by Ann Cleeves
They were all staring at Robert, waiting for an answer. He said nothing and Emma continued talking.
“I think I’ve always known. I think I even knew at the time. Not about Zoe, not the details at least, but even then I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t believe the miraculous conversion. There was one night when I couldn’t sleep, and I came downstairs. You were in the garden talking about it. There was a smell of honeysuckle. You were planning how you could leave York. I must have heard something…
“And Abigail must have wanted me to know. What a game it would have been for her. There was the way she talked about my father, all teasing and secretive. How many hints had she dropped? And I never picked up on them. Or I didn’t want to. She’d have told me eventually, of course. She’d have loved it, made out that it was for my own good, that she felt I had a right to know the sort of man my father was. And I’d already guessed. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. I didn’t want to believe it.”
Vera, watching, heard the self-dramatization, thought she couldn’t wait to get away from them all.
“Did you kill her?” Robert asked.
Emma looked at him as if he was a fool. “Me? Of course not. Do you really think I could do that?”
He didn’t answer.
“Get out,” she said.
Robert stood up and seemed about to say more. She looked away from him.
“I’ll phone James,” he said. “Tell him to come now.” It was as if he hadn’t spoken. He looked around, expecting a response. Even Mary seemed unaware of his presence. He left the room. Ashworth slipped out after him.
Chapter Forty-Five
Vera cleared her throat. She’d heard enough. It was time for her to take centre stage. It was usually a position she loved, but somehow tonight, she couldn’t get into the mood.
“Robert didn’t kill Abigail,” Vera said. “At first I thought he did, but it wouldn’t have been possible. Not physically. You all described that Sunday to Caroline Fletcher. Her records aren’t brilliant, but she made a note of that. Emma, you and your father were together in here, washing-up.” She paused. “How did Christopher get out of helping?”
“He probably claimed he had homework to do. Some project. He could usually dream up something urgent for school after Sunday lunch. Something to get him out of domestic duties.” Emma watched Vera warily across the table.
Vera stared back. “Christopher would have been upstairs, then?”
“Yes.”
And your mother would have been in the living room, reading the paper. That was the Sunday routine. She cooked the lunch and then she was allowed some peace. Nobody would have disturbed her.”
“She deserved some time to herself. We all appreciated that.”
“Oh, we all deserve some peace.” Even me. Even an old cop, who spends her life meddling in other people’s business. Vera looked at the women, thought suddenly that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d got the whole case wrong. Then her confidence returned as suddenly as it had deserted her. This is it, she thought. Let’s get it over. Then I can go home.
“But there was no peace for you that day, was there, Mary? You waited until Robert and Emma were washing-up and then you left the house by the door into the garden. You’d arranged to meet Abigail. How did you manage that, Mary? Did you send her a note, pretending to be Robert?”
“I didn’t think that she’d come,” Mary said.
“What happened to the note? It was never found.”
“She had it with her when we met. She was waving it at me, taunting. I snatched it from her hand.”
“I don’t think for a moment you intended to kill the girl. You thought you could reason with her. You’d explain that Robert was a good man with a lot to lose. You only meant to protect him. You were more like a mother than a wife, weren’t you? It doesn’t seem fair that you had to live like that. Holding the family together, keeping up appearances in the parish. You’d never all have survived another move.”
For the first time that evening Mary was quite still. She could have been carved from wax. She stared ahead of her and she didn’t answer.
“But Abigail was never reasonable. She was disturbed and wilful. She liked to create trouble. She would have been delighted to see you. Someone else to be her audience. Did she gloat about her power over Robert? It would all have been a game to her. Did she laugh?”
“Yes,” Mary said. “She laughed.”
“And she wouldn’t stop?”
At first Vera thought Mary would refuse to answer, that she’d made a terrible mistake, coming here so late, provoking a confrontation. The silence seemed to last for hours. Then Mary spoke, her words as considered as always. She wanted her story told in her own way. “It was so loud. Louder than the rooks and the sound of the wind. Even there, miles from anywhere, I was afraid someone would hear.”
“You wanted her to be quiet.”
“Yes,” Mary said. “I wanted the noise to go away.”
The door opened and Ashworth came quietly into the room. Mary didn’t notice.
“Perhaps we should talk about this later,” Vera said. “Somewhere else. When there’s a lawyer to look after your interests.”
“Let me tell you now.” Her voice was urgent.
“I should warn you that you’ll be charged and that you don’t have to say anything…”
“I know all about that,” Mary interrupted impatiently. “But I want you to know. Before anyone else puts words into my mouth…”
“Let her speak,” Emma said. “I have to know.”
“Go on.”
Abigail was laughing. Suddenly it felt so undignified, standing there, shouting at the girl. I reached out to make her stop, so I wouldn’t have to yell. I caught both ends of her scarf and pulled them. To make her listen at first. Just to make her take me seriously. Then she was quiet and limp and I could hear the rooks again and the wind. I left her and I went home. I took off my wet shoes and my jacket and put them in the cupboard under the stairs. I went into the kitchen. No one had missed me. I didn’t really believe she was dead. I thought I’d given her a fright, she was young and fit, and she’d run back to the Chapel.”
