by Sarah May
Putting the tape player on his lap, he pressed play then leant back against the sofa – arms behind his head; his eyes closed.
Inspector Jim Cornish – now Superintendant – started speaking.
Jim Cornish was old school – a lumbering heavyweight who was far more mentally agile than he appeared, and renowned for the dogged pursuits he used to lead. The tape didn’t make for easy listening. Jamie Dean’s incoherent screaming – he must have been fifteen at the time – followed by silences so taut and sullen they made Laviolette’s ears pop.
But Jamie stuck to his story – despite being locked in a tiny room with Cornish and his protégé, Tom Kyle: a notoriously violent man who was relocated in the early nineties when they had to shut down the Berwick Street station where the interviews had been conducted. Berwick Street had a reputation – over half the people who went into it never came out, and in the end it was easier just to close it down than clean it up.
Jamie Deane sensed he was fighting a losing battle – that came across despite the screaming and the silences – but he stuck to his story: he claimed that he’d spent the afternoon of 7th August 1987 having sex in his bedroom with Laura Hamilton. He went over it again and again. He didn’t go stupid on them, and he didn’t cave in.
Neither Cornish nor Kyle got to him.
The thing that got to him was the loss of his only alibi – Laura Hamilton.
Laviolette took out the Jamie Deane tape and put in the Laura Hamilton one.
He listened to Cornish tell her that Jamie Deane claimed he’d spent the afternoon of 7th August 1987 having sex with her.
Laura Hamilton, terrified, denied this then burst into tears.
Cornish and Kyle took their time with her because the social worker sitting in on the interview was pissing them off, and they enjoyed putting uncomfortable questions to the attractive thirteen-year-old. The interview was halted here – when it resumed, Laura was calmer.
She sensed that what she was saying wasn’t falling on deaf ears; that they wanted to believe her, and that escape from the interview room, police station, and darker side of life was imminent. She relaxed, becoming almost flirtatious – especially with Kyle.
When Jamie heard that Laura denied having spent the afternoon with him, he broke in half, and that’s when Cornish and Kyle nailed him.
A job well done.
Laviolette turned off the tape, but kept his eyes shut, thinking of his own recent interviews with Laura.
He was convinced of one thing: Laura knew how to lie.
But knowing this brought him no closer to answering the two questions he would have been happy to exchange what was left of his life for answers to:
If Bryan Deane wasn’t dead, where was he?
If Jamie Deane didn’t kill his father, then who did?
Chapter 10
Anna heard the post through the letterbox, and went slowly downstairs – stopping suddenly halfway. There, on the doormat at the bottom of the stairs near the front door, was Bryan in a red T-shirt, smiling up at her from the front page of The Journal, which Mary had delivered. Running down the last few steps, she grabbed hold of the paper.
It was the same photograph as the one she had in her kitchen at the Ridley Arms – the same restaurant; same checked tablecloth; same white-capped sea. The only thing that was different was Bryan, who was smiling. She pictured Laura going through the albums of Deane family life, trying to decide which pictures – pictures taken in innocence – to give the police, who would have asked for photographs of Bryan smiling because Bryan was the victim rather than perpetrator of a crime. Photographs published of perpetrators never showed them smiling.
Over the past few days Anna’s world had become so small that now there were only four people in it: herself, Mary, Erwin and – sporadically – Susan the nurse. Erwin had barely been conscious at any point during the past forty-eight hours and between them, Mary and Anna had been keeping a constant bedside vigil, sleeping in alternate two hour shifts in Anna’s childhood bedroom.
They moved in a silent circle through the house – from Erwin’s room, down to the kitchenette where they ate, back up to the bathroom where they washed then into Anna’s room where they slept. Only Anna found it hard to sleep – especially during the daytime – and so stood looking out the window with a mixture of outrage and envy at the children in the garden of the Deanes’ old house, number fifteen, on the trampoline sucking ice pops mid-air as they bounced in their school uniforms.
She watched the man next door at number twenty-one haul grow bags across his patio and plant them up with tomatoes and was as amazed at this as she was by the children on their trampoline. She was amazed that these things could be accomplished when death was so close to them. Hadn’t they realised that a man was dying in pain in an upstairs bedroom close by?
It seemed extraordinary to her that buses still passed the windows of number nineteen Parkview with passengers; that there were people who could simply get on a bus and go wherever it was they needed to go because they weren’t living with death.
It felt as if she and Mary would just continue to exist like this forever more, moving in the same silent circle through the rooms inside number nineteen Parkview, no longer able to tell the difference between grief and exhaustion.
She went into the kitchenette to pour herself a cup of tea, and that’s what she was doing when the front doorbell rang. She jerked the teapot with shock at the sudden sound – scalding herself – and went to answer it, her left hand throbbing.
It was Martha Deane.
‘Who’s that?’ Mary called out from the top landing.
The sound of the doorbell must have woken her up and she made her way wearily downstairs, stopping when she saw Martha.
‘It’s alright, Nan – you go back to bed.’
Mary hesitated before disappearing back upstairs.
Anna passed her hand over her brow, exhausted, before turning back to Martha.
