Silent Voices

raking over the Elias Jones case again.’
    Vera sat for a moment in silence. ‘Bugger,’ she said cheerfully. ‘You’re right of course. I can’t stand the bastard and I’d like to see him charged for something. Wipe the arrogance off his face. No way to run an investigation, that. You should never let it get personal.’ She grinned at him, aware that she let it get personal all the time. The flames caught one side of her face; the rest was in shadow and for a moment she looked very young, almost flirtatious. ‘What’s your theory then, Joe? Where am I going wrong?’
    ‘I think Jenny Lister was killed by someone close to home,’ Joe said. He’d only had one beer, but it had given him the confidence to throw out a theory without thinking it through. It had just come into his head as Vera was speaking. ‘The Willows was chosen to throw us off the scent. Unless it was an impulse killing, you wouldn’t choose the place where you worked to commit a murder. So I’m thinking one of Jenny Lister’s contacts from Barnard Bridge. That’s where her bag was found, after all.’
    He’d expected her mockery, some comment about him reading too many old-fashioned detective stories, but she took the comment seriously. ‘Well, that limits the field. Are you including Hannah in your suspects?’
    That threw him. ‘No! Well, maybe.’
    ‘We’ve only got her word that she didn’t go with her mam for a swim that morning,’ Vera said. ‘Nobody saw the girl in the health club, but that means nothing. Jenny could have used her card to swipe the girl through. I’ve seen it done.’
    ‘How would Hannah have got back to Barnard Bridge?’ Joe asked. ‘Lister’s car was still at the Willows, and with public transport it’d take you about a fortnight. It’d be quicker walking.’
    ‘Simon Eliot could have picked her up. They’d have worked it between them. She wouldn’t have done it without him, however it happened.’
    ‘Motive?’ Joe couldn’t believe they were considering this. He pictured Hannah Lister as Holly had described her, numb with grief and shock. But maybe killing your mother would do that to you.
    ‘We know Jenny wasn’t happy about the marriage and had asked them to wait. That relationship is so intense.’ Vera frowned. ‘You have a sense that both the kids are a bit crazy. If Jenny had something on Simon – some way of putting pressure on him to ditch the girl – Hannah would go mad. Literally.’ Vera narrowed her eyes and painted the picture so that Joe was there too. ‘They’re together in the steam room. Outside there’s the noise of the pool, but in there just the two of them, cut off from the world. Almost naked. It’s a place for confidences and serious conversation. Nowhere to hide. If Jenny told the girl there was no way the marriage could go ahead, I can see Hannah losing it and killing her mother. Then phoning Simon and getting him to bale her out.’
    ‘Danny Shaw?’
    ‘Same theory as with Morgan? He was there, saw what happened and tried to blackmail them.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘We still don’t know if he and Hannah knew each other at school. But I think he’d certainly recognize her. Not that many young folk living in the valley.’
    ‘Why would Hannah dump the bag next to Connie’s cottage?’
    Vera gave a sudden loud laugh. ‘God knows. To throw us off the scent? I really don’t believe any of it. No way did Hannah kill her mother. You just have to be with her to see she’s grieving. We’re in Jackanory territory here, bonny lad. The land of make-believe.’
    ‘The rest of the Eliots then?’
    Vera didn’t answer. She went to the window and looked down the valley, then walked unsteadily upstairs to the bathroom. Joe heard the toilet flush, the gurgle of water in old pipes. He stood up too. There was a half moon and a clear sky. A dizzying view of points of light in the village below. It was like looking out of a plane at night. He could feel the chill through the glass. Vera came back.
    ‘The Eliots,’ she said as if she hadn’t left the room. ‘Not lords of the manor. No real land and no old money. Not any more. Local, you can tell that by the name. One of the Border Reiver clans, the Eliots. But seems to me Christopher Eliot’s family would have been tradespeople or farmers, not aristocracy. Veronica’s a bit different, though. She likes to play the role of lady. Status is important to her. And once her granddad did have a grand house,