Telling Tales (31 page)

She dragged herself away from the window and went downstairs. James was sitting in the living room with a book on his knee. He hadn’t drawn the curtains. As soon as she came in he started reading again, but she could tell he was fumbling to find his place. It was a show for her benefit. Before that, he’d been staring into the fire, miles away. She wondered for the first time if he had a fantasy lover too. Or even a real one. It had never occurred to her before. Now nothing would have surprised her.

Usually reading absorbed him. His taste was for the improving and informative, even in fiction. This was a travel book he’d seen reviewed in one of the Sundays and had ordered over the net. He said he’d wasted his first chance at education and wanted to catch up. When he discussed his reading, despite her degree, she felt ignorant in comparison. But recently, since Christopher’s death, it seemed nothing held his attention. She wondered if it could be guilt which was eating away at him. He’d never particularly liked Christopher, might even, on that last night, when her brother had been such a pain, have wished him dead.

Perhaps now he was regretting that he’d been so hostile.

She sat on the floor in front of James, her back against his legs, her arms around her knees. She was so close to the fire that she could feel her face turning red. She needed the physical contact. James’s bony legs against her back. The heat on her forehead. It anchored her in the present. Without it she’d get lost in her stories. Muddled. It would be like when Abigail was killed. That same sensation of disbelief.

She turned to him. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Like what?” he asked calmly. He gave up the pretence of reading and set the book aside. There was a picture of a compass on the cover, a big ship’s compass in a brass case.

“Like everything that’s been going on here. Christopher. Abigail. I can’t believe it’s happened again.” The words were inadequate. She couldn’t explain that she’d lost trust in the everyday, in her own memory.

“Of course we’ll talk if you think it would help.” It was clear from his tone that he didn’t see how it could be useful. Usually she would have agreed with him. She’d felt that much of the analysis of relationships which had engaged her friends when she was a student was bizarre, an unnatural entertainment. No more than prying and gossip. She’d found James’s restraint attractive. After Abigail’s death too many people had wanted to discuss her feelings.

“No,” she said quickly. “It won’t bring Christopher back, will it?”

They’d put Matthew to bed and had just finished eating when there was a knock on the door. She was reminded of the night when Christopher had turned up and looked across the table to James, wondering if he’d picked up on the memory, but he was already on his feet, preparing to answer.

She heard a muttered conversation in the hall, then James came in followed by Vera Stanhope and her sergeant. “Inspector Stanhope would like to ask you some questions,” he said. “Do you mind?”

She thought James was annoyed by the interruption, but as always with James, it was hard to tell.

“No. Of course not. Sit down.”

“It’s about Christopher,” Vera said. “Not really my job to be asking questions. There’s a local team investigating his death now. But you already know us. Better, I thought, that I come along than a couple of strangers.”

“Thank you.” Though Emma thought strangers might be less disturbing than this woman who seemed to dominate the small dining room, who had already made herself at home there. She’d flopped onto one of the empty chairs and was pulling off her cardigan, as if the heat was unbearable to her. Emma felt she should apologize for the temperature, stopped herself just in time. This was their home.

“Did Christopher have a mobile phone with him when you saw him?”

“I don’t remember him using one,” Emma said.

“He was seen in the parish council cemetery early on the day he was killed. Near Abigail’s grave. The witness thinks he might have been using a mobile, though we didn’t find one on his body.”

“Surely you can trace if he owned a phone,” James said.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it’s not that easy,

apparently. Especially the pay as you go sort. People swap them, sell them. There are no bills, it’s hard to get hold of records.” Vera changed tack suddenly, stared at Emma. “Have you ever visited Abigail’s grave?”

“No.” If Emma had thought more about it, she might have been tempted to lie. The bald denial sounded heartless.

“You knew where she was buried though. Did you go to her funeral?”

“No,” Emma said again, adding, “My parents thought it would be upsetting. And although Keith had wanted a quiet burial, apparently the press were all there. I’m glad I stayed away.”

“What about Christopher?”

“He wouldn’t have been there.”

“No? Are you sure? Did you talk about it?”

“There was no need. It would never have happened.”

