The Seagull

by Ann Cleeves

  ‘He’s been doing his own investigation into our friend Sinclair, but the BBC won’t touch it. Not enough evidence, apparently. He thinks they’ve been scared off.’

  Then he’d refused to discuss Sinclair in any further detail with Vera until they were out of the office.

  ‘Getting a bit paranoid in your old age, Charlie?’ She’d made a joke out of it, because Charlie was the least paranoid person she knew. He didn’t have the imagination for it.

  He’d flashed a look in her direction and mumbled cryptically about playing it safe.

  Out by the coast and in the fresh air, Vera had suddenly felt starving and she’d dragged him into Pantrini’s fish restaurant next to the games arcade for sit-down haddock and chips. They’d both been too busy eating to speak in the restaurant, and anyway Charlie had still seemed nervous about being overheard. Vera had caught him staring at the other customers. It wasn’t until they’d walked north, away from the Dome and Sinclair’s office, and stood watching the skinny, geeky lads with their skateboards, that Charlie began talking and then he didn’t need his notes. It was as if he couldn’t stop.

  ‘Gus Sinclair appeared in North-East England in the early eighties. It seemed as if he’d come out of nowhere, but he must have had contacts, because soon he was seen knocking around with local politicians, businessmen and union leaders. The shady ones. The ones open to persuasion, when it came to planning and licensing matters. And he started making friends with police officers too. Our own Mr John Brace, for one.’ Charlie looked out to sea. The waves were even and relentless and broke on the sea wall. ‘I thought someone must have been backing him, big-style. He was too young to have had that sort of influence in his own right and he’d no power-base at all: not long out of university, a few years working in hospitality in a big hotel in Glasgow, helping to organize events and conferences. Why would the most important men in the North-East bother with him?’

  ‘What did he do at university?’ Vera wondered if a degree would be enough to give Sinclair the nickname ‘the Prof.’

  ‘Business studies. Does it matter?’

  ‘Probably not. Go on. Tell me why the Tyneside movers and shakers took any notice of a young Scottish lad.’

  Charlie watched a moody girl perform magic on her skateboard and continued speaking. ‘I found out who his father was, and it all made sense.’

  Now impatience got the better of her. ‘So who was the father? Come on, Charlie, we want to speak to the man and there’s a briefing at seven. I’d rather not be here all day.’

  ‘Alexander Sinclair, known as Alec. Grew up in Aberdeen and made enough money on the rigs to settle in Glasgow and set up his own business. Builder and property developer, before he moved into bars and clubs. Intelligence links him to gangs there – smuggling drugs and girls – but he was too clever ever to have been charged.’

  ‘And he wanted to extend his empire, so he sent his son down to North-East England. There have always been ties between Glasgow and Tyneside.’ Vera could see where this was going, but she was starting to feel out of her depth. Her professional world was different from this. She understood family dramas and small people fighting against the odds. The murderers she’d caught hadn’t been gangland monsters, but rather pathetic little men, lacking control or the intelligence to sort out their problems without resorting to violence. She’d had no experience of organized crime until she’d worked to get John Brace put away, and even then his villainy had been local. He’d been a big fish in a very small pool. For her, gangland killings carried out to exert power or settle scores were the stuff of bad television, not real life. ‘What’s happening to old man Sinclair now?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Charlie said. ‘A heart attack. He always drank too much and smoked like a chimney.’ He looked at her. ‘Overweight.’

  ‘So what’s the story, Charlie? I can understand why Gus Sinclair pissed off up north when The Seagull was torched, but what brought him back here?’

