by Ann Cleeves
“Were you friends with Mr. Mantel?”
“Friends? No!” The idea seemed impossible to her.
“Your daughters were once close friends. I wondered if you’d got to know each other socially at that time.”
“No, he’s very busy, isn’t he? And rather grand in that smart house with his shiny car. I’m not sure we’d have had very much in common. I mean, we knew him to say hello to. We bumped into him at village events. But there was always an awkwardness. It was ridiculous, I know, but I always felt guilty when we met.”
“Because your daughter was alive and his wasn’t?”
She looked up gratefully. “Yes, exactly that.” There was a moment of silence then she added, “Now, I suppose we have both suffered the loss of a child and perhaps I’ll feel differently.”
The kettle suddenly whistled. Vera found the noise unbearable and had to force herself not to leap to her feet and move it from the heat. For a moment Mary seemed not to hear it. At last she got up to make tea.
“Can you talk us through yesterday evening?” Vera asked when Mary settled at the table again. “From arriving at the Old Chapel, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“We parked in the lane with everyone else and walked round to the back of the house. There was a queue of people waiting to meet Keith and his young girlfriend. As if we were at one of those weddings, where the bride and groom stand at the door of the reception to greet their guests. Or as if they were royalty.”
“You sound as if you don’t like Mr. Mantel very much.”
“Do I?” Mary frowned. “I don’t mean to.”
“How did you feel about Emma and Abigail becoming friends?”
“We were relieved that Emma had found a friend at all. We’d underestimated, I think, how much the move from York would upset her.” She paused for a moment. “It effected both the children in different ways. Emma had become rather withdrawn before she met Abigail.”
“But was Abigail the sort of girl you would have chosen as a suitable companion?”
“Why not? She was different in temperament from our daughter. More confident. More flamboyant, perhaps. But we knew nothing against her. I was more worried, I think, that she would suddenly become bored by Emma and drop her for someone else. I don’t think Emma could have coped with that.”
Vera let that line of questioning go and returned to the evening before. “So you greeted Keith and his girlfriend? What happened then?”
“We helped ourselves to drinks and tried to join in. There were lots of old friends. People from the church. Robert’s quite a public figure because he’s a warden. He’s well known in the village. I stayed indoors for a while. Most of the older people were sitting in there. Outside it was cold and rather rowdy. Noisy music. I chatted to a couple of women from the Mothers’ Union, then I went to find Robert.”
“Are you sure Christopher wasn’t there?”
“I can’t be. There was quite a crowd by the time I went out. And it was dark of course. The people in the field by the fire were just shadows.”
“Did you notice Caroline Fletcher?”
“I’m sorry. That name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“She was the police inspector who investigated Abigail Mantel’s murder.”
, “Of course. I’d forgotten the name. I should have remembered. She was supportive at the time of the trial. Was she there? I’m not sure I’d have recognized her. Not after all this time. Does that mean she’d kept in touch with Mr. Mantel? How thoughtful!”
Aye,” Vera muttered. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“Why did you go out into the lane, Mrs. Winter?”
Ashworth spoke for the first time and Mary seemed thrown. She looked towards Vera as if she needed permission to answer.
Vera smiled encouragingly.
“I wasn’t really enjoying myself,” Mary said. “I never do, these days, in crowded places. It’s strange how things change, isn’t it? When we were younger, I’d have loved it… I asked Robert if we could leave. I was sure someone else would give Emma and James a lift back to the village. I said I was cold, which was true, but an excuse too, I’m afraid. Robert took me at my word. He said there was a thicker jacket in the car. He offered to fetch it but I took the keys and went myself. I was glad of a few moments alone.”
“What made you look in the ditch?” Ashworth asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“It was dark in the lane. No street lights to speak of. Only one just outside the house. Moonlight apparently, but you’d have to look where you were putting your feet. It was icy. So, I’m trying to understand how you came to see your son’s body. If you were concentrating on not slipping. I’m sorry to make you go through it again, but it’s the details which can help sometimes. Was there something in the hedge which caught your eye?”
“No,” she said. “Nothing like that. The car was parked right on the verge so other vehicles could pass. The grass is rough and the car wasn’t level. It was Robert’s. He uses it for work and I never drive it. I knew there was a lever on the dashboard which opened the boot but I couldn’t find it immediately. While I was fumbling I turned on the headlights by mistake. The beam shone down into the ditch. That was when I saw Christopher.”
She stared blankly out at them.
“Could he have been there when you arrived?” Ashworth asked. “Or would you have seen him when you parked?”
“I was sitting in the back with Emma. Chatting. Trying to pretend that I didn’t mind Christopher going back to the university without making the effort of visiting us. But James and Robert would have seen if he’d been there. No, Christopher must have died while we were at the Mantel house. He was so close. But we could do nothing at all to help him.”
Chapter IWenty-Four
“What did you make of her?” Vera asked. “Was she telling the truth?”
