Telling Tales Page 6

  And you’d wanted her to lighten up a bit. She must have been twenty-one then. Not a child any more.” He didn’t answer and she persisted. “You did recognize him when you saw them in the car together? If he was a regular in the Anchor, you must have known who he was.”

  “I knew him all right. He had a reputation, did Keith Mantel. Still does, come to that.”

  “What as?” she asked innocently.

  As a crook,” he said. “That’s what.”

  “I’ve checked his record. He’s never been charged with anything. There’ve been a couple of motoring of fences speeding mostly but nothing serious.”

  “He’s never been caught, that’s all. Like I say, he’s a crook.”

  And why do you say that, Mr. Long?” She grinned at him and he sensed a challenge in her words, but sympathy too. She had her own ideas about Keith Mantel. “What do you know about our Keith?”

  The cramped little room seemed more airless than before. He felt his chest tighten and his breathing was shallow and fast. What was going on here? This woman was bringing him painfully back to life. She was the first real human contact he’d had since Peg had died. The first person to take him seriously.

  “He’s a charmer,” Long said. “He had everyone fooled when he first moved here.”

  “But not you. You’d have seen through him.”

  “I had my suspicions.” He paused, teasing her, making her wait. “There was that house for a start. He wasn’t the first to apply for planning permission to convert the old chapel, but it had always been turned down before. Not just because of the risk of flooding and erosion. There was no access road, see, and this area’s not zoned for housing. Only building for agricultural purpose is allowed. There’s nothing agricultural about that mansion Mantel put up for himself. He must have greased a few palms to get that through the planning committee.”

  “There’d have been bad feeling in the village about that…” She was playing straight man to him. Stooge. He knew and he didn’t mind.

  “At first maybe. Then there he was in the Anchor, buying drinks all round. A donation to the cricket club to mend the pavilion roof. Another to the village school to buy a couple of computers. He had them eating out of his hand. And he got the sympathy vote for bringing up the little girl on his own. It was soon forgotten he was here under false pretences.”

  “But not by you. You didn’t forget.”

  Michael knew what she was doing. Making him feel clever. Special. But all the same he loved it. “I never took to him. He got himself elected onto the parish council. We didn’t see eye to eye.”

  She let that go for the moment. “You must have had more reason to dislike him than that. He’d not be the first to pull a few strings to get a new house built. Not major league crime.”

  “I made a few enquiries.”

  “That’s the sort of thing I’d say. Maybe you should have been a detective.”

  “I’d have been a good one,” he said seriously. “Not boasting, like.” Then they grinned at each other.

  “What did you come up with, then?” She leaned forward so her elbows were resting on her broad knees.

  The dress, which his Peg’d not have had in the house as a dish rag, was stretched between them.

  Michael leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes. All this he knew by heart. He’d just never had the chance to share it. “Mantel grew up locally, in Crill, the town up the coast. Father was a schoolmaster. Mother worked in the post office. A nice family by all accounts. But it was never enough for Mantel. He had expensive tastes, even when he was a lad. He was still at school when he started working for an elderly widow who lived close by a bit of gardening, odd jobs, shopping. A companion he called himself.”

  “Kind.”

  “Aye, you could call it that. When she died she left him all her money in her will.”

  “She had no family?”

  “A nephew in Surrey. He tried to contest it, but it seemed above board.”

  “Mantel had her charmed, then?”

  “Or scared her witless.”

  They sat for a moment in silence. They could hear the ticking from the fat, round clock on the mantelpiece.

  “That’s when he started investing in property. Still not twenty, and he bought a couple of terraced houses in the town. Let them out to students. Bought a few more. One of them burnt down. Probably faulty electrics, but no proof and he collected the insurance anyway. He was lucky no one was trapped inside. The college authorities weren’t happy, though, and by then he’d decided the students weren’t ideal tenants. Too lippy. Too ready to complain. They knew their rights. So, he started taking in families on housing benefit.”

