Silent Voices (Vera Stanhope 4) (28 page)

‘Doreen said you were asking about the woman that died.’

Vera nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak because she might cheer.

‘I think she was here that morning. I didn’t tell the police because I wasn’t sure. You know, I couldn’t swear an oath that it was that particular day.’

Vera nodded again. ‘But you
think
it was.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah. She came in quite often and always drank the same thing. Small, black decaff americano. I got it ready whenever I saw her coming.’ The blush deepened and Vera thought he’d fancied Jenny Lister, that he’d had adolescent fantasies about the older woman.

‘Did she meet anyone that day?’ Vera asked. ‘You’d remember that, wouldn’t you? Because there’d be another order too, besides the decaff, and that would be unusual.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’d remember that. But she didn’t meet anyone.’ He paused. He didn’t want to stick his neck out, hated the idea of being wrong.

‘Anything you can tell me would be useful. An impression even.’

‘I thought she was waiting for someone.’ The words came out in a rush. He needed to speak before he lost his nerve.

‘Did she tell you she expected a friend to join her?’

‘No. But she looked up whenever anyone came into the room, kept looking at her watch.’

‘What time was this?’ Vera asked.

‘Early. Before nine o’clock. That was unusual too. Usually she came in after she’d been for a swim.’

‘How could you tell she hadn’t?’

‘Her hair was still dry. Usually it was a bit damp at the ends. Like she hadn’t bothered to use the hairdryer. And there wasn’t that smell of chlorine about her.’

‘Thank you.’ Vera gave him her biggest grin. ‘You should think of joining the police. You’re wasted here.’

Then she was off on the prowl again. No Karen on reception, of course. She was at home mourning her son. A skinny young woman who recognized Vera sat in Karen’s place and let her through without a word. She found Ryan Taylor in his office.

‘You’ll have heard about Danny Shaw.’

‘Of course.’

‘What’s the word in the hotel? They’ll all be talking about it.’ Vera perched on the corner of his desk. Looking down on his small round head, she saw his hair was thinning at the crown.

‘They’re scared,’ Taylor said. ‘Mrs Lister’s death, that was a bit exciting. Nobody really knew her. It’s like watching a horror movie on the telly, isn’t it? I mean, you quite enjoy being scared, but you know it’s not real.’

‘But Danny’s death was real?’

‘Yeah, we didn’t all like him, but we knew him. I suppose people are wondering who’ll be next. We’re all selfish bastards at heart, aren’t we?’

‘Anything else unusual here?’ Because something about his manner had made her suspicious. A bit like the young waiter, he was weighing up whether he should talk to her or not.

‘Lisa didn’t come in this morning. She was due in at eight. She rang in sick. I can’t remember the last time she was ill. Probably a coincidence.’

‘Sure,’ Vera said. ‘Bound to be.’ But that sent her on the move again. Back to her car with Lisa’s address on a scrap of paper in her hand. Another trip east towards the city.

Lisa lived with her mother in a small red-brick house on a council estate in the west end of the city. There was a view from the end of the street across a business park to the Tyne. Perhaps the father still technically lived there and was in prison, or perhaps he’d moved out. In any event there was no sign of him. Half the houses in the street were empty, boarded up, and it looked as if kids had been inside setting fires. Some of the gardens were piled with rubbish. But Lisa’s home was spotless. The grass on the small patch of lawn had been cut and there were pots along the path, planted with primulas. Inside, a smell of furniture polish and disinfectant that hit Vera as soon as the door was opened.

A woman stood there. She had Lisa’s small features and her hair might once have been blonde. Now the colour came out of a bottle and it hadn’t taken properly. Blotchy and uneven, the result was piebald, part chestnut and part brass. But who was Vera to criticize?

‘Is Lisa home, pet?’

The woman was only small, but she stood her ground like a fighting dog. She could smell police a hundred yards away.

‘She’s at work.’

