‘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 asked.
‘No.’ Joe saw Connie hesitate. She was reluctant to commit herself, but in the face of Vera’s barrage of questions she thought she should give an answer.
‘We understand you can’t be certain,’ he said. ‘Not after such a brief conversation. We won’t make too much of it. But what we’re after is an impression. In your line of work you must be good at summing people up, making a judgement about them.’
Connie looked up at him and smiled. ‘But I was a crap judge of character, wasn’t I? It never occurred to me for a second that Mattie Jones would kill her son.’
‘I bet you were right more often than you were wrong,’ Vera said. ‘And like Joe says, we’re after your best guess. That’s all.’
Connie took a deep breath. ‘My best guess, thinking about it afterwards? That he was working. It wasn’t a social call.’
‘He was selling something?’ Joe saw Vera was trying to rein herself in, so that Connie wouldn’t be intimidated by her enthusiasm. But still the question came out like a firecracker. It seemed to light up the room.
‘Perhaps.’
Connie sounded doubtful, but Vera got to her feet and started pacing the small room. It seemed to Ashworth that if she’d sat still much longer, she’d have exploded. She was muttering to herself, throwing out occasional questions to Joe and Connie, but not really expecting answers: ‘Who else might visit a customer or client in their own home? Solicitor? Estate agent, if he was doing a valuation? Come on, Joey, help me out here!’
‘He didn’t look like that,’ Connie said. ‘He wasn’t wearing a suit.’
Then Vera reached the point Joe knew she’d been aiming for all along. She looked directly at Connie. ‘Could it have been Michael Morgan?’
‘No! I’d have recognized him.’ But Ashworth could see that Vera had thrown in a seed of doubt. And Connie wanted to please Vera, to get once again that beam of approval. ‘Anyway, why would Morgan be visiting the Eliots?’
‘Perhaps Veronica likes having pins stuck into her. Or perhaps he didn’t go there at all and it was just an excuse.’
‘He wouldn’t come here,’ Connie said. ‘Not if he knew I lived in the cottage. He’d be scared I’d know him. I only met him twice, but his photo was everywhere in the papers.’
‘Like I said…’ Vera grinned. ‘We’re looking for someone who likes playing games, who enjoys taking a risk. And it wouldn’t be such an enormous risk. You see someone out of context, how often do you recognize them?’
Nobody answered.
‘Veronica was here this afternoon,’ Connie said. ‘She came for tea, but left soon after I called you.’
They all realized the implication of the words, but Vera didn’t pick up on it immediately. She was delighted, though, Ashworth could tell that. There was that shiver of anticipation, the sort she got when she was standing at the bar and he was getting in the first round. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you two would be best mates,’ Vera said, keeping it as calm as she could manage.
‘We haven’t been.’ Connie’s face seemed to close down and become expressionless. ‘Veronica was rather a bitch actually, as soon as she realized who I was. She made my life hell in the village with her gossip and her rumours.’
Joe could tell Vera didn’t really get the significance of what Connie was saying. Vera had always been an outsider: she was used to being considered the eccentric, the mad cop. It was only since she’d made pals with her druggie neighbours that she’d belonged to any sort of community. But Joe’s wife had found it a nightmare to fit into their estate when they’d first moved. A couple of nights she’d cried herself to sleep. Something about the babysitting circle and unused tokens, about the PTA committee. The small, unkind digs that stick in the brain and suck out all the confidence, made worse because the insults were so petty and she’d known she shouldn’t care.
‘What happened to change things between you and Veronica?’ he asked.
‘Jenny Lister’s death,’ Connie said. ‘Suddenly Veronica wanted my company. She invited me to lunch. Maybe it was just the voyeurism you get when things hit the papers. People seem attracted by that strange second-hand celebrity.’
‘And you asked her back here.’ Vera was grinning like a wolf. ‘Very neighbourly.’
‘It’s been lonely,’ Connie said. And Joe, catching the bleakness in her voice, understood how miserable she’d been, and thought how brave she’d been to hold things together. ‘Yeah, I asked her back. She was here when Alice found the bag.’
‘And what did she make of that?’ There was a glint in Vera’s eye: the wolf was sensing her prey.
‘She was anxious about Alice playing so close to the water,’ Connie replied. ‘Then later, when I said I was going to call the police, she said she’d go home, that she didn’t want to interfere. She’d only be in the way.’
‘Tactful.’ Vera nodded again. ‘It’s a real nuisance for us when folk hang around to watch the action.’
‘She offered to take Alice with her.’
‘Kind,’ Vera said. ‘Thoughtful.’ There was a pause. ‘I suppose you saw her coming. You’ve got a view down the track from the big house.’