by Ann Cleeves
“He sounded angry, frustrated. But I couldn’t hear the words.”
“Thanks,” she said. “That could make all the difference.”
She sat quite still for a moment before she remembered what she’d come for.
“You must have worked with James Bennett.”
“Aye, he started a year or so before I retired.”
“What did you make of him?”
“All right. A competent pilot.”
“Did you realize he’d married the lass who found Abigail Mantel’s body?”
“Someone must have told me. A place like this you get to know things without realizing how.”
“When you were playing detective, digging up the dirt on Keith Mantel, did you ever come across mention of Bennett?”
Michael looked at her as if she was crazy. “Of course not. Why?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “A stupid idea probably. Did Bennett ever talk about his past to you, his family, what he did when he was a kid?”
“We weren’t on those sort of terms.”
No, she thought. James Bennett wasn’t on those sort of terms with anyone. She ferreted in her bag for her phone. “I need to make a call,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“I’ll make myself scarce. Wash these pots.”
He was on his way to the kitchen when she called him back. “Would you show me after where you saw the lad? The cemetery first, then we could take a walk to the river. Show me the path you think he might have taken. If it’s no bother.”
“No.” He smiled, glad to be in her good books again. “It’s no bother at all.”
Ashworth must have been in the canteen because she heard a background clatter of crockery and chat.
“Are you OK to talk?” She meant was he on his own.
“Go ahead.”
“Did Winter have a mobile phone on him?”
“No one’s said. Do you want me to find out?”
“I’ve got a witness who saw him early that morning. He thinks Winter was talking into a mobile. Could have been, at least. If the lad did have a mobile on him, they’ll probably already have checked the calls, but this makes it a priority, doesn’t it? And before you give me a lecture I’ll bring my witness in to make a statement this afternoon. You hang on for me there.”
She switched off the phone before he could ask for more details and called to Michael who was making a show of waiting tactfully in the kitchen, “Ready when you are, pet. Let’s take a constitutional. I could do with some air.”
Vera could tell people were taking notice of them walking down the street together. There was nothing obvious, no staring or twitching of curtains. But it was there in the studied way the old ladies in front of the post office continued their conversation, only breaking off later to follow them with their eyes. And the vicar, who seemed about to cross the road to talk to Michael, stopped when he saw Vera and contented himself with a wave. Only a lone reporter approached them, but she flapped her hand at him, and without his colleagues he seemed to lack the courage to pursue them. Vera wondered if the locals were all just curious or if they believed she had a professional interest in Michael. Could they think she was arresting him? Was that the cause of their awkwardness?
She knew about small places, villages where people had grown up together and knew each other’s secrets, but Elvet depressed her. It was something to do with the flat countryside, everything the colour of mud, the unrelenting wind. No wonder Christopher Winter had been reluctant to return once he had escaped. What had dragged him back? He hadn’t been summoned for a special family occasion. He could have kept away.
There was a pile of dog muck on the pavement, and Michael took her arm briefly to steer her round it. She thought people who didn’t know them could take them as a married couple. Shambling and dysfunctional, dependent on each other for survival. She moved away from him and they walked down the lane several feet apart, not speaking.
There were no ancient graves in the cemetery; it must have been established once the churchyard was full. The sun had gone and the breeze was cooler than ever, tearing at the remaining dead leaves on the sycamore, shredding them so only the stalks and the veins were left.
“Was Christopher here before you?” Vera asked.
“Can’t have been. I’d have had to walk right past him to get to my Peg.”
“Did you see which way he came from?”
Michael only shook his head. The place seemed to have knocked all the spirit out of him. Vera stood looking about her for a moment. Beyond the dry stone wall there was open country on three sides, tussocky grass grazed by sheep. In a field there was something dead. It was too small for a sheep, probably a rabbit. It had been picked over by crows, and only bones and a scrap of fur remained. The wall was too high to be scrambled over without a fuss. Christopher Winter must have come through the gate.
“Show me where this road goes, then,” she said, opening it to let him out. “Can you drive all the way down?”
“Aye, some people keep boats there in the summer, and there’s a bit of a car park for folks who want a stroll along the riverbank. Do you want to go back for your car?”
“Is it far?”
“Half a mile at most.”
“We’ll walk it, then, shall we?” She was thinking she should warn Joe Ashworth that they’d be a while getting in to the station, but when she looked at her mobile there was no signal. The lane was straight, with a sparse hawthorn hedge on one side and a full ditch fringed with blackened reeds on the other. The hawthorn bushes had knotted trunks, smeared with green lichen and a scattering of berries. A small flock of redwing chased along the hedge, flipping occasionally into the field beyond. In the distance was a farmhouse surrounded by a graveyard of rotting machinery.
“Who lives there?” she asked.
“No one now. Cyril Moore died a month or so ago. Someone said it’s been sold. They’re going to turn it into a riding school. No money in farming these days.”
