I have to talk to you.
What do you want?
I can’t stop thinking about you.
What? As if the thought had disgusted her. Though deep down she’d have been flattered, he wouldn’t have realized that.
Perhaps she’d tried to push past him and he’d held onto her shoulder, desperate now that he had her to himself to make her understand. And, excited by the touch of her, he hadn’t let her go.
Fuck off, you little prick.
But he’d twisted her towards him, stronger than he looked, and put his other hand on her neck, almost a caress. She’d shouted at him to let her go, told him what she thought of him in language which would have shocked a well-brought-up lad. He’d pulled her scarf tight around her neck, thinking only to cut off the words she was spitting out at him, but not able to stop, even when he realized what he was doing.
The rumble of an East Riding bin lorry, blurred by the rain into an unrecognizable shape, brought her back to the present. She shook her head to clear the nightmare from it.
“I can see Christopher killing her,” she said. “Being driven to it in the way that you said. But forgetting all about it afterwards. Nah, I don’t buy that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
They drove in silence to Springhead House. Vera had her head full of the Winters and what it must have been like for Emma and Christopher growing up there. It was too close to making fiction, she thought, this attempt to recreate the past. But how else could she do it? She couldn’t depend oh the memories of the family. Even if they believed they were giving her the truth, after all this time there’d be gaps, bits that had changed with the telling over the years.
When they arrived they stood for a moment outside the house. The old farmyard was empty. There wasn’t even Robert’s car to provide shelter from the weather.
“A gloomy sort of place,” Ashworth said. “You can see why the lad wouldn’t want to come home much. What are they like, the parents?”
“Decent. Hard working. On the surface at least. You can never tell with families, can you, lad?” She slid him a sly, teasing look. He was a great one for families.
She knocked on the kitchen door and was surprised when Mary answered. The woman was wearing a grey tracksuit and a worn fleece, bobbled by too many washes. She’d aged overnight, shrunk inside her skin.
“What is it? Is there any news?” Vera couldn’t tell if she was grasping at the possibility or if she was scared that there might be something worse for her to cope with.
“Not yet, pet.” She paused. “Where’s Linda?” Linda was the officer who’d stayed overnight.
“I sent her away. She was very kind, but sometimes you need to be on your own.”
“And Robert?” Vera asked gently.
“He’s in church.” Mary stood aside to let them in. “I told him to go. He couldn’t settle. I heard him all night, moving around the house. I thought he might find some peace there. But he’s been longer than I expected. That was why I was so jumpy when you knocked at the door.”
Vera said nothing. She’d been brought up by her father to believe that atheism was the only rational standpoint, at a time when all her friends were sent to Sunday school. She’d watched the others straggle back from the parish hall clutching their coloured pictures of the disciples fishing and Jesus walking on the water and wished she could be allowed to join in. Church had been a forbidden attraction, the only social centre in their small village. Besides the pub. She’d crept in once to a harvest festival and had loved the noise of the organ and the singing, the colour of the stained-glass windows and the piles of fruit. But she couldn’t see what Robert would get out of being in church at a time like this. Wasn’t one gloomy building much like another? Wouldn’t he be better off here, comforting his wife?
Perhaps Mary sensed her disapproval and felt the need to explain. “He’s confused, angry. It’s a testing time.”
“For you both.”
“Faith has always been more important to him than it has to me.” She hesitated, then went on in a rush, “He does so much good here. In the village. With his work. It would be a dreadful thing if that was lost. My role has always been to support him in that.”
Vera would have liked to follow this up but she didn’t know what questions to ask. She was out of her depth. She wanted to say, You’re an intelligent woman and he’s a grown man. Why can’t he support the work you do? But she didn’t want to offend her. She looked towards Ashworth. He too seemed uncomfortable with the idea of faith.
“Was he specially close to Christopher?” she asked at last. “His only son?”
The last phrase had a vague resonance, but she didn’t pick it up and wondered why Mary looked at her so oddly.
“Robert was proud of Christopher, of course.” Her voice was clear and considered. Words mattered to her. “He was a brilliant child, one of those who can pass examinations without really trying. But I don’t think you could call them close. No. Not like some fathers and sons.” She paused to gather her thoughts and when she continued her voice was wistful. “I work in a library. Most of the staff are women and they gossip about their relatives. I hear them talk about husbands who take their boys to football matches, fishing, and when they’re older, to the pub. We aren’t that sort of family. Not social in that sort of easy way. Do you understand? Perhaps it was a sacrifice we all had to make. For Robert’s work. That had to come first. It was hard on the children.”
“But you see James and Emma, your grandchild?” Vera felt the need to reassure her.
“Oh yes, and that’s wonderful! Such a blessing! We always have Sunday lunch together.” She paused and then added sadly, “But that’s more formal, planned. We’re not very good about spontaneity. We’re all very careful about how we treat each other. Perhaps it was a result of Abigail’s death. Knowing that tragedy can strike at any time, it seems important not to argue. We’d been arguing that afternoon…” She came to a stop but Vera waited. This was what she needed. A picture of the household Christopher had grown up in.
And soon Mary continued. “I’m not blaming Robert for the formality. No, I’m not saying that at all. In fact, Robert is somewhat more gregarious than I am. He suggested only last week that we should have a party for my fiftieth birthday. Invite all the family, friends. That’s the sort of thing normal people do, isn’t it? We used to have parties when we lived in York, go out to dinner, have meals with friends. The city is very different, of course. Perhaps I have become antisocial, but the idea of a gathering like that here terrified me.” A thought flashed into her mind. “I suppose now I’ve an excuse to cancel it.” Immediately after the words were spoken she looked up, her face tight with shock. “That was a dreadful thing to say. How could I? I’d suffer a thousand parties to have Christopher back alive.”
“I know,” Vera said. “I know.”
Absent-mindedly Mary moved to the range. She lifted the lid and slid a wide-bottomed kettle onto the hot plate. “I’ll make some tea, shall I? I expect you’d like tea.”
“Can we talk to you about yesterday?” Vera asked.
“Of course. I feel so helpless. It’s something I can do, at least. Answer your questions.”
“Did you know that Christopher was planning to visit Elvet?”
“No. But that wouldn’t have been unusual. He did turn up occasionally, out of the blue. He hadn’t lost the knack of being spontaneous, perhaps. It was always lovely to see him, but I wouldn’t have wanted him to feel it was a duty, an obligation.”
Vera remembered that Michael Long had said something similar. Children owe nothing to their parents. So once Christopher had left home Mary had been forced to be patient, to say nothing, to wait for her son to drop in on a whim.