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‘I’m Anna Faust – a friend of the family,’ Anna said, stepping inside number two Marine Drive.
The ceiling was punctured with high wattage halogen bulbs whose light reflected harshly off the white walls and polished wood floors so that there were no dark corners, and no shadows. The inside of the house looked like the outside had led her to expect it would. There were no surprises, and nothing that stood out as personal, which – despite the obvious space – made Anna feel claustrophobic.
‘Friend of the family,’ the constable announced as Anna followed her and Martha into a spacious sitting room where there was another officer – male, late twenties, balding, and not in uniform – and two colossal sofas facing each other across a coffee table, fireplace, mirror, and fading white bouquet.
The constable sat down in one of the sofas, her arm round Martha’s shoulders still as Martha, sniffing in an attempt to stop crying, twisted her head so that she could watch Anna.
Laura Deane was sitting in the other sofa, curled in a corner with a small chestnut Spaniel over her feet – also watching Anna, whom she hadn’t seen since they were eighteen.
A faint trace of emotion crossed Laura’s otherwise immaculate face – a face that had had work done to it: Botox, for sure, possibly a chin tuck, and the nose was definitely thinner than Anna remembered.
Laura wasn’t sitting on the sofa so much as positioned in it, and she was positioned carefully with her legs, in loose linen trousers, pulled up under her. She was wearing a tank top the same bright white as the walls to set off her spray tan, and a loose cardigan over it that looked expensive. Light reflected off the heavy jewellery hanging from her wrists and neck and the overall effect was of somebody who either spent a lot of money on themselves or who had money spent on them – maybe a combination of both.
She was as immaculate as the house around her, and gave Anna the same impression of emptiness. It made her want to ask the woman sitting on the sofa in front of her where Laura had gone. Was she keeping her hidden in the attic? Was she up there screaming and banging on the door right now – desperate to be let out? Where had the girl with the mole on her thigh and skin that turned caramel in the real sun gone? Where had the girl with the long blonde hair that was forever getting knotted with twigs and bark and leaves from the trees she climbed gone?
Maybe Laura was thinking the same thing about her.
Maybe they’d just grown up, that was all.
Only Laura, taking in Anna – she did this by barely moving her eyes and remaining otherwise expressionless – had an air of triumph about her. As though she’d just discovered that she’d won the race after all – a race Anna wasn’t even aware they’d been running.
‘Why are you here?’
Anna turned to Martha – who’d pulled herself away from the stranger in uniform she had gone to for comfort instead of her own mother – and who was now sitting upright, her knees pulled into her chest.
‘I’ve known your mum a long time.’ Anna paused. ‘And your dad as well.’
‘So? I never saw you before this morning.’
‘How long has it been?’ Laura said, carefully. ‘Sixteen years?’
‘S-s-something like that.’
Anna exhaled with relief and opened her eyes, which shut automatically whenever she lost words. Only sporadically, and in extreme circumstances, did her childhood speech impediment come back. The moment had passed – and with it the feeling that she’d been standing, momentarily, in a precipitous place.
‘I heard you’d come back. I’m sorry about Erwin.’
‘And I’m sorry – about Bryan.’
The two women stared at each other, without sympathy, aware that the only reason Anna was here, inside number two Marine Drive, was because Bryan Deane wasn’t.
‘How did you know – about Bryan?’ Laura asked calmly.
‘Nan phoned. Your mum’s been round to see her.’
‘Well, we’ve got the police here already,’ Laura carried on, still calm – articulating each word carefully in an ongoing attempt to eliminate any traces of accent in her voice.
‘Actually I came to give a statement – I saw Bryan on the beach this afternoon.’
A sense of movement passed through Laura’s body that made the Spaniel look up.
Anna swung round to the officer behind her. ‘But maybe not here,’ she added, taking in Martha who – distraught, tearful and enraged – was displaying all the by-products of shock Laura wasn’t.
‘Here’s fine,’ Laura said.
Martha said nothing.
Glancing at Laura, the officer hesitated before sitting down on a footstool covered in the same fabric as the sofa.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Chambers,’ he said, getting out a notebook, ‘and this is Constable Wade.’
He indicated the woman in uniform on the sofa with Martha, coughed and said stiffly, ‘Excuse me,’ then, ‘which beach was that?’
‘Tynemouth Longsands.’
‘What time?’
Anna still wasn’t sure about doing this in front of Martha. ‘About half four. He was about to go out in a kayak – a P&H Quest kayak – red and black.’ She paused. ‘But you’ve probably got that already.’
She felt Martha watching her as Laura said, ‘That kayak’s been in our garage for months and I couldn’t even have told you what colour it was.’
The officer was silent for a moment. ‘Were you in a kayak?’
‘I was surfing.’
‘Had you arranged to meet?’
Laura’s head was balanced on the Spaniel’s head. The Spaniel was whimpering.
Anna wondered – briefly – what the dog was called, before turning back to DS Chambers. ‘No. It was a chance encounter.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘Not in the water, no.’
‘On the beach?’
‘Not as such. Just about the weather.’
The first time she saw him that day, outside number seventeen Parkview with Martha, he looked and felt like somebody’s husband . . . somebody’s father. Standing beside her on the beach, he didn’t. They’d just looked at each other; taken each other in, and here – in front of Bryan’s wife and daughter – the recollection felt like a transgression.
There was a silence.
Laura didn’t take her eyes off Anna, who was about to speak when the silence was broken by the front door bell ringing. Checking her watch, she saw that it had just gone one. She moved position so that she could see up the hallway as Constable Wade went to open the door and a man in a Barbour jacket, soaking wet, stepped into the house.
He flicked a quick look down the corridor and it wasn’t until then that Anna became aware of Martha, standing beside her.