  “Lots of scope there for a scam. Especially when the benefit’s paid straight to the landlord.”

  “Right. And if money was tight he’d offer his families a bit to tide them over.”

  “Like I said,” Vera’s eyes were shining. He could see she was enjoying herself, ‘kind.”

  “Not at the rate of interest he was charging.”

  They stared at each other.

  “I knew some of that,” she said at last. “I’d heard he was into benefit fraud, loans. Not for years of course. Now he’s a respectable businessman. Urban regeneration’s his thing. Working with the community. He has lunch every other week with the Prince of Wales. Almost a saint.” She paused for breath before continuing, “I never knew where he got his money in the first place. It must have taken a bit of digging around to get at that.”

  “I’m a stubborn bugger. I don’t give up.”

  “It must have been personal though. You must have started checking up on Mantel before he took up with your Jeanie.”

  “I’d found out some of it before then. Took it more seriously later.”

  “What made you start?”

  “He challenged my authority in the village. Made me look a fool. I couldn’t have that. I thought if I told the others where his money had come from, the sort of man he really was, they’d drop him.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “I didn’t get the chance. In the beginning I didn’t have the proof. And when Jeanie moved in with him, they’d have thought that that was what it was about. A grudge because he was screwing my daughter. Then his little girl died and it didn’t seem so important any more.”

  “But you did try to tell Jeanie?”

  He nodded. “That afternoon when I’d seen them together in his car outside my house. I was angry. It all came out wrong. She didn’t believe me. She packed up all her things and stormed out.”

  “That was when she moved in with Mantel?”

  “Yes. So it was all my fault. The girl’s death. Jeanie’s imprisonment. If I’d kept my temper none of that would have happened.”

  “We don’t know that. Not yet. When Mantel asked Jeanie to leave, she came back to you?”

  “She didn’t like it, but she had nowhere else to go. She was still infatuated with Mantel. She wouldn’t move away. And we’d mended things a bit between us. That was Peg’s doing. “I know you don’t like it, but we’ll lose her altogether if we don’t make the effort.” Peg invited them round for Sunday lunch Mantel, Jeanie and the daughter. You’d have thought we’d had royalty in the house the effort that went into that meal. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, sitting down at the table with that man. Watching him smiling. Knowing damn well he knew exactly what I was going through.” Michael paused. “I’ve wondered over the years if that was why he took up with Jeanie. Why he stayed with her so long, at least. If he did it just to spite me.”

  Chapter Nine

  After the Sunday lunch at Springhead House, James was surprised to see Emma huddled in conversation with Robert in the kitchen. He knew he enjoyed these family occasions better than she did and she wasn’t usually easy in Robert’s “company. James had never been able to work out what objection she could have to her parents. They were perfectly reasonable and civilized. They made few demands.
He knew better than to say so, but when Emma complained about Robert and Mary, he thought she was acting like a spoilt child. He didn’t mind too much. It had been her youth which had attracted him in the first place; she’d seemed untarnished by experience.

  They were sitting in the living room at Springhead, drinking tea and eating fruit cake, when the subject of families came up. James had known it would happen sometime, but now he was unprepared. The conversation began safely enough.

  “It’s Mary’s fiftieth birthday next month,” Robert said. “We were thinking of having a party.”

  “Were we?” Mary was crouched by the fire, trying to poke life into it. They were burning elder which was still green and gave off no heat, but her face was red because she’d been blowing into the embers.

  “Well, I thought we should. We didn’t do much for our silver wedding and I’d like to make a fuss of you.”

  “I don’t know…” The prospect seemed to terrify her, though Robert didn’t notice. “Who would we invite?”

  “I thought we could make it open house. Ask our friends from the church, the youth club even. I miss having young people in the place.”

  “Oh, no, really, I don’t think that would be a good idea at all. I’d rather something smaller. Just the family.”

  That was when the unexpected happened.

