Telling Tales

Chapter One

Sitting at the bedroom window, Emma looks out at the night-time square. The wind rattles a roof tile and hisses out from the churchyard, spitting a Coke can onto the street. There was a gale the afternoon Abigail Mantel died and it seems to Emma that it’s been windy ever since, that there have been ten years of storms, of hailstones like bullets blown against her windows and trees ripped from the earth by their roots. It must be true at least since the baby was born. Since then, whenever she wakes at night to feed the baby or when James comes in late from work the noise of the wind is there, rolling round her head like the sound of a seashell when you hold it to your ear.

James, her husband, isn’t home yet, but she’s not waiting up for him. Her gaze is fixed on the Old Forge where Dan Greenwood makes pots. There’s a light at the window and occasionally she fancies she sees a shadow. She imagines that Dan is still working there, dressed in his blue canvas smock, his eyes narrowed as he shapes the clay with his strong, brown hands. Then she imagines leaving the baby, who is fast asleep, tucked up in his carry cot She sees herself slipping out into the square and keeping to the shadows, walking across to the forge. She pushes open one of the big doors which form an arch, like the door of a church, and stands inside. The roof is high and she can see through the curved rafters to the tiles. In her mind she feels the heat of the kiln and sees the dusty shelves holding unglazed pots.

Dan Greenwood looks up. His face is flushed and there is red dust in the furrows of his forehead. He isn’t surprised to see her. He moves away from the bench where he’s working and stands in front of her. She feels her breath quicken. He kisses her forehead and then begins to unbutton her shirt. He touches her breasts, stroking them, so he leaves lines of red clay like warpaint. She feels the clay drying on her skin and her breasts become tight, slightly itchy.

Then the image fades and she’s back in the bedroom she shares with her husband. She knows her breasts are heavy with milk, not tight with drying clay. At the same time the baby begins to grizzle and to claw blindly in the air with both hands. Emma lifts him out of the cot and begins to feed him. Dan Greenwood has never touched her and probably never will, no matter how often she dreams of it. The church clock strikes midnight. By now, James should have his ship safely into port.

That was the story Emma told herself as she sat by her window in the village of Elvet. A running commentary on her feelings, as if she was an outsider looking in. It was how it had always been her life as a series of fairy tales. Before Matthew had been born she’d wondered if his birth would make her more engaged. There was nothing more real, was there, than labour? But now, running her little finger between his mouth and her nipple to break the suction, she thought that wasn’t true. She was no more emotionally involved with him than she was with James. Had she been different before she found Abigail Mantel’s body? Probably not. She lifted her son onto her shoulder and rubbed his back. He reached out and grasped a strand of her hair.

The room was at the top of a neat Georgian house, built of red brick and red tile. It was double-fronted and symmetrical with rectangular windows and a door in the middle. It had been built by a seafarer who’d traded with Holland, and James had liked that. “We’re carrying on a tradition,” he’d said when he showed her round. “It’s like keeping it in the family.” Emma had thought it was too close to home, to the memories of Abigail Mantel and Jeanie Long, and had suggested that Hull might be more convenient for his work. Or Beverley. Beverley was a pleasant town. But he’d said Elvet was just as good for him.

“It’ll be nice for you to be so close to your parents,” he’d said and she’d smiled and agreed, because that was what she did with James. She liked to please him. In fact she didn’t much care for Robert and Mary’s company. Despite all the help they offered, they made her feel uncomfortable and for some reason guilty.

Above the rumble of the wind there came another sound a car engine; headlights swept onto the square, briefly lighting up the church gate, where dead leaves were blown into a drift. James parked on the cobbles, got out and shut the door with a solid thud. At the same time Dan Greenwood emerged from the Old Forge. He was dressed as Emma had imagined, in jeans and the blue smock. She expected him to pull together the big double doors and fasten them with a key he kept on a ring clipped to his belt on a chain. Then he would push a heavy brass padlock through the iron rings bolted to each door and shove the hasp in place. She had watched this ritual from the window many times. Instead he crossed the square towards James. He wore heavy work boots which rapped loudly on the paving stones and made James turn round.

Seeing them together, it occurred to her how different they were. Dan was so dark that he should have been a foreigner. He could play the villain in a gothic melodrama. And James was a pale, polite Englishman. She felt suddenly anxious about the two men meeting, though there was no reason. It wasn’t as if Dan could guess at her fantasies. She had done nothing to give herself away. Carefully, she raised the sash window so she could hear their words. The curtains billowed. There was wind in the room with a taste of salt on it. She felt like a child listening in to an adult conversation, a parent and teacher, perhaps, discussing her academic progress. Neither of the men had seen her.

“Have you seen the news?” Dan asked.

James shook his head. “I’ve come off a Latvian container. Hull to sign off, then I drove straight home.”

“You’ve not heard from Emma, then?”

“She’s not much one for the news.”

“Jeanie Long committed suicide. She’d been turned down for parole again. It happened a couple of days ago. They kept it quiet over the weekend.”

James stood, poised to click the fob of his car key to lock up. He was still wearing his uniform and looked dashing in an old-fashioned way, as if he belonged to the time the house was built. The brass buttons on his jacket gleamed dully in the unnatural light. His head was bare. He carried his cap under his arm. Emma was reminded of when she had once had fantasies about him.

“I don’t suppose it’ll make much difference to Em. Not after all this time. I mean it’s not as if she knew Jeanie, not so much. She was very young when all that was going on.”

“They’re going to reopen the Abigail Mantel case,” Dan Greenwood said.

There was a moment of silence. Emma wondered what Dan could know about all that. Had the two men discussed her on other occasions when she hadn’t been watching?

“Because of the suicide?” James asked.

“Because a new witness had just come forward. It seems Jeanie Long couldn’t have murdered that lass.” He paused. Emma watched at him rub his forehead with his broad, stubby fingers. It was as if he was trying to rub away the exhaustion. She wondered why he cared so deeply about a ten-year-old murder case. She could tell that he did care, that he had lain awake worrying about it. But he hadn’t even been living in the village then. He dropped his hands from his face. No traces of clay were left on his skin. He must have washed his hands before leaving the forge. “Shame no one bothered to tell Jeanie, huh?” he said. “Or she might still be alive.”

A sudden gust of wind seemed to blow the men apart. Dan scurried back to the Old Forge to close the doors. The Volvo locked itself with a click and a flash of side lights and James climbed the steps to the front door. Emma moved away from the window and sat on the chair beside the bed. She cradled the baby in one arm and held him to the other breast.

She was still sitting there when James walked in. She’d switched on a small lamp beside her; the rest of the big attic room was a pool of shadow. The baby had finished feeding and his eyes were closed, but she still held him, and he sucked occasionally in his sleep. A dribble of milk ran across his cheek. She had heard James moving around carefully downstairs, and the creaking stairs had prepared her for his entrance. She was composed with a smile on her face. Mother and child. Like one of the Dutch paintings he’d dragged her to see. He’d bought a print for the house, put it in a big gilt frame. She could tell the effect wasn’t lost on him, and he smiled too, looked suddenly wonderfully happy. She wondered why she had become more attracted to Dan Greenwood who could be slovenly in his appearance, and rolled thin little cigarettes from strings of tobacco.

Gently she lifted the baby into his cot. He puckered his mouth as if still looking for the nipple, sighed deeply in disappointment but didn’t wake. Emma fastened the flap in the unflattering maternity bra and pulled her dressing gown around her. The heating was on but in this house there were always draughts. James bent to kiss her, feeling for her mouth with the tip of his tongue, as insistent as the baby wanting food. He Would have liked sex but she knew he wouldn’t push for it. Nothing was so important to him that it warranted a scene, and she’d been unpredictable lately. He wouldn’t risk her ending up in tears. She pushed him gently away. He had poured himself a small glass of whisky downstairs and still had it with him. He took a sip from it before setting the glass on the bedside table.

“Was everything all right this evening?” she asked to soften the rejection. “It’s been so windy. I imagine you out there in the dark, the waves so high.”

She had imagined nothing of the sort. Not tonight. When she had first met him she had dreamed of him out on the dark sea. Somehow now, the romance had gone out of it.

“It was easterly,” he said. “On shore. Helping us in.” He smiled fondly at her and she was pleased that she had said the right thing.

He began to undress slowly, easing the tension from his stiff muscles. He was a pilot. He joined ships at the mouth of the Humber and brought them safely into the dock at Hull, Goole or Immingham, or he guided them out of the river. He took his work seriously, felt the responsibility. He was one of the youngest, fully qualified pilots working the Humber. She was very proud of him.

That was what she told herself, but the words ran meaninglessly through her head. She was trying to fend off the panic which had been building since she had heard the men talking on the square, growing like a huge wave which rises from nothing out at sea.

“I heard you talking to Dan Greenwood outside. What was so important at this time of night?”

He sat on the bed. He was bare chested, his body coated with fine blond hair. Although he was fifteen years older than her, you’d never have guessed, he was so fit.

“Jeanie Long committed suicide last week. You know, Jeanie Long. Her father used to be coxswain on the launch at the point. The woman who was convicted of strangling Abigail.”

She wanted to shout at him, Of course I know. I know more about this case than you ever could. But she just looked at him.

“It was unfortunate, a terrible coincidence. Dan says a new witness has come forward. The case has been reopened. Jeanie might have been released.”

“How does Dan Greenwood know all that?”

He didn’t answer. She decided he was thinking already of other things, a tricky tide perhaps, an overloaded ship, a hostile skipper. He unbuckled his belt and stood to step out of his trousers. He folded them precisely and hung them over a hanger in the wardrobe.

“Come to bed,” he said. “Get some sleep while you can.” She thought he had already put Abigail Mantel and Jeanie Long out of his mind.

Chapter Two

For ten years Emma had tried to forget the day she’d discovered Abigail’s body. Now she forced herself to remember it, to tell it as a story.

It was November and Emma was fifteen. The landscape was shadowed by storm clouds. It was the colour of mud and wind-blackened bean stalks Emma had made one friend in Elvet. Her name was Abigail Mantel. She had flame-red hair. Her mother had died of breast cancer when Abigail was six. Emma, who had secret dreams of her father dying, was shocked to find herself a little envious of the sympathy this generated. Abigail didn’t live in a damp and draughty house and she wasn’t dragged to church every Sunday. Abigail’s father was as rich as it was possible to be.

Emma wondered if this was the story she had told herself at the time, but couldn’t remember. What did she remember of that autumn? The big, black sky and the wind laden with sand which scoured her face as she waited for the bus to school. Her anger at her father for bringing them there.

And Abigail Mantel, exotic as a television star, with her wild hair and her expensive clothes, her poses and her pouting. Abigail, who sat next to her in class and copied her work and tossed her hair in disdain at all the lads who fancied her. So two contrasting memories: a cold, monochrome landscape and a fifteen-year-old girl, so intensely coloured that it would warm you just to look at her. When she was alive, of course. When she was dead she’d looked as cold as the frozen ditch where Emma had found her.

Emma made herself remember the moment of finding Abigail’s body. She owed Abigail that, at least. In the room in the Dutch captain’s house, the baby snuffled, James breathed slowly and evenly and she retraced her footsteps along the side of a bean field, making every effort to keep the recollection real. No fantasies here, please.

The wind was so strong that she had to force out each breath in a series of pants, much as she would later be taught to do during labour before it became time to push. There was no shelter. In the distance the horizon was broken by one of the ridiculously grand church spires which were a feature of this part of the county, but the sky seemed enormous and she imagined herself the only person under it.

“What were you doing there, out on your own in the storm?” the policewoman would ask later, gently, as if she really wanted to know, as if the question wasn’t part of the investigation at all.

But lying beside her husband, Emma knew that this memory, the memory of her mother and the policewoman, sitting in the kitchen at home discussing the detail of the discovery, was a cop-out. Abigail deserved better than that. She deserved the full story.

So… it was late afternoon on a Sunday in November. Ten years ago. Emma was fighting against the wind towards the slight dip in the land where the converted chapel which was the Mantel family home lay. She was already upset and angry. Angry enough to storm out of the house on a foul afternoon, although it would soon be dark. As she walked she raged in her mind about her parents, about the injustice of having a father who was unreasonable, tyrannical, or who had seemed to have become so as she grew up. Why couldn’t he be like other girls’ fathers? Like Abigail’s, for example? Why did he talk like a character from a Bible story, so when you questioned him it was like questioning the authority of the Bible itself? Why did he make her feel guilty when she couldn’t see she’d done anything wrong?

She caught her foot on a sharp piece of flint and stumbled. Tsars and snot covered her face. She remained for a moment where she was, on her hands and knees. She’d grazed the palms of her hands when she’d tried to save herself, but at least here, closer to the ground, it was easier to breathe. Then she’d thought how ridiculous she must look, though there could be no one out on an afternoon like this to see her. The fall had brought her to her senses. Eventually she would have to go home and apologize for making a scene. Better sooner than later. A drainage ditch ran along the side of the field. Getting to her feet the wind struck her with full force again and she turned her back to it. That was when she looked into the ditch and saw Abigail. She recognized the jacket first a blue quilted jacket. Emma had wanted one like it but her mother had been horrified when she’d seen the price in the shops. Emma didn’t recognize Abigail, though. She thought it must be someone else, that Abigail had lent the jacket to a cousin or a friend, someone else who had coveted it. Someone Emma hadn’t known. This girl had an ugly face and Abigail had never been ugly. Neither had she been so quiet; Abigail was always talking. This girl had a swollen tongue, blue lips and would never talk again. Never flirt or tease or sneer. The whites of her eyes were spotted red.

Emma wasn’t been able to move. She looked around her and saw a piece of black polythene, tossed by the wind so it looked like an enormous crow, flapping over the bean field. And then, miraculously, her mother appeared. Emma could believe, looking as far as the horizon, that her mother was the only other person alive in the whole village. She was battling her way along the footpath towards her daughter, her greying hair tucked into the hood of her old anorak, Wellington boots under her Sunday-best skirt. The last thing Robert had said when Emma flounced out of the kitchen was, “Just let her go. She has to learn.” He hadn’t shouted. He’d spoken patiently, kindly even. Mary always did as Robert told her, and the sight of her silhouette against the grey sky, fatter than normal because she was bundled against the cold, was almost as shocking as the sight of Abigail Mantel lying in the ditch. Because after a few seconds Emma had accepted that this was Abigail. No one else had the same colour hair. She waited, with the tears running down her face, for her mother to reach her.

A few yards from her, her mother opened her arms and stood waiting for Emma to run into them. Emma began to sob, choking so it was impossible for her to speak. Mary held her and began to stroke her hair away from her face, as she had when they’d been living in York, when Emma had still been a child and prone to occasional nightmares.

“Nothing is worth getting that upset for,” Mary said. “Whatever’s the matter, we can sort it out.” She meant, You know your father only does what he thinks is right. If we explain to him he will soon come round.

Then Emma pulled her to the ditch and made her look down on Abigail Mantel’s body. She knew that not even her mother could sort that out and make it better.

There was a horrified silence. It was as if Mary too had needed time to take in the sight, then her mother’s voice came again, suddenly brisk, demanding a reply. “Did you touch her?”

Emma was shocked out of the hysteria.

“No.”

“There’s nothing more we can do for her now. Do you hear me, Emma? We’re going home and we’re going to tell the police and for a while everything will seem like a dreadful dream. But it wasn’t your fault and there was nothing you could have done.”

And Emma thought, At least she hasn’t mentioned Jesus. At least she doesn’t expect me to take comfort from that.

In the Captain’s House, the wind continued to shake the loose sash window in the bedroom. Emma spoke in her head to Abigail. See, I faced it, remembered it just as it happened. Now, can I go to sleep? But though she wrapped herself around James and sucked the warmth from him, she still felt cold. She tried to conjure up her favourite fantasy about Dan Greenwood, imagined his dark skin lying against hers, but even that failed to work its magic.

Chapter Three

Emma couldn’t tell the aftermath of her discovery of Abigail as a story. It didn’t have a strong enough narrative line. It was too muddled in her head. Details were missing. At the time it had been hard to follow what was happening. Perhaps shock had made it difficult to concentrate. Even these days, ten years on, the image of the cold, silent Abigail flashed into her mind when she least expected it. That evening, the evening after the discovery of the body, when they had all sat in the kitchen at Springhead House, it had lodged in her brain, blocking her vision and making all the questions seem as if they were coming from very far away. And now it made the memories jerky and unreliable.

She couldn’t remember the walk back to the house with her mother, but could see herself, hesitating by the back door, reluctant still to face her father. She always hated to disappoint him. But even if he’d been preparing a lecture when he heard them approach, he soon forgot about it. Mary took him into a corner, her arm round his shoulder, and gave a whispered explanation. He stood for a moment still as a stone, as if it was too hard for him to accept. “Not here,” he said. “Not in Elvet.” He turned and took Emma in his arms, so she could smell the soap he shaved with. “No one should have to see that,” he said. “Not my little girl. I’m so sorry.” As if he, somehow, was to blame, as if he should have been strong enough to protect her from it. Then they wrapped her up in the scratchy blanket which they used as a rug on picnics and there were urgent phone calls to the police. Shocked as she was, she sensed that once he’d come to terms with what had happened, Robert was rather enjoying the drama.

But when the policewoman arrived to speak to Emma, he must have realized that his presence might make things more difficult and he left the three women on their own in the kitchen. That would have been difficult for him. Robert always felt he had a contribution to make at a time of crisis. He was used to dealing with emergencies: clients who slit their wrists in his waiting room, or had psychotic episodes, or jumped bail. Emma wondered if that was why he enjoyed his work so much.

Perhaps someone else came to Springhead with the detective and talked to Robert in a different room, because occasionally in the lull in the conversation, while Emma struggled to answer the policewoman’s questions, she thought she could hear muffled voices. Above the wind it was difficult to tell. It was possible that her father was talking to Christopher and she was imagining the third voice. Christopher must have been in the house that day too.

Mary made tea in the big brown earthenware pot, and they sat at the kitchen table. Mary apologized.

“It’s so cold in the rest of the house. At least here there’s the Aga…” And for once the Aga behaved itself and gave off some heat. Condensation had been running down the windows all day and had formed lakes on the sills. Mary hated the Aga then, before she got more used to its ways. She faced it every morning as if preparing for battle, muttering under her breath, a prayer, Please get hot today. Don’t die on me. Please stay warm long enough to cook a meal.

The policewoman, though, still seemed cold. She kept on her coat and clasped her hands round her mug of tea. Emma must have been introduced to her though that bit escaped her memory, escaped as soon as it had been spoken. She could remember thinking that the woman must have been a policewoman although she was wearing her own clothes, clothes which had seemed so smart to Emma that she noticed them as soon as she walked in. Under the coat there was a skirt, softly fitted, almost full length and a pair of brown leather boots. Throughout the enquiry Emma would struggle to remember this woman’s name, although she would become the family’s only contact with the police, returning whenever there was a development in the case, so they wouldn’t have to find out from the press.

As soon as she sat down the policewoman Kate? Cathy? asked that question, “What were you doing there, out on your own in the storm?”

It was so hard to explain. Emma could hardly just say, Well, it’s Sunday afternoon. Although in her mind that was all the explanation needed. Sundays were often tense, all of them in together, trying to be a model family. Nothing much to do after church.

That Sunday had been worse than usual. Emma had some good memories of family meals at Springhead, occasions when Robert was expansive, telling silly jokes that had them doubled up with laughter, when her mother waxed passionate about some book she was reading. Then it almost seemed that the good times they had enjoyed in York had returned. But those had all been before Abigail died. That Sunday lunch had marked a watershed, a change in atmosphere. Or so it would seem to Emma later. She remembered the meal with unusual clarity: the four of them sitting at the table, Christopher uncommunicative, caught up as usual with some project of his own, Mary dishing out the food with a sort of desperate energy, talking all the time, Robert unusually silent. Emma had taken the silence as a good sign and slipped her request into the conversation, hoping almost that he wouldn’t notice.

“It is OK if I go round to Abigail’s later?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” He’d spoken quite calmly, but she had been furious.

“Why not?”

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask you to spend one afternoon with your family, do you?”

She’d thought that was so unfair! She spent every Sunday cramped in the horrible damp house while her friends were off enjoying themselves. Never before had she made a fuss.

She’d helped him wash the dishes as usual but all the time her fury had been growing, building like a flooded river behind a dam. Later, when her mother had come in to see how they were getting on, she’d said, “I’m going out now, to see Abigail. I won’t be late.” Speaking to Mary, not to him. And she’d rushed past them, deaf to her mother’s frantic requests.

All that seemed stupid and trivial once she knew Abigail was dead. The temper tantrum of a two-year-old. And with her mother, sitting beside her, and the smart woman looking at her, waiting, it was even harder to explain her frustration, her need to escape.

“I was bored,” she said in the end. “You know, Sunday afternoons.”

The policewoman had nodded, seeming to understand.

Abigail was the only person I know. It’s miles by the road. There’s a short-cut across the fields.”

“Did you know Abigail would be in?” the policewoman asked.

“I saw her at youth club on Friday night. She said she was going to cook her father a special Sunday tea. To say thank you.”

“What did she want to thank her father for?” Though Emma had the impression that the policewoman already knew the answer, or at least had guessed at it. How could she? Had she had time to find out? Perhaps it was just that she carried round with her an aura of omnipotence.

“For asking Jeanie Long to leave, so they could have the house to themselves again.”

And at that the policewoman nodded once more, satisfied, as if she was a teacher and Emma had answered a test question correctly.

“Who is Jeanie Long?” she asked and once more Emma had the impression that she already knew the answer.

“She was Mr. Mantel’s girlfriend. She used to live with them.”

The policewoman made notes in a book but she made no comment.

“Tell me all you can about Abigail.”

Emma, no longer the rebellious teenager that had been shocked out of her was eager to please and started talking at once. Once she started there was so much to say.

“Abigail was my best friend. When we moved here it was hard, different, you know. We were used to the city. Abigail had lived here most of her life but she didn’t really fit in either.”

It had been something they’d talked about at sleep-overs, how much they had in common. How they were soulmates. But even at the time Emma had known that wasn’t true. They’d both been misfits that was all. Abigail because she had no mother and her father gave her everything she asked for. Emma because she’d moved from the city and her parents said grace before meals.

Abigail lived on her own with her dad. Until Jeanie came to stay, at least, and Abigail couldn’t stand her. There’s someone to do the cleaning and the cooking, but she lives in a flat over the garage and that doesn’t really count, does it? Abigail’s dad’s a businessman.”

