‘Does the management at the Willows know Freya is pregnant?’ Vera asked.
‘Ryan had heard a rumour, but hadn’t discussed it with Morgan.’ Charlie paused. ‘I got the impression that our Michael keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t mix much with the hotel staff. Sees himself as a bit superior. And of course he doesn’t drink, and most of the socializing involves alcohol.’
‘Why did he go to the Christmas party then? You wouldn’t have thought it would really be his thing.’ Vera hated the works Christmas party herself. Everyone trying to be jolly. Crap food and crap booze. No way could she face it sober.
‘I don’t know.’ Charlie looked up uncertainly from the scrap of paper in his hand, lost. ‘It surprised them all. He wasn’t even invited, he just turned up.’
‘Maybe he had his eye on Freya even then?’ Holly said. ‘I have him down as a bit of a predator. The way he picked up Mattie too. He could have been following her and just took his chance when she needed money in the coffee shop. Perhaps he seeks out young innocent girls without much support. There’d have been talk about the way Freya’s parents had abandoned her. So he saw the party as a way of hooking into her.’
‘And must have got her pregnant almost immediately.’ Vera wondered how consensual that sex had been. Had she been drinking at the party? Had it happened then? Too late now to charge him with anything, but all the same it added to the picture…
‘What do we think about Morgan and Jenny Lister?’ Joe Ashworth asked. ‘Were they having a relationship? If so, when? Was that before he took up with Freya?’
There was a long silence. They were trying to get their heads round the complexities of the timing, but also unwilling to commit themselves.
‘I don’t see it,’ Holly said at last. ‘He’s into frail little things. Women who’re needy and won’t stand up to him. Women he can control. It’d be completely out of character to go out with someone older, independent, strong. We’ve only got the elderly neighbour’s word for it that Jenny had started a new relationship. There’s no evidence it was with Morgan.’
‘Strong women can be needy too.’ Vera spoke without thinking, then saw them all looking at her, drawing conclusions she’d rather they didn’t make. ‘And Jenny’s friend the teacher thought she was having some sort of affair. A guy she had to keep secret. Well, she’d hardly admit to be having it off with Morgan, would she? A client and someone involved with a notorious scandal. Holly, what did you get out of Lawrence May, the guy Jenny had been seeing?’
‘He couldn’t have killed her,’ Holly said. ‘He was at a conference in Derbyshire. I checked.’
‘Did he say why she dumped him?’
‘No, but I’d guess because he bored her to death. I mean, he seemed a really nice man. But earnest. You know the sort. As if he’s saving the planet single-handed. He had a go at me because I chucked a plastic bottle into the bin in his office instead of taking it away to recycle.’
‘She didn’t tell him she’d fallen for someone else?’
‘He said he had the impression there was something new going on in her life,’ Holly said. ‘I pressed him, but he couldn’t be more specific. He didn’t know if it was a new lover or a new project.’
‘So if Lister was involved with Morgan, we have no proof either way,’ Ashworth said. ‘So we keep it as a possibility, but don’t get hung up on it. In the end, it doesn’t matter if Morgan killed Lister because she was meddling in his new life with Freya or because he’d been screwing her. Courts don’t really care about motive. We have to show he was at the Willows that morning. We need evidence that he put a string round Jenny Lister’s neck and strangled her. Why doesn’t have to come into it.’
But I want to know why, Vera thought, as she waited for the other actions to be assigned. I do care about motive. I’m a nosy bitch and it’s what I’m in the job for.
Driving into the Willows, watching the women arriving all around her with their sports bags and their expensive trainers, Vera couldn’t believe that she’d been one of them, a punter snatching a quick fix of fitness between meetings or on her way to work. She wondered if numbers were still down, if any of the women had demanded a refund of their membership fee. It seemed a bit quiet for this time on a weekday. She walked through the lobby and down the stairs to the health club. Using her membership card she swiped her way through the turnstile. Almost invisible, she thought, even without her bag and towel. Another middle-aged woman with delusions that swimming a few lengths would make her healthier, more beautiful. If the staff were shown her description, even a photo, she doubted if anyone would remember she’d been there.
Ryan Taylor was sorting out a crisis with an exploding coffee machine. There was a pool of brown liquid dribbling from the machine onto one end of the tiled kitchen floor. Chefs and waitresses were walking it through the room. The place was hot. There were steaming pans on the gas hobs and someone was screaming at a young woman in whites: ‘Are you cremating that piece of meat? What do you think this is? Some cheap fast-food outlet.’
Taylor was standing beside the pool and shouting into his mobile. ‘We’re coming up to our busiest time. I need an engineer here now! And get the bloody cleaner to mop up the mess.’
‘And I thought at least I’d get a decent cup of coffee.’
He must have received the assurance he needed, because he switched off the phone, turned to her and grinned. ‘Come into my office, Inspector, and I’ll make one for you there.’
‘The cleaner you’re waiting for, it wouldn’t be Danny, that student?’
Ryan looked at her sharply, wondering if the question had particular significance. ‘No, he works lates. Anyway, it’s his day off. Why?’
‘No reason, pet. Just curious.’
She followed him to his office and watched him fill the coffee machine before she started talking.
‘When you’re in this place,’ she said, watching the water drip through the filter, ‘it’s hard to believe there’s any life outside at all. Must be worse for you. Do you live here?’
‘No. I’ve got a flat in town with my partner, Paul. There’s a room here I can use if I need to stay over.’
‘It’s an odd sort of community, a big hotel.’ She saw him wondering where she was going with the idea. She wasn’t quite sure herself. ‘Especially for the staff who live in. Everyone on top of each other. Like a monastery. Does it lead to tensions?’
‘It can do. And not much of the monastery about it.’
‘Romances, then. Love affairs…’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Michael Morgan and Freya Adams.’ She took the mug he handed to her, sniffed it appreciatively. ‘What was going on there?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘They’re both adults. I know some of the staff were a bit concerned. Karen, from health-club reception, had a motherly word with her. “Do you really know what you’re playing with?” That sort of thing. But there was nothing I could do to stop it.’
‘Had Morgan been sniffing around younger women before?’
Ryan took time to consider. ‘There was nothing that came to my notice, but I’ll ask around.’
‘Do that. And I need to know if he was here the morning of the murder. It wasn’t a usual clinic day, but I understand he came in sometimes to use the gym. He’s not on the list of members who went through the turnstile we got from your IT people, but he’d find a way through that. He’s not a stupid man.’
‘You think he’s a killer?’
Vera could tell his first thought was for the hotel, the publicity and the implications of the arrest of a man who was almost an employee. Ryan didn’t consider Michael Morgan a friend. There was no personal concern. ‘No, nothing like that. I’m talking out loud, telling stories to myself. That’s what my job’s all about. Mostly that’s all they are: stories.’