Telling Tales (37 page)

“You’re fishing for compliments.” Now he did stand behind her. He reached out and stroked her neck. She caught her breath, but didn’t give herself away.

“No, really. I’ve never been sure I’m doing it right and I’m out of practice.”

“You look lovely,” he said. “Really.”

“It’s warpaint, of course. I’m quite nervous about facing people. I need something to hide behind.”

“Hide behind me,” he said. She caught his eye again and they laughed together at the soppiness. She felt herself relax.

By the time they arrived at the Anchor all the regulars were there. James opened the door to let Emma in first. She paused when inside to see if there was anyone she recognized. A group of kids had gathered around the pool table. She thought she’d seen them waiting for the school bus. Certainly they didn’t seem old enough to be drinking, but in these country towns what else was there for kids to do? Of course she’d never had the option of the pub. She remembered long, boring evenings at Springhead. Until she’d gone away to college her only entertainment had been the church youth club under the watchful eye of her father.

Their entrance had been noticed. Some of the life boatmen were playing darts and they stopped for a moment to nod towards James. Veronica behind the bar smiled at Emma, trying to hide her surprise. Veronica was familiar to them both. She came to church, not as a regular worshipper but on special occasions, Easter Sunday, midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. She always donated a couple of bottles for the summer fay re Her son had been to school with Christopher. They’d been in the same class. Emma struggled now to remember his name.

“How’s Ray?” It had come to her suddenly.

“He’s fine.”

“What’s he doing these days?” Emma wondered how she was performing. She wasn’t used to this sort of conversation any more.

“He’s joined the fire brigade. Leeds. Of course he was never as clever as your Christopher, but we’re very proud of him.” She paused. “I’m so sorry about what happened, love. We all are.”

“I know,” Emma said. “I know.”

“Have the police got anyone for it yet?” Barry had appeared suddenly from the back. He stood with his hands flat on the bar and he stared at Emma. The question shot out, without politeness or preamble.

“They haven’t said.”

“It’s a disgrace,” Barry said and Emma couldn’t tell whether he considered the murder a disgrace, or the police’s inability to find a suspect, or the lack of communication.

One of the darts players who’d come to the bar for another round muttered his agreement.

“Have these on me,” James said. “In memory, you know, of Chris.”

Half an hour later and there was as much noise as Emma could have wished. The kids had put something on the jukebox and in the other bar they were watching football on the wide screen and occasionally the cheers and groans were loud enough to swamp the music.

She sat by the window chatting to one of the life boatmen girlfriends. Someone else who’d been to school with her. She heard the woman talking about a new bloke, a whirlwind romance, a proposal, but all the time she was aware of James, standing at the bar, looking at her. What does he want from me? she thought. What does he want to say?

Then the door opened and Michael Long walked in. He let the door swing to behind him, but there was so much noise that no one took much notice. He walked with a swagger to the bar. Emma couldn’t hear the conversation, but guessed James was offering to buy the man a drink. She thought he had already been drinking. He looked dishevelled and unsteady.

“You’ve got a nerve.”

She could just make out the words and sensed the hostility; it was palpable, like a smell. She watched, horrified. The chatter beside her continued. James obviously hadn’t heard and must have asked Michael to repeat himself.

Michael opened his mouth wide and roared, so everyone could hear him, even above the racket. “I said, you’ve got a bloody nerve.”

The conversation faded. On the jukebox the record came to an end and no one replaced it. From the other bar there was a round of sarcastic applause as a penalty was missed. Michael seemed pleased to be the centre of attention. He turned to them all with a theatrical gesture. “You wouldn’t be drinking with him if you knew what I know.”

Veronica leaned across the bar. “You’re not well, love. Maybe you should get yourself home.”

Michael appeared not to hear her. “Do you know who you’re drinking with? Do you? You all think you know him, don’t you? Family man, pilot, churchgoer Well his whole life’s a lie. Even the name’s made up.” Michael began to speak more quietly, almost as if he and James were alone together in a small room, but Emma could hear him. The bar was silent. Everyone was watching and listening. He didn’t need to shout. “It shouldn’t have happened like this. I was going to get more evidence then go to that inspector. But I couldn’t stand it, seeing you in here, laughing and talking. Everyone feeling sorry for you.”