Those words still conjured up for Emma the same glamour as when she’d first heard them. They made her think of the big smart car, with the leather seats, which had collected them sometimes from school, of Abigail all dressed up to go out to dinner with her father because he was entertaining clients, of the champagne Keith Mantel had opened when it was her fifteenth birthday. Of the man himself, suave and charming and attentive. She couldn’t explain that to the woman, though. To her ‘businessman’ would just be the description of an occupation. Like ‘probation officer’ or ‘priest’.

“Does Abigail’s father know?” Emma asked suddenly, feeling sick.

“Yes,” the policewoman said. She looked very serious as she spoke and Emma wondered if she’d been the one to tell him.

“They were so close,” Emma murmured, but she felt those words to be inadequate. She pictured father and daughter cuddled on the sofa in the immaculate house, laughing at a comedy on the television.

She must have told the policewoman more about Jeanie Long at that first meeting, about why Abigail disliked her, but lying in the bed next to James, the details of that part of the conversation eluded her. Neither could she recall seeing Christopher in the house between lunch and much later in the evening. Now Christopher was a scientist, a postgraduate student, studying the breeding behaviour of puffins and spending part of every year on Shetland. Then he had been her little brother, self-contained and annoyingly brainy.

Had he always been like that, so distant and closed off from the rest of them? Or had that only happened after Abigail’s death? Perhaps he’d changed then too, although he’d only witnessed the drama second hand, and it was her memory which was faulty. Had it been the move to Elvet that had changed him and made him so focused and intense, or Abigail’s murder? At this distance she couldn’t decide. She wondered how much of that day he remembered and whether he’d be prepared to discuss it with her.

Certainly in York he’d been more open, more… in her mind she paused, hesitating to use the word, even to herself, more… normal. She remembered a rowdy little boy, chasing round the house with his friends, waving a plastic sword in the air, then at another time sitting in the back seat of the car on a long journey, giggling at a joke he’d brought back from school until tears had run down his cheeks.

She was now certain that he was in the house on the day Abigail died. He hadn’t been away on one of his solitary walks. Later, once the policewoman had gone, they sat together in his bedroom which was in the roof, and which looked out over the fields. The wind blew a gap in the clouds and there was a full moon. They watched the activity in the bean field, the flashlights throwing strange shadows, the men below them looking very small. Christopher pointed to two of them struggling through the mud, carrying a stretcher between them.

“I suppose that’s her.”

Then one of the stretcher bearers tripped and fell onto one knee, and the stretcher tilted alarmingly. Emma and Christopher looked at each other and both gave an awkward and embarrassed giggle.

The church clock struck two. The baby cried out in his sleep as if he were having a nightmare. Emma began to doze, and remembered, as if she were already dreaming, that the policewoman’s name had been Caroline. Caroline Fletcher.

Chapter Four

In the beginning was the word. Even as a teenager Emma hadn’t believed that literally. How could you have a word without someone to speak it? Impossible for the word to come first. She’d never had it properly explained though. Not in the sermons she’d sat through during the family service on Sunday mornings. Not during the dreary evenings of the confirmation classes.

What she’d thought it meant was: In the beginning was the story. The Bible was all stories. What else was there to it? The only way she could make sense of her own life was to turn it into a story.

As she grew older the fiction was it fiction? grew more elaborate.

Once upon a time there was a family. An ordinary family. The Winters. A mother and father and a son and daughter. They lived in a pleasant house on the outskirts of York in a street with trees on the pavement. In spring the trees were pink with blossom and in autumn the leaves were gold. Robert, the father, was an architect. Mary, the mother, worked part time in the university library. Emma and Christopher went to the school at the end of the street. They wore a uniform with a maroon blazer and a grey tie.

And repeating the story in her head now, Emma saw the garden in the York house. A red brick wall with sunflowers in a row against it, the colours so vivid that they almost hurt her eyes. Christopher was squatting next to a terra cotta pot with lavender growing in it, a butterfly trapped between his cupped hands. She could smell the lavender and there was sound too, the bubbling notes of a flute from an open window, played by the teenage girl who came occasionally to babysit.

I’ll never be so happy again. The thought came unbidden into her head, but she couldn’t allow that to be part of the narrative. It was too painful. So she continued the story as it was always told…

Then Robert discovered Jesus and everything changed. He said he couldn’t be an architect any more. He left his old office with the long windows and went to university to become a probation officer.

“Why not a vicar?” Emma had asked. By now they had started going regularly to church. She’d thought he’d be a good vicar.

“Because I don’t feel the calling,” Robert had said.

He couldn’t be a probation officer in York. He wasn’t called to stay and anyway there wasn’t enough money to keep the big house in the quiet street. Instead they’d moved east to Elvet, where the land was flat and they needed probation officers. Mary had left the university and took a job in a tiny public library. If she’d missed the students she hadn’t said. She’d gone to the church in the village with Robert every Sunday and sang the hymns as loudly as he did. What she’d thought about their new life in the draughty house, the bean fields and the mud, Emma hadn’t been able to tell.

But of course that wasn’t the complete story. Even aged fifteen Emma had known it couldn’t be. Robert wouldn’t just have discovered Jesus in a flash of lightning and a crashing of cymbals. Something had led up to it. Something had made him change. In the books she read, every action had a cause. How unsatisfactory if events came out of the blue, at random, unexplained. There had been some trauma in Robert’s life, some depression. He had never discussed it, so she was free to create her own explanation, her own fiction.

It was Sunday, and on Sunday the whole family went together to family Communion in the church on the other side of the square. After Matthew had been born Emma had been allowed a few weeks off, but a month after the birth Robert had called at the house. It had been mid morning, a week day, and she’d been surprised to see him.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she’d said.

“I’m on my way to Spinney Fen. Plenty of time for a coffee and a look at my new grandson.”

Spinney Fen was the women’s prison with the high concrete walls on the cliff next to the gas terminal. He had clients there, offenders he’d been supervising in the community and others about to be released on licence. Emma hated driving past Spinney Fen. Often it seemed shrouded in sea mist, so the concrete walls seemed to go up for ever into the clouds. When they’d first moved to Elvet she’d had nightmares about his going in through the narrow metal gate and never being allowed out.

She had made him coffee and let him hold

Matthew, but all the time she’d wondered what he was really doing in her home. On his way out he’d paused on the doorstep.

“Will we be seeing you at church on Sunday? Don’t worry about the baby. You can always take him out if he cries.”

And of course on the following Sunday she’d been there, because since the death of Abigail Mantel, she hadn’t had the will to stand up to him. To stand up to anyone. And he still had a way of making her feel guilty. Part of her felt that if she hadn’t disobeyed him that Sunday, ten years before, history might have been different. If she hadn’t been there to find the body, Abigail might not have died.

Robert and Mary always arrived at the church, St. Mary Magdalene, before Emma and James. Robert was churchwarden and dressed up in a white robe himself, when it was time, and served wine from the big silver chalice. Emma was not quite sure what he did in the half hour before the service began. He disappeared into the vestry. Perhaps there were practical tasks; perhaps he was praying. Mary always went into the small kitchen in the hall to switch on the urn and set out the cups for coffee afterwards. Then she went back into church and stood by the door to hand out hymn books and service sheets. When Emma had still been living at home she had been expected to help.

James hadn’t been at all religious when Emma first met him. She had brought the matter up on their first date just to check. Even now, she thought, he didn’t actually believe in God, or in fact in any of the things he claimed to believe, when he was reciting the creed. He was the most rational man she had ever met. He laughed at the superstitions of the foreign sailors he met at’ work. He liked going to church for the same reason that he liked living in the Captain’s House. It represented tradition, a solid respectability. He had no family of his own and that too had been a major attraction. Often Emma felt he was closer to Robert and Mary than she was, certainly he was more comfortable in their company.

They were late arriving at church. The story of Jeanie’s suicide had been on the front page of the newspaper, which was always delivered on Sunday. Her staring face had looked up from the doormat at Emma, stopping her in her tracks. Then there had been a last-minute flap because Matthew threw up over his clothes just as they were leaving the house. In the end they scuttled over the square like fractious children late for school. There was a sudden squall and Emma tucked the baby under her coat to protect him from the rain. She realized it made her look pregnant again. A group of reporters who were standing, smoking outside the church, ran for their cars.

The first hymn had already begun and they followed the vicar and the three old ladies who made up the choir up the aisle, forming an undignified tail to an already shambling procession. Mary moved up to let them into their usual places near the front. Emma tripped over the fat patchwork bag that her mother always carried and which had been left on the floor.

Only after she’d knelt for a moment of breath-catching, which passed as prayer, and was on her feet to sing the last verse, did she notice that the church was busier than normal. The pews were usually only this full for a baptism, when, as her father scathingly put it, ‘the pagans’ were in. But today there was no baptism and, besides, most of the faces were familiar. It was not that the church was full of strangers, rather, it seemed everyone had made the effort to turn out. In Elvet bad news always generated excitement. If Jeanie Long’s suicide could be considered bad news.

The arthritic organist was coming to a close with a trembling chord when the door opened again. The wind must have got behind it because it closed with a bang and the congregation turned in disapproval. Dan Greenwood was standing at the back of the church next to a large, formidably ugly woman. Although Emma felt the usual thrill of excitement at his presence, she was disappointed to find Dan there. She had never seen him in church and thought he despised it. He’d made no concession in his dress, however, and was still wearing the jeans and smock from the night before. The woman was in a shapeless Crimplene dress covered with small purple flowers and a fluffy purple cardigan. Despite the cold, on her feet she wore flat leather sandals. There was something portentous about the way they stood there and for a moment Emma expected an announcement, a demand that the church be cleared because of a fire in the vicinity or a bomb threat. Even the vicar hesitated for a moment and looked at them.

The woman, however, seemed perfectly composed, even to be enjoying the attention. She took Dan by the arm and pulled him into a seat. The familiarity of the gesture disturbed Emma. What was her relationship with him? She was too young to be a mother, not ten years older than he was. But her ugliness surely made it impossible that they could be romantically attached.

Emma had many insecurities but was always confident that she was physically attractive. She took it for granted that James would never have asked her to marry him if she’d been fat or had acne. During the remainder of the service Emma heard the woman’s voice above the others in the hymns and responses. It was clear and loud and quite out of tune.

There was no mention of Jeanie Long in the sermon and Emma thought perhaps the vicar had not heard about the suicide, but her name was there, along with Elsie Hepworth and Albert Smith, in the prayers for the deceased. Sitting with Matthew on her lap, looking down on the bent heads of the congregation who were kneeling, she tried to conjure up an image of Jeanie. She could only remember meeting her once at the Mantel home. Jeanie had been playing the piano which Keith had bought for Abigail when she showed a fleeting interest in having lessons. A tall, dark young woman, rather intense and earnest, bent over the keyboard. Then Keith had come in and she’d turned and her face had relaxed into a smile. It was hard to realize that Jeanie had been younger then than Emma was now, hardly more than a student.

The service moved on towards the Communion. Robert in his white robe was standing at the altar next to the vicar. Mary was first to take the bread and wine, then rushed to the kitchen to spoon instant coffee into vacuum jugs. The arthritic organist struggled back to her place and began to play something gentle and melancholy. A queue had formed in the aisle. Emma handed Matthew to James, who had never been confirmed, despite Robert’s best efforts, and stood to take her place. Ahead of her was a tall, stooped man in a shiny grey suit which was too big for him. He wasn’t a regular worshipper although she thought she might have seen him in the village. He had been sitting on his own, and no one had approached him, which was unusual. The parish ladies prided themselves on making strangers welcome.

The line moved slowly forward. The man knelt awkwardly and she took her place next to him, aware suddenly of the over-powering smell of mothballs. It had been a long time since the suit had been worn. He held out his cupped hands to take the wafer. They were hard and brown like carved wood, strong although he must have been at least sixty. The vicar caught his eye and gave a small smile of acknowledgement. Then Robert approached with the chalice, wiping the lip with a white cloth. Automatically the man reached out his hand to steady it, before raising it to his mouth. Then he looked up into Robert’s face and there was a shock of recognition. As Robert moved on towards her, the man spat out the mouthful of wine in his direction. The white robe was splashed with red from the thick, sweet wine. It could, Emma thought, have been blood seeping from a wound. There was a gasp of excitement masquerading as horror from the woman on the other side of Emma. The vicar hadn’t seen what had happened and Robert took no notice. The man got to his feet, and instead of returning to his pew, continued down the aisle and left the church.

The incident had happened very quickly and, hidden by the backs of the Communicants, it wouldn’t have been visible from the nave. But as the man passed her, Dan Greenwood’s companion got to her feet and followed him out.

Chapter Five

Every week after church they went back to Robert and Mary’s house for lunch. It was an immutable part of the ritual, like the reading of the Epistle and the collect of the day. Emma thought it unfair that her mother, who spent an hour after the service pouring coffee and washing dishes, should immediately throw herself into domestic activity at home. Mary claimed to enjoy it, but the Mary she remembered from York hadn’t been at all domestic. There’d been a cleaning lady then, and they’d eaten out a lot. Emma had memories of a family-run Italian restaurant, long Sunday afternoons of pasta and ice cream, and of her parents leading them tipsily home just as it was getting dark.

James always brought a couple of decent bottles of wine with him to the lunch. Emma thought he needed the alcohol to ward off the cold and numb the tedium. But when she’d suggested that they should make an excuse and stay away he wouldn’t hear of it.

i “I like your parents. Your father is interesting and intelligent and your mother is charming. You are fortunate that they’re so supportive.”

After that implied rebuke she didn’t bring up the subject again.

Springhead was a square, grey house just out of the village. Once it had been a farmhouse, but the land had been sold off. This was the house the family had come to when they’d moved out of York. Robert had been triumphant to find it. All their savings had been used up during his social work training, and he’d never believed it would be possible to find somewhere so spacious within his budget. He’d dismissed the surveyor’s report, which highlighted rising damp and woodworm in the roof joists, insisting this was the place the family were meant to be. Emma thought it had probably been for the best. She couldn’t imagine him in a semi on a new estate. She told herself his ego wouldn’t survive in a cramped space, though knew that was probably unfair. She was desperate, really, for his approval.

From Christopher’s old room in the attic, it was still possible to see the field where Abigail’s body had lain. The view hadn’t changed. The land here was so flat and near to the coast that development wasn’t allowed. A recent report from the Environment Agency predicted not only flooding, but the possibility that the whole peninsula could be washed away.

It was raining hard as they drove out to Springhead, so dark that they needed headlights. The ditches were full and surface water ran down the middle of the road. They were in James’s Volvo. Robert and Mary had gone on ahead.

“Who was that dreadful woman with Dan?” James asked. He liked beautiful objects. Emma believed that was why he put up with her moodiness now.

“I haven’t a clue. I hadn’t seen her before.”

“I wondered if she could be a business contact. You could imagine her running a craft shop. Harrogate perhaps, or Whitby.”

“Oh yes!” Sometimes she was surprised by how perceptive he could be. That was when she liked him best when he surprised her. “But Whitby, surely. Not classy enough for Harrogate.” She paused. “Do you think that was why Dan was in church? To please her? In the hope of securing a sale? It seems an odd thing to do. And not like him. He always seems so straight. I can’t imagine him manipulating a situation for his own ends.”

“No.” James slowed the car to a crawl. A ditch had burst its bank and formed a peaty stream across the road. “I think he must have known Jeanie Long. He seemed very upset last night when he talked about her suicide. Church seems the right place to be sometimes, even if you have no belief.”

“I suppose he could have known Jeanie.” Emma was doubtful but she didn’t want to dismiss the idea. It had been a long time since they had spoken like this, so easily. “He didn’t move to Elvet until later, but she was away too, at university. She’d only recently graduated when she moved in with Keith Mantel. Dan could have met her when she was still a student but I can’t see how.”

James ignored the speculation. “Dan thought the suicide might distress you.”

“I didn’t know her. I was trying to think in church. I only met her once.” She hesitated. “Do you realize it’s almost exactly ten years since Abigail Mantel died? The suicide seems a horrible coincidence. Or do you think she realized and planned it? A dramatic gesture to celebrate the anniversary?”

“Perhaps,” James said after a pause. Then, “I’ve always thought of suicide as a very selfish act. It’s the people left behind who suffer.”

Because they were being so companionable, she was tempted to tell him about the tall man who had spat out his Communion wine at Robert, but the event still seemed so shocking that she couldn’t bring herself to speak of it. James turned into the straight, bumpy track which led between two enormous fields to the house and she sat beside him in silence.

In the kitchen Robert was standing in front of the Aga. His trousers were steaming. Emma looked for some sign that the incident at the Communion rail had shocked him as much as it had her, but he said with a little smile, “We took Miss Sanderson home. I only helped her out of the car but I’m soaked.”

“Go and change, dear. You’ll catch cold.” Mary was fretting about the vegetables and he was in her way. Despite the position of authority he held at church and at work, sometimes she treated him like a child.

Robert seemed not to hear her and only moved away from the range to pour them each a glass of sherry. Emma put the baby in his seat on the floor and tucked a blanket around him. Mary lifted the chipped cast-iron lid of the stove to reveal the hot plate The room seemed suddenly warmer. She stooped to heave a casserole from the oven and slid it onto the plate. It began to bubble. Her face was flushed from the heat and the exertion. Her fine grey hair was tied back and Emma thought she should get it cut, coloured even. A ponytail looked ridiculous on a woman of her age. Mary wrapped a tea towel around the casserole lid and took it off to stir the contents. There was a smell of lamb, garlic and tomatoes, and Emma was suddenly certain that this was the same meal they’d eaten the day Abigail was strangled. She looked sharply at her mother expecting her to remember it too, but Mary only smiled with relief that the Aga had stayed sufficiently hot to cook the meat, and Emma felt foolish. She wondered if her mind was playing tricks. Her fantasies always seemed so real.

At this time of year they ate in the kitchen. The dining room had no grate and although there were storage heaters they were barely tepid when the family got up, and cold by the evening. Emma laid the table, slipping into the familiar routine, her hands moving to the cutlery and glasses without thought. It was as if she’d never gone away. Hard to believe that, like Jeanie Long, she’d spent years at university. If she hadn’t met and married James she would never have come back. Was that at the heart of her dissatisfaction with him?

Robert had finally gone upstairs to change and returned wearing jeans and a thick navy sweater. James opened one of the bottles of red wine. They took their places and waited for Robert to say grace. He always said grace even when only he and Mary were present. But today he seemed not to realize that they expected it of him, took the ladle and began to serve himself. Emma looked at her mother who only shook her head, humouring him again, and passed around a bdwl of potatoes.

Mary never washed-up after Sunday lunch. Robert would put a match to the fire he’d already laid in the living room and she’d sit there, drinking coffee and reading the Sunday papers until they joined her. By then the room would be almost warm. She was always grateful for this time to herself and never forgot to thank them.

Robert and Emma were alone in the kitchen. James had taken the baby upstairs to change him.

“Who was the man who spat at you?”

He answered without turning away from the sink. “Michael Long, Jeanie’s father’

He’d changed, she thought. The Michael Long she remembered had been strong, broad shouldered, loud.

“Why did he do it?”

“People often need someone to blame at a time like this.”

“But why you?”

“I had to submit a report to the parole board. I couldn’t recommend her as suitable for parole.”

“Jeanie Long was your client?”

Now he did turn round. He dried his hands deliberately on the threadbare towel hanging from the Aga, then sat next to her at the table.

“Only for the past twelve months.”

“Didn’t anyone think that was wrong? That it might be considered, I don’t know, some sort of conflict of interest?”

“Of course we discussed the suitability of my taking over the case, but the problem wasn’t one of a conflict of interest. You never appeared as a witness for the prosecution. It was a matter of whether I could develop a relationship with Jeanie, whether I could deal with her in a fair and open-minded way, and we decided that I could. The question of her guilt or innocence never came up. Not at that point. That was decided at the original trial and at a later appeal. I didn’t know Jeanie before she was sentenced. And I didn’t know Abigail, even though the two of you were friends.”

And now she thought about it, she supposed he was right. There had only been six months between the Winter family’s move to Elvet and Abigail’s death. During that time Springhead had been even more inhospitable than it was now. The elderly couple who’d lived in it before had only used two rooms, the rest of the house had been full of rubbish. There had been disasters with the plumbing, embarrassing smells, sudden blackouts. It hadn’t been a place to bring a new friend. All the sleep overs the giggly nights of videos, chocolate cake and illicit bottles of wine, had taken place at the Mantel home. Mary had met Abigail on a couple of occasions, at school events, the brief encounters on the doorstep when she dropped Emma off at the Old Chapel. Robert, eager to make an impression in his first post as probation officer had worked long hours, and was seldom around.

“Is it true that the case was to be reopened?”

“I presume it still will be. If Jeanie was innocent, someone else must have killed Abigail Mantel.”

They sat for a moment looking at each other. Emma thought it had been a day for unusual conversations. Her father had never spoken so simply or so frankly to her. By now it was quite dark outside. The wind blew through gaps in the window and moved the heavy curtain which covered it. From upstairs came the sound of the baby chortling.

“Did you think she was innocent?”

“It wasn’t my place to make that sort of judgement.

I’m an officer of the court. I have to accept the court’s decision. She always claimed she was innocent, but so do many of the offenders I work with.”

“What was she like?”

He paused again and his hesitation made him almost unrecognizable to her. He had always been a man of certainties.

“She was quiet, intelligent…” There was another break in his speech, almost a stutter. “Most of all she was angry, the most angry person I’ve ever met. She felt betrayed.”

“Who did she feel had betrayed her?”

“Her parents, I think. Her father, at least. But most of all Keith Mantel. She couldn’t understand why he never visited her. Even after he’d asked her to move out of the house she still believed he loved her.”

“But she’d killed his daughter! What could she expect?”

“Certainly he thought she had. And according to Jeanie that was the worst betrayal of all. That he could think her capable of murder.”

“Why didn’t you recommend her for parole?”

Emma thought he would refuse to tell her. He never talked about the details of his work. It was confidential, he’d say. He had the same responsibility as a priest to keep secrets. But today he seemed eager to talk. It was as if he needed to justify his decision to her.

“Partly it was her anger. I couldn’t be sure she could control it. At the trial the prosecution claimed that she strangled Abigail in a moment of rage and jealousy. I couldn’t take the risk that she might lose control again, strike out at someone who’d hurt her. It might have been different if she’d shown a willingness to cooperate with the prison authorities. I asked her to attend one of the anger management courses which we run at Spinney Fen but she refused. She said that if she attended it would be like admitting her guilt, admitting that her behaviour needed to change.”

James appeared at the door with Matthew in his arms. She caught his eye. “Can you give us a few minutes?” she said. He was surprised usually she was only too happy to be rescued from her family but he backed away.

