Telling Tales

by Ann Cleeves

  She’d phoned ahead and they were ready for her. She’d asked to speak to anyone who’d known Jeanie well and was surprised when she was shown straight to the governor’s office. She thought she could work out what that was about. Suicide in custody was a sensitive business. There were probably league tables. He’d want to make it clear that his institution wasn’t responsible, that they’d followed the guidelines to the letter. But as soon as she saw him she realized she’d misjudged him. He was standing at the window, looking down at a square of concrete, which was already dark because of the high walls surrounding it. A group of women was being escorted across it. They stood waiting, stamping their feet and shouting, while an officer locked the door of one building and walked round them to unlock the door of another.

  “That’s the education block,” the governor said. “Jeanie spent a lot of time in there. I thought it might help, that she’d see it as a constructive way to pass the time. Obviously I was wrong.”

  “You didn’t consider her a suicide risk, then?”

  He turned back into the room. “No. But I wasn’t surprised when it happened. I feel responsible. I should have seen it coming.”

  “You have a lot of women in your charge.” She said it as a fact, not an excuse, but he dismissed the idea, shaking his head.

  “None of them had been here as long as Jeanie. It was a terrible waste. She was never a security risk. If she’d said the right things, she could have moved to an open prison years ago.”

  “But she refused to play the game?”

  “I think she was incapable of lying,” he said. “I’ve worked for the prison service for twenty years and I’d never met anyone like her.”

  “You believed her defence at the trial, then?”

  “Jeanie Long didn’t kill anyone,” he said firmly. “I was quite sure of that as soon as I met her.”

  Vera thought that he’d been a little bit in love with her, and that he was too easily moved to be in charge of a women’s prison.

  “How did she fit in here?”

  “She didn’t. Not with the other women. Lifers often achieve the status of celebrities. It’s not that everyone here is a ghoul. It has more to do with the publicity surrounding the case than the nature of the crime. For the lifers themselves, it’s easy to be flattered by the attention and it can make life inside easier. Jeanie refused to play the role. She only talked about the offence to protest her innocence.”

  “Was she close to anyone?”

  “As I said, to none of the women. We appointed a new chaplain a year ago and Jeanie seemed to respect her.”

  “What about the officers? The teachers?”

  “No. Prison works on the principle of consent. Offenders recognize their guilt and the right of the authorities to order their lives. Jeanie never did. She questioned, challenged. It made her unpopular. The standard of teaching in prison, especially a prison like this, which doesn’t hold many long-term inmates, has to be pretty basic. Jeanie could be dismissive, almost rude. She’d had a better education than most of the teachers and didn’t hide it.”

  “How did she get on with her probation officer?”

  “There wasn’t much contact. Probation officers are supposed to maintain a link with offenders in custody, but there are often more pressing demands on their time. I looked at the welfare report after Jeanie died and Robert Winter seemed to have been very fair. He tried to encourage her to say and do all the right things. He visited her father in the hope of rinding her a supportive home after her release. I’m afraid Mr. Long wasn’t very helpful.”

  “Long thought she’d killed the girl and deserved to be here.”

  The governor seemed unable to speak. Vera wanted to slap some life into him. “Did you know that Mr. Winter was indirectly involved in the Mantel case? His daughter found the girl’s body.”

  “No.” The governor seemed shocked. “But then I never met him. I had no reason to. I have regular contact with the welfare officers who are based here, of course, but not with those who come in from outside.”

  “When did he last visit Jeanie?”

  The governor reached over and pulled a file from a tidy pile on the table under the window, but Vera had the impression he knew the answer already.

  “Three days before she died.”

  The chaplain had a small office behind the chapel. Usually she would have left by now, the governor said, but she’d hung on specially to see Vera. He called an officer to take her, a friendly young woman, who shouted to the women on the wing by name. It was teatime and they’d formed a disorderly queue along the corridor to collect food from a hatch. A very thin girl with unkempt hair and slashes on her wrists was singing to herself. Something loud and aggressive. No one took any notice. Jeanie would have stood here too, Vera thought. Aloof and friendless.

  “Did you know Jeanie Long?” she asked the officer.

  “Yes.”

  “What did you make of her?”

  The woman shrugged. “Not much to tell the truth. She thought she was better than the rest of them. And she’d managed to twist the number one governor round her little finger. Not that it’s hard to do that. He’s taken in by all their sob stories.”

  She realized that she’d been indiscreet and they walked on through the jostling, curious women in silence.

  The chaplain was small. She wore a white nylon roll neck sweater, under a brightly coloured cardigan, to represent the dog collar, and red cord trousers. She made Vera tea.

  “That’s all some of them come for,” she said. “lea in a china cup and biscuits. I don’t mind. It doesn’t seem a lot to ask occasionally, does it?”

  “What did Jeanie Long come for?”

  “She said it was for some intelligent conversation and a break from the noise on the wing.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Perhaps. And rather arrogant. I didn’t find her an easy person to like, Inspector. She believed she was different from the other women. She wasn’t prepared to give them a chance.”

