The Seagull

by Ann Cleeves

  She paused again and waved a wooden ruler she might have used as a schoolgirl towards the whiteboard, tapping it as she mentioned the names scrawled there. ‘Robbie was a regular. So was John Brace. The only record of a woman seen with Robbie was a manager at The Seagull, who was called Elaine. Elaine is now Gus Sinclair’s wife. Patty Keane’s ex-husband, Gary, also worked for Sinclair on occasion and he installed the security system in the club.’

  Vera seemed to have a sudden thought and she turned to Joe. ‘Can you go back and talk to Gary Keane? He was a youngster when he worked for Sinclair and they might have talked in front of him, not seen him as any kind of threat. He might even be the sort of lad they’d use to set the fire.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Has anybody come up with anything useful? Billy? Anything from the crime scene?’

  Billy Cartwright was defensive again. ‘You know I’d have told you the moment we found something significant, Vera. Just trust my team to get on with it.’

  ‘Aye well, you can’t blame a woman for hoping. I’m getting pretty desperate here.’

  But Joe didn’t think Vera looked desperate. She looked younger – bright-eyed and energetic – just as she would have done in the mid-nineties when she was a new detective, fighting her corner against the men.

  * * *

  Joe decided to call into Gary Keane’s flat on his way home. If he could come up with new information for Vera this evening, she’d be delighted. Despite himself, he’d been jealous that she’d chosen Charlie instead of him to go with her to interview Sinclair and he felt the need to prove his commitment. Besides, it was bath-time for the youngest child, homework for the big ones, and the hours before bedtime were always a bit fraught. He loved the kids to bits, but sometimes work came as a relief.

  A middle-aged couple were working in the community garden when he parked in the street and he stood for a moment and watched them. They scarcely spoke, but worked together in rhythm; Joe was aware of a calm understanding between them and felt jealous all over again. Perhaps they were childless, perhaps their whole relationship had been relaxed and stress-free. He pushed the thought away because it seemed like a betrayal. The cafe was still open, staffed now by a cheery young woman with a central-European accent, who said he was lucky to catch her because she was just about to close. He picked up two cappuccinos to take away, then rang the doorbell by the side of the shop. The shutters were open this time and he saw inside, to well-ordered shelves carrying reconditioned computers, laptops and the accessories that seemed essential to a high-tech lifestyle. A notice in the window advertised coding classes for kids and a beginners’ computer course for the over-sixties. It seemed that Gary Keane was branching out.

  Upstairs a window was open and music spilled out into the street. An instrumental jazz number that Joe vaguely recognized but couldn’t have named to save his life. He wondered if that was the kind of music that had played in The Seagull when it had been at the height of its popularity. He wished he’d been old enough to go there, even once, to appreciate the romance of the place. Sal would have loved it, would have spent all afternoon deciding what to wear. The music seemed very loud and Joe assumed Keane hadn’t heard the bell. He rang again and then knocked on the door. Still no response, and the sound of the knock was hidden by a sax riff above him. He turned the handle and the door opened. He climbed the stairs, the coffees in a cardboard holder in one hand.

  ‘Mr Keane.’ He shouted because the music seemed seductive and he didn’t want to be embarrassed by walking in on a sexual encounter. He was easily embarrassed, and he imagined stumbling on Gary Keane and some woman in various stages of undress.

  The stairs opened to Keane’s living room and, through a slightly open door, he saw the small kitchen beyond. The living room was as tidy as when Joe had last been there. No flimsy underwear. No sign of a woman at all, except that on the coffee table there was a bottle of Chablis in a cooler and two glasses. Half the bottle of wine remained, but the glasses were both empty. The music came from an old-fashioned gramophone, the records delicately stacked and ready to drop onto the turntable when needed. A slight breeze from the open window tugged at the curtains.