‘No, she’s not.’ Vera let her tiredness show in her voice. The sugar rush and effect of the caffeine had worn off. ‘I’ve just come from there. Don’t piss me about; I’m not in the mood. Tell her it’s Vera Stanhope, and then let me in so that I can take the weight off my legs.’

And perhaps it was that last phrase that worked the magic. Lisa’s mam recognized the exhaustion of the working woman, stood aside and showed Vera into the smart front room, never used during the day except for visitors. At the same time there were footsteps on the stairs and Lisa was there. She’d been listening in. She was pale and thin.

‘I didn’t do it,’ she said. The words were out before she reached the foot of the stairs, spoken through the open door of the living room. ‘I didn’t kill Danny Shaw.’

‘Oh, pet, I didn’t think for a moment you had.’

‘I heard it on the news, and I thought everyone would believe it was me. Want it to be me.’

Vera saw then that this had been a wasted trip. Lisa had thrown a sickie because she couldn’t face the accusations of her colleagues. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ll arrest the killer, then they’ll have something else to talk about.’

‘Will you? You know who it is then?’

Christ
, Vera thought,
what can I say?
‘Another couple of days and it’ll all be over.’ She hoisted herself to her feet. Lisa’s mother was talking about tea, but Vera had a sort of promise to keep and she didn’t have the time. On the doorstep she paused and turned back to Lisa.

‘It was Danny Shaw doing the thieving, wasn’t it?’

Lisa nodded. ‘I saw him once in the staffroom. He didn’t know I was there.’

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone?’

She only shrugged, but Vera knew the answer anyway. Lisa had been brought up not to grass and, anyway, who would believe her?

Vera was getting into her car when her mobile rang. It was Joe Ashworth to say that Connie still hadn’t returned home and he was starting to worry.

Joe Ashworth spent most of the day trying to track down Connie and Alice. First he went into town and found Frank, Connie’s ex, at work in the theatre close to the Quayside. Sarah had dragged Joe there to see a couple of plays before the arrival of the kids and he’d usually had a good time despite himself. And despite the arty clientele hanging around in the bar, posing before the show.

Frank was sitting outside with a group of other people smoking. He was dark and thin, with the sort of brooding good looks that Sarah went for. When Joe asked for a word in private, he stubbed out his cigarette and took Joe inside. They sat in the back row of the theatre itself. The stage was being dressed for a play and occasionally someone would wander on to shift a bit of furniture, but the stagehands took no notice of the two men in the audience.

‘So you haven’t heard from her?’ Ashworth couldn’t tell what the man beside him was thinking. He seemed to be preoccupied and Ashworth wondered if his mind was more on the production than on his ex-wife and daughter. Certainly his attention was fixed on the stage.

‘Not since I phoned her to tell her about Jenny Lister. Alice was going to come to stay with me and Mel this weekend.’

‘And you have no idea where she might be?’ Ashworth thought if his wife and kids had disappeared, he’d be a bit more concerned than Frank seemed to be.

‘She’s only been gone for a couple of hours, hasn’t she? She could be anywhere. Shopping. Coffee with a mate.’

And Ashworth realized that he was the one behaving strangely. It was true after all. He was over-reacting. ‘Could you let me have Connie’s mobile number? We didn’t get it from her.’

Now Frank did turn towards him to stare. Ashworth felt uncomfortable under the gaze, almost as if he’d been caught propositioning Connie. Perhaps he should explain that his interest was purely professional, but that would make the situation even more embarrassing. He would be seen to be protesting too much. Frank jotted a number on the corner of a sheet of paper torn from his notebook. ‘The press made her life torture,’ he said. ‘And now the media circus is back again. You can hardly blame her for wanting to escape for a while.’

‘Could you give me the names and numbers of people who might be putting her up,’ Ashworth said. ‘We need her to identify a suspect. If she gets in touch, tell her we’ll be discreet.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Frank obviously had little faith in the discretion of the police. ‘Just like last time, when you threw her to the wolves and then did nothing to protect her.’