  “She was innocent,” Vera said, trying to contain her anger. “That made her different. How often did you see her?”

  “Once a week, on Friday mornings. The governor asked me to talk to her when I first arrived here. He said she was having a hard time. She wasn’t getting on with her named officer. We fell into the habit of weekly meetings. I’m not sure what she really got out of them.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Not religion,” the chaplain said quickly. “She made it clear from the beginning that that was a no-go area. “My mother believed in all that crap and look what it did for her.” She was always on her guard against anything which might seduce her away from the fight. As if she had to stay angry to keep faith with herself. “It would be so easy to give in,” she said once. “To let it go.” The only times I ever did see her let it go was when she talked about music. She became a different person then, gentler and more relaxed.”

  “Did you discuss the Mantel case?”

  “She did certainly. At every opportunity. I was uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t want to encourage false hopes. The case went to appeal once, soon after she was sentenced, but it was thrown out. There was no new evidence. I couldn’t see that it would ever be reopened. And of course all my training and belief, and the ethos of the prison, is about acceptance of wrongdoing. That has to come before the possibility of rehabilitation.”

  “You believed she killed the girl, then?” Vera thought this was a load of sanctimonious nonsense.

  “I’m naive. I didn’t think the court could get it that wrong. I thought perhaps she’d convinced herself that she was innocent because she couldn’t face the horror of what she’d done. And I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that she was very manipulative, that I was being conned.”

  “Did she take any practical steps to clear her name?”

  “I think she did in the beginning. She wrote letters to the newspapers, and anyone else she could
think of, protesting her innocence. Though soon she wasn’t news any more and the press lost interest, until The Guardian picked up on the ten year anniversary of the trial. Soon after her conviction her mother took out an advert in one of the London papers with a photo, asking anyone who’d seen Jeanie on the day the girl was killed to come forward. Then her mother died, and I suppose she gave up hope. All she could do was to go over and over the facts.”

  And that’s what she did at your meetings?”

  “For much of the time. I didn’t think it was healthy, repeating the same stories, week after week. She said she had to remember. Everyone else would forget what had happened. Some day, she said, she might have to stand up in court and give her version of events again. She’d need to know what to say.”

  “Can you remember what she told you?”

  “Oh, I think so,” the chaplain said. “I heard it often enough.” She turned slightly in her chair, so she wasn’t looking directly at Vera. Outside there was a brief commotion, raised voices, the shout of an officer, but she took no notice. “Jeanie was passionate about music. Ambitious. She wanted to make a career of it. Not teaching, she said. She’d never have managed that. She knew it would be tough to get into the profession, so at university she stayed focused, concentrated on her work. She went out with a couple of lads, but there was nothing serious. They’d have got in the way. Then she met Keith Mantel and she was in love. The way most kids are when they’re fifteen and fall for some pop star But Keith Mantel was real and available and he seemed to reciprocate her feelings.”

  “What did she feel about Mantel when she was inside?”

  “She said she had no regrets. That summer was the most wonderful time of her life. Remembering it was all that kept her going. I think she still had the fantasy that when her name was cleared they’d get back together’

  “Did she talk about Abigail?”

  i “Yes, and it was almost as if she blamed the girl for her own murder. I hated the way she spoke about her. She said the power Abigail had over her father was unnatural, strange. “If I was religious, I’d have said she was evil. I tried to understand her, but it’s hard to understand someone who’s that screwed up and self-obsessed. Of course, I could see how it had happened

  her mother dying when she was young, her father spoiling her. But she’d turned into a monster and there’s no excuse for that.” She blamed Abigail, of course, for Keith’s decision to throw her out. I could tell that still hurt. She was still making excuses for it, trying to find an explanation which didn’t have her playing the role of spurned lover.”

  “Did she describe the day of the murder?”

  “Yes, and it was much as she told it in court. She phoned the Old Chapel early in the morning. There was only the answer machine. That didn’t mean Keith wasn’t in. She said he wouldn’t talk to her, that he knew if they spoke together he’d have to let her back. She was tempted to go to see him, but it was a weekend and she knew he wouldn’t be himself if Abigail was there. On a whim she decided to go away for the day. She drove to Hull and took the first train to London. She got a train back in the late afternoon. No one saw her or spoke to her. When she arrived back at her parents’ house she learned that Abigail was dead. She tried to phone Keith to offer her sympathy, but again there was no reply. Her parents persuaded her not to go to the house. Later she was told that he’d moved in with a friend so he could grieve in peace. Only a few days later she was arrested.”

  “Did she have any theories about who had killed Abigail?”

  “Usually she spoke vaguely about Abigail asking for trouble. The way she dressed and led men on. Posing and giggling and flirting. Some sad, sick old man, Jeanie said. I did wonder…”

  “Yes?”