  ‘Mr Keane!’ His voice sounded unnaturally loud because the record had come to an end. There was a click as the needle lifted automatically and then another disc fell into place. This time it was a vocal. Ella Fitzgerald. Joe recognized it because she was a favourite of his father. He crossed the room and tapped on the door opposite. Still no answer. He pulled on latex gloves, before pushing it open. He’d look ridiculous if Keane turned up after running to the shops for a carton of milk, but the situation was starting to feel weird.

  This was the only bedroom, just big enough to hold a double bed, with a pine wardrobe in the alcove on one side of the chimneybreast. The bed had been made – not just a rumpled bottom sheet covered by a duvet, but properly made, the pillows smoothed. No sign of Keane. Joe gave a little laugh and thought he’d been overreacting. Keane and his friend had shared the wine and then gone out for a meal or to the pub, leaving the door open by mistake. But now he was here, perhaps he should look around. There might still be something he could give to Vera, an offering to make him her favourite again. There was nothing of interest in the bedroom – clothes stacked in drawers and in the wardrobe. Everything neat. The clothes well-worn but of good quality. How much cash could the man make by repairing and selling second-hand PCs? Surely he must have some other form of income.

  Beyond the bedroom there was a small shower room. Again, it seemed unnaturally tidy to Joe, as if the man had made a special effort to make the place look good. White towels folded on the stainless-steel rail, taps shiny, bleach still in the toilet bowl. Who had he been trying to impress?

  Back in the living room there was a sideboard, with a narrow drawer and two cupboards. One of the cupboards contained glasses and the other a selection of spirits. Again nothing cheap. A large bottle of The Botanist Islay gin and a malt whisky. In the drawer, a selection of papers and photographs. Joe took them out, listening all the time for voices in the street outside, footsteps on the stairs. In the background, Ella’s voice. He sat on the sofa with the papers spread over the coffee table. Keane’s passport, all in order with eighteen months left to run. In the last two years he’d travelled to the USA twice. The papers mostly related to the business. His most recent tax return. The shop was turning a profit, but only just, so how had Keane managed two American holidays? Joe jotted notes and thought that all this would be of interest to Vera. He returned the papers to the drawer and turned his attention to the photographs.

  The first one he looked at grabbed his attention. It had been taken on the terrace of The Seagull. Five men were gathered around a woman, who was buxom and blonde, with pink lipstick and sparkly blue eyelids. Keane was there, looking hardly more than a boy, his arms around two men who already featured on the incident-room whiteboard: Robbie Marshall and Gus Sinclair. On the other side of the woman stood two more men. One was John Brace. The other Joe had never met, but knew so well by reputation and legend that he’d become a big part of his life: Hector Stanhope, who still haunted Vera from the grave. The men were in evening dress and the woman was in a long, blue silk number that revealed more than it covered. They all had glasses in their hands and it was clearly some sort of celebration. Joe took a photo of the picture on his phone and moved on.

  The other photos were family snaps, mostly taken in the park and on the beach. There was one studio shot of a timid-looking woman whom Joe supposed was Patty Keane, with a baby in her arms, Keane himself standing behind them, playing the proud father. Later the images were mostly of the children. If Patty appeared at all, it was in the background, looking either vacant or harassed. John Brace appeared in one, again more formally composed. It must have been taken just before he was arrested. This time Patty had a toddler on her knee and Gary Keane held a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket. Brace stood behind them, looking rather stern, a Victorian gr
andfather. Joe took photographs of all of the images on his phone, then returned the pictures to the drawer. He thought he was pushing his luck. Soon Keane would be back to finish the wine.

