The Missing Marriage (3 page)

‘Did you check the garage when you got home – to see if his kayak or his wetsuit were there?'

‘Not until later, no.'

‘And his car wasn't on the drive?'

‘No.'

‘When did you first try ringing Mr Deane?' the Inspector asked after a while

‘As soon I came in and realised he wasn't here.'

‘And he didn't pick up?'

‘I left a message. Then I rang two of his friends – ones he sometimes meets at the pub – in case he'd gone there – and they hadn't seen him.'

‘You've got their names and details?'

This was directed at DS Chambers, who'd been looking at Laura.

‘And the pub he sometimes goes to?'

‘The Shipwrights Arms,' DS Chambers said. ‘We've already been there – nothing.'

‘You've got all this,' Laura said, openly hostile now.

‘Sir, we've done a full open door search – this isn't a voluntary disappearance.'

Inspector Laviolette turned suddenly to Anna. ‘When did you find out that Mr Deane hadn't come home?'

‘Six minutes past midnight. Mrs Hamilton told my grandmother, who then phoned me. They're old friends.'

‘Six minutes past midnight,' Laviolette repeated as something close to a smile crossed his face so rapidly Anna wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been looking. ‘And then you drove over here –'

‘To give a statement. I saw Bryan Deane this afternoon down on Tynemouth Longsands – as you heard.'

Laviolette turned back to Laura, without comment.

‘So Bryan was meant to be home around seven, and you phoned his two friends roughly when?'

‘Around eight – I was worried.'

‘Around eight,' Laviolette repeated. ‘He was an hour late at that point – when you phoned.' The Inspector was silent for a moment. ‘Is he not usually late?'

‘He's not – no.' Laura's stance was becoming increasingly defensive. ‘Look, I told you – they said he was never there. His car wasn't on the drive and his kayak wasn't in the garage,' she carried on, raising her voice and looking genuinely upset. ‘He's never not come home before. Why don't you
do
something?' she exploded. ‘Why aren't you out there looking for him?' She collapsed back in the sofa, her hand over her face.

Anna looked quickly at Martha, who was staring at her mother with a mixture of worry and what could only be described as hatred.

‘Look,' the Inspector said sounding suddenly exhausted; apologetic. ‘I'm going to try and get this categorised as high risk.'

Laura, looking surprised, at last uncurled herself from the sofa and stood up, the linen falling in crumpled folds around her, the abandoned Roxy looking momentarily confused.

‘DS Chambers and Constable Wade will stay here with you. There's a lot of procedure it's essential you understand.' He broke off, staring thoughtfully at Laura. ‘Did your husband have a nickname?'

‘A nickname?' Laura shook her head, glancing quickly at Anna.

The Inspector noted the glance then turned to DS Chambers. ‘Can I have a look at what you've taken down?'

‘We've covered a lot,' Chambers said.

Laviolette nodded absently and read through the investigation notes. ‘No distinguishing marks?' he said, looking first at Chambers then Laura Deane. ‘No scars? Tattoos? Nothing?'

‘No,' Chambers confirmed, sullen.

Laura said nothing.

Anna was watching her, her face momentarily tense with conflict. ‘What about the appendicitis scar?' she said at last, appealing not to the Inspector – but Laura.

‘He never had an appendicitis,' Laura said, her eyes on Anna again.

Feeling Martha's eyes on her as well, Anna smiled quickly at her before turning back to Laura. ‘It happened before we knew him,' she responded, uncertain, ‘but it was always there. Unless it's faded or – I don't know, do scars like that fade?' This time, she appealed to the Inspector, who was staring at her.

‘Can I have a few words – my car?' he said at last.

Anna and Laviolette left the room, making their way up the hallway followed slowly by Laura – who made no attempt to speak to Anna.

They stood outside, the rain that had started since Anna's arrival banging on the porch roof.

Laura remained in the doorway, dry and distant, watching as the Inspector and her childhood friend headed out into the night.

‘It'll be okay,' Anna shouted back, through the rain. It sounded like a promise, she thought.

‘Wait!'

Anna and the Inspector turned round.

Martha Deane had appeared suddenly in the doorway. She pushed past Laura, running barefoot through the rain towards them.

‘Martha!' Laura yelled, but she didn't follow her daughter out into the rain.

The next moment Martha slammed into Anna, who almost lost her balance.