  ‘Word is: things were getting a bit hot, up north. Nobody dared touch Alec, even when he was dying. He had a reputation that scared people off. It was almost like a superstition…’ Charlie was struggling to find the right words, ‘… or a religious belief. If you shafted Alec Sinclair, you’d be dead. It was inevitable. But once he was gone, it was a different story. There was a gap in the market and all sorts piling in to fill it. Gus isn’t like his father. He doesn’t have the stomach for a fight. Running away to Scotland when The Seagull started to lose money and disappeared in flames was an admission of failure, and he was never really part of his father’s business after that. When Alec died, Gus decided to retire gracefully and leave the warring factions in Glasgow to it. Maybe Whitley Bay held fond memories. He’s living in one of those big apartments on the sea front at Tynemouth; bought it with cash, according to my sources.’

  Vera wondered for a moment about Charlie’s sources – the army of cleaners, secretaries, estate agents and accountants who seemed to supply him with information. How had he acquired them? ‘Gus inherited from his father then? Even though he wasn’t at the centre of his business?’

  ‘Alec still had a considerable legitimate property portfolio when he died. Gus is the only surviving relative, as far as I know.’

  And you would know, Vera thought.

  ‘Why isn’t he just keeping his head down? Why not quietly make a heap of money by developing The Seagull site? Why set himself up as a hero of Whitley regeneration?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Maybe he likes the admiration. Rumour has it that he has political ambitions, that he’d fancy being the North-East’s elected mayor, if that ever happens. Maybe he’s truly fond of the place. He’s got a wife who comes from here. She used to work with him in The Seagull.’

  Vera remembered the last conversation she’d had with Judith Brace. ‘Not a woman called Elaine, by any chance?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Charlie seemed surprised that Vera had the same access to information as him.

  ‘Apparently she was friendly with Robbie Marshall at one time. Brace’s wife remembers a dinner where the four of them were together. Maybe that’s another possible motive for his murder. Robbie had a fling with Sinclair’s woman, and Sinclair couldn’t just let it go.’ Except that didn’t explain the second body at St Mary’s and, according to Charlie, Gus Sinclair was squeamish when it came to a fight. But perhaps he’d hired someone else to do his dirty work, just as he’d hired someone else to set fire to his club.

  The tide was starting to go out now and a spaniel was chasing a ball in the shallow water, the spray a diamanté burst of reflected light. Vera had been leaning against the wall with her back to the sea and pushed herself upright. She thought it was time to see Gus Sinclair for themselves.

  * * *

  Sinclair was alone in the office when they arrived and he opened the door to them. Inside was a display board with a plan of the proposed regeneration, computer-generated images showing happy people walking through a plaza where a clown on stilts was performing. The restaurant on the headland at St Mary’s a marvel of glass and pale timber.

  ‘Just have a look,’ Sinclair said, ‘and come back to me if you have any questions.’ His voice had a slight Scottish accent, but it was rather gentle and refined. Could this man be the Prof., the missing member of Hector’s Gang of Four? Sinclair would have been the only graduate among the group, and the term could have been slightly ironic. He’d have been younger than the rest of them. But, in her memory, Hector hadn’t viewed the Prof. as a figure of fun, but of respect. Someone to be a little scared of. This amiable man, with his tan and his casual open-necked shirt, didn’t come across as particularly frightening.

  ‘You designed the plans?’ Vera said.

  ‘Well, not personally!’ A little laugh. ‘I’m part of the consortium that’s raising funding for the new development.’

  ‘You’re Angus Sinclair? I saw your picture in the Chronicle the other day.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He smiled, pleased
with the recognition.

  ‘Could I ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Of course, that’s why I’m here. To answer any queries. We’re all determined that the community should have as much of a say in the future of the town as possible.’

  She sat across the desk from Sinclair. Charlie stayed where he was, staring at the plans, his hands still in the pockets of his anorak, poised to send away any members of the public who might wander in. He’d been wearing the same jacket, or a clone of it, since she’d first known him. He’d be listening, though, and he’d be picking up the significance of any information she might miss.

  Vera introduced herself formally. Sinclair looked at first unbelieving, as if he couldn’t accept that this woman could be a senior detective, then wary. ‘Do I need a solicitor?’ Making it sound like a joke, but wanting a serious answer.

