Telling Tales (38 page)

“You’d best go back, Barry,” Veronica said. “Someone needs to keep an eye on the bar.”

“Sam’ll manage.”

“No,” she said. “He won’t. I’ll not be long myself. Michael doesn’t need an audience.”

Barry seemed inclined to argue again, but she shot him a look and he slouched off, still clutching the cheese roll.

“What’s all this about, then?” Vera said. She realized she was speaking as if Michael was an invalid or a naughty child and tried again. “They said you wanted to talk to me.”

He looked up and seemed to recognize her for the first time.

“I found out about that pilot. He used to know Mantel, changed his name. I imagined all sorts. You know the way your mind can work. He was in here tonight with that young wife of his.” The words tumbled over themselves. He looked at her fearfully, anticipating her disapproval. She saw that he’d fallen apart since she’d last seen him. Jeanie’s death had finally caught up with him.

“Did you tell her what you’d found out?” she asked. “Don’t worry. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

“He told the whole bar,” Veronica said. “Made a bit of a scene. I should have realized what sort of strain he was under. I thought he was coping. I’ve called the doctor.”

Vera took a seat beside Michael. “You should have come to me. I’d have explained.” But what? she thought. What could I have told him?

“It was Mantel, wasn’t it?” Michael said, desperately. “He was behind it all.”

Again, she didn’t know what to answer. “It won’t be long now,” she said. “This time tomorrow we should have someone in custody. It’ll not bring Jeanie back…”

He finished the sentence for her. “But I’ll know…” For a moment he seemed to be more himself. Veronica reached across the table and took his hand.

Out in the square, Vera stood to collect her thoughts. A dog or a fox had been at a bin and scraps of rubbish blew across the street. They wouldn’t like that, the respectable people of Elvet. They liked their muck firmly shut away. She walked to the Captain’s House and banged on the door. James opened it almost immediately. At first she misinterpreted his anxiety.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should have thought before making that noise. I’d forgotten there was a baby in the house.”

“No, Matthew’s not here. Robert and Mary are looking after him. I thought you were Emma.”

“Where is she?”

“There was a scene in the pub. She ran off.” He hesitated. “You were right, of course. I should have told her myself.”

“Where’s she gone? To her parents?”

“No. The car’s still here.”

“And you just let her go off by herself?” In the dark? A week after her brother was murdered?

“She’s quite safe,” he said. “I saw where she went. She ran over to the forge. Dan will look after her.”

“Why did she go to Dan?”

“I suppose she needed someone to talk to. He’s my friend. Perhaps she thought he’d understand, make her understand. Perhaps she thought I’d discussed it with him.”

“Are they close, the two of them?”

“No,” he cried. “Not like that.”

“I’ll go over,” she said. “See what’s going on.”

“I’ll come with you:

“Best not. Give her a chance to think about it. Mind, I work for the police, not marriage guidance. I’ll not try to persuade her either way.” If she’s there. Alive and safe.

Back on the pavement she saw at once that there was now no light in the forge. She thought there had been when she’d left the pub, but she’d not heard a car leaving when she’d been talking to James. Standing just inside the hall, the door still open, she’d have heard, might even have heard the big doors being shut to, the snap of the padlock. She remembered what Dan’s young neighbour had said about his unloading after the trade fair. Perhaps there’d been a van parked in the yard in the back. Perhaps they’d left in that. But where would he take her?

All this she was thinking as she hurried across to the pottery, and then came the fanciful thought that she was like a piece of rubbish, blown backwards and forwards across the square.

The doors were bolted inside, but not padlocked. She banged on them with the flat of her hand, rattling them until her palms were stinging, but there was no reply and she moved on down the street, looking for a way into the yard at the back.

Access was through a tunnel, which cut through a terrace of houses. It led to an alley where domestic cars were parked. At the end of the alley was a set of wooden gates, now propped open, and the yard at the back of the pottery. There were no street lights in the alley, but it was lit from the windows at the back of the houses. This was considered private space and many hadn’t bothered to shut curtains. She had brief glimpses of ordinary lives: a mother hanging nappies on a radiator, an elderly man washing-up. In another room a young couple sat after a late supper, the kitchen table transformed for romance with a paper tablecloth, a candle and a bottle of wine.

