The Seagull

by Ann Cleeves

  * * *

  The apartment looked out over a cemetery and it was silent. Perhaps because it was Sunday, there was no distant traffic noise. When Vera arrived it was dusk, but the blinds hadn’t been drawn and wrought-iron lamp posts lit up the lines of graves. Inside, the flat was just as Vera had imagined it would be. Perfectly tidy. No chipped paintwork. Clinically clean. A couple of black-and-white photographs on the wall. Holly offered her a glass of wine. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any beer.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you could run to a cup of tea? I’m having a night off the booze.’

  They sat on white leather sofas. The tea had a floral taste that wasn’t unpleasant. No biscuits. Vera could have eaten a few biscuits. It was a while now since the Cresswell ice cream.

  ‘Why did you go to see Patty?’ Holly sounded disapproving. She thought Vera got too emotionally involved in her cases.

  ‘Because she phoned me, asked if we could meet up. I wondered what she was after. And I wanted to keep her sweet until we’ve got some useful information out of John Brace.’

  ‘And what was she after?’ Holly was dressed for time off – jeans and a sweatshirt with a university sports logo, something she might actually have worn as a student. Vera could imagine her as one of the clean-living types. Jogging before lectures, and nights in the gym. No partying all night and throwing up in the toilet for her.

  ‘She wants me to track down her mother. Mary-Frances Lascuola.’

  ‘She told me her mother was dead.’

  ‘Aye well, maybe she’s having second thoughts about that. Maybe she thinks John Brace has been telling her porkie pies.’ Vera paused. ‘I wondered if you’d been poking around on that computer of yours. Doing what you do best.’ She nodded towards the laptop that stood on a pale-wood desk under the window.

  Holly walked towards the computer. On the way she stopped to pull down the blinds and shut out the dead. ‘I did think it was a bit odd…’

  ‘What was odd?’

  ‘You’d think there’d be some record of the woman’s death. Somewhere. Local newspaper, if she died in Kimmerston. Coroner’s court. It’s not as if it was a common name. But I can’t find any record of her alive, either.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘Well, not after the mid-eighties, a few years after her daughter was born. Patty’s birth certificate is in the name of Patricia Mariella Lascuola. When she was adopted she became Patricia Smith, and when she married she took her husband’s name of Keane. On the certificate, Mary-Frances is named as the mother and John Brace as the father.’ Holly had been making notes on a big A4 pad and looked at them now. ‘Before that, Mary-Frances was very obviously in the system. There are records of court appearances and she even spent three months in prison for shoplifting as a juvenile.’

  ‘Feeding her habit.’ Vera thought such a short prison term would have been a complete waste of time. ‘Do we have an address for her at that time?’

  ‘She had a flat in Whitley Bay. St Anne’s Terrace. I’ve checked and it’s one of those little streets between Whitley Road and the metro line. It also looks as if she spent a bit of time in rehab. A place in Bebington run by the NHS, but the assumption is that she was back on the heroin as soon as she came out.’

  Vera leaned back on the leather sofa, which was surprisingly comfortable, and took herself back to the Whitley Bay of the mid-eighties. Now the town was faded and a bit depressed. The guest houses had been turned into hostels for ex-offenders and asylum-seekers. There were plans for regeneration along the sea front and on recent visits she’d felt a new spirit of optimism, but in the evenings the town was often quiet, almost ghostly. In the mid-eighties it had been buzzing, though. Nightclubs and pubs full to bursting at the weekends, noise and people spilling out onto the streets. All a bit tacky: strippers, barmaids and barmen wearing practically nothing; offers on booze that fuelled brawls at the end of the night. There’d been nothing sophisticated about most of Whitley Bay in those days, but it had been alive and thriving. It was where people from Newcastle and Northumberland came for a good night out. She opened her eyes.

  ‘Whitley Bay would be handy,’ she said. ‘For a working girl needing easy access to heroin.’

  ‘I can keep digging.’ Holly looked up from her notes. ‘But as far as I can tell, there’s never been a death certificate in the name of Mary-Frances Lascuola.’

