Silent Voices

Does that make sense to you?’
    This time Connie paused. ‘Yeah, that sounds like Jenny. She could be quite priggish.’
    Vera beamed. ‘Hallelujah! I never believe in saints. Someone’s telling the truth about the woman at last.’
    Connie looked up, surprised, caught Vera’s eye and grinned too.
    ‘Did you know Michael Morgan had found himself another girlfriend? That she was having a baby by him?’ Vera asked. ‘At least that’s what he told Mattie. He could just have been trying to get her off his back, of course.’
    ‘Were they still in touch?’ Connie hadn’t expected that. She’d thought Michael had walked out of Mattie’s life, once and for all, before the murder.
    ‘She was in touch with him. She phoned him from the prison, sent him visiting orders. She was besotted, after all. And some women have no pride.’ Vera stretched her legs out in front of her. She was wearing sandals and her feet were rather grubby. ‘That would have started alarm bells, wouldn’t it? Michael Morgan involved with another woman and child?’
    ‘Yes, of course. Though he was never charged. No evidence that he’d witnessed abuse or instigated it. Social services would have to be careful. They’d take advice from lawyers.’
    ‘What would the procedure be?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’ It seemed to Connie that that life, the life of emergency case conferences and the bureaucracy of the ‘at risk’ register, was part of a former existence. She no longer understood it. ‘An informal visit to start with, I suppose. Contact with the woman’s GP and midwife, to alert them to a possible problem.’
    ‘Who would do that? Who would be in charge of the new case?’ Vera turned to Connie and waited for the answer. Connie could sense how much it mattered to her, felt her own heart beating faster, in time with the detective’s.
    ‘I guess it would be somebody senior because of the sensitivity. But you could easily find out. There’d be records.’
    ‘I know I could, pet. But I’m asking you. You knew them all. You were in the thick of it.’
    ‘They might ask Jenny,’ Connie said at last. ‘Because she knew Michael Morgan already.’
    ‘She knew Morgan?’
    The violence of the response made Connie backtrack. ‘I’m not certain about that. You’ll have to check. But she talked about meeting him. It was after he’d left Mattie’s flat, but before Elias died. She said she wanted to assess him for herself, to judge the risk that he might pose to the family.’ A pause. ‘I was a bit pissed off actually. I thought she didn’t trust me.’
    ‘She never came back to you? Never told you if that meeting took place?’ The detective remained still, but Connie could sense a new energy about her, a sharpness. An excitement.
    ‘No, but Elias died soon after. We had other concerns then. Like I say, you’ll be able to check. Jenny’s record-keeping was legendary.’
    Now Vera heaved herself off the seat, dusted bits of lichen from her skirt. She shook Connie’s hand, clasping it in both of hers. ‘Best keep this conversation secret,’ she said. ‘Safer, eh?’
    ‘I’m hardly likely to go to the press!’ Connie wished now that Vera would stay. She would have liked to share a pot of tea with her. The woman was entertaining.
    ‘Aye, well, take care of yourselves, all the same.’
    And the woman stamped down the track to her big, flash car, leaving Connie feeling abandoned and uneasy.

 
Chapter Nineteen
     
    The family liaison officer had arrived at the Lister house almost as soon as Hannah had finished washing up. Vera had half-heartedly offered to do it, but Hannah had refused. She needed, Vera thought, to feel that this was her place still. That it didn’t belong to strange police officers.
    ‘What are your plans, pet? Will you stay on here?’
    Hannah turned from the sink and looked confused, as if the question had no meaning. Then the doorbell rang and it was the FLO, and while Hannah was obviously sorry it wasn’t Simon standing there, she seemed relieved by the interruption.
    Outside on the pavement Vera took a deep breath; she felt more of a sense of escape and liberation than she would coming out of Durham jail. She phoned Ashworth. ‘Where are you?’
    ‘Doing the house-to-house again.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The plods that did it the first time round missed stuff.’
    ‘Anything useful?’
    ‘Well, I can’t go into details now.’ Vera imagined him in one of the houses in the street. He’d