Telling Tales

by Ann Cleeves

  James hadn’t been at all religious when Emma first met him. She had brought the matter up on their first date just to check. Even now, she thought, he didn’t actually believe in God, or in fact in any of the things he claimed to believe, when he was reciting the creed. He was the most rational man she had ever met. He laughed at the superstitions of the foreign sailors he met at’ work. He liked going to church for the same reason that he liked living in the Captain’s House. It represented tradition, a solid respectability. He had no family of his own and that too had been a major attraction. Often Emma felt he was closer to Robert and Mary than she was, certainly he was more comfortable in their company.

  They were late arriving at church. The story of Jeanie’s suicide had been on the front page of the newspaper, which was always delivered on Sunday. Her staring face had looked up from the doormat at Emma, stopping her in her tracks. Then there had been a last-minute flap because Matthew threw up over his clothes just as they were leaving the house. In the end they scuttled over the square like fractious children late for school. There was a sudden squall and Emma tucked the baby under her coat to protect him from the rain. She realized it made her look pregnant again. A group of reporters who were standing, smoking outside the church, ran for their cars.

  The first hymn had already begun and they followed the vicar and the three old ladies who made up the choir up the aisle, forming an undignified tail to an already shambling procession. Mary moved up to let them into their usual places near the front. Emma tripped over the fat patchwork bag that her mother always carried and which had been left on the floor.

  Only after she’d knelt for a moment of breath-catching, which passed as prayer, and was on her feet to sing the last verse, did she notice that the church was busier than normal. The pews were usually only this full for a baptism, when, as her father scathingly put it, ‘the pagans’ were in. But today there was no baptism and, besides, most of the faces were familiar. It was not that the church was full of strangers, rather, it seemed everyone had made the effort to turn out. In Elvet bad news always generated excitement. If Jeanie Long’s suicide could be considered bad news.

  The arthritic organist was coming to a close with a trembling chord when the door opened again. The wind must have got behind it because it closed with a bang and the congregation turned in disapproval. Dan Greenwood was standing at the back of the church next to a large, formidably ugly woman. Although Emma felt the usual thrill of excitement at his presence, she was disappointed to find Dan there. She had never seen him in church and thought he despised it. He’d made no concession in his dress, however, and was still wearing the jeans and smock from the night before. The woman was in a shapeless Crimplene dress covered with small purple flowers and a fluffy purple cardigan. Despite the cold, on her feet she wore flat leather sandals. There was something portentous about the way they stood there and for a moment Emma expected an announcement, a demand that the church be cleared because of a fire in the vicinity or a bomb threat. Even the vicar hesitated for a moment and looked at them.

  The woman, however, seemed perfectly composed, even to be enjoying the attention. She took Dan by the arm and pulled him into a seat. The familiarity of the gesture disturbed Emma. What was her relationship with him? She was too young to be a mother, not ten years older than he was. But her ugliness surely made it impossible that they could be romantically attached.

  Emma had many insecurities but was always confident that she was physically attractive. She took it for granted that James would never have asked her to marry him if she’d been fat or had acne. During the remainder of the service Emma heard the woman’s voice above the others in the hymns and responses. It was clear and loud and quite out of tune.

  There was no mention of Jeanie Long in the sermon and Emma thought perhaps the vicar had not heard about the suicide, but her name was there, along with Elsie Hepworth and Albert Smith, in the prayers for the deceased. Sitting with Matthew on her lap, looking down on the bent heads of the congregation who were kneeling, she tried to conjure up an image of Jeanie. She could only remember meeting her once at the Mantel home. Jeanie had been playing the piano which Keith had bought for Abigail when she showed a fleeting interest in having lessons. A tall, dark young woman, rather intense and earnest, bent over the keyboard. Then Keith had come in and she’d turned and her face had relaxed into a smile. It was hard to realize that Jeanie had been younger then than Emma was now, hardly more than a student.

  The service moved on towards the Communion. Robert in his white robe was standing at the altar next to the vicar. Mary was first to take the bread and wine, then rushed to the kitchen to spoon instant coffee into vacuum jugs. The arthritic organist struggled back to her place and began to play something gentle and melancholy. A queue had formed in the aisle. Emma handed Matthew to James, who had never been confirmed, despite Robert’s best efforts, and stood to take her place. Ahead of her was a tall, stooped man in a shiny grey suit which was too big for him. He wasn’t a regular worshipper although she thought she might have seen him in the village. He had been sitting on his own, and no one had approached him, which was unusual. The parish ladies prided themselves on making strangers welcome.

  The line moved slowly forward. The man knelt awkwardly and she took her place next to him, aware suddenly of the over-powering smell of mothballs. It had been a long time since the suit had been worn. He held out his cupped hands to take the wafer. They were hard and brown like carved wood, strong although he must have been at least sixty. The vicar caught his eye and gave a small smile of acknowledgement. Then Robert approached with the chalice, wiping the lip with a white cloth. Automatically the man reached out his hand to steady it, before raising it to his mouth. Then he looked up into Robert’s face and there was a shock of recognition. As Robert moved on towards her, the man spat out the mouthful of wine in his direction. The white robe was splashed with red from the thick, sweet wine. It could, Emma thought, have been blood seeping from a wound. There was a gasp of excitement masquerading as horror from the woman on the other side of Emma. The vicar hadn’t seen what had happened and Robert took no notice. The man got to his feet, and instead of returning to his pew, continued down the aisle and left the church.

