The Seagull

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘Do we have a date for the fire?’ Vera thought this was like groping through the thickest of sea-frets. They needed something to make a connection with the killings.

  ‘I’d need to check.’ But she could tell Charlie was teasing. He knew what she wanted to hear.

  ‘Not you!’ Because sometimes he needed to be flattered. ‘Not the man with a memory better than an elephant’s.’

  ‘It was 1995.’ Charlie grinned. ‘Midsummer. Early July. The start of the season, which was another reason why the investigators thought arson was unlikely. Why would you set fire to the club when it was just coming up to the most profitable time of the year?’

  ‘To stop people being suspicious?’ Holly sometimes didn’t know when to keep quiet. It had been a rhetorical question. They all knew the way Charlie’s mind was working, and now it was just time to let him run with the explanation.

  He seemed not to mind the interruption, though. ‘And because a poor summer season would give a stronger motive for the fire. It was better that Sinclair cut his losses while things were still looking good and got the insurance handout without too much fuss.’ He drank the last of his tea.

  ‘Any word on the street about who Sinclair might have got to commit the arson?’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Lots of suggestions. Nothing definite.’

  ‘So we have Robbie Marshall, who was known as an informal recruitment officer of scallies from the estates. He found them as muscle for gamekeepers and landowners, but no reason at all why he might not have provided lads willing to set a fire. And we have Mary-Frances, who worked at one time as a waitress for Sinclair and who would have known her way around the club. She might have been useful for the arsonists too. And less than a month before the fire Marshall disappears, and now we have two bodies. Nobody’s going to tell me that’s a coincidence.’ Vera was on her feet, drawing a plan on the whiteboard. Names and dates, and wavy lines making connections.

  ‘And we have Gary Keane.’ Joe had been quiet throughout the conversation, but now he sounded excited too. He was seeing the links, following her logic. ‘If he fitted the security systems, he’d have known how to disable them so there’d be no record of the arsonists. He might even have known enough to trigger an electrical fault and cause a fire.’

  ‘Would he talk to us, do you think?’

  ‘Two people who might have been involved in the arson are dead,’ Joe said. ‘He might take some persuading.’

  There was a moment of silence. They could hear the traffic in the street outside and the kids in the nearby schoolyard as they came out for their lunchtime play.

  ‘Well, I can be very persuasive,’ Vera said. ‘I’d rather have a bit more information before I chat to him, though.’

  ‘Sinclair’s back in Whitley Bay now.’ Holly had been making notes of her own but looked up from her computer. ‘According to Laura Webb, who used to know Mary-Frances, he’s the Mr Big of the seaside regeneration there.’

  ‘I’d heard the name in connection with the redevelopment, but I didn’t connect it with the Sinclair who owned The Seagull,’ said Charlie. ‘I thought he’d disappeared north permanently after the fire and, besides, he didn’t strike me as a type who’d be into fund-raising and community activism.’ There was a pause. ‘People speak very highly of Sinclair these days. He’s got an office near the Dome, not so far from where The Seagull used to be, and he lets all sorts of local groups use it. I should have made the link.’

  ‘According to Judith Brace, they’re building luxury apartments on the site of The Seagull,’ Vera said. ‘It’d be interesting to know if Sinclair still owns the land.’

  ‘You think he’s more bothered about turning a large profit than regenerating the town?’ Charlie gave a little grin. ‘That sounds more like the Gus Sinclair that I knew.’

  ‘Maybe he’s a reformed character.’ Vera kept her voice light, so she might even have been serious. ‘I’m told it does happen.’ Another pause. ‘Even John Brace claims to be reformed these days. He’s turned into a compassionate family man.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Shaftoe House was on a quiet street surrounded by modern terraced houses and looked out of place, rather down-at-heel. Like a shabby, elderly woman surrounded by brash young teenagers. A little sign on the door gave its name and said it was run by the New Lives Project. There was a buzzer and Holly pressed it. A disembodied male voice asked for her name.