  On his way to the stairs, on impulse he pushed open the kitchen door, thinking there might be more photos there, stuck to the fridge or on the noticeboard that he’d glimpsed as he came into the living room. The door jammed. There was something behind it that prevented it opening fully. Joe squeezed through the gap into a room that was so narrow he could touch both walls from where he stood. He saw that this was tidy too, compact as a yacht’s galley, pots washed and everything in its place. Except that crumpled behind the door, curled almost in a foetal position, lay Gary Keane, not at all how he should be. There was a thin knife in his stomach, and blood pooled on the laminate floor beneath him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After finding Gary’s body, Joe Ashworth stayed at the crime scene. He made the necessary phone calls, then ran back down into the street. The cafe was already closed and shuttered, with a sign on the door saying it would open again at seven the next morning. He’d missed the chance to talk to the barista with the cheery smile, but the gardeners were still there, packing their tools into the back of an estate car. Joe showed them his ID and they followed him back into the garden, where he could keep an eye on the entrance to Keane’s flat. There was a chill in the air, the first sign of autumn, but there was nowhere else to take them. They sat on one of the wooden benches, all in a row, so he had to lean forward to talk to the woman who was furthest away from him.

  ‘What time did you arrive?’

  They looked at each other. Their name was Miller, Philip and Becky. They were both teachers, childless, nobody to rush home to except the dog, and it wouldn’t hurt her to wait a bit longer for her evening walk.

  ‘About six.’ Becky did most of the talking. Philip seemed content to nod his agreement. ‘We just had a cup of tea and changed from our work stuff. There’s not a lot to do in the garden this time of the year, but we come once a week, just to keep an eye on things. To keep it tidy.’

  ‘Was Keane still in the shop then?’

  Becky shook her head. ‘I hoped he’d still be there, because usually the shutters are down when he’s closed. I’d brought my laptop for him to take a look at. I must have downloaded some virus, and Gary said he’d be able to sort it out for me. But the door was locked.’

  ‘You didn’t try to get him in the flat?’

  ‘No. It didn’t seem fair when he’d finished for the day. We don’t like it when parents buttonhole us in the street to talk about their kids. Besides, it’s not urgent.’ There was the same calm acceptance that Joe had sensed as he’d watched them working.

  ‘Did you notice if he had any visitors? Anyone knocking at the door to the apartment?’

  They paused for a few seconds. Joe experienced a moment of tension as he willed them to answer. They’d make good witnesses. If they had seen the person who’d visited Gary, it might break the case. But then they shook their heads in unison. ‘That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a visitor,’ Becky said. ‘If we had our backs to the street, we wouldn’t have seen.’ Only then did she show any curiosity. ‘Has he had a break-in?’

  Joe thought there was no harm in telling them. They weren’t the sort to get hysterical or to gossip. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Gary Keane’s dead.’ He was taking their phone numbers when he saw Vera pulling up in a work car. He thanked the couple and said he had to go. They walked together after him back to the street and the car. When he turned to say goodbye to them he saw they were still there, looking back at him, apparently curious at last.

  * * *

  Vera was putting on a scene suit, balancing against a lamp post while she pulled it over one foot at a time. When she’d done, she threw one to Joe. ‘Dr Keating’s on his way, and Billy Cartwright and his team. You’d better stay here until uniform arrives to monitor access. Then come up and join me.’

  When he found her she was standing in the kitchen, looking down at Gary Keane. She’d heard Joe coming up the stairs and shouted to let him know where she was. ‘I don’t think he was a decent man, but nobody deserves that, do they?’ She turned back to Joe. ‘So what do you think went on here?’

  ‘He let someone in, someone he knew. Maybe someone he wanted to impress. The flat was tidy. It was pretty clean when I came last, but I’d say he’d made a special effort. And he’d bought a good bottle of wine.’

  ‘A woman, do we think?’

  ‘Could have been. Or a man he wanted to do some work for. Or make things right with.’

  ‘This can’t be a coincidence.’ Vera was standing with her legs apart and her hands on her hips. There was hardly any room left for Joe in the kitchen and he was still standing in the doorway. ‘Two bodies, and now this.’

  ‘There’s evidence that he knew Marshall, Brace and Sinclair. I had a chance to look round the flat before I found the body.’ Joe led her back into the living room and showed her the photographs.

