They spoil their little girls. And then I spent so much time at work. When I was around, I wanted to make it special for her.” He paused. There’d been other women before Jeanie. I’d brought some of them home. But they all knew that Abigail came first.”
“Jeanie must have been special, then.”
“Not particularly, no. She was young, pretty enough. A talented musician. But there have been others prettier, sexier.”
“Yet she was the first one you moved in.”
“I didn’t move her in. She turned up, uninvited, with all her bags, after a row with her father. When I came in from work she’d unpacked. A fait accompli.”
“Why did you let her stay?”
“Apathy. Devilment. Her father had never liked me and it was amusing to wind him up. And there was something about her. Something innocent, I suppose. She reminded me a bit of Liz when she was a girl. She made me feel young again. That first night she was so grateful to be here, so eager to please. She’d have done anything for me. It was flattering. I took the easy way out. It wasn’t as if I was home much. I told myself it would be good for Abigail to have the company of someone nearer her own age.”
“But Abigail didn’t like her?”
“Couldn’t stand her,” he said simply. “Too used to getting her own way, I suppose. Always being the centre of attention.”
“So you told Jeanie she’d have to leave?”
“Eventually. In the autumn. I could tell by then it wasn’t going to work. I was too old after all. She was so intense and it became clear that she wanted more from the relationship than I did.”
“Marriage?”
“Maybe. She never mentioned it but I wouldn’t have been surprised.” He hesitated. “Besides, there was someone else. I was looking for an excuse to get rid of Jeanie. The situation was messy, a distraction.”
“What happened when you asked Jeanie to leave?”
“It was horrible. I knew she could be moody, unpredictable, but that day she lost it completely. She blamed it all on Abigail. I’d always thought of her as rather prim, but she let fly with a stream of filth.”
“What did she say about Abigail?” Vera asked. “Precisely.”
“She called her a dirty little slut. Amongst other things.”
“You didn’t mention that in your statement.” Vera waited but Mantel didn’t respond and she continued slowly, “I can understand why you were so angry. What do you think made Jeanie so abusive?”
“Because she knew it would hurt me. She was jealous.”
“Why slut though? Why that particularly?”
“If you want to know about Abigail’s sexual history, you could ask,” Mantel said and that made Vera feel like a worm again, as she had when they’d first arrived.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. You do see why it could be important.”
i “They asked about boyfriends first time round. Sexual partners, they said. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might have been sleeping with someone.”
“You were shocked.”
“I had no right to be shocked. I slept with women, many of them not much older than Abigail. I was surprised. I had thought she would talk to me about some thing like that. I’d known it would happen, of course. I’d prepared myself for it. Imagined her bringing some boy home. I knew I wouldn’t take to him, however decent and respectable he might be, but thought I could pretend. Welcome him in. Then I wouldn’t lose her. I hadn’t thought she’d keep it a secret.”
“She was under age. The boy would have been committing an offence.”
“Perhaps that was it.”
“You had no idea at all who she was seeing?”
“None at all. She had a party for her fifteenth birthday. There were boys here for that. I could probably remember the names of some of them. But I was around for most of the evening and there didn’t seem to be anyone special.”
“Nick Lineham? Does that ring a bell?”
“The teacher’s lad. Yes, he was one of them.”
“And Christopher Winter?”
“Emma was here, of course. She and Abigail were best friends. But I don’t remember seeing the boy. Abigail had laughed about him, talked about a crush, but I don’t think he’d have been invited. Wasn’t he quite a lot younger?”
“Only a year,” Vera said. “That was all.”
He was staring out into the garden, distracted for a moment by the cloud of rooks which scattered from an old sycamore and he seemed not to hear.
“Let me take you back to the night of the bonfire.” In her mind she saw him, standing there, welcoming his guests with his trophy girlfriend by his side. Middle-aged of course but fit and charming. This person seemed older. She liked him better. “Did you see Christopher Winter during the evening?”
“I don’t think I would have recognized him. Ten years makes a lot of difference to someone that age and I only saw him a few times while Abigail was alive. Sitting in the back of his mother’s car when she came to collect Emma. Once on the Point, I think. His parents were here last night. They’d have seen him, surely, if he’d been one of the guests?”
“Probably. Were there many strangers here?”
“People I didn’t know, certainly. The tickets were on sale in the pub and the post office. The lifeboat crew brought their friends.”
“You recognized Caroline Fletcher?”
“Yes. She was the officer in charge of the original enquiry.”
“Did you invite her?”
“No.”
“Why was she here?”
She could see him framing a noncommittal reply in his head, then give up on it, too exhausted perhaps to make the effort to lie. “To check up on me. To remind me that we could both face problems if I spoke to the authorities.” Then, flippant, “Because she can’t keep away.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.” Though she was beginning to. Understanding was seeping into her brain like water into an estuary.
i “Look. I said that I’d met someone else before Jeanie moved in here and it made things messy, complicated.” He paused.
“Go on.” She was sitting very still, staring into his face.
He returned her gaze. Again she thought he would refuse to answer.
“The woman was Caroline.”
“You were going out with Caroline Fletcher while she was investigating your daughter’s murder?” Vera was apoplectic, scarlet, marble-eyed. Only just holding it together.
“We were close, yes.”
“And it never occurred to her to declare an interest? She could have wrecked the whole case.”
“We’d been discreet. We didn’t think anyone would find out.”
Dan Greenwood had guessed, Vera thought, but he’d been too daft and too loyal to say anything. No wonder Fletcher had taken against Jeanie from the beginning.
“What did you promise her to get a conviction?” Vera demanded.
“Nothing. There was no need. She wanted it as much as I did.”
She was besotted, Vera thought. What is wrong with all these women? She was a strong, clever woman and she threw her career away for a prat like you. That was why she left the service. So she’d be free to marry you when you asked her. Is that what you promised? But you never did. She was even more of a mug than Jeanie Long.
Mantel walked with them to their car, and stood shivering while Ashworth patted his pockets for the keys.
“One thing,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Emma’s husband. The one who calls himself Bennett. The pilot on the river.”
“What about him?”
“I recognized him last night. He didn’t realize. You should check him out. That wasn’t his name when I first met him.”
“What was his name?”
He shrugged and Vera couldn’t tell whether he didn’t remember or he thought he’d told them enough.
Before they could ask him more he turned and walked quickly back to the house.