‘Thursdays,’ Hannah said slowly. ‘Mum was always late home on Thursdays. And I knew not to contact Simon then, because he said he had rowing practice. Followed by a few pints with the boys, of course.’
‘Then your mother must have started feeling guilty,’ Vera said. ‘Not about the relationship with Simon, I think, but about lying to you. She wanted it all out in the open.’ Stupid woman. Some things are best
kept secret. ‘Simon hated the idea of your knowing. If he loved anyone, it was you.’
‘So he killed Mum just to stop her telling me?’ Now Hannah was horrified.
‘Oh, pet, nothing’s quite that simple, is it?’
Because Simon Eliot was certainly a complicated young man. He was someone else with disturbing childhood memories. Pictures in his head. First, of a small brother who disappeared in a river in flood. Then who seemed to disappear completely from the family’s life. No toys. No clothes. No photographs. Simon must have been left with a sense of guilt, confused that nobody would acknowledge it. Had he believed himself mad? There would have been times when he’d thought the whole incident was imagined. Maybe the care of a compassionate social worker was just what he needed.
Hannah was staring at her. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I want to know.’
‘Simon had a half-sister,’ Vera said, ‘called Mattie Jones.’
‘That woman who killed her child?’
‘That woman.’ Vera looked at the kitchen tiles and saw that her mucky wellingtons had left a trail of footprints. She should have taken them off at the door. ‘Veronica had a child when she was still a schoolgirl.’
‘But my mother wouldn’t have told him about that!’ Hannah’s voice was so high-pitched that it came out like a shriek. ‘She never discussed her work with anyone.’
But with Simon, Jenny Lister had broken all her rules.
‘Perhaps she didn’t tell him,’ Vera said. ‘Perhaps he found her notes. The plan for the book she intended to write.’
They sat in silence.
‘Simon and Danny were friends, weren’t they?’ Vera had done what she’d come for, but Hannah was so calm and composed that she felt she could ask more questions.
‘Sure, I told you they were.’
‘But close friends?’
‘Yeah, we were all in Folkworks, the scheme for young musicians at the Sage. Danny was a mean fiddle-player. Great on guitar too. He didn’t get on so well with the kids at school; he was more comfortable with the older guys he played music with.’
‘Even though he’d lost you to Simon?’
‘I told you. Things like that happen all the time. It’s no big deal. Danny liked heroes. Simon was older, cleverer.’
But I was distracted by it. I saw the young men as rivals, not allies. That threw me entirely off track.
‘Where is he?’ Hannah asked suddenly. ‘Where’s Simon?’
‘Last time I saw him he was soaking wet. He’d just swum across the pool at Greenhough, trying to get away from us.’
‘That was where we first made love,’ Hannah said. ‘In the boathouse. This time of year, but it was sunny. Birdsong in the woods. He took me out on a boat on the lake and we drank champagne.’ She looked out into the garden. Next door Hilda was pegging sheets onto the line. Hannah, though, was lost in thought and didn’t notice her. ‘I could always tell he was damaged. He had these weird silences and sometimes he’d get angry for no real reason. But I thought I could heal him. I thought I could make him whole.’
‘Oh, pet, nobody could do that for him.’
‘Except my mother,’ Hannah said. ‘Perhaps she could.’
‘No! She was going to spoil everything!’ The voice was loud and sharp and startled them both. It was like someone shouting in church. Simon had let himself in through the front door. Vera had been so focused on the girl that she hadn’t heard him. His dark hair was still damp, but he’d changed into dry clothes.
‘How did you get here?’ Vera said. Then immediately, ‘Your mother, was it? The one child that she has left she wants to protect. You gave her a ring and she drove out to rescue you? Took you home to get changed, then let you on your way? Very responsible, I’m sure, to let a murderer on the loose.’
‘You can’t blame my mother,’ he said. He sounded suddenly weary. ‘She doesn’t know what’s been going on.’
‘She knows enough,’ Vera snapped back. ‘She guessed it at least. Why else would she get Connie and Alice out of Mallow Cottage?’
‘Because I asked her to.’
‘And why would you do that? What danger could Connie Masters be to you?
‘Jenny was planning to interview her for the bloody book. Maybe she already had. What if she’d told the woman we were lovers? I couldn’t risk Masters talking to the police again. She could give me a motive for murder.’
The words were rambling, incoherent, and Vera thought Simon was deceiving himself. That wasn’t the real reason for the abduction. From the big white house he’d seen Connie and Alice together. Playing happy families in the garden where his brother had been drowned. She could tell from the bitterness in his voice that he’d hated them.
‘I want to talk to Hannah,’ he said. ‘I want to explain.’
‘Yeah, and I want to win the Lottery and not deal with people like you ever again. But it’s not going to happen.’
‘Please,’ Hannah said. ‘Give him a couple of minutes.’ She stood up and the two young people were facing each other across the room. Again, Vera thought how calm she was. It had been the uncertainty surrounding her mother’s death that had fractured her confidence and personality. Knowledge had put her back together. ‘So tell me, please, Simon, why did you feel the need to kill the woman who’d been so good to you?’
‘How can you say that?’ He was screaming. ‘How can you say that when she tempted me? When she took me away from you?’
‘That was your choice, I’d say, Simon. Your responsibility. Why did she have to die?’
‘She was going to tell you. Then everything would have been over between us. I couldn’t bear it.’ Tears were running down his cheeks.
‘Oh, Simon, you’re such a child. You make me feel as old as the world.’ The words were cold and deliberate. Hannah walked towards him and Vera expected a gesture of violence. A slap on the face. She was ready for that. Instead the girl took him in her arms and held him for a moment. He rested his head on her shoulder and she stroked his hair. Then she pushed him away and turned to Vera. ‘Now take him away. I never want to see him again. If he stays here any longer I might have to get a bread knife and kill him.’
Chapter Forty-Two
To mark the end of the investigation Vera treated the team to dinner at the Willows. She didn’t see it as a celebration – the memory of the encounter between Hannah and Simon was too fresh for that – and the Willows, with its large echoing dining room, seemed to suit the mood. Besides, this was where the whole case had started.
Ryan Taylor had given them the best table in the room, next to a long window and looking out over the garden and the river. The water had gone down, but still there was a feeling of being on an island, of being cut off from the rest of the world. The place was almost empty. In a far corner an elderly couple sipped coffee in silence. At a table near the door a businessman was spooning soup into his mouth and reading the Telegraph.