  “If that’s what you’d prefer,” Robert said. “I did think it would be a good opportunity to get to know James’s family at last. You won’t mind them, I’m sure.”

  James felt the stab of panic, hoped he was concealing it better than Mary had hidden hers. “That’s very kind. But there’s no one really. No one close.”

  “I always found that hard to believe. It was so sad that there were no relatives to help you celebrate your wedding. If it’s a question of a family feud, surely this is the time to make up. There’s a new generation to consider now.”

  “No,” James said, more sharply than he’d intended. “There’s nothing like that.”

  “Think about it,” Robert said. “If you remember anyone, ask them along. We all have ancient aunts, second cousins. We’d like to meet them.”

  “Honestly.” James kept the irritation from his voice. “I’m quite alone. That’s why I’m so grateful to be an honorary Winter.” He knew at once that had been the right thing to say. Robert beamed.

  In the car on the way home Emma apologized for her father’s behaviour. “Really,” she said. “He’s so rude. He can never stop prying. He’s just the sort of person who gives social workers a bad name.” She was always in a better mood after a Springhead Sunday. The ordeal was over for another week. James, in contrast, felt unusually jittery. Though he’d satisfied Robert this time, he suspected there’d be more questions.

  Once they were in the house he relaxed, thought his panic had been ridiculous. The baby had been fractious in the car and Emma took him immediately upstairs to bath. James changed out of his suit then stood leaning against the bathroom door to watch. This was all he had ever dreamt of. This house. This family.

  They went to bed early because he was still on call, and by now he must be near the head of the turn list. He worked twelve days on and eight days off. He fell immediately into a deep sleep, untroubled by worries about Robert.

  Emma had married him because she had a romantic notion about the sea. And him. And he hadn’t lived up to the fantasy.

  The thought came to him, unbidden, in a flash, between the second when the phone woke him and the moment of answering the call. Then it disappeared from his mind, like the remnants of a dream once you are properly awake.

  It was a summons to work as he had known it would be. Two women worked in the data centre, collecting calls from ships’ agents, then contacting the next pilot on the turn list to join the vessel, which was either approaching the mouth of the Humber or preparing to leave port. He recognized the voice at once. Marcia. He preferred her to Jo. Marcia was efficient and always respectful. He switched on the bedside light and jotted down the few details he needed.

  “It’s a ship out of Goole, Mr. Bennett.” Her voice was calm. She made him think of a hospital sister in charge of a ward at night. “Russian. A cargo of wood.”

  Goole was always a long job at least eight hours from door to door but today he didn’t mind that. He dressed quickly, though at this time of night with no traffic, there was less pressure. Daytime could be a nightmare. All it took was a hold-up on the road into Hull and you could miss the tide. There was no slack in the system. These days it was all stress, even the drive to the office. Emma didn’t realize that. She thought he had no emotions. That he felt nothing.

  She had stirred when the phone rang, but now she was asleep again, deeply asleep, lying on her back. He had waited to find the right wife and had known as soon as he’d walked into the classroom where she’d been preparing her first lesson, that he had found her. She had been writing the Russian alphabet on the board, frowning in her concentration to keep the line straight. He’d been first to arrive and she’d ticked his name off on the register, a little girl playing at teachers. When the evening class was over, he’d hovered in the corridor, and asked if he might buy her a drink. To thank her for making the first lesson so painless. He’d said he hated school as a child and had been nervous about enrolling in adult education.

  Of course there had been other women before her but he had promised them nothing, made it clear that commitment wasn’t an option. He had planned his life. He was in every sense a self-made man. The right wife had been as important as becoming the youngest first-class pilot on the Humber. He stuck rigidly to the structure, would consider no flexibility. He was ambitious, but there was more to it than that. The plan was all that held his life together. And it had worked out. Emma had been everything he had hoped for.