“He could have slipped out of school. Gone by himself.”

“I suppose so. But someone would have seen him and mentioned it to my parents.”

“Of course.” Vera nodded vigorously. “A place as small as Elvet, you’d think it would be impossible to get away with anything.” She paused. There was no need to say, But two murders. Someone got away with that. “Christopher would have heard where Abigail would be buried though. It’d have been public knowledge.”

“Yes.”

“He must have visited the cemetery before,” Vera said. “Our witness said he went straight to her grave that morning. It was still nearly dark, but he knew whereabouts in the cemetery she was buried.”

“I don’t know.” Emma felt her head spinning. The questions were coming too fast. She had the dizzy feeling of being only half awake, slipping again into a dream. She had to concentrate hard. “Christopher was always very private. Even when he was a boy. He’d disappear for hours and no one knew where he was.”

“Do you ever walk down the lane to the river?” Vera had suddenly changed pace. It was as if she was making polite conversation over tea. “It’d be a nice walk in the right weather. Flat for pushing the pram. Good for a family trip out.” Although the question was directed at Emma, she flashed a sly look at James.

“I’ve walked there,” Emma said, confused by that look, wondering what it could mean. “Occasionally.”

“I’m surprised you never looked at the grave. Just out of curiosity. She was your best friend.”

“I’ve spent my life trying to put Abigail’s murder behind me.”

Vera gave her a quick, appraising stare, but let it go.

“I think Christopher might have used a mobile while he was here,” James said.

“Might have. What does that mean?”

“After the meal he went upstairs to the bathroom. I checked on the baby and heard him talking.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

“I don’t make a practice of eavesdropping.”

“Don’t you?” Vera sounded genuinely astonished. “I do it all the time.”

“I assumed,” James said, after a moment of disapproving silence, ‘that he was talking to someone back in Aberdeen. A girlfriend perhaps. To let her know that he’d arrived safely. Our landline’s in the kitchen. We’d have overheard him if he’d used that. I assumed he wanted some privacy.”

“Did it sound like a call to a girlfriend?” Vera asked.

“As I said, I didn’t listen.”

“But his voice, was it tender? Intimate?”

“No,” James said. “It was more businesslike than that.”

Vera pulled a notebook from her bag and jotted down a few scribbled notes. “We don’t understand where he went for the rest of the day,” she said. “He seems to have disappeared. He was at the cemetery at about eight, then we know he took the lane to the river.”

“How do you know that?” James asked. To Emma the question seemed too loud, too urgent. What could it matter to him?

“We found fingerprints in the public phone box there. You know the one,” Vera said. Again Emma thought this didn’t sound right. It was as if the words had another meaning, as if the two of them were talking in a code she couldn’t understand, hadn’t been let in on. “We’ve tested them and we know they are Christopher’s, Vera continued. “So what I want to know is where he went after that. We’ve tracked people who walked their dogs along the shore that morning. No one saw him. There were people about in the village that day. You’d think he’d want something to eat, wouldn’t you? A cup of tea, at least. But he didn’t go into any of the shops or the bakery. He cut quite a striking figure, apparently. Even if the staff didn’t know him by name, you’d think he’d have been noticed. Can you think of anyone who might have put him up? Where he’d have hidden? And who he might have wanted to hide from?”

“No!” she said. “I feel that I knew as little about him as I did about Abigail Mantel. And I won’t have the chance now to know him better.”

“I’m sorry,” Vera stood up suddenly, pulled on the cardigan as she walked towards the door. “This isn’t fair. You’ve enough to cope with. If you think of anything which would help, you can give us a ring.”

The sergeant, Ashworth, followed. He hadn’t said a word since he’d come in, but at the door he stopped, gave Emma a look of such sympathy and pity that she was brought close to tears. “Take care,” he said. It was as if James was no longer in the room.

Suddenly she was a child again. She was in the house in York, sitting on the stairs. She’d been in bed but something had woken her and she’d stumbled down, half asleep. It had been summer and was still light, the garden behind the open door full of sunshine and birdsong. And her parents’ words. They’d been discussing her. She’d heard her name and that had woken her properly and she’d run down to join them. They were sitting on a wooden bench. She’d run out to them. There was a patio made of old flagstones, which were rough against her bare feet but still warm. Her mother had gathered her into her arms. Emma had expected to be included in the conversation, an explanation, for she,” after all, had been at the centre of the discussion.

