Telling Tales Read online

  He took the tea to the bedroom but he didn’t get back into the crumpled sheets. He sat on the edge, holding the cup in one hand and the saucer in the other. He heard himself slurping the hot liquid and imagined Jeanie’s horrified face whenever he’d done that in public. Mantel’s daughter had only laughed. It had been at the same lunch, the only time Mantel had stepped foot inside the house on the Point as far as he knew. Peg had made a pot of tea after the meal, and he’d drunk it as he always did, only perhaps he was even noisier because he had been drinking before they arrived to give himself a bit of courage. There’d been a silence, the look of disgust on Jeanie’s face, then Abigail Mantel had thrown back her head and laughed. Somehow that had broken the ice and they’d all joined in; even Jeanie had eventually managed a thin smile.

  The prison governor had come to tell him about the suicide. It had been about this time of day, maybe a little later. Michael had opened the door to fetch in the milk and he’d been standing there, a tall grey man in a suit and a black overcoat. He must have been planning in his mind what he intended to say, because his lips had been moving. The sight of Michael, still in his dressing gown, had surprised him. He’d recovered himself quickly though. You had to think on your feet if you were a prison governor.

  “Mr. Long,” he’d said. “I’m from Spinney Fen…”

  Michael had interrupted. “You’re wasting your time. I told the other one. I can’t have her here.”

  “Jeanie’s dead, Mr. Long. I think you’d best let me in.”

  And he’d sat in the small front room for more than an hour telling Michael what had happened. How an officer had come to unlock Jeanie for the morning and had found her. How she’d already been dead for a long time, probably soon after lock-up the night before. How there’d been nothing anybody could do. “We’re all dreadfully sorry, Mr. Long.” Sounding as if he meant it. The bombshell had been dropped when he’d been about to leave. “It’s possible that Jeanie was innocent, Mr. Long. I understand the police intend to reopen the Abigail Mantel case. Jeanie hadn’t been informed. There was nothing official, you understand. Nothing we could do at this point. But I thought you should know.” He’d paused in the hall. “Would you like to see your daughter, Mr. Long? I can arrange that if you’d like it:

  For a moment Michael had been tempted. Then he’d thought, I don’t have the right. I wouldn’t see her when she was alive. What right do I have to intrude on her now?

  He’d shaken his head without speaking.

  The man had walked out of the front door, stooping as he went, because he was so tall that he was afraid of hitting his head on the lintel. Michael had watched him go to his car, which was bright red and rather sporty, and had decided that he could kill himself too. There’d been one indulgent day when he’d fantasized how best to go about it hanging like Jeanie herself, or pills, or drowning. He’d fancied drowning. This time of year when the water was cold it didn’t take long to lose consciousness and there was something fitting about a boatman sliding to rest under the waves. He hadn’t done it, of course. He’d seen it as cheating. He’d stay around long enough for Abigail Mantel’s killer to be brought to justice. He owed Jeanie that much.

  Michael went to the bathroom and washed and shaved. The last few days he hadn’t bothered, except yesterday just before church, but if he were going to stay alive he supposed he’d have to do it properly. Play by the rules to the end. For the same reason he put some bread under the grill for breakfast and forced himself to eat it.

  He was drying up the plate and the cup when the doorbell rang. It was just after eight thirty. It wasn’t the day for the woman who came once a week to clean for him, so he ignored it. It would be the press again, some reporter offering a fortune for a picture of Jeanie, promising to tell his side of the story. The bell continued, a sharp continuous ring, as if someone was leaning against the button. He went into the hall. Through the frosted glass of the front door he saw a shape, a bulky shadow.

  “Go away,” he shouted. “Leave me alone. I’ll call the police.”

  The noise of the bell stopped and the letter box flap was pushed open from outside. He saw an open mouth, a throat, moving lips.

  “I am the police, pet, and if you don’t fancy a little jaunt in a jam-sandwich to the police station you’d best let me in.”

  He opened the door. A woman stood on the doorstep. Something about the way she stood there reminded him of Peg, and he changed his attitude and felt well disposed towards her for no other reason than that. Perhaps it was her size which triggered the memory, the thick legs and heavy, comforting bust. But there was something else. The way she smiled, knowing he was a grouchy old git, but miraculously seeming to like him anyway. She walked into the hall.

  “Bit poky in here,” she said.

  He didn’t mind. Not like he minded the probation officer Winter pushing his way in, presuming to know something of what he was feeling. She was the sort of woman who said what she thought as soon as she thought it. There was no putting on a show for the rest of the world.

  “I saw you in church yesterday,” she went on, followed you out. But you seemed a bit upset and I thought it would best wait a day.”

  “Probably just as well.”

  “Have you had breakfast?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Must be coffee time then.”

  “I don’t have coffee,” he said. “Will tea do?”

  “It will if it’s strong. I can’t bear weak tea.”

