Silent Voices

the move. Because he’d been slouched in the chair, Ashworth hadn’t realized how tall he was. Standing, he became a gangly, loose-limbed giant.
    Ashworth followed him into the ladies’ changing rooms. There was a smell of chlorine from the pool and something else faintly cosmetic. There were bays of lockers all along one wall, with wooden benches underneath them and again between the bays. The tiled floor was clean and dry. For a moment he longed to be out of this antiseptic, artificial atmosphere. He hadn’t had a breath of fresh air since Vera had summoned him at lunchtime.
    ‘Is this where the thieving was happening?’
    ‘What thieving?’
    ‘Are you pissing me about, lad?’ Usually he minded his language when he was working – and when he wasn’t – but something about this boy got under his skin. ‘I’d heard stuff had been stolen from the changing rooms.’
    ‘Oh, that. I’m not sure much was actually taken. Most of the members are getting on. They forget where they put something and they put it down to theft.’
    ‘What about the stuff that went missing from the staffroom? Are you putting that down to senile dementia too?’
    ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ Danny had given up his attempt to be pleasant and looked like a petulant teenager. ‘I don’t go into the staffroom much. Crap coffee and crap company.’
    Ashworth shook his head and let the boy go.
    He couldn’t find a CSI to come with him to look for Jenny Lister’s car. They had better things to do, they implied, than wander round in the dark with him. Once he’d tracked it down, he could give them a shout and they’d tape it.
    Outside it was still clear and the moon lit up wisps of mist over the river. There were a few parking spaces very near the house and then a larger car park hidden by trees closer to the gate. He walked down the row of cars by the hotel, clicking the fob of the key Vera had given to him. Nothing. He had a small torch in his jacket pocket and felt stupidly proud to be so well prepared. In the big car park it was very dark. The lights from the house didn’t reach there and the trees blocked out the moonlight. Again he walked past the scattered vehicles pressing the fob, thinking that perhaps Jenny had got a lift and this was a waste of time, until there was a click and the flash of headlights and he was standing by her car.
    It was a VW Polo, small, but only a year old. He shone the torch through the windows. No handbag on the front or rear seat, or as far as he could tell on the floor. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and used it to open the boot. He’d rather face the fury of the CSIs than the wrath of Vera. Still no bag. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
    Walking back to the hotel, to let the CSIs know which car was Jenny Lister’s, his phone went: his wife, calling to ask if he intended staying out all night.
    He’d just pulled into the drive at home when his phone rang again. This time it was Vera Stanhope. He sat in the car to take the call. Sarah would have heard his car, but she didn’t like work conversations in the house.
    ‘Yes?’ He hoped he sounded as tired as he was feeling. He wouldn’t put it past her to send him out again.
    Her voice was loud. She’d never really got the hang of mobiles, yelled into them. She sounded as if she’d just woken up after a good night’s sleep. Murders took her that way, invigorated her as much as they excited the pensioners he’d spent all afternoon interviewing. Once, after a few too many glasses of Famous Grouse, she’d said that was what she’d been put on the Earth for.
    ‘Connie Masters,’ she said. ‘Name mean anything to you?’
    It did vaguely, but not in enough detail to satisfy her and he knew that once he’d chatted to his wife and shared the details of her day, he’d be up most of the night, his laptop on his knee, checking it out for the other woman in his life.

 
Chapter Nine
     
    Connie hadn’t watched the news on TV since the day Elias died. She was always frightened that she might catch a glimpse of herself: pale and inarticulate at that first press conference, or running down the steps of the court in the rain at the end of the case, knowing even then that this was nowhere near over. Her preferred viewing now was light and escapist; she watched documentaries about celebrities, or selling houses or moving to the sun. Every evening, once Alice was in bed and asleep, she would pour herself a glass of wine, eat