Ann Cleeves - Telling Tales

“You’ve not seen Emma Bennett go in?”

“No, but I’ve only just arrived.”

“She’s had a row with her husband and gone missing.” Vera explained about Michael Long and the scene in the Anchor. “Probably nothing, but I’ve got a nasty feeling about it.”

“It can’t be significant, can it?” He turned to her easily. He thought he knew now exactly who’d killed Abigail and Christopher. She didn’t answer immediately. Now it came to it, she wasn’t sure any more.

“Maybe not.”

“How do you want to play it?” he said. “We could wait until morning, get a warrant. The boy’s mobile has still not been found. If that’s in there, we’ve got a result.”

Vera thought she couldn’t stand to wait until morning. She hated this case. She hated all the pretending, the unfinished grieving, the foul, flat country. She wanted to be home. Besides, there was Emma and the bairn to consider.

“Why don’t we go in?”

“Now?”

“No big deal. A few informal questions. And we’ve got an excuse. We’re looking for Emma.”

“What if we scare him away?”

“I don’t think that’s likely, do you?” Ashworth considered for a moment. “No,” he said. “Someone like that, he wants to be caught.”

Vera didn’t think Joe had got that quite right, but she was still hoping to persuade him to bend a few rules, so she didn’t say anything.

Ashworth reached for the key to turn on the engine, but she stopped him.

“We’ll walk in. Don’t want to give any warning.”

And she needed time to work it all out. Not so much that, to psyche herself up, to believe again that she was up to the job. To forget that moment of panic outside the Captain’s House. They walked up the straight, flat drive to the house and their eyes got used to the dark, so after a while they didn’t need Joe Ashworth’s torch. It was a clear night. It might freeze later, like the night Christopher was killed. Would Robert and Mary be looking out at the stars, remembering? There was enough light from the traffic passing on the road and the moon. To their right, the coast was marked by the red lamp on the pilot mast and ahead of them were two orange squares, one above the other. One downstairs and one upstairs window in the ugly square house. Another sort of beacon.

The curtains at the kitchen window weren’t drawn, and Vera stood, pressed against the wall so she couldn’t be seen from inside, looking in. Robert and Mary were sitting at the kitchen table. Mary stood up, took a pan of milk from the Aga and poured it into mugs. Only two mugs, Vera saw. Something of the panic returned. Where was Emma? From another room there came a noise, a howl.

Then Emma walked in and Vera felt her pulse slow. She was carrying a screaming baby on her hip and her eyes were red from crying. Mary offered to take Matthew from her, but she held onto him. She paced up and down, rubbing his back until the cries subsided, then she took her place at the table. Immediately Robert started to talk to her.

All this talk, Vera thought. Everyone sitting around telling stories to justify themselves or shift the guilt. She wondered what could have happened. Had Emma been to the pottery at all? Perhaps Dan had given her a lift. Another story, Vera thought. More explanations. Emma had come to Springhead to collect the baby of course, not to talk to her parents. She’d never confided in them.

She continued to stand there in the yard looking in. Outside was the huge winter sky, which made you dizzy just to think of it, inside a small family drama, a soap opera. And she was in the middle. Even if they’d been able to make out her shadow in the darkness, she thought they wouldn’t have noticed. They were engrossed in conversation and she could hear everything which was going on. Springhead House had never run to double glazing.

Mary was talking now. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would James do such a thing?”

“I don’t understand either. He lied to me. What else is there to know? If Mr. Long hadn’t dug up his past he probably never would have told me.”

“Shouldn’t you ask him?”

“Perhaps he lied because he killed Abigail. I don’t want to hear that.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mary said. “James changed his name. It doesn’t make him a different person. He didn’t lie about anything important. And you married him, you had his child. It’s not something you can just walk out of. You can’t run away.” She was clutching the big patchwork bag on her knee as if she had a baby of her own.

“Why not? Isn’t that what he did? He didn’t like who he was, so he ran away.”

“You should phone him,” Robert said. “He’ll be worried.”

“Good.” Emma could have been fifteen again, defiant, determined to get her own way. Vera thought she must have had exactly that expression before she set off to meet Abigail in the Old Chapel, venting her fury in her battle against the wind. “I hope he’s desperate with worry.”

Vera walked away from the window and knocked on the kitchen door. Not too loud. The state of their nerves, she’d give them all heart attacks. But they’d probably think it was James. She imagined them staring at each other, trying to decide who should answer. Eventually, Emma opened the door. That would be what the parents had wanted, Vera thought. They always knew what was best for her, and they always got their way. The young woman stood in the doorway, still holding the baby, glaring out at them.

“I can’t believe James got you involved with this,” Emma said. “It’s not police business. Nothing to do with you.”

“He was worried,” Vera said mildly. “It’d do no harm to let him know you’re safe. Are you going to let us in?”

“What do you want from us at this time of night?”

A few questions. As you’re all up anyway.”

The fight seemed to leave Emma suddenly and she became passive again, wan, girlish. She stood aside to let them past. Why does she do it? Vera thought. Why does she turn into a child every time there’s trouble? That little-girl look. The big sad eyes. Is it conscious?

Does she think it will keep her out of bother? Make Dan Greenwood love her?

“How did you get here?” Vera asked. Emma, in this mode, made her want to lash out and the question came out brutally.

“I got a lift.”

“Where is he now?”

“Who?” But already Emma was blushing. It started at her neck and ears and moved up her face.

“Dan Greenwood. You went to see him. He gave you a lift here. Don’t mess me about. If I ask you questions, it’s because I need information.”

“I don’t know where he is now.” Emma seemed on the verge of tears. Vera could sense Ashworth behind her, winding himself up to be chivalrous. Any minute now he’d be offering the lass his hankie. He was always taken in by a pretty face and a sob story. She moved through to the kitchen where the Winters were sitting just as they’d been when she’d watched them through the window.

“I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion,” she said.

Nobody spoke. They stared at her.

“I’ve just told Emma, there are a few more questions.” And then, she thought, with a bit of luck she’d be away from this place and these people. They were getting under her skin. She could almost believe that they were the cause of the allergy on her legs, the itching and scratching. It was the people, or the stagnant water in the ditches, or the rotting weeds in the set-aside fields. Then she told herself not to be so daft and get on with the job.

“An investigation like this,” she said, ‘we have to dig deep. People have secrets…”

“Are you talking about James?” Robert interrupted. “Emma has already explained about that. There was no need for you to come all the way out here.”