  ‘No!’ She stretched out the ‘o’ for emphasis, to show the idea was ludicrous. ‘This is just a chat, because I understand you’re an influential man in the town. And because our enquiries are taking us back to the past, to the eighties and nineties. You were living here then?’

  He nodded. ‘Ah, great times.’

  ‘You’ll have heard about the two bodies we found out at St Mary’s?’

  He nodded again, interested but unsurprised.

  ‘We believe that one of them was Robbie Marshall. You used to knock around with him in the day. Wallsend lad. Useful.’

  ‘I remember Robbie.’ Sinclair was too intelligent to deny a connection they’d be able to prove. ‘He used to come into The Seagull, did a lot of his business in there.’

  ‘Do you remember the names of the people he met?’

  Sinclair shook his head and replied too quickly. ‘Sorry, it was a long time ago.’

  ‘The second victim was a woman. Any idea who that might have been?’

  There was a moment of silence. Vera couldn’t tell if this information was new to Sinclair or not. If someone on the force was leaking to him, as Charlie had implied, he was probably aware of it, even if he wasn’t involved in the crime.

  ‘I understand that Robbie was friendly with your wife at one time,’ Vera said.

  Sinclair gave a tight smile. ‘My wife’s a very friendly woman. And she’s at home in my apartment in Tynemouth, not on a mortuary table.’

  ‘Does the name Mary-Frances Lascuola mean anything to you?’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘I remember the lassie. I took her on as a favour. She served food in the bar for a while. It was a mistake. Maybe it’s always a mistake to do that sort of favour for friends. You end up resenting them.’ Sinclair leaned forward across the desk. ‘Where’s this going, Inspector? I usually pack up at about this time.’

  Vera ignored the question. ‘What was the name of the friend?’

  ‘One of your lot. John Brace.’

  ‘And Mary-Frances let you down?’

  ‘She started using again, plying her trade. I couldn’t have that. The Gull was a respectable establishment. I let her go.’

  ‘That was a while before it burned down?’ Vera was still trying to get the timing straight in her own mind. She thought this would have been much tidier if Mary-Frances had disappeared at the same time as Robbie Marshall.

  ‘Yeah, quite a few years before that. She was only with me for a matter of months.’ Outside the window, the traffic was heavier. The shops were shutting and people were making their way home.

  ‘I remember The Seagull,’ Vera said. ‘It was a part of the history of this place. It was built in the thirties, wasn’t it? And still full of bright young things fifty years on.’

  ‘I loved it.’ He seemed genuinely moved, reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a photograph of the club. The sun was coming up over the sea, reflecting on the glass and the curved white walls, the neon image of the bird. The picture must have been taken from the beach, and Vera had never seen it from that angle. ‘I’m having this framed for the office here. A reminder of Whitley Bay’s former glory.’

  ‘Perhaps you should rebuild it.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘don’t think I haven’t considered it.’ He left the photograph out on his desk and continued to stare at it.

  ‘But, these days, luxury apartments make more commercial sense.’

  It wasn’t a question and he didn’t answer.

  Vera went on. ‘Would your wife be able to help us identify the woman who was buried with Robbie?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He sounded uncertain. ‘She was like a mother hen to the women who worked for me. Someone might have confided in her. I’ll ask, shall I?’

  ‘You do that.’ Vera smiled. ‘But I’d like to chat to her myself, so I’ll call in and see her sometime. I’ve always wondered what those smart flats in Tynemouth look like on the inside. Give me her number and I’ll phone to check she’s in before I turn up.’

  She thought for a moment that he was going to refuse, but he shrugged and scribbled a mobile number on a piece of paper. Vera got to her feet and reached across the desk to take it. She was almost at the door when she stopped and turned. There was a sense of urgency now in identifying the Prof.; besides Brace, he was the only living member of the Gang of Four.

  ‘What do you do in your spare time, Mr Sinclair?’

  ‘I’m a bit of a workaholic,’ he said. ‘There isn’t much spare time.’

