“You must be Veronica,” Vera said. “Michael told me about you. You’ll know who I am. A place like this, word gets about.”
“You’re the inspector come to find out why an innocent woman spent ten years in jail, then killed herself because she could see no way out.”
Vera was surprised by the anger. It was the first unambiguous support she’d heard for Jeanie in Elvet. She liked the woman.
She lifted the glass to her lips. She’d been right about the beer. Aye,” she said. “It was a tragedy.”
“It was a crime.”
“Did you tell them first time round you’d thought they’d got it wrong?”
“I tried,” Veronica said. “I made an appointment to see that other woman. Fletcher.”
“What did she say?”
“That if I didn’t have any evidence, or couldn’t provide Jeanie with an alibi, I was wasting my time. But as I saw it, they didn’t have the evidence to convict her. I worked as secretary to a solicitor before Barry and I took this place on. I’ve never seen a case handled like this one. As I saw it there was no one really to fight on Jeanie’s behalf. Michael had never understood her and Peg was ill by the time it came to court.”
“You knew them all? Mantel and Jeanie and the girl?”
“Mantel and Jeanie certainly. My son went to school with Abigail, but he was a bit younger so I didn’t really know her. She came in here once with a couple of lads, dressed up so I hardly recognized her, hoping to get served. Stupid to think she’d get away with it, but they all try it on at one time or another.”
Vera had a thought. “Did you know Christopher Winter? He must have been the same age as your son.”
“Not then, not at the time of the murder. He’d only just moved to the village, and though he was in the same year as my boy, he was a different type of lad. Academic. Later I got to know him a bit better.”
“How?”
“He came in here a few times when he was home from university. Looked like he could use someone to talk to. If it was quiet I’d chat.”
“Was he always on his own?”
Aye, always.”
“And what did you talk about?”
“Nothing important. Anything that took his fancy. World news. Village gossip. I had the impression he just wanted an excuse to be out the house for a bit. Glad to escape his father, maybe. I don’t think they got on.”
Vera sat for a moment, thinking about a boy whose only entertainment on his break from university was to sit in a quiet pub making small talk with a middle-aged woman.
“Did he drink too much?”
“Sometimes. No more than other lads his age. But he never got fighting drunk, never made a nuisance of himself. I saw him come over a bit sentimental a couple of times and that’s when he talked about his father. “Sometimes I don’t think I’m his son, at all. I can’t believe he’s anything to do with me.”
An elderly man came in. Veronica had his pint pulled before he reached the bar. He put a couple of coins on the counter and carried the drink to a corner without speaking. Vera waited until he was out of earshot then continued.
“You must have known Jeanie well, though. She worked for you.”
“Aye, in the restaurant first, then when she was eighteen in the bar too. I liked her very much, though Barry said she was too quiet to be a barmaid. Not outgoing enough. I didn’t care about that. She was interesting. I looked forward to the days she was working. We talked about music and books. You don’t get much of that conversation in here.”
Or with Barry was the implication.
“Not everyone seemed to have liked her,” Vera said. “I’ve talked to a few people. Arrogant, they called her. Cocky.”
Veronica thought about that. “Maybe she could seem that way if you didn’t know her well. She was different from the other girls in the village. She couldn’t talk to them. But it was more shyness than anything else. And later, after she’d been through the court case, I suppose she had to be hard to survive.”
“Did you ever go to visit her in prison?”
“I told Peg that I’d go if she wanted me to. I asked her to get Jeanie to send me a visiting order. But she never did. Perhaps she couldn’t bear anyone else to see her in that place.” There was another pause. “She was proud. Even when she was a youngster. Sometimes you get some comments in here. Lads when they’ve had too much to drink, sneering, acting all macho. She’d never show that they’d got to her.”
“Did her father get to her?”
“Oh, aye. I don’t know what it was with Michael. He could never let her be. Always criticizing and passing comment. About her clothes or her hair or how she spent her time. But she’d not let on that he bothered her either. Like I said. Proud.”
“Tell me about how she met Keith Mantel. Was that while she was working here?”
Veronica stared towards the door, as if she hoped someone would come in, so she could avoid answering. “I worry about that sometimes. The way things happen. If I hadn’t taken her on here, perhaps she’d still be alive.”
“You can’t think like that, pet. It would drive you crazy.”
“I know, but maybe I should have done more to warn her off Mantel. She might have listened to me. But he charmed her. Keith can be irresistible when he turns on the charm. I’ve seen him in action in here.”
“What was the attraction for him? I mean, why Jeanie? I can’t see her as his type.”
“She was beautiful,” Veronica said simply. “In the way some models are. The ones that make all the money. Not pretty. Abigail was pretty. Jeanie was stunning. And it happened very quickly. One day, it seemed, she was this gawky teenager given to spots, then this interesting young woman. Not everyone saw it. They remembered the old Jeanie, even when the new one was standing right in front of them. Even
Michael didn’t realize. Mantel saw it though. I could see him watching her. Jeanie didn’t realize herself how she’d changed, until he pointed it out.”
“That’s why she fell for him, then?” Vera said.
“Aye, he was older, a bit of a crook, but he made her feel attractive for the first time…” Veronica paused. “It helped of course that her father couldn’t stand him.”
“What was all that about? Why did Michael take against him?”
“Michael had pretty well run the village before then. His family’s lived here for generations. His father was cox of the lifeboat. He kept a fishing boat down on the shore. And Michael had worked for the pilots since he was a young man. Then Keith Mantel turned up, throwing money around, and folk started taking notice of him instead. Stupid really. Like little boys in a playground. It made you want to bang their heads together.”
“Did Jeanie carry on working here after she moved in with Mantel?”
“No. He wouldn’t have liked that. He likes his women dependent on him. And I know what he said in court, about Jeanie turning up on his doorstep and him not being able to turn her way. As if he didn’t really care about her one way or the other, but I’m not sure that was true. Not at the beginning. At the beginning, she really got under his skin.”
i Vera considered this for a moment. Perhaps she’d been wrong about Mantel. Perhaps he’d been capable of love after all. Perhaps if the couple Tiad been left alone, if Abigail and Michael and everyone else in Elvet had left them alone they could have been happy. No, she thought then. This was never going to be a fairy-tale romance. He’d still been seeing Caroline Fletcher all the time. It would never have worked out.
She emptied her glass and set it on the bar.
“Another?” Veronica asked.
Vera thought about that seriously. “Best not.” She slid from her stool.
“I saw Jeanie,” Veronica said suddenly, and Vera hoisted herself back onto the seat. “The week before Abigail was killed. I never said at the time. If the police had asked me about it, they’d have got the wrong impression.”