Robert, still engrossed in his own thoughts, seemed not to notice the interruption. He continued, “Then there was the home circumstances report. I went to see Michael Long to discuss it. Jeanie’s mother used to visit her in prison but Michael never did. Since Mrs. Long died, Jeanie had no visits at all. I wanted to find out if there was a possibility of a reconciliation. If Michael had agreed that she could stay with him on release, even for a short period, that might have made a difference to the board.”

“But he wouldn’t?”

“He said he couldn’t face having her in the house.” Robert looked up from the table. “So you can see why he felt so guilty, why he needed to blame me. He had believed his own daughter to be a murderer.”

Chapter Six

Michael slipped out through the church door and paused to catch his breath. He was shaking. The rain was blowing straight into the open porch. It stung his face and hit the grey fabric of his suit, each drop spreading as the Communion wine had spread through the fibres of Robert Winter’s white surplus. Michael struggled into the waterproof jacket he still carried over his arm, and although the storm showed no sign of abating he started off for the road. The service would soon be over. The old crones inside would be coming through on their way to the hall for coffee and he couldn’t bear the thought of them gawping.

The sweet taste of the Communion wine remained in his mouth and on his lips, and suddenly he was desperate for a real drink to wash it away. He hesitated outside the Anchor. He hadn’t been inside for years, but still he was tempted. Then he realized the place would be busy with men waiting for their Sunday dinners to be cooked, and he didn’t want to meet anyone he knew. He didn’t think he’d manage to be polite. The fury which had overcome him when he’d seen Winter, coming towards him with the chalice, still roared around his head. He wasn’t proud of the scene he’d made, but if he hadn’t spat at him, he’d have had to hit him. He still wanted to hit someone.

It had been a crazy idea to come to the service in the first place. He saw that now. Whatever he’d hoped to get out of the ritual, he’d been disappointed. Peg had been the one for the church, not him. He’d always thought it a daft do. Grown men dressing up in frocks. What had he expected anyway? Jeanie’s voice sailing out of the rafters, “It’s all right, dad. I forgive you.”

He lived in a small row of council bungalows, just behind the church, had done since he moved from the Point after Peg had died. The reporters who’d been there when he’d left, still stood on the corner, shouting their stupid questions and waving their microphones. He ignored them and opened the door just enough so he could slide in. He didn’t want them looking inside. He thought, as he always did coming in, how small and cramped it was. How dark. That was one of the reasons he didn’t like going out much. Coming back each time was like being locked up in a prison cell. He hated it.

He hadn’t thought Jeanie had hated prison. Of course no one would enjoy it, but he hadn’t thought being shut in would send her into a panic. She’d never liked the outdoors much. She’d been terrified in a small boat, even when it was flat calm and she had a life jacket on. She preferred being inside with her music, and she’d had that in prison. They’d taken her a.cassette player and a load of tapes. Her music was all she’d really needed. That was how it had seemed to him and Peg when she was a youngster. She’d shut them out, excluded them. They’d brought her up and that didn’t seem fair. Like she’d dumped them when they stopped being useful to her. Then she’d hanged herself and he wondered if he’d got it wrong about her not hating the prison. That and other things.

He tried not to think that he might have been wrong. If Jeanie had hated the prison even as much as he hated this place, it must have been a nightmare for her. He couldn’t contemplate that, whatever she’d done, and grasped around for someone else to blame, knowing it was unreasonable even as he was doing it. He settled on Winter, the do-gooder, the pretend vicar. He was an easy target.

In the cupboard in the kitchen there was a litre bottle of cheap whisky he’d had delivered from the Co-op with the last lot of groceries. He half filled a tumbler and drank it down in burning gulps, then ran his tongue around his lips. He still fancied he could taste the wine and poured himself another glass, carried it with him.

He walked through to the bedroom and began to change out of his suit. He took the trousers off first and folded them over the back of the chair. Some change fell out of the pocket but he left it where it dropped. He thought of the bedroom in the house on the Point, the window so close to the water that its reflection bounced off the ceiling. It had been as near to being on a boat as you could get on dry land. There had been a continuous watery soundtrack the call of seabirds and waders, the drag of the tide on the shingle, the breaking of waves. He had taken it for granted until he’d moved here and had been almost suffocated by the bungalow’s dense and dreadful silence. Here, the rooms were so small that he could stand with his arms outstretched and almost touch the walls on each side.

He should never have retired as coxswain of the pilot launch.

That was what Michael told himself, standing in his underpants, struggling to get the fold in his trousers in the right place. But to tell the truth he hadn’t had much choice when it came down to it. If he hadn’t resigned from the launch they’d have had him out anyway, using the drinking as an excuse. As if all the pilots didn’t like a drink. At least this way there’d been a bit of dignity in his going. Peg would have approved of that. But he missed it with the same ache as he missed Peg. He missed the crack with the pilots and the girls in the data centre. He missed the satisfaction of bringing the launch into the lee of a big ship, holding it steady, while the pilot climbed down the ladder and jumped aboard. It hadn’t been like him to go without a fight and it still rankled. He’d felt the same humiliation as when Winter had turned up on the doorstep of the bungalow wanting to talk about Jeanie.

It had been a while ago now, but Michael still remembered the encounter with great clarity. He had gone over it many times in his mind. It was like one of those fairy tales about giants and monsters that children return to: frightening, but comforting in its familiarity. And it stopped him from thinking of worse things. Jeanie hanging in her cell by a bit of torn sheet. Him being wrong about his only daughter.

; So, Winter had turned up on his doorstep. It would have been January or February almost a year ago. Michael had only gone to answer it because he’d thought it would be the lad from the Co-op with his groceries. Normally he didn’t bother answering the door. He had no time for people selling things or collecting for charities. But there was this man. Winter. Michael hadn’t recognized him. He’d been dressed in a brown duffel coat, the sort naval officers used to wear in the war, but Winter had had the hood up, pulled right down over his forehead, so Michael had been reminded more of a monk.

“Mr. Long,” he’d said. “I wonder if I might come in for a minute.”

Michael had been about to slam the door on him, to mutter something about it not being convenient, but the man had put his face very close, so Michael felt he couldn’t breathe, and he’d said in a quiet, preachy voice, “It’s about Jeanie.”

And it was the last thing he’d been expecting, so he’d stepped back in surprise, and Winter had taken that as an invitation to come in.

“Perhaps I could make us both some tea,” he’d said. And Michael had been so affronted by the cheek of the man that he couldn’t speak. And again Winter had taken the shocked silence as an invitation. He’d walked into the kitchen as if it were his own and filled the kettle right to the top with no thought for the extra electricity that might use.

They’d sat in the little front room. It was filled with the few bits of furniture Michael had brought with him from the house on the Point and they’d had to sit almost knee to knee in the big armchairs.

“What’s Jeanie to you?” Michael had demanded. He still remembered that. He’d thrust his face towards Winter’s hoping to cause the same panic he’d felt on the doorstep. “What’s Jeanie to you?”

“I’m her probation officer,” Winter had said. “I have to prepare a report.”

“She didn’t get probation. She got life. And there were reports enough done at the time.”

Too many reports. All of them prying. All of them wanting to find someone else to blame for what Jeanie had done. Him and Peg had never been given copies of the reports of course. They’d been excluded in that process too. But he guessed that they’d featured. It was always the parents’ fault, wasn’t it? The reports would have said that they’d never understood Jeanie, never given her what she’d needed. He could figure out that much from what had been said in court.

“This is different,” Winter had said. He’d had one of those voices stuck-up teachers use with daft children. Patient, but as if it’s a real strain being patient. As if he was a saint to be able to manage it. “Jeanie will soon be eligible for parole. If she’s released back into the community, it’ll be my job to supervise her on licence.”

“They’re not thinking of letting her out?”

“Don’t you think she should be?”

“It just seems like she’s been in no time. And after what she did to that lass…”

“She still says she’s innocent, you know…” He’d paused as if he expected a response from Michael. Michael had been staring at the little window which was shrouded in net so he couldn’t see out, unable to take in the notion that his daughter might soon be released. “It won’t help her case for parole, I’m afraid, insisting she didn’t commit the murder. Prisoners are supposed to confront their offending behaviour and show remorse for their actions. I’ve tried to persuade her.”

“I wouldn’t think she’d be much good at remorse.”

“I’m new to the case, Mr. Long.” Winter had leaned forward, so Michael had been able to smell his breath, peppermint masking something spicy from the night before. Not booze, of course. Winter wouldn’t be a drinker. There wasn’t the life in him for that. “But there’s no record of you having visited your daughter’

“Peg went, before she got too poorly.” The words had come out before Michael could stop them, though he’d sworn to himself that he’d tell Winter nothing. He’d driven his wife on visiting days, dropped her right outside the prison gate, because there always seemed to be a wind when they went and rain blown almost horizontal. Then he’d taken the car to the visitors’ car park and sat with his paper lying unread on the steering wheel until all the people streamed out. He’d been surprised by how ordinary they’d looked, the parents and the husbands of the women locked up. From a distance he’d not been able to pick Peg out from the rest.

“But not you?” Winter had kept the patient voice but his eyes had been full of judgement and distaste.

“Nor Mantel,” Michael had said. “He never visited her either.”

“Hardly the same thing, Mr. Long. He believed she’d killed his only daughter.”

And Michael had turned away at that, acknowledging the justice of the words, but hating the contempt in them.

“And he told Jeanie that he loved her,” he’d said quietly. A futile attempt at defiance. Then, on firmer ground, “Have you got a daughter, Winter?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“Aye, you do have a daughter.” He’d been able to tell by something in Winter’s face. “Imagine how you’d feel if your lass did something like that. Strangling a child just because she’d come between her and her lover. You’d feel able to support her, would you? You’d not mind visiting her in that place?”

Winter had hesitated for a moment and Michael had felt a stab of triumph. Then the probation officer had resumed in the saintly voice which made Michael want to slap him, “I might hate the crime, Mr. Long, but I’d not hate the girl who’d committed it.” He’d set down his cup and continued briskly, “Now about the parole.”

“What about it?”

“The parole board would need to know she had somewhere to come back to. Support.”

“You’re asking if she can move in with me?”

“I know you’ve found it difficult, but it need only be for a short time until she sorted out somewhere more suitable.”

“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said, man?” Michael had discovered that he was screaming. “She killed that lass and that killed my wife. How can I have her under the same roof as me?”

Only now it seemed she hadn’t killed Abigail Mantel. Sitting here on a wet Sunday after church, with nothing to cling on to but the remains of the whisky, he kept coming up against the fact and sliding away from it. It was too much for him to accept all at once. If Jeanie hadn’t been a murderer, what sort of monster was he? He’d turned her away. Outside the sky darkened but he still didn’t move. Only when the taped bells in the church tower started up again, scratchy and raucous, for the evening service, so that he knew people would be walking past, did he get up and draw the curtains and switch on the light.

Chapter Seven

The next morning Michael was awake before six as usual. It was a habit he’d never get out of now. Activity was an addiction. He’d worked twelve-hour shifts as coxswain of the pilot launch, and even after being on call all night, he’d not been able to sleep during the day. The enforced idleness of retirement made him panic. Jeanie had been lazy. Some days she’d spent hours in her room, and when he’d asked her what she was doing, she’d say she was working. It hadn’t seemed much like work to him. Occasionally she’d left her door open a crack and he’d peered in. She’d be lying on her bed, not always even dressed, and there’dbe music playing and she’d have her eyes closed. He liked some music a brass band or a march, a tune with a beat, the songs from the old musicals but she never played anything like that. This would be strings usually, or a piano, something high-pitched which made him want to piss. “Wee-wee music’ he’d called it to her, sneering, when she was being stony and blank. He didn’t know why her stillness had irritated him so much, but it had. He’d felt like screaming and lashing out at her. He never had but the anger and resentment had bubbled away. Only Peg knew it was there.

Maybe they should never have had a child. They’d been happy enough as they were. He had been, at least. He’d never really known what Peg had thought about it. Or perhaps by the time Jeanie arrived he’d been too old, too set in his ways. But he thought he’d done right by his daughter. He couldn’t see what he could have done differently. He’d paid up for the music lessons, hadn’t he? He’d driven her every week into the town, listened to the scratchy violin, the repeated scales on the upright piano which had belonged to Peg’s mum. Peg had played the piano too. After a couple of brandies when they’d had a few friends round, she’d played for them. It had always been songs which belonged to their parents’ generation, old music hall turns, but they’d all joined in, making up the words as they went, collapsing in laughter before they’d finished. He couldn’t remember ever having seen Jeanie laugh like that, even as a kid.

At least that daughter of Mantel’s had had a bit of life about her, a bit of spirit. He’d seen it during the Sunday dinner when they’d all come to the Point. You could tell by the way she’d tossed her head; she’d wanted you to look at her. If Jeanie had been a bit more like that perhaps they wouldn’t have fought so much. Except, he thought, there had never been much real argument. More a bad-tempered silence, with Peg acting as a buffer between them, squashed between Jeanie’s surly resentment and his anger. The Sunday dinner had been Peg’s idea. “Jeanie’s obviously mad about the man. He’s older than her but that’s no reason to disapprove, is it? You’re older than me. It’s not like he’s still married.” He’d tried to explain to her that there was more to it than that, but she hadn’t been able to see it.

At seven o’clock Michael allowed himself to get out of bed and make some tea. Still all he could think about was Jeanie and how he might have got her wrong. The anger had become a habit like waking up too early, only now he had no one to turn it against except himself. Even conjuring up images of the probation officer didn’t work any more. While the kettle was boiling he thought of the whisky in the cupboard under the sink and it was a real effort not to reach down and fetch it out. Then he heard Peg’s voice. Had to stop himself from turning round because he could almost believe she was in the room with hinfr Drinking before breakfast, Michael Long? I’d not put up with that. As he squeezed out the tea bag against the side of his cup it occurred to him that he might be going mad. What he was going through would send anyone crazy. How could he stand the same thoughts and memories rolling around in his head until he died? That was why he’d gone to church of course. He’d thought there might be magic, that when he put the round cardboard wafer on his tongue, they’d all disappear. It was nothing to do with repentance or forgiveness at all. But it hadn’t worked. Nothing would.

He took the tea to the bedroom but he didn’t get back into the crumpled sheets. He sat on the edge, holding the cup in one hand and the saucer in the other. He heard himself slurping the hot liquid and imagined Jeanie’s horrified face whenever he’d done that in public. Mantel’s daughter had only laughed. It had been at the same lunch, the only time Mantel had stepped foot inside the house on the Point as far as he knew. Peg had made a pot of tea after the meal, and he’d drunk it as he always did, only perhaps he was even noisier because he had been drinking before they arrived to give himself a bit of courage. There’d been a silence, the look of disgust on Jeanie’s face, then Abigail Mantel had thrown back her head and laughed. Somehow that had broken the ice and they’d all joined in; even Jeanie had eventually managed a thin smile.

The prison governor had come to tell him about the suicide. It had been about this time of day, maybe a little later. Michael had opened the door to fetch in the milk and he’d been standing there, a tall grey man in a suit and a black overcoat. He must have been planning in his mind what he intended to say, because his lips had been moving. The sight of Michael, still in his dressing gown, had surprised him. He’d recovered himself quickly though. You had to think on your feet if you were a prison governor.

“Mr. Long,” he’d said. “I’m from Spinney Fen…”

Michael had interrupted. “You’re wasting your time. I told the other one. I can’t have her here.”

“Jeanie’s dead, Mr. Long. I think you’d best let me in.”

And he’d sat in the small front room for more than an hour telling Michael what had happened. How an officer had come to unlock Jeanie for the morning and had found her. How she’d already been dead for a long time, probably soon after lock-up the night before. How there’d been nothing anybody could do. “We’re all dreadfully sorry, Mr. Long.” Sounding as if he meant it. The bombshell had been dropped when he’d been about to leave. “It’s possible that Jeanie was innocent, Mr. Long. I understand the police intend to reopen the Abigail Mantel case. Jeanie hadn’t been informed. There was nothing official, you understand. Nothing we could do at this point. But I thought you should know.” He’d paused in the hall. “Would you like to see your daughter, Mr. Long? I can arrange that if you’d like it:

For a moment Michael had been tempted. Then he’d thought, I don’t have the right. I wouldn’t see her when she was alive. What right do I have to intrude on her now?

He’d shaken his head without speaking.

The man had walked out of the front door, stooping as he went, because he was so tall that he was afraid of hitting his head on the lintel. Michael had watched him go to his car, which was bright red and rather sporty, and had decided that he could kill himself too. There’d been one indulgent day when he’d fantasized how best to go about it hanging like Jeanie herself, or pills, or drowning. He’d fancied drowning. This time of year when the water was cold it didn’t take long to lose consciousness and there was something fitting about a boatman sliding to rest under the waves. He hadn’t done it, of course. He’d seen it as cheating. He’d stay around long enough for Abigail Mantel’s killer to be brought to justice. He owed Jeanie that much.

Michael went to the bathroom and washed and shaved. The last few days he hadn’t bothered, except yesterday just before church, but if he were going to stay alive he supposed he’d have to do it properly. Play by the rules to the end. For the same reason he put some bread under the grill for breakfast and forced himself to eat it.

He was drying up the plate and the cup when the doorbell rang. It was just after eight thirty. It wasn’t the day for the woman who came once a week to clean for him, so he ignored it. It would be the press again, some reporter offering a fortune for a picture of Jeanie, promising to tell his side of the story. The bell continued, a sharp continuous ring, as if someone was leaning against the button. He went into the hall. Through the frosted glass of the front door he saw a shape, a bulky shadow.

“Go away,” he shouted. “Leave me alone. I’ll call the police.”

The noise of the bell stopped and the letter box flap was pushed open from outside. He saw an open mouth, a throat, moving lips.

“I am the police, pet, and if you don’t fancy a little jaunt in a jam-sandwich to the police station you’d best let me in.”

He opened the door. A woman stood on the doorstep. Something about the way she stood there reminded him of Peg, and he changed his attitude and felt well disposed towards her for no other reason than that. Perhaps it was her size which triggered the memory, the thick legs and heavy, comforting bust. But there was something else. The way she smiled, knowing he was a grouchy old git, but miraculously seeming to like him anyway. She walked into the hall.

“Bit poky in here,” she said.

He didn’t mind. Not like he minded the probation officer Winter pushing his way in, presuming to know something of what he was feeling. She was the sort of woman who said what she thought as soon as she thought it. There was no putting on a show for the rest of the world.

“I saw you in church yesterday,” she went on, followed you out. But you seemed a bit upset and I thought it would best wait a day.”

“Probably just as well.”

“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Must be coffee time then.”

“I don’t have coffee,” he said. “Will tea do?”

“It will if it’s strong. I can’t bear weak tea.”

She was still standing when he came into the lounge with the tray. He’d made tea in a pot, and covered it with a cosy Peg had knitted using up old scraps of wool. There were mugs. He thought she might sneer at a small cup. She was looking at the photographs on a shelf in the alcove next to the gas fire. One of him standing next to the boat that day they’d given him the award, a big grin on his face which had more to do with the ale he’d supped, than with the medal. And another of him and Peg on their wedding day, him as skinny as those Africans they showed on telly whenever there was a famine, her all soft and round with a circle of silk flowers in her hair and roses in her hand.

“No picture of Jeanie?” the woman asked. “You didn’t sell them to the press?”

“I wouldn’t have done that!” He was horrified she could think him capable of it.

“No,” she said calmly. “Of course you wouldn’t. Why no photos then?”

“I thought she was guilty. All the way through I thought she was guilty.”

“Only natural. All the evidence pointed that way.”

“So you think she was guilty too?” He couldn’t tell if it was hope he felt, or dread.

“Nah.” She paused. “You know she said she’d gone to London, the day Abigail was killed?”

“Aye. No one saw her.”

“A witness has come forward. A student who knew her. He swears she was in King’s Cross that day. I’ve talked to the lad. If he’s lying I could get a job modelling nude for the cover of Vogue!

“It wasn’t just that I thought she killed that schoolgirl.” Michael felt a need to explain. “It was that I blamed her for Peg dying too.”

“Did Peg think she’d committed the murder?”

He shook his head. “Not for a minute. She fought all the way through for Jeanie, talked to the press, the police, the lawyers. The effort wore her out.”

“I don’t suppose your attitude helped, you stubborn bugger.”

He didn’t have any answer to that so he poured out the tea, swirling the pot first to make sure it was strong enough. She sat heavily on an armchair. He put the mug carefully on the small table in front of her, waited anxiously while she tasted it.

“Perfect,” she said. “Just as I like it.”

He took his own place then and waited for her to explain.

“I’m Vera Stanhope. Inspector. Northumbria police. A case like this they send an outsider in. Fresh eyes. You know. Check they did everything right first time round.”

“There was a woman in charge before.” It had been strange to him at first. A woman leading a team of men. But when he’d met her a couple of times he could understand how she managed it.

“So there was.” Vera was noncommittal.

“What was she called?” His memory was a sludge as he grasped for a name. All he could see was a woman in silhouette, sat in the kitchen at the house on the Point. Light from a low winter sun was pouring through the window behind her. She was very smart in a black suit, short skirt, fitted jacket. He’d noticed the legs in sheer, black tights. Even then, when they’d thought Jeanie was a murderer, he’d found himself looking at the legs and wondering what it would be like to stroke them.

“Fletcher,” Vera said. “Caroline Fletcher.”

“She thought Jeanie was guilty. Right from the start. Not that she wasn’t polite with us. Perhaps that was how I could tell. The sympathy, you know. The pity. She knew what we’d have to go through when it came to court.”

“She left the service a while back,” Vera said. “You’ll have to make do with me this time. Not so nice to look at, huh?”

“Easier to talk to though.” He hadn’t found it easy to talk to Inspector Fletcher. She asked a lot of questions but he had the feeling that she wasn’t really listening, that behind the polite smile and the glossy eyes her mind was already racing ahead to form conclusions that had nothing to do with the words he was speaking.

“That’s why I’m here,” Vera said. “I want you to talk to me.”

“I could have got her parole,” he said suddenly. “If I’d said she could come here, that I’d support her when she came out. She’d still be alive if I’d believed her story.”

There was an angry set to her mouth as she put down her mug and faced up to him. He thought she was going to let fly at him, tell him what she thought of his lack of faith in his daughter.

“You didn’t put her there.” She spoke very slowly and deliberately, an emphasis on every syllable as if she was marking the beat in a piece of music. “We did that. Us. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge and the jury. Not you. You’re not to blame.”

He didn’t believe her but he was grateful to her for saying it.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” she said. “Everything about that time.”

“I’m not sure I’m up to remembering. I might get things wrong. Details.”

“Nah,” she said. “It’s the details we get right. That’s what we remember best.”

Chapter Eight

Peg had been the only other person Michael could have talked to like this, and when he broke off his story occasionally to look at Vera’s face to check that she was listening or judge her reaction to something he’d said he was shocked because he half expected to see his wife’s features. Vera always was listening.