  ‘Nah,’ Vera said. ‘Don’t bother. If there was anything there, you’d have found it by now. Take a break. Let’s see what John Brace has to say for himself tomorrow. I’ve got an appointment with him first thing. I bought all his grand-bairns ice creams at Cresswell this afternoon and they cost me a fortune. He owes me.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Vera drove straight to the prison. No stop at the Drift Cafe for treats today; her focus was all on John Brace and unpicking the complicated strands of his history. She thought she’d get Holly to make a chart of some kind, with dates in different-coloured felt tips. It would be a task the woman would enjoy – no need to engage with real human beings – and it might help Vera keep things straight in her mind.

  It was the same officer on the gate as when she’d come to give her talk and he gave her a nod of recognition. It was early and she was there before the other professionals who would make the trek up the county to interview their clients. She was on her own in the waiting room when an officer came to give her a shout that Brace was ready for her. The room was tiny, taller than it was long. A table fixed to the floor, with a plastic chair on each side. The officer had moved the seat nearest the door, to allow room for the wheelchair. Vera hauled the canvas shopping bag that she was using at the moment as a briefcase onto the table and pulled out a notebook. She’d have liked to record the interview but had known her phone wouldn’t be allowed through; besides, she never understood how those things worked. It took her a moment to find something to write with and she came out at last with the stump of a pencil. Brace’s face showed no expression throughout the pantomime. No impatience. No amusement.

  ‘Right then,’ she said. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Time to tell me where the bones are buried. I went to see Patty. You know that, because she visited on Saturday. And I took her and the kids out yesterday too. A jaunt to the beach. I’ve more than fulfilled my part of the deal. Now it’s your turn.’ A pause. ‘And don’t piss me about, John Brace. You’ve got a cushy number in here. It doesn’t have to be like that. And I don’t ever have to see Patty and the kids again. You know fine well that social services won’t do much. Except maybe call a meeting, to pile on the pressure.’ She must have raised her voice because there was a face at the small glass window in the door. An officer peering in to check that she was okay. She gave a little wave of her hand and the face disappeared.

  ‘She seems to have taken to you. God knows why.’ Brace leaned forward.

  ‘So. Robbie Marshall. Where can we find him?’

  ‘I don’t know who killed him.’

  ‘Tell me the story, John. You can save the excuses for later.’

  ‘It was June ’95, a Sunday, and we’d been out for a day in the hills. Nothing unusual. Me, Robbie and Hector—’

  ‘What about the Prof.? Wasn’t he there?’ Vera knew it was a mistake to interrupt but she couldn’t help herself. The Prof. seemed a shady figure on the edge of the action, keeping just out of view. A mysterious fourth member of the Gang of Four.

  But Brace refused to be drawn. He shook his head. ‘The Prof. doesn’t come into this. He never went out in the field much. Not with us. Not with the common people. He only mixed with the gentry.’

  Hector always thought of himself as grander than gentry, but Vera knew better than to pursue that. She could chase it up later. She just nodded for Brace to continue.

  ‘We ended up in Hector’s place for a beer. It was a hot day and we’d done a lot of walking.’ A pause. ‘Robbie had been quiet all day. A bit withdrawn. I don’t think Hector notice
d. Not the most sensitive chap in the world, Hector. Well, you know that.’

  Vera nodded but didn’t speak.

  ‘We’d come in separate cars, and outside the house I asked Robbie what was wrong and if there was anything I could help with. Robbie was a bit of a wheeler-dealer in those days. Sailed a bit close to the law. Mixed with the bad boys, the men with power.’

  ‘His mam won’t hear a word against him.’

  Brace gave a little smile. ‘Ah well, my mam wouldn’t hear a word against me. He was a pleaser, Robbie. Weak. He liked mixing it with the bad lads, but sometimes he got in out of his depth.’

  ‘What did Robbie say?’

  ‘That he’d got himself into a bit of bother, but needed to sort it out himself. He’d fixed up a meeting that evening, and it would be fine.’ Brace stopped for a moment. ‘I should have asked for more details but I had my own plans for that night.’

