The Missing Marriage Read online

  As she got out of her car, sensor-triggered security lighting suddenly illuminated the driveway and front garden of number two and she saw Don Hamilton walking towards his car.

  ‘Don!’

  He stared at her, not recognising her for a moment. ‘Anna?’

  ‘Nan’s just phoned – about Bryan.’

  As if embarrassed at this disturbance of the peace his family was responsible for, Don shook his head, which had been sporting the same Teddy boy haircut for as long as Anna had known him.

  He’d put on a shirt, pressed trousers, sports jacket and loafers – with buckles that shone under the security lighting – in order to face the unexpected tragedy of his son-in-law’s disappearance. It disturbed Don profoundly because he didn’t think things like this happened to people who lived in four-bedroom detached houses. He thought his daughter was safe from harm inside number two Marine Drive, but here was a police car parked on the drive where Bryan’s 4x4 should have been.

  ‘You didn’t have to come over.’

  ‘Don, it’s fine.’

  Anna didn’t tell him she’d come to give a statement because when Mary phoned just after midnight, it occurred to her – beyond the shock – that she was probably the last person to have seen Bryan, that afternoon on the beach.

  ‘The police are in there speaking to Laura – asking questions.’

  ‘They’ll just be routine ones,’ Anna reassured him. He looked like he needed reassuring. He looked, in fact, as though someone had been stamping all over his face, and he was trying hard not to bear any grudges.

  ‘They sounded bloody weird to me – some of them.’

  ‘It’s not easy, I know, but they have to ask them.’

  Don wasn’t listening any more. ‘They wanted to search the house as well.’

  ‘It’s just routine – standard procedure. It’s what they do.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t think it was right for Martha to hear all of that. I wanted her to wait in the car with me, but she wouldn’t. She said she wanted to be there when they were speaking to Laura. They asked her questions as well – Martha.’

  Anna had seen the Deanes’ fifteen-year-old daughter for the first time that morning – dressed in riding clothes with a brown velvet hat hooked under her arm, hitting lightly at the side of her boots with a crop. A tall, shy girl, who had stood possessively close to Bryan on the pavement outside number seventeen Parkview on the Hartford Estate.

  Don stared helplessly at Anna. ‘She’s in her pyjamas still. I drove her over in her pyjamas. Saturdays she stays with us – I take her to Keenley’s Stables.’ He ran his tongue nervously round his mouth. ‘Laura and Bryan have to work Saturdays, but I suppose it gives them a bit of time together afterwards – just the two of them,’ he finished, uncertain.

  Anna gave his elbow a squeeze, surprised to find, standing next to him, that they were the same height. She’d always thought of Don as a towering man. ‘You get on home. This business with Bryan will sort itself out.’

  She stood on the drive and waited for him to put the car into gear and reverse, then move off slowly up the street, obedient to the twenty miles per hour speed limit – and not because she was watching. Don was the sort of man who stuck to the rules even when there was nobody watching.

  Just the two of them.

  Anna had a sudden image of Bryan turning sharply onto the drive she was standing on, laughing, Laura leaning heavily into him. She saw them kissing and touching each other then Bryan switching off the engine and pulling Laura out of the car towards the silent house – Laura holding onto him as he fumbled with the key in the lock.

  All three of them – Bryan, Laura, and Anna – knew what it was like to grow up in a mining community after the mass pit closures of the sixties through to the eighties and the Strike of ’84–5. What they’d seen growing up had given them a knowledge, and this knowledge had become an appetite for escape.

  The two things everybody had plenty of in Blyth by the mid-nineties were despair and heroin, but Bryan, Laura and Anna – in their different ways – clung onto their appetites and watched for a way out. Anna’s appetite led her down to King’s College, London. Bryan’s led him to white collar work and a monthly salary, and Laura – well, Laura only had an appetite for one thing, and that was Bryan. They’d all achieved what they set out to, which was to make the unaffordable things in life affordable, and ensure that their children would never know what it was like to go hungry.

  Just the two of them.

  Anna crossed the drive to the front door, her finger pressing hard on the buzzer.

  She’d been bewildered – when she first arrived a week ago – to find herself at this latitude again. It didn’t feel like her country any more, although it was unreasonable of her to expect it to after so many years away. Did she even want it to? She didn’t look like these people and she didn’t speak like them anymore. But she had given them her childhood and she felt, pettishly, that this should have at least entitled her to a temporary sense of belonging.

  Maybe the fault didn’t lie with them, but with her – and anyway none of this mattered now.

  With Bryan’s disappearance she was no longer in their world – they were in hers.

  Chapter 2

  It was Martha Deane who answered the door, in blue and yellow pyjamas that made her look younger than she had in her riding clothes that morning. It struck Anna again how similar to Laura she was – apart from the eyes; the eyes belonged to Bryan. Her hair had been scraped back hurriedly into a pony tail and her face looked uneven from all the crying she’d done. She started to cry again now and, turning away from Anna back into the brightly lit hallway, allowed herself to be held by a uniformed female constable who must have been standing close but out of sight up until then.

  ‘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 a
nd 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?’