  ‘Holly Clarke, Northumbria Police.’

  ‘Just come on up.’

  She pushed the door and it swung open. Inside, the place had the same air of abandonment as any institution after closing time. It held evidence of the day’s activity – in some of the rooms there were whiteboards with scribbled notes, scraps of paper in the bins, a tray of dirty mugs – but now it was quiet. Without purpose. A man was coming down the wooden stairs to greet her. He was tall and gangly, in jeans and a loose striped cotton shirt. He held out his hand and, as the shirt slid back from his wrist, she saw a tattoo of a snake on his lower arm. It looked strangely incongruous. ‘I’m Ian. Come up to the office. Would you like some coffee?’ His voice was educated local. He led Holly up a wide staircase, which might once have been grand, into a room with a desk cluttered by paper.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Holly sat on a leather chair and looked out of the long sash window.

  His office overlooked a wilderness of a garden. Some attempt had been made to clear a space close to the house, and a table and half a dozen chairs stood on an uneven patio. He followed her gaze. ‘That’s where the smokers hang out. Some addictions are hard to give up.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘As a worker, for five years, but I was first here as a client when I was in my late teens.’ He must have sensed her surprise. ‘Most of the workers here are addicts in recovery. We understand what the clients are going through.’

  ‘You can offer the sympathy that people need.’

  ‘Often sympathy’s the last thing on offer, though of course we can give support. More importantly, we can be tough. Recovery isn’t just about stopping drinking or giving up drugs; it’s about taking responsibility. Not easy, if you’ve been running away from it all your life. Perhaps we can be more honest than the professionals.’

  ‘I’m here to ask about a former client,’ Holly said. There was something about the man that she found compelling. His long fingers and intense face. The complete control. The smile. In another era he might have been a priest.

  ‘Of course we might have issues with confidentiality.’ He leaned forward towards her and frowned.

  ‘We think the woman is dead,’ Holly said. Ian was very close to her now and she found that she was looking at his hands, which were clasped together almost as if he was praying. ‘Murdered. We need to confirm her identity and then find the person who killed her.’

  There was a silence. The man was still frowning, thinking.

  It was Holly who spoke first. ‘She was a friend of Laura Webb, the woman who runs yoga classes here.’

  He looked up slowly. All his movements were deliberate. ‘What’s the name of the woman you’re interested in?’

  ‘Mary-Frances Lascuola.’

  Another silence. ‘When was she a client here?’

  ‘Mid-eighties or early nineties.’ Holly realized she hadn’t pinned down Laura for an exact date. A big mistake. But perhaps Laura’s life had been so chaotic then that she might not have remembered anyway.

  ‘Shaftoe House was very different thirty years ago,’ Ian said. ‘It was in the grounds of a large psychiatric hospital. Although it was still a day-centre for people suffering from addiction, the model was medical and the staff were doctors, psychologists and mental-health nurses. The hospital was closed and demolished in 2006 and the rest of the grounds were sold for housing, but a charity, New Lives, took over this building. It was recognized that Bebington was an area where substance abuse was common and the facility was still needed. If the woman you’re conce
rned about was a patient in Shaftoe before 2006, then any records will be with the health authority. We would have access to them only if she was referred here again.’

  ‘Could you check if that happened?’ Though Holly thought that was a waste of time. She was convinced that Mary-Frances had already been buried in the culvert for ten years when the charity had taken over Shaftoe House. And if the woman had still been alive in 2006, she’d been using a different name.

  Ian switched on the computer on his desk. Holly stared out of the window while the computer loaded. At last the man spoke. ‘Nobody of that name has ever been a client of New Lives. Not here or at our residential centre in Kimmerston.’

  Holly supposed there was nothing else she could learn from Ian. She could go back to Vera and tell her that she’d followed up the lead. But she didn’t move.

  ‘What exactly do you do here? Besides the yoga?’

