by Ann Cleeves
And what, exactly, did happen?”
“Robert Winter became obsessed with the daughter. He followed her around, waited for her outside school. Made a real nuisance of himself.” Ashworth paused. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t. Not really. But there had to be something to make them change their lives so dramatically.” And there was something about him, something that made my flesh crawl. And the psychiatrist said someone sufficiently controlled could get away with it.
“To make him turn to God?”
Aye, I suppose…” She nodded towards the house. “What’s happening in there?”
“I don’t know. It’s been quiet while I’ve been here.”
“You’ve not seen Emma Bennett go in?”
“No, but I’ve only just arrived.”
“She’s had a row with her husband and gone missing.” Vera explained about Michael Long and the scene in the Anchor. “Probably nothing, but I’ve got a nasty feeling about it.”
“It can’t be significant, can it?” He turned to her easily. He thought he knew now exactly who’d killed Abigail and Christopher. She didn’t answer immediately. Now it came to it, she wasn’t sure any more.
“Maybe not.”
“How do you want to play it?” he said. “We could wait until morning, get a warrant. The boy’s mobile has still not been found. If that’s in there, we’ve got a result.”
Vera thought she couldn’t stand to wait until morning. She hated this case. She hated all the pretending, the unfinished grieving, the foul, flat country. She wanted to be home. Besides, there was Emma and the bairn to consider.
“Why don’t we go in?”
“Now?”
“No big deal. A few informal questions. And we’ve got an excuse. We’re looking for Emma.”
“What if we scare him away?”
“I don’t think that’s likely, do you?” Ashworth considered for a moment. “No,” he said. “Someone like that, he wants to be caught.”
Vera didn’t think Joe had got that quite right, but she was still hoping to persuade him to bend a few rules, so she didn’t say anything.
Ashworth reached for the key to turn on the engine, but she stopped him.
“We’ll walk in. Don’t want to give any warning.”
And she needed time to work it all out. Not so much that, to psyche herself up, to believe again that she was up to the job. To forget that moment of panic outside the Captain’s House. They walked up the straight, flat drive to the house and their eyes got used to the dark, so after a while they didn’t need Joe Ashworth’s torch. It was a clear night. It might freeze later, like the night Christopher was killed. Would Robert and Mary be looking out at the stars, remembering? There was enough light from the traffic passing on the road and the moon. To their right, the coast was marked by the red lamp on the pilot mast and ahead of them were two orange squares, one above the other. One downstairs and one upstairs window in the ugly square house. Another sort of beacon.
The curtains at the kitchen window weren’t drawn, and Vera stood, pressed against the wall so she couldn’t be seen from inside, looking in. Robert and Mary were sitting at the kitchen table. Mary stood up, took a pan of milk from the Aga and poured it into mugs. Only two mugs, Vera saw. Something of the panic returned. Where was Emma? From another room there came a noise, a howl.
Then Emma walked in and Vera felt her pulse slow. She was carrying a screaming baby on her hip and her eyes were red from crying. Mary offered to take Matthew from her, but she held onto him. She paced up and down, rubbing his back until the cries subsided, then she took her place at the table. Immediately Robert started to talk to her.
All this talk, Vera thought. Everyone sitting around telling stories to justify themselves or shift the guilt. She wondered what could have happened. Had Emma been to the pottery at all? Perhaps Dan had given her a lift. Another story, Vera thought. More explanations. Emma had come to Springhead to collect the baby of course, not to talk to her parents. She’d never confided in them.
She continued to stand there in the yard looking in. Outside was the huge winter sky, which made you dizzy just to think of it, inside a small family drama, a soap opera. And she was in the middle. Even if they’d been able to make out her shadow in the darkness, she thought they wouldn’t have noticed. They were engrossed in conversation and she could hear everything which was going on. Springhead House had never run to double glazing.
Mary was talking now. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would James do such a thing?”
“I don’t understand either. He lied to me. What else is there to know? If Mr. Long hadn’t dug up his past he probably never would have told me.”
“Shouldn’t you ask him?”
“Perhaps he lied because he killed Abigail. I don’t want to hear that.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Mary said. “James changed his name. It doesn’t make him a different person. He didn’t lie about anything important. And you married him, you had his child. It’s not something you can just walk out of. You can’t run away.” She was clutching the big patchwork bag on her knee as if she had a baby of her own.
“Why not? Isn’t that what he did? He didn’t like who he was, so he ran away.”
“You should phone him,” Robert said. “He’ll be worried.”
“Good.” Emma could have been fifteen again, defiant, determined to get her own way. Vera thought she must have had exactly that expression before she set off to meet Abigail in the Old Chapel, venting her fury in her battle against the wind. “I hope he’s desperate with worry.”
Vera walked away from the window and knocked on the kitchen door. Not too loud. The state of their nerves, she’d give them all heart attacks. But they’d probably think it was James. She imagined them staring at each other, trying to decide who should answer. Eventually, Emma opened the door. That would be what the parents had wanted, Vera thought. They always knew what was best for her, and they always got their way. The young woman stood in the doorway, still holding the baby, glaring out at them.