The tide was out when they arrived at the river. There were acres of ridged sand and mud, which seemed to stretch almost all the way to the Lincolnshire coast. A cloud of small wading birds, gathered like insects into a swarm, rose in a cyclone above them then settled back onto the mud. The hull of a clinker-built boat rotted upturned on the shore. There was a rough car park containing a red telephone box, a notice board, which might once have given details of how to contact the coast guard but which had faded into illegibility and a white wooden post with a life belt attached.
“Is this it?” Vera demanded. She was hungry and cold and thought she’d come on a wild goose chase.
“I did say I couldn’t think what could have brought him here.”
“So you did.” She tried her phone again. Still it refused to work.
They were back at the edge of the village when she realized how stupid she’d been. She recreated that morning in the cemetery in her head, trying to bring it to life. Christopher Winter had been at Emma’s. He’d sat up all night getting maudlin drunk, decided before it was even light that he needed to visit Abigail’s grave. Then what? He’d phoned someone. To accuse them of her murder? To demand an explanation? Support? Help? If he’d tried his mobile, it would probably be a number he’d kept in his head, or that he’d already saved on his phone. So it would be someone he knew well, or a number he’d checked in advance. But what if the phone hadn’t worked? Perhaps this was one of those black holes which swallowed mobile signals. It was possible that the angry words Michael had heard were the lad venting his frustration on the limitations of technology. What would he have done then? Surely he’d have found a phone box, used that. The nearest public phone was at the river car park. He’d have known it was there. He’d have played all round the shore when he was a boy.
Vera stopped abruptly and Michael considered her anxiously. “Are you all right?”
“Go back to your house and ring this number. It’s my sergeant Joe Ashworth. Direct him to the car park on the bank and
tell him to meet me there immediately. Say it’s urgent.”
“What are you going to do?”
“None of your business,” she said, giving him a wink to soften the blow. What would she say even if she trusted him absolutely? I’m going to freeze my butt off standing guard over a stinking phone box in case a member of the public thinks to cover any fingerprints of Winter’s which might still be there. “Was that lad wearing gloves when you saw him in the cemetery?”
“No,” Michael said. “I thought at the time he’d be feeling the cold.”
When Ashworth arrived, Vera took his car and left him to wait for the crime scene examiner. She was sitting in the caff next to the bakery, full of sausage sandwich and chocolate eclair, when he arrived. The resident reporters must be following some other lead because she had the place to herself. It was warm in there and she could feel herself nodding off. She knew she’d be more use taking Michael into the station and getting his statement, but she was curious.
“Well?”
Ashworth waited until he’d sat opposite her, leaned forward so the staff couldn’t hear. “He got a couple of decent prints. One from the handset and one off the interior door handle. They’ll test for a match.”
“Could be anyone’s, though, couldn’t they? I mean, I can’t imagine people queuing to use the phone, but it could have been used once in the last couple of days. It’ll be worth seeing if there was a call from it the morning Winter died, though.”
“Not really,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s bust. Has been for at least a fortnight according to BT, but because it’s so little used this time of year the repair wasn’t a priority.”
“Bugger,” she said. Not angry. Resigned. It had been that sort of day.
“We’ll know from the prints if he tried to make a call. He didn’t have a mobile on him, by the way.”
She looked up at that. “Did he own one?”
“They’re trying to find out.”
“You’d better tell Mr. Holness,” she said, ‘that trying’s not good enough.”
Chapter Thirty-One
She caught up with Caroline Fletcher at an ugly house in Crill, the seaside town further up the coast where Keith Mantel had first made his money. The estate agency had given a list of addresses of the properties on her books and Vera had chased from one to another always just missing her.
To reach the town she had to drive past Spinney Fen, the prison. A ragged line of people were hurrying out of the gate. The end of afternoon visits. After the death of her mother Jeanie had received no visitors. She’d had to listen to the other inmates relive their conversations with loved ones, knowing that if she admitted her guilt she’d be moved to a less secure prison with more humane conditions, where there would be more contact with the outside world. Vera briefly stopped the car outside and thought about that, wondered if she’d be so principled or so stubborn. Maybe she would. She was known for her stubbornness after all. But she’d have promised anything to avoid the ministrations of Robert Winter, the preaching and the pity.
The house Caroline was trying to sell was a mock Tudor monstrosity in a road which ran along the edge of the cliff just outside the town. Another twenty years of erosion, Vera reckoned, and the garden would be crumbling into the sea. The prospective buyers didn’t seem impressed either. It was dark by then. They must have come straight from work and she could tell all they wanted was a strong drink and something mindless on the telly. Vera sat in her car and watched them make their escape, in too much of a hurry even to shake hands with the agent on the doorstep.
Caroline was still locking the door when Vera caught up with her. Vera could move quietly when she wanted. It was one of the skills she’d learned from her father. But Caroline didn’t seem startled by her approach. Maybe she thought it was the purchasers returning. Maybe she had a clear conscience.
“Inspector,” she said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Probably not. But what do you mean?”
“I’d hate you to jeopardize your position in the service. There are too few successful women as it is. Not exactly orthodox, is it? Bothering me at home. And now at work. Especially when you’re on your own. Or is your little friend waiting in the car?”