  ‘You were meeting an informant in Whitley Bay.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Vera tapped the side of her nose and tried to look mysterious.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’ve been to see Judith. Of course you have. You were always thorough, weren’t you, Vera? That was your reputation. What you lacked in charm, you made up for with hard work.’ In the corridor outside a door banged and there was the inevitable sound of keys. An interview would soon start in the next room. ‘But yes, I was catching up with an informant in Whitley Bay. We’d arranged to meet at the entrance to Spanish City. It was busy enough on a fine Sunday night for us not to be noticed.’

  ‘Ah, the Spanish City. That takes me back.’ The funfair next to the big white Dome that had been built to rival Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach. Each morning it opened to Dire Straits’ ‘Tunnel of Love’, the song that had given it a mention and turned it into legend. In 1995 it had already passed its best, but it was still there, gaudy and loud, pulling in the trippers. On a hot night in June there’d be the smell of candyfloss and frying onions and the diesel that powered the rides. Now the site of the funfair had been flattened and there was talk of turning the Dome into some sort of retail park. The thought made Vera shudder.

  ‘Of course we didn’t all have mobile phones in those days.’ Brace was almost apologetic. ‘And when we did, they weren’t reliable. I couldn’t contact Robbie, couldn’t tell him to ring me if he got into trouble. I should have done more at the time.’

  ‘Who were you meeting, John? Let’s have the name of your informant.’ She paused. ‘Your alibi.’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’ He sounded tired, as if he hadn’t slept well for months, and dipped his head as if it was too heavy for him to hold.

  ‘It wouldn’t be Mary-Frances Lascuola?’

  He lifted his head and gave a little laugh. ‘I don’t commune with the dead, Vera. She’d already been long gone by then. And maybe I was responsible for her passing too. She’s someone else I should have looked after better.’

  Vera wanted to ask more about Mary-Frances, but Patty’s mother wasn’t the main focus of this visit. ‘So you meet this mysterious informant outside Spanish City.’

  ‘It was noisy. A couple of stag- and hen-parties finishing their weekends in style. You know how Whitley was, back then.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’d parked my car at The Links. We went there first and then drove to St Mary’s Lighthouse. It was dark by that time – it was around ten o’clock – but there was a full moon. We didn’t walk out to the island because the tide was in, but we sat on a bench and chatted there. I hadn’t expected anyone else to be around. During the day you can’t move around the place for dog-walkers and cyclists, but at that time of night I thought we’d have the place to ourselves. Too early for the doggers and too late for anyone else.’

  He stopped, but this time Vera knew better than to interrupt.

  He took a breath. ‘There was another car in the car park. Robbie’s car. I recognized it as soon as we arrived. I thought maybe he’d had the same thought as me – that it would be a quiet place for a meeting, to sort out whatever had been bothering him – but there was no sign of anyone about. By the time I finished my business it was nearly eleven. I drove my contact back into Whitley, so he could get the metro back into the city, but I couldn’t get Robbie Marshall out of my mind.’

  Another pause. The meeting in the adjacent room must have been routine or the lawyer unbothered, because the door banged again and the prisoner was led out. Vera jotted a note on her pad: Brace’s informant came from Newcastle. It wasn’t much but it might narrow things down a bit.

  In the end she lost patience. ‘So I’m assuming you went back to St Mary’s to check. You’d been friends since school. He was your best mate. You’d want to know what was going on.’

  Brace nodded and shifted in his chair. ‘It was Sunday night, so things were quiet by then. Spanish City had closed and there were just a few people walking back along the sea front. Robbie’s car was still where I’d first seen it, right at the north end of the bay. I thought maybe he’d driven off with the guy he was meeting, but that seemed unlikely. Robbie had work the next day too and he never missed work. It was what made him respectable.’

  ‘And it gave him his cover. Just like you, John. Wasn’t that what you always claimed? You’d never had a day on the sick. Never took all your holidays. The perfect employee.’

