Silent Voices

there and let her sob. Vera stood watching, helpless, useless. At least by then the CD was over and the music had stopped.
    Later, the three of them sat in a neighbour’s living room. Karen hadn’t wanted to leave her own house, but Joe had explained. ‘We have to let the scientists get on with the work. You do understand?’ And Karen had nodded, not understanding at all, but without the energy to fight. They’d phoned Danny’s father, who was on his way home, but Vera wanted to talk to Karen now. This minute, before the man arrived. The last thing she needed was an over-protective alpha male hovering in the background.
    ‘How was Danny, Karen? The last few days, I mean. Since we found Mrs Lister’s body in the pool.’ ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ ‘Did he seem anxious, worried? Scared?’ ‘Are you saying he committed suicide?’ Vera had considered that briefly. It would be a tidy explanation of the case: Jenny seeing Danny stealing, Danny killing her to keep her quiet, and then himself because he couldn’t stand the stress. But nobody committed suicide by strangulation.
    ‘No,’ Vera said gently. ‘We believe he was murdered.’
    ‘Danny was never scared,’ Karen said. ‘Not even as a child. He’d climb the biggest trees he could find, swim too far out in the sea. Reckless. We always said he’d kill himself one day.’ She stared bleakly at Vera. ‘They’d play Dare, the bairns in the village. He was always the last one in the game.’
    ‘Anxious then.’ Vera tried to keep the impatience from her voice. ‘Would that be a better word to describe it?’
    Karen was holding things together remarkably well, in a state of shock, but the reality of her son’s death hadn’t really kicked in. Vera wanted to get as much information as possible from her while she was thinking straight.
    ‘More unpredictable,’ Karen said. ‘Moody. He hated the job at the Willows, but he only had five more days before he went back to Bristol.’
    ‘What subject was he studying there?’ At the moment Vera just wanted to keep the woman talking.
    ‘Law.’
    Vera imagined the sort of lawyer Danny would have become. A flash barrister, with an expensive suit and a bonny little female junior hanging off every word. But he wouldn’t have got very far with a criminal conviction. If Jenny Lister had caught him with his hand in someone’s purse, that might have provided a motive for murder. Danny might have had the arrogance to think he could get away with thieving, seen it as a way to supplement his income, almost his right. She’d known middle-class crooks like that. Now, though, he was the victim, and none of that seemed relevant. Vera felt as if she were lost in a fog, no point of reference and no idea where to go next.
    ‘Did Danny know Michael Morgan?’ Ashford had taken up the questions. He leaned forward, so that his hand and the bereaved woman’s were almost touching. ‘The acupuncturist working out of the Willows. Did Danny know him?’
    Karen didn’t answer and Joe continued talking, the words soft and easy, keeping her calm. ‘Because I thought they might become friends of a kind. There was a difference in age, of course. But two educated men in a workplace full of women, they might come together.’
    Karen looked up. ‘I told Danny he was no good. I told Danny to stay away from him.’
    ‘But our kids never take our advice, do they?’ Joe might have had teenagers himself, the way he was speaking. Vera sat back in admiration and let him get on with it. ‘They always think they know best.’ He paused. ‘How did they meet?’
    ‘Drinking fancy coffee in the lounge at the hotel. Danny said he couldn’t stand the muck in the staffroom. Since he moved to Bristol he’d developed pretensions. We only ever have instant at home.’ Karen gave a wry little smile, mocking her son – and herself for minding the change in him. ‘He went to the lounge before he started his shift. Morgan was often in there after he’d finished his.’
    ‘I can’t see Danny being taken in by all that new-age stuff.’
    ‘He said Morgan wasn’t either. Not really. It was just another business opportunity for him, a way of getting what he wanted.’ Karen seemed exhausted by the exchange. The shock was catching up with her.
    ‘And what did Morgan want, pet? Did Danny say?’ Vera thought this was important. What was going on between the student and the older man? She willed Karen to hold it together long enough