The Missing Marriage (26 page)

‘I need to know when the flat was let, for how long, and who the tenant is?'

Maureen listened to this while regarding the Inspector, as steam from the boiling kettle rose up behind her.

The kettle clicked off, but the steam carried on rising.

‘That's quite specific information you want,' she pointed out, uncertain, waiting for him to back up the request with something that would explain the personal visit to retrieve such seemingly irrelevant information. When no such explanation was forthcoming, she said, ‘They were bloody lucky.'

‘Lucky?'

‘The Deanes – with the rental of the marina flat in the current climate.'

She realised from the Inspector's expression – too late – that she'd ended up inadvertently saying more than she'd meant to.

‘There've been a lot of repossessions at the marina.'

‘How long's it been let for?'

‘I'd have to check the contracts file – I'm not sure.' She paused. ‘Have you not heard anything at all since the appeal?'

‘Nothing.'

‘It's hard to believe, isn't it?'

She disappeared into the office, reappearing a few minutes later, and remained standing near the door. ‘It was let mid-February,' she said, her hand holding onto the door handle still.

Laviolette was aware that his posture had become tense and that his left shoulder hurt. He wanted a name.

‘It's a twelve month let and the deposit plus rent were paid up front.'

‘Is that unusual?'

‘Depends.' She paused. ‘There was only one name on the contract – a man called Tom Bowen.'

‘Tom Bowen,' Laviolette said, smiling. He wanted to say it out loud, and as soon as he said it, the image of the morning's bloated corpse slid off the table it had been lying on, and floated away. Tom Bowen was a good name; a vivid name. It sounded like a name belonging to someone who was still alive. Bryan Deane might be nowhere, but Tom Bowen was somewhere. Tom Bowen was living at flat twenty-one, the Ropemakers Building, and he'd been there all along.

Maureen hadn't left her position by the door, and looked relieved when the Inspector stood up to go.

Laviolette, feeling suddenly light-headed, asked for a photocopy of the contract, which – after only a moment's hesitation – Maureen did herself, on a double-sided setting.

He was about to leave with the contract when Greg walked in, gave Laviolette a professional smile – clearly not remembering him despite having been interviewed for over an hour by DS Chambers and himself – and said to Maureen, ‘I'm parked on doubles, and I'm late for the Marine Drive viewing – can you chuck me the keys?'

He gave Laviolette another brief, open smile although this one tapered slightly towards the end.

Maureen didn't look at him at all. She went to the key cupboard on the back wall of the office near the fire extinguisher and took out the keys, throwing them lightly to Greg.

‘Back in about an hour,' he said, giving Laviolette a quick look before jumping back into his car, which he'd parked directly outside Tyneside Properties.

‘Laura – Mrs Deane – has put the house on the market,' she said, worried that she hadn't mentioned this before. ‘You already knew?'

Laviolette nodded slowly and took his leave.

As Laviolette drove through the rain into Tynemouth along Grand Parade, he saw Anna's yellow Capri parked in the same place it had been parked since yesterday, and knew immediately that this was where she'd come when she left Coastguard Cottages.

Despite the weather, there were surfers in the water – not many – but enough at this distance for them to look like a small colony.

He parked and walked down onto the beach via the small slip road full of recycling bins that led down to Crusoes – the café they'd had a drink at the previous evening.

The beach was empty as he walked towards the sea, stopping about five metres from the water's edge. The surfers looked strangely androgynous in their wet suits, even up close, but he saw her immediately. She had none of the aggressive intentness most of them had, she just wanted to be there in the water doing what she was doing, and it gave her a beguiling grace; a purity almost. He knew he didn't understand what he was seeing, but he felt it.

She'd seen him and was heading towards him, gaining height and straightening up. She came to a standstill a couple of metres away from him, stepping easily off her board and catching it up before the next wave came.

She didn't look surprised to see him, and she was smiling – a wet, exhilarated smile that had nothing to do with him.