“The inspector already knows,” James said. “I told her.”

For a moment Michael couldn’t take that in. He stared, open-mouthed, a fleck of saliva on his lower lip, trying to convince himself that James was lying.

“Why hasn’t she arrested you, then?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s not illegal to change your name.”

“But you were a friend of Mantel’s. I’ve seen photos. The two of you smiling together.”

“My father was Mantel’s friend,” James said. “He was nothing to do with me.”

Michael shook his head as if it would take violence to clear his thoughts. “You killed the girl and got my Jeanie locked up.” His voice was desperate. “You must be involved. Why would you live a lie like this if you didn’t have anything to hide?”

“I’ve reason enough to hate Keith Mantel,” James said, ‘but I didn’t kill his daughter.”

Veronica had come out from the bar and now she came up to Michael and put her arm around his shoulder. “You’re not yourself, love. Not surprising all the things you’ve been through. Come into the back with me. I’ll make you a hot drink and we’ll get the doctor to have a look at you.”

Michael allowed himself to be led away. Behind the bar, Barry’s eyes were darting from one person to another, glittering with pleasure.

Emma was frozen. Her reactions had slowed, shut down. She watched James approach her but she couldn’t move.

“Come home,” he said quietly. “We can’t talk here.”

This is what happens, she thought, when you let down your guard. How can I make a happy ending out of this?

“Come home,” he said again. She felt the staring faces and prying eyes. She stood up and followed him out. But once they’d crossed the road she stopped on the pavement and faced up to him. Branches from the tree beside their house blew across the street light and threw moving shadows onto her upturned face.

“Was any of that true?”

“Some of it. I changed my name when I was twenty-one. Legally. There were reasons. I can tell you, if you want to know.”

“What about your family? Are they really all dead?”

“Not all of them.”

“So you lied to me from the beginning.”

“No. By the time I met you, this is who I was.”

“Did you kill my brother?”

“No,” he cried. “Why would I?”

“Why would you lie to me?”

She couldn’t face it. She needed the comfort of a familiar story. She turned suddenly and ran back across the street towards the forge.

Emma runs across the square and, keeping to the shadows in case the drinkers in the Anchor are still watching, she reaches the forge. She pushes open one of the big doors which form an arch, like the door of a church, and she stands inside. The roof is high and she can see through the curved rafters to the tiles. She feels the heat of the kiln and sees the dusty shelves holding unglazed pots.

At first, it seems that the pottery is empty. Everything is quiet. She shuts the big door behind her, still making no noise. It stands a little ajar, but a person walking past on the square outside would see nothing but a strip of light. She walks slowly forward. She knows that Dan is here. She can sense it. Soon he will come out. He will take her into his arms. He will come with her to Springhead so she can be with her baby. She can’t face all this alone.

“Dan.” The word is strained, like a whimper, but still it echoes around the high space. “Are you there, Dan?”

From the little storeroom there comes a scrabbling. Hardly human. It makes Emma think of rats nosing through rubbish.

“Dan,” she says again, and then he does appear, as she has always imagined, crumpled and untidy and eager to see her. She stands very close to him and can smell the clay on his hands. She waits for him to touch her. As she looks up, she sees someone else framed in the storeroom door. Not the inspector this time. Someone altogether unexpected.

Chapter Forty-Two

After seeing Ashworth off on his fishing trip, Vera went to the pottery. The doors were closed and padlocked. It was still early so she drove to the little house on the Crescent where Dan lived, but when she knocked on the door, no one answered. A young woman, with a toddler in a buggy, came out of the house next door. Just as well she’d been out the day before, Vera thought.

“Mr. Greenwood won’t be in at all today,” the woman said. A trade fair. Harrogate. He left very early and he’s not back until this evening, then he’ll have to go to the pottery to unload.”

“Oh,” Vera said. “Right.” She was surprised that Dan had given away so much. She’d always thought of him as being very private. The woman was attractive in a pale, washed-out way. Perhaps they were more than neighbours. Perhaps she wore black sequinned pants, though Vera couldn’t really picture it.

“Is it business?” the young woman said. “I can always take a message.”

“No, no message. I’m an old friend. I’ll call again.”