He started right from the beginning. “I was never bothered about kiddies. I thought we were happy as we were, but it mattered to Peg. She’d have liked a big family, I think she was one of five girls. Her father farmed up Hornsea way. When she found out she was pregnant she was thrilled. She’d pretty well given up hope of it happening. I was pleased for her, like, but not so much for myself. I couldn’t see how things could get any better.

“And then Jeanie was born on the night of a big spring tide. She was long and skinny, even as a baby, with thick, black hair.”

“You were living on the Point then?”

“Aye, it was a part of the job. And we didn’t think it’d be a bad place for a child to grow up. There was space to run around. Good fresh air. It’s not a lonely place. There were other kids in the lifeboat houses and when she was bigger, Peg brought her into Elvet for the play group But she never needed company much, even when she was little. It was always books and music with her. Right from the start.”

He looked up. “Peg always said she took after me, but I could never see it myself. I’m not one for books. “Jeanie’s proud and she’s stubborn,” she’d say. “Who do you think she gets that from?”

“I’ve been trying to trace her friends,” Vera said. “I’d like to talk to other people who knew her. There must have been girls at school…

.”

“There were friends, I suppose. Lasses from school like you said. She’d go to their birthday parties and Peg’d invite them back to the Point for tea.” He remembered those days. The house had seemed full of them pretty little girls in party dresses who giggled and chattered and chased each other around the garden. “But I could tell Jeanie was never close to them. There was something solemn about her. She took life too seriously. I don’t know where she got that from. Peg and I always enjoyed a laugh.”

“What about boyfriends?”

“There was no one while she was at school. She said she was too busy with exams. Peg would tease her about it sometimes, tell her she couldn’t spend all her time working. And she’d say dead serious, “But I like work, Mum.” There might have been lads at the university but we wouldn’t know about that. She went away to Leeds. She kept in touch phoned her mother every week and came home every now and again for her Sunday lunch but she never mentioned a boyfriend.” He paused. “There might have been someone. She might have told Peg and asked her to keep it a secret from me. She thought I was always criticizing and perhaps I was. I should have made more effort to get on with her.”

“And she should have made more effort to get on with you,” Vera said gently.

“No. I thought so at the time. But I was too full of myself.”

“What do you mean?”

He struggled to explain. It was hard without boasting and this wasn’t the time for blowing his own trumpet. “I was someone in this village then. Parish councillor. Coxswain of the launch which takes the pilots out to the ships in the river. You’ll have seen the launches if you’ve been down to the Point. Moored by the long jetty.”

She nodded.

“There’s a buzz about that. An excitement. That’s why you do it, but all the same it’s a worthwhile job and you think you deserve some respect.” He hesitated again. “Peg thought children have no obligation to their parents. She said they don’t ask to be born. The obligation all goes one way. I didn’t see it then but now I think she was right.”

Vera didn’t express an opinion on the question. “I’ve never had any kids myself,” she said.

He would have liked to ask if she’d ever wanted children. He’d assumed that all women got broody as they got older. But although he felt close to the fat woman whose presence seemed to take up half his lounge, he thought the question was a bit personal.

“How did Jeanie meet Keith Mantel?” Vera asked suddenly, and he was glad the interview had moved on to surer ground. He was better with facts.

“Here in Elvet. In the Anchor. She’d worked there part-time since she was at school. Washing up, waitressing a bit of bar work when she got older. They thought the world of her. The most reliable student they’d ever employed, Veronica the landlady said.”

“You must have been proud of her’

“Aye,” he said reluctantly. “I was. And not just about her work at the pub. About the exams and the music and everything. I was too stubborn to tell her. Most people liked me then. Mike Long, life and soul of the party, holding the village together. She didn’t. I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t forgive her for not being taken in by me.” He shot her another look. “Sorry. Just talking daft.”

“Wasn’t Jeanie still at the university when she met Mantel? I don’t understand what she was doing here. She’d hardly have come back to Elvet from Leeds for a Saturday job.”

“She was on study leave before her finals. Home for a couple of weeks before the exams. Peg had persuaded her to come back. She said it would be quieter for her to revise. Really, of course, she wanted to pamper her a bit. Feed her up. Veronica must have heard she was here because she phoned up in a panic. Would Jeanie mind helping out in the Anchor for a couple of evenings? One of the barmaids was off sick and she was rushed off her feet. So Jeanie went in as a favour’

And that’s where she met Keith Mantel?”

“So it seems. Not that she told us at the time, of course.”

“How did she come to move in with him?”

There was a silence. “That was my fault,” he said at last. “Speaking my mind without thinking. As usual.”

Vera didn’t say anything. She wasn’t going to help him out on this one.

“She came home as soon as the exams were finished. We weren’t expecting it. She’d talked about spending the summer travelling. She wanted to go to Italy.”

“On her own?”

“Aye. That was how she preferred to be. Until then at least. Any road, she came back. The story was that she needed to be around in case there were any auditions. It made sense. She’d always wanted to be a professional musician and it’s a competitive business. She said she couldn’t afford to be out of touch all summer. Peg was delighted. And Veronica took her back on in the pub.”

“How did you get on with her when she came home?”

“Better. I thought it was because she’d been away. She didn’t seem so touchy. And maybe I was getting a bit more mellow in my old age.”

“But really it was because she was in love.”

He shot a furious look at her but she wasn’t mocking him. There was nothing amused about her face. She looked very sad.

“I saw them together,” Michael said. “Her and that Mantel. He must have given her a lift home from work after the lunchtime shift. She’d have thought I’d be out. They were sitting in that flash car of his. The roof was down. They were all over each other like a rash. He had his hand up her shirt.” He felt himself blush like a girl. “It was broad daylight.”

“Why did you disapprove so much?” Vera asked. “I mean he was older than her but he wasn’t married.

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 notice 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.

Tonight he spoke Russian. The skipper’s English wasn’t bad, but James’s Russian was better, and he was glad of the necessity to concentrate. It stopped him thinking of the glossy sign outside the pilot office. The shadowy figure on the dock. Drowned men returned to life. James had enlisted in Emma’s evening class to learn a few basic phrases: ten degrees port, Captain, twenty degrees starboard. So there would be no misunderstanding when he gave directions and he wouldn’t be dependent on someone else to translate. He’d done Spanish the term before for the same reason. But then he’d seen Emma and he’d stayed in the class all year,

working harder than he’d ever done at school, eager to impress. He had an A level to show for it. And a wife and child.

There was no room for error bringing a ship out of Goole. The River Ouse was narrow there, with concrete sides like a canal. It was tight for a boat of this size. For a containership it seemed impossible on the approach and seamen who’d never visited the port before were horrified. What is this place you bring me to? This is not possible. No, there is some mistake. James enjoyed the delicacy of the work. It was a challenge, a test of his skill.

The ship moved slowly away from the dock, which was spotlit like a movie set. Black and white. The silhouettes of the cranes and warehouses two dimensional as if they’d been built from hardboard. The river widened and the wind became fresher. The rain stopped and the visibility improved suddenly, so he could make out each bank, marked by pinpricks of light: street lamps, headlights, the lit-up windows of insomniacs and feeding mothers.

A boy with a mouthful of decaying teeth brought him more tea and a meal, a greasy stew with livid orange carrots and grey potatoes, which tasted better than it looked. He would have eaten it anyway. It seemed a long time since lunch with his in-laws at Springhead, and it would have been bad manners to turn the food away.

At the mouth of the estuary the wind increased again into sudden gusts which whipped the river into little pointed waves and sent spray over the deck. In the daylight it would be possible from here to see the spire of St. Mary Magdalene church in Elvet, the track along the shore, where sometimes James took the baby in his pram. To walk and remember. It was six o’clock. Morning. Matthew would soon be waking. The coxswain on duty at the Point would have been warned that James would need collecting in the launch.

That thought, or rather the coincidence of thoughts Mary Magdalene and the coxswain of the launch -forced a connection of memory, and James realized that the man who’d been sitting in front of them in church the day before had been Michael Long. James hadn’t recognized him at the time. He’d been a bluff, rather aggressive man when James had worked with him, impervious, it had seemed, to James’s charm. Of course he’d been in the church to mourn his daughter. Suicide. A terrible accusation. James shivered although where he stood at the helm he was protected from the weather and the small room was warm, almost stuffy. He wasn’t given to fancies but suddenly he was aware of the depth of water below the hold of the ship, wondered what it must be like to drown.

They were rounding the Point. James could see the jetty all lit up, the fretwork of black metal, and the VTS tower where the pilot master would be sitting. The waves were longer and deeper here and the ship was starting to roll. Soon they would be in open water.

“Make a lee, Captain,” James said calmly. His work was almost over.

The ship swung slowly, so the long side of the hull faced into the wind. The launch was on its way. The crackling voice of the coxswain reported its progress. James went onto deck to watch its approach at first it was a flicker of light which disappeared with each wave. The Russian captain stood beside him and slapped his back as if they were best friends.

“Good work, sir,” he said in English. “It is always a pleasure to work with you, Pilot.”

He slipped a bottle of vodka into James’s bag and waved the latest Argos catalogue in salute. James smiled his thanks, as if vodka was his favourite drink in the world. The launch was circling the Russian boat, so it came alongside sheltered from the wind. James climbed down the pilot ladder with his bag over one shoulder, checked that the launch was in position and jumped aboard.

The coxswain was a woman called Wendy, slight and dark and determined to do well. Michael Long hadn’t liked that, James remembered. Being replaced by a woman had been the final straw. She turned to see that he was safely in his seat, opened the throttle and they started back to the Point.

“Good passage down, Mr. Bennett?” she shouted above the engine noise.

“A bit murky over the Whittons,” he said. “All right once the ebb got away.”

It was eight o’clock and light now. Faint sunshine penetrated the cloud. On the south bank of the river refineries and chimneys glowed silver through the mist, looking in outline like a great city. Venice perhaps, or St. Petersburg. James had the cold, empty feeling which comes from having too little sleep. After the swaying of the ship, his first couple of steps along the jetty seemed unnatural, as if the boards had lifted and hit the soles of his feet a beat too soon. He saw there was no pool car waiting for him to drive back to Hull,

thought that if he had to get a taxi, at least there’d be a chance of sleep.

Wendy seemed to guess what was going through his mind.

“Bert will be here soon. There’s a tanker due for Immingham. He says if you hang on you can take his car back. Go on in. You look as if you could use a coffee.”

“I could use a couple of hours’ sleep.” But it wasn’t a real complaint.

The steward in the pilot office made him a hot drink and a bacon sandwich. There was a Calor gas stove which hissed and smelled and immediately after eating James must have dozed, because when Bert did arrive it was light outside.

James emerged into a day-time world of children’s voices and a woman in one of the lifeboat houses hanging washing on the line. It was an odd community here on the Point. Half a dozen families, cut off from the mainland, only attached by a thin strip of sand, mud and concrete which could be breached by the next high tide. And most of their life was spent waiting. The coxswains of the pilot launches waited for the tide and the crew of the sole permanently manned lifeboat station in the country waited for a collision, for someone stranded on a sandbank. Their only activity would come out of someone else’s tragedy.

Still dazed from the Calor fumes and fuzzy with sleep, James stood for a moment to clear his head. His muscles felt stiff and clumsy. He walked past the VTS tower to the rise in the land where he’d get a view of the open sea. On this side of the Point there was a thicket of bramble and sea buckthorn, overrun by rabbits. A long beach ran north towards the mainland coast. The mist had cleared suddenly while he’d been sleeping and the light had the clear, sharp quality which comes before rain. The tanker waiting offshore seemed ridiculously close and the launch which was already circling towards it had the bright detail of a plastic toy.

Two people were walking along the beach, close to the tide line A man and a woman. Not birdwatchers. Birdwatchers were regular visitors to the Point, but they all dressed the same and they carried binoculars and telescopes. Besides, they didn’t wander much onto the beach. They stood where he was standing now to get a panoramic view of the passing seabirds, or they pushed their way through the paths cut in the undergrowth. James wasn’t sure what had first attracted his attention to the walkers. Perhaps it was the man, something about the way he was walking was familiar. He was wearing a long gabardine coat, too smart for a stroll on the beach and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets. And then there were his shoes. Most people would put on Wellingtons or boots, but he wore polished leather shoes. The salt would stain them. James crouched so he couldn’t be seen and continued watching. The man stopped suddenly, but he was still talking. The abrupt halt had only added emphasis to the words, demanding that the woman stop too and give him her full attention.

It was Keith Mantel. Since he and Emma had moved back to Elvet, James had managed to avoid him, and he looked older than when James had last seen him. His hair was grey, cut very short. Perhaps he’d put on a bit of weight. James wasn’t sure but he thought the face was fatter. Then the man turned and the couple continued on their walk and immediately James thought he must have been mistaken. He’d been thinking too much of Mantel recently and in his tiredness had dreamed him up. This was a respectable couple, taking the air before going into the city to resume their stressful lives. Or a not-so-respectable businessman snatching a few illicit moments with his mistress. Though there seemed to be nothing romantic about this encounter. Rather, it was confrontational. The woman deliberately allowed a space to grow between them, stooped and picked up a pebble and threw it into the water with a violence which suggested anger.

James turned away and walked back to the road where the company car was parked. Emma had enough stories and fancies for both of them. In the car, the heater was full on, blasting hot, stale air. James switched it off and backed away from the river. He drove slowly up the narrow track past the small group of houses and the cafe which provided mugs of tea and piles of chips to visitors in the summer. He was about to speed up a little, when he braked and pulled into the public car park. He was too curious, after all, to let it go. There were only two vehicles there, standing side by side, facing out into the estuary. One was a smart, black saloon, the other a boxy four by four. On the side of the latter was painted the logo which James had seen on the notice at the pilot office in Hull. And the words Mantel Development. Not his imagination then. Not a dream. On this occasion at least he wasn’t hallucinating.

Who was the woman? She was more mature than the usual lovers. When James had known him Mantel always went for young women. Inexperienced. Had he hoped some of their innocence would rub off on him? And more recently James had heard rumours in the village. The women in church loved to be shocked. Another young lover, he’d understood, had moved into the smart house where Mantel still lived. The woman on the beach had been well preserved, well groomed in an efficient, businesswoman sort of way, but she had been middle aged. In her forties at least. James switched off the engine and got out of his car. He walked slowly round the black saloon, not touching it, but peering in through the windows. It was a top of the range model with leather seats, all the latest gadgets on the dashboard. There was none of the mess which Emma gathered in her car baby clothes, sweet wrappers, Coke cans. Not even a brief case. But on the passenger seat was a pile of letters. The woman had picked up her mail before setting off, though she hadn’t had time to open it. The top envelope was face up and was an advertising circular from a credit card company. James recognized the printing. At least now he had a name for the woman. The letter was addressed to Caroline Fletcher.

When he finally reached home it had gone ten o’clock. The house was quiet. Matthew would be in his cot, just settled for his morning nap. Emma was in the living room. She’d lit a fire; he could smell the pine logs as soon as he came into the house. She was sitting in a big armchair, her legs tucked under her, and there was a book lying in her lap. Flaubert’s Emma Bovary in French. Her eyes were shut and her breathing was regular. When he approached her she stirred.

“Oh God,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had a dreadful night with the baby. I must have dozed off. And you must be exhausted.”

“Not too bad,” he said. “Second wind.” He nodded at the book. “What’s this?”

The question seemed to make her uncomfortable. “You know what they say about languages use them or lose them. I might want to go back to teaching. I don’t want to get rusty.”

“Good idea. Coffee?”

“I’d love some. But let me get it.”

“No really,” he said. “I meant what I said. Second wind.”

When he came back, carrying mugs and the biscuit tin, she was fast asleep.

Chapter Eleven

In her sleep, Emma was fifteen and it was summer.

The house where Abigail lived with her father was bigger even than the house in York which Emma’s father had designed. Once, it had been a chapel belonging to a grand house with a formal garden and a park. There was still a long leaded window in the entrance hall though all the stained glass had been removed to allow in more light. The big house had burned to the ground a hundred years ago leaving the chapel stranded and useless, until it was developed by Abigail’s father.

Now, only that long window and the steep roof gave an indication of its original purpose. The ground had been landscaped and the house extended. There was a new garage and a flat above it for a housekeeper. Stone from the ruin had been used to build the living room where Jeanie Long was playing the piano. Glass sliding doors led from there into a conservatory. The living room was furnished in a style which Emma knew her father would despise reproduction sideboards in dark wood, over-stuffed sofas, mirrors with gilt frames. He would approve, she felt, of the conservatory. There, the table and chairs were plain and functional. Big plants stood in terra cotta pots, which reminded Emma immediately of the garden in York. A striped hammock swung from the roof.

Jeanie Long was practising. Since she moved to the house to be Keith Mantel’s lover, it seemed she hadn’t stopped playing. Often the same piece was repeated over and over. This seemed to drive Abigail to fury. It provoked a continuous battle, or rather maintained the hostilities which had begun with Jeanie’s arrival. Abigail refused to speak to the woman. She banged doors, had stopped eating, burst into tears whenever her father was around to see. Jeanie fought back with the only weapon she had her music. She would begin as soon as he left in the morning and continue until his return. There were other rooms of course. Abigail could avoid the sound if she wanted. There were rooms in the old part of the chapel which had televisions, a sound system, a computer, and because the piano was in an extension separated from the rest of the house by thick walls, the sound of the playing was barely audible from those. But that didn’t matter to Abigail. She threatened to take an axe to the piano late at night and Emma believed that she might do it. She imagined the splintered wood and the twanging strings.

Emma and Abigail were in the conservatory. Abigail was swinging on the hammock, one leg hanging over the edge. It was the last day of the school summer holidays and Emma wanted to enjoy it. The sun was shining. She could have been on the beach, topping up her suntan so she wouldn’t seem so different from the girls who’d been to a Greek island or Tenerife. Keith had flown Abigail to Florida before Jeanie had taken up residence but she didn’t have the sort of complexion which tanned. Her skin was as white and smooth as wax. Abigail had refused the beach and to take the bus to Hull to look at the shops. Instead she’d insisted on staying in to stoke up her fury. She pushed against the one stone wall of the conservatory with her foot, making the hammock swing violently. The ropes creaked where they were mounted on the ceiling. The noise was loud and regular like the braying of a donkey, but still Jeanie bent over the piano keys. Either she was so absorbed that she didn’t hear or she was determined not to react.

Then the door opened and Keith Mantel was standing there. He was nearly twice Jeanie’s age but even Emma could understand the attraction. His hair was a sandy blond and his face did show the effect of the Florida sun. He was dressed in a grey suit and white shirt and he carried a briefcase, but somehow managed to look neither stuffy nor respectable. For a moment Jeanie didn’t realize he was there, then perhaps he moved or there was a breeze through the open door, because she stopped playing in the middle of a phrase and looked round. The girls’ whispered giggles hadn’t disturbed her, but his entrance had penetrated her concentration immediately.

She swivelled on the embroidered top of the stool so her back was to the piano. She was caught in the full sunlight which flooded through the glass doors. Her face was lit up not just by the sunshine but at her pleasure at seeing him.

“Wonderful,” she said. “You’re home early.”

He set down his briefcase and walked up to her. He put his hands on her shoulders which were bare, because she was wearing a thin, strappy top, and he kissed the top of her head. Beside Emma, Abigail was making noises like someone being violently sick. Emma felt a violent stab of envy. She didn’t believe anyone would kiss her in that way.

Emma had been trying to remember more of her encounter with Jeanie Long since that one flash of recollection in the church. When she woke it was almost lunchtime and her book had slid to the floor so the place was lost. Upstairs Matthew was lying awake in his cot, reaching out occasionally towards a bare branch moving just outside his window. James had gone to bed. His uniform cap lay on the dressing table. His breathing was soft and regular. He claimed never to dream and looking at him there so calm and still, she could believe that was true. Emma changed Matthew then took him into the living room to feed him. She zapped on the television for the local news, and caught a piece on the reopening of the Mantel case.

“A witness has come forward who can place Jeanie Long in London on the day attractive teenager Abigail Mantel was killed. Miss Long always claimed she was in the capital on the day the crime was committed, but until now there has been no evidence to support her. Officers from a neighbouring force have been brought in to reassess the case. The Chief Constable of Yorkshire and Humberside Police denies that this shows a lack of confidence in the original investigation. “Often,” he says, “it’s useful to look at a case with fresh eyes”.”

There followed a piece of old news footage showing witnesses leaving the court after Jeanie Long’s trial.

Emma buttoned up her shirt and pulled down her sweater. She put the baby in the pram which lived in the hall and went upstairs to prepare to go out. She opened her wardrobe door very quietly so as not to disturb James and saw all the clothes she used to wear before she was pregnant, the jackets and skirts and smart little blouses she dressed in for the classroom. None of these seemed suitable today and she chose instead a pair of black trousers and a lambs wool sweater with a big collar, and her long black coat which she lay on her side of the bed. She sat in front of the dressing table, wondering about make-up, compromising finally with a splash of red lipstick but nothing more. She wrote a note for James. Needed some fresh air. Taken Matthew for a walk.

In the pram the baby looked out at her. He was wearing a bright red hat and red mittens. She pulled up the hood, forcing the hinges into place. She didn’t want the wind to blow it down as soon as she stepped outside. Matthew chortled when she opened the door and bounced the pram by its back wheels down the steps to the square. She knew Dan Greenwood was in the pottery. The doors weren’t padlocked and anyway she’d seen him arrive at nine o’clock. She knew the best time to look out for him. She’d watched him arrive and leave most days since she’d stopped work. In the summer he left the big double doors open and then she’d seen inside. But this would be the first time she would fulfill her fantasy and go in.

At the far end of the building there was a corner which he seemed to use as an office. Behind an old desk was a filing cabinet and a computer table. And today Dan was there too, sitting at the desk, lit by an angle poise lamp. He was looking at some papers and frowning and she could tell the contents irritated or annoyed him. He wasn’t a man who hid his feelings easily. Once, in the summer when the big door had stood open, she’d seen him take hold of a pot he was painting and hurl it against the far wall of the building, frustrated, she supposed, because he hadn’t managed to achieve quite the effect he’d wanted. The scene had shocked and fascinated her. James would never have given way to such a spontaneous show of feeling.

Now the lamp gave the scene a contrived, staged look. Little natural light came through the dusty windows in the roof and the strip tubes fastened to the rafters had been switched off. Emma, the audience, was in shadow. She closed the door behind her and Dan looked up.