He jumped back as a wave caught at his shoes and, laughing, her face relaxed and the unsettling exhilaration left it.

They started to walk back across the beach – towards Crusoes.

‘We've been stupid,' he said when they were far enough from the sea to talk comfortably.

‘About what?' she said, sniffing loudly and not particularly interested.

‘There's a body.'

She stopped walking. ‘Since when?'

‘Yesterday. A fisherman at Cullercoats Bay found it sandwiched between his boat and the harbour wall.'

‘Bryan?'

‘Enough people want it to be – including Laura, who came in this morning to identify it.'

‘Did you see it?'

Laviolette nodded. ‘Did you ever see a drowned body?'

‘Once,' Anna said, automatically. ‘How was Laura?'

‘I saw her just after the identification.'

‘And?'

‘She identified it as her husband's body.'

There was a pause.

‘And?'

‘I'm waiting on the coroner's report. How about you?'

‘I don't know. There's a body now. What if this time he really did die?'

‘It's not him.'

‘I need proof. I need something . . . it's just supposition,' she shouted over her shoulder as she carried on walking. ‘I hear nothing but supposition.'

‘It's more than that.'

This time she stopped.

‘There was no appendicitis scar on the body.'

‘A scar like that wouldn't show if a body had been in the water that long. You'll have to do better.'

‘The Deanes have an investment property Bryan Deane bought just before the crash. I told you about it, it's at the Royal Quays Marina.' He broke off. ‘Right now it's like the Empty Quarter down there, but the Deanes managed to let their flat in February this year – through Tyneside Properties.'

Anna was staring at him. ‘You think that's where Bryan's been hiding?'

Laviolette nodded. ‘And I think that's where Laura Deane went after identifying her husband's body at the mortuary this morning.'

Anna looked away from him towards the sea, which was depositing a line of something on the beach – large, grey-white objects that lay stranded and quivering in the wet sand before being picked up by the next wave and deposited again, each time a little closer to them. Jellyfish – hundreds of them -stretching along the waterline as far as the eye could see.

‘She identifies her husband's body then she gets in her car and drives directly to their flat at Royal Quays Marina – currently rented to a Tom Bowen.'

She looked up at him. ‘Tom Bowen?'

‘That's the name of the guy who's renting the marina flat.'

‘You think Tom Bowen's Bryan Deane?'

‘It's him, Anna, I know it's him.'

‘No, you don't know it's him.'

‘It's him,' Laviolette said, grabbing hold suddenly of her arm. ‘Anna –'

Pulling her arm free, she started walking again.

‘Where are you going?'

‘Crusoes. I left my clothes with Sheila on the counter so I can get changed out of this,' she said, pulling on the collar of the wetsuit. ‘This isn't an investigation – it's a manhunt.'

‘Come with me.'

‘Where?'

‘The marina.' He started walking towards her.

‘You'll never get a warrant for that.'

‘You don't want that body in the mortuary to be Bryan Deane.'

‘I don't work for you. You've got your own people.'

‘Not any more I haven't. They've assigned me to an armed robbery case in a supporting role.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said frankly, meaning it.

The sea was following them up the beach, and they'd instinctively started to raise their voices again in order to be heard above it.

‘I want you to come with me because you're the only one who'd recognise him.'

‘What makes you think that?' she said, starting to walk away.

‘You told me – last night!' he yelled after her retreating back.

Anna and Laviolette sat in Laviolette's car in the marina car park, looking up at the Ropemakers Building. They'd spent ten minutes driving round the car park, but there was no sign of Laura's Lexus.

Some of the balconies had garden furniture and pot plants on them, but most didn't.

Their attention was taken by a balcony door opening half way up the building. A woman with short hair dyed purple stepped outside – it was one of the balconies with furniture and pot plants – and lit up, staring absently at a fixed point in the distance. She was joined by a man they couldn't see clearly, who remained near the doors. She turned to face him leaning her elbows on the railings – and continued to smoke.

