Ann Cleeves - The Sleeping and the Dead

She didn’t know what Arthur hoped to gain by the walk. A sense of place perhaps. She’d told him about her first romantic encounter with Michael by the bonfire on the beach. But this scene, on a sunny afternoon, with the giggles and squawks of the school party coming to them over the water, had nothing in common with the night after the exams. She felt it was an anticlimax. She’d waited so long to come back and now it meant nothing. Arthur seemed dissatisfied by it too, because he sat for a moment in the sun then suggested that they return to The Old Rectory by the lane. On the walk back she started to fret about what Porteous would want from her and how she would explain her failure to pass on the information about Maria’s grave. She said nothing to Arthur. How could she tell him she felt like a schoolgirl, waiting for one of Spooky Spence’s beastly tests?

Outside the hotel a battered white transit was parked. One headlight seemed to be held on by gaffer tape. Chris was standing by the sliding door, shuffling a loudspeaker towards him so he could get his arms around it. Hannah didn’t want to face him yet and touched Arthur’s arm to stop him from approaching. Chris shifted the balance of the speaker so he was taking all the weight and walked slowly with it round the side of the building. His hair was a lot shorter and he was a bit thicker round the waist but he hadn’t changed much. It could have been the same black T-shirt as the one he’d worn to the party after Macbeth .

‘I don’t suppose you recognize him,’ Hannah said.

‘No. Why should I?’

‘He’s been done for dealing. He might have ended up in our place. If he did he never used the library. I wondered if you’d come across him.’

‘No. Look, why don’t we talk to him now? Once all the wedding guests turn up it’ll be impossible.’

‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’ Again she regretted starting all this. But Arthur was unstoppable.

‘Just introduce us. Leave the rest to me.’

The party would take place in a room Hannah hadn’t seen before, a large one-storey annexe built on to the back of the house in stone. It had a polished wood floor for dancing, a bar at one end and a scattering of small tables around the walls. It was quite different from the rest of the hotel – more up-market working men’s club than country house – but she supposed that in the winter the dos held here would make up most of the Spences’ income. Chris was setting up his equipment on a low stage. He was bending over so his T-shirt had ridden up his back. He heard their footsteps and turned round.

‘Hannah Meek,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well. The police haven’t locked you up yet then?’

She blushed. She’d always known Chris was hostile. He’d thought her stuck up and prudish. But she hadn’t expected such an obvious display of rudeness.

‘Why should they lock her up?’ Arthur sounded interested, a bit amused.

‘Who are you?’

‘Arthur Lee. I work with Hannah.’

‘Oh? Where’s that then?’ He pretended to stick wires into sockets but his heart wasn’t in it.

‘I’m a librarian. I work in Stavely Prison.’ She threw that out as a kind of challenge but he didn’t seem bothered.

‘I never got there. Not a long enough sentence.’

‘Perhaps another time.’

He laughed. ‘Nah. I’m too old for that now. Didn’t Sal tell you? I’m settled. Content. I’ve got a lady. She’s expecting our kid.’

The kitchen door must have been open. Hannah could hear the clattering of pans. There were cooking smells.

‘What were you like then?’ Arthur asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When Michael Grey was murdered. You weren’t so settled then.’

He accepted that as a compliment. ‘We were all a bit wild I suppose.’ He paused. ‘Except Hannah. You never did wild, did you, H?’

‘What about Michael? Was he wild too?’

‘I never knew him that well.’

‘You didn’t know anything about him before he came to live here? You’d never met him before?’

‘How would I? He went to some sort of posh school.’

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Him or someone else. How should I know? Anyway, what’s it to do with you?’

Arthur ignored that, continued with the questions, sharp and impersonal.

‘What was he like? You were older than the others, more experienced. What did you make of him?’

‘He wasn’t the angel they all thought.’ It came out grudgingly.

‘One of your customers, was he?’

‘No,’ Hannah said. She glared at Arthur. ‘He wouldn’t.’

‘Come on, Hannah,’ Chris was fighting back. ‘You know as well as anyone that Michael Grey was hardly the perfect gentleman. Don’t you?’

She didn’t answer. She wanted to drag Arthur away, to drive immediately back to the coast, but knew there was no way he’d give up now. She’d have to stick it out.

‘Have the police been to see you yet?’ Arthur asked.

‘Of course they’ve been to see me. Anyone farts in this town, they knock on my door.’

‘What did they want?’

‘They wanted me to tell them about the party at the caravan site. The last time any of us saw Michael Grey alive. The party after the play. You remember the one, Hannah.’

‘Did you tell them?’ she asked.

‘Of course I told them. I’m a law-abiding citizen now. What else could I do?’

He smiled. His teeth were brown and uneven. Then he turned back to the large, black speaker.

Macbeth had gone well. Everyone involved in the production felt the buzz, lapped up the success. Even Hannah, who was on the edge of it. It was a manic time. Exams were only days away. People were up all night revising. You’d have thought it was the worst possible day for a party, but everyone had so much nervous energy and they felt like celebrating.

Hannah never knew whose idea it was to hire a room at the caravan site. Perhaps one of the cast was related to the manager. She thought it was something like that. She spent the afternoon at home getting ready. On her own. She’d asked Sal to come round. Sal was better than she was at clothes and make-up. But Sal hadn’t had much to do with the play and anyway seemed to spend all her free time with Chris. Years later Hannah would be able to remember the clothes she was wearing that night. She wanted it to be special. After the exams everyone would move away. It would probably be the last time they’d be together.

She soaked for an hour in the bath, got dressed and looked at herself in the long mirror on the landing. She was wearing a long skirt with tiny green flowers printed on to a cream background. It had a drop waist and she’d made it herself. There was nowhere in Cranford to buy clothes. It was the first time she’d worn it. A cream top with a gathered neck. A shawl which Sylvia Brice had crocheted for her birthday. Jesus sandals. And masses of black eye make-up. The last throes of flower power, which anyway had come late to the town.

Then, just as she was about to leave, her mother threw a wobbly. Hannah should have seen it coming. It had been building for days – resentful comments every time she went out, tearful self-pity when she returned.

Now Audrey blocked the front door, stood in front of it with her arms outstretched.

‘Don’t go.’

Hannah was panicking. ‘I must. They’re expecting me. It’s to do with the play.’

She didn’t say it was a party because Audrey would have played the guilt card – I never go out, you see your friends every day. That sort of thing. And Hannah had to go. During rehearsals she’d hardly seen Michael. He’d seemed to be slipping away from her.

Audrey crumpled. Her knees buckled and her back slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor. She began to sob. The tears gouged drains in her face powder. Hannah could see the tops of her tights and her knickers. Words came in muffled, snotty bursts.