“Emma Bennett now.”
“There was something about her, that first day I turned up to do the interview. Something weird. I thought it was the shock. Stumbling across her best friend like that, I mean you’d be expecting her to be acting strangely. But it was as if none of it was real. Like she was telling a story she’d already made up, that she’d rehearsed somehow, over and over again, though how could she? It didn’t take us long to get there that afternoon.”
Vera sat for a moment taking that in. “Could she have done it? Would the timing have worked out?”
“The pathologist said Abigail couldn’t have been dead long when Emma found her. You know they can’t be precise about these things. I’d say it was possible that they met up on the path, had a row and Emma killed her then. I’m. not saying that’s what did happen. But you were pushing me for an opinion.”
“Aye, maybe I was. Was there anything else which pointed in that direction? Besides Emma’s behaviour when you interviewed her.”
“The way I’d heard Abigail talk about her. She was really patronizing. As if Emma was the most stupid person she’d ever met. She once said to her father while I was there, “Emma doesn’t know anything.” If I’d been Emma, I’d have felt like killing her’
“Was Abigail bullying her?”
“Probably not. Just pretending to be her best friend and undermining her every chance she got. And Emma was the sort who’d let that get to her. A natural victim. They can be dangerous when they let go.”
“Emma was hardly likely to do away with her brother, though.” Vera seemed to be talking to herself. “And I might not have realized that his bedroom had a view of the field if she’d not pointed it out.” But she’s a strange woman, you’re right about that. Full of fancies. And where does the husband fit in?
“What do you know about James Bennett?”
“Nothing. He wasn’t living there when Abigail was murdered.”
“Keith never mentioned him?”
“Why would he?”
“I had the impression they were friends once. In the old days.”
“Oh, Keith had a lot of friends in the old days. He never introduced many of them to me.”
“Did he ever ask you to do anything else for him?”
“What do you mean?”
Vera banged her fist on the table. The noise echoed round the empty room. “Don’t play games with me, lady. You know exactly what I mean. Did he ask for information? Tell you to turn a blind eye? Influence any other investigation in any way?”
“Only once.” The words seemed like a whisper after Vera’s dramatics. “And it was information which he’d probably have been able to get hold of anyway.”
“Well?”
“He wanted to see a copy of the sex offenders register.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
There was a pause. “Keith’s work is all about influence. He needs people on his side. Councillors. Planners. Maybe he felt he could exert a tad more influence if he knew something about the people he was working with.”
“Was he interested in anyone specific?”
“Maybe. He never said.”
Blackmail, Vera thought. That’s what he was after. So it ran in the family. She kept her voice even. “When was this?”
“Not long before Abigail was killed.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vera had decided it was time to speak to James Bennett. She could have gone back to Keith Mantel, but no way was he going to give up more information than he wanted. Joe Ashworth had been digging, but he wasn’t local, he didn’t have the contacts and she didn’t want to wait any longer. She found out that James was working and took Ashworth with her to collect him from the Point. She thought they’d take him to the station. That way there’d be no distractions. She told herself there could be all sorts of explanations for his name change, but her imagination was working overtime. He’d been involved in some of Mantel’s illegal operations, she thought. Why else would he want to hide behind an alias? That didn’t make him a murderer, but it made him worth talking to. They didn’t make a show of waiting, just sat in their car next to the pilot’s vehicle until James showed up.
When she saw him walking towards them she had second thoughts. James had been up since the early hours and had that drawn, grey look which is the result of nights of disturbed sleep. She wanted him focused. The way he looked now she could see him dozing off in the interview room, his head on his arm, no good to anyone.
He’d already seen them so they couldn’t drive off. “We can postpone it until later,” she said. “It’s not urgent.”
But James insisted.
“Do you want to let your wife know, then?”
“I’m in earlier than I thought. She’ll not be expecting me for a couple of hours yet.”
They were in a room with no natural light, a strip light which flickered, the smell of stale cigarettes. Vera and James sat opposite each other across a table and Joe Ashworth watched them, his chair pulled away so he seemed an impartial observer, a referee perhaps at a chess match. Vera was wearing one of her shapeless, old lady dresses and a cardigan which she’d buttoned up wrongly at the front. James, still in his uniform, was immaculate.
“This is an informal chat,” Vera said. “Things come up in an enquiry. They’re probably not relevant, but they need clearing up. You’ll understand.”
He nodded.
“Keith Mantel said he’d met you before. Only then you were calling yourself something different. We had to check.”
“Of course.” Very polite, almost as if he was sorry he’d put them to the trouble of snooping round in his past.
“So I was hoping you’d clear it up for us. Explain what it was all about. And at the same time maybe fill in the background details on Keith Mantel.”
Vera hadn’t been sure what to expect. Probably something bland. To be told that it was perfectly legal to change a name by deed poll and that no explanation was required. That it was none of their business. Certainly not this. For James fidgeted briefly with the cap which was sitting upturned in front of him on the table, closed his eyes in a moment of decision and then began to speak, taking them right back to the beginning, telling them, in effect, the history of his life.
“When he was a young man my dad worked on the trawlers. I grew up with all the stories the storms and the larger-than-life skippers and the big chance catches but by the time I was at school, he’d come ashore. Maybe the danger and the discomfort outweighed the adventure; already at that time they were having to go further for fish. It wasn’t easy money. More likely, I think, my mother persuaded him to give it up. It can’t have been much fun for her when he was away.”
Vera nodded, said nothing, waited for him to continue.
“At that time he and my mother ran a news agent and sweet shop in the area where they’d both grown up. I was an only child, but there were cousins to play with in the street, my gran to cook my tea when Mum and Dad were busy. It seemed friendly and safe. There was a lot of bitching, of course. You get hurtful gossip in small communities, I suppose. But it didn’t touch me. I remember it as a good time.
“When he was at sea my father was active in the union and he still took an interest in politics after he’d left. You’d have thought he’d be a natural Conservative, a small businessman making his own way in the world, but it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a communist. Not quite. But certainly a socialist of the old school. I can’t imagine him having any truck with a New Labour government. He’d always been a party member and he had time then to become more active. I remember him canvassing during elections, coming home full of the arguments he’d had on the doorsteps. I don’t know what my mother made of it. She probably realized he needed something to stop him getting bored. At first, I think, she saw it as a harmless hobby, like fishing or train spotting