“What were you talking about?” she’d demanded.

“Nothing, darling. Nothing important.”

And Emma had realized that it wasn’t worth asking again. She’d been irrevocably shut out. Now, in the Captain’s House, she felt just the same.

Chapter Thirty-Five

The next day Emma visited Abigail’s grave. She left the baby with James and went alone, only saying that she seemed to have been stuck in the house for days and she needed some exercise. Usually, on his days off, James went everywhere with her. He liked the three of them to be together as much as possible. Liked the idea of it, at least. Tbday he let her go without comment, without seeming even to listen to her explanation, and she wondered again what was preoccupying him.

Christopher wouldn’t be buried next to Abigail. Although they didn’t know yet when the body would be released, Mary and Robert had already decided that he would be cremated. Mary had said she couldn’t bear the idea of strangers coming to stare at his grave; these days even civilized people seemed to turn into voyeurs whenever a violent crime was reported in the media. Emma hadn’t been consulted over the matter, and she thought that was only right. Of course she was sad that Christopher was dead, but she wasn’t devastated. She wasn’t overwhelmed with grief as you should be when a brother has been killed. She wondered what was wrong with her.

Emma felt guilty too because she’d had so little contact with her parents since Christopher’s death. She could do something about that and she promised herself she’d go soon to Springhead to see how they were getting on. She realized she had viewed their retreat into isolation with something like relief. It meant her father wasn’t turning up on the doorstep every five minutes to offer moral support and guidance. She didn’t have to play at dutiful daughter.

When she reached the cemetery she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered coming. After so long, her presence was probably a meaningless gesture. At the last minute she wished she’d brought flowers. It would have given the visit some point. She tried to fix a picture of Abigail in her mind, but whenever she remembered an occasion they’d spent together, the image of the girl slipped away from her and she was left with the background to the scene. So, there was that time when Abigail had told her triumphantly that she’d finally persuaded Keith to ask Jeanie Long to leave. Friday night. Youth club in the church hall, which Abigail usually turned her nose up at, but which Emma was forced to attend. A couple of pool tables and a ghetto blaster in the corner playing music she’d never heard before. The smell of steamed fish left over from the old people’s lunch club. A stall selling crisps and Cash and Carry cola and cheap sweets: chews, lollipops and twisted bits of brightly coloured candy she’d never seen in proper shops. Emma knew Abigail had looked stunning in a sparkly green top she could remember the pang of envy which had shot through her when Abigail had sauntered into the hall but she couldn’t see her. She could picture the faces of all the lads in the room looking wistful because they’d known she was way out of their league. Including Christopher’s,

because he’d been there too. He’d been playing pool and had straightened up from the table and stared intently for a moment. But not Abigail’s. Emma couldn’t remember at all what Abigail’s response had been to all that attention.

Standing at the grave, her focus shifted. Instead of being part of the background, Christopher took centre stage. This was where he’d last been seen. And if the inspector was right, it was a place he’d visited many times before. She could picture him quite clearly the long flapping anorak, his lank, untidy hair. The face drawn through lack of sleep and a hangover. But she had no idea what had been going on inside his head. She felt the desperation of missed opportunity. If only she’d been more sympathetic or more assertive. If only she had persuaded him to tell her what he knew.

Her attention was caught then by a flurry of activity around the farm buildings across the field. A minibus had arrived in the yard and a gaggle of police officers got out. There were a couple of dogs; she heard shouted instructions. The officers waited, then a car pulled up and two figures, sexless in white paper overalls and white caps, emerged. Someone must have had a key to the house because they went inside. The rest of them stood by the bus, looking at the junk, the piles of rusting machinery, as if they didn’t know where to start. Emma thought Vera Stanhope might turn up and didn’t want to be caught by her at Abigail’s grave. The detective might think it was her comments of the night before which had prompted Emma to come. Emma didn’t want her to have that satisfaction.