“Emma.” He half rose, then sat back in the chair which looked as if it had been rescued from a village school. His movements were always sudden. His hands were so big that she wondered they were capable of holding the small brushes, the more delicate pieces. There was the tension she’d always sensed between them. She’d thought it was the fris son of mutual attraction. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She’d met him first when he’d thrown a party to tcelebrate the opening of the pottery. He’d held it in the pub and they’d all been invited, everyone who lived on the square. She’d been newly married, realizing even then perhaps that it wouldn’t be the escape she’d hoped, but not looking for adventures. She’d had adventures enough in her life already and she had her work then to satisfy her. Dan Greenwood had been at the door to greet them all, and she still remembered the first encounter. She’d lifted her face so he could kiss her cheek and had seen the shock in his eyes, felt it in the brief press of lips and the brush of his hair like a feather on her skin. It had been as if he were meeting an old lover, although she had been sure they had never met. And all evening, as the locals grew more rowdy on the free beer, she had been aware of his gaze on her, flattered but not surprised. She had known the effect she could have on lonely men.

He must have approached everyone else in the room to introduce himself, enquire about his neighbours. His manner was reserved, but overhearing the conversation, she’d thought there was something very blunt about his questions. Direct, like a child. He wasn’t much good at flattering small talk. Certainly he had talked to James that evening. She had watched them laugh together. But he had made no effort to come up to her. It was as if he’d sensed that there would be a danger in their being physically too close. That was what she’d thought then. Now she wondered if she’d been deluding herself. He and James had become friends in that easy, casual way that men do. They often met up for a pint on Friday nights. They both played cricket for the village team. She didn’t know what they talked about their work, she supposed, sport, gossip.

Now, she felt awkward, tongue-tied. She had often dreamed about coming here, confronting him with how she felt, but this would be a different confrontation.

“Emma.” This time he did stand up, and he walked round to the front of the desk. He was frowning, anxious. “Is anything the matter?”

She ignored the question. “You never told me you used to be a policeman.”

“It was a long time ago. Something I try to forget.”

“You worked on the Mantel case. I’ve just seen you on the television.”

He seemed to be forming an explanation but she didn’t allow him a chance to speak. “You recognized me when we first met. Did you come to Springhead the day I found Abigail? I don’t remember.”

“I spoke to your father.”

“But you saw me?”

“Through the kitchen door. Briefly. And then later James confirmed who you were.”

“Does he know you’re an ex-cop?”

“It’s not something I feel I have to hide. It came up recently in conversation.”

How? she wondered. Does James use that incident in my past as an excuse for my behaviour? We’d have you round to dinner, but Em’s not very good in company. She found the body of her murdered best friend… As if one had any relevance to the other.

“Didn’t you think I’d be interested to know that you’d worked on the case?”

“I didn’t think you’d want reminding of it.”. “It’s hard to forget,” she said. “Now, with all that’s going on.”

“Have you been bothered by the press?”

“No.”

“They’ll track you down. I know you use your married name but it might be worth changing your phone number.”

“We’re ex-directory.”

“That won’t stop them.”

The exchange seemed unnaturally loud and fast. The words seemed to ricochet off the walls. They looked at each other for a moment in silence.

“Look,” he said. “I can make you a coffee.” He wiped the seat of the chair with his sleeve. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“I want to know what’s going on,” she cried. “No one’s been to see me. It’s not fair. I’m involved.”

She had the argument clear in her head. The grievance had been growing all night. She hadn’t thought it would be directed towards Dan Greenwood. That Inspector Fletcher, Caroline, made the effort then. She kept us sweet while the police were preparing the case for court, while I could still be of use. She came every day to see what I could remember. Now I have to hear about developments on the news.

Though that wasn’t true. Dan had warned her, through James, of Jeanie’s suicide and that the case might be reopened.

While she hesitated, wondering what tone to take, her thoughts were interrupted by a voice behind her.

“That seems fair enough to me, pet.” The voice was very close. It seemed to rasp in Emma’s ear. She turned. The woman from the church was leaning on the wall behind her. “But that’s the police all over for you. They keep you in the dark and they feed you shit. That’s why Danny got out. Or so he says.”

She had emerged through a door. Emma could see a small room cluttered with boxes. There was a rickety armchair, a kettle, a tray of grubby mugs on the floor in one corner. The woman had been sitting there and had overheard everything they’d said.

“Who are you?” Emma demanded. Then, before the woman could answer, remembering Dan’s earlier warning, “Are you a reporter?”

The woman gave a wheezy laugh. Her enormous bosoms shook.

“Not me, pet. I’m on the side of the angels.” She held out a hand the size of a shovel. “Vera Stanhope. Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope. Northumbria Police. I’ve been brought in to clear up this particular pile of crap.”

Chapter Twelve

Emma thought Vera Stanhope was the most thick-skinned person she’d ever met. It was not only in that she was impervious to embarrassment or offence. She was literally thick-skinned. Her face was scaly and uneven, covered in places by crusted blotches, her hands were hard and worn. Some sort of allergy or disease, Emma thought, but couldn’t bring herself to pity. She wasn’t the sort of woman you could feel sorry for. Vera stood, looking at them both, narrowing her eyes.

“Did you say something about coffee, Danny? But not here, eh, pet. Let’s go somewhere a bit more comfy.” She directed her gaze towards Emma. “Don’t you live just over the square?”

Emma knew what was expected. She was supposed to invite them in, sit them in the best room, brew coffee, set out fancy biscuits. Then answer this extraordinary woman’s questions. Go over the old ground. And all the time Vera’s reptile eyes would be taking in the surroundings, probing, as curious as the old ladies from the church who’d invited themselves in to see the baby when she’d first come home from hospital. She couldn’t bear it.

“We can’t go to my house,” she said quickly. “My husband’s asleep. He’s been working all night.”

Dan Greenwood rescued her. Perhaps he sensed her panic, though she could no longer persuade herself that they had a special understanding.

“Why don’t you come back to my place. I’d be breaking for lunch about now anyway.”

Vera turned a wide smile on him, as if that was what she’d been hoping for all the time.

Outside the rain had stopped and there were jagged splashes of sunlight reflected in the puddles and the wet pavements. Emma waited for Dan to lock up. Even now, she found herself watching him. He had dark hair on the back of his hands. His sleeve fell back from his wrist as he clamped together the padlock and she imagined what it would feel like to touch his arm.

“I’ll drive round,” she said. “Matthew always falls asleep in the car. It’ll mean we can talk in peace.”

It wasn’t far to Dan’s house but she didn’t want to be seen traipsing after them along the narrow pavements, part of a strange procession, a circus freak show. He lived in a crescent of 1930s semis on the edge of the village. Once they’d been council houses and there were still one or two belonging to the local authority, identifiable by the uniform green paint. The rest had been bought by their owners or sold on to in comers like Dan. They had long, thin gardens at the back, fanning out towards farmland.

Emma took her time. She let herself into her own home and watched them set off before carrying Matthew to the car and strapping him in. She didn’t want to arrive ahead of them, and thought if she passed them on the way she might feel obliged to offer them a lift. The thought of Vera Stanhope in her car gave her the same threat of violation, as if she’d been forced to ask her into her home.

When she arrived at the Crescent Dan’s door was open, and she went in without knocking, lifting the car seat with Matthew into the narrow hall. She had never been inside the house, though she knew James had. It was one of his excuses for lateness during the cricket season. I just called into Dan’s for a beer after the match. Hovering outside the kitchen it occurred to her that James had probably known all along about Dan Greenwood’s role in the Abigail Mantel murder. The subject of Dan’s previous career must have come up during those boozy Friday night discussions. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of, as he’d said.

There was a tiny living room and a kitchen of a similar size with a door leading into the garden. The kitchen wall had been painted a deep green and there was one of Dan’s jugs with some chrysanths on the window sill, but everything else could have belonged to the previous owners. You wouldn’t have guessed an artist lived here. There was none of the mess or clutter she’d have expected. They all sat at the kitchen table and Vera seemed to take up most of the room. Emma was reminded of train journeys, strangers cramped around a table, trying to make sure their knees and feet don’t touch. Dan had changed from his work boots and was wearing the sandals climbers wear. His feet were brown. He’d made filter coffee and set out chocolate biscuits on a plate. Emma couldn’t tell what he made of this invasion. Had Vera Stanhope been foisted onto him or were they allies, old friends? His attitude towards her was affectionate but cautious. It was as if she were a large dog, generally well behaved but given to lashing out at strangers. He seemed to be trying very hard to sit still.

Vera leant back in her chair, her eyes covered with thick, inflexible lids.

“Well, pet, what is it you’d like to know? Just fire away. Dan and me’ll do our best to help.”

“Are you sure Jeanie was innocent?”

“Positive.”

“What makes you so certain?”

Vera slowly sat forward, reached out for a biscuit. “She always claimed she went to London that day. An impulse, she said. She wanted to get away from the area, hide in a big city, be anonymous. Keith had asked her to leave the Old Chapel and she was devastated. She’d thought she was in love.” Vera munched the biscuit, wiped the crumbs from her chin, continued to speak though she’d not finished chewing. “She got the train from Hull. So she said. Wandered round the South Bank and listened to the free lunchtime music, went to the late Gallery, then got the train home. But no one saw her. She told Danny’s colleagues she’d left her car in the long-stay car park, but they couldn’t find the sticker she’d have had to put on her windscreen. The guy who sold her the rail ticket was shown her photograph but didn’t recognize her. No one travelling on the train came forward to identify her. And it was the same in London. You can’t believe anyone can be that invisible. It was a Sunday, not such a busy day for travelling, but nobody had noticed her. Even more strange, she never mentioned her trip to her parents. Not before she went or when she got back. Her car was gone from outside her parents’ house on the Point from eight in the morning until seven in the evening. That was all they could be sure of.”

She eyed the remaining biscuit but left it where it was. “Perhaps they could have done more. Gone national. Appealed for witnesses. But they thought she’d killed the girl. It wasn’t their responsibility to make the case for the defence.” She gave a wide, dolphin’s smile. “That’s right, isn’t it, Danny? You all thought you’d got your murderer. What is it they call it? Noble cause corruption. And who could blame you for being corrupted? The motive was clear from the beginning. Jeanie hated Abigail Mantel because she could persuade her father to do anything, and she’d persuaded him that the two of them were happier on their own.”

Dan didn’t reply, seemed not even to hear. He was looking out of the window so Emma couldn’t tell what he made of Vera’s words, what he’d thought at the time.

“So, it’s precisely ten years on and there’s a small piece in the Guardian about Jeanie Long. Not claiming she’s innocent. Not exactly that. But claiming she was turned down for parole because she refused to admit her guilt. And that she would have been moved to an open prison years before if she hadn’t stuck to her story. The article gave a bit of background to the case and mentioned that she’d never found an alibi to support her story. The next thing that happens is that a witness comes forward. You wouldn’t believe it could happen, would you? Not after ten years. But this is for real…” She paused. “What’s his name, Danny?”

Emma knew that Vera remembered the man’s name quite well. The pause was for dramatic effect.

“Stringer,” Dan said. “Clive Stringer.”

“Clive was at university with Jeanie. It seems he had a bit of a crush on her, even went out with her once or twice during their first year. He saw her at King’s Cross on the day of the murder.”

“How can he remember after all this time?” Emma heard the desperation in her voice. The story which had been constructed ten years earlier, the story which had made some sort of sense, was starting to crumble.

“The date meant a lot to him. He was on his way to Heathrow. He’d been offered a postgraduate research post at a university in the States, and that was the day he flew. Even if there had been an appeal for witnesses, he wouldn’t have been around to hear it. He didn’t even know that Jeanie had been charged with murder until he read the Guardian piece.”

“Couldn’t he have made a mistake? You see someone in a crowd, it’s easy to convince yourself…”

“I’ve spoken to him,” Vera said. “He’s down-to-earth. Not given to flights of the imagination.”

They looked at each other across the table. Emma didn’t know what to say.

“I did think at first he might be an attention seker,” Vera went on gently. “We come across plenty of those in our line of work. But he keeps a diary. Has done since he was a bairn. It’s a bit sad, I think, summing up your life in a few lines scribbled at night. There must be more to it than that. In this case, though, it’s a blessing. I’ve seen the entry for November fifteenth 1994. Do you know what it says? “Saw Jeanie at King’s Cross Station, looking lovely in a bright red sweater. Red always suited her.” We checked. Jeanie was wearing a red jersey when she returned to her parents’ house that night. Forensic took it. Of course they didn’t find any thing to link her with the murder. But it didn’t really matter. She was charged anyway.” For the first time Emma realized that Vera was angry, volcanically, terrifyingly angry.

Vera must have seen that Emma sensed her fury. She shifted in her chair and smiled again to prove she wasn’t dangerous, became confiding and folksy.

“I’m from up country,” she said. “Nothing to do with Yorkshire and Humberside Police. I’m impartial, that’s the theory. It’s my job to look at the Mantel case again, see what went wrong. And the sooner I can get it done and go home the better, as far as I’m concerned. I’m used to the hills. There’s nowhere to hide here, is there? You can see some bugger’s washing on a line in the next county. It gives me the creeps.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Your memories,” Vera said immediately.

“I’m not sure how reliable they are after all this time.”

“Don’t worry. It’s what I’m best at. Working out what’s real and what’s fantasy. Joe Ashworth, my sergeant, thinks I’m a witch.”

Emma looked up sharply but couldn’t tell from Vera’s face whether she was mocking herself or her audience. Because that was what Dan and Emma had become. Vera was playing them as if she was the best stand-up in the business. And already she’d moved on, taking them with her.

“Suppose today, we just start with a few questions. Things that have been troubling me, and no one else has been able to answer. Not even Danny here. Like, why did Keith Mantel ask Jeanie to move out?”

“Because Abigail asked him to.” If she can’t understand that, Emma thought, she might as well piss off back to her hills now.

“But he must have realized there’d be a problem before he moved Jeanie in. I mean he and Abigail had lived in that place on their own since her mam died. Everyone says he treated her like a princess, spoilt her rotten. If they were that close he wouldn’t have brought his lover into the home without mentioning it to the girl. “What would you say if Jeanie came to live with us? They say men aren’t the most sensitive beasts in the universe but he’d have managed that. And if she hated the idea, Abigail would have said, wouldn’t she? She doesn’t strike me as the shy type. No way, Dad. It won’t work. Something like that. And he’d have listened to her and made some excuse to Jeanie, even if only to spare himself the hassle. Sorry, love, but Abigail needs more time.”

Listening to the detective Emma thought she was some sort of witch, because even if those precise words hadn’t been used, it was just what each of them might have said. But Vera was continuing. “So that’s my problem. I don’t see how he got himself into that mess.”

“I don’t think he had a lot of choice.”

“What do you mean?”

Emma hesitated. “This is what Abigail told me. I don’t know if she was telling the truth.” Because Emma knew now better than anyone that Abigail could be the biggest liar in the world.

Vera nodded encouragingly. “Like I said, you can leave that for me to decide.”

“According to Abigail, Keith hadn’t really wanted Jeanie there in the first place. She’d had a row with her parents and just stormed out of her home. She turned up on the doorstep of the Chapel with a rucksack of clothes and her violin. He couldn’t turn her away.”

“Too kind-hearted for his own good, I daresay,” Vera said, and Emma could tell she’d already formed an opinion of the man and disapproved of him.

“The first thing Abigail knew about it was when she found Jeanie in the kitchen cooking supper.”

Abigail had recounted the story the next day. It had been another hot afternoon, sultry, airless. There must have been rain that summer, sea fog, but Emma couldn’t remember it. That day Abigail had agreed to go with her to the beach and they’d walked there together down the path between the sandy fields. Already most of the harvest had been in but in the distance she’d heard the churning of a baler and there’d still been a patch of barley left to cut. The feathery fronds had brushed their legs as they walked. There had been a row of swallows on the wire, and clouds of insects, and Abigail, striding in front along the narrow path, had shouted to Emma, following behind. She hadn’t stopped talking all the way. Her voice had been incredulous and she’d repeated herself often to show that she still couldn’t believe the cheek.

“I mean she was just standing there, rooting through the cupboards. And then she started on the freezer. “I thought I’d do ri sotto Is that OK with you, Abby?” I mean, no one, but no one calls me Abby. You don’t call me Abby and you’re my best mate. And still I didn’t get it. I thought it was a one-off, one night. Then I went up to dad’s room and there were the things she’d already unpacked. Like, she’d been there an hour, and already her clothes were hanging in his wardrobe and her knickers were in his drawer. Well, I know he won’t stand for it. She’ll be out by the end of the week. Dad likes his space. Even I’m not allowed into his room without asking.”

“Why did he stand for it?” Vera asked. “That’s the question. More relevant than why he asked her to leave in the end. Jeanie was there for three months. Why didn’t he boot her out sooner?”

“He loved her,” Emma said. “Didn’t he?”

“Oh, no,” Vera replied, quite certain. “Love didn’t come into it. Not on his part.”

“Abigail was certainly surprised that she didn’t get her own way immediately.” Emma smiled, remembering her friend’s frustration, the strategies which all seemed to fail. There had seemed some justice in the fact that Abigail had been forced to suffer an upset in her life. Emma had looked on at the rows with the same mixture of sympathy and pleasure as if Abigail had sprouted an enormous pimple on the end of her nose.

“Why did Keith suddenly give in?” Vera demanded. After three months?”

“Perhaps she just wore him down with her persistence.”

“Aye. Maybe.”

“Why don’t you ask the inspector who worked on the case at the time? She must have spoken to people, come to a conclusion.”

“Caroline Fletcher doesn’t work for the service any more,” Vera said briskly. “Like Danny here.” She paused. “Strange, isn’t it, that the two officers most actively involved in the investigation retired from the police soon after Jeanie Long went to court?”

She turned her wide smile on Dan, inviting him not to take offence.

Chapter Thirteen

Outside the sun was still shining. A gusty westerly promised more rain. Cloud-shaped shadows were blown across the fields where the green shoots of winter wheat were already showing. In the little house Vera was still holding forth and Dan was still listening. Emma made her excuses and left them to it. She drove to the end of the Crescent, then, instead of turning towards the village, she took the opposite direction towards the coast. Wendy, the coxswain of the pilot launch, was the nearest thing she had to a friend here, and liked it when she dropped in with Matthew. Emma felt she needed an excuse to be out of the house, away from the television and the local news. She couldn’t face seeing Dan again on the screen. He’d been thinner then, his hair shorter. But the way he’d been glowering at the camera, you could still imagine him letting his temper get the better of him. She couldn’t imagine him taking orders easily and wondered if that was why he’d left the police.

Every year in the autumn there were predictions that the Point would be washed away by the tides of the equinox. One big gale, people said. That was all it would take. And certainly it was skinnier than it had been, a spit of land, shaped like a drooping, wasted phallus, hanging into the mouth of the river from the north bank. In places the old road disappeared into the sea and a new track had been made through the sand, the sea holly and the buckthorn. The Point bulged slightly at the tip, where the jetty was and the houses belonging to the lifeboat station had been built. These houses were incongruously modern, all the same, as if they’d been made from a kit. Easy to leave behind, Emma supposed, if that one big gale did come. Only the cottages where the coxswains lived had any substance.

She parked opposite the houses, next to the mobile cafe which sold coffee and fry-ups to the birdwatchers and fishermen. Matthew was awake and began grumbling as soon as the car stopped. She fed him there, sitting in the front passenger seat, looking out over the water, with her coat draped around them both. There was no one to see but she didn’t even like going without a bra. Wendy, who claimed never to have been bjjpody in her life, loved to watch the baby feeding, but Emma didn’t want an audience. Not today. James said the baby was as regular as the tide in his habits and it was true. Her life was punctuated by six hourly interruptions. She was getting used to it.

Mathew settled and she allowed her mind to wander. These quiet times of waiting were when she would usually conjure up dreams of Dan Greenwood. There would be nothing exotic about her fantasies. At night she would wander into the pottery and he would kiss her and touch her. She seldom imagined herself making love. Hers were the fantasies of an immature teenager, comforting and harmless. The fantasies she might have had when she was fifteen, before Abigail had died. She told herself she should leave them behind. She was grown up and they had no meaning now. But it was harder than she had imagined to let them go.

As she pulled down her jumper two teenage lads raced from one of the houses and began to kick a ball against the sea wall. Still carrying Matthew she got out of the car and looked down the river. The smell of mud and seaweed mixed with the frying bacon and chip fat from the cafe.

The cafe was a relatively new arrival on the Point. Before it, there had been an ice-cream van, but only on fine days and at the weekends. And, thinking of the ice-cream van, Emma suddenly remembered that this was where she had first met Abigail Mantel. She hadn’t thought of the encounter for more than ten years. Even relating the history of their friendship to Caroline Fletcher, it had slid somehow out of the story. Perhaps it had been too trivial. Now it came back in jagged flashes, like the sunlight on the pavements. She thought, This is what it is like to be old. This is how old people remember their childhood.

It was June, the end of their first week in Springhead House. Robert was still elated by the new purpose in his life, optimistic about the house, his work, the whole deal of living in the country. “A new start,” he’d say, over and over again. “Really, we are so blessed.” Though Emma didn’t feel blessed. She felt uprooted. Literally. As if someone had yanked her out of hard-packed soil and dumped her to rot. She’d tried to talk about it to Christopher, but he’d only shrugged. “It’s done,” he’d said. “They won’t move back. Not now. Best make the most of it.” She’d thought then it was the sort of thing an adult might say and had considered him almost a traitor.

In contrast, Robert had bounced around the place, wearing them out. And now it was Saturday and although their belongings were still in boxes and Mary looked exhausted, he insisted that they take a trip out to explore their new surroundings. Perhaps they were carried along by his enthusiasm or perhaps they didn’t have the energy to put up a fight, but it was agreed very quickly without argument. A bike ride, he said. Obvious. Ideal because the country’s so flat. And he climbed over the packing cases in the garage to pull out their bikes.

They rode in line with Robert at the front. He was dressed in big khaki shorts which flapped at the leg and a T-shirt with the Christian symbol of the fish on the front. Emma enjoyed the sensation of riding, the pull on her legs, the smell of salt and seaweed and mud. But all the time she was thinking, Please don’t let anyone from my new school see me. Not with my parents and my nerdy brother, all of us looking like something out of Enid Blyton.

Then they were at the Point, and that must have been where Robert was aiming for all the time though he never said. And suddenly it was like riding over the sea, with water on both sides and gulls flying alongside them. At the ice-cream van they stopped. They flopped onto the grass, with the bikes on their sides next to them, while Robert went to buy the ice creams. Christopher rolled onto his stomach and trapped a ladybird under his cupped hands. He’d always captured insects that way. He was looking at it through a hole he’d formed between his thumbs and first fingers, then there was the roar of an engine. He sat up to look and the ladybird flew away.

