Telling Tales

by Ann Cleeves

  If she asked for specific details the local team would probably tell her, but she wanted more than that. She needed the wild theories, the gossip in the pub at the end of the day. Besides, she had too much pride to ask.

  She was glad to be outside to clear her head. Each night she promised herself she’d have a night off the drink but she never quite managed it. She never got drunk, not stupid, student drunk, but some evenings she knew it was the only way she’d sleep. She had to reach just that point when her thoughts got mellow and blurry, and the details of the investigation didn’t matter quite so much. Then in the morning she’d wake up with a distant, heady feeling. And that was how she’d felt this morning. She’d carried on drinking when she’d got back to the hotel.

  The smell of frying bacon came out of one of the lifeboat houses, and she walked past quickly, because the way she was feeling she’d rather have salt and seaweed in her nostrils. Beyond the modern lifeboat houses there were two square white cottages, which had once housed the coast guards but where the coxswains now lived. In one of these Jeanie Long had grown up, and Michael had nursed his wife until she died.

  A woman came out of the cottage nearest to the sea. She was dressed in the coxswain’s uniform but her shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and she didn’t make her way to the jetty where the launch was moored. She was carrying a white enamel bowl. She walked round the house to a whitewashed shed in the back garden and returned with the bowl half full of sandy potatoes.

  A bit early for your dinner,” Vera said.

  The woman stopped. It seemed she didn’t mind chatting. “I’ll be working most of the day. Might as well get them peeled now.” With a bit of a wink. “I’ve got a friend coming for supper.” Then, “My dad’s got an allotment. He keeps me in veg.”

  “Nothing like home-grown.”

  “So he’s always telling me.”

  Vera took out her warrant card. “I’m looking into the Abigail Mantel murder. Have you got time for a word? You can do the spuds while we’re talking.”

  “Nah,” she said. “I’ll be glad of an excuse for a coffee. Come in. I’ll stick the kettle on.”

  Her name was Wendy Jowell. The first female coxswain on the Humber, she said. It wasn’t like being a proper pilot. All she did was take the launch out to collect the pilot from the ship once he’d got it out of the river. Or take him out.

  “The pilots,” Vera asked. “They’re all men, are they?”

  “Of course. That’s where the money is, isn’t it?”

  They laughed. “One time,” Vera said, ‘you never got female detectives. Not above the rank of sergeant. Things change.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want it, anyway. Too much responsibility. Too much pressure. I’m all right where I am.”

  “Do you know Michael Long?”

  “He took me out a few times when I was training. Not that he liked doing it, miserable sod. He couldn’t understand how they could appoint a woman. Then I tqok over from him when he retired. I’ve not seen him lately. He hid himself away after Peg died.”

  “Were you living round here at the time of Abigail’s murder?”

  “In Elvet, in one of the council houses. I was still married then. It was just before I saw sense.”

  “Did you know Jeanie?”

  “A place this size, you know most people. To say hello to at least. She worked in the Anchor sometimes. We might even have been at school together though I don’t remember that. She’d have been younger than me.”

  “What did you make of her?”

  “I liked her. Some people said she was a bit arsy just because she got all her exams and went off to university. I think she was shy, that’s all. You’d see her in the pub, blokes making smutty jokes, pervy Barry eyeing her up and she hated it. She put on a good front. I admired her for that. But she wasn’t used to it. She’d been away to college yet you’d think she was just a kid. And it can’t have been much fun having Michael Long as your dad.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not exactly sensitive, our Michael. Typical bluff Yorkshireman and proud of it. Bit of a bully on the quiet too.”

  “Violent?”

  “Not that I’ve heard, but aggressive. Especially when he’s had a few drinks. The way he talks now, you’d think him and Peg had never had a cross word, but it wasn’t always like that. Before she got ill he didn’t mind having a go at her. In public sometimes. Once in the Anchor, when she was trying to persuade him to go home, he started yelling at her, calling her all sorts. I wouldn’t have put up with it, myself.”

  “It’s humiliating,” Vera said, ‘when it happens in public’

  “Tbo right.” There was a moment of silence when they both seemed lost in memory.

  “What about Emma Bennett?” Vera asked. “Emma Winter she’d have been then. Did you know her around the time of the murder?”

  “She’d be the exception that proved the rule. I wouldn’t even have known her if I’d bumped into her in the street. She was a lot younger than me and they’d only just moved into Springhead then. After it had happened people pointed her out. You know how people gossip “See that lass, that’s the one who found the Mantel girl’s body.” But until then I had no idea.”

  “And now she’s married to one of the pilots.”

  “Aye, to James.” She lingered just long enough over the words to give a sense of appreciation. Vera said nothing, hoped she’d continue. “Now, James Bennett,” Wendy said at last. “There’s a man who’s too good to be true.”

  “What do you mean?” Vera kept her voice even, barely interested.

  “Well, he’s something else, isn’t he? Good looking, considerate. And a bloody good pilot.”

  “So everyone tells me.”

