Telling Tales (21 page)

Perhaps Mary sensed her disapproval and felt the need to explain. “He’s confused, angry. It’s a testing time.”

“For you both.”

“Faith has always been more important to him than it has to me.” She hesitated, then went on in a rush, “He does so much good here. In the village. With his work. It would be a dreadful thing if that was lost. My role has always been to support him in that.”

Vera would have liked to follow this up but she didn’t know what questions to ask. She was out of her depth. She wanted to say, You’re an intelligent woman and he’s a grown man. Why can’t he support the work you do? But she didn’t want to offend her. She looked towards Ashworth. He too seemed uncomfortable with the idea of faith.

“Was he specially close to Christopher?” she asked at last. “His only son?”

The last phrase had a vague resonance, but she didn’t pick it up and wondered why Mary looked at her so oddly.

“Robert was proud of Christopher, of course.” Her voice was clear and considered. Words mattered to her. “He was a brilliant child, one of those who can pass examinations without really trying. But I don’t think you could call them close. No. Not like some fathers and sons.” She paused to gather her thoughts and when she continued her voice was wistful. “I work in a library. Most of the staff are women and they gossip about their relatives. I hear them talk about husbands who take their boys to football matches, fishing, and when they’re older, to the pub. We aren’t that sort of family. Not social in that sort of easy way. Do you understand? Perhaps it was a sacrifice we all had to make. For Robert’s work. That had to come first. It was hard on the children.”

“But you see James and Emma, your grandchild?” Vera felt the need to reassure her.

“Oh yes, and that’s wonderful! Such a blessing! We always have Sunday lunch together.” She paused and then added sadly, “But that’s more formal, planned. We’re not very good about spontaneity. We’re all very careful about how we treat each other. Perhaps it was a result of Abigail’s death. Knowing that tragedy can strike at any time, it seems important not to argue. We’d been arguing that afternoon…” She came to a stop but Vera waited. This was what she needed. A picture of the household Christopher had grown up in.

And soon Mary continued. “I’m not blaming Robert for the formality. No, I’m not saying that at all. In fact, Robert is somewhat more gregarious than I am. He suggested only last week that we should have a party for my fiftieth birthday. Invite all the family, friends. That’s the sort of thing normal people do, isn’t it? We used to have parties when we lived in York, go out to dinner, have meals with friends. The city is very different, of course. Perhaps I have become antisocial, but the idea of a gathering like that here terrified me.” A thought flashed into her mind. “I suppose now I’ve an excuse to cancel it.” Immediately after the words were spoken she looked up, her face tight with shock. “That was a dreadful thing to say. How could I? I’d suffer a thousand parties to have Christopher back alive.”

“I know,” Vera said. “I know.”

Absent-mindedly Mary moved to the range. She lifted the lid and slid a wide-bottomed kettle onto the hot plate. “I’ll make some tea, shall I? I expect you’d like tea.”

“Can we talk to you about yesterday?” Vera asked.

“Of course. I feel so helpless. It’s something I can do, at least. Answer your questions.”

“Did you know that Christopher was planning to visit Elvet?”

“No. But that wouldn’t have been unusual. He did turn up occasionally, out of the blue. He hadn’t lost the knack of being spontaneous, perhaps. It was always lovely to see him, but I wouldn’t have wanted him to feel it was a duty, an obligation.”

Vera remembered that Michael Long had said something similar. Children owe nothing to their parents. So once Christopher had left home Mary had been forced to be patient, to say nothing, to wait for her son to drop in on a whim.

“You must have missed him. It wasn’t like Emma living just up the road.”

“I did,” Mary said. “Very much.”

“Whose idea was it to go to the lifeboat fundraiser?”

“Robert’s. A last-minute decision. He felt, I think, that we all needed cheering up. This weather is so depressing. It gets you down in the end. And Emma has been tied to the house since Matthew was born.”

“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 Squad, 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?”