“I can’t believe James got you involved with this,” Emma said. “It’s not police business. Nothing to do with you.”
“He was worried,” Vera said mildly. “It’d do no harm to let him know you’re safe. Are you going to let us in?”
“What do you want from us at this time of night?”
A few questions. As you’re all up anyway.”
The fight seemed to leave Emma suddenly and she became passive again, wan, girlish. She stood aside to let them past. Why does she do it? Vera thought. Why does she turn into a child every time there’s trouble? That little-girl look. The big sad eyes. Is it conscious?
Does she think it will keep her out of bother? Make Dan Greenwood love her?
“How did you get here?” Vera asked. Emma, in this mode, made her want to lash out and the question came out brutally.
“I got a lift.”
“Where is he now?”
“Who?” But already Emma was blushing. It started at her neck and ears and moved up her face.
“Dan Greenwood. You went to see him. He gave you a lift here. Don’t mess me about. If I ask you questions, it’s because I need information.”
“I don’t know where he is now.” Emma seemed on the verge of tears. Vera could sense Ashworth behind her, winding himself up to be chivalrous. Any minute now he’d be offering the lass his hankie. He was always taken in by a pretty face and a sob story. She moved through to the kitchen where the Winters were sitting just as they’d been when she’d watched them through the window.
“I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion,” she said.
Nobody spoke. They stared at her.
“I’ve just told Emma, there are a few more questions.” And then, she thought, with a bit of luck she’d be away from this place and these people. They were getting under her skin. She could almost believe that they were the cause of the allergy on her legs, the itching and scratching. I
t was the people, or the stagnant water in the ditches, or the rotting weeds in the set-aside fields. Then she told herself not to be so daft and get on with the job.
“An investigation like this,” she said, ‘we have to dig deep. People have secrets…”
“Are you talking about James?” Robert interrupted. “Emma has already explained about that. There was no need for you to come all the way out here.”
“No,” Vera said. “Not James.” She stopped, turned to Emma. “But why don’t you phone him? Put the poor man out of his misery.”
“What other secrets can there be?” Emma said.
Vera didn’t answer directly. “Phone James. Listen to what he has to say.”
“Why do you want me out of the way?” Emma said. “I’m not a child. You can talk in front of me.”
Vera looked at her sadly.
“Sergeant Ashworth has been doing most of the leg work. He spent the day in York.” Robert Winter was sitting opposite her. She was watching for a reaction, but none came. Perhaps he’d been expecting this. Perhaps he’d been waiting for it from the time news of Jeanie Long’s innocence was released. Beside her, Mary, who had been restless all evening, was becoming even more agitated.
“We don’t need to discuss this now, do we? It’s late. As you can tell, Inspector, we have our own family problems. Emma’s very upset.”
“Mr. Winter?”
“What do you want to know?” His voice was professionally courteous, with just a hint of a threat. I hope you’re not here with allegations you can’t substantiate. We’re victims. You should treat us with respect and compassion.
“I spoke to your former business partner, Mrs. Sullivan.” Joe Ashworth was still standing by the door. They all looked up at him. At one time it would have made him awkward to be the centre of attention. Vera was proud of his new confidence, liked to think she had something to do with it.
“Maggie and I parted in rather unfriendly circumstances,” Robert said. “She felt she’d lost out financially. I don’t think you should depend on her version of events.”
“She told me you developed an obsession with her teenage daughter.”
“Ridiculous.”
“She said that she was the one to dissolve the partnership. She felt she was forced to break professional links with you, because she was so concerned about your relationship with Zoe.”
“Look,” Robert said. He put a smile into his voice, sounded like a politician at his most sincere. “Maggie Sullivan’s husband left them when Zoe was still a baby. I was a father figure. I admit I took an interest in the girl, but I thought I was helping.”
“I’m sure that was how it started. She was almost a part of the family, wasn’t she? She spent a lot of time in your home and she helped with your children.”
“She was an only child,” Robert said. “She loved them.”
“Then you started phoning her when you knew her mother wasn’t in the house. You took to waiting for her outside school, following her home. You wrote her love letters. Mrs. Sullivan described you as a stalker. She threatened to go to the police, but disliked the idea of heir daughter becoming involved in a court case.”
“You make it sound so squalid,” Robert said. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?” Vera asked, as if she was just curious, as if it was a bit of gossip over the tea table.
“I suppose I was going through a crisis in my life. Everything seemed pointless. I was very depressed. Helping Zoe gave me some sense of worth. I believed I could make a difference. Bring some love into her life. It’s easy to be cynical about something like that, but it was how I felt. It was at that point that I discovered the importance of faith. It was all meant, you see. The misunderstanding with Zoe and Maggie, the problems at work, they all helped to bring me to Christ.”
His voice was calm and reasonable. He could have been presenting evidence about an offender in the magistrates court. There was a silence. For a moment even Vera could think of nothing to say. She considered laughter to be the only response to such a distortion of the truth, but she’d seen Emma’s face, which was pinched and white, and knew that this was no laughing matter.