Arriving back with the ice creams, Robert glowered at the noise. His perfect family afternoon had been disturbed. He muttered about hooligans. The car was black and shiny, a convertible with the roof down, and it pulled up beside them. Loud music, which Emma failed to recognize, continued even after the engine had been turned off. In the passenger seat was Abigail Mantel, her red hair in effective disarray. At first, Emma thought the car must belong to a boyfriend. Abigail seemed much older than she was. Even at that first glimpse you could tell she was the sort of girl who would attract a boyfriend with a powerful car.

Abigail slid out of her seat. She was wearing a denim skirt with a slit down the side and a tight red vest top. They presumed she intended to buy ice cream and made a point of not staring, though Christopher didn’t manage too well. Emma was surprised. She’d never seen him take any notice of girls before. But to everyone’s astonishment Abigail approached them. The ice cream dripped down soggy cones. She lowered herself onto the grass beside Emma. Christopher’s mouth was slightly open, but he was too far away for Emma to kick him.

“Hi,” Abigail said. Her voice was slightly drawling, but not unfriendly. “Aren’t you the new girl? I’ve seen you on the bus. I thought it was you. I asked dad to stop.”

Emma hated the school bus. It was crowded and noisy and no one had made an effort to be friendly.

Each morning she made sure she sat in a corner and stared out of the window. Certainly she had never noticed Abigail.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Hi.”

Had Keith got out of the car to join them too? Although she strained to think, Emma couldn’t form a picture of him sitting on the grass beside them. She couldn’t hear his voice in her head. Robert certainly had spoken to Abigail. There’d been quite a conversation and he’d been impressed by her politeness. He’d asked her name, then introduced the family. They’d discussed where she lived and the subjects she was taking at school. When at last she’d returned to the car with a wave, he’d said, “She seems a pleasant girl, Em. There, I said it would be easy to make friends in the country.”

Mary hadn’t said a word. She’d seemed frozen. It had been as if she were holding her breath. Perhaps she’d been less certain than Robert that they’d be readily accepted by the natives.

It occurred then to Emma that the meeting with Abigail on the Point must have slipped from Robert’s mind too. He’d told his manager that it would be appropriate for him to supervise Jeanie Long because there was no conflict of interest. He hadn’t known Abigail Mantel, hadn’t even met her. Emma supposed that such a fleeting conversation would hardly count as a meeting.

Wendy, always immaculately turned out for work, always precise and meticulous in anything concerning the launch, lived in domestic chaos. Emma loved the disarray in the whitewashed cottage. Perhaps that was the basis for her affection for the coxswain. They had little else in common. In this house of overflowing waste bins and mountainous laundry baskets she felt liberated, and at the same time superior. She envied Wendy’s confidence. How sure of herself she must be! 1b allow people into a kitchen with unwashed dishes, the foil containers from last night’s take away piled on the table, knickers, still slightly stained despite having been through the wash, draped on a radiator. But despite the envy Emma felt she was a better person because her house was more ordered. She was proud of the clean windows, the boiled dish cloths, the washed curtains.

“I’m really not sure how Wendy would cope with a baby,” she’d once said to James, knowing as she spoke how smug she must sound.

Today Wendy had finished her twelve-hour shift at midday, but Emma had known she’d still be about. She seemed not to need sleep. Cigarettes and caffeine kept her going, she said, and today there was a cigarette drooping from the corner of her mouth, as she used both hands to rewire the plug of an iron. She always kept busy despite the mess. When Emma brought in the baby she stubbed out the cigarette and opened a window, but the smell of smoke lingered, hiding something more unpleasant which Emma couldn’t quite identify. Rotting vegetables perhaps, or sour milk. It appeared to come from the larder. Wendy seemed not to notice. She moved her bag of tools from a kitchen chair so Emma could sit down.

“Did you hear the news about Michael’s daughter?”

Her first words, with her back to Emma, as she poured boiling water over instant coffee. Then she turned to judge Emma’s reaction, to share the shock. Throughout the village, Emma thought, people are talking like this. Enjoying the excitement. Feeling that geography has given them an unexpected role in the drama.

“Yes,” Emma said. “I saw it on the television.” Then, offering up the information as a gift, as you might bring chocolates and wine to a dinner party, “Michael was in church yesterday.”

“Was he? I can’t say I liked the old bugger, but you can’t help feeling sorry…”

“He walked out,” Emma said. “I suppose he didn’t want to face people after.” She couldn’t bring herself to mention the scene he’d made, spitting wine at her father.

“You realize what this means, don’t you?” Wendy leaned forward. She’d changed from her uniform into jeans and a big, hand-knitted sweater. Her eyes were bright with exhaustion and something else, which made Emma wonder about her, wonder what was really going on in her head. What was it? Desperation?

Exhilaration? Wendy wasn’t always alone. There’d been men friends, lovers. Occasionally they’d moved in, but they’d never stayed long. Wendy had made out she didn’t mind, and at the time Emma had been taken in.

“What does it mean?” she asked gently.

“That the murderer’s still out there, of course,”

Wendy said. “And I can’t see that it could have been a stranger. The police must have asked, ten years ago,

if anyone had seen a stranger around. It would have been noticed, wouldn’t it? A Sunday afternoon in

November, you don’t get many trippers. And if you were the sort who liked young girls, you’d not expect to find one lurking on the edge of a bean field. Besides, she weren’t raped, were she?”

She stopped abruptly, her hand over her mouth, a gesture too stagy, surely, to be sincere.

“I forgot. She were a friend of yours. I am sorry, love.”

“No,” Emma said. “She wasn’t raped.” She looked across her coffee mug to Wendy. “Were you living round here then?” Wendy must be in her thirties. She’d have been about the same age Emma was now.

“In Elvet. In one of the council houses. Married to a bastard. Just before I saw sense and started work on the ferries.”

“Did you know Jeanie Long?”

“I went to school with her. Not that we mixed much. She weren’t my type.” The eyes flashed. “All I’m saying is watch yourself. Don’t take chances. I’m surprised James let you out today on your own with the baby.”

“He’s asleep. He doesn’t know.” She looked at her watch. It was nearly four o’clock, already getting gloomy outside. “Perhaps we should get back.”

“Aye,” Wendy said. “You get on before it gets right dark. And take care now.”

But when Emma left she didn’t lock the door behind her guests. She lit the cigarette and returned to the iron, as if she sensed that she was in no danger.

Chapter Fourteen

When they returned from the Point it was dark and the doors of the pottery were padlocked shut. The square was deserted. It could have been midnight. Inside the house, Emma felt suddenly safe. There was that relief of coming in and slipping off her shoes and making tea, which she remembered from when she’d been working. Perhaps that’s all that’s wrong with me, she thought. I’ve been spending too much time in this house. I can’t appreciate it. Perhaps it’s time to think about going back to work.

James was up. He’d drawn the curtains in the living room and banked up the fire. The walls in this room were dark red and hung with large pictures in gilt frames which he said he’d inherited from ancient relatives. He loved it. When they came in he was sitting on the leather sofa reading a newspaper, but he stood up and took Matthew from her, held him in the air above his head.

“That was a long walk,” he said. He didn’t sound anxious and she felt resentful. There was a murderer on the loose and he wasn’t even concerned. Instead he stood leaning against the window sill looking around the room, beaming.

“We went to see Wendy.”

“She’ll have liked that.”

“She thinks the person who murdered Abigail Mantel could still be living round here.” #

He frowned. “I suppose it’s possible. Does it bring that all back? Like a nightmare? Of course, I can’t possibly understand what it can be like.”

She was surprised and moved, went up to him and kissed his forehead.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. “Not to either of you.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t I cook? You get the baby ready for bed, then put your feet up.”

She thought this was how it could be. She could give up her dreams of Dan, who after all was edgy and unpredictable, not even likeable if she thought about it seriously. They could be content, the two of them. She could make small concessions, like going willingly to church with him, and taking more interest in his work, like initiating regular if unimaginative sex, and he would take care of them. For some reason she knew she could trust him to do that. He would agree to her returning to teaching, even if he didn’t much like the idea. Their marriage would survive without argument or disturbance; it would be at least as happy as that of most of their friends. Was that what she wanted? And anyway, did she deserve it?

When she came downstairs from settling Matthew to sleep, James was in the kitchen. He was standing at the workbench chopping onions and garlic, concentrating so hard that he didn’t hear her approach. He’d changed into jeans and a thin woollen jersey. There was nothing between the jersey and his skin and

Emma found herself thinking, with an odd excitement, about the faint irritation this must cause. She stood behind him and slid her hand beneath the jumper, moved her fingers down the knots of his spine, inside the waist of his jeans. He turned, still with the knife in one hand, a bulb of garlic in the other, disarmed. He bent and kissed her forehead, ran the tip of his tongue over her eyelids.

“Why don’t you leave that?” she said. “We can have it later.” It was an experiment. Could she forget her fantasies of Dan Greenwood and learn to make do with reality? A quiet domestic life?

James reached behind him to replace the garlic and knife on the bench. It was as if he had his hands tied behind his back. All the time he was kissing her, and just for a moment she felt herself relaxing.

Then there was a banging on the door. The heavy knocker was rammed down three times. In the quiet house the sound seemed to echo. Emma immediately imagined Vera Stanhope standing there. She was certain it was her, could picture her, legs apart, putting all her weight behind the knocking.

“We could ignore it,” James said. Emma thought the suggestion was half-hearted. It would be too daring for him, and already he was feeling slightly embarrassed by his abandon.

Ske came to his rescue. “No.” If it was Vera Stanhope she wouldn’t go away. She would stand there all night if necessary, get a warrant and smash in the door.

Emma had been so convinced that the inspector would be standing there that she almost felt cheated. She’d been planning an angry outburst. Do you realize my baby’s asleep? I’ve already told you everything I know.

The figure on the doorstep was taller than Vera Stanhope, better proportioned, almost athletic. He’d turned away and was looking out at the square. His long hair was tangled. He wore a thin waterproof anorak and there was a small rucksack at his feet. It was the last person she would have expected.

“Chris,. What are you doing here?”

He turned to face her. His face still had the brooding quality he’d developed as an undergraduate. She’d thought it was a pose, a way of attracting women, but now it seemed to have become a habit. There were dark shadows under his eyes, emphasized by the light over the door, which also made his features more angular than she remembered.

“I’ve come to see my sister,” he said. “Of course.” He bent and pecked her abruptly on her cheek. His lips were icy. “I hope you’ve got some beer in there. Otherwise we’ll have to send James out to find some. I’ve been travelling all day. I’m desperate.”

“How did you get here?”

“Last bus from Hull. It took bloody hours.”

“You should have phoned. I’d have come to get you.”

“I don’t believe in cars.” He laughed. She couldn’t work out if it were a joke at his expense for having such uncomfortable principles, or if he were mocking her for taking him seriously. She’d never known how to react to him. Although she’d been the older one, she’d always been intimidated by his intelligence. The gap between them had grown wider since Abigail’s death. Neither of them had made the effort to bridge it.

She realized she was still standing in the doorway, blocking his way into the house. She moved aside.

“Come in. James is cooking supper. I’m sure there’s beer.”

The kitchen was at the back of the house and she led Chris through. During the day it seemed dark and rather gloomy, but now, after the chill of standing on the step, it was warm, even welcoming. James had returned to chopping onions. He sliced them into fine, almost translucent semicircles.

“Will there be enough food for three? Look who’s come to supper.” Her voice sounded unnaturally bright. She wasn’t really sure how well the two men got on. They seemed pleasant enough to each other, though once, in an unguarded moment, James had told her he thought her brother arrogant. It was true, she thought. Sometimes Chris gave the impression that he despised the whole world, apart perhaps from a couple of Nobel scientists.

James looked up from the chopping board. He must have heard Chris’s voice at the door and had his response already prepared.

“Sure,” he said. “It’s great to see you.” He paused for a beat. “Do Robert and Mary know you’re here? We could invite them round too.”

“God, no.” Chris was horrified. “I need a good night’s sleep before I can face that.”

James slid the onion from the board into a frying pan.

“There’s beer in the fridge,” he said. “You can get me one too.”

When Chris had his back to them James rolled his eyes and pulled a face. What was that about? Chris’s attitude to his parents, or his own disappointment that they would no longer have the evening to themselves? Emma couldn’t tell.

They would eat in the small narrow room which led immediately from the kitchen. Emma lit candles and set the table, while Christopher went upstairs for a shower. James moaned gently at her through the open door while he prepared a salad.

“Really,” he said. “Chris could have given us some warning. We might have been busy. Who else would just turn up on the doorstep like that?”

“He’s very focused,” she said. “He decided he wanted to visit and that was it. He wouldn’t think much of anything other than how he’d get here, once the decision was made.”

Christopher had always been like that, even when he was quite young. He would become obsessed with an object of study or a project. All his energy would be taken up with that. Other school subjects would be dealt with in a cursory, detached way, but his teachers would know that his mind was elsewhere. The fixation would end as suddenly as it had begun and he would move on to something else dinosaurs or gravity or an obscure composer. He had stuck with seabirds for a surprisingly long time. Perhaps the puffins had come to bore him and that was why he was here.

At the time the family had put his sudden passions down to the eccentricity of an academic. Now Emma wondered again when the fixations had begun. With the move to Elvet or Abigail’s murder? And were they as harmless as they had seemed at the time or the indication of a deeper disturbance? She wished she’d made more effort to understand him when they’d both been living at home, decided that his appearance was a good sign. It wasn’t too late to understand him better.

They ate at first in silence. The wind had dropped to a murmur, but Emma was aware of it still in the background. She made a few attempts at conversation, asking about Christopher’s work, the flat in Aberdeen, but soon realized that he was exhausted. He sat with his left elbow on the table, resting his head on his palm, holding his fork in his right hand, pushing pasta into his mouth. She could tell James disapproved. He had an obsession about table manners. Occasionally Chris’s eyelids would droop, then something would jerk him awake and he would stare wildly at them for a moment as if he’d forgotten who they were. He had drunk the beer and most of a bottle of Australian red. Emma considered what problem might have brought him home. Could he have become addicted to drugs? Is this how someone who was suffering withdrawal might behave? She had no idea. Perhaps his depression she thought he probably was depressed was the result of the end of a love affair. It didn’t occur to her that Chris’s arrival in Elvet could have anything to do with Abigail Mantel.

They had moved on to the cheese and fruit. James said to him, quite gently, “Look, you’re obviously tired. Go to bed whenever you like. We won’t mind.”

“No!” Christopher’s head jerked back in spasm again. “It’s no good. I won’t sleep yet.”

“Well, I think I’ll go. I’ve got an early start in the morning.” He gave Emma a meaningful look. Perhaps he thought they could carry on where they’d left off when Chris interrupted them.

“I won’t be long.” But she was careful to keep any hint of promise from her voice. And she knew him. Once James was in bed he would go straight to sleep.

She waited until he’d gone upstairs then fetched more wine from the kitchen, opened it and poured ‘each of them a glass. It was the most she’d drunk since she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d never had to play big sister before. As a child she’d been the needy one. Chris had been independent, self-contained.

“What is it, Chris?” she asked. “What’s the matter?”

He sat upright for the first time, looked directly at her.

“Don’t you know?” Brutal, cruel. “Really, are you so thick that you never realized?”

She felt her eyes prick with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a mess. I haven’t slept since it all started again.”

“What?” she demanded. “What started?”

Abigail Mantel. All that.”

“Jeanie’s suicide was only in the paper yesterday.” She couldn’t make sense of it.

“That was what made me come, of course,” he said. “But it started long before that. There was that piece in the Guardian. It seems as if people have been talking about her for weeks.”

“I didn’t realize she meant anything to you.” i She thought of the evening after she had found Abigail’s body, the two of them looking out of his bedroom window at the moonlit image of the stretcher bearers. He hadn’t seemed upset then, had he? Or had she been so absorbed by her own place in the drama that she hadn’t noticed?

“She meant everything,” he said. At the time.”

“But you were young.”

“Fourteen,” he said. “Given to obsessions.”

“You can’t have gone out with her?” Abigail had considered herself too sophisticated for the lads in their own year. Certainly she would never have deigned to go out with someone like Chris.

“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”

“Well then?”

“I followed her. Everywhere she went. All that summer.” He stared into his glass. “It started when we met up on the Point. The first time you spoke to her. We’d just moved. Dad had dragged us out for a bike ride. You remember?”

“We were eating ice creams.”

“Yes!” he was almost shouting. “Yes!”

“And Abigail arrived in her father’s car and got out to introduce herself.”

“That was the start of it. After that I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Literally. I’d wake up thinking about her, she was there, lurking at the back of my mind all day, and at night I’d dream about her.”

“She was your project for the summer.” She was frightened by his intensity and hoped to tease him out of it, but he answered her seriously.

“No. Projects are intellectual. Abigail was more than that. I can’t explain it even now. I don’t expect you to understand. Look at you. Married, a mother, too sensible to have dreams.”

“Marriage doesn’t stop you dreaming,” she said, but very quietly and anyway, he wasn’t listening. She thought suddenly, If Abigail had heard me say that she’d have pretended to be sick. So predictable. So cheesy. For the first time in years she missed the girl who had been a real friend despite all the later misgivings.

He went on. “It’s never gone away, you know. If she hadn’t died I expect I’d have moved on, got over her. As it’s I’m stuck with it. A passion I’ll never satisfy. A fantasy I can never make real.” He tried to smile. “Crazy, huh?”

He reached for the wine bottle. She saw that his hand was shaking. “Do you know I’ve never had a girlfriend,” he said. “Not a real one. The occasional fumbled one-night stand. Usually when I’m drunk. Usually with a girl with red hair. But nothing more than that.”

For a moment Emma said nothing to him. She looked at him across the table, not sure what to make of it. Christopher had never spoken to her like this before. He had never spoken to her about anything important. She wasn’t even sure she believed him.

“I never realized,” she said in the end. “Why are you telling me now?”

“Because I had to talk to somebody. I think I’m going mad. I’m not sure what’s true any more.”

“It is crazy,” Emma said. “You have to let go.”

And did you?”

“What do you mean?”

, “You’re holding onto stuff. What is it? Guilt? You never liked Abigail much, did you? It must have been a shock but I doubt if you felt much grief.”

“She was my best friend.”

“No,” he said. “She was your only friend. All you had. And she never let you forget it, did she? She never let you forget how much you owed her.” He held her eyes for a moment. “I always thought,” he paused, ‘that deep down you hated her.”

“No,” she said, but the image she’d had a moment before, of Abigail pulling faces, of them laughing together, had already faded.

Chapter Fifteen

Emma left Chris sitting at the table, staring moodily into his wine glass. He had become silent and unresponsive, and when she said goodnight he seemed not to hear. She climbed the stairs slowly, not prepared to make more effort on her brother, but not yet ready for bed.

The day before, they’d moved Matthew into his own bedroom. James had prepared it when she was pregnant. A labour of love, because the colours she’d chosen hadn’t been to his taste at all. Under her instruction he’d painted the grubby wallpaper yellow and stuck up a frieze of waves and boats and fish. A mobile of silver stars hung from the ceiling. At the open door she paused to look in. The baby was lying on his back in his cot, his arms flung out, relaxed and floppy as a rag doll.

As she’d expected, James was already asleep. She stared down at him trying to recreate something of the excitement she’d felt when she’d touched him earlier, but it had quite gone. He didn’t stir when she moved around the room. She began to undress, but still felt too restless for sleep. The wooden floorboards were uncarpeted, stained and varnished and the feel of them on her bare feet always reminded her of PE lessons in the gym at school. One of the teachers had been keen on contemporary dance, and dressed in black leotards, they’d leapt and writhed around the hall to weird electronic music. Expressing themselves. Abigail had thought the exercise ridiculous and made her feelings clear. Emma had been torn. Secretly she’d enjoyed the freedom of the movement. It was like running across a beach towards the sea. The same exhilaration. But because of Abigail, she’d had to sneer too.

Chris had been right in one sense. After Abigail’s death, school had become more bearable. In the few weeks before the summer holidays and in the first half of the Christmas term she was known only as Abigail’s mate. Afterwards, she had become an object of interest in her own right; the pupils had been curious about the murder investigation, the teachers sympathetic. Under their attention she had flourished.

Was it that autumn term she’d discovered her facility for languages? It had been a piece of translation, German into English, and when it had come to her turn she’d rattled it off, understanding immediately what the writer had been trying to say.

“Very good, Emma,” the teacher had said automatically. Emma had come in for a lot of praise since Abigail’s death. As if that was some compensation for the shock of finding a strangled body. Then the teacher had repeated, meaning it, surprised. “Really, that was very good.”

So language had become her thing. French and German to A level and Spanish as an extra GCSE in the sixth form, then Russian for her degree. She hadn’t been brilliant. She’d just scraped a 2.1. But it had been more than her teachers would have predicted when she was fifteen. Her parents too had been surprised by her success, though they’d tried not to show it. How could she explain it? Well, it’s much easier to speak in other people’s voices. It’s more comfortable. How would they understand that?

That had led to her meeting James. After university she’d taken a job with a small shipping company based in Hull. Why had she come back? After being in Exeter for three years and Frankfurt for one, she’d thought herself free of the influence of Robert and Mary. She could have found work anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. Yet, almost without making a conscious decision, she’d found herself back here. She had felt some responsibility for her mother of course. She couldn’t imagine what it could be like for Mary, with just the two of them rattling round that big house. Even now her parents’ marriage was a mystery to her. What was it about Robert which inspired such devotion? Not just from her mother but from all the women in the parish. But that hadn’t been the only reason for her return. She’d been scared all the time she’d been away. Of the strange places and the jostling cities and of people she didn’t know. Of the unexpected. Perhaps that had been the legacy of discovering Abigail’s body. She was terrified of stumbling across another horror. She knew she wouldn’t cope with it on her own. Here, her parents drove her to distraction, but they’d be there to support her, as they had the first time.

There’d been some translation work in the Hull office, but she’d felt her grasp of the languages slipping away through lack of use. When she’d been approached to teach an adult education class she’d taken it on reluctantly, just as a way of keeping Russian at least real in her mind. And at the first class James had walked in, straight from work, still in his uniform. Her dreams about him had been just as vivid as those about Dan Greenwood. Hadn’t they?

She moved across to the window, had to fight against the compulsion to relive her favourite day dream: Emma sees herself slipping out into the square and, keeping to the shadows, walking across to the forge. She pushes open one of the big doors which form an arch, like the door of a church, and steps inside. It would be so hard to let this go. But how could she continue now she knew there was no attraction, just an embarrassed recognition of a schoolgirl who had once been on the edge of one of his cases? She would miss those languid afternoons when she lost herself in daydreams, the nights when she looked out to see if he was there.

