The Seagull

by Ann Cleeves

  Charlie parked further along the road and they walked back to the professor’s house. The pavement was gritty with sand underfoot, and gulls were yelling overhead. The weather was finally starting to break and heavy clouds inland filtered the sunlight, made the reflection on the water steely, metallic. There was no car parked on the drive and when they looked through the small window into the garage, that was empty too.

  ‘He’s not here.’ Holly thought this had been a diversion. They should have gone straight back to the station in Kimmerston. She felt almost as if Charlie had led her astray, that she needed someone to blame for the wasted time.

  ‘We don’t know that yet. He could have a partner. Someone else who’s out in the family car.’ Charlie knocked on the door.

  There was no answer, and Holly looked through the ground-floor window into a room that seemed more like a library or a museum than a domestic dwelling. Each wall was covered with dark-wood shelves or display cases. Stuffed birds and animals stood next to Bradford’s own collections of poetry. It was as if he felt they belonged together. On one shelf there was a row of skulls, white and bleached, some tiny, others big enough to have belonged to much larger animals, deer perhaps. Holly thought Christine had been right. There was nothing romantic or sentimental about Bradford’s vision of the countryside. She had a sudden image of the pile of bones that had been found in the culvert at St Mary’s and it occurred to her that the professor would probably have welcomed a human skull for his collection. Under the window there was a desk with a laptop. Charlie knocked again. Still no answer.

  He walked round the side of the house. Holly followed. Between the garage and the main building there was a gate with an old-fashioned latch, which led into a garden that was overgrown and lush and seemed to be the professor’s personal nature reserve. In one corner, almost hidden by vegetation, was a large pond. The garden backed onto open farmland and was separated from it by a hedge of hawthorn and elder. Charlie stood for a moment, looking out at the wilderness, then turned his attention to the house.

  If the front room was the professor’s workspace, the back of the building was where he lived when he wasn’t in his first-floor eyrie staring out to sea. A wall must have been knocked through to create one space, and large glass doors led into the garden. There was a kitchen that gave the impression of a foodie who enjoyed cooking – a pot of basil on the windowsill, a cookbook on the bench – and a dining space with a table that would seat ten comfortably. Holly was starting to be curious about this man.

  ‘Looks as if he was here this morning,’ Charlie said. ‘There’s breakfast things on the draining board.’ A small coffee pot and mug, cereal bowl, side-plate and knife. ‘Maybe we’re too late, and someone from the university frightened him off. But at least we know who he is now and where to find him. No doubt this is the man.’ He tried the door into the kitchen, but it was locked.

  They walked back to the front of the house and stood for a moment staring back at it.

  ‘Excuse me!’ A woman appeared from the neighbouring garden. ‘Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?’ Holly recognized the accent as posh Scouse.

  ‘We were hoping to speak to the professor.’ Charlie slid in before Holly. He could have been someone selling financial advice or a new kitchen. ‘We had an appointment.’

  ‘Well, he’s not there. He went off quite suddenly this morning, some family crisis apparently.’ She paused. ‘We were supposed to be going in for drinks this evening. The whole street. A regular thing.’ She sounded disappointed. Holly thought the professor must throw a good party.

  ‘Are you expecting him back later?’

  ‘He said he’d be away for at least a couple of days. Left it to me to tell everyone else that he had to cancel this evening. I suppose he’ll be staying in his flat in Tyneside.’ A note of disapproval. It seemed that Tyneside wasn’t her kind of place. But Holly thought there was an inevitability to the professor’s destination. Whitley Bay was where this investigation had started and it would be where it would end.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The Whitley Bay Regeneration Project office was locked. Vera stood outside for a moment and wondered if that was significant. She’d heard from Holly that the professor had disappeared again, and imagined him and Sinclair on a flight from Newcastle airport. They’d have met up in the posh lounge, shared a bottle of fizz to celebrate how clever they were, and now they’d be flying to somewhere warm and anonymous where nobody would find them. Then she checked the opening times and saw that the office closed for a couple of hours every afternoon. She told herself that she was getting paranoid, imagining conspiracy theories where she had no evidence for them.

