Ashworth had to concede. He didn’t much like students on the whole. Envy, maybe; he wouldn’t have minded three years of sitting on his backside reading books. Then he remembered what Lisa had said about Danny: He tells you what you want to hear.
    ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Ashworth said. ‘But your mam will have let you know I was on my way.’
    The boy looked bewildered. So perhaps it hadn’t been Danny that Karen had been speaking to so earnestly on her mobile in the hotel car park after the interview in the bar.
    ‘Did you know Jenny Lister, the woman who died?’ Best get to the point, Ashworth thought. His Sarah would kill him if he turned up really late. She couldn’t sleep until he got in, and the baby always woke in the night. One o’clock, regular as clockwork, and again at five unless they were lucky.
    ‘They don’t let me loose on the members.’ Danny laughed. ‘I’m just the cleaner.’
    Ashworth put a blown-up photo of the victim on the table. ‘But you might have seen her around.’
    There was a moment’s hesitation as Danny glanced down. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t help.’
    ‘Tell me how your job works,’ Ashworth said. ‘Talk me through a regular shift.’
    ‘I’m on lates. Start at four. First off, based in the men’s changing rooms. It’s a busy time, people coming in straight from work, so it’s about keeping the place clean and tidy, mopping the floors where people come in from the pool, checking the toilets and showers. Then, when the health club closes at ten, I clean the pool area and gym.’ He managed to imply that the job was beneath him.
    ‘And that’s what you did last night?’
    ‘Yes, just the same as usual.’
    ‘And you checked the steam room and sauna?’ Ashworth had to ask, though Vera had phoned him after speaking to Jenny’s daughter. They knew now that Jenny had still been alive for breakfast that morning; there was no possibility that her body had been in the steam room all night.
    ‘Of course.’ He smiled, challenging Ashworth to question his commitment to his work. Ashworth decided not to play.
    ‘See anything out of the ordinary?’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Ashworth tried to keep his voice patient. ‘Like signs of a break-in, or that there was still someone in the place.’
    ‘You think the murderer might have got in the night before?’
    ‘We don’t have a specific theory at this point. We have to explore all the possibilities.’
    There was another moment of silence. Danny seemed at least now to be taking the question seriously. ‘I certainly didn’t see anybody. I mean, I’d have called security. The hotel does lots of weddings at weekends, some conferences. Late at night you get pissed people thinking it’d be fun to go skinny-dipping when nobody else is around; once I caught a couple of lads hiding away in the showers before we locked up, but we do a thorough check that the place is empty. There was nothing like that last night.’
    ‘Can you walk me through the changing rooms?’ Ashworth found it almost impossible to visualize the changing rooms and the business side of the health club. He knew Vera had been in to find the victim’s identity card, but it wouldn’t hurt for him to have a quick look.
    ‘Sure.’ The boy got to his feet – glad, it seemed, to be on