‘Who is it?’ Laura asked.
‘The Inspector from before,’ Martha mumbled, dis appearing back onto the sofa again.
Everyone in the room became suddenly more alert – even Laura, Anna thought, turning round. No – especially Laura.
‘Mrs Deane said just now that you last saw her – was it sixteen years ago?’ DS Chambers, speaking loudly now, swung politely towards Laura, who nodded. ‘When did you last see Mr Deane? Before today that is.’
‘It would have been around the same time – sixteen years ago.’
DS Chambers nodded heavily and looked at her.
They were all looking at her.
‘But you didn’t have anything to say – as such?’
‘I’d already seen him – and Martha,’ Anna said, turning to the Deanes’ daughter, ‘this morning over on the Hartford Estate.’ DS Chambers didn’t comment on this. ‘When I saw him on the beach we chatted about the weather conditions, which were good – until the fret came in.’
‘He didn’t say where he was going when you met him on the beach?’
‘He didn’t – no.’
‘And the next time you saw him – in the water – you didn’t speak?’
‘No.’
Anna had called out to him when she saw him in the water – in his kayak – trying to steer a course through the surfers. In the water she’d felt much lighter and more confident than she had earlier that morning, on land.
He’d looked confused for a moment then smiled quickly, paddling out to her until his kayak was in line with her board and they were both rising and falling in the waves.
His eyes had touched her briefly as she sat with her legs straddling the board then she’d laughed suddenly and given a wet wave before moving forcibly away from him; lying down on the board and paddling hard out to sea towards the cargo ship filling up so much of the distant horizon it seemed stationary.
She took in two more waves and it was while she was paddling back out after this that the sea fret came in.
Looking around instinctively for Bryan, she’d seen him heading in a direct line north away from her towards Cullercoats and St Mary’s Island – against the tide.
Then he disappeared into the fret – and some of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Like I said, just as the fret was coming in – around five. He must have been about thirty metres out from shore – heading north up the coast.’
One minute the sea had been full of mostly men and some women poised in their wetsuits, looking out to sea – the next it was as though the sun had become suddenly thicker. She had felt inconsolably alone, hesitant and watchful, unable to make out any other black-suited figures in the water.
Glancing back to shore, the line of people at the edge of the beach and the dogs in the water were visible for a few seconds more then they too vanished – along with the beach, the cliffs behind, the building housing the Toy Museum and Balti Experience, and the spire of St George’s Church. She’d tried to keep the board as still in the water as she could – if the nose swung round she knew she’d lose all sense of direction. The beach sounded further away than she knew it was – the waves slapping dully against the shore and voices carrying high one moment only to be suddenly cut off the next. The tide was still coming in, she told herself, aware that the temperature was falling and that she was uncomfortably cold – all she needed to do was take any wave that came and let it carry her in.
Other surfers had the same idea and they came at each other suddenly, figures in black manoeuvring their boards through the water, slightly irate now. Nobody wanted to come off; nobody wanted to be left in the water.
When she finally got back to shore, she stood shivering on the beach, holding the board against her. The headland shielding Cullercoats Bay to the north was lost. She waited a while – for the red and black kayak to come nosing through the fret – but it never did.
‘I didn’t see him again,’ Anna said, ‘but by then I could barely see the end of my own board.’
The Inspector was standing in the doorway to the sitting room, watching her with a blank face, the skin pockmarked across the lower cheeks as though someone had repeatedly attempted to puncture him there.
‘Sir, this is Anna Faust – a friend of the family,’ DS Chambers said, starting to cough again. ‘I think we’ve got a last sighting.’
The Inspector nodded at her – Anna wondered how long he had been standing there – introducing himself in a rapid mumble as, ‘Detective Inspector Laviolette.’
His re-appearance had created a sense of expectancy, and focus.
His coat and hair were soaked with rain and Laura Deane’s eyes automatically followed the drops as they ran off his coat and onto the solid oak floor. Her eyes unconsciously checked the hallway behind him as well – for footprints – because this wasn’t a house that encouraged people to leave a trace.
‘It’s raining outside,’ he said to her. Then, suddenly, ‘D’you mind if we go over a few more things, Mrs Deane – in light of this new statement?’
He shuffled forward awkwardly, the soles of his shoes squeaking on the polished wood floor.
After a second’s hesitation and a brief smile he sat down on the same sofa as Martha, who automatically pushed herself further back into the corner.
‘Haven’t we been over everything?’
Ignoring this, Laviolette said, ‘When did Bryan say he’d be home by?’
Anna had the impression that he was doing this for her benefit – that he wanted to question Laura in front of her.
Laura took a while to answer, looking momentarily distracted – as if she had far more important things to attend to than her husband’s disappearance.
‘Around seven,’ she said, pronouncing the words as carefully as she had when she spoke to Anna before. ‘We had lunch in Tynemouth then I went into Newcastle and he took the kayak out.’
‘And you haven’t been in contact at all since lunch?’
Laura was thinking. ‘He called me – around three thirty – but that’s it.’
‘What time did you get back from Newcastle?’
Laura shrugged. ‘I can’t remember – it must have been before eight because Strictly Come Dancing’s on at eight, and we watched that.’
Turning to Martha, Laviolette said pleasantly, ‘You like Strictly Come Dancing?’
‘I think it’s shit.’
‘Martha!’ Laura interceded sharply, losing her composure for the first time.
‘When she says “we”,’ Martha explained, ‘she’s talking about the dog – Roxy. They watch it together.’
They all turned to stare at Roxy who, becoming conscious of the sudden attention, raised her head from Laura’s ankles and panted expectantly.
‘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.
Chapter 3
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.’