Silent Voices

incident room. ‘Aye, well, you can’t always get what you want. And that would be too easy, wouldn’t it, Joe? We always like a challenge.’
    She shouted across the stream again. ‘Were you working the scene at the Shaw murder?’
    ‘Nah. Billy was in charge of that one.’
    ‘I’ll pester him then. There was a bonfire, and I want any paper that was left fast-tracked for examination.’
    The CSI looked at her as if she were mad. She stamped off, round the back of the cottage to the kitchen door, turning to call Ashworth to follow her. ‘Don’t stand around there. The man knows what he’s about. He can work without an audience.’
    Vera seemed to fill the small room. Connie was sitting on the floor watching television. The child must already be in bed. Vera had knocked on the kitchen door, then gone straight in. Connie got to her feet. ‘Would you like some tea?’
    ‘Well done, pet!’ Vera took no notice of the question. ‘You did all the right things once you’d realized what the lass had found. I wouldn’t have handled it better myself.’
    Ashworth saw Connie give a little smile of pleasure. It seemed everyone wanted to please Vera Stanhope.
    Vera leaned forwards, resting her huge hands on her bare knees. In the background the theme tune to a soap had begun. Connie switched the television off at the set.
    ‘You do realize how important this is.’ It was Vera in confiding mode. ‘If we find out who dumped the bag, we’re on our way to an arrest. And you live here, you’re around most of the time, the bairn plays in the garden. You might have seen someone.’
    ‘The murderer would hardly dispose of evidence in front of us!’
    ‘Maybe.’ Vera made a pantomime of considering the matter. ‘But we have to think about why they chose this particular spot. When they have the whole of Northumberland to pick from, why leave it just outside your back door?’
    ‘You don’t think it was me? If I’d killed Jenny Lister I wouldn’t be that stupid.’
    ‘Of course you wouldn’t, pet, and if I really thought you’d killed your boss we’d be speaking in the station with a tape running, not here over a nice cup of tea.’ She flashed a smile. ‘I think you did mention tea.’
    ‘I’ll make it,’ Joe said, knowing that was what Vera wanted. For him to be pottering away with kettle and pots, so that Connie had the sense the conversation was just between the two women. But for him to be keeping his ears open in case he picked up something Vera might have missed. After all, they were a good team.
    ‘So perhaps it was a coincidence,’ Vera went on. ‘But you’re not on the main road here, and this sort of place people notice strange cars. So I wonder if someone’s having a bit of fun with us. Like playing games, making mischief. Let’s throw a spanner in the works by dumping the bag next to Connie Masters’s cottage. Light the blue touchpaper and see what happens. Because I have the sense that our murderer enjoys playing games. So have you had any visitors lately?’
    ‘There was that man who called in, asking the way to the Eliot house on the afternoon of Jenny’s death.’
    ‘So there was,’ Vera said easily. ‘You told Joe here all about him. It didn’t seem very significant at the time, but looking back, it could be. Would you recognize him again if we show you some photos?’
    Connie frowned. ‘I’m not sure. So much has happened since then.’
    ‘Worth a shot though, eh?’ Vera reached out and took the mug Joe handed to her. ‘I’ll send Joe round with a few pictures tomorrow. Was he carrying a bag?’
    ‘I think so. Not anything smart like a briefcase, but a holdall. Perhaps a rucksack.’
    ‘Big enough to hold Jenny Lister’s bag?’ Vera asked.
    ‘Yes.’ This time Connie sounded more certain. ‘If it was empty, it would squash up very small.’
    ‘Did you see him come and watch him go? Would he have had time to hoy the bag across the burn without you seeing?’
    ‘I didn’t see him either time,’ Connie said. ‘He just appeared when we came out into the garden. Alice saw him first. Later I went into the house to make him tea, and when I came back outside he’d disappeared. He could have done it before we spoke or after.’
    ‘You say he was looking for the Eliot house?’
    ‘Yes. It seemed kind of odd. I mean, if he was a friend of Christopher and Veronica’s, wouldn’t he know where he was going?’
    ‘Did he seem like a friend?’ Vera