“You can’t really have believed that,” Vera said. “Because you followed Emma out.”
“I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want Emma to find Abigail and be alone. I suppose I thought I might have killed her.”
“You never told Robert?”
“He didn’t realize I knew he was seeing her. He thought it was a big secret.”
“Weren’t you angry that he was making a fool of himself over her?” Emma asked. “Jealous?”
“He couldn’t help himself,” Mary said. “And he had so much to give. So much good work still to do.”
There was another silence. Vera knew she should move on. It was one of the rules she’d passed on to Ashworth. Don’t let them get to you. Whatever they’ve done, you can’t take it personally. You’d go crazy. But she allowed herself one unnecessary question. “How could you let Jeanie go to prison?”
“I couldn’t think about it. I had Robert to look after and the children. They wouldn’t have survived without me. She was young, strong. I thought she’d be out in a few years.”
Vera said nothing. She thought of the prison on the top of the cliff, Jeanie Long protesting her innocence, facing the parole board and refusing to play the game which would have got her released.
“If you had children,” Mary said, ‘you’d understand.”
“Did Christopher see you out in the field that afternoon?”
“No. No one saw me!
“Why did he have to die?” “He didn’t have to die. Of course not. Do you think I wanted to kill him?”
“I don’t understand. You’ll have to explain.”
“That summer, he was obsessed by Abigail Mantel too. It was as if she’d cast a spell over the whole family, over Emma and Robert and Christopher. I was the only one who could see through her. That first day, wh
en we’d ridden our bikes to the Point and we were eating ice creams, and she turned up with her father in that fast car, I could tell then that she resented us. We had a closeness that she missed. Her father was out with different women, tied up with work. She wanted to be like us but she couldn’t and so she had to spoil things.”
She was a child, Vera thought. Screwed up and miserable. But she let Mary go on.
“Christopher saw Robert and Abigail together. He didn’t say anything then. Perhaps it didn’t mean much at the time. He’d had the afternoon off school. A dentist’s appointment. He saw them together in Crill. Then he watched her. I think there were other occasions.”
“Did he ask you about it?”
“No. Of course not. He was a secretive boy and children seldom confide in their parents.”
“How do you know, then, that he saw Abigail and your husband together?”
“He told me when he came here last week.”
“The day that he died?”
“Yes.”
“The day that you killed him?”
There was a long pause. “Yes.”
“Did he phone you that morning?”
“Robert had left for work. I started later in the library, and I was on my way out when the phone went. It was Christopher, calling on his mobile. He sounded dreadfully upset, almost incoherent. He was in that derelict farm near the parish cemetery. He was accusing Robert of killing Abigail. He said he should have realized, said something at the time. I didn’t know what to do. I thought we were safe. Robert was working hard. He’d put the nonsense of Abigail Mantel behind him and nothing of the sort had happened since. We had a new family, Emma and James and the baby…”
“More people for you to be responsible for.”
“Yes,” Mary said gratefully. “You see, you do understand.”
“Did you go to see Christopher at the farm?”
“No. I needed time to consider what I should do for the best. I told him I’d ring him later, that we could meet. I hoped he’d get bored with waiting. He was very easily bored. I didn’t think he’d make a scene in public. I hoped he’d just go back to Aberdeen and forget. Later, when I’d had time to put together a proper explanation, I’d go to visit him and make him see. I understood then why he’d been so reluctant to visit us, to be a part of the family. I thought if I had time, I could make it right. That we could be close again.”
“Easy-going,” Vera said. “Relaxed. Like other families.”
“Yes,” Mary said. “Exactly.”
So the second set of fingerprints at the farm hadn’t belonged to the murderer. Another false lead. Vera thought there was probably little forensic evidence connecting Mary to Christopher. But now they had a confession. And she wouldn’t go back on that, whatever her lawyers would tell her. The role of martyr suited her.
“Was killing him one of the options you considered?” “Of course not.” She was horrified. “He was my only son.”
“What did you do with his mobile phone?” “It’s upstairs. In my drawer in the bedroom.” Vera knew she should be triumphant, but looking at the dumpy woman with the untidy ponytail, she only felt sick. No doubt Mary would end up in Spinney Fen too. She would be a model prisoner. She’d volunteer for the groups to tackle offender behaviour. Robert and Emma would visit. Robert wouldn’t be able to work there any more, but the probation service was supposed to be compassionate. They’d find him something else.
“Why did you arrange to meet him in the lane outside the Mantel house?”
“I didn’t. He must have made his way here. Hoping to make a scene perhaps. Some sort of confrontation. James and Emma must have mentioned the fireworks. When he came here and the house was empty, he crossed the fields to the Chapel.”