She braced herself thinking Martha might start hitting her, but then she felt the girl's narrow arms tighten round her waist, and understood.

She hugged her back – for no reason – just as hard. Martha's thin pyjamas were already soaked through at the shoulders, as was her hair, pressed into Anna's red sweater. The girl's earlier hostility had been replaced by a sudden clinging need.

‘You were right – about dad's scar. I know the one you're talking about. She was right,' she said, excited, to Laviolette, before turning to Anna again. ‘You'll come back, won't you? You'll come back tomorrow?'

Anna smiled down through the rain at her, although Martha was only a head shorter – aware that the Inspector hadn't moved.

‘Martha!' Laura yelled again from the front door.

Martha turned and ran back towards the house on tiptoe, her shoulders hunched. She stood in the doorway for a moment, next to Laura, but not touching her, until Laura pulled her back in order to shut the door.

A few seconds later, Anna saw Martha's face at one of the front windows, framed by curtain. Then the face vanished and the curtains fell back into place.

She hesitated for a moment before following the Inspector to an outdated burgundy Vauxhall, the rain loud on the car's roof.

The Vauxhall had been taken for a valet service recently – very recently. It smelt of cleaning chemicals and the strawberry tree, hanging from the rear view mirror. When the Inspector turned on the car engine in order to get the heating working, music he must have been listening to earlier – some sort of church music – came on automatically and the strawberry fumes from the air freshener intensified, making Anna nauseous. She wondered, briefly, if the car was even his.

‘That's not a coat,' he said with a heavy accent, turning off the music and giving her a sideways glance. ‘Not for up here anyways.'

She looked down at herself. The jumper had got soaked between the Deanes' house and the Inspector's car.

‘What brings you this far north?'

Anna turned to stare at him. ‘I was born here,' she said defensively.

He put the windscreen wipers on and for no particular reason it immediately felt less claustrophobic in the car.

‘Lung cancer,' she added.

‘Not you,' he said, genuinely shocked.

‘No – my grandfather. Advanced small cell lung cancer. The specialist refers to it as “metastatic”, which is specialist-speak for cancer that's behaving aggressively.' She stopped speaking, aware that she felt tearful. ‘It means there's no hope.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that.' Laviolette closed his mouth, and looked away. ‘Who's your grandfather?' he asked after a while.

Anna had forgotten that these were the kind of questions people asked up here – questions that sought connections because everybody belonged to somebody. It was difficult to stand alone.

‘Erwin – Erwin Faust.'

Laviolette nodded slowly to himself. ‘The German.'

‘That's him,' Anna said, unsurprised. ‘I'm on compassionate leave.'

‘How long for?'

‘A month.'

‘A month?' he said, surprised. ‘Unpaid.'

‘Where are you on leave from?'

She hesitated. ‘The Met.'

Now he was staring at her again. ‘Rank?'

‘Detective Sergeant.'

‘Why didn't you say anything earlier?'

‘It didn't seem necessary. I came here tonight as a friend of the family and because I saw Bryan in the sea this afternoon, which could well be a last sighting.'

‘A friend of the family – and yet you haven't seen Laura Deane or Bryan Deane for that matter, in over sixteen years.'

They paused, staring through the windscreen at the curve of houses, which looked strangely desolate in the rain – as though they'd been suddenly vacated for some catastrophic reason.

‘Was it sudden – your grandfather?'

‘Very.'

Anna wondered if Laura could hear the car engine from inside number two, and if she could, would she want to know what they were doing out here still, parked at the end of her drive? As soon as she had this thought, she realised that the Inspector was doing it on purpose. She didn't know how she knew this; she just did.

‘D'you want to tell me what you told DS Chambers?'

‘You want me to go over my statement again?'

‘If you don't mind.'

She didn't answer immediately then when she did, she said, ‘DS Chambers didn't like me very much.'

‘DS Chambers doesn't like anybody very much at the moment. He's got a newborn baby and he's sleeping on average two hours out of every twenty-four. I think he's got postnatal depression.'

‘He liked Laura Deane.' When the Inspector didn't comment on this, she added, ‘But you didn't, did you?'

He smiled. ‘You're happy for me to correlate what you're about to say with CCTV footage?'

‘Of course,' she said, without hesitation. ‘I saw Bryan Deane this afternoon. I was surfing on Tynemouth Longsands.'