She spent the rest of the day at headquarters in Crill. She breezed into Holness’s office. “Can I borrow one of your people for an hour or two. A bit of research.”

He looked up from a desk piled with paper. Worse than hers, she saw with satisfaction. “Is it urgent?” He was probing for information on the Mantel enquiry. Well, he’d get nothing from her.

“It’ll not take long. A few phone calls, a bit of sniffing around.”

“I’ll need more than that before I release someone,” he said.

“Bugger off then, I’ll do it myself.” She flashed him a grin and he didn’t know how to react.

She walked into the incident room, responding to the stare of the officer at the nearest computer with a wave. “Don’t mind me, pet. You’ll not know I’m here.”

She found herself a spare desk and a phone and began a lot of fruitless conversations with the manufacturers of ladies’ underwear. At the same time she was eavesdropping on the Winter enquiry. The way she saw things, they hadn’t much to go on. They were still trying to trace the details of Christopher’s mobile, but he hadn’t bothered registering it, and they hadn’t found anyone in Aberdeen who had the number. He’d never given the number to Emma, or to his parents, which Vera thought was odd. After an hour she got bored and went back to pester Holness. She leaned on his door frame and looked into his office.

“Did anything come of the search of that farm by the cemetery?”

“The lad was there,” Holness said. “There was a fingerprint on the door of the stable.”

“Did you find anything to suggest he met someone?”

“A couple of other prints both left by one other person. No one known to us. Might be useful if we ever get as far as pulling in a suspect.”

“And he wasn’t seen all day?”

“We think he must have hidden out in the farm until it got dark. Otherwise he’d have been noticed. Elvet’s that sort of place. Nosy.”

Halfway through the afternoon she cracked and phoned Ashworth. She’d been thinking about him since he’d left in the morning. It was clear he couldn’t talk without being overheard. He sounded pleased with himself, though, and she wished she’d taken on the job. Delegation was supposed to be about shipping out the crap, but she’d never seemed to have got the hang of it. Usually she was left with that stuff herself. She went back to the hotel, had a long bath and tried to contain her impatience.

Her phone rang at about eight thirty and she snatched it from the bedside cupboard, thinking it would be Joe Ashworth at last with some news. It was Paul Holness and disappointment made her lose concentration for a moment. She missed what he was saying because she was wondering what could have happened to Joe.

“Sorry,” she said, ‘it’s a terrible line. Would you mind repeating that?”

IWe’ve just had a phone call from Veronica Lee, the landlady at the Anchor. It seems Michael Long’s made some sort of scene there. He’s in a bit of a state, she says. Wants to speak to you. We could send one of our lads if you like, but I thought you might want to go. Jeanie’s dad, isn’t he? Nothing really to do with us.”

“Yes,” she said. “Probably best if I do it. He knows me! She thought she was a sad old bat, because a phone call like that could suddenly make her come alive.

She parked in the square and noticed that there was a light on in the Old Forge. She hesitated briefly, tempted to go there first to talk to Dan. But that could wait, she thought. He wouldn’t be leaving the village again tonight. She’d best see what had rattled Michael’s cage first. There was no sign of drama in the Anchor when she went in. Half a dozen kids were gathered round the pool table, a few middle-aged couples sat at the tables in the window, two large-bellied men were playing darts. They stared at her, then looked away. By now everyone in the village knew who she was.

“Veronica about?”

The barman was thin and spotty and scarcely looked more than a boy himself.

“She’s out the back. She said to go on in.” The short side of the bar was hinged. He lifted it for her to go through. She felt a sudden thrill to be there, standing behind the bar between the taps and the optics. It was like going backstage at a theatre. She imagined herself retired, running a small pub in a village in the hills, but knew it would never happen. She’d offend the customers and drink all the profits.

She’d thought the door behind the bar would lead through to the landlady’s living quarters, but she emerged into a kitchen where, earlier in the evening, bar meals had been cooked. The sink was full of dirty pans. Michael sat at the table looking dazed. A half-drunk cup of tea, with a film already forming on the top, stood in front of him. Veronica was looking at him anxiously. A man with pebbly eyes stood leaning against the counter looking down at them. He was eating a cheese roll and his mouth was half full.