Silent Voices

stress of any kind.
    Anne took a deep breath and continued, ‘Recently my marriage has been going through a bad patch. Sort of mid-life crisis, I suppose. I was attracted to a new member of staff at school. Nothing happened, not really, but feeling like a besotted teenager unsettled me. Jenny made me see how ridiculous I was being. She said that John and I had just built this place, spent years getting it perfect and, having achieved it, everything seemed like an anticlimax. I was just looking for something exciting. I’m sure she was right.’
    God , Vera thought, what self-indulgent drivel. I’d rather spend time with an honest criminal any day than with this introspective woman.
    ‘She was going to come to France with us this time, but she decided not to. She said John and I needed some time to ourselves. She was that sort of friend.’
    ‘What about her ?’ Vera said briskly. ‘Did she have any men friends?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    So, it seemed the confidences had all gone one way. Jenny had been happy to listen to her friend talking about her adolescent crush, but had given nothing in return. Discretion, it seemed, was a part of her personal as well as her professional life. What secrets did she have to hide?
    ‘Recently I thought there might have been someone,’ Anne said suddenly. ‘She cancelled one of our Wednesday nights at the last minute, without a proper excuse. And she seemed very happy. Glowing.’
    ‘Didn’t you ask her what was going on?’ Now Vera was really starting to lose patience. This woman was sounding like a soppy story from a magazine.
    ‘She said she was in a relationship, but she couldn’t talk about it,’ Anne said.
    ‘Where did she meet her mystery lover?’ Vera couldn’t help herself. ‘The flamenco class?’
    ‘No!’ Anne seemed shocked by the thought. ‘No, really, I don’t think so. And if she had, why wouldn’t she tell me?’
    ‘Why all the secrecy then?’
    ‘I thought maybe she’d started seeing a colleague.’ Anne looked awkward. ‘Or a married man.’
    So, not such a saint after all .
    Driving down the narrow track towards the village, Vera was pleased. It was as if she was rediscovering the Jenny Lister of the welcoming little house and the charming daughter. Vera had always been more comfortable with sinners.
    Lost in her thoughts, she had to stop suddenly to let a tractor past. She pulled off the road and saw the gateposts with the carved cormorants’ heads that she’d first noticed in the painting on Veronica’s wall. The vegetation had grown up around them and they wouldn’t have been visible from the road. On impulse Vera switched off the engine and got out of the car. She walked down the grass track between the pillars, through a spinney of alder and birch. There were wood anemones and violets, the colours very bright in the shaft of sunlight that shot through the trees. Then the woodland stopped and she saw where the house must once have stood.
    There were still the remains of a formal garden, wide terraces and a walled patch where vegetables had been grown, where the skeleton of a greenhouse still leaned against the wall, but the brick and stone of the house had all been removed. Old dressed stone would be worth a fortune here in the Tyne valley. Why had the land never been sold? Did Veronica own it, or some other branch of the family? This would be a developer’s dream location. Perhaps it was in a conservation area and building was prohibited.
    Grand stone steps led through the middle of the grass terraces. She walked down them, feeling as if she’d walked onto a film set. There was a series of statues on either side. Chipped and covered in lichen, they were mostly of strange mythical creatures. Some were hidden by ivy and a few had disappeared under a tangle of bramble. On one of the terraces there was the huge empty bowl of a fountain.
    Looking down towards the river, she saw a pool. Trying to remember far-off geography lessons, Vera thought that perhaps the course of the river had changed over time and this lake had been left. Beside it, quite intact, was the boathouse, about which Veronica had spoken. It was made of wood that had recently been varnished; a deck on stilts was built out over the water. No boats were kept inside it now; the window was glazed and there were red-and-white curtains. A couple of dinghies, upended, lay beside it. Vera imagined it would be the perfect spot for grand family picnics, pictured Veronica