Silent Voices

road.’
    ‘So she’s run away,’ Vera said. ‘Why would she do that?’
    She lifted the phone in the living room and dialled 1471 to trace the last call made to the number. A distant female voice told her that the caller had withheld their number.
    ‘Or maybe,’ Vera said, staring out at the river where Patrick Eliot had died, ‘maybe she’s been frightened away.’

 
Chapter Twenty-Nine
     
    Vera and Holly met Freya from Newcastle College at lunchtime. ‘Important to keep our options open,’ Vera had said, though she couldn’t stop thinking about Connie and her daughter. Another child to worry about. Patrick, Elias and now Alice. Somehow that must be relevant. She wished she were cleverer and could make sense of it. She blamed herself too, of course, for missing Connie that morning, for putting her belly before the investigation. She knew that Ashworth blamed her too.
    So they’d driven into the city and parked illegally in one of the little streets near to the Rye Hill campus, outside a wholesale warehouse stocking Chinese food. The scent of spice in the air. They were on their way into the drama department when they saw Freya coming towards them, alone among the other students, who were giggling on their way to find lunch. Vera recognized the girlish way of walking that was close to dancing and the printed frock, this time worn over jeans with a jacket on the top. Freya didn’t see them until the last minute. She had her mobile phone to her ear, chatting to a friend as she walked about some play they’d been to see. Her face was bright and Vera could have wept for her.
    ‘Hello, pet.’
    They swept her with them into a coffee shop, a greasy spoon with pretensions. Now the smell was of frying and of coffee from the big silver espresso machine.
    ‘You’ll be peckish,’ Vera said. ‘Now you’re eating for two.’
    And it seemed that Freya was hungry. Morgan might be vegetarian, but the girl managed a full English breakfast and a mug of tea. The sausage and bacon disappeared in seconds.
    ‘You never told us you were in the Willows the morning the social worker died.’ Vera struggled to get the words out. She’d gone for a piece of flapjack, so sticky that it worked like superglue around her teeth.
    Freya looked up. Big eyes, suddenly scared, over the mug. ‘You didn’t ask.’
    ‘Howay, we shouldn’t have needed to ask now, should we? A clever girl like you, you’d have guessed we’d be interested.’
    ‘Michael said you might draw the wrong conclusion.’
    ‘He was there that morning too, was he?’ Holly chipped in, out to prove she wasn’t just here for the ride. Vera couldn’t blame her for that. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition in a woman. ‘Was the session for partners too? Great that he wants to be so involved with the baby.’
    ‘It was an exercise class.’ Freya seemed to have relaxed. Perhaps after all she was just as stupid as Mattie Jones had been, but she hid it better. ‘Not for the fathers. Michael will come along to the antenatal group, of course. We’ve planned a completely natural childbirth. One of his friends is an independent midwife and we’re having the baby at home. Hiring a birthing pool and everything. But he just gave me a lift that day.’
    ‘I suppose he used the time to catch up on some work.’ Holly gave an encouraging little smile. Vera thought she was as bored by the details of motherhood as Vera herself and was glad to move the conversation on.
    ‘I guess so.’ But Freya was suspicious again. Had Morgan warned her on the subjects to avoid, if she were questioned alone?
    ‘Where did you meet up?’ Vera asked. ‘After the class, I mean.’
    Silence. It seemed Morgan hadn’t given her the answer to that one.
    ‘Was he waiting in the car for you?’
    ‘I can’t remember.’
    Vera paused until a waitress in torn jeans had swung past carrying a plate of bacon and eggs for a couple of labourers at the next table.
    ‘Of course you can, hinny. And we’ll find out anyway. A place like that, there’ll be CCTV in the car park and a load of witnesses.’ Although the CCTV tape had run out the night before the murder and nobody had bothered to replace it. ‘Much better if you give us the information yourself.’
    Freya looked cornered. She made Vera think of the traps gamekeepers used in the hills. A wire mesh cage with a crow inside to lure in other raptors. Was it right to be using Freya as their decoy?
    ‘We’d arranged to meet in