  Outside it was still raining, but a persistent drizzle. He thought this part of the country had more shades of grey than anywhere he had ever visited. And he had travelled the world to get his master’s ticket. Grey sea mist in the summer, slatey storm clouds, a sea that was almost black. Tonight it was a dense, pale grey, like thick smoke, which bounced back the car’s headlights.

  The windscreen wipers had a soporific effect and the car journey to the pilot office was so familiar that it took no concentration. Occasionally James came to a junction, saw a pub sign or a church lurk out of the gloom and became aware with a jerk of where he was. Otherwise he drove automatically, in a daze. It would have been easy to lapse into thoughts of the past in this state. Robert’s probing about his relatives had disturbed him There must be someone… We all have ancient aunts, second cousins. And then there was Keith Mantel. His face was everywhere. Staring out of the television, the front page of newspapers. It would be easy to allow himself to dwell on that. But James had trained himself to avoid unpleasant thoughts. He had too much to lose by giving in to panic. He breathed slowly and thought of Emma, the perfect pilot’s wife, gentle and undemanding, lying dreaming in his bed.

  He had come to the outskirts of the city. Everywhere, along the river, there were scars of development. Half-built new roads, sleeping cranes, the skeletons of demolished buildings. Until a year before, the pilots had been based in an eighteenth-century house which stood on the corner of a pleasant street and looked out towards the waterfront. James had loved working from there. He’d sensed the men who’d gone before him when he walked through the door, imagined he could smell them, their tobacco and the salt on their clothes. It had been his way of making himself part of the tradition. For many of the men that came naturally. Their fathers and grandfathers had been pilots and they’d been boys together in the Trinity House School. Whenever he came to work, he planned his route so he still passed the old pilot office. It was empty, waiting for refurbishment, too valuable an asset to be used for the purpose for which it had been built. He slowed the car as he drove past, enjoying the lines of the building, allowing himself the memory of his first day there. Then he saw that the house had been sold. A huge n
otice with a familiar logo had been fastened to the front wall, between the two lines of long windows. Property acquired by Mantel Development for conversion to luxury apartments. All enquiries to our Kingston upon Hull office.

  For a moment the reaction to this notice confused him. He didn’t recognize the emotion. It had been so long. Anger, of course. There was a moment of liberation when he felt he could give into it. Then there was only disgust. As if someone had ground dog muck onto a valuable carpet. And by the time he walked into the shabby prefab which had become the pilot office, he was all smiles, all quiet charm.

  “What is the name of the ship? I didn’t catch it on the phone. Oh yes. The skipper’s an old friend. There’ll be no problem tonight.”

  He picked up the keys to the pool car and went on his way. The M62 was almost empty and he drove too fast.

  Goole is a small town, dominated by the docks. The river seems to cut right into the heart of the web of narrow streets. It must be strange to look out of a bedroom window and see a huge container vessel sliding past, so close that you feel you could reach out and touch the hull, that the seaman drinking from a mug in the cockpit might offer you a drink too. When James drove through the town it was empty. Two in the morning, and still raining. He could believe that everyone was sleeping except for him and the crew who waited for him.

  But as he walked from his car to board the ship, out of the corner of his eye he saw a man standing next to a pile of containers. The figure was familiar. Hair so short it looked as if it had been shaved. The navy donkey jacket. James had to stop himself from calling out. Only later he told himself it would be impossible to have seen colour in this light. That it had been a mistake or a hallucination. He didn’t believe in ghosts.

  Chapter Ten

  Some men hated the night tides, the lack of sleep, the effort of making conversation with a captain who wanted to practise his English in the early hours of the morning. But James had practised the art of being pleasant until it came naturally. He could be almost asleep on his feet, but still he would look at the photos of the skipper’s wife and children back home, discuss the relative merits of the goods displayed in the Argos catalogue with a seaman who was astounded by the variety reproduced on the cheap, shiny paper, gratefully accept a mug of tea although the milk was sweet and thick and came out of a tin.