The yard behind the pottery was empty. If Dan had been there with a van, he’d already gone. He must have Emma with him, unless he’d left her inside. Vera had a picture of her in the dusty storeroom, tied perhaps, scared, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Was she dead already? Strangled like her brother and her best friend? Vera shook her head, trying to clear away the nightmare. She wiped dust and cobwebs from the narrow windowpane with her sleeve and peered in, but it was dark inside and impossible to see. There was a small back door. She tried that, but it was locked. The paint was peeling from it, but the wood was sound and she wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to break in. She leaned her shoulder against it and shoved. Nothing moved. She thumped on the door then put her ear to it and listened. There was no sound. She gave up.

James was watching from his window. As she approached the house the curtain fell back into place but she’d seen his white face pressed against the glass and the door opened before she knocked.

“She’s not there, is she? I can tell the place is all locked up.”

“Has she got a mobile phone?”

She watched panic flash across his face. “Like Christopher, you mean? You think there’s some connection?”

“No,” she said. “Not like Christopher. You could call her. Find out where she’s gone.”

He gave an embarrassed laugh, lifted the phone in the hall and dialled. Vera realized they were both holding their breath, that she was straining to hear Emma’s voice. From the kitchen came an electronic tune. Something lively which she recognized. Something from an old film. The Entertainer. Slowly James replaced the receiver. “That’s her mobile,” he said. “She must have left it here. Probably thought she wouldn’t need it in the pub. She knew I had mine with me.” He paused, made an effort to hold himself together. “She’ll be all right with Dan, though. He used to be a policeman.”

“Yes,” Vera said. “I know.”

She left him in the house. Someone had to be there, she said. Emma couldn’t come home and find the place empty. Besides, Dan might talk some sense into her. She would probably phone.

She sat in the car, knowing that James would be watching and expecting immediate action. People were coming out of the pub though it wasn’t quite closing time. Every time the door opened, there was a blast of music like cold air. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. There was the baby to think of too. It wasn’t like her to be indecisive and the lack of direction made her anxious, the first stage of panic. Her phone rang and she punched the button, glad to be distracted for the moment at least.

It was Ashworth. “You were right,” he said. “But then you always are.”

No, she thought. Not any more. My judgement’s worth nothing these days. I thought I was sure about Dan Greenwood. Once.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“On my way to the house. That’s what you want, is it?”

Is it? “Yes.”

“I’ll see you there, shall I?”

“Yes,” she said again, more quickly, glad that the decision had been made for her.

“Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said. “Of course.”

Chapter Forty-Three

Ashworth was sitting in his car at the end of the drive to Springhead. Vera pulled into a gateway leading into a small patch of woodland and walked down the road to join him. There was a smell of wet leaves and cows. She felt better, though anxiety about Emma had settled at the pit of her stomach, a dull ache. She couldn’t cope with breaking more bad news. And she couldn’t cope with being wrong about what had happened here. She climbed into the passenger seat. Joe was listening to the radio. Classic FM. He was doing an evening class in music appreciation. She reached over and switched it off.

“Well?” she said.

“I did as you suggested, talked to the neighbours. It wasn’t very useful at first. Most of them had moved in since the Winters left. It’s one of those classy areas where everyone’s too busy to wonder what’s going on behind closed doors. Big houses, lots of garden. Then I tracked down one elderly woman who remembered them. “A lovely family,” she said. “Such a shame when they moved.” He put on an old lady’s voice, high pitched, with a BBC accent. Vera thought he’d be good in the local pan to He could play the dame.

Joe went on. “She was a widow even then and she used to babysit for the Winters when the kids were small. Until they stopped asking. She’d been upset by that, wondered if she’d done something wrong, if the children had taken against her for some reason. It troubled her so much that she went to see Mary. “Of course I was worrying quite unnecessarily. One of Robert’s colleagues had a daughter who needed the money. It was only natural that they should ask her instead.”

“Ah,” Vera said. A sigh of relief and satisfaction.

