The Missing Marriage

by Sarah May

  ‘Please, Bryan,’ she said, suddenly scared. ‘We’re this close.’ She held up her thumb and forefinger so that they were almost touching, trying to bring him back to her. ‘This close.’

  He turned to her. ‘To what?’

  Laura shifted position carefully – it was as if everything had suddenly become breakable. ‘Everything we talked about.’

  ‘What did we talk about?’

  ‘Don’t be cruel – not now. It’s too late for cruelty.’

  ‘Seriously,’ he persisted. ‘I can’t even remember any more, what it was we set out to do – what any of this is about.’

  He stood up, preoccupied, and went out onto the balcony where his attention was taken by a young woman pushing a buggy out of the building and across the car park. There was a toddler in the buggy, asleep, her arm flung over the side so that the teddy she was holding hung out. A second later he watched it fall to the ground. The mother hadn’t noticed, and he found it upsetting.

  ‘Bryan?’ Laura said, joining him on the balcony.

  ‘A kid just dropped it – look,’ he said, pointing to the teddy lying face down in the car park below.

  Laura glanced at it without interest, waiting for him to turn back to her, but he didn’t.

  He walked straight through the flat, leaving the door open.

  ‘Bryan? Where are you going?’ She could hear him running down the stairs, and a few moments later he appeared in the car park below.

  Laura saw him pick up the teddy from where it was lying, and dust the muck off it then jog after the young mother, calling out and waving the bear.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Laura heard him say, breathless, eventually drawing level. ‘You dropped this.’

  ‘Oh.’ The mother nodded, surprised – pleased – as Bryan peered, smiling, into the buggy.

  Laura remained on the balcony, unaware that she was crying, watching as the mother shunted the buggy forwards again, leaving Bryan standing in the car park.

  He felt unaccountably relieved that he’d managed to return the teddy – a bear in a dress – to the sleeping child, and that the sleeping child would never know she’d lost it.

  He felt unaccountably relieved that the bear was no longer lost.

  Maureen at Tyneside Properties was standing at the back of the office talking to a decayed looking man in expensive clothes with a light covering of auburn hair that straggled across his cranium – a property developer whose small complex of four luxury mews houses in Gosforth they were hoping to sell. But she recognised the Inspector as soon as he walked in because everybody at Tyneside Properties – apart from the young man smiling affably at the Inspector now – had been interviewed after Bryan Deane’s disappearance.

  ‘Inspector!’ she called out, more irately than she’d meant to.

  The property developer turned to him, momentarily curious, but the curiosity soon passed. He’d known Bryan Deane relatively well. Tyneside Properties sold all the units on another of his developments four years ago, down near the Quayside, and got above asking price on all of them. They’d spoken once about branching out into the commercial property market, but Bryan had lost the inclination to make that kind of money and the developer – who’d spent very little of the past twenty years sober – was no player.

  Maureen approached – in a red suit with brass buttons running the length of it. The suits she’d worn in the late eighties and early nineties – when she first knew Bryan – that made her look like an estate agent, now made her look like an air hostess, and Maureen had always worn make-up like a transvestite; something that had never ceased to entertain Laura Deane.

  ‘Inspector,’ she said again, smiling this time.

  ‘Can I just have a few moments?’

  They went into the small kitchen where brown brick walls were covered in health and safety regulations, an aerial photograph of the coast from Tynemouth up to Blyth, staff targets, a sole postcard from the Isle of Wight, and a poster of an airbrushed woman in a wide brim hat eating a cherry. There was also the front page of The Journal from the day Bryan Deane’s picture had been published. Someone had scribbled something in blue biro across it and up close, Laviolette saw that it read: Fess up, Greg, just how badly did you want that promotion?

  He turned to look at Maureen, amused.

  ‘That shouldn’t be up there,’ she said, mortified, pushing past him and ripping it down. She placed the offending article on top of the microwave. ‘Greg’s been made temporary Branch Manager. It’s a tasteless joke, it’s –’ Words failed her. ‘Please –’ She waved her arm at the bank of outdated office chairs, gesturing at Laviolette to take a seat.

  ‘I need to ask you something about the Deane’s flat – the one in North Shields.’

  Maureen nodded, and stopped smiling.

  ‘Mrs Deane told us the property was rented, and we just need a bit more information regarding that.’

  Maureen looked thoughtful. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting when she saw the Inspector, but it wasn’t this.

  ‘When I saw you, I thought you might have some information for us – not that you’d be needing some from us.’

  Laviolette thought of the body in the mortuary and smiled sadly. ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Can I get you a tea or coffee or anything?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He watched her put the kettle on anyway. ‘The Deanes’ flat is down at the Royal Quays Marina in the Ropemakers Building.’

  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it,’ she said, ‘it’s Justin who works on lettings. Did you meet Justin? No, you wouldn’t have done,’ she carried on before he had time to answer, ‘he’s only been with us a couple of weeks.’

  ‘I need to know when the flat was let, for how long, and who the tenant is?’

  Maureen listened to this while regarding the Inspector, as steam from the boiling kettle rose up behind her.