For the rest of the day Joe tried calling Connie whenever he had a moment free. Her landline at the cottage and her mobile. Knowing, after the first few attempts, that it was a waste of time, but still giving it a go in a way that was almost superstitious. The mobile was either switched off or the battery had run down. The first few times he left a message. After that he didn’t bother. He didn’t want her to feel cornered by him too. There was no answering service on the landline. He let it ring for ten seconds each time, then replaced the receiver.

After the meeting with Frank, he left Newcastle and drove inland. He thought he needed to stay close to Barnard Bridge while Vera went chasing all round the county following her instincts and her need for perpetual movement.
His
instinct told him that the answer to both murders was here in the lush green fields of the Tyne valley.

Karen Shaw had been allowed back to her house. Joe found her there with her husband. They welcomed him with a warmth he hadn’t expected. It was as if they saw him as some sort of medium or magician, as if he provided a means of communicating with the boy they’d lost. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. The young detective was a distraction. They’d been blaming themselves and each other for the loss of their son, and now they had someone else to talk to. There was the guilt that always lingers with survivors. He listened to their confessions, knowing there was nothing he could do to make them feel better.

‘He wanted to go back to Bristol a few days ago,’ Karen said, the words spilling out like tears. ‘His girlfriend had gone early. She does drama and there was a film they were making. She asked him to act in it, just a small part. Her family’s got money and she doesn’t need to do paid work in the holidays. They’d been skiing in Colorado over Easter; they’d invited him too and he could have gone with them, if he’d been able to find the fare. A couple of years ago we’d have been able to give it to him, no problem. Now it was impossible.’

She paused for breath and Joe tried to take her back to her first sentence. ‘That was the only reason he wanted to go back before the start of term? The film, I mean. Jenny Lister’s death hadn’t upset him?’

‘No.’ She stared up at him. He’d never seen her without make-up before. ‘Why would it?’

‘Well, he knew her, didn’t he?’ Joe gave an encouraging little smile. ‘Met her once at least. He’d been out with her daughter, Hannah.’

‘Hannah. I remember her. Bonny little thing. I never knew her surname, didn’t make the connection. You know her, don’t you, Derek? She was the little redhead. He was very keen on her for a while. His first real love.’ She gave a gasp of anguish, grieving perhaps because there would be no last love, no wedding, no grandchild.

Derek nodded, though Joe wouldn’t have bet that he really remembered Hannah Lister. He didn’t want to admit to a gap in the shared experience of bringing up their only son.

‘Why did Danny stick around in the end?’ Joe asked. ‘Why didn’t he go down to Bristol to be in the film?’

‘That was about money too, wasn’t it, Derek? He’d have lost a week’s pay if he hadn’t worked out his notice. And I told him he couldn’t let them down. I’d got him the job, and I’d have looked bad if he’d just quit.’ Her own confession. ‘If I hadn’t been so bothered about what they’d think about me at the Willows, he’d still be alive.’

The couple sat looking at each other.

‘It was just as much my fault.’ The husband was determined to shoulder his share of responsibility. ‘I told him he had to pay his way now. We spoilt him when he was a boy, Sergeant. Our only son. Money no object. We gave him whatever he wanted. It came hard to him when that had to stop. Especially when he hooked up with all those rich southern kids in uni. I could tell he blamed me. He was bored silly in that job in the health club. Sometimes I could see him looking at me and I knew he thought I’d let him down.’

‘Is that why he started stealing?’ Joe knew all about that now. Vera had called him as soon as she’d left Lisa’s house.
Find out from the parents what was going on there. Did Jenny Lister catch him thieving?
‘Because it wasn’t for the cash, was it? He’d have hardly made enough to buy a couple of pints in the uni bar. Was it because he was bored?’

Now both parents turned on Ashworth. Fierce looks. A stony silence broken by Derek. ‘You can’t accuse the boy. He’s dead. He can’t fight back.’

‘If you want us to find his killer,’ Ashworth said, ‘you have to help me here. We have a witness who saw him take money from the staffroom. Did he know he’d been seen?’