“Nah,” Vera said easily. “Joe’s mam wouldn’t let him out to play today. It’s you I’m thinking of, pet. We can go back to the station if you like, but I thought it might be embarrassing for you. Having one of your old mates sitting in on the interview, I mean. Or did they all know about you and Keith?”
Caroline’s hand was still for a moment, poised with the key not yet in the lock, but there was no other reaction.
“He told you, I suppose,” she said.
“Did you really think he’d keep it quiet?”
“I thought, as things are, he had as much to lose as me.”
“Shall we go back in and talk about it? Like I said, more discreet than the station.” Behind her back, Vera crossed her fingers. She no more wanted to make this official than Fletcher did.
Caroline shrugged, as if to say she didn’t care either way, but she opened the door and led Vera inside. The house had been cleared of furniture but the owners must have left the heating on, because there wasn’t that chill you get in an unused house. There were no light shades and the naked bulbs showed the patch of damp on the ceiling and the peeling wallpaper in the hall. Caroline threw open the door to the living room and allowed Vera to go ahead of her, as she must have done with the prospective buyers earlier. It was a big room, with a bay window looking out to sea. For the first time Vera thought it might not be a bad place to live. In the distance there was a constellation of tiny lights ships, presumably waiting for the tide at the mouth of the river and somewhere down the coast, the mesmerizing flash of a lighthouse. In the bay window stood a card table and three folding chairs, on the table a pile of estate agent brochures, a floor plan of the house, mortgage information. There was no other furniture. Here Caroline must sit her customers, positioning them so they looked out at the view and had their backs to the scuffed skirting boards and snot green paint. Vera took a seat and nodded for Caroline to join her. She stretched out her legs and the chair creaked. Opposite, the estate agent regarded her with distaste.
“What has Keith Mantel got to lose, then?” Vera asked.
“It looks like corruption, doesn’t it? He wanted a result and he got it. He’s a pillar of society now, sits on committees, talks to ministers about neighbourhood renewal. Being a bit wild when he was a kid is one thing. Colourful. They can forgive him that. But pulling strings in a murder case which only happened ten years ago and won’t go away, that’s something quite different.”
“So why did he tell me?”
Caroline seemed hypnotized by the irregular beat of the lighthouse. “Who knows? Perhaps he’s been living the good citizen for so long that he actually believes it. Perhaps he’s got so many powerful friends he thinks nobody can touch him. Perhaps he hates me so much he doesn’t care.”
Vera was surprised by the bitterness and hurt in the woman’s voice. “When did it start between you and him?”
“Before Jeanie Long moved in, ages before that.”
“How did he explain that one away?”
Caroline turned away from the window and shrugged again. “He didn’t need to. I could tell Jeanie wouldn’t survive. She was only a distraction, not really his type.”
“You weren’t bothered about sharing him?”
“I was more bothered about losing him altogether.” She sat very upright in her chair, constrained by her suit, by the short neat skirt and black tights, waiting for another question. But none came. “There hasn’t been a day since we met when I’ve not thought about him. I keep telling myself I’m behaving like a crazy teenager and that it’ll pass but it doesn’t. I moved in with Alex because I thought that would make a difference, but it hasn’t.” She looked up at Vera. “You must think I’m mental.”
>
Vera didn’t reply directly. “How did you meet?”
“At a party. He was a friend of a friend. I presume Keith had been told I worked for the police, thought it would be useful. I’d just started as a DC. Maybe he even got me invited. All I knew at the time was that he was a businessman, a widower with a little girl. I don’t know what he did that night or what he said that was different from all the other men who’ve chatted me up at parties. But something happened. He got inside my head and under my skin. An addiction. It’s still there. That night Christopher Winter died, I didn’t go to the Old Chapel to find out if you’d talked to Keith. I told myself that was why I was there, but it wasn’t true. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted a fix. No self-respect, you see. That’s what addiction does to you.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He told me to get out. To leave him alone…” She paused for a moment. “I’d met him a couple of days earlier at the Point. I said we should get our stories straight before you interviewed us. He’d told me then to stay away from him. Only I couldn’t do it.”
Vera didn’t know what to say. Mantel had lost patience. That was why he’d told her about his relationship with Caroline. She’d become a nuisance and he’d wanted the police to do his dirty work. Vera couldn’t bring herself to rub the woman’s nose in it. She picked a question at random. “Did you ever meet Abigail?”
“A couple of times.”
“What did you make of her?”
“Honestly? I suppose I resented her. Keith was besotted. I tried to make friends with her because I knew that was what he wanted, but she never took to me. She could probably tell what I was after. She was a bright little thing. A shame because I thought we had a lot in common. Both obsessive personalities perhaps and you could tell she was lonely. If I’d had her on my side things might have been different. I mean really different.”
“Marriage? Happy families? A white meringue dress and a kid of your own?”
“Yeah,” she said defensively. “Why not? Other people have it.”
Aye,” Vera said. “But we’re not other people, are we, pet?”