  The kettle clicked off, but the steam carried on rising.

  ‘That’s quite specific information you want,’ she pointed out, uncertain, waiting for him to back up the request with something that would explain the personal visit to retrieve such seemingly irrelevant information. When no such explanation was forthcoming, she said, ‘They were bloody lucky.’

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘The Deanes – with the rental of the marina flat in the current climate.’

  She realised from the Inspector’s expression – too late – that she’d ended up inadvertently saying more than she’d meant to.

  ‘There’ve been a lot of repossessions at the marina.’

  ‘How long’s it been let for?’

  ‘I’d have to check the contracts file – I’m not sure.’ She paused. ‘Have you not heard anything at all since the appeal?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  She disappeared into the office, reappearing a few minutes later, and remained standing near the door. ‘It was let mid-February,’ she said, her hand holding onto the door handle still.

  Laviolette was aware that his posture had become tense and that his left shoulder hurt. He wanted a name.

  ‘It’s a twelve month let and the deposit plus rent were paid up front.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘Depends.’ She paused. ‘There was only one name on the contract – a man called Tom Bowen.’

  ‘Tom Bowen,’ Laviolette said, smiling. He wanted to say it out loud, and as soon as he said it, the image of the morning’s bloated corpse slid off the table it had been lying on, and floated away. Tom Bowen was a good name; a vivid name. It sounded like a name belonging to someone who was still alive. Bryan Deane might be nowhere, but Tom Bowen was somewhere. Tom Bowen was living at flat twenty-one, the Ropemakers Building, and he’d been there all along.

  Maureen hadn’t left her position by the door, and looked relieved when the Inspector stood up to go.

  Laviolette, feeling suddenly light-headed, asked for a photocopy of the contract, which
– after only a moment’s hesitation – Maureen did herself, on a double-sided setting.

  He was about to leave with the contract when Greg walked in, gave Laviolette a professional smile – clearly not remembering him despite having been interviewed for over an hour by DS Chambers and himself – and said to Maureen, ‘I’m parked on doubles, and I’m late for the Marine Drive viewing – can you chuck me the keys?’

  He gave Laviolette another brief, open smile although this one tapered slightly towards the end.

  Maureen didn’t look at him at all. She went to the key cupboard on the back wall of the office near the fire extinguisher and took out the keys, throwing them lightly to Greg.

  ‘Back in about an hour,’ he said, giving Laviolette a quick look before jumping back into his car, which he’d parked directly outside Tyneside Properties.

  ‘Laura – Mrs Deane – has put the house on the market,’ she said, worried that she hadn’t mentioned this before. ‘You already knew?’

  Laviolette nodded slowly and took his leave.

  As Laviolette drove through the rain into Tynemouth along Grand Parade, he saw Anna’s yellow Capri parked in the same place it had been parked since yesterday, and knew immediately that this was where she’d come when she left Coastguard Cottages.

  Despite the weather, there were surfers in the water – not many – but enough at this distance for them to look like a small colony.

  He parked and walked down onto the beach via the small slip road full of recycling bins that led down to Crusoes – the café they’d had a drink at the previous evening.

  The beach was empty as he walked towards the sea, stopping about five metres from the water’s edge. The surfers looked strangely androgynous in their wet suits, even up close, but he saw her immediately. She had none of the aggressive intentness most of them had, she just wanted to be there in the water doing what she was doing, and it gave her a beguiling grace; a purity almost. He knew he didn’t understand what he was seeing, but he felt it.

  She’d seen him and was heading towards him, gaining height and straightening up. She came to a standstill a couple of metres away from him, stepping easily off her board and catching it up before the next wave came.

  She didn’t look surprised to see him, and she was smiling – a wet, exhilarated smile that had nothing to do with him.

  He jumped back as a wave caught at his shoes and, laughing, her face relaxed and the unsettling exhilaration left it.

  They started to walk back across the beach – towards Crusoes.

  ‘We’ve been stupid,’ he said when they were far enough from the sea to talk comfortably.

  ‘About what?’ she said, sniffing loudly and not particularly interested.

  ‘There’s a body.’

  She stopped walking. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Yesterday. A fisherman at Cullercoats Bay found it sandwiched between his boat and the harbour wall.’

  ‘Bryan?’

  ‘Enough people want it to be – including Laura, who came in this morning to identify it.’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  Laviolette nodded. ‘Did you ever see a drowned body?’

  ‘Once,’ Anna said, automatically. ‘How was Laura?’

  ‘I saw her just after the identification.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She identified it as her husband’s body.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m waiting on the coroner’s report. How about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s a body now. What if this time he really did die?’

  ‘It’s not him.’

  ‘I need proof. I need something . . . it’s just supposition,’ she shouted over her shoulder as she carried on walking. ‘I hear nothing but supposition.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  This time she stopped.

  ‘There was no appendicitis scar on the body.’

  ‘A scar like that wouldn’t show if a body had been in the water that long. You’ll have to do better.’

