The Missing Marriage (34 page)

She swam with her round the stern of a trawler –
Flora's Fancy
, that had volunteered its services on the police search for Bryan after he disappeared. She watched Martha haul herself up the ladder on the harbour wall and onto the Quayside where she knelt, vomiting and choking as Laviolette struggled to keep Jamie above the surface long enough for him to grasp onto the ship's ropes.

Then Anna turned and scanned the harbour's water, unsteady now with three-foot waves, but there was no sign of Bryan Deane.

Anna surfaced then dived, surfaced then dived, frustrated that the waves made it impossible to check near the trawlers themselves where he'd gone down. After a while she noticed the surface of the whole sea was creeping down the harbour wall. The tide was going out and the current had a strong pull – she could feel it now – Bryan could have been carried out to sea. The waves were cresting and hitting the north harbour wall with such force on the side facing the open sea, it made a mockery of the man-made defences she was now starting to swim towards.

The water felt thicker and greener near the harbour wall and it took her five attempts to haul herself up the ladder. She had to use her arms to protect her head as the waves pushed her up against the wall and they pulled her back with such force that she didn't have time to grasp the rungs properly and kept losing her grip. Twice, she managed to hold on, but the waves breaking over the harbour wall, filling the sky above with water, pushed her back under.

Eventually, somehow managing to time it, she climbed exhausted to the top of the ladder, clung on as another wave washed over the wall then pushed herself up, got to her feet and ran. She had three minutes before the next big wave crested to run the length of the wall to where the old coal staithes were.

She got to the wooden staithes as the final wave caught her, drenching her back, and lay along the wet moss-covered wood staring up at the wind turbines as the indifferent blades continued to turn.

Her ears still full of the sea, she turned and saw the group of tiny figures on the Quayside, human in their attitudes but barely recognisable across what seemed like a vast stretch of churning water. For a moment she couldn't remember who they were, and didn't care. She saw her yellow Capri and the white transit van and behind them the windows of her apartment – and half expected to see herself.

That's where she should have been – behind glass, looking out – not lying stretched and shivering along a sea defence. She'd been in the water too long, looking for somebody who was already drowned. Her attention was taken again by the wind turbines, white against the grey sky – as she attempted to guess the immense intentions of these immense machines who knew nothing about Bryan Deane or the last twenty years of all their lives.

It wasn't the sight of Mary herself that made Anna cry, it was the small plastic bracelet that had been clipped round her wrist on admittance, with the name written on a piece of paper: MARY FAUST. She sat now with her eyes shut, listening to Mary's breathing, and the machinery around her and, further away, like an undercurrent she knew she was going to have to face sooner or later, the rest of the world – shuffling, scuffling; waiting. After a while, she picked out a set of footsteps emerging from the undercurrent, approaching steadily with the light tread of hesitation. She knew who she wanted it to be.

It was him.

They smiled at each other.

‘How's she doing?' he whispered.

‘You don't have to whisper,' she said.

‘I know,' he replied, whispering still.

They smiled at each other again then Anna turned and contemplated Mary. ‘She was Bryan's alibi – that's what was on the tape you never played me.'

‘The tape that's gone missing,' he pointed out.

‘She told me – she told me it all, I just wasn't listening properly. She said – love hangs on strange threads.'

He nodded, looking from Mary to Anna then said, quietly, ‘I want you to stay.'

‘You're still whispering.'

Laviolette coughed, attempting to pitch his voice, and said again, ‘I want you to stay.'

‘Nobody's ever asked me to stay before.'

Even though they'd been talking for the past five minutes – it was as if the silence had suddenly broken.

A heartfelt thank you, as always, to my agent Clare Alexander . . . and to my editor, Katie Espiner,
haute couture
tailors both.

I would also like to thank Sgt Kelly Martin of the Durham Constabulary for the patience she has shown in answering my many questions about policing.

This book would not have been possible without the faces, places and stories that peopled my childhood.

Sarah May is an intimate observer of society. She is the author of six previous novels:
The Rise and Fall of the Wonder Girls
,
The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva
,
The Rise and Fall of the Queen of Suburbia
,
The Nudist Colony
, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award;
Spanish City
and
The Internationals
. She lives in London with her theatre director husband and their two children.

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The Rise and Fall of the Wonder Girls

The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva

The Rise and Fall of the Queen of Suburbia

Nudist Colony

Spanish City

The Internationals

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