In the hotel, she went straight to the bar. It was furnished like a gentleman’s club with dim lighting and music so low it was impossible to make out what it was. It seemed more like a vibration in the background than music, the irritating hum of an insect. She could have done with a shower but she needed a drink more. And she didn’t feel like drinking on her own. She phoned Ashworth’s mobile.
“Where are you?”
“Just got in.” He sensed her mood and added
‘ma’am’. An insurance policy. It didn’t do any harm and sometimes it mollified her. Not tonight.
“Get down here. I’m buying.”
She sat, taking up most of a leather Chesterfield with her bags and her coat, fuming, until he arrived.
“How was the visit to the prison?” he asked, mildly.
“Interesting, but we’ll talk about that later.”
“And your meeting with the local plods?”
She didn’t answer directly. “What did you make of them, anyway? Did they give up the list of witnesses who were at Mantel’s? Without a fight?”
“No bother. But it saved them a bit of work, didn’t it? An extra body to check through the statements and do the follow-up visits. They weren’t going to turn that down.”
“I found them bloody obstructive.”
He said nothing, thought, You didn’t get your own way, then.
“They want to treat the two cases as separate investigations. There’s no evidence to link the two enquiries at this point. So they say. So Holness says. It’s madness. And even if there were, it’s not my role to find out who killed Abigail, only to reach a decision about how the original team got it wrong.”
“It’ll be political,” he said. “They’d not want an outsider taking over a live murder case. It’d make them all look incompetent. You never thought you’d get away with that? I can’t imagine you agreeing to it on our patch.”
“Maybe not,” she said.
“Holness could have asked you to put the Mantel enquiry on hold, while the current investigation is underway.”
“I’d like to see him try!” She hated Ashworth when he was being reasonable. “Besides, the press would see it as a cover-up.”
“Are any of the officers who worked on the Mantel case part of the team looking into Christopher Winter’s murder?” he asked.
“No.”
“I can’t see that you can object, then. It’s a fresh team. Not likely the same mistakes will be made this time. And they’ll keep you informed of developments…”
“They say they will. Especially if they turn up anything which relates to the Mantel investigation.”
“Well, then.”
She drank her Scotch and suddenly grinned at him. “Don’t mind me, pet. I just want to be home. You know.”
He nodded.
“How did you get on?” she asked.
“I don’t think we’ll get much from the witness statements. It seems the Winter family were among the last people to arrive at the party. Caroline Fletcher arrived later but she told the locals last night that she didn’t meet anyone in the lane on her way in.”
“So if anyone at the bonfire killed Christopher, she was the most likely?”
“Nah,” he said. “Any one of them could have slipped out to meet the lad without the rest of the crowd noticing. No one saw Robert Winter leave, but then they didn’t miss Mrs. Winter either when she went out to fetch her coat.”
“Have they found the murder weapon yet?”
“No. They’re going to continue the search at first light.”
“They’re not much further forward then,” she said, unable to keep the satisfaction from her voice.
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“We need to talk to Mantel. They can’t object to that. He was our victim’s father. It’s only right.”
When they approached the Old Chapel the next morning it was only just light. The rain had stopped, though there was still the wind, which blew a paper fertilizer sack into the road in front of them, and dead twigs from the bent trees, and eddies of sand and straw. It was the wind which Mantel mentioned first when he opened the door. “Blowing into a storm,” he said, looking up into the grey, racing clouds, as if he’d lived in the country all his life, as if he knew about boats and tides and the weather.
Vera introduced herself.
“You’re leading the new enquiry into my daughter’s death?”
“That’s right. This is my sergeant.”
“I thought you might have been here to see me earlier. It would have been courteous. I only heard they were reopening the case from the press.”
Vera muttered something about only having made preliminary enquiries, but she knew he was right and anyway he hadn’t made the point aggressively. Whatever his past record, whatever Michael Long had thought, seeing him now, she felt sorry for him.
“You’re lucky to catch me in. I decided to work at home today, cancelled all my meetings. I couldn’t face it. That business with the lad the other night, it brought it all back.”
They were still standing at the arched wooden door and could see the crime scene. A bit of blue and white tape had come loose and was blowing crazily, like the tail of a big, flash kite, the sort controlled by two strings. A line of officers in overalls and navy anoraks walked slowly, eyes to the ground, across a neighbouring field.
“Two young people dead,” Mantel said. “What a terrible waste.”
“Three,” said Ashworth. Mantel didn’t respond, but Ashworth had spoken quietly and perhaps he hadn’t heard.
They followed him through to the room where the old ladies had sat two nights before. No evidence remained of the gathering. The extra chairs had been removed, the carpet hoovered. In the conservatory beyond, a plastic crate stood by the outside door. It contained empty wine bottles, some jammed, neck down, into the layer below. Through the glass they saw the remains of the bonfire and dead fireworks strewn on the grass.
Mantel nodded at them to sit down. “Do you think they were killed by the same person?” he demanded. Then, when there wasn’t an immediate response, “I mean Abigail and the Winter boy.”
“There’s no evidence either way yet.”
“I was convinced Jeanie was guilty. It was all that kept me going. The anger. The court case. Seeing her sent down. I went to court every day, sat in the gallery after I’d given evidence, waited the four days it took them to come up with a verdict. I’d have hanged her myself then, if it had been possible.” He stopped abruptly. “You are sure she was innocent. It’s not just the press after a story, her lawyers playing the system.”
“Quite sure.”
He sat very still. “I didn’t believe it until last night,” he said. “I thought it was the do-gooders and liberals out to clear her name. Then when there was another body… Even I could tell it was too much of a coincidence.” He looked up sharply. “What do you think? Some mad man on the loose?”
“It’s too early to come to any conclusions. They’re treating it as two separate cases until there’s more evidence either way.”
He seemed about to argue, but thought better of it. “What do you want from me?”
“Tell me about the months leading up to Abigail’s death.”
“What good will that do after all this time? You must have access to the statements.”
“It’s not the same as hearing it from you.”
He shut his eyes, scrunched them up tight like a child trying to fight off tears, but when he opened them again and started speaking, his voice was calm.
“Her mother died when Abigail was six. Breast cancer. She was only thirty-three. Still lovely. If you’ve been doing your job properly you’ll know I played a bit dirty when I was younger, but by the time she became ill I’d settled down. I didn’t think I deserved it, losing her, I mean. I pushed the rules to the limits perhaps, but I stayed within them. Then at least. I was successful. Lucky. Tragedies like that didn’t happen to me.
“When Liz died I wanted to run away, pretend it had never happened. But I couldn’t because of Abigail. I suppose I spoilt her but that’s what fathers do, isn’t it?