Silent Voices

was shut.
    Vera rang the bell and at last they heard light footsteps on an uncarpeted floor. She’d been expecting Morgan, but the door was opened by a young woman, who was hardly more than a girl. Long, straight dark hair, a skimpy printed dress worn over leggings, little flat pumps. The dress was loose and floaty and could have been concealing an early pregnancy.
    ‘Could we speak to Michael Morgan?’
    The girl smiled. ‘I’m sorry, he’s tied up at the moment, but I could make an appointment for you.’ She spoke as if meeting the man would be a huge treat for them. More educated and less flaky than Mattie, but a similar type, Vera decided. Frail and drippy.
    ‘He’s here then, is he?’
    ‘Michael’s meditating,’ the girl said. ‘He can never be disturbed when he’s meditating.’
    ‘Bollocks.’ Vera flashed her a smile. ‘We’re police, pet, and I know he’d be delighted to help us with our enquiries.’ She nodded Ashworth past her up the stairs. ‘What’s your name then?’
    ‘Freya.’ Now she seemed just like a schoolgirl. ‘Freya Adams.’
    ‘We’ll need to speak to you in a little while too. But disappear for half an hour, there’s a good lass. Buy yourself a glass of pop and a bag of crisps and we’ll see you back here then.’ Vera shut the door, leaving the girl on the pavement. She thought maybe she should have been more tactful. Sometimes adrenalin got her that way, made her too slick and clever for her own good.
    Two rooms of the flat must have been knocked through to make a long narrow space, with windows at either end. Vera walked straight into it at the top of the stairs. The floors had been stripped and waxed and were honey-coloured. There were thin muslin curtains, wall hangings in gold and saffron, the only furniture a futon, a low table and one wall covered in bookshelves. The music came from a system on one of the shelves. ‘Can we switch that off?’ It never did any harm to establish your authority immediately, and the persistent wailing made her want to scream. There was silence.
    Morgan and Ashworth were standing close to the window that looked over a small garden at the back of the house, in the middle of a conversation. Vera had been expecting hostility: she’d be really pissed off if two strangers came into her house and started shouting the odds. But Morgan seemed only faintly amused. He was better-looking in the flesh than his photos had led her to expect: a striking face with very blue eyes. She’d checked out all the old newspaper pictures of him, but wouldn’t have recognized him in the street; he’d shaved his head since the trial and now had the look of an Eastern monk – the image, she guessed, he was aiming at. He came up to her, arm outstretched to shake her hand. ‘And you are?’
    ‘Vera Stanhope. Detective Inspector.’
    He was wearing loose cotton trousers and a cotton shirt with no collar. The sort of gear her hippy neighbour went in for. It came to her that this man could well have come to the next-door parties.
    ‘I was just explaining to Mr Morgan that we’re sorry to disturb him,’ Ashworth said.
    ‘And I’ve told him that I’m always pleased to help the police in any way I can.’ Morgan nodded for them to take a seat. The futon was as uncomfortable as Vera had known it would be. It creaked. It hadn’t been made for someone of her weight, and she wasn’t sure if she’d make it to her feet unaided at the end of the interview.
    ‘Would you like tea?’ The man smiled at them. ‘I have camomile, peppermint . . .’
    ‘Just a few questions,’ Vera said. ‘We’ll not take up too much of your time.’
    He smiled again and sat on the floor facing them. The movement was fluid, very graceful, and it came to Vera, unbidden, that he’d be very good at sex. The physical stuff. Was that part of his attraction? She felt a moment of panic, of the old regret that time was slipping past. Then something close to lust.
    There was a silence. Ashworth and Morgan waited for her to speak. Morgan was looking at her as if he understood her discomfort, with compassionate blue eyes that held her attention. Sod him! Did she need his pity? She might want his body, but that was something quite different.
    ‘Is it right that you’ve got that lass of yours pregnant?’
    She felt that Ashworth relaxed as soon as she’d spoken. This was what he’d been expecting, a full-on attack.
    ‘I think we both had something to do with that. But, yes,