‘I’m staying at Nan’s – she said you were here. What happened to your hand?’
‘I burnt it – just now, on the kettle. Look, I meant to phone you – after the appeal – but my grandfather’s much worse, and I’m not really sleeping.’ She rested her head against the front door. ‘I don’t know what’s going on at the moment – I’m not really myself.’
Martha bit on her lip, anxious, then turned away without saying anything – walking off down the garden path.
‘Martha!’ Anna called out after her. ‘Martha – wait.’ She caught up with her at the gate.
‘It’s okay,’ Martha mumbled, pulling her arm slowly out of Anna’s grasp.
Anna wasn’t even aware she’d grabbed hold of her. ‘Has something happened?’
‘It’s seeing his picture everywhere. I can’t stand all those people – strangers – seeing him.’
‘You know what?’ Anna said, ‘I could do with some air – d’you feel like a walk? We could go down onto the estuary if the tide’s out.’
‘Okay.’ Martha sounded pleased.
So this was where she was, Laviolette thought as he parked his car outside number seventeen Parkview behind Anna’s yellow Capri. He got out and looked up at the house as he made his way towards the Hamiltons’ front garden where there was a sign sellotaped to the gate, which said No takeaway leaflets or junk mail please. He rang on the doorbell and waited.
It was Don who answered, in trainers and a tracksuit – and not because he’d been running – a roll up cigarette in the corner of a mouth that still held the lines of its youthful sensuality.
‘Alright Inspector?’ Don said, worried.
‘I tried phoning –’
‘I never hear it when Doreen’s got the TV on.’
‘Nothing to worry about.’ Laviolette paused, but Don’s face didn’t relax. ‘I was just in the area and . . . mind if I pop in for a few minutes?’
Don hesitated then nodded. ‘Sure, sure – come in,’ he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, sud
denly eager to show the Inspector some belated hospitality.
Laviolette followed him through to the kitchenette at the back of the house, which smelt heavily of cigarette smoke. He imagined that this bothered Laura Deane – especially when Martha came home smelling of it after having spent the weekend at her grandparents.
‘Afternoon Doreen,’ he called into the lounge as they passed.
Doreen was sitting only inches away from Jeremy Kyle’s face on the TV screen, which had some sort of magnifying attachment over it.
‘She won’t hear you,’ Don said, putting the kettle on. ‘Tea?’
Laviolette sat down at a small drop-leaf table identical to the Fausts’ next door at number nineteen – both tables had been purchased in the Co-Op’s furniture department during the sixties. There was an ashtray in the middle full of stubs.
Don made tea and the two men sat drinking it, comfortable in their mutual silence – in a way that reminded Laviolette of how comfortable his own father used to be with silence; a trait he’d inherited and that he used to great effect during interrogations.
‘I just wanted to check in with you – following the appeal,’ he said after a while.
‘We didn’t watch it.’
‘I can understand that.’
Don looked at him. ‘Doreen didn’t feel like going out today, but we’re going for a drive tomorrow – maybe up Rothbury way,’ he added, distant. ‘Laura wanted to go into work – I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, having to meet all them people . . . customers and what not.’
‘Routine . . . habit . . . they’re stronger allies than we give them credit for.’
‘Allies,’ Don repeated, unconvinced. ‘To tell you the truth, I think the whole appeal thing was worse for her than Bryan’s actual disappearance. D’you mind?’ He gestured towards his tobacco tin. ‘Want one?’
‘I’m fine.’ Laviolette watched Don roll himself another cigarette – with great delicacy – using a small red roller, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger in the way men used to smoke.
‘Nobody’s contacted you?’ Laviolette asked. ‘Since the appeal?’
‘Like who?’
Laviolette picked up his cup and started drinking his tea again. ‘Like Bryan.’
Don laughed then, unsure why he was laughing, stopped. ‘You’re serious,’ he said, watching the Inspector.
‘Has Bryan tried to contact either yourself or Doreen, in confidence, since his disappearance? It can happen in families.’
Don continued to watch him in disbelief. ‘Bryan’s dead.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘He disappeared ten days ago. He went out to sea in his kayak, and he never came back. He’s drowned – dead.’
‘We’ve got no evidence of that.’
‘And you’ve got no evidence otherwise either. Now you listen to me. It’s a tragedy – a great big fucking tragedy – and we need to be left in peace to grieve. This is my son-in-law we’re talking about – my daughter’s husband – grand-daughter’s father – family. My family. We need to get over this. Appeal –’ Don spat.
‘You’re angry.’
‘Yeah,’ Don agreed, ‘yeah, I am. Bryan’s dead.’
‘Maybe,’ Laviolette conceded.
‘Definitely,’ Don said, finishing his cigarette.
The sound of wailing came from the TV in the other room.
‘There are some things we need to investigate further – unfortunately.’
‘What’s there to investigate for Christ’s sake?’
‘Financial strain.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘We need to establish –’
‘What?’
‘Whether Bryan’s disappearance –’
‘Death –’
‘Was connected to this.’
‘In what way?’