  ‘We follow the twelve-step programme. That’s about fellowship, fellow addicts supporting one another. There are workshops too. One-to-one counselling. For some clients we provide basic skills education. It’s about helping people to be more confident and self-reliant, and it’s hard to feel confident if you can’t read or write.’ He smiled. ‘You should come in when our folks are here. Chat to them when they’re on a break. Addicts make up a large proportion of the prison population. In one sense we’re in the same business. Crime prevention.’

  Now Holly did stand up. In her head she was doing mental arithmetic. Ian looked as if he was in his late forties. If he’d been treated here as an addict when he was a teenager, he could have been at Shaftoe House at the same time as Mary-Frances and Laura. ‘Did you meet Mary-Frances when you were here as a young man? You might remember the unusual name. And she was very beautiful, everyone says.’

  Ian followed her to the door. She paused for a moment to look at him as he answered, wondering again what it was about him that she found so attractive.

  ‘It was a long time ago, and I really don’t remember.’ But his eyes slid away from hers as he was speaking, and Holly wasn’t sure that she quite believed him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  In Warkworth Prison John Brace woke suddenly and realized he’d been dreaming of Mary-Frances Lascuola. The dream had been so vivid that he believed he could still smell her, still feel her skin and the strong limbs under his fingers. In the dream he’d been strong again too, approaching middle age maybe, but fit after all those long walks in the hills. Not old and impotent and trapped in a wheelchair. In the moment of waking, the dream and a real memory became confused in his mind, the memory corrupted like the body of the woman Vera Stanhope had discovered in a culvert at St Mary’s Island. He thought everything was shifting now, and nothing was certain. He’d lost all belief in his own judgement.

  It had been late spring and one of the good times. The times when Mary-Frances had been clean and healthy, grateful to him for her sanity and willing to give him anything. She’d been working in The Seagull and, when he picked her up at her flat at the end of her shift, she hadn’t had time for a shower. She was wearing the jeans and the sweatshirt she’d walked home in – she never wore her uniform away from the club. No need for Sinclair to get her a taxi, as he did for the other girls. She only lived two minutes away. That night she still smelled of work, of cigarette smoke and perfume. It was the early hours of the morning. Not quite light, but still warm.

  He’d driven her to a place he’d come across with Hector. A piece of woodland next to a shallow river; Hector and the gang had found flycatcher, dipper and treecreeper nests there. Brace had raided them for his own private collection. A group of ringers must have operated from the place because they’d found mist-net poles, the fine nets curled and tied so that the birds wouldn’t get caught unless the ringers were onsite. The wood belonged to a big feudal estate, but the grand house had left it to grow wild and shored up their environmental credentials by letting the naturalists in. Once a driveway had led through the trees to the stables at the back of the house, but the track was overgrown and all that remained of the entrance was a pair of crumbling pillars. Nobody approached the house this way any more.

  Brace had left his car on the verge by one of the pillars, taken Mary-Frances’s hand and led her through the trees. Some were covered in white blossom, luminous in the shadow. In the milky light of dawn, he’d made love to her with a chorus of birdsong in the background. He’d felt caught by her and thought he knew how the small birds held by the soft pockets of the nets must feel. At that moment he hadn’t been able to imagine life without her. Soon afterwards, Mary-Frances Lascuola had disappeared.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Vera arrived in the office early and settled herself at her desk to read through all the calls and emails that had come in overnight. She’d bought a coffee on her way in and chatted to the people manning the phone lines. There’d been no breakthrough. No member of the public who could remember anything unusual happening at St Mary’s wetland on a hot summer night in June more than twenty years before. Everything seemed relatively calm. It felt like the lull before the storm.

  Her personal mobile phone rang. It was Patty, her voice panicky and breathless. ‘You have to come. There’s been a break-in. I don’t know what to do. What if there’s still someone in the house?’

  Vera looked at her phone. It was twenty past nine. ‘When did they break in? Last night? Have you only just noticed?’

  But Patty wasn’t listening. ‘Please, Vera! I need you.’