  “Some of the pilots hardly acknowledge you. I mean, it’s like they’ve called a minicab on a Friday night to get them home from town. You get a grunt if you’re lucky. James is different. Even when you can tell he’s knackered, he’s polite.”

  “Does Emma know how lucky she is?”

  “James is besotted, I know that.” And Emma?”

  “You can’t tell, can you? She’s a bit like Jeanie Long. All restrained and tongue-tied. Repressed. Another one with an overbearing father.”

  “How do you know Robert Winter?” Vera was surprised. She wouldn’t have thought they moved in the same circles. But maybe, as Wendy had said, in a place the size of El vet everyone knew everyone else. Or thought they did.

  Wendy paused and for a moment Vera thought she would avoid answering. “I married a loser,” Wendy said in the end. “He was a flash bastard, full of schemes and dreams and promises that we’d be rich, but it was all make believe. All that happened was that he ended up in court charged with fraud and nicking credit cards.”

  “He got probation,” Vera said.

  “Aye, and he always had something better to do than keep his appointments in the office, so we’d have Robert Winter sniffing about the place looking for him.”

  “You didn’t like Mr. Winter?”

  “He was so patronizing. Like he was perfect or something and the rest of us were too dumb to organize our own lives. Jed, my bloke, was no angel. He was into all sorts of stuff that I didn’t know about. Didn’t want to know about. And he could get nasty when he’d had a few drinks. Like Michael Long. I could recognize the type. But I didn’t need Robert Winter to tell me that. And I’d have left him a hell of a lot sooner if Winter hadn’t kept telling me to.” She smiled. “I always was a stubborn cow. Never liked being told what to do.”

  “No,” Vera said. “Nor do I. That’s why I got myself up the ladder a bit. So I could do the telling. I wouldn’t have thought that’d have been Mr. Winter’s style, though. I’d have thought he’d have been into the sanctity of marriage. He’s religious, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a creep.” But Wendy seemed to have lost interest. Anyway, I didn’t have to see him much after that. Jed got nicked again and was sent away. By the time he got out of prison I’
d got a job on the ferries. That gave me the bug and I ended up here.”

  “How did James end up here?” Vera asked, as if it was the most natural question in the world, as if, really, she couldn’t care less. “I mean what’s his background?”

  “I don’t know,” Wendy said. “That’s one of the great things about him. He doesn’t talk much about himself. With most blokes it’s all me, me, me, isn’t it? Not James. He just seems interested in other people.”

  Outside in the glaring sunlight, Vera thought that did sound a bit too good to be true. She sat on one of the wooden benches outside the cafe and drank milky coffee, not really sure what she was waiting for. A couple of birdwatchers in ridiculous hats munched their way through sausage sandwiches. They spoke with their mouths full about birds they’d seen and missed. Vera, whose father had been a birdwatcher of a kind, felt a strange nostalgia. Grease from the sandwich dribbled down one of the men’s chin but he wiped it away before it hit the lens of the binoculars which were strung round his neck. Wendy Jowell came out of her cottage and walked along the jetty to the launch. Vera watched it slide from the shelter of the river into open water, then bounce against the incoming waves, until it disappeared round the Point. The birdwatchers wandered away and she was starting to feel cold, but still she couldn’t bring herself to move off.

  Her phone rang just as the launch came back into view. It was Ashworth.

  “I thought you’d like to know what we’ve got so far.”

  We. So he’d already started to work his magic, making allies, building bridges. The local team would feel sorry for him, being managed by a fat cow like her.

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve checked with the DVLC and the passport office. According to them everything seems OK. James Richard Bennett. Date of birth the sixteenth of June 1966. Place of birth was Crill, East Yorkshire.”

  “Local then. And Mantel must have got it wrong when he said Bennett wasn’t his real name. Or be making mischief. According to Michael Long they grew up in the same town. Maybe it was a case of settling old scores.” She was disappointed. She’d felt in her water that James Bennett wasn’t real. He wasn’t a man she could believe in. Like Wendy had said, too good to be true.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Oh?”

  “His birth wasn’t registered in that name. No national insurance number, no record of his existence until 1987.”

  “When he’d have been twenty-one. So if Mantel knew him as someone different he’d have been very young. But they could have met. They both lived in Crill. I wouldn’t have put it past Mantel to involve young people in his dodgy businesses. They come cheap, after all.”

  “I checked with the Public Record Office. He changed his name by deed poll in 1987. Did everything right. Got an old teacher to support the application. It has to be someone who’s known you for at least ten years. Advertised in the London Gazette like you’re supposed to. Signed the deed poll in his old and new name.”

  “What was his old name?”

  “Shaw. James Richard Shaw.”

  “Not a name that you could take exception to,” Vera said. “I mean some names, you can see why someone would want to change them. But not Shaw. So why go through all that effort? Who did he want to hide from?”

  “Mantel?” Ashworth suggested.

  “Maybe. Bennett went away to sea. That suggests running away to me. Then perhaps he came back when he thought he was safe.”