  ‘You’re not a birdwatcher then, like your friend John Brace?’ She held her breath while she waited for his reply. ‘Not into country pursuits?’

  ‘Nah, the only bird I was ever interested in was The Seagull.’ He gave a little laugh and looked up at the photograph of the club. The Seagull still glowed in the early-morning light.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Vera had stuck a picture of The Seagull on the whiteboard before the evening briefing, and Joe Ashworth looked at it and remembered his youth. He’d never gone to the Gull – that was for real adults, people with money and style – but for a few years he’d spent most Friday nights in Whitley Bay, getting the bus with a gang of his mates from the pit-village further north where he’d still lived with his parents, sharing taxis back in the early hours of the morning. Heading ‘down Whitley’ was a rite of passage when he was a teenager. Most young people got very drunk there for the first time, had their first sexual experiences in the alleys that led along the back of shops and houses. They wandered between bars and clubs, meeting people they knew from school or work, the groups shifting and melting as the night progressed, like an elaborate country dance. He tried to remember the name of the club on South Parade where the bar staff wore bathing trunks and bikinis, and the congas would shimmy out into the street and back again until they collapsed into a laughing heap, high on alcohol and hormones. He supposed drugs were sold in Whitley then, but he hadn’t come across any dealing. Though probably he’d been too naive to recognize it. As the rest of the team gathered for the evening briefing, he remembered the name of the club: Idols. That was what it was called. He said the word out loud.

  Vera was talking about a Whitley Bay Joe didn’t quite recognize. The Whitley Bay of The Seagull. Gangs and celebrities. Famous sportsmen: boxers and footballers. Money-men who’d invested in the town where kids had come to let off steam.

  ‘So we’re pretty certain our male victim is Robert Marshall – his mother described the belt we found with the skeleton, before I gave her any clues. Most likely ID on the female is Mary-Frances Lascuola, mother of Patricia Keane and lover of John Brace. But she seems to have disappeared from view at least five years before Robbie. So this is a priority – what was she doing between the mid-eighties, when Brace claims to have lost touch with her, and 1995? Holly, did you check that rehab centre in Bebington?’

  ‘Yes, I went out there and spoke to one of the project workers. It’s run by a charity now, but until 2006 it was part of a big NHS hospital. I’ll need to check with the health authority in the morning.’ Holly sounded apologetic. ‘By the time I got back from Bebington there was nobody in
the records office to help.’

  ‘Let’s get onto the women’s refuges and talk to social services and GPs. Hol, are you okay to do that too? Mary-Frances was a known addict, and though she got herself clean for a few months when she took up with Brace, the assumption is that she relapsed. We don’t have a cause of death for this victim, so it’s even possible that she died of an overdose or that she could have killed herself.’

  ‘She didn’t bury herself, though, did she?’ Joe realized he was being flippant as soon as he’d spoken, but Vera took the question seriously.

  ‘Maybe she was as much of an embarrassment dead as she was alive,’ she said, ‘so someone decided to dispose of her body.’

  ‘Does that take us back to Brace?’

  Vera thought about that for a moment. ‘Aye, maybe. And we need to track down a friend of his, a chap they called “the Prof.” He was part of the gang Robbie Marshall hung out with and he might have valuable information. But Brace isn’t necessarily involved, and we should keep an open mind here. He told me he lost touch with Mary-Frances years before Marshall was killed and there’s an outside chance he’s telling the truth for once. For instance, we know Mary-Frances worked at this place.’ Vera stopped speaking for a moment and pointed to the photo of The Seagull. ‘This is the club that seems to link all the players in this case. Owned by Gus Sinclair, who’s back on the scene in Whitley Bay, acting as benefactor and general nice guy, involved in some capacity still to be determined, in the development along the sea front and at St Mary’s. Son of Alec Sinclair, Glasgow hard man. Gus employed Mary-Frances. If she OD’d on his premises, it wouldn’t have looked good for business.’