  She spread them over the coffee table, just as he’d done when he’d been there alone, and pointed to the studio image of Gary and his family, with John Brace standing behind them. ‘That must have been taken just before Brace was arrested. Interesting to see that Gary knew him earlier, though, before he married Patty.’ She’d moved on to the photo taken outside The Seagull and was staring at it. Joe thought her attention was focused on Hector. ‘I never saw him in a penguin suit.’ She was talking to herself, wrapped up in memories of her own. ‘I wonder where he kept it.’

  The window was still open and they heard voices on the pavement below, the uniformed officer making a note of the newcomers’ names.

  ‘That’s Paul Keating.’ Vera seemed to rouse herself. ‘I’ll get out of everyone’s way before they start. There’s no room to swing a cat, as it is. I’ve asked Hol to come and making a start on supervising the house-to-house. I don’t think we’ll get much this evening, though. It’s businesses in most of this street, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think the visitor probably arrived before six o’clock.’ Joe had been thinking about this since talking to the Millers. ‘Keane usually pulled down the shutters on the shop at the end of the working day, but they were up when I arrived. I think that suggests he was still in the business when his guest came along, and he didn’t have a chance to shut up properly. I spoke to a couple who were working in the community garden from six. The shop was already locked then and they didn’t see anyone arrive.’

  She nodded to show she accepted his reasoning and headed towards the stairs.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ If she’d had some brainwave – some idea that would make a difference in the case – he wanted to be a part of it.

  ‘I’m going to see Patty Keane,’ she said, ‘to tell her that her ex, the father of her kids, is dead.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They’d just finished their tea when the doorbell rang and Patty found Freya on her doorstep. Usually the social worker was in a rush, calling in on her way home from work. She asked if everything was okay, called out to the kids with a few questions about school, and then disappeared in her smart little car. It was as if the visit was something she had to do every month and, as long as everyone was alive, she wasn’t really interested. As if Patty was a box that had to be ticked.

  Today it seemed as if she had more time, and Patty wondered if that was Vera’s doing. Vera must have told her about the smashed window. ‘I hear you’ve had a break-in,’ the social worker said. ‘Is everything all right.’

  Patty explained that nothing had been taken and that the glazier had already been to replace the glass. ‘Actually, we think it might have been kids. A bit of mindless vandalism.’ The words sounded very grownup and calm and she forgot how panicky she’d been when she’d first arrived back at the house and seen the glass all over the floor.

  Then Freya actually sat down and played with Archie. Snap. He beat the young woman every time, and Patty could tell
she wasn’t just letting Archie win. ‘That’s a bright spark you’ve got there,’ Freya said. ‘He must really wear you out.’ Then she said there was a club he might like to go to during the half-term break. It was for able and gifted children and Archie might be easier to handle at home if he’d been doing stuff all day. ‘I had a chat with his teacher and she says he’s the best reader she’s got in her class.’

  Patty felt a glow of pride and thought that was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her for ages. Besides anything else, Jonnie and Jen would be much easier to handle with Archie out of the way.

  With Freya gone, she got the boys to bed and checked that Jen wasn’t watching anything unsuitable on her tablet. It was when the house was quiet that the guilt set in again. Patty knew she should be a better mother. A good mother would always monitor her kids’ viewing, play board games with them and encourage them out into the fresh air while the nights were still light. But most days it took all her energy to get them fed and their clothes clean, and she carried around the weight of guilt that she couldn’t do better.

  Tonight it was a relief that they were quiet. She looked at the pile of dishes in the sink and wondered if washing them could wait until tomorrow. But if she left them, there wouldn’t be any bowls for tomorrow’s breakfast, so she ran the water into the sink and made a start. She’d just about finished and was thinking she could have a cup of tea and a few episodes of Come Dine with Me, before taking herself off to bed, when there was a knock on the door. She went into the living room and looked round the grey net curtains before answering. It was Vera, the big detective, and Patty hurried to let her in, pleased to see her because it would be good to have a bit of adult company. She couldn’t wait to tell Vera the good news about Archie’s progress at school.

  ‘You’re out late.’ Because it was dark now and the street lights were on throughout the estate. ‘The window’s all sorted. There was no need to come out and check.’