  She drove to Tynemouth and to the grand crescent where the Sinclairs lived, ignored the signs about private parking, and slipped through the barrier after another vehicle. She almost hoped someone would challenge her, because she was in the mood for a fight. She still remembered Rebecca’s parents sitting in their garden in Holywell. The father, made garrulous by the shock. ‘I always believed, deep down, that Rebecca had run away and that one day she’d come back to us. Of course I saw there’d been bodies found at St Mary’s, but that was two people – a couple, I thought.’ Shock had turned the mother to stone. She hadn’t moved even to wipe the tears that were sliding down her cheeks.

  Sinclair opened the door of the flat. He looked sleek and comfortable and Vera wanted to hit him.

  ‘Vera! To what do we owe the pleasure?’ The Scottish accent gentle, the voice teasing. He thought he was untouchable.

  ‘Rebecca Murray.’ She pushed past him into the light and tasteful living room and looked down at the sea. ‘You remember the name?’

  ‘That lassie who went missing? Of course I do. Her poor parents were distraught. She was rather a wild child, I seem to recall. According to the media reports. I never met her myself. The thought was that she’d run away to London to make her fortune.’

  ‘And whose thought, exactly, was that?’

  Vera had raised her voice, and Elaine appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, tea towel in hand. She saw Vera and turned back.

  ‘Just you stay here, lady.’ Vera was at her most imperious. ‘You were working at The Seagull at the time, and you probably employed her. The way I heard it, you made all the decisions. I’m told you were practically running the place.’

  Vera thought she detected a brief flash of satisfaction in the woman’s face – pleasure that her role in The Seagull had been recognized at last. But she said nothing, and it was Sinclair who spoke.

  ‘There was never any record that Rebecca Murray worked for us.’ He’d given up being conciliatory and was losing his temper too.

  ‘So now she was a liar, as well as a wild child.’

  They were all still standing, and it was Elaine who attempted to calm them. She seemed suddenly anxious. ‘Look, why don’t you sit down, Vera? I was going to make some coffee. I’m sure Gus will answer any questions you might have about the girl.’

  Vera took a seat. ‘No coffee, thank you, pet, though that’s very kind.’ She could play games of her own. ‘You’re right, Elaine. I’m sure Gus here has a rational explanation as to why two people, both linked to The Seagull, ended up dead and buried in a culvert at St Mary’s Island.’

  There was a moment of silence. Sinclair stood, frozen, for a moment. ‘I thought you’d identified the second body as Mary-Frances.’

  ‘We made an assumption. You know what they say: Assume and U make an Ass out of Me.’ A quick, tight smile. She’d been taught that once at a training course, and for some reason it had stuck.

  ‘Maybe you’re making another assumption about the missing schoolgirl.’

  ‘It appears not. You’d be surprised what they can do with a pile of bones these days.’ If she’d had any qualms about lying, she’d have crossed her fingers behind her back, but Vera had never been superstitious. And she was convinced that the body belonged to Rebecca Murray. She didn’t need Doc Keati
ng or his anthropologist pal to confirm it. ‘So now I need you to tell me everything you know about Rebecca Murray.’

  There was silence, then a faint sound in the distance that might have been thunder. It was the end of the summer. ‘Vera!’ He raised his arms, a theatrical gesture of helplessness. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘The case appeared on Crimewatch on the BBC. The Seagull was mentioned. Not something a businessman like you would forget easily.’

  ‘The Crimewatch thing wasn’t on until later, on the year’s anniversary of the girl’s disappearance, and by then The Seagull had burned to the ground. At the time that she went missing there was a big splash in the local media, but nothing national. And, strangely, we didn’t lose any business. Rather the opposite. The ghoulish and the curious turned up to check us out. It was just before the fire, and we had the best month’s takings that we’d had for years.’ Sinclair gave a little smile. Now that the shock of Vera’s first accusation was over, he’d regained his composure.

  ‘Convenient,’ she said. ‘So the insurers wouldn’t question the cause of the fire. Not if takings were rising.’