‘Were the waves good?'

‘I only go out when they're good.'

He nodded and carried on staring through the wind screen.

‘We saw each other on the beach first – I was just about to go in.'

‘So you had your surfboard – he had his kayak – who saw who first? Who was at the water's edge first?'

She thought about this, and the obtuseness of the question. ‘Me – I guess.' She saw herself toeing the line, the water freezing cold, staring out to sea, waiting. Then Bryan had appeared suddenly to her left. He must have come up behind her, but she didn't want to tell the Inspector this.

‘So – he saw you on the beach – came up to you. Did he say anything?'

No – he hadn't. He'd stood beside her, not saying anything. ‘We chatted about the weather, sea conditions and stuff – like I said,' she finished flatly, repeating what she'd said earlier – in front of Laura and Martha – to DS Chambers.

After a while, sounding almost regretful, Inspector Laviolette said, ‘It was a beautiful day today.'

‘It was.'

‘The last time you saw Bryan – heading north up the shoreline – presumably you saw him from behind?'

‘Yes.'

‘It was definitely him?'

‘Yes.'

‘After sixteen years, you see him from behind in the water as a fret's coming in, and it was definitely him?'

Through the windscreen, Anna saw a fox appear beneath a street lamp before sliding across the garden onto number four's drive – momentarily illuminated by the same security lights that the Deanes had at number two; that all the houses on Marine Drive probably had.

The Inspector sighed, looking at her. ‘What happened sixteen years ago?'

‘Nothing happened,' she said smoothly, almost believing it herself.

‘But you and Laura Deane were close up until then?'

‘We grew up together.'

‘And Bryan Deane?'

‘We all lived next door to each other. Me – Laura – Bryan.'

‘So Laura and Bryan Deane were childhood sweethearts?'

‘Something like that.' She turned away from him. ‘Then what happened?'

‘We grew apart. They stayed. I left.'

‘You didn't keep in touch?'

Anna shook her head. ‘Like I said – I l-l-left.'

It took a while to get the word out, but the Inspector didn't look away. He kept his eyes on her – she felt them.

‘Only nobody ever does, do they? Not completely, I mean. Childhood's a place you can never go back to, but you never fully escape from it either. Where did you go – when you left?'

‘King's College, London.'

‘You didn't have to answer that.'

‘I know.'

It was warm inside the car now, and the clock said 01:22.

‘What did you study? You don't have to answer that either.'

‘Criminology and French.'

He smiled suddenly at her. ‘What?'

‘Nothing. Have you ever seen Martha Deane before?'

‘Only in photographs.'

‘Only in photographs,' he repeated, quietly.

They were both thinking about the way Martha had come running through the rain towards her.

‘We had a call earlier from a security guard at the international ferry terminal on the south side of the Tyne – he thought he saw a body in the water.' Laviolette was watching Anna as he said it. ‘You put a call out and people start taking every bit of driftwood they see for a body. Coastguard got a call earlier from a woman at Cullercoats who claimed she saw a body in the water – turned out to be a log.'

Anna was aware that she was holding her breath.

‘Well, the security guard
did
see a body – but not our body.'

She exhaled as quietly as she could while the Inspector clicked up the lid of the CD storage unit by the handbrake.

There was only one CD in there.

‘Can I ask you something?' she said, turning to look at him. ‘This has been assessed medium to high risk, hasn't it?'

‘After hearing your statement, I'm escalating it to high,' he concluded heavily. ‘The sea temperature was around eight degrees Celcius today. The fifty percent immersion survival time for a normally clothed person in reasonable health with no underlying medical conditions is two hours.'

‘He wasn't in the sea, he was in a kayak – and he was wearing a wet suit.'

Laviolette tried to prop his elbow on the window, but there was too much condensation. ‘How would you describe your relationship to Bryan Deane?'

‘Friend of the family,' she said, automatically.

‘Did suicide ever cross your mind?'

‘No.'

‘Said with conviction.' He was smiling again now, a light smile that broke up his face into a network of fine lines. ‘Why not? You saw Bryan Deane for the first time today in over sixteen years, and you'd rule out suicide? What makes you so sure?'

‘Martha. I saw them together this morning.'

Anna saw again – the tall girl in riding clothes with hair the colour she remembered Laura's being as a child, standing on the grass verge beside her father, not much shorter.