  She was still standing when he came into the lounge with the tray. He’d made tea in a pot, and covered it with a cosy Peg had knitted using up old scraps of wool. There were mugs. He thought she might sneer at a small cup. She was looking at the photographs on a shelf in the alcove next to the gas fire. One of him standing next to the boat that day they’d given him the award, a big grin on his face which had more to do with the ale he’d supped, than with the medal. And another of him and Peg on their wedding day, him as skinny as those Africans they showed on telly whenever there was a famine, her all soft and round with a circle of silk flowers in her hair and roses in her hand.

  “No picture of Jeanie?” the woman asked. “You didn’t sell them to the press?”

  “I wouldn’t have done that!” He was horrified she could think him capable of it.

  “No,” she said calmly. “Of course you wouldn’t. Why no photos then?”

  “I thought she was guilty. All the way through I thought she was guilty.”

  “Only natural. All the evidence pointed that way.”

  “So you think she was guilty too?” He couldn’t tell if it was hope he felt, or dread.

  “Nah.” She paused. “You know she said she’d gone to London, the day Abigail was killed?”

  “Aye. No one saw her.”

  “A witness has come forward. A student who knew her. He swears she was in King’s Cross that day. I’ve talked to the lad. If he’s lying I could get a job modelling nude for the cover of Vogue!

  “It wasn’t just that I thought she killed that schoolgirl.” Michael felt a need to explain. “It was that I blamed her for Peg dying too.”

  “Did Peg think she’d committed the murder?”

  He shook his head. “Not for a minute. She fought all the way through for Jeanie, talked to the press, the police, the lawyers. The effort wore her out.”

  “I don’t suppose your attitude helped, you stubborn bugger.”

  He didn’t have any answer to that so he poured out the tea, swirling the pot first to make sure it was strong enough. She sat heavily on an armchair. He put the mug carefully on the small table in front of her, waited anxiously while she tasted it.

  “Perfect,” she said. “Just as I like it.”

  He took his own place then and waited for her to explain.

  “I’m Vera Stanhope. Inspector. Northumbria police. A case like this they send an outsider in. Fresh eyes. You know. Check they did everything right first time round.”

  “There wa
s a woman in charge before.” It had been strange to him at first. A woman leading a team of men. But when he’d met her a couple of times he could understand how she managed it.

  “So there was.” Vera was noncommittal.

  “What was she called?” His memory was a sludge as he grasped for a name. All he could see was a woman in silhouette, sat in the kitchen at the house on the Point. Light from a low winter sun was pouring through the window behind her. She was very smart in a black suit, short skirt, fitted jacket. He’d noticed the legs in sheer, black tights. Even then, when they’d thought Jeanie was a murderer, he’d found himself looking at the legs and wondering what it would be like to stroke them.

  “Fletcher,” Vera said. “Caroline Fletcher.”

  “She thought Jeanie was guilty. Right from the start. Not that she wasn’t polite with us. Perhaps that was how I could tell. The sympathy, you know. The pity. She knew what we’d have to go through when it came to court.”

  “She left the service a while back,” Vera said. “You’ll have to make do with me this time. Not so nice to look at, huh?”

  “Easier to talk to though.” He hadn’t found it easy to talk to Inspector Fletcher. She asked a lot of questions but he had the feeling that she wasn’t really listening, that behind the polite smile and the glossy eyes her mind was already racing ahead to form conclusions that had nothing to do with the words he was speaking.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Vera said. “I want you to talk to me.”

  “I could have got her parole,” he said suddenly. “If I’d said she could come here, that I’d support her when she came out. She’d still be alive if I’d believed her story.”

  There was an angry set to her mouth as she put down her mug and faced up to him. He thought she was going to let fly at him, tell him what she thought of his lack of faith in his daughter.

  “You didn’t put her there.” She spoke very slowly and deliberately, an emphasis on every syllable as if she was marking the beat in a piece of music. “We did that. Us. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge and the jury. Not you. You’re not to blame.”

  He didn’t believe her but he was grateful to her for saying it.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” she said. “Everything about that time.”

  “I’m not sure I’m up to remembering. I might get things wrong. Details.”

  “Nah,” she said. “It’s the details we get right. That’s what we remember best.”

  Chapter Eight

  Peg had been the only other person Michael could have talked to like this, and when he broke off his story occasionally to look at Vera’s face to check that she was listening or judge her reaction to something he’d said he was shocked because he half expected to see his wife’s features. Vera always was listening.

  He started right from the beginning. “I was never bothered about kiddies. I thought we were happy as we were, but it mattered to Peg. She’d have liked a big family, I think she was one of five girls. Her father farmed up Hornsea way. When she found out she was pregnant she was thrilled. She’d pretty well given up hope of it happening. I was pleased for her, like, but not so much for myself. I couldn’t see how things could get any better.

  “And then Jeanie was born on the night of a big spring tide. She was long and skinny, even as a baby, with thick, black hair.”

  “You were living on the Point then?”

  “Aye, it was a part of the job. And we didn’t think it’d be a bad place for a child to grow up. There was space to run around. Good fresh air. It’s not a lonely place. There were other kids in the lifeboat houses and when she was bigger, Peg brought her into Elvet for the play group But she never needed company much, even when she was little. It was always books and music with her. Right from the start.”