  Brace ignored her. She could see that, in his head, he was back there. There was a road, just wide enough for two cars to pass, that led along the point towards St Mary’s Island and the lighthouse. The sea on one side, on the other a patch of scrubby land, with soggy areas that turned into muddy pools in wet weather. It was a nature reserve now, but she couldn’t remember what it had been like all those years ago. Rough grazing maybe? The island was tidal, and the lighthouse and its cottages were run by the council these days as a visitor centre and a place for bairns to come and learn about wildlife. It occurred to Vera that Patty’s kids might enjoy it, and she wouldn’t mind paddling in the rock pools with a net and a bucket, either.

  Brace continued. ‘I almost just left it and went straight home, but like you say, he was a school pal, my marra.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Now Vera was worried that some officer would come banging on the door and calling time before she had any useful information. She was desperate for Brace to finish his story.

  ‘I got out of the car and went looking for him. I had a torch, but I didn’t need it at first. Like I said, there was a full moon and your eyes soon get accustomed. You know that, living out in the wild, away from the street lights. I walked along the shoreline north towards Hartley Point and Seaton Sluice. Quiet. Not shouting his name. I didn’t know what I might be interrupting, and a cop turning up might be the worst thing possible, if he’d got himself into bother with some of his dodgy mates.’

  ‘You must have seen something,’ Vera said, ‘or we wouldn’t be here now.’

  ‘I found something.’ He paused. ‘I found Robbie’s body. Thrown up by the side of the footpath, like a bit of rubbish. His head beaten in.’ He looked up and stared into her eyes. ‘If there’d been any chance that he might still have been alive, I’d have called it in. Honest. But I reckon he was dead when I first got there with my contact.’

  ‘And why didn’t you call it in? Like any law-abiding citizen would?’ Her voice deceptively gentle. Inside seething with fury, because Brace had been a cop. One of them.

  ‘Because I had too much to lose. Once the murder team started digging around in his past, they’d find Robbie was linked to me and to his powerful friends on the other side. I’d got into enough bother already by then and I was on a final warning.’

  ‘So why tell me all this now? Haunted by the ghost of Robbie Marshall, are you? It never seemed to trouble you before.’

  ‘Because I love my daughter!’ Brace was almost screaming. ‘Because I want a better life for her.’

  After the raised voices, the following silence came as a shock. />
  ‘John Brace, you soppy git, I almost believe you.’ Vera shook her head. ‘So you didn’t call it in. What did you do?’

  ‘There was a culvert that ran up from the shore; it cut through the rock and formed a tunnel a little way under the headland. I don’t know what it was for. I think at the landward end it was a field drain, allowing rainwater to seep into the sea. I wedged the body up the culvert and stuffed some boulders behind it, so the tide wouldn’t wash it out. I’d already found Robbie’s keys in his jacket pocket. I took his car to the long-stay park at the airport and got a taxi back to Whitley, walked the last couple of miles to St Mary’s because I didn’t want anyone to remember dropping me there, if by any chance the body came to light. I chucked his keys into the sea. Then I picked up my own car and drove home. It was almost light before I got there.’

  ‘And Judith thought you were out all night with an … informant.’

  ‘It happened,’ Brace said. ‘It wasn’t unusual.’

  ‘And you let Robbie’s mam hope that he might turn up one day.’

  ‘How could I tell her?’ He sat for a moment with his head in his hands. ‘Look, I’m not proud of what I did. If I’d had more time, I might have thought of something better, staged a car accident maybe. I’ve gone over it in my head a thousand times. But I lost it. I couldn’t have a murder investigation linked to me.’

  ‘Especially when you were there, eh, John? You were on the spot when Robbie was killed. Some coincidence!’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. Do you think I’d risk my chance of getting out of here alive by telling you about the body, if I had? I don’t love my daughter that much. Robbie was my mate. What reason would I have?’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone at all around, while you were having a cosy chat with your informant by the seaside? No cars? No late-night walkers or joggers?’ For a moment Vera was distracted. Did they have joggers in 1995? Surely they did, just not quite as many.