  “To a village where Mantel was living? That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Perhaps the situation had changed. Perhaps he was prepared to risk it for Emma to live close to her parents. People can look a lot different after fifteen years. Do you think the wife knows about the name change?”

  “She wouldn’t have to. If you’re already married, you have to notify your spouse of a name change, but banns of marriage can be called in the new name.”

  “All the same,” Vera said, ‘it’s a big secret to keep. You’d need a good reason not to tell your new wife that you grew up with another name. And wouldn’t she find out when she met all the relatives?”

  “Perhaps she hasn’t.”

  “I don’t suppose James Richard Shaw has a criminal record. That he was in a Young Offender Institute until

  1987 and he changed his name to put that behind him?”

  , “I did check,” Ashworth said. “First thing I thought of

  Smart-arse, she thought. “Well?”

  “Nothing. Hasn’t been in trouble in either name. Not even a speeding ticket.”

  She didn’t speak again immediately. The launch was pulling back into the jetty. She saw two dark silhouettes on the deck, sharp against the sparkling water. They began to climb the ladder from the boat.

  “What would you like me to do now?” Ashworth asked.

  The figures reached the top of the jetty and she could see them more clearly. One was James Bennett.

  “Nothing,” she said with regret. “A bit more digging. If there’s something odd about Bennett we don’t want to let him know we’re onto him. Not until we’ve a bit more of an idea what it’s about.”

  She was still sitting outside the cafe when the pilot drove past. She didn’t think he noticed her.

  Chapter Thirty

  When Michael Long opened his door to her, she was surprised by the response a mixture of irritation and relief.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you,” he said, as if she’d been deliberately trying to avoid him.

  “Well, you’ve got me now so you’d best let me in.”

  He stood aside and she went ahead of him into the small front room where they’d sat and talked the week before.

  “Every time I phoned there’d be someone different to talk to. Sometimes no one at all, just a recorded message. And none of them would put me onto you.”

  “They’re busy,” Vera snapped. “A case like this, do you know how many calls they get to the incident room?”

  He looked at her as if she’d bitten him, but he stopped complaining. She thought there’d been no need to be so sharp with him. Was she less sympathetic because of what Wendy Jowell had said about him being a bully? She was trying to think of something to say to make him believe she was still on his side, but he spoke first.

  “I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? Daresay you’re ready for a brew.”

  God, she thought, any more tea and I’ll float away up the Humber like one of those bloated container ships. “Aye,” she said. “Why not?”

  When he came back, carrying the tray, he was so eager to please, to pour the tea strong as she liked it, that it was easy to appear understanding.

  “Why did you want the pleasure of my company, anyway?” she said. “What was it that wouldn’t wait?”

  “I saw the lad, Christopher Winter, the day he died. I didn’t know it was him when I saw him. But they had his picture in the paper, asking if anyone had seen him. I recognized him from that.”

  “You should have told the officers in the incident room,” she said carefully, not telling him off exactly, just making the point. “It could be important.” But even as she was speaking she couldn’t help feeling a childish satisfaction because she’d got hold of the information before the local team.

  “Aye, well. I might have done if they’d been less rude.”

  She let that go.

  “Where did you see him?”

  “In the cemetery at the edge of the village. I’d gone to visit Peg’s grave. It’d been a while since I’d been there and I wanted to pay my respects. Show her I was on my feet again, like.” He looked up. “Daft, I know.”

  “Not daft at all,” she said. “What time was this?”

  “Early in the morning. Around eight o’clock.”

  “What was Christopher Winter doing?”

  “Same as me, I think. Mourning. He was standing next to the grave of the lass our Jeanie was supposed to have killed.”

  “Did you speak?”

  Michael
Long shook his head. “He was too upset to notice me. I mean, there still wasn’t much light, but even if there had been, I don’t think he’d have seen. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation myself

  “What was he wearing?”

  “One of those long waterproofs with a jumper underneath. Jeans, I think.”

  She nodded. Those were the clothes he’d been wearing when Mary had found the body.

  “Did you see where he went after? Or was he still there when you left?”

  “He went before me,” Michael said, “but he seemed to vanish into thin air. I walked back to the village soon after he’d left but I didn’t see him ahead of me.”

  “Maybe he just walked faster than you.”

  “Aye, maybe. But I don’t move badly for my age. It wasn’t the weather to hang about. And if he’d gone back to Elvet someone would have seen him. He’d have had to pass the bus stop and there were a load of kids waiting there.” He seemed to lose his concentration for a moment. Vera waited for him to continue. “At the time I wondered if he’d gone in the opposite direction, towards the river, but I can’t think what would have taken him there at that time of day.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “I might have got it wrong and I know how important it is, not jumping to conclusions…”

  “You know how important it is people speaking up. If that lad who saw Jeanie at King’s Cross had said so at the time…”

  “I heard him talking,” Michael said. At the time I

  thought he was just raving. I mean, that’s what it looked like. Some madman. You could believe he was talking to himself. Later I wondered if he had a mobile phone. The way he was standing, he could have been using a mobile. I saw a couple of lasses at the bus stop later gabbing into one and that made me think.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”