“She didn’t seem the sort to me who’d lie.” They’d taken time out for tea and buns. Vera’s decision. She wanted to talk to Robert Winter but he was still in the church at least his car was parked in the square and she thought she couldn’t face him with low-blood sugar. She’d need to be on top of her game for that conversation. Besides she was embarrassed about breaking in on him. Suppose he was praying. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting on a pew next to him, while he was on his knees. Just along the street from the Bennetts’ house there was a bakery. She’d smelled the yeast and the sugar from the forge once and Dan had taken her in. Next to it there was a small, dark room, with a couple of tables where they served weak instant coffee and bacon sandwiches. And sticky cakes from the shop. From the narrow window they could see the church and Winter’s car in the street. There was no one to overhear. The other table was empty and the waitress was in the shop gassing to the woman behind the counter.
“Maybe not,” Vera said. “But there’s a difference between lying and telling the whole truth. She was very careful in the words she chose, wasn’t she?”
“I can’t see it. I thought she was a decent woman.”
“Not a lot of fun in her life, is there? Work and church. Do you think that’s all there is?”
“Maybe that’s all she wants.” Ashworth shrugged. “Someone of her age
.. .”
“Listen, lad. She’s about the same age as me and I can still manage a few laughs. But it strikes me there’s not much to laugh about in Springhead House.” She spooned sugar into her tea. The way she was feeling she needed the energy. “Do you think the husband slaps her around?”
“No!” Ashworth was shocked. But then he was easily shocked. Some days that was the only entertainment Vera had, provoking a response from him.
“You didn’t think she was frightened of him, then?”
“No,” Ashworth said slowly. “Frightened for him perhaps. Worried that he was taking so long in the church. More protective I’d say. Like she was the mother and he was a kid.”
“A spoiled kid,” Vera said. As I heard it, he joined the God Squ
ad, decided to give up his business in York and move out here and she just went along with it, dragging the family along with her.”
She broke off. Her attention was caught by Dan Greenwood, who emerged from the pottery and blinked as the cold air hit his face. Without bothering to lock the door behind him he ran across the street into the bakery. Vera watched him, wondered what it was about him that stopped her looking away. He disappeared from view, but they could hear him in the shop next door ordering a roast ham and mustard harm cake and a vanilla slice to take away. He returned to the Old Forge without seeing them.
“What is the story with Dan Greenwood?” Ashworth asked.
“He worked on the Mantel case first time round,” she said. “Fletcher was his boss.”
“Like you and me then,” Ashworth said. He looked about six, Vera thought. A gob of red jam from a doughnut on his chin. Not fit, really, to be let out alone.
“Oh, aye, I look a lot like Caroline Fletcher.”
“Was there something going on there, like? Did he fancy her?”
“No. They never got on.” Though that wouldn’t have stopped Dan fancying her, then despising himself for it, Vera thought.
“Oh?”
“You could see what Fletcher’s like. Hard as nails. On the surface at least. And Dan was too sensitive for his own good. One of those people who don’t like the sort of games you have to play to get on. He’s simple. Not dumb, I don’t mean that. But straightforward. No pretence. No small talk.” Intense, she thought. That’s why you can’t take your eyes off him. Too much emotional energy. Then wondered if she was being daft.
“Is that why he left? Personality clash? You’d think he’d manage a transfer.”
“He had a breakdown,” she said. “Stress related. He’d always struck me as a bit nervy. One of those people who can never sit still. He left on medical grounds soon after Jeanie Long was put away. Later he moved to Elvet and set up the pottery over the square.”
“Was it the Mantel case which made him ill? I’d not have thought there’d be that much pressure. The press would be pushing all the way, of course, but they cleared it up canny quickly, didn’t they?”
She could tell he was thinking of some of the cases he’d worked on. Cases which had gone on for months, days without sleep, without seeing his family, and then no result at the end of it.
“He never believed Jeanie was guilty,” Vera said. “But he didn’t have the guts to make a fuss at the time.”
“So now he blames himself for her suicide?”
“Maybe.”
“How do you know him?”
“We’d met a couple of times, courses, training days. Then a lad from Wooler jumped bail and ended up down here. I came down for a few days. I liked Dan. He was one of those people you take to straight away. Like I said, no side to him. No agenda. He phoned me before he left the service. They’d offered him this deal and he asked my advice.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That we needed people who cared about the job, but that if it was making him ill he should take the money and run.”
“Why did he think Jeanie Long was innocent?”
“He was in on the interviews. He believed her.”
“And that was it?”
“There was no forensic evidence. And Dan said it all happened really quickly. Easily. As if it had been set-up. As if someone was pulling the strings.”
“You think that was Mantel?”
“You get a grieving father pointing the finger, saying he knows who killed his daughter, that’s hard to ignore. Especially when he says it in public. And when he’s a big figure locally. With friends who are magistrates and on the police committee.”
“In everyone’s interest to clear it up quickly, then.”
“Everyone’s except Jeanie Long’s.”
“Whose strings exactly was Mantel pulling?”
Vera pushed half a curd tart into her mouth. “We’ll have to ask him, won’t we? But that’ll have to wait. There’s Robert Winter coming out of the church.”