They stood there contemplating each other until suddenly exchanging a brief, hard kiss before pulling away. The man put his hand on the woman's right breast, but she lifted it off, kissing it. She dropped the cigarette into one of the pot plants and they went inside.

The balcony doors remained open, the white curtains blowing out, and there was something relentless in the way the curtains kept blowing that prompted Laviolette and Anna to get out of the car.

As they crossed the car park full of puddles after the day's five minute rain storm – which had been almost tropical in intensity – and entered the Ropemakers Building, a white Husky trotted through the curtains and onto the balcony where the couple had been standing.

It ran round the balcony a couple of times, its nose to the ground, sniffing the decking before lying down suddenly on its side in a temperamental patch of sunlight, its eyes rolling up towards the sky, its tail knocking rhythmically against a pot full of bamboo.

They moved fast, through the lobby – which smelt damp – and up the metal and wood staircase, too impatient to use the lift; aware now of a renewed sense of urgency. The building felt empty, and when Laviolette rang on the bell to the Deanes' flat – flat twenty-one on level D – they could hear it echoing inside.

They waited – Anna watching the enlarged shadows of raindrops running down the window at the end of the corridor, moving across the floor.

There was no answer.

After pressing his ear to the door and trying the handle, Laviolette rang again – knocking as well this time. Drumming his fingers on the door he instinctively knew wasn't going to open he went along the corridor to flat twenty-three and rang on this door instead.

There was no answer here either, but he did hear movement on the other side. Briefly distracted by the sound of voices in the stairwell, speaking what sounded like Chinese, he waited for them to fade before ringing again. This time a woman's voice – foreign – simply said, ‘Yes?'

This was followed by a dog, barking.

‘Police,' he called out.

He looked at Anna.

The door opened and the tall woman with purple hair – who they'd just seen out on the balcony – was standing there in a black and gold dressing gown, her face startled-looking despite the heaviness around her eyes. The dressing gown wasn't tied, but pulled protectively round her.

There was a dog standing behind her – a Husky, whose neck she was holding onto.

Anna was staring at the dog, and the dog was staring back at her – unblinking.

The back draft of the smell of sex hung momentarily in the hallway.

Sex in the afternoon – it had been somehow instilled in Laviolette since childhood before the breakdown of decency and order, without anybody ever referring to the subject directly – was for teenagers, newlyweds, the unemployed, and the wealthy, or you were paying for it.

‘Yes?' she said again.

‘We're trying to get hold of Mr Bowen – in the flat next door?'

‘Next door?' She took a step closer and looked vaguely up the corridor.

‘Flat twenty-one – nobody's answering.'

‘Oh – Tom. I don't know him.'

‘Apart from the fact that he's called Tom.'

She shrugged. ‘Maybe he's at work.'

‘He works?' Laviolette asked quickly.

The woman stared at him for a moment then shrugged again. ‘I don't know.'

Laviolette detected movement behind her eyes. He didn't doubt that what she was saying was true, he just didn't believe her.

‘You're Russian?'

‘Polish,' she said with a faint smile – as if his diagnosis amused her.

While she was still smiling, he said, ‘I couldn't trouble you for a glass of water, could I?'

She stared at him – then Anna.

There was the sound of a toilet being flushed in the flat behind her, but what Anna guessed to be the bathroom door remained shut. The door to the bedroom was also shut.

‘It's no trouble.' She gave him another faint smile.

He followed her in and she stopped, turning round to face him, making an effort to conceal the tension in her face. ‘I've got a spare bottle – I'll fill it.'

Laviolette waited in the flat's tiny hallway, light-headed and fractious for a moment before walking into the lounge-diner, leaving the front door open behind him.

Anna followed.

She thought she heard a door open behind her and, turning round, caught a glimpse of a man with blond hair – the man from the balcony – disappearing through the bedroom door.