Robert stared round at them. “You do understand, don’t you?”
Nobody replied.
Chapter Forty-Four
There was a brief, intense silence and then the phone rang. No one moved, but it continued to ring. Mary got to her feet, walked into the hall and answered it. They could hear her words quite clearly. “She’s here, James. She was just going to ring you. Yes, she’s fine. Perhaps you could collect her. Not immediately. Give her half an hour.”
She came back into the kitchen and took her place without a word. Vera looked at them, waited for someone to speak.
“You lied,” Emma said to her father. She seemed more in control. Her voice was as calm as his had been. “You’re no better than James.”
“You were very young. It was complicated.”
“I remember Zoe. They’re good memories a barbecue in the garden. Her helping me with piano practice. She was musical, wasn’t she? She played the flute. It’s one of my clearest childhood memories, sitting in the1 garden in York, listening to her practise. I wonder what she’s doing now. Do you know?”
She looked around at her parents, but they both ignored her.
“I wondered why she stopped looking after us.
Chris missed her more than I did. She understood his projects. They were very close.”
“What did you make of it, Mary?” Vera’s voice was very quiet. They could have been alone in the room.
“Of Robert’s fondness for Zoe? It was a difficult time. He blamed me for the friendship. If I’d been a different sort of wife it would never have happened, he said. If I’d been younger, more attractive, more attentive…”
“You didn’t believe that?”
“I didn’t know what to believe. When she first started coming to the house, I’d watch them together, and see that she made him happier than I ever could.”
She looked at Robert, but he said nothing to contradict her.
“Then, when he became a Christian, I was relieved. I thought things would change. He’d been very low. Sometimes he talked about suicide. I tried to persuade him to see a doctor, but he wouldn’t go. I felt responsible. For him and for poor Zoe. I thought I could hold the family together and make it work. Pride, I suppose. I didn’t want to admit that we weren’t as close as we appeared.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Emma said. “None of it.”
Mary didn’t answer. “I believed the move to Elvet would be a fresh start for us all. A wonderful new beginning. And no real harm had been done after all. We still had a chance to put things back to how they’d been. But that was never really possible. We were different. We’d all been affected by what had happened in York, even the children, although they were really too young to notice what was going on, and we tried to protect them. I suppose it was inevitable.”
“Did anything change?” Vera asked.
“Yes, of course! At the beginning! Robert loved his work. He felt fulfilled and valued. We had the structure of our life in the church. I began to relax. I thought everything would turn out well.”
“Then what happened?”
She didn’t reply and Emma answered for her. “He fell for Abigail. For the red hair and the short skirts.” Again her voice was calm, matter of fact. “I can remember when he first met her. That time on the Point, when the sun was shining and we were all eating ice creams. Then at youth club. He told me that he’d never met Abigail, but it wasn’t true. I should have remembered the club. That was one of the first things he did when he arrived in Elvet, he set up the club. He can’t have really changed, can he? If he’d really changed that would be the last thing he’d do. Put himself in a position where he’d meet young girls. I’d forgotten all about that until recently, forgotten that Abigail was ever there. She wasn’t a regular, but she did come occasionally, showi
ng off, making the rest of us look pathetic. Dressed up in her smart clothes. The first time she came was for a disco, wasn’t it? I’d asked her and I was so excited when she agreed to come. It was the last meeting before the summer holidays. Dad was sitting on the stage watching the dancing. I remember. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. I was so stupid. I thdught it was because she was a good dancer. Then Keith got held up and couldn’t take her home and Dad gave her a lift back. Chris and I came back to Springhead with Mum.” She looked at her father for the first time. “Is that when it started?”
“Mantel was never a real father,” Robert said. “She needed someone to talk to.”
“Like Zoe?” Vera asked. “Did you pick Abigail up from school too? Meet her when she bunked off lessons?”
“I never encouraged that. I tried to persuade her to go back. I acted like her social worker, that’s all.”
“My God,” Emma said. “You had sex with her.”
“No! She wanted to. The opportunity was there. I admit I was tempted, but we never had sex.” He looked at Mary. “You must believe me.”
Vera had a sudden picture of Bill Clinton. I never had sexual relations with that woman. But perhaps Robert was telling more than the literal truth.
“Is that when the blackmail started?” she asked. “When you refused to sleep with her. We know she was a very mixed-up young lady.”
“Yes,” he said. “She threatened to tell the whole village that we’d been lovers. “We could announce it at the youth club. Deceit’s a sin. We should stand on the stage, holding hands, and tell the world.” Then she’d burst out laughing, as if she’d been drinking or she was mad and I never knew whether or not she was serious. I tried to stay away from her, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I thought I was the only one who could save her.”
“Then you killed her,” Emma said in a whisper. “You strangled her, and left her out by the ditch for me to find.” There was a moment of silence, of horror. “Did you kill Christopher, because he’d found out?”