  He looked up. “Peg always said she took after me, but I could never see it myself. I’m not one for books. “Jeanie’s proud and she’s stubborn,” she’d say. “Who do you think she gets that from?”

  “I’ve been trying to trace her friends,” Vera said. “I’d like to talk to other people who knew her. There must have been girls at school ..

  .”

  “There were friends, I suppose. Lasses from school like you said. She’d go to their birthday parties and Peg’d invite them back to the Point for tea.” He remembered those days. The house had seemed full of them pretty little girls in party dresses who giggled and chattered and chased each other around the garden. “But I could tell Jeanie was never close to them. There was something solemn about her. She took life too seriously. I don’t know where she got that from. Peg and I always enjoyed a laugh.”

  “What about boyfriends?”

  “There was no one while she was at school. She said she was too busy with exams. Peg would tease her about it sometimes, tell her she couldn’t spend all her time working. And she’d say dead serious, “But I like work, Mum.” There might have been lads at the university but we wouldn’t know about that. She went away to Leeds. She kept in touch phoned her mother every week and came home every now and again for her Sunday lunch but she never mentioned a boyfriend.” He paused. “There might have been someone. She might have told Peg and asked her to keep it a secret from me. She thought I was always criticizing and perhaps I was. I should have made more effort to get on with her.”

  “And she should have made more effort to get on with you,” Vera said gently.

  “No. I thought so at the time. But I was too full of myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He struggled to explain. It was hard without boasting and this wasn’t the time for blowing his own trumpet. “I was someone in this village then. Parish councillor. Coxswain of the launch which takes the pilots out to the ships in the river. You’ll have seen the launches if you’ve been down to the Point. Moored by the long jetty.”

  She nodded.

  “There’s a buzz about that. An excitement. That’s why you do it, but all the same it’s a worthwhile job and you think you deserve some respect.” He hesitated again. “Peg thought children have no obligation to their parents. She said they don’t ask to be born. The obligation all goes one way. I didn’t see it then but now I think she was right.”

  Vera didn’t express an opinion on the question. “I’ve never had any kids myself,” she said.

  He would have liked to ask if she’d ever wanted children. He’d assumed that all women got broody as they got older. But although he felt close to the fat woman whose presence seemed to take up half his lounge, he thought the question was a bit personal.

  “How did Jeanie meet Keith Mantel?” Vera asked suddenly, and he was glad the interview had moved on to surer ground. He was better with facts.

  “Here in Elvet. In the Anchor. She’d worked there part-time since she was at school. Washing up, waitressing a bit of bar work when she got older. They thought the world of her. The most reliable student they’d ever employed, Veronica the landlady said.”

  “You must have been proud of her’

  “Aye,” he said reluctantly. “I was. And not just about her work at the pub. About the exams and the music and everything. I was too stubborn to tell her. Most people liked me then. Mike Long, life and soul of the party, holding the village together. She didn’t. I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t forgive her for not being taken in by me.” He shot her another look. “Sorry. Just talking daft.”

  “Wasn’t Jeanie still at the university when she met Mantel? I don’t understand what she was doing here. She’d hardly have come back to Elvet from Leeds for a Saturday job.”

  “She was on study leave before her finals. Home for a couple of weeks before the exams. Peg had persuaded her to come back. She said it would be quieter for her to revise. Really, of course, she wanted to pamper her a bit. Feed her up. Veronica must have heard she was here because she phoned up in a panic. Would Jeanie mind helping out in the Anchor for a couple of evenings? One of the barmaids was
off sick and she was rushed off her feet. So Jeanie went in as a favour’

  And that’s where she met Keith Mantel?”

  “So it seems. Not that she told us at the time, of course.”

  “How did she come to move in with him?”

  There was a silence. “That was my fault,” he said at last. “Speaking my mind without thinking. As usual.”

  Vera didn’t say anything. She wasn’t going to help him out on this one.

  “She came home as soon as the exams were finished. We weren’t expecting it. She’d talked about spending the summer travelling. She wanted to go to Italy.”

  “On her own?”

  “Aye. That was how she preferred to be. Until then at least. Any road, she came back. The story was that she needed to be around in case there were any auditions. It made sense. She’d always wanted to be a professional musician and it’s a competitive business. She said she couldn’t afford to be out of touch all summer. Peg was delighted. And Veronica took her back on in the pub.”

  “How did you get on with her when she came home?”

  “Better. I thought it was because she’d been away. She didn’t seem so touchy. And maybe I was getting a bit more mellow in my old age.”

  “But really it was because she was in love.”

  He shot a furious look at her but she wasn’t mocking him. There was nothing amused about her face. She looked very sad.

  “I saw them together,” Michael said. “Her and that Mantel. He must have given her a lift home from work after the lunchtime shift. She’d have thought I’d be out. They were sitting in that flash car of his. The roof was down. They were all over each other like a rash. He had his hand up her shirt.” He felt himself blush like a girl. “It was broad daylight.”

  “Why did you disapprove so much?” Vera asked. “I mean he was older than her but he wasn’t married.