  ‘Vera, you’re such a cynic.’ A pause. ‘Hector would be proud of you.’

  She ignored the comment, thought that Hector would never have been proud of her, whatever she did. ‘So take me through the events of that week. Rebecca told her parents she was working for you as a waitress. She worked a couple of daytime shifts in the restaurant. Are you telling me that’s not true?’ She turned in her seat. ‘Elaine?’

  ‘We couldn’t find any record of her working there.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Vera felt her temper rising again. ‘She either worked for you or she didn’t. You would have interviewed her.’

  Elaine hesitated before answering. ‘I interviewed her and offered her a job. We told her we’d add her to our casual rota. She was a bonny girl with a bit of spark to her. She’d either be brilliant and the punters would love her, or she’d be arsy and a nightmare to deal with. You know the sort.’

  Vera nodded. Holly came to mind. Vera still wasn’t sure what category Hol would fall into – brilliant or a nightmare – but thought that these days her DC was shaping up nicely.

  ‘I said if she wanted, she could come in and shadow some of the staff. That was the weekend before she disappeared. It was purely voluntary and she wouldn’t be paid, but she’d get her lunch. I thought if she decided it was too much like hard work, she wouldn’t come back and I wouldn’t have to set up PAYE for nothing. But at that point she wasn’t on the payroll and she wasn’t an official member of staff.’

  ‘So you told the officers investigating her disappearance that she didn’t work at The Seagull. That it was nothing to do with you and, if they checked your books, they wouldn’t find her.’

  Elaine nodded. ‘The last thing we needed was to be mixed up with a missing school kid.’

  ‘Didn’t they come and chat to the other lasses working in the restaurant?’

  This time Sinclair answered. ‘At that point she was a runaway teenager who’d fallen out with her over-strict parents. They weren’t going to make a big deal of it. They thought she’d be shacked up with some lad and would come crawling back home when she needed her laundry washing.’

  ‘But now it’s a murder inquiry, and you’ve got even more to lose than you did when you were running The Seagull. These days you’re in charge of the coastal regeneration, and I understand you’ve even got your old pal Judith Brace investing. Your shareholders wouldn’t like to hear that you’ve not cooperated fully with our investigation. So I need you to tell me everything you know about Rebecca Murray, otherwise we’ll be taking you up to Kimmerston for questioning, and I’ll make sure the press is there to see you on your way into the station.’

  Another long silence. The clouds had moved across the sun and the strange metallic sheen on the water had dulled. Again it was Elaine who spoke next.

  ‘Becca. That was what she called herself. There was something special about her. She was an actor. I could tell that, even while I was doing her interview. She could tell what you wanted from her, and she was willing to give it.’

  ‘And what did she want?’ Vera leaned forward, elbows on her knees, not caring that it made her skirt ride up.

  ‘Danger. Excitement. That was why I wanted to keep an eye on her. She was one of those kids who are on the edge. She could have been a great asset to the business. She was stunning to look at, you know, even dressed for school; and she wasn’t far off eighteen, when we could have employed her in the club, not just the restaurant. But you could tell that it might be a risk to take her on. She had that glitter about her. Needing to be the centre of attention. Desperate for celebrity. And stifled by those parents, who couldn’t understand her at all, so everything was a battle. She was used to a challenge, that was the way she operated.’ Elaine stopped, shrugged. ‘Sorry, that all sounds a bit daft.’

  ‘No,’ Vera said. ‘You’re helping me to see her. I’ve known kids like that. Needing extremes. Terrified by boredom.’ The ones who become addicts. Who jump across rail tracks to paint crazy graffiti, and who steal for the fun of it. Or who become decorated soldiers, famous explorers and award-winning entrepreneurs. ‘So she was in the club the weekend before she went missing?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Elaine again. Vera wasn’t sure if she was protecting her husband or if Gus really had never met the girl. Certainly he seemed to have nothing to contribute to the conversation. ‘She came in on the Saturday. She was just supposed to be watching, but she was bright. Eager, you know, and she ended up working. The Sunday lunchtime, she came back and did just as much as the regulars. We gave her some cash in hand and her share of the tips.’

