Ann Cleeves - Telling Tales

“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.”