‘Tell me, Joe, how did you let Simon Eliot get away?’
They’d finished eating. Vera had insisted that there’d be no talk until after the meal. And they’d drunk a lot of wine. Vera had said the taxis home would be on her. Or, she said, winking at Joe Ashworth and Holly, who seemed to be getting on better this evening than she could remember, they could stay the night here if they preferred. Charlie had just gone outside for a cigarette. They could see him in the security light on the terrace, his hand cupped round the flame as he tried to light it. He must have seen them looking, and waved at them through the window to wait until he got inside before they started talking.
Vera was teasing Joe, a habit she’d probably never get out of. Even if he became her boss, which wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, she knew she’d still have a go at him. Her resolution at the pool not to bait him was completely forgotten.
‘So come on!’ she said. ‘All that back-up, the cars and the chopper, and he could just ring his mam and you let him drive away.’
Joe, mellow on Merlot and a brandy with his coffee, didn’t allow himself to be provoked. ‘You told us he spent every summer camping out there. He knew all the places to hide.’
‘Banged up now, at any rate,’ Vera said. She’d taken Eliot to the police station herself, breaking every rule in the book yet again, letting him sit beside her in the Land Rover. Hannah she’d left in the care of Hilda. ‘He’ll plead guilty. No need for Jenny’s daughter to appear in court. That was what I was afraid of, that was why I wanted to wait.’
They sat for a moment, and Vera knew they were all thinking about Connie and Alice and what might have happened if Joe hadn’t got there on time. Charlie appeared in the doorway and walked across the polished wooden floor to join them.
‘So talk us through it then, boss,’ he said. He was already unsteady on his feet, but he poured himself another glass of wine. He’d already told them he didn’t do spirits: the slippery slope. ‘Beginning to end.’
Vera had been waiting for the invitation. She’d have given them the story anyway, but it was much more gratifying to be asked. She sat back in her chair at the head of the table, a glass in her hand, and began. She spoke slowly. This wasn’t for rushing.
‘The beginning was simple,’ she said. ‘A frustrated middle-aged woman fancying a good-looking young man. And a student choosing experience over innocence. Or wanting his cake and eating it. It happened one night when Hannah was out. Simon came to visit her, but she’d been held up and Jenny asked him in to wait. Offered him a glass of wine.’ She shrugged, held up her glass. ‘Terrible stuff, alcohol.’
She looked round the table and saw that she had them hooked, like bairns listening to a bedtime story.
‘Simon kissed her,’ she said. ‘Nothing else then and he apologized, but that was the start of it. Jenny became obsessed with him and an affair developed. He was flattered by her attention, I think. Why wouldn’t he be? She was still lovely. They met every week in Durham. Jenny wanted to see Mattie anyway to get information for the book. She went first to see Mattie. The prison visits were short. Jenny was there as much to make herself feel better about screwing her daughter’s man as to collect information for her great work of literature. Really she was desperate to spend time with the boy.’
She paused, topped up her glass, and imagined herself as Jenny Lister, counting off the hours until she could spend time with Simon Eliot in his student house. ‘Then guilt set in, as it always does.’ Again she looked at Ashworth. ‘It’s a terrible thing, guilt. Not everyone can cope with it.’ Another grin.
‘So why did Simon Eliot kill her?’ Charlie could understand the sex part, Vera saw that; it was the violence he didn’t get.
‘Eh, Charlie man, give a woman the chance to tell a story in her own time.’
Vera had asked Taylor to leave the whisky bottle on the table and tipped a little more into her glass. Bugger the doctors and their healthy living – tonight she needed to get pleasantly pissed.
‘While Jenny Lister was besotted with her young lover, Michael Morgan had taken up with pretty little Freya. About the same sort of age difference between both couples, though we don’t talk about Jenny corrupting Simon, do we? Then Jenny found out from Mattie that Freya was pregnant and she became involved in the Morgan case again. It all got a bit close to home, didn’t it? Suddenly it would have hit her that she was screwing Mattie’s half-brother…’ Vera half closed her eyes and thought about chance and the coincidence of Jenny Lister and Veronica Eliot living in the same village. But Northumberland was the least-populated county in England and in small communities there were always connections. ‘She decided it had to stop. And being honourable and really stupid, she decided she’d have to come clean to Hannah. Simon couldn’t stand that. Hannah worshipped him. They were engaged, after all, a big commitment for a couple that young.’
‘Where did Danny Shaw come into it?’ Ashworth was suddenly getting impatient. Maybe there’d been a text from his wife, read surreptitiously under the table, asking where the hell he was.
Vera opened her eyes and sat forward. ‘Ah, Danny Shaw, wild boy and charmer. And thief. Never got on with boys of his own age, always wanted to knock around with older people. If I were some sort of social worker I’d maybe diagnose a conflict with his father, but luckily I don’t go in for all that crap.’ She paused and tried to put into words the friendship between Danny and Simon. ‘Simon was everything Danny wanted to be: he went to the posh school in town, his father was a successful businessman, and Simon had the girl Danny had fallen for. But that didn’t make Danny resent Simon. It just made the younger boy admire him. Weird.’
‘So?’ Ashworth demanded. ‘I still don’t see why he had to die.’
In the corner, the elderly couple got to their feet, and holding hands like teenagers they walked slowly out of the dining room.
‘That’s because you’re not very bright, pet. You don’t have a logical mind.’
‘Did Danny help Simon with the murder?’ Holly asked. ‘He was working there. He could get Simon through the turnstile and into the pool. He knew too much.’
‘Right!’ Vera gave Holly a little clap of approval because she knew it would wind up Ashworth.
‘But why would he do that?’ It was Ashworth, fighting back. ‘Why make himself an accessory to murder?’
‘Because he’s young and daft,’ Vera said. ‘Because he liked taking risks. Because his hero asked him to.’
And maybe because he still blamed Jenny Lister for
breaking up his relationship with Hannah. Or maybe at that point he didn’t even know Simon intended to kill the woman. Perhaps he thought it was a joke, a big game.
‘Talk us through that day,’ Charlie said. ‘Tell us what actually happened. No more psycho-babble.’ He slumped forward across the table.
‘Jenny came here a couple of times a week to use the pool before work. Not dead early, but before the cheap sessions started. Simon wanted to make sure she would be there that day, so he arranged to meet her for coffee before she went for her swim. Of course he didn’t show. He’d gone beyond the stage of deep and meaningful talking. She got changed as usual, leaving her clothes and bag in her locker, and went into the steam room as usual, but Simon was waiting for her.’
‘Danny had let him in,’ Holly said. ‘We know he’d stayed here overnight and was in the hotel that morning.’
‘Yes, Danny had let him in. Another anonymous swimmer. Who would notice? Simon’s a strong young man, a rower. He could strangle her and make no noise. There would always be a danger that someone would interrupt him, but I suspect Danny was keeping watch. Again, who takes notice of a cleaner? You see the mop, the bucket, even the overalls, but you don’t see the man. And nobody noticed Jenny’s body for more than an hour until I found her, which gave them both time to leave the hotel.’