  ‘What happened?’ Because Vera could tell that something had happened. It was the way Elaine could remember it all so vividly. The way she’d been so anxious when Vera had appeared, full of questions.

  ‘Nothing then.’ A pause. ‘Robbie Marshall was in the restaurant that day. He’d have meetings there sometimes, when he wanted to impress his classier contacts. Occasionally he brought his boss from the administrators who were managing Swan Hunter’s assets.’

  ‘Who was he with? That Sunday before Rebecca went missing?’

  ‘I don’t know. A man. I didn’t recognize him. Honestly, Vera! Robbie didn’t have many friends. Just your dad, the Prof. and John Brace. But he had dozens of contacts. People he bought from and sold to. This guy looked like some sort of businessman on a jolly. Overweight. Crumpled suit. Robbie needed something from him. I could tell that. The way he was laughing too loudly at the bad jokes. The way he splashed out on a good wine. Becca served them.’

  Vera started to understand. Robbie Marshall could get you anything you wanted, after all. ‘And this overweight businessman took a shine to the lass?’

  ‘He was practically drooling. It was gross.’ Elaine shot a look at her husband, but he remained impassive. ‘Gus wasn’t there that weekend. He was south on business. I was running the place on my own and I didn’t want to piss off any of the important punters.’

  ‘So, did Robbie set her up with the man?’ The anger that Vera had felt on storming into the flat had returned with a vengeance. She felt like screaming. But the question came out quiet, matter-of-fact.

  ‘Not then. She finished the shift. Like I said, we paid her and shared out the tips, and I told Becca there’d be a job for her if she wanted it. But Robbie was waiting for her outside. I saw him, leaning over the rails on the Esplanade, looking out at the water. As if the cargo ships leaving the Tyne were the most important things in the world. All the time keeping an eye on the staff entrance to the Gull, watching out for Becca, because I could tell he’d promised her to the fat bloke he’d bought lunch for.’

  ‘You didn’t warn her? You didn’t say something?’ The words still quiet, still restrained.

  ‘What would I say, Vera? I was probably about the same age as her mother. A girl like that, do you think she’d
have listened? She’d have seen it as a challenge, met up with the guy anyway, just to prove to me that she could handle him.’

  And anyway, you didn’t want to piss off the important punters.

  But Vera nodded. Elaine was probably right, and Becca wouldn’t have listened to reason. She wondered what Robbie had said. The guy’s a lonely man, new to the town. He just wants a bit of company. A pretty young woman on his arm to share a meal and a few drinks with. Nothing more than that, and there’ll be a few quid for you. And she’d probably been naive enough to believe him. ‘Did they meet in The Seagull the night she went missing, Becca and the fat man?’

  ‘They met outside. I told Robbie she was underage and I wouldn’t let her in. I presume he found them somewhere else to go.’

  Of course he would! Robbie Marshall, the fixer, the master procurer. How could your mother love you so much, Robbie? When all this comes out, it’ll kill her.

  Elaine was still talking. ‘It was a mistake. I should have let them into the club. Then I could have kept an eye on her.’

  ‘The name of the businessman?’

  Elaine shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Vera, I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did.’

  Vera looked at her sharply, but couldn’t tell whether Elaine was telling the truth or not. She’d be a good liar. One of the best.

  ‘And you never told this to the police at the time, when there was a missing-person’s inquiry looking for Rebecca, when her parents were desperate to know what had happened to her?’

  The woman’s silence was answer enough.

  Chapter Forty

  Back in the station and Vera was as tense as Joe had ever seen her. Still seething after her conversation with Sinclair and his wife, but driven, seeing an end to the case at last. Sitting at the front of the briefing, Joe was worried about her, worried that the emotion – the anger – would trigger a heart attack. A woman of her age and with her weight shouldn’t get this wound up. She’d already been warned about her blood pressure, took medication for it, when she could be bothered to remember.