  “I did wonder if Jeanie might have been talking about her father. If that was why she hated him so much. Not because he’d killed Abigail. She’d have forgiven him for that. But for letting her take the blame. For leaving her to rot in here. I didn’t believe that, though. Not for more than a moment. I thought she was guilty.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When Vera arrived back at her hotel it was almost dinnertime and she was spoiling for a fight. From the prison she’d gone into Crill, into the police station, where the incident room had been set up. She’d expected to be treated as she was at home. Not quite as a female deity, but as someone whose word counted for something. It hadn’t been like that. Paul Holness had been there, lording it over the incident room, shouting his orders, handing out scraps of praise to his adoring team. He’d treated her requests first with a patronizing amusement then with downright hostility. She’d misjudged him. Holness might not be bright but he didn’t want her playing an active role in the Christopher Winter murder enquiry.

  In the hotel, she went straight to the bar. It was furnished like a gentleman’s club with dim lighting and music so low it was impossible to make out what it was. It seemed more like a vibration in the background than music, the irritating hum of an insect. She could have done with a shower but she needed a drink more. And she didn’t feel like drinking on her own. She phoned Ashworth’s mobile.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just got in.” He sensed her mood and added

  ‘ma’am’. An insurance policy. It didn’t do any harm and sometimes it mollified her. Not tonight.

  “Get down here. I’m buying.”

  She sat, taking up most of a leather Chesterfield with her bags and her coat, fuming, until he arrived.

  “How was the visit to the prison?” he asked, mildly.

  “Interesting, but we’ll talk about that later.”

  “And your meeting with the local plods?”

  She didn’t answer directly. “What did you make of them, anyway? Did they give up the list of witnesses who were at Mantel’s? Without a fight?”

  “No bother. But it saved them a bit of work, didn’t it? An extra body to check through the statements and do the follow-up visits. They weren’t going to turn that down.”

  “I found them bloody obstructive.”

  He said nothing, thought, You didn’t get your own way, then.

  “They want to treat the two cases as separate investigations. There’s no evidence to link the two enquiries at this point. So they say. So Holness says. It’s madness. And even if there were, it’s not my role to find out who killed Abigail, only to reach a decision about how the original team got it wrong.”

  “It’ll be political,” he said. “They’d not want an outsider taking over a live murder case. It’d make them all look incompetent. You never thought you’d get away with that? I can’t imagine you agreeing to it on our patch.”

  “Maybe not,” she said.

  “Holness could have asked you to put the Mantel enquiry on hold, while the current investigation is underway.”

  “I’d like to see him try!” She hated Ashworth when he was being reasonable. “Besides, the press would see it as a cover-up.”

  “Are any of the officers who worked on the Mantel case part of the team looking into Christopher Winter’s murder?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I can’t see that you can object, then. It’s a fresh team. Not likely the same mistakes will be made this time. And they’ll keep you informed of developments…”

  “They say they will. Especially if they turn up anything which relates to the Mantel investigation.”

  “Well, then.”

  She drank her Scotch and suddenly grinned at him. “Don’t mind me, pet. I just want to be home. You know.”

  He nodded.

  “How did you get on?” she asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll get much from the witness statements. It seems the Winter family were among the last people to arrive at the party. Caroline Fletcher arrived later but she told the locals last night that she didn’t meet anyone in the lane on her way in.”

  “So if anyone at the bonfire killed Christopher, she was the most likely?”

  “Nah,” he
said. “Any one of them could have slipped out to meet the lad without the rest of the crowd noticing. No one saw Robert Winter leave, but then they didn’t miss Mrs. Winter either when she went out to fetch her coat.”

  “Have they found the murder weapon yet?”

  “No. They’re going to continue the search at first light.”

  “They’re not much further forward then,” she said, unable to keep the satisfaction from her voice.

  “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

  “We need to talk to Mantel. They can’t object to that. He was our victim’s father. It’s only right.”

  When they approached the Old Chapel the next morning it was only just light. The rain had stopped, though there was still the wind, which blew a paper fertilizer sack into the road in front of them, and dead twigs from the bent trees, and eddies of sand and straw. It was the wind which Mantel mentioned first when he opened the door. “Blowing into a storm,” he said, looking up into the grey, racing clouds, as if he’d lived in the country all his life, as if he knew about boats and tides and the weather.

  Vera introduced herself.

  “You’re leading the new enquiry into my daughter’s death?”

  “That’s right. This is my sergeant.”

  “I thought you might have been here to see me earlier. It would have been courteous. I only heard they were reopening the case from the press.”

  Vera muttered something about only having made preliminary enquiries, but she knew he was right and anyway he hadn’t made the point aggressively. Whatever his past record, whatever Michael Long had thought, seeing him now, she felt sorry for him.

  “You’re lucky to catch me in. I decided to work at home today, cancelled all my meetings. I couldn’t face it. That business with the lad the other night, it brought it all back.”

  They were still standing at the arched wooden door and could see the crime scene. A bit of blue and white tape had come loose and was blowing crazily, like the tail of a big, flash kite, the sort controlled by two strings. A line of officers in overalls and navy anoraks walked slowly, eyes to the ground, across a neighbouring field.