Ann Cleeves - Telling Tales

Downstairs she found nothing of interest. She was meticulous although she was aware of time passing. Did she want Daniel to find her, so she could confront him and give him a chance to explain? Certainly she took her time, sorting through the CDs in the living room and the drawers in the kitchen, emptying the small freezer compartment in the fridge so she could feel to the back.

At last she was satisfied. She opened the front door and looked out. Still the road was quiet and the playground empty. She put on her sandals and stood on the doorstep. She locked the door and replaced the key. A few bark chippings fell from the pot onto the concrete path. She picked them up and threw them into the gutter as she walked to her car.

Michael knew it was no good going to see Vera Stanhope yet. His mind was fizzing, the thoughts chasing each other, becoming wilder and more fantastic, but he was sane enough to realize that she’d need more than theories and accusations. At the moment she’d see him as a barmy old man with a grudge. Why should she listen to him?

He left the library in a hurry, hardly taking time to thank Lesley, not waiting to put on his bulky coat, gathering it instead under his arm. In the square the men had finished putting up the decorations and were testing the lights. There was nothing magical about them, Michael thought. He couldn’t see the point of all that effort. A whole morning’s work, for what? The bulbs were as big as you’d find in domestic light fittings, but with garish colours, pink, lime green and a sulphurous yellow. There was a snowman which had been cut out of grubby polystyrene and hung from a wife strung between two lamp posts. Its grin leered at passers-by. Michael found the crooked smile disturbing. It followed him down the street to Val’s Diner, where he drank a cup of coffee and tried to order his thoughts. He needed to plan what to do next.

At the bus stop there were a couple of women who’d come into town from Elvet to do their shopping. He heard them talking from a distance. “Only a month until Christmas. Fancy.” They wore little fur-lined suede boots, identical, and there were piles of white carrier bags on the pavement surrounding them, so each was stranded in her own island of plastic. Michael knew them. If he’d allowed himself a moment to think about it, he’d have remembered their names. They’d been friends of Peg’s. But he was still racing after the ideas which seemed to be galloping away from him and nothing else mattered. He stood behind them to form a queue, became suddenly aware that he was being spoken to.

“It’s nice to see you out, Michael. In town on a bit of business?” It was the shorter one with the white bubbly hair. He looked at her sharply, wondering for a moment if there was anything sinister in her question. It even occurred to him briefly that she might be a spy for Mantel. That was the extent of his anxiety. Then he told himself that he was letting his imagination run away with him. He’d spent too long brooding on his own. Still, it was as well to be careful.

“No. Just here to visit the library.”

“You couldn’t find anything that you liked, then?”

“Sorry?”

“Books. You’ve not got any books with you.” She spoke very slowly, then looked pityingly at her neighbour.

“No. I wasn’t there to borrow. I wanted to look something up in the reference.”

“A shame,” she said. “It can be very healing, a good story.”

He was saved the necessity of replying because the bus arrived, spluttering and spewing out diesel fumes from the exhaust into the cold air. Michael had to pay full fare because he’d never bothered to get a pensioner’s pass and half the way home he had to put up with the Elvet women telling him how to go about applying for one. The bus dropped them all outside the church and Michael stood there for a moment to give the women time to move away.

He looked across the street at the Captain’s House. He could see there was a fire in the grate in the front room. Emma Bennett came out and closed the door behind her. She paused for a moment then walked up the street. She looked very smart in a long black coat, and he wondered where she could be going. She didn’t have the baby with her and he thought James must be inside. It was tempting just to knock at the door and confront him with the questions he had to ask. At least that way they wouldn’t still be inside his head. But James had always intimidated him, even when they’d worked together every day. He thought he’d have to find another way. He couldn’t face the bungalow and started walking out of the village, towards the sea.

When he’d been living on the Point with Peg, there’d been nights when he’d walked home from the Anchor. Not because he was scared of getting done for drunk driving once in a blue moon you’d see a cop in Elvet then. It wasn’t like now. Since this latest murder every other person you saw was a stranger and you could tell, even if they weren’t in uniform, that they were police. No, he’d walked then for the pleasure of it. A good night and a belly of beer, then the walk down the Point with the river on one side and the sea on the other, and knowing that Peg would be waiting for him in the big, soft bed. Just the starry sky and anticipation. That was how it had been, hadn’t it? He hated the thought that his memory might be playing tricks.

He’d started out on foot just because there was a relief in the exercise, though the walk seemed harder and longer than he remembered, with a stiff breeze from the south blowing into his face. But it helped him think more clearly too and he saw what he should do. He’d talk to Wendy, the coxswain of the pilot launch. She’d been friendly with James Bennett from the start, before he was so highly qualified, before he’d moved to Elvet. Before he’d married. Michael had even wondered if there’d been more between them than friendship, though he hadn’t been around to find out. He’d only worked with Wendy for a few weeks, a period of han dover before he’d retired. If James Bennett, usually so stiff and reserved, had confided in anyone about his past, it would have been Wendy.

It was mid afternoon before he reached the pilot station and the light was starting to go. Stan, the second coxswain, was on duty. He was sitting at the desk, his legs in front of him, reading the paper and drinking tea. When Michael walked in you’d have thought he’d seen a ghost. “Eh, lad, what are you doing here?”

Michael thought it had been a fair few years since he’d been called a lad.

“Just a bit of a constitutional,” he said. “You’re busy, I see.”

“Another half hour and I’ll be out to collect a pilot.”

“Which one?”

“A new man called Evans. You’ll not know him.”

“Do you know if Wendy’s around?”

“Her day off. She’ll be in the cottage if she’s not out gallivanting.”

“Does she do a lot of that these days?”

“More than she used to. I think there’s a new man in her life, but she’ll not let on.”

Michael went back outside before Stan could ask what he was after. The grey bulk of a tanker was moving up the river, approaching the mouth of the estuary. It had started to spit with rain.

It was odd to knock at the door of the cottage after so many years of just letting himself in. There was a light on upstairs and the sound of music so he knew she was there. He knocked again more loudly. At last there were noises inside water in a drain, someone clattering down the stairs and she opened the door to him. She was wearing a dressing gown and her hair was wrapped in a towel. She recognized him at once and was surprised. If it had been someone else, he thought, she’d have been angry about being disturbed. One good thing about being bereaved. People felt they had to be kind to you.