Taking the path Abigail had used ten years before. “When I went to fetch my coat, he was waiting by the car. It was a terrible shock. It was as I told you. I switched on the headlights and there he was. He was very cold. He’d been waiting for a long time. He looked like a tramp. I hardly recognized him. He said his father had killed Abigail. I told him that was ridiculous, that it wasn’t true. He got out his mobile and said he was going to phone the police. I had to stop him. Of course I didn’t mean to kill him.”
Didn’t you? thought Vera, no longer convinced. Was it really another accident? Like Abigail? It’s much easier to love a dead son, than a live, inconvenient one.
“He was your son,” she said, forgetting again the rule about staying detached. “Yet afterwards, you kept to your story. When we talked to you the next day you were very calm.”
“It was the greatest sacrifice a woman can make,” Mary said. “I did it to protect Robert, to keep the rest of the family together. I couldn’t let the sacrifice be in vain.”
Bollocks. You panicked and you did it to protect yourself. “What did you hit him with?”
“There was a torch in the car. Long, very heavy. He turned away to make the phone call. I hit him. He fell into the ditch. He fell awkwardly. All you could see was that horrible anorak. I moved him so that he looked more peaceful. He wasn’t breathing. I checked. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. And he wasn’t happy any more. He wasn’t happy as he’d been when he was a boy, living with us.”
“What did you do with the torch?”
She seemed surprised by the question. “It had blood on it. I wiped it on his anorak. That was dirty anyway. Then I put it back into my bag.”
And I let you carry it away, Vera thought. I knew we’d have to search your car, but we didn’t search you. I thought you were too distressed to bear it. How long will I have to live that one down? She was already wondering if there was some way that could be left out of the final report.
She realized then that Emma was crying. She wasn’t making any noise, but tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Chapter Forty-Six
Vera caught up with Dan Greenwood in Wendy’s cottage on the Point. She thought she deserved some light relief before she left for the north. It was the next morning. She hadn’t been to bed. The night had been a blur, a nightmare. She remembered Robert standing by the kitchen door at Springhead as they’d led his wife away into the freezing night. “One day, Mary, I hope I’ll be able to forgive you.” What had all that been about? A grand theatrical gesture which meant fuck all. She’d have liked to charge him too, but Ashworth had persuaded her that they had no grounds. Winter had never had sex with Zoe Sullivan. The mother had been quite clear about that. Probably not with Abigail either. Two murders and nothing but a sad, middle-aged man’s fantasies as a reason for them. A sad middle-aged man and a mad middle-aged woman. He’d be back at church on Sunday and no doubt the old ladies would rally round, offering him home-made soup and sympathy.
Wendy opened the door. She was in her dressing gown.
“I want to see Greenwood,” Vera said.
Wendy hesitated.
“Don’t piss me around. I know he’s here. Emma Bennett saw you together last night in the pottery.”
“Poor Emma,” Wendy said. “I think she had a bit of a crush.”
“Don’t tell Danny boy that. You don’t want to flatter him. He’s not in any bother. I’m just here to say goodbye.” She raised her voice. “Come on down, Dan. Decent or not.”
She followed Wendy into the cottage. She wondered if she was wearing knickers under the dressing gown. Black knickers with a sequinned heart. Of all the places in El vet, this was the house where Vera felt most at home. She loved the untidiness, the view over the water. Danny emerged down the stairs. He was still pulling a jersey over his head. “How long’s this been going on?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. A couple of months.” Wendy was grinning, couldn’t help herself. She perched on the arm of the chair where Danny was sitting, could hardly stop herself from touching him.
“Why did you keep it quiet?”
“Wouldn’t you? A place like this?”
“Aye, maybe.” She stood by the window, looked out
. “It’s all over,” she said. “There’s someone in custody.”
“Who?” Danny asked.
“Mary Winter, the mother of the lass who found the body.”
“My God!” He sat quite still for a moment, trying to take it in. “Why did she kill them?”
“God knows,” Vera said. “She says she thought she was acting for the best, but I’m not sure I believe her. Simple jealousy perhaps, because the lass was young and bonny and the husband fancied her. That’s for the lawyers to fight over. But it’ll make no difference to the verdict. It’s over.”
“A bit late for Jeanie Long.”
“Not for you, though. Time to set it behind you.” A tanker was easing slowly up the river. “I found that file in your desk.”
“I wondered if you’d seen it.”
“For a while I wondered if you’d killed her.”
“No,” he said. “That was a different kind of obsession. I thought one day I might be able to put it right. Find the real murderer. Not that I did anything about it. Just took the file out every now and again to rub salt in the wound.”
“What will you do with it now?”
“Burn it.”
“Good luck,” Vera said, ‘with everything.”
“Thanks.”
“Right then. I’m off.”
“Home?”
“Aye,” she said. “North of the Tyne. Civilization.” She smiled broadly. “No offence.”
She had to drive through the village to pick Ashworth up from the hotel. She was forced to slow down at the Captain’s House to let a couple of kids run across the road and saw that Emma Bennett had returned home to James. She was sitting in the bedroom window, looking out over the square, apparently lost in thought. Like the heroine of some Victorian melodrama, Vera thought.
It was about time she got a life.
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