Bryan had his arm round her shoulders and Martha had gripped onto it while staring sullenly at Anna, hitting her crop against the sole of her boot.

‘They seemed really connected. I don't know.' She shrugged irritably, aware that the Inspector was smiling at her still. ‘I just can't imagine him leaving her behind.' She paused, turning to him. ‘You're seriously considering the possibility that the disappearance is voluntary?'

‘I don't know much about Bryan Deane, but I do know that he's Area Manager at Tyneside Properties and that Tyneside Properties have had to shut down two of their branches in the past nine months. Then I hear that he owns an apartment overlooking the marina down at Royal Quays in North Shields that's been on the market for months. Then tonight – as I'm heading home, I hear Bryan Deane's disappeared, and I find that interesting.' He waited for her to say something, rubbing the condensation from the window and staring up at the Deanes' house. ‘I wonder what's going on in there now,' he said. The downstairs had gone dark, but there were lights on upstairs. ‘Not a lot of love lost between those two. Mother and daughter, I mean.'

Anna remained silent.

‘A sad house,' he concluded tonelessly, turning to her. ‘Why d'you think that is?'

‘A man's disappeared.'

He shook his head. ‘That wasn't what I meant. The sadness was underlying. Invasive.'

‘Invasive?' She smiled.

‘It's funny, isn't it – the things people end up wanting out of life.'

Ignoring this – it was too ambivalent, and she was too exhausted – she said, ‘They were in shock.'

‘Martha Deane was – yes.'

‘And Laura Deane,' Anna insisted, unsure why she suddenly felt the need to insist on this when she hadn't believed it herself. ‘There's no right way to show shock – you know that.'

‘I think Laura Deane was enjoying the attention – to a point.'

Even though she agreed with him, Anna didn't comment on this. She'd sensed the same thing – as well as a mixture of anxiety and what could only be described as excitement coming off Laura, but she didn't mention this either. Partly because she felt the Inspector already knew these things, and partly because she hadn't yet made up her mind about Inspector Laviolette. She didn't know how she felt about Laura either, but there was definitely an old childish loyalty there, which surprised her. To put it another way, she didn't feel quite ready to sacrifice Laura to the Inspector – not until she was certain of a few more facts herself.

‘And I'd like to see Bryan Deane's life insurance policy,' the Inspector added. When this provoked no response either, he said, ‘Who are you protecting?'

‘Myself.' Looking at the clock in the dashboard, she said, ‘For the past twenty minutes I've been unable to shake the impression that I'm somehow under suspicion.'

‘Of what?'

Then his phone started ringing. He checked the caller and switched it off, looking momentarily much older. ‘I've got to go,' he said. Then, ‘I might want to call you again.'

‘DS Chambers has got my details.'

He hesitated then dropped the phone back into his coat pocket.

Anna got out of the car.

The rain was easing off, and she was about to shut the door when she said, ‘Laviolette's an unusual name.'

‘Not to me it isn't.'

She looked up instinctively at the house and he followed her gaze. There was a curtain moving at the window above the front porch, as if it had just been dropped back into place.

‘D'you want to know something I noticed?'

She stood waiting by the car.

Even though the rain was easing off, her hair and face felt wet and there was a fine dusting of water over the front of her jumper still.

‘Laura Deane's not half as upset by Bryan Deane's disappearance as you are.'

The yellow Ford Capri turned out of the Duneside development and headed north up the coastal road. There were soon high dunes running alongside the car beyond Anna's right shoulder as the beam from St Mary's lighthouse flashed precisely over treacherous waters and, inland, over a betrayed country that was only just getting to its knees again. It wasn't yet standing, but it was at least kneeling and this was what determined local councillors wanted people to know as they set about transforming the past into heritage with the smattering of civic art that had sprung up – like the quayside statue outside the apartment in Blyth that she'd taken a short-term let on.

She took the Links Road past the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club and warehouses on South Harbour before turning into Ridley Avenue, which ran past the recently regenerated Ridley Park. It was where the medical men used to live and practice and was once nicknamed Doctors' Row, even though the houses weren't built as one, low strung, continuous line of brick like the miners'. The houses on Ridley Avenue were detached with gardens to the front and back; gardens with lawns, and borders of flowers, not vegetables.