  The incident had happened very quickly and, hidden by the backs of the Communicants, it wouldn’t have been visible from the nave. But as the man passed her, Dan Greenwood’s companion got to her feet and followed him out.

  Chapter Five

  Every week after church they went back to Robert and Mary’s house for lunch. It was an immutable part of the ritual, like the reading of the Epistle and the collect of the day. Emma thought it unfair that her mother, who spent an hour after the service pouring coffee and washing dishes, should immediately throw herself into domestic activity at home. Mary claimed to enjoy it, but the Mary she remembered from York hadn’t been at all domestic. There’d been a cleaning lady then, and they’d eaten out a lot. Emma had memories of a family-run Italian restaurant, long Sunday afternoons of pasta and ice cream, and of her parents leading them tipsily home just as it was getting dark.

  James always brought a couple of decent bottles of wine with him to the lunch. Emma thought he needed the alcohol to ward off the cold and numb the tedium. But when she’d suggested that they should make an excuse and stay away he wouldn’t hear of it.

  i “I like your parents. Your father is interesting and intelligent and your mother is charming. You are fortunate that they’re so supportive.”

  After that implied rebuke she didn’t bring up the subject again.

  Springhead was a square, grey house just out of the village. Once it had been a farmhouse, but the land had been sold off. This was the house the family had come to when they’d moved out of York. Robert had been triumphant to find it. All their savings had been used up during his social work training, and he’d never believed it would be possible to find somewhere so spacious within his budget. He’d dismissed the surveyor’s report, which
highlighted rising damp and woodworm in the roof joists, insisting this was the place the family were meant to be. Emma thought it had probably been for the best. She couldn’t imagine him in a semi on a new estate. She told herself his ego wouldn’t survive in a cramped space, though knew that was probably unfair. She was desperate, really, for his approval.

  From Christopher’s old room in the attic, it was still possible to see the field where Abigail’s body had lain. The view hadn’t changed. The land here was so flat and near to the coast that development wasn’t allowed. A recent report from the Environment Agency predicted not only flooding, but the possibility that the whole peninsula could be washed away.

  It was raining hard as they drove out to Springhead, so dark that they needed headlights. The ditches were full and surface water ran down the middle of the road. They were in James’s Volvo. Robert and Mary had gone on ahead.

  “Who was that dreadful woman with Dan?” James asked. He liked beautiful objects. Emma believed that was why he put up with her moodiness now.

  “I haven’t a clue. I hadn’t seen her before.”

  “I wondered if she could be a business contact. You could imagine her running a craft shop. Harrogate perhaps, or Whitby.”

  “Oh yes!” Sometimes she was surprised by how perceptive he could be. That was when she liked him best when he surprised her. “But Whitby, surely. Not classy enough for Harrogate.” She paused. “Do you think that was why Dan was in church? To please her? In the hope of securing a sale? It seems an odd thing to do. And not like him. He always seems so straight. I can’t imagine him manipulating a situation for his own ends.”

  “No.” James slowed the car to a crawl. A ditch had burst its bank and formed a peaty stream across the road. “I think he must have known Jeanie Long. He seemed very upset last night when he talked about her suicide. Church seems the right place to be sometimes, even if you have no belief.”

  “I suppose he could have known Jeanie.” Emma was doubtful but she didn’t want to dismiss the idea. It had been a long time since they had spoken like this, so easily. “He didn’t move to Elvet until later, but she was away too, at university. She’d only recently graduated when she moved in with Keith Mantel. Dan could have met her when she was still a student but I can’t see how.”

  James ignored the speculation. “Dan thought the suicide might distress you.”

  “I didn’t know her. I was trying to think in church. I only met her once.” She hesitated. “Do you realize it’s almost exactly ten years since Abigail Mantel died? The suicide seems a horrible coincidence. Or do you think she realized and planned it? A dramatic gesture to celebrate the anniversary?”

  “Perhaps,” James said after a pause. Then, “I’ve always thought of suicide as a very selfish act. It’s the people left behind who suffer.”

  Because they were being so companionable, she was tempted to tell him about the tall man who had spat out his Communion wine at Robert, but the event still seemed so shocking that she couldn’t bring herself to speak of it. James turned into the straight, bumpy track which led between two enormous fields to the house and she sat beside him in silence.

  In the kitchen Robert was standing in front of the Aga. His trousers were steaming. Emma looked for some sign that the incident at the Communion rail had shocked him as much as it had her, but he said with a little smile, “We took Miss Sanderson home. I only helped her out of the car but I’m soaked.”

  “Go and change, dear. You’ll catch cold.” Mary was fretting about the vegetables and he was in her way. Despite the position of authority he held at church and at work, sometimes she treated him like a child.