A light was on in the pottery and the door was not padlocked. Dan was working late. Emma supposed Vera Stanhope had demanded his time all day and he had to catch up. Or perhaps the night shifts with the police had given him a taste for working late. The light went off. Dan emerged from the pottery and stood for a moment, looking up and down the square. He locked the door and fixed the padlock, but still he stood where he was. Emma had a sudden and irrational certainty that he was waiting for her. She stared down at him, willing him to look up. But as there was no light in the bedroom how would he notice her? The orange street lamp would be reflected in the glass forming a barrier he’d not be able to see through. She considered pushing up the sash window as she had on the night when he and James had discussed Jeanie’s suicide, wondered if she could do it without waking her husband.

A car drove into the square. It was black and long. It pulled up smoothly besides Dan and he climbed in. Emma couldn’t see who was driving. She supposed it could be Vera Stanhope with more questions, though there had been something furtive about the way Dan looked all around him before getting in. Perhaps it was a woman, a lover he’d managed to keep secret from the rest of the village. The car revved its engine and drove off very fast. Emma climbed into bed and lay with her back to James.

She woke to light, in a panic.

“Where’s Matthew?”

James was dressed. The light came from the lamp on the dressing table. He was stooped in front of the mirror, knotting his tie.

“Asleep,” he said. “It’s still early.”

“Are you sure? He never sleeps through.” Her heart was thudding. She felt clear headed, wide awake.

“I checked.” He pulled a face to confess that he’d panicked too.

As if on cue there was a grizzle from the monitor they’d bought, then a small cry.

, “You stay there,” James said. “I’ll get him.”

She propped herself against all the pillows on the bed and wondered why she couldn’t be happy with this: a good husband and a baby to feed.

She kept Matthew with her and read until the light came through the window and the traffic started moving. James had long gone. She changed the baby and put him back in his cot, then went downstairs to make tea. She half expected to find Chris where she’d left him, slumped over the table amidst the remains of the meal, but there was only the debris. He must have roused himself sufficiently to drag himself to the spare room. It would have been late though. She hadn’t heard him. She filled the kettle then stacked the dishwasher and switched it on.

When the tea was made she decided to share it with Chris. She pictured herself sitting at the end of his bed, the duvet tucked around her feet, continuing the conversation of the night before. It wasn’t too late for them to become close. She had to set the tray on the table on the landing so she could knock at the door. There was no reply. She wasn’t surprised. He must be practically unconscious after all that booze and so many nights without sleep. Still she persisted. She knocked louder, then opened the door.

The bed was empty and still made, though it was slightly crumpled, as if Chris had lain on top of it. The rumpled cover was the only sign that he had ever been there. His bag was gone and he hadn’t left a note.

Downstairs, Emma sat in the warm kitchen. She drank the tea while it was still hot. After two cups she telephoned her parents’ house. There was no reply.

Chapter Sixteen

Michael was coming back to life, thawing out. And it was painful. Like when a numb foot gives way to pins and needles or cramp. It had started in the church: the stab of fury, which had caused him to spit the wine at Robert Winter, had cut through the dead iciness. Then Vera Stanhope, big and warm and generous, had continued the process. Now he was restless, fidgety. He couldn’t sit in the bungalow waiting for things to happen.

“What can I do?” he’d said when he stood up to let the inspector out of the house. “I want to help.”

She’d hesitated and he’d held his breath, dreading a patronizing response. Leave it to us. I’ll let you know if I think of anything. The silence had gone on for so long that he’d thought she never would answer. She’d walk out into the street, leaving him still waiting.

“Mantel,” she’d said at last. “Is he still involved in village life?”

“As far as I know. I haven’t mixed much since Peg…” He’d been ashamed to admit how isolated he’d become. He never went out. Before the escapade in the church and Jeanie’s funeral, his only trip out was once a month to the barber, and then he’d go early on a week day when he knew the shop would be empty.

‘It’d be useful to find out what he’s up to. Not just work. Has he got a woman, for example, in that fancy house of his? People will talk to you when they won’t to me.”

“Haven’t you spoken to him?”

“Not yet. I will do, of course, but I want to know what I’m dealing with first.”

“You don’t think he killed his daughter?” Michael had felt dizzy at the thought. Was that where Vera’s enquiries might be leading?

She hadn’t answered. She had stood for a moment, just inside the door, then she’d said very formally, “Goodbye, Mr. Long,” given him a big wink and walked out into the street.

At lunchtime he got ready to go out. He didn’t dress up in the suit he’d worn to church, but he chose his clothes carefully, an actor intent on giving the right impression through his costume. Comfortable was what he was after. Comfortable and relaxed, as he’d been in the old days before Abigail Mantel had died and Jeanie had been locked up. He chose a pair of corduroy trousers which still had a splash of varnish on one knee and a fawn ribbed jumper, then a waterproof, because there were still flecks of rain against the window. Outside, he fumbled a bit with his keys when he locked up but there was none of the usual panic. He walked past the knot of reporters on the square with his back straight and his head high.

At the door of the Anchor he stopped and marvelled at the change that had come over him. Then he opened the door and the smell was the same as it had always been. Hops and cigar smoke Veronica’s husband, Barry, smoked fat stubby cigars wood polish and a hint of fried food from the kitchen at the back, even though no one was eating today. Veronica was behind the bar and Barry, a slight, sandy man with fishy eyes, was sitting on the punters’ side, on one of the tall stools. He was the laziest man Michael had ever known. Rumour had it that he was dying of some rare illness, but Michael had heard that rumour fifteen years ago and Barry was still alive. Still propping up the bar and listening to gossip like a woman. His name was over the bar but everyone knew it was Veronica who ran the place.

It was Veronica who saw Michael first. She looked up from the glass she was polishing and gave him a quick, polite smile as if he were a stranger, a tourist who’d wandered in for a bar meal. Then she registered who he was. There was a moment of wonder as if she could hardly believe her eyes.

“Hello, love,” she said. “The usual?”

All those years and she remembered. That was a landlady for you. She was wearing a white blouse of some silky material and he could see the more dense white of her bra through it. He remembered suddenly that he’d fancied her, even when Peg was still alive. Just as in a very different way he’d fancied Abigail Mantel. But all men would be the same, wouldn’t they? There was no need for the sinking sense of shame in the pit of his stomach.

Veronica was staring at him. “It is Theakston’s, isn’t it, love?”

“Please,” he said.

Barry swivelled on the plastic seat of the bar stool as if the effort was too much for him. He was always curious and usually sat half-turned to face the door, so he could see who was coming in. He almost fell off when he saw Michael.

Michael walked slowly towards them. What did this remind him of? One of those Westerns he’d liked as a kid. He was the old deputy returning to his home town for the last time to see off the villain. Swaggering into the saloon. Letting the townsfolk know he was back, still alive.

Veronica set the pint on the bar for him. “On the house,” she said. “Welcome back, love.”

“When’s the funeral?” Barry asked, the wide pebble eyes unblinking. “Your Jeanie’s, I mean.”

He’d never be a great gossip, Michael thought. No tact. No subtlety.

“It’s come and gone. I didn’t want a fuss.” He was looking at Veronica. If Barry carried on like that, he’d be tempted to give him a slap. Better ignore him, try to shut him out. The funeral had been arranged by the prison chaplain, a young woman so short it had been hard not to think of her as a child. They’d decided on the crematorium. He couldn’t stand the thought of being buried and at the last minute had decided it wouldn’t be right for Jeanie either. She must have hated cramped, suffocating places too. The chaplain had sat beside him. The governor who’d come to the house had read from the Bible. There’d been a couple of women he hadn’t recognized. He supposed they were prison staff, teachers, maybe. Smart anyway, in suits. At the end of the service the chaplain had put her hand on his and he’d had a jolt of surprise. It hadn’t just been the physical contact though that had been a shock in itself after all this time. But her hand had looked just like Jeanie’s, the fingers tapering and strong, although she was such a short woman. She had even worn a silver ring very similar to one that Jeanie had possessed. At that moment, for the first time, he’d come close to tears.

“I wish you’d let me know,” Veronica said. “I’d have liked to be there. You know I thought the world of Jeanie.”

“Aye, well,” Michael felt close to tears again now. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“They said she never committed that murder…” Barry fed on information. Perhaps that was what had kept him alive for so long. A determination not to miss out on anything. The joy of sicking it up to the gang of cronies who gathered round the bar every night. Now his mouth was slightly open and he was breathing hard. Michael wondered what Veronica had ever seen in him.

She spoke before Michael had a chance to think up an answer. “Of course Jeanie never killed that lass,” she said firmly. “None of us ever thought for a moment that she had.”

Michael met her eyes. He hoped she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“I thought I’d better make an effort to get out more. I couldn’t sit wallowing in the bungalow for ever.” Again he was speaking just to her.

i “Quite right, love. Another pint?”

He saw with surprise that his glass was already empty. He nodded and slid a ten-pound note across the bar.

“Get something for yourself,” he said. “Barry too.”

The pub was quiet. Outside the rain was stopping and the sky was lighter. There was a cobweb, which had been invisible in the gloom, stretched across a corner on the ceiling above the bar. Barry lit a cigar. He puffed out his cheeks to blow away the smoke.

“So,” Michael said, ‘what’s been going on, then?” He hardly recognized his own voice. It sounded jolly. Not the voice of someone who’d buried his only daughter the week before. “What have I missed? I heard the lifeboat was out last month in that gale.”

“A trawler from Grimsby,” Barry said. “Engine failure.”

“Casualties?”

“None. They got everyone off safe.”

“Nice work in that weather.”

Michael tried not to think too closely about the rescue. If he imagined himself there, if he could hear the straining engine and the wind and the creaking wood, taste the salt and the diesel, he’d only realize how much he missed his work on the launches.

Barry returned the cigar to his mouth, sucked so his cheeks were hollow and his eyes more prominent than ever. Michael waited in silence. “Keith Mantel’s trying to raise money for an inflatable,” Barry said at last. “For inshore work. Anglers stranded on the mud banks. Kids who get out of their depth swimming.” The mention of Mantel was mischievous. On top of everything else the landlord was a stirrer. He wanted to see what sort of reaction he could provoke.

Michael sipped his pint, seemed to consider before replying. “Makes sense. It’d be quicker to launch. Cheaper to run. More use in the shallows. Keith’s still a leading light on the committee then?” Keith. As if they were mates. Bosom pals.

“They’d never survive without his fundraising.”

They managed before he turned up here, Michael thought, but he only nodded in agreement. “You need someone to look after the money side.”

“You’ve changed your tune,” Barry said sharply, stung by the lack of response. “I thought you couldn’t stand the man.”

“Aye, well. Maybe I’ve learned a bit of sense in my old age.”

“He’s having a fundraiser at his house.” Barry was getting desperate. “I can sell you a ticket if you like.”

“I tell you what, Barry, let me have two. I think I’ll bring a friend.”

“You’re joking!”

“Not at all. It’s a good cause.”

Barry didn’t know what to say to that and plugged his mouth again with his cigar.

“Is Keith still living in the Old Chapel?” Michael asked.

“Yes,” Veronica said cautiously. “He’s still there.”

“Everyone thought he’d move out after that tragedy with his daughter.” Barry tried another tack. Michael thought he was like one of those snidey kids there’d been in every class, the sort who’d pick away with jibes and insults until they got thumped. Then they’d burst into tears until the teacher came. “But he stayed on in the end. He said he needed the memories.”

“Aye, well,” Michael said. “I can understand that.” But his memories of Jeanie in their old house on the shore were unpleasant fights, sulky silences, shut doors with music like sobbing seeping out from under them. He envied Mantel his memories. “Does he live there on his own, or is there a woman?”

“Of course there’s a woman.” Barry chortled unpleasantly. Veronica gave him a warning look, which he ignored. “You’d not expect Keith to do without for long. This one’s called Deborah. Debs. An actress. Or so he says. Blonde. Nice tits. Young enough to be his daughter.”

Michael couldn’t help himself this time. “He always did like them young.”

Barry weighed this up seriously. “Not always,” he said. “He likes them tall, skinny. And he likes the lookers. But there have been a couple of older ones over the years.”

“You sound as if you’re talking about beasts at a market.” Veronica was unusually tetchy. She wasn’t given to feminism. The conversation had made her uncomfortable for other reasons. Michael thought she wasn’t as easily taken in by his conversion to the Keith Mantel fan club as Barry.

“How long has he been knocking around with this Debs?” Michael asked.

Barry looked at his wife for confirmation. “Six months? Something like that. She’s been hanging round the village all summer anyway. She must have been bored when Keith was at work. She spent a lot of time in here.”

“Is he in the same line of business?”

“I never knew what line of business that was. It’s not something you can pin him down on. Property. Leisure. That’s what he tells you. Could mean anything. We own the Anchor. So we’re in property and leisure too, when you come to think about it.” It seemed to be a point he’d made before. He thought it was clever, expected that to be acknowledged.

“You’re right.” Michael gave a little smile. “So you are.”

“Can I get you another pint?” Veronica asked. She had her back to him, returning some glasses, and spoke over her shoulder. The bra strap at the back was very thin. Only one catch, he reckoned. When he was young he’d have had that undone in seconds.

The third pint was tempting, but he shook his head. He had things to do. It struck him again how things had changed. He was walking away from a drink, and for the first time since Peg had died he had things to do.

“Best get back,” he said. “Don’t want to overdo things first time out.” He grinned to show he was joking, that there was nothing of the invalid about him. He pulled out his wallet from his jacket pocket. “Now, how much are these tickets for the lifeboat going to set me back?”

Barry slid off his stool and mooched into the back room to find the tickets. Veronica leaned right across the bar so he could smell the shampoo on her hair. She whispered, “You know what you’re doing, don’t you, love? You won’t make a scene?”

Before he could stop himself he reached out and patted the back of her hand, just as the little chaplain had done in the crematorium.

“Don’t worry about me. I know just what I’m doing.”

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning Michael woke very early again. The darkness was still thick and there was no traffic moving on the road outside. Today, he realized, he didn’t have to force himself to stay in bed. He could get up. He repeated the comforting mantra which he’d started in the pub. He had things to do. The things he had to do were still vague in his head, but that didn’t matter.

The clothes he’d taken off the night before were still folded on a chair at the end of his bed. Peg hadn’t been a house-proud woman, but she’d liked him neatly turned out. Her last couple of months, when she’d not been able to get out of bed, she’d worried about that. She’d pulled him close to her, made him listen to the rasping whisper. He’d thought it would be something important, significant, a declaration of love, and perhaps it had been in a way. Are you managing? With the washing and ironing? He’d taught himself to do it so she’d have less to fret about.

Now the memory made him think he might be running short of underpants. He gathered up the dirty washing from the basket in the bathroom and stuck it in the washing machine. A week ago the laundry would have been a full day’s occupation. He’d plan it in advance, sit in the kitchen watching his Y-fronts tumble around in the suddy water, feeling he was doing something useful. Today it was a chore to get out of the way. He had things to do.

He was hungry. Had he eaten the day before when he’d arrived back from the Anchor? He couldn’t remember. His head had been full of plans, his excitement fuelled by the whisky he’d finished off. Now he raided the fridge like a kid ravenous after a day at school, and fried up eggs, bacon, a few leftover cooked potatoes. He left the plate in the sink, already fidgety to be out, with no real idea of where he’d go. As he left the bungalow the church clock struck the three quarter hour. Seven forty-five. Still too early for all the things he’d planned the night before, but he couldn’t face going back inside.

The rain had stopped. He took the lane which led towards the estuary. The path was lit by widely spaced street lamps and the wet road underneath looked black and shiny like melted tar. On one side there was a row of brick cottages. Lights were on now and an occasional sound a door slamming, a burst of the radio -escaped to be tossed away by the wind. On the other side were fields with rough grazing and a few sheep. He couldn’t see the sheep but he knew they were there. He could hear them moving. The fields were separated from the lane by a stone wall and he walked briskly against the wind until he came to a break in it. There were no more houses now. He’d reached the edge of the village.

The gap in the wall was blocked by a gate and he thought for a moment that it might be locked and that he’d be forced to scramble over it. He’d been here before but only in daylight. Late afternoon, usually,

when the sun slanted through the big sycamores. Not recently though. Recently he’d neglected even to get here. Sycamores always held their leaves well into the autumn and some of the trees were still in leaf even now. The wind made a sound in them, so he was fooled briefly into thinking he could hear the tide ebbing in the estuary.

The gate was on a latch and opened easily. He was inside. Surrounded on four sides by the trees. He didn’t stop to read the notice on the gate. He knew it read Elvet parish cemetery. Established 1853. In the east the sky was starting to lighten and he could make out the pale slabs of the headstones. He could have found Peg’s even if it had still been pitch dark. She had wanted to be buried. It had been one of the instructions she’d given him, forced it out through dry lips in the same way as she’d told him how to use the washing machine.

He’d come to make his peace with Peg. He’d been putting together the words as he walked along the lane. I went to pieces after you died. You know what I’m like. No good without you. Thingsil be different now.

But instead of talking to her he found himself remembering the first time he’d realized she was ill. It had been a couple of weeks after the Mantel girl had died. The murder had upset her. Really upset her, as if she’d been Abigail’s mother. She’d said that was what it felt like, like she’d lost a daughter. It had been a dreadful time. Jeanie mooning around the house, trying to phone Mantel though he’d made it clear he didn’t want to speak to her. Peg grieving for a girl she’d hardly known. That morning the two of them had been in the kitchen. Peg had been baking for some do at the church. The autumn fay re She’d rolled out the dough for scones and had started cutting them out with an upturned wine glass. Suddenly she’d seemed to crumple and the glass had rolled out of her hand. She’d stood there, bent double with the pain. He’d just come in from a shift and was drinking tea at the table. He’d caught the glass just before it rolled onto the floor, but when he’d got up to help her she’d waved him away as if she knew what to do, and he knew that this hadn’t been the first time it had happened. Then the doorbell had rung and Peg had said, “Go and get it, will you?” All impatient. He’d understood that the pain had made her fractious, but also that she’d needed time to pull herself together.

Two police officers had been standing on the doorstep. Not in uniform, but he’d recognized them. One was the woman, the inspector, the other her sergeant, the big bloke. Greenwood. Michael could picture them now, standing there. It had been snowing and the big soft flakes were sticking to their coats, melting slowly, keeping the shape of the crystal. The woman had smiled. It hadn’t been a false smile. It had been as if she’d been really pleased to see Michael, and he’d loved that feeling. He’d always been a fool around women. Always taken in by their flattery.

“Mind if we come in for a few minutes?” she’d said. She’d stamped her boots on the step to shake off the snow. The boots had narrow heels, almost pointed, and although she’d been otherwise soberly dressed, he’d thought there’d been something frivolous about them, tarty even. The man, Dan Greenwood, had seemed uncomfortable, edgy. Later, when he moved to the village, he’d been followed by rumours. Michael had heard he’d had a breakdown. Perhaps he’d been on the verge of illness even then. Michael had felt it had taken an effort of will for him to follow his boss into the house.

“Is Jeanie around?” Fletcher had asked, not as if she were desperate to speak to the girl. More as if she’d been passing anyway so she might as well have a word. Through the open kitchen door Peg had caught Michael’s eye. He’d thought she was trying to tell him something, but he hadn’t worked out what it could be. He hadn’t sensed the danger.

“She’s upstairs,” he’d said and had yelled up at Jeanie to come down. Peg had turned away in despair. She’d always been smarter than him. She must have known, even then, what the police were there for.

Jeanie hadn’t come out of her room immediately, and they’d stood in the hall looking up to the landing, necks cricked in anticipation. There had been no response to Michael’s shout of command, no sound or movement and he had felt the tension stretch, saw it like a piece of elastic about to snap. Had he realized even then what the police were really there for? Or had he still been too dumb?

There had been the soft click of the door being opened and Jeanie had appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d been wearing blue jeans and a green sweater with a big cowl neck. No shoes but thick woollen socks which made no sound when she walked. It had been the socks they’d seen first through the banisters as she’d approached them down the stairs. She’d lost weight since Abigail’s murder. Michael had noticed that looking up at her from the unusual angle. He’d thought uncharitably that she’d not stopped eating through grief for the girl. It had been a pathetic love sickness. She’d wasted away because Mantel had refused to have anything more to do with her.

At that point Peg had come out of the kitchen, her body held rigid as if she’d been scared the pain would return, but fighting all the same.

“What do you want with her now?” Spitting out the words towards the inspector.

Fletcher had turned towards Peg. Her hair had swung like the hair in shampoo advertisements, polished, falling obediently back into place. She’d looked at Peg for a moment, considering if an answer was necessary.

“We’d like to ask Jeanie a few more questions. At the police station. We need her to help us with our enquiries.”

“You’ll not talk to her without a solicitor!”

“Yes,” the inspector had said, giving a quick nod of approval, as if Peg had been the only other person present bright enough to realize the gravity of the situation. “I think you should arrange for her lawyer to be there as soon as possible.” She’d paused and then added, “And you might like to pack a small bag for Jeanie. Essentials. It’s very likely that we’ll be charging her.” Her voice had been measured, melodious, but looking back Michael understood that this had been her moment of triumph.

i She’d looked at them both in turn. “You do understand what I’m saying? If we arrest your daughter, she’ll be held in custody until we can get her to court. She won’t get bail. No chance of that when the charge is murder. It’s only fair that you understand that’s a possibility.” She’d smiled at them as if she was doing a favour by taking them into her confidence.

“What happens if she refuses to go with you?” Peg had demanded.

“Then we’ll arrest her now.”

Peg had looked as if she’d been punched, but Michael hadn’t taken in the implication of the scene which was being played out in front of him. He’d seen the inspector’s mouth move, but his attention had been held by the man, by Dan Greenwood standing just behind her. Greenwood had stepped forward, had even, Michael thought now, remembering the event for the first time in years, spoken to intervene. “Ma’am A hand upraised. A mouth open. A single word. “Ma’am.” The snow had all melted on his jacket now. Water like dewdrops had clung to the fibres.

Inspector Fletcher had glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Yes, Greenwood?” As glacial as the weather outside. And Michael had thought there must be something personal between these two, something more than professional rivalry. A failed love affair? Perhaps that had been it. There’d been that sort of tension. Michael had been thinking all that, while Peg had been coming to terms with the fact that her only child might be arrested for murder. And what had Jeanie been thinking? At the time he hadn’t considered Jeanie’s feelings at all.

The sergeant hadn’t answered immediately and the inspector had sensed her advantage and demanded more sharply, “Well, Greenwood? What is it?”

And for some reason the sergeant’s courage had suddenly left him. He’d crumbled. “Nothing, ma’am.” And then had hated himself for his cowardice. Michael had recognized how he was feeling. Hadn’t he once sat down for a meal with Keith Mantel? That had been a betrayal too.