  Vera hesitated. She had important things to do this morning, and it was one thing giving Patty a bit of support, another being her go-to person every time there was a domestic upset. But who else did the woman have to turn to? Besides, after the discovery of two bodies linked to John Brace, this seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore. ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  * * *

  She found Patty standing outside the house. She was wearing what might have been pyjama bottoms and a tracksuit top. Although it wasn’t a cold day, the woman had her arms wrapped around her body and she was shivering. When Patty saw Vera, she ran towards the older woman and held onto her. Patty was still shaking and felt fragile, as if her bones might snap with the contact. Vera found the physical contact disturbing. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had taken her into their arms. Gently, she released herself from Patty’s grip. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

  ‘They must have broken in when I was walking Archie to school. I got back and found that the kitchen window was smashed in. Someone reached in and undid the catch, because it’s wide open.’

  ‘Let’s have a look then, shall we?’ Vera walked round to the back of the house. It was just as Patty had described. There was glass all over the kitchen bench, the clasp had been unlocked and the window was fully open. It would have been big enough for a grown man to climb through. ‘Not just a bairn hoying a ball then,’ she said. ‘They wouldn’t have bothered opening the window.’ A pause. ‘Why don’t you unlock the door and let me in? I’ll just check there’s no one inside.’

  The place was chaotic, but no more so than the last time Vera had visited. There was no sign of an intruder. She called Patty inside. ‘What have they taken?’

  ‘Nothing, that I can see.’ Patty’s words still came in a rush. ‘The telly’s still here and the kids’ tablets.’

  ‘Maybe you interrupted them.’ Vera couldn’t see how this break-in could have anything to do with two bodies that had been lying in a hole at St Mary’s wetland for years. ‘I’ll get a local officer to call round and look at the damage. And make sure we get that window fixed before it gets dark this evening.’ She didn’t want Patty to think she’d drop everything, any time there was a problem. That wouldn’t help the woman.

  ‘Okay.’ Patty sounded disappointed and Vera felt a moment of guilt, almost as if Patty were her daughter, not Brace’s. As if she was deserting the woman all over again. ‘Yeah, okay. Thanks.’

  * * *


  By the time she and Charlie got to the coast, it was afternoon. Gus Sinclair was holding court in his office near the Dome. They saw him as they walked past, doing a reccie before making their first move. The office had a big glass window, like a shop front, and he sat behind a large pale-wood desk that had been placed sideways-on to the window, so that he could see outside and further into the room. Two women sat opposite him, hanging on every word. It was clear to Vera, even from that one quick look from the pavement, that Sinclair was doing all the speaking. He was one of those men who needed an audience. She thought he must have been young when he ran The Seagull, because he didn’t look very old now. He had a tan that spoke of a sailor or a golfer. Or someone with property in the south of Spain. She hurried after Charlie, who seemed not even to have glanced in through the window; he walked with purpose, his hands thrust in the pockets of his navy anorak, and she had to run for a few steps to catch up.

  It was approaching the spring tide and the water was right up to the Esplanade, no sand to be seen. The dog-walkers had to make do with concrete. School had finished and the kids were out on the skateboard park, focused, very serious when they made their moves, only relaxing and joking afterwards when they sat on the grass to drink cans of fizzy pop. Vera wondered what it must be like – that sudden thrill of speed and then the control of the turns and the jumps. She stood and watched for a moment, truly admiring the skill. Behind them was the sweep of the bay and the point of St Mary’s Island, the lighthouse very white against the blue sky.

  She’d brought Charlie with her because she thought the younger members of the team should know there were times when experience counted. He’d spent two hours over lunchtime building up a history for Sinclair. While everyone else was eating their sandwiches, he’d sat hunched over his desk, muttering into the phone, talking to his mates in Glasgow – retired officers, friends who’d transferred to other forces. He’d made notes with a blunt pencil on the sort of A4 pad that students used. He’d disappeared for half an hour and come back to tell Vera he’d been talking to a journo on BBC’s Look North who had aspirations to do Panorama.