Silent Voices

to our busiest time. I need an engineer here now! And get the bloody cleaner to mop up the mess.’
    ‘And I thought at least I’d get a decent cup of coffee.’
    He must have received the assurance he needed, because he switched off the phone, turned to her and grinned. ‘Come into my office, Inspector, and I’ll make one for you there.’
    ‘The cleaner you’re waiting for, it wouldn’t be Danny, that student?’
    Ryan looked at her sharply, wondering if the question had particular significance. ‘No, he works lates. Anyway, it’s his day off. Why?’
    ‘No reason, pet. Just curious.’
    She followed him to his office and watched him fill the coffee machine before she started talking.
    ‘When you’re in this place,’ she said, watching the water drip through the filter, ‘it’s hard to believe there’s any life outside at all. Must be worse for you. Do you live here?’
    ‘No. I’ve got a flat in town with my partner, Paul. There’s a room here I can use if I need to stay over.’
    ‘It’s an odd sort of community, a big hotel.’ She saw him wondering where she was going with the idea. She wasn’t quite sure herself. ‘Especially for the staff who live in. Everyone on top of each other. Like a monastery. Does it lead to tensions?’
    ‘It can do. And not much of the monastery about it.’
    ‘Romances, then. Love affairs . . .’
    ‘Sometimes.’
    ‘Michael Morgan and Freya Adams.’ She took the mug he handed to her, sniffed it appreciatively. ‘What was going on there?’
    Ryan shrugged. ‘They’re both adults. I know some of the staff were a bit concerned. Karen, from health-club reception, had a motherly word with her. “Do you really know what you’re playing with?” That sort of thing. But there was nothing I could do to stop it.’
    ‘Had Morgan been sniffing around younger women before?’
    Ryan took time to consider. ‘There was nothing that came to my notice, but I’ll ask around.’
    ‘Do that. And I need to know if he was here the morning of the murder. It wasn’t a usual clinic day, but I understand he came in sometimes to use the gym. He’s not on the list of members who went through the turnstile we got from your IT people, but he’d find a way through that. He’s not a stupid man.’
    ‘You think he’s a killer?’
    Vera could tell his first thought was for the hotel, the publicity and the implications of the arrest of a man who was almost an employee. Ryan didn’t consider Michael Morgan a friend. There was no personal concern. ‘No, nothing like that. I’m talking out loud, telling stories to myself. That’s what my job’s all about. Mostly that’s all they are: stories.’
    ‘We nearly asked him to leave last year, when there was all that publicity about the little boy.’ Ryan was staring out of the window. ‘But in the end he talked Louise round.’
    ‘He’s got a way with women, has he?’ Vera gave a little laugh to show there was no real significance to the question.
    ‘Must have. Louise is as tough as old boots when it comes to the business.’
    ‘Did he ever bring Mattie Jones, the boy’s mother, here?’ Vera asked.
    Ryan shook his head. ‘Not as far as I know. And once he and Freya set up home together, Freya kept away too. The girls she used to work with invited her back for lunch one day, but she didn’t come.’
    ‘Have you got a key to the room he uses as a clinic?’
    ‘Of course. But Michael doesn’t keep any equipment there. He brings it with him each time.’
    ‘Does he make his own appointments, or do the girls on reception here do it for him?’
    ‘He sees to all that himself,’ Ryan said. ‘If anyone expresses an interest in consulting him, we pass on his mobile number.’
    ‘So no appointment book.’ Vera should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. ‘No way of getting hold of his client list.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    She gestured towards the closed door, the way from Ryan’s private room to the outside world of the hotel. ‘Tell you what, pet, while you’re out there doing my job for me, asking your people about Michael Morgan, find out if anyone ever saw him with Jenny Lister.’
    Ryan nodded his head, another young man eager to please her.
    ‘I thought I’d just have a bit of a wander round myself, chat to folk. That’s all right with you?’
    ‘Of course.’ But Vera could tell that he’d be very pleased when he’d got rid of her, when she was finally off the premises.

 
Chapter Twenty-Two
     
    She