Ann Cleeves - Telling Tales

She sat by the window chatting to one of the life boatmen girlfriends. Someone else who’d been to school with her. She heard the woman talking about a new bloke, a whirlwind romance, a proposal, but all the time she was aware of James, standing at the bar, looking at her. What does he want from me? she thought. What does he want to say?

Then the door opened and Michael Long walked in. He let the door swing to behind him, but there was so much noise that no one took much notice. He walked with a swagger to the bar. Emma couldn’t hear the conversation, but guessed James was offering to buy the man a drink. She thought he had already been drinking. He looked dishevelled and unsteady.

“You’ve got a nerve.”

She could just make out the words and sensed the hostility; it was palpable, like a smell. She watched, horrified. The chatter beside her continued. James obviously hadn’t heard and must have asked Michael to repeat himself.

Michael opened his mouth wide and roared, so everyone could hear him, even above the racket. “I said, you’ve got a bloody nerve.”

The conversation faded. On the jukebox the record came to an end and no one replaced it. From the other bar there was a round of sarcastic applause as a penalty was missed. Michael seemed pleased to be the centre of attention. He turned to them all with a theatrical gesture. “You wouldn’t be drinking with him if you knew what I know.”

Veronica leaned across the bar. “You’re not well, love. Maybe you should get yourself home.”

Michael appeared not to hear her. “Do you know who you’re drinking with? Do you? You all think you know him, don’t you? Family man, pilot, churchgoer Well his whole life’s a lie. Even the name’s made up.” Michael began to speak more quietly, almost as if he and James were alone together in a small room, but Emma could hear him. The bar was silent. Everyone was watching and listening. He didn’t need to shout. “It shouldn’t have happened like this. I was going to get more evidence then go to that inspector. But I couldn’t stand it, seeing you in here, laughing and talking. Everyone feeling sorry for you.”

“The inspector already knows,” James said. “I told her.”

For a moment Michael couldn’t take that in. He stared, open-mouthed, a fleck of saliva on his lower lip, trying to convince himself that James was lying.

“Why hasn’t she arrested you, then?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. It’s not illegal to change your name.”

“But you were a friend of Mantel’s. I’ve seen photos. The two of you smiling together.”

“My father was Mantel’s friend,” James said. “He was nothing to do with me.”

Michael shook his head as if it would take violence to clear his thoughts. “You killed the girl and got my Jeanie locked up.” His voice was desperate. “You must be involved. Why would you live a lie like this if you didn’t have anything to hide?”

“I’ve reason enough to hate Keith Mantel,” James said, ‘but I didn’t kill his daughter.”

Veronica had come out from the bar and now she came up to Michael and put her arm around his shoulder. “You’re not yourself, love. Not surprising all the things you’ve been through. Come into the back with me. I’ll make you a hot drink and we’ll get the doctor to have a look at you.”

Michael allowed himself to be led away. Behind the bar, Barry’s eyes were darting from one person to another, glittering with pleasure.

Emma was frozen. Her reactions had slowed, shut down. She watched James approach her but she couldn’t move.

“Come home,” he said quietly. “We can’t talk here.”

This is what happens, she thought, when you let down your guard. How can I make a happy ending out of this?

“Come home,” he said again. She felt the staring faces and prying eyes. She stood up and followed him out. But once they’d crossed the road she stopped on the pavement and faced up to him. Branches from the tree beside their house blew across the street light and threw moving shadows onto her upturned face.

“Was any of that true?”

“Some of it. I changed my name when I was twenty-one. Legally. There were reasons. I can tell you, if you want to know.”

“What about your family? Are they really all dead?”

“Not all of them.”

“So you lied to me from the beginning.”

“No. By the time I met you, this is who I was.”

“Did you kill my brother?”

“No,” he cried. “Why would I?”

“Why would you lie to me?”

She couldn’t face it. She needed the comfort of a familiar story. She turned suddenly and ran back across the street towards the forge.

Emma runs across the square and, keeping to the shadows in case the drinkers in the Anchor are still watching, she reaches the forge. She pushes open one of the big doors which form an arch, like the door of a church, and she stands inside. The roof is high and she can see through the curved rafters to the tiles. She feels the heat of the kiln and sees the dusty shelves holding unglazed pots.

At first, it seems that the pottery is empty. Everything is quiet. She shuts the big door behind her, still making no noise. It stands a little ajar, but a person walking past on the square outside would see nothing but a strip of light. She walks slowly forward. She knows that Dan is here. She can sense it. Soon he will come out. He will take her into his arms. He will come with her to Springhead so she can be with her baby. She can’t face all this alone.

“Dan.” The word is strained, like a whimper, but still it echoes around the high space. “Are you there, Dan?”

From the little storeroom there comes a scrabbling. Hardly human. It makes Emma think of rats nosing through rubbish.

“Dan,” she says again, and then he does appear, as she has always imagined, crumpled and untidy and eager to see her. She stands very close to him and can smell the clay on his hands. She waits for him to touch her. As she looks up, she sees someone else framed in the storeroom door. Not the inspector this time. Someone altogether unexpected.

After seeing Ashworth off on his fishing trip, Vera went to the pottery. The doors were closed and padlocked. It was still early so she drove to the little house on the Crescent where Dan lived, but when she knocked on the door, no one answered. A young woman, with a toddler in a buggy, came out of the house next door. Just as well she’d been out the day before, Vera thought.

“Mr. Greenwood won’t be in at all today,” the woman said. A trade fair. Harrogate. He left very early and he’s not back until this evening, then he’ll have to go to the pottery to unload.”

“Oh,” Vera said. “Right.” She was surprised that Dan had given away so much. She’d always thought of him as being very private. The woman was attractive in a pale, washed-out way. Perhaps they were more than neighbours. Perhaps she wore black sequinned pants, though Vera couldn’t really picture it.

“Is it business?” the young woman said. “I can always take a message.”

“No, no message. I’m an old friend. I’ll call again.”

She spent the rest of the day at headquarters in Crill. She breezed into Holness’s office. “Can I borrow one of your people for an hour or two. A bit of research.”

He looked up from a desk piled with paper. Worse than hers, she saw with satisfaction. “Is it urgent?” He was probing for information on the Mantel enquiry. Well, he’d get nothing from her.

“It’ll not take long. A few phone calls, a bit of sniffing around.”

“I’ll need more than that before I release someone,” he said.

“Bugger off then, I’ll do it myself.” She flashed him a grin and he didn’t know how to react.