  Robert seemed not to hear her and only moved away from the range to pour them each a glass of sherry. Emma put the baby in his seat on the floor and tucked a blanket around him. Mary lifted the chipped cast-iron lid of the stove to reveal the hot plate The room seemed suddenly warmer. She stooped to heave a casserole from the oven and slid it onto the plate. It began to bubble. Her face was flushed from the heat and the exertion. Her fine grey hair was tied back and Emma thought she should get it cut, coloured even. A ponytail looked ridiculous on a woman of her age. Mary wrapped a tea towel around the casserole lid and took it off to stir the contents. There was a smell of lamb, garlic and tomatoes, and Emma was suddenly certain that this was the same meal they’d eaten the day Abigail was strangled. She looked sharply at her mother expecting her to remember it too, but Mary only smiled with relief that the Aga had stayed sufficiently hot to cook the meat, and Emma felt foolish. She wondered if her mind was playing tricks. Her fantasies always seemed so real.

  At this time of year they ate in the kitchen. The dining room had no grate and although there were storage heaters they were barely tepid when the family got up, and cold by the evening. Emma laid the table, slipping into the familiar routine, her hands moving to the cutlery and glasses without thought. It was as if she’d never gone away. Hard to believe that, like Jeanie Long, she’d spent years at university. If she hadn’t met and married James she would never have come back. Was that at the heart of her dissatisfaction with him?

  Robert had finally gone upstairs to change and returned wearing jeans and a thick navy sweater. James opened one of the bottles of red wine. They took their places and waited for Robert to say grace. He always said grace even when only he and Mary were present. But today he seemed not to realize that they expected it of him, took the ladle and began to serve himself. Emma looked at her mother who only shook her head, humouring him again, and passed around a bdwl of potatoes.

  Mary never washed-up after Sunday lunch. Robert would put a match to the fire he’d already laid in the living room and she’d sit there, drinking coffee and reading the Sunday papers until they joined her. By then the room would be almost warm. She was always grateful for this time to herself and never forgot to thank them.

  Robert and Emma were alone in the kitchen. James had taken the baby upstairs to change him.

  “Who was the man who spat at you?”

  He answered without turning away from the sink. “Michael Long, Jeanie’s father’

  He’d changed, she thought. The Michael Long she remembered had been strong, broad shouldered, loud.

  “Why did he do it?”

  “People often need someone to blame at a time like this.”

  “But why you?”

  “I had to submit a report to the parole board. I couldn’t recommend her as suitable for parole.”

  “Jeanie Long was your client?”

  Now he did turn round. He dried his hands deliberately on the threadbare towel hanging from the Aga, then sat next to her at the table.

  “Only for the past twelve months.”

  “Didn’t anyone think that was wrong? That it might be considered, I don’t know, some sort of conflict of interest?”

  “Of course we discussed the suitability of my taking over the case, but the problem wasn’t one of a conflict of interest. You never appeared as a witness for the prosecution. It was a matter of whether I could develop a relationship with Jeanie, whether I could deal with her in a fair and open-minded way, and we decided that I could. The question of her guilt or innocence never came up. Not at that point. That was decided at the original trial and at a later appeal. I didn’t know Jeanie before she was sentenced. And I didn’t know Abigail, even though the two of you were friends.”

  And now she thought about it, she supposed he was right. There had only been six months between the Winter family’s move to Elvet and Abigail’s death. During that time Springhead had been even more inhospitable than it was now. The elderly couple who’d lived in it before had only used two rooms, the rest of the house had been full of rubbish. There had been disasters with the plumbing, embarrassing smells, sudden blackouts. It hadn’t been a place to bring a new friend. All the sleep overs the giggly nights of videos, chocolate cake and illicit bottles of wine, had taken place at the Mantel home. Mary had met Abigail on a couple of occasions, a
t school events, the brief encounters on the doorstep when she dropped Emma off at the Old Chapel. Robert, eager to make an impression in his first post as probation officer had worked long hours, and was seldom around.

  “Is it true that the case was to be reopened?”

  “I presume it still will be. If Jeanie was innocent, someone else must have killed Abigail Mantel.”

  They sat for a moment looking at each other. Emma thought it had been a day for unusual conversations. Her father had never spoken so simply or so frankly to her. By now it was quite dark outside. The wind blew through gaps in the window and moved the heavy curtain which covered it. From upstairs came the sound of the baby chortling.

  “Did you think she was innocent?”

  “It wasn’t my place to make that sort of judgement.

  I’m an officer of the court. I have to accept the court’s decision. She always claimed she was innocent, but so do many of the offenders I work with.”

  “What was she like?”

  He paused again and his hesitation made him almost unrecognizable to her. He had always been a man of certainties.

  “She was quiet, intelligent…” There was another break in his speech, almost a stutter. “Most of all she was angry, the most angry person I’ve ever met. She felt betrayed.”

  “Who did she feel had betrayed her?”

  “Her parents, I think. Her father, at least. But most of all Keith Mantel. She couldn’t understand why he never visited her. Even after he’d asked her to move out of the house she still believed he loved her.”