‘In an intentional way.’ Laviolette stopped and looked across the table at Don. Don was a physical man, and right now he was just about holding onto the threads of the conversation. Laviolette knew that if he pushed him much further he’d explode.
Don stared at him. ‘You mean – suicide?’
Laviolette nodded as Don drew his right hand down into his lap, leaving his other hand curled lifelessly on the kitchen table.
The next minute he started to sob loudly.
‘God,’ he mumbled, helpless, his shoulders shaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ Laviolette said.
‘How can you think that?’
‘I have to think everything.’
‘They’re good people, Laura and Bryan. They lead good lives . . . they’ve worked hard for what they’ve got, and you come round here, and –’
‘I know that.’
Don looked up suddenly, passing his arm harshly across his face. ‘Alright, love?’ he said to Doreen, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchenette staring at them both.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened – it’s fine. Go back to your programme.’
‘My programme’s finished,’ she said, watching Don get to his feet and go over to the window, turning his back to them as he carried on sniffing and wiping at his face. ‘Don?’
Laviolette started to make his way to the front door, but Don caught up with him, pulling hard on his arm. ‘Don’t you dare talk to Laura about this. You let her be. You let her be, d’you hear me?’
‘I’ll be in contact, Don.’
‘Know who you remind me of – your bloody father, that’s who.’
It was after this that Laviolette – gloomy, preoccupied – saw Anna and Martha.
Anna and Martha walked down Parkview towards Longstone Drive, glancing at number fifteen where Bryan used to live as they passed.
There was a new front door with frosted glass panels, and – apart from an exhaust pipe under the privet hedge – the front garden had been filled with gravel and looked tidy.
‘Dad never talks about his family – I ask him about stuff sometimes but he won’t talk about the past.’
A woman in slippers and a long T-shirt with Daffy Duck on it came out of the side passage door and put some cartons in the recycling bin, squinting down the path at them.
‘Did you ever know my uncle, Jamie Deane?’ Martha asked suddenly. ‘I didn’t even know I had an uncle until he phoned Easter Sunday and I took the call. Nobody told me.’ She paused. ‘He sounded just like dad.’
They carried on walking – past the large, detached redbrick house on the corner of Parkview and Longstone Drive, built by the council as a children’s home.
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know – he thought he was speaking to mum. He’s only been out of prison six months.’
Anna saw Laura, at the age of thirteen, sitting sullen and scared at the top of the stairs in the Deanes’ house.
‘Did you tell her he’d phoned?’
Martha nodded. ‘She didn’t really say anything. She just looked scared. Why didn’t anybody tell me dad had a brother?’
‘He killed a man, Martha – that’s a difficult thing for a family to talk about.’
They’d reached the stile at the end of Longstone Drive, which they crossed, jumping down onto the footpath that led to the estuary.
The footpath ran down the side of a field of oil seed rape, on the brink of yellow. The slip road to the new bypass rose up across the end of the field and the traffic on it was loud.
‘You should be careful, Martha,’ Anna called out, above the sound of distant traffic.
Martha laughed and Anna followed her down the path.
‘Did you tell Inspector Laviolette about Jamie phoning?’
Martha nodded, running her hands through the tall grasses lining the path, beyond which there were wild roses, hawthorn and brambles. Every now and then different coloured butterflies rose to shoulder level from under Martha’s hands, before dropping back into the grass again.
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing
much.’
They got to the road bridge – where the photograph of Bettina that Erwin gave her was taken. There was sand underfoot now as the path followed the River Wansbeck’s mouth so Anna slipped off her shoes.
‘This was my walk – when I lived at Parkview. You get to the sea quickly – away from all the houses and stuff.’
‘Did you come here with mum?’
‘No – this was my walk when I was at the Grammar School. Your mum and I weren’t really speaking by then.’
They rounded the lip of beach at the river’s mouth and were suddenly able to see the coastline stretching south – down to the windmills on the north harbour wall at Blyth where the Ridley Arms was. They walked to the water’s edge leaving footprints in the wet sand, the wind picking up their hair, pulling it back off their faces.
‘That whole summer, we made plans – your mum and me. We weren’t going to let things change between us just because we were going to different schools. It was a summer of oaths and promises that didn’t make any difference in the end. My world changed in a way I’d never anticipated, and for the first time in my life, I was unhappy.’ Anna paused. ‘Unhappiness does things to you; it has a deeper more lasting effect on a person than happiness. I went into myself. I wasn’t really there for your mum, and I think she could have done with me being there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Anna said, realising this for the first time, ‘I always had been.’
She rolled up her jeans and walked into the freezing North Sea as the waves broke over her ankles.
Martha stood watching her for a while before eventually taking off her shoes and socks as well, and joining her in the water, resting her head on Anna’s shoulder.
‘People used to come here in the Strike to collect sea coal and driftwood – anything that would burn. We’d go up to the slag heaps at the power station as well and stand watch while the others filled prams, carts . . . buckets. Those were different times.’
They walked back slowly along the estuary, in silence, until beach gave way to grassy scrub again, and they stopped to put their shoes on. They crossed the field of oil seed rape and the stile where the footpath ended, jumping down into Longstone Drive.