  ‘The Deanes have an investment property Bryan Deane bought just before the crash. I told you about it, it’s at the Royal Quays Marina.’ He broke off. ‘Right now it’s like the Empty Quarter down there, but the Deanes managed to let their flat in February this year – through Tyneside Properties.’

  Anna was staring at him. ‘You think that’s where Bryan’s been hiding?’

  Laviolette nodded. ‘And I think that’s where Laura Deane went after identifying her husband’s body at the mortuary this morning.’

  Anna looked away from him towards the sea, which was depositing a line of something on the beach – large, grey-white objects that lay stranded and quivering in the wet sand before being picked up by the next wave and deposited again, each time a little closer to them. Jellyfish – hundreds of them -stretching along the waterline as far as the eye could see.

  ‘She identifies her husband’s body then she gets in her car and drives directly to their flat at Royal Quays Marina – currently rented to a Tom Bowen.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Tom Bowen?’

  ‘That’s the name of the guy who’s renting the marina flat.’

  ‘You think Tom Bowen’s Bryan Deane?’

  ‘It’s him, Anna, I know it’s him.’

  ‘No, you don’t know it’s him.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Laviolette said, grabbing hold suddenly of her arm. ‘Anna –’

  Pulling her arm free, she started walking again.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Crusoes. I left my clothes with Sheila on the counter so I can get changed out of this,’ she said, pulling on the collar of the wetsuit. ‘This isn’t an investigation – it’s a manhunt.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The marina.’ He started walking towards her.

  ‘You’ll never get a warrant for that.’

  ‘You don’t want that body in the mortuary to be Bryan Deane.’

  ‘I don’t work for you. You’ve got your own people.’

  ‘Not any more I haven’t. They’ve assigned me to an armed robbery case in a supporting role.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said frankly, meaning it.

  The sea was following them up the beach, and they’d instinctively started to raise their voices again in order to be heard above it.

  ‘I want you to come with me because you’re the only one who’d recognise him.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ she said, starting to walk away.

  ‘You told me – last night!’ he yelled after her retreating back.

  Anna and Laviolette sat in Laviolette’s car in the marina car park, looking up at the Ropemakers Building. They’d spent ten minutes driving round the car park, but there was no sign of Laura’s Lexus.

  Some of the balconies had garden furniture and pot plants on them, but most didn’t.

  Their attention was taken by a balcony door opening half way up the building. A woman with short hair dyed purple stepped outside – it was one of the balconies with furniture and pot plants – and lit up, staring absently at a fixed point in the distance. She was joined by a man they couldn’t see clearly, who remained near the doors. She turned to face him leaning her elbows on the railings – and continued to smoke.

  They stood there contemplating each other until suddenly exchanging a brief, hard kiss before pulling away. The man put his hand on the woman’s right breast, but she lifted it off, kissing it. She dropped the cigarette into one of the pot plants and they went inside.

  The balcony doors remained open, the white curtains blowing out, and there was something relentless in the way the curtains kept blowing that prompted Laviolette and Anna to get out of the car.

  As they crossed the car park full of puddles after the day’s five minute rain storm – which had been almost tropical in intensity – and entered the Ropemakers Building, a white Husky trotted through the curtains and onto the balcony wher
e the couple had been standing.

  It ran round the balcony a couple of times, its nose to the ground, sniffing the decking before lying down suddenly on its side in a temperamental patch of sunlight, its eyes rolling up towards the sky, its tail knocking rhythmically against a pot full of bamboo.

  They moved fast, through the lobby – which smelt damp – and up the metal and wood staircase, too impatient to use the lift; aware now of a renewed sense of urgency. The building felt empty, and when Laviolette rang on the bell to the Deanes’ flat – flat twenty-one on level D – they could hear it echoing inside.

  They waited – Anna watching the enlarged shadows of raindrops running down the window at the end of the corridor, moving across the floor.

  There was no answer.

  After pressing his ear to the door and trying the handle, Laviolette rang again – knocking as well this time. Drumming his fingers on the door he instinctively knew wasn’t going to open he went along the corridor to flat twenty-three and rang on this door instead.

  There was no answer here either, but he did hear movement on the other side. Briefly distracted by the sound of voices in the stairwell, speaking what sounded like Chinese, he waited for them to fade before ringing again. This time a woman’s voice – foreign – simply said, ‘Yes?’

  This was followed by a dog, barking.

  ‘Police,’ he called out.

  He looked at Anna.

  The door opened and the tall woman with purple hair – who they’d just seen out on the balcony – was standing there in a black and gold dressing gown, her face startled-looking despite the heaviness around her eyes. The dressing gown wasn’t tied, but pulled protectively round her.

  There was a dog standing behind her – a Husky, whose neck she was holding onto.

  Anna was staring at the dog, and the dog was staring back at her – unblinking.

  The back draft of the smell of sex hung momentarily in the hallway.

  Sex in the afternoon – it had been somehow instilled in Laviolette since childhood before the breakdown of decency and order, without anybody ever referring to the subject directly – was for teenagers, newlyweds, the unemployed, and the wealthy, or you were paying for it.

  ‘Yes?’ she said again.