Winter was still standing in the church porch when they met up with him. He was poised as if to set off down the path towards the gate, restrained, it seemed by an invisible barrier. The path was slippery with wet leaves and at one point Ashworth almost tripped, but Winter gave no sign that he had seen them approach. He stared out at the bare trees which lined the churchyard.
“Your wife will be worried about you,” Vera said.
Only then did Robert acknowledge them with a courteous nod. He didn’t respond, though, to the words.
“We’ve only just come from your house. Mary wasn’t expecting you to be so long. Here, give her a ring.” Vera groped for a mobile phone in her bag. “Tell her we want a quick word with you first, but you’ll not be long.”
“Yes,” Robert said. “Of course. I’ve been very thoughtless.” He took the phone and at last made the effort to leave the porch, walking a few paces away from them, turning his back so they couldn’t hear what was said.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Vera asked when he’d finished.
“Here? In the church?” As if, she’d say to Ashworth later, she’d suggested an interview in a brothel or a gents’ lav.
“If we wouldn’t be intruding.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
So they ended up in the little room by the bakery again, with more tea. On the way they passed the news agent and the headlines in the local papers screamed Christopher’s name. But Vera couldn’t feel sorry for Robert Winter and all the time they were talking she wished she’d been more forceful, stood her ground. What was it about the man that he always seemed to get his own way?
She began with a question he wouldn’t be expecting, hoping to throw him.
“Why the probation service? A bit different from architecture.”
“More challenging.” He smiled politely. She thought he’d played these word games before.
“What do you get out of it?”
“Not money, certainly,” he said. “Architecture was more lucrative. Most professions would be.”
Beside her, she could sense Ashworth willing her to change tack. She knew what he was thinking. Robert Winter was a bereaved relative who should be handled with a bit more sensitivity.
i “So, what then?” she demanded.
“Occasionally we can make a difference,” Robert said. “Change lives. When that happens there’s no more rewarding job in the world.”
“Did you make a difference to Jeanie Long?”
“Obviously not.” Still he kept calm, didn’t even show a trace of irritation. “I accepted the judgement of the court that she was a murderer. I failed her because I didn’t believe her story.”
“You must feel bad about that.”
“Of course I do, but I can’t let it affect my work with other prisoners. I don’t think I can blame myself. Many of the people I work with are manipulative and plausible. Many of them claim to be innocent. Sometimes we get it wrong ‘
“You see,” Vera interrupted, “I think it must be a bit like joining the police. The same motivation, I mean. It gives a licence to meddle. It’s a way into all that muck and corruption we respectable folk wouldn’t normally come across. There’s a glamour about crime, isn’t there? An excitement. Everyone’s curious about it, but we’re paid to stick our noses in. And so are you.”
“That’s one interpretation, Inspector. But not one I’d subscribe to.”
“Did Christopher have any girlfriends while he was living at home?” Vera asked.
“Not that I knew of:
“Would you have known? Is that the sort of thing you’d have talked about?”
“Possibly not. Christopher was a very private young man.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” She smiled to show that she intended no offence at all. “You probably knew more about the lives of the offenders in your care than you did about your own son.”
She moved on quickly before Robert cou
ld respond. “Why were you so keen to take your family to the bonfire last night?”
“It had been a difficult time for us all. Jeanie’s suicide, the Mantel case all over the newspapers again,
it had brought back the unpleasant memories. I thought it would be good for us to get out for the evening. Stop brooding.”
“Didn’t you think that meeting Keith Mantel might have the opposite effect. On Emma, at least?”
“No,” he said. And Vera saw that it was possible he was telling the truth. He hadn’t realized Emma might find it hard to return to the house where her best friend had lived at the time she was murdered. And Ashworth thought she was insensitive. “No. It happened a long time ago. Emma has moved on. We all have. I thought it would be a pleasant evening for everyone.”
“You hadn’t expected to meet Christopher there?”
“Not at all. I was sure he’d gone straight back to Aberdeen. It was inconsiderate he knows his mother looks forward to his visits but quite in character.”
Quite suddenly he seemed to lose patience with the questions. “Is there anything urgent, Inspector? Anything which won’t keep? Only my wife’s been alone for a long time. As you said. Really, I think I should go back to her.” Without waiting for a reply he stood up and walked out. Through the window they watched him stride along the pavement. An elderly woman, obviously distressed, scurried up to him to offer her condolence. He stopped, bent towards her and took her hand in both of his. Then he continued towards his car.
“I wonder,” Vera said slowly, ‘why I dislike him so much.”
“The religion?” Ashworth suggested. “It was never your thing.”
“Maybe. But I want you to get a list of the people who were at Mantel’s last night and talk to them all.
Did any of them notice Robert Winter leave the bonfire? Did anyone see him out in the lane?”
“And what will you be up to?”
“Me?” she answered. “I’m going to the prison. Where Jeanie Long spent the last ten years. There’s another victim in all this. And I don’t feel I know anything about her.”
Chapter TWenty-Five
Vera parked where it said Visitors. The place was nearly empty. The staff car park was nearer, but there was a barrier operated from the gatehouse. Some days she’d have enjoyed pushing the buzzer and demanding to be let in, but today she wasn’t in the mood for a fight.