“The colleague’s name is Maggie Sullivan. There’d only been four of them working together. Three architects and someone to run the office. Two of them an architect and the office manager had been close to retirement, a bit old to have teenage daughters, so it wasn’t hard to work out she was the most likely. She’s still working in York. When I explained what I was there for, she was only too pleased to see me. She felt guilty because she hadn’t gone to the police when it happened.”

And what, exactly, did happen?”

“Robert Winter became obsessed with the daughter. He followed her around, waited for her outside school. Made a real nuisance of himself.” Ashworth paused. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. Not really. But there had to be something to make them change their lives so dramatically.” And there was something about him, something that made my flesh crawl. And the psychiatrist said someone sufficiently controlled could get away with it.

“To make him turn to God?”

Aye, I suppose…” She nodded towards the house. “What’s happening in there?”

“I don’t know. It’s been quiet while I’ve been here.”

“You’ve not seen Emma Bennett go in?”

“No, but I’ve only just arrived.”

“She’s had a row with her husband and gone missing.” Vera explained about Michael Long and the scene in the Anchor. “Probably nothing, but I’ve got a nasty feeling about it.”

“It can’t be significant, can it?” He turned to her easily. He thought he knew now exactly who’d killed Abigail and Christopher. She didn’t answer immediately. Now it came to it, she wasn’t sure any more.

“Maybe not.”

“How do you want to play it?” he said. “We could wait until morning, get a warrant. The boy’s mobile has still not been found. If that’s in there, we’ve got a result.”

Vera thought she couldn’t stand to wait until morning. She hated this case. She hated all the pretending, the unfinished grieving, the foul, flat country. She wanted to be home. Besides, there was Emma and the bairn to consider.

“Why don’t we go in?”

“Now?”

“No big deal. A few informal questions. And we’ve got an excuse. We’re looking for Emma.”

“What if we scare him away?”

“I don’t think that’s likely, do you?” Ashworth considered for a moment. “No,” he said. “Someone like that, he wants to be caught.”

Vera didn’t think Joe had got that quite right, but she was still hoping to persuade him to bend a few rules, so she didn’t say anything.

Ashworth reached for the key to turn on the engine, but she stopped him.

“We’ll walk in. Don’t want to give any warning.”

And she needed time to work it all out. Not so much that, to psyche herself up, to believe again that she was up to the job. To forget that moment of panic outside the Captain’s House. They walked up the straight, flat drive to the house and their eyes got used to the dark, so after a while they didn’t need Joe Ashworth’s torch. It was a clear night. It might freeze later, like the night Christopher was killed. Would Robert and Mary be looking out at the stars, remembering? There was enough light from the traffic passing on the road and the moon. To their right, the coast was marked by the red lamp on the pilot mast and ahead of them were two orange squares, one above the other. One downstairs and one upstairs window in the ugly square house. Another sort of beacon.

The curtains at the kitchen window weren’t drawn, and Vera stood, pressed against the wall so she couldn’t be seen from inside, looking in. Robert and Mary were sitting at the kitchen table. Mary stood up, took a pan of milk from the Aga and poured it into mugs. Only two mugs, Vera saw. Something of the panic returned. Where was Emma? From another room there came a noise, a howl.

Then Emma walked in and Vera felt her pulse slow. She was carrying a screaming baby on her hip and her eyes were red from crying. Mary offered to take Matthew from her, but she held onto him. She paced up and down, rubbing his back until the cries subsided, then she took her place at the table. Immediately Robert started to talk to her.

All this talk, Vera thought. Everyone sitting around telling stories to justify themselves or shift the guilt. She wondered what could have happened. Had Emma been to the pottery at all? Perhaps Dan had given her a lift. Another story, Vera thought. More explanations. Emma had come to Springhead to collect the baby of course, not to talk to her parents. She’d never confided in them.

She continued to stand there in the yard looking in. Outside was the huge winter sky, which made you dizzy just to think of it, inside a small family drama, a soap opera. And she was in the middle. Even if they’d been able to make out her shadow in the darkness, she thought they wouldn’t have noticed. They were engrossed in conversation and she could hear everything which was going on. Springhead House had never run to double glazing.