At that point Michael had realized that something more was expected of him. The focus had shifted and he’d seen the whole picture instead of the detail: Peg in tears, Jeanie as pale as a corpse. He’d had a part to play as head of the household and he’d played it in the only way he knew, blustering and raging.

“What right do you have to come into my house and accuse my daughter of murder?”

But his heart hadn’t been in it and they’d been able to tell. Jeanie had walked out to the car between the two officers, looking back once with that blank and empty stare which had always shut them out. She’d seemed to wince as a snowflake fell on her cheek.

Now, staring down at Peg’s grave, Michael shivered. From the corner of his eye he caught a movement on the other side of the cemetery. Another mourner. He realized how strange he must look, standing in the half light, bedraggled and tearful. Some lunatic let loose from the madhouse. But the figure who had just come in through the wrought-iron gate seemed equally distraught and it was clear that he hadn’t noticed Michael. They were two of a kind. Though the newcomer was younger, tall and stringy, it seemed that he too was passing through an emotional crisis. He was wearing a long anorak, unfastened. He had his hands thrust deep in the pockets and walked jerkily, moving his arms at the same time, so the front of the coat flapped like wings. He stopped once with his back to Michael and stood with one hand to his ear. He seemed to be muttering to himself. Then he moved on past the line of graves. Any respectable passer-by would conclude,

Michael thought, that there’d been a mass break out from the asylum.

Michael didn’t move. He had no wish to disturb the stranger, who seemed so preoccupied by his own thoughts that he was unaware of anything outside his direct line of vision. The young man found the headstone for which he’d been searching and stopped. Tentatively he reached out and touched it with a gentle stroking motion as if he were stroking hair from a loved one’s forehead. Then he turned abruptly and marched away.

Michael roused himself to follow, but curiosity overcame him. He walked to the grave where the young man had been standing. When he saw the name there was no surprise. It had been inevitable. Abigail Mantel.

By the time Michael reached the lane there was no sign of the disturbed young man. Perhaps he had taken the other direction, towards the river, though there was no shelter there, at this stage of the tide, nothing but an expanse of mud, a couple of stranded boats, marauding herring gulls.

Back in the middle of Elvet, a gaggle of teenagers was waiting by the church gate for the school bus. They were a scruffy and unruly lot. His Jeanie had never behaved like that. You wouldn’t have caught her wearing a skirt which showed her backside and more make-up than a pantomime dame. That was what Michael told himself as he approached. That he disapproved and their parents should know better. He specially disapproved of two girls who were standing apart from the others. One of them was smoking a cigarette and the other was talking into a mobile phone.

The way she stood, holding the phone to her ear triggered a memory and he was back in the cemetery by Peg’s grave, lost again in the past. The girl gave a shrill laugh and he was brought back to the present. He knew then he was deluding himself. He didn’t disapprove of them at all. He admired them. They had the same sort of spirit as Abigail Mantel. And they excited him too with their curly hair scrunched up to the top of their heads, their defiant eyes and their silky legs. He’d have liked to say something to them, nothing important, just a word of greeting to make a connection, but at that moment the bus came along the road, wheezing and grinding. The girls hoisted their bags onto their shoulders. One threw the cigarette end onto the pavement and stamped on it with her clumpy shoe. Just as well, Michael thought. He’d only have made a fool of himself.

As the bus pulled away he saw that he wasn’t the only person watching. Outside the Old Forge, preparing perhaps to open up the pottery, stood the ex-policeman, the one who had come with Fletcher to arrest Jeanie. Caught under the street light, the man had the same wistful expression on his face as Michael realized he probably had. What was he regretting? Sex or age. It had to be one or the other. Michael hurried on to phone Vera Stanhope.

Chapter Eighteen

When James arrived home the house was quiet. He had been working, delivering a tanker from the mouth of the river to the docks at Hull. A short shift. No complications. No visions of ghosts. He’d worked with the skipper a few times before and they got on well. As he’d waited on the Point for the launch to take him to the ship, James had looked at Wendy’s house and seen that the curtains had been drawn. There’d been a light behind them and he’d thought he’d noticed movement. Not one shadow. Two. But then Stan, the other coxswain, had called him to the launch and he couldn’t be sure. Not his business anyway.

So everything had been normal until he approached the front door of his house, his keys ready in his hand. Then he found himself shaking. He had to steady himself against the door frame. There was a sudden, irrational fear that something terrifying had happened in the house. Suddenly he was a young man again, returning home to bad news. He fumbled to unlock the door and pushed it open.

“Emma. Emma. Are you there?”

She came out into the hall to greet him.

“Of course. Whatever is the matter?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He could hear a strange woman’s voice, then realized it was coming from the radio. He tried to recover his calm.

“Nothing. I didn’t know what I’d find here. I mean what chaos Christopher might have caused.”

Emma frowned. “You don’t have to worry about him any more. He’s gone. He didn’t even bother to say goodbye.”

He followed her back into the kitchen and saw she’d been baking. A pile of buns were balanced on a wire tray to cool. She switched off the radio and screwed up her face critically.

“Not brilliant, are they? I don’t know why they didn’t rise.”

“I’m sure they’ll taste OK. They smell delicious.” He knew the cakes were for him. Not to eat specially. More a symbol. Look, I’m making the effort to be what you want. He wondered why she had felt the need to make the effort today. Something to do with Chris?

She smiled and he thought she was like a little girl playing house, with the tea towel tied round her waist as an apron and the smudge of flour on her cheek. That was just what he liked.

“It’s true,” she said. “Chris has disappeared.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d already gone when I got up. Did you see him this morning?”

James shook his head. He was concentrating on making tea. He liked leaf tea, the ritual of the strainer and the warmed pot. “I expect he’s at Springhead.”

“He hasn’t even spoken to Mum and Dad. They didn’t know he was coming.”

“I suppose that’s it, then. He ran away before he had to face them.”

“There are times,” Emma said, ‘when I know just how he feels.” She pulled off the tea towel and wiped her face with it. He thought at first she was just cleaning away the flour, then saw there were tears too. Not grief, he thought. Anger. Frustration. “Dad called in today. He brought some tickets for the fireworks at the Old Chapel tonight. He thinks I should go. It would do me good. Help me come to terms with Abigail’s death, Jeanie’s suicide. He’s fixed everything up, even arranged for an old biddy from the church to babysit, so you can come too. I said you were on duty, but he realized if you were working this morning you were unlikely to get called out again. I mean, the nerve of it. He didn’t even ask. Just assumed that he knew best, that all I need is a jolly family party and I’ll forget all about it.”

She had run out of breath, inhaled in a sort of sob.

James’s first reaction was one of panic. He had spent his time in Elvet avoiding Keith Mantel, not making a big show of it, just keeping away from the places Mantel liked to be seen. More a superstition than a real feeling of danger. After all this time and all this planning, he had thought Mantel couldn’t touch him.

“What exactly is going on at Mantel’s?”

“A fundraiser for the RNLI. They want to get a new inflatable for the river.”

A good cause.” James poured out the tea. The cups were porcelain, so delicate you could see the line of liquid rise through the china, as if it was opaque glass. He’d bought the tea service from an antiques fair before he’d married. Another of the possessions which defined him.

“You don’t want to go!”

He thought about that. Perhaps Robert’s assessment of Emma’s situation applied equally to him. He had blown Mantel up in his mind as a monster, an agent of destruction with the power to wreck everything he had created here. It was probably time to face the nightmare, banish the ghosts.

“I’d like to spend an evening with you without worrying about the baby.”

“But I would worry about him. What if he woke, needed feeding.”

“He won’t. You know him. Regular as the tide.”

“But an event like this… All the village there… Everyone talking about Abigail… Just snooping around so they can see the house where she lived…”

“If it’s dreadful we can always come home. Or go into the pub for a drink. At least it’ll be quiet in there.”

He wondered why he was making so much effort to persuade her and realized that he was desperate now to see Mantel again. He was overcome with curiosity, and he wanted to see if the tragedy of his daughter’s death had changed the developer at all. Now, on the anniversary of her death, how could he throw open his house for a celebration, however good the cause?

“You think Dad’s right then? You see this evening as therapy?” Her voice was bitter. “In that case it’s a pity Chris didn’t stick around to benefit from it too.”

James pulled her to him. He sensed he would get his way. “I don’t want you to do anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with. I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

“It happened,” she said. “It was horrible, but it happened. Reality. Perhaps my father’s right and it’s time to come to terms with it.”

Robert picked them up and drove them to the Old Chapel, though James said that as he was on call he wouldn’t be able to have much to drink anyway. It seemed to him that Robert was treating Emma as an invalid. He asked her if she had a warm enough coat, opened the car door for her, waited until she’d slid into the back besides Mary before shutting it. The tickets he’d given them said Open House but when they arrived they found very little of the Old Chapel open. They parked behind a line of cars in the lane, then a boy James recognized as the son of one of the lifeboat crew directed them to the back of the property. He had loomed out of the mist grinning at them, dressed in yellow oilskins and waving a torch, like something out of a teenage horror movie. It was colder, the low cloud pierced in places so stars showed through. The trees were still dripping but the rain had stopped. James thought later it might freeze. He’d listened to the shipping forecast which had mentioned high pressure, a cold front coming in from the east.

“I thought the press might be here,” Robert said. “Wherever I went yesterday there was a gang of them. Very intimidating. Perhaps it’s not the weather for door-stepping. Or by now the Mantel case is already old news. It’s a relief anyway.”

James thought it more likely that Mantel had warned the reporters off. He had that sort of power.

A bonfire had been built in a paddock which was separated from the garden by a low fence. It had not yet been lit but a group of shadowy figures stood looking at it, as if debating whether the moment was right.

Emma followed his gaze. “Abigail kept a pony there,” she said. She was standing close beside him. Mary and

Robert had already been accosted by people from the church. “But that was before we moved to Elvet. By the time I knew her she thought she’d grown out of ponies. She still talked about the horse though. It was called Magic. That was the stable.”

And the stable, open on one side now, with the stalls removed, had been turned into a cook house A couple of barbecues had been built from stacked breeze blocks and long metal grills. The charcoals smouldered and spat as sausage fat dripped onto them. The sparks lit up the faces of the big, beer-drinking men who flipped burgers.

“Are you OK?” James asked.

She took his hand and in the darkness he smiled.

The bar was in the large conservatory which ran along the back of the house and they could see beyond that into a room with tables arranged around the walls. A few elderly people had escaped there from the cold. The rest of the Old Chapel was in darkness.

“The piano’s gone,” Emma said.

“Sorry?” James had just glimpsed Mantel. His thoughts were elsewhere.

“In that room there was a grand piano. Jeanie used to play it. Abigail’s father must have got rid of it…”

James thought she had said something more but her words were drowned by a surge of rock music from ai sound system outside, then the cheers of the crowd as the bonfire went up in flames. The music was switched to a less painful level but by then she had stopped talking.

Mantel was standing just inside the conservatory welcoming people as they came in. He had a politician’s knack of greeting them as if they were old friends, though he spent so little time in the village that it was impossible that he could know them all. A tall blonde who was dressed in jeans and a white linen shirt stood at his side. Her boots had heels and made her taller than him. Very nice, Keith. Much classier than the women you used to knock around with. But then you always had taste… James thought for a moment that he must have spoken the words out loud because Emma clutched suddenly at his arm. There was a shot of anxiety when he thought Mantel might have heard, then he saw that the scene was playing out quite normally around him, and then all that remained was a mixture of exhilaration and fear. It had always been like that with Keith. The couple ahead of them in the short queue moved on and he was face to face with Mantel. He took a quick breath, but it was Emma whom Mantel recognized and turned to. He pulled her towards him in a hug. James sensed her awkwardness but there was little he could do.

“Emma, my dear. How brave of you to come here at a time like this! I’ve been thinking of you. All this dreadful publicity.” His voice was quiet.

“It’s a good cause.” James thought he heard the irony in his repeated words but Mantel accepted them straight.

“Oh, I do agree. I’ve always been a supporter. Even when I lived in the town.”

“This is James,” she said. “My husband.”

Mantel, with his eyes still on Emma, still clasping her hand in his, hardly looked up.

“You’re back in Elvet, I hear. In the Captain’s House.”

“James is one of the Humber pilots. It’s very convenient.”

Then Mantel did turn to James with a small frown. James didn’t think it was a frown of recognition but a gesture he had seen before: Mantel was fixing the bit of information in his mind because one day it might become useful. It disappeared almost immediately.

“Now what would you like to drink? Debs will get you something. This is Debs, the new woman in my life.” Another frown to show he wasn’t oblivious to the sensitivities of the situation. It had only been a matter of days since a former young lover had hanged herself after all. A certain tact was called for. Are your parents still at Springhead, Emma? And didn’t you have a brother? A clever lad who went away to university. He was sweet on Abigail at one time I remember.”

It was the first time he’d mentioned his daughter. He paused and James thought he was like an actor waiting for applause. He expected some acknowledgement of his courage. And Debs, well trained, squeezed his shoulders sympathetically. Emma had been more moved by the words, but Mantel did not wait to see their effect on her. He turned away quickly and had already passed on to greet the next person in the queue.

Chapter Nineteen

Emma wasn’t taken in by Keith Mantel. He was putting on a good show but she thought he was still desolate about Abigail’s murder. That was why he had turned away from her so quickly after talking about his daughter. He hadn’t wanted Emma to see how upset he still felt. And how had he known about Christopher? Abigail must have realized that Christopher was infatuated and mentioned it to her father. Emma hoped they hadn’t laughed at him. She had a horrible picture of Abigail sniggering, of father and daughter mocking Chris for being so soppy, sitting together on the fat, pink sofa where now an old lady was clutching a sweet sherry.

Throughout the evening, she found herself looking out for Dan Greenwood. It was what she had always done at these gatherings when most of the village were present. Even while she talked to James or exchanged horror stories with a young mum she’d met at antenatal classes, she was alert for his presence. Secretly watching and listening. Hoping he’d turn up. Then she’d be rewarded by the sound of his voice across the room, his bulky shape in the distance. And she’d try to catch his eye.

And still, tonight, she looked out for him. Because after all this time it was hard to stop. It had become a habit, like staring out of her bedroom window on windy nights when James was working. When she heard him exchange a few words with Mantel, she forced herself not to turn, but there was the same excitement. She tried immediately to damp it down. I’m not a teenager, she said to herself. I’m not fifteen any more. I was flattered by his response to me and even that was a mistake. But she couldn’t stop. The excitement was addictive.

Standing by the bar, though, she strained to listen. Mantel must have asked Dan about the case. Is there any news? Can you tell me what’s going on? He must have spoken quietly and discreetly. Certainly there had been no attempt to make a fuss. Emma hadn’t heard him speak, but she did make out Dan’s response.

“You know I can’t help you with that. I’m not on the case any more. I’m a civilian. I know no more than you.”

The words were bland, conciliatory even, but she was used to pulling meaning from what he said and it seemed to her suddenly that he disliked Keith Mantel. She had thought everyone in the village liked Abigail’s father, felt nothing but sympathy for him. First Vera had been dismissive. Now Dan’s response was a surprise and disconcerting.

: She wandered outside, passing so close to Dan Greenwood that she could smell the wax on his Barbour jacket. The sky had cleared overhead completely. There was a thin moon and sharp pinpricks of stars. It must still be misty out to sea, because below the voices she could hear the fog horn on the Point. A deep rumble like thunder. The evening had begun in a rather decorous and subdued way, but now there was a pile of empty beer cans in the corner by the barbecue and the lifeboat crew cooks were laughing and shouting.

The brief lull in sound was unexpected. The music had stopped for some reason and the loudest cook was scooping a sausage into a bun, concentrating, his fat tongue showing through the vice of his teeth. In the silence, falling into it, not realizing it was coming, someone said, “Bloody hell, there’s old Mike Long. I haven’t seen him for years.” Then the noise started again, but by then everyone had stared at the tall, thin man and at the woman who was walking beside him.

Emma recognized the name and then the man in the light of the flames which the frost seemed to have tinged blue. She wondered if Robert had noticed him, if there would be another scene. But Michael Long no longer seemed angry. He was moving hesitantly among the crowd, meeting old friends. If he recognized Robert he didn’t show it.

The woman with him was Vera Stanhope. She saw Emma looking and came up to her, waving a can of lager as greeting. She had changed from the usual shapeless dress into crumpled baggy trousers and a huge navy sweater with a roll neck. She was still wearing the sandals.

“What are you doing here?” Emma asked. It was illogical but she blamed Vera for interrupting her meal with James the night before. The image of the detective standing on the step, battering at the door had been so strong that she couldn’t lose it, even though it had been Christopher standing there.

“Everyone has a night off, pet.”

Oh no, not you. You pretend to be a clown, but you’re the most intelligent woman I’ve ever met.

“Besides, it’s a good cause, isn’t it?” Vera beamed. “Lifeboats and that. Saving folks.” She looked back to the house. The fire was reflected in the long chapel window. “So this is where you and Abigail spent that summer. Sharing your secrets. Best friends.”

Emma looked at her sharply wondering how the detective could have guessed that best friends hardly described the relationship they’d had. Because the tone of her voice echoed Christopher’s when he’d said the night before, “She was your only friend. I always thought you hated her.” Had it been hatred? Emma wondered. Abigail had been the mistress and she the paid companion, flattering, laughing at the jokes, sympathizing when Jeanie Long came along to spoil it all. There had been resentment, certainly. But hatred? Why had she stuck it out for so long? Because there had been moments of real affection. And because in the Mantel household there had been a glamour missing in the rest of her life.

Vera was looking at her as if she expected an answer.

“We’d not long moved here,” Emma said. “I was lonely and Abigail was the first person I met who was friendly. Yes, we spent most of that summer together.”. “She was a bonny lass.” Vera emptied the can, squashed it in her fist and threw it onto the pile by the cook house “I’ve seen photos. I can’t believe there weren’t any admirers.”

“There were lots of them.”

Lads who offered to do her homework and came into school clutching cassettes of the music they’d taped specially for her. Lads who turned blotchy and tongue-tied when she gave them any encouragement.

“But no one special?”

“Not that I know of. She said she wasn’t interested in kids.”

“Someone older then? A lad from college maybe. Home for the summer.”

“She didn’t mention anyone.”

“Would she have done?”

At one time Emma would have answered immediately. Sure. Of course. We told each other everything. Now she hesitated and chose her words carefully.

“I don’t know. Thinking about it again, recently, I probably didn’t know her as well as I thought I did. I mean, kids can be devious too, can’t they? And sometimes you don’t want to share your secrets with anyone. Not even your friend.”

Vera raised her caterpillar eyebrows and seemed about to speak, but then her attention was caught elsewhere. A woman was standing in front of the fire. She was side on, in silhouette, alone. She held a glass of red wine, which, with the fierce light behind it, looked black.

“Well, well, well…” Vera sounded pleased with herself. It was as if she’d been given an unexpected treat. “What’s she doing here, do you suppose?” Then to Emma, “You’ll recognize her, won’t you, pet? She’s not changed that much. Obviously kept in trim. The sort to go to the gym a couple of times a week, I’d say. And you can do a lot with make-up. Or so they tell me.”

The woman turned. She was slim, dark, well groomed. Her nails were the same colour as the wine.

“If I was a bitchy cow,” Vera said, “I’d have said she’d had a nose job. What do you think?”

Emma was about to say that she’d never seen the woman before in her life, then the way the sleek, black hair swung when she moved, reminded her. “It’s Caroline Fletcher, the detective in charge of the Mantel case the first time round.”

“Full marks for observation.”

“You’d have thought she’d want to keep a low profile,” Emma said. “After all that comment in the press.”

“From what I hear, our Caroline’s never done low profile in her life. But she’s got nerve. I’ll give her that. Rattling a few cages, I’d say. Putting on the pressure. They tell me she was a decent little detective in her time. She’ll not have lost the knack. Or it’ll be a fishing expedition, maybe. Everyone friendly and informal, more likely to gab. She’ll want to know which way the wind’s blowing.”

Vera was muttering almost to herself. If she’d bumped into her in town, Emma thought, she’d have put her down as a bag lady, one of those smelly women of indeterminate age, who sit on park benches talking to the trees. She looked around for James, thought he might be amused that this was the detective who had been sent to sort out the case, but he seemed to have disappeared.

“You must already have talked to Caroline about what happened back then,” Emma said.

“Must I? Na, pet. That’s not the way I work. I make up my own mind first. Look at the notes, talk to the people who count. And the police don’t count for much in most cases. I’ll talk to Caroline when I’m good and ready.”

“Perhaps that’s why she’s here. To talk to you.” “You think?” Vera gave a little laugh and walked away, helping herself to someone else’s lager as she went. When Emma saw her next she was still muttering, but now into Dan Greenwood’s ear. Dan had been a cop, Emma thought. And he seemed to count. When she looked for Caroline Fletcher, the dark woman had disappeared too.

The screaming started at about the same time as the fireworks, so for a short time Emma missed it, because it was hidden by the screech and wail of exploding rockets. She heard it first because she was standing furthest away from the fire. She didn’t like to admit it, but fireworks scared her. It was the breathless moment between their lighting and the rush of sound. In that beat of silence she felt her heart pound and she became faint. She would have liked James’s arm around her so they could cover the silence with conversation, but he was talking to Dan Greenwood and Robert. They were standing, all blokes together, laughing. A rocket shot into the darkness, exploded in a shower of gaudy stars and she heard screaming.

She walked around the side of the house towards the road because that was where the sound seemed to come from. The lane was lit with sparse street lights and the skinny moon. A woman was standing and screaming. It was like when she had found Abigail Mantel’s body, but in negative, a reverse image, a parallel universe. Because this time it was her mother who screamed and she who ran. And her mother pulled her arm and pointed into the ditch by the side of the road. And again there was a body.

But Abigail Mantel had looked ugly in death, much uglier than when she’d lived. Christopher, lying on his back in the ditch, was lit by the moon so his skin had a frosty blue sheen, which reminded her of the fabric of a bridesmaid’s dress she’d worn once to a cousin’s wedding. A densely woven satin with a matt finish and silver threads. All this was going through her mind as she took Mary into her arms and whispered the same reassurances she’d been given ten years before, “It’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.” Not believing what she was saying, but feeling her mother’s sobs subside and her breathing grow calmer.

Then Vera Stanhope appeared, solid and brusque.

“Who’s this, then?”

“It’s my brother, Christopher.”

There was a horrified pause then, “Oh, pet,” she said, and briefly cupped Emma’s face in her huge hands, so for a moment, in her confusion, Emma thought she intended to kiss her. Instead she put her arm round each of the women’s shoulders and led them away from the scene. Then she stood in the middle of the road so no cars could pass and spoke urgently into her phone.