by Sarah May
When the door to number two Marine Drive opened the night before, he really did think it was Laura standing in front of him, framed in the doorway. After twenty years, it was entirely possible and reasonable to him that he should find her exactly as he’d left her and it took him a while to come to terms with the fact that the girl he thought was Laura was in fact Laura’s daughter. It was then that he saw her walking through the school gates and started to energetically sound his horn.
Her face did exactly what he wanted it to when she saw him: it opened up – surprise followed by pleasure. He was so happy he was virtually bouncing in his seat by the time she’d crossed the road and got to the van. He leant over the passenger seat and threw open the door for her and that’s when she hesitated.
He let out a sound midway between a laugh and a choke, suddenly terrified she was about to change her mind, but then she jumped up into the seat, slamming the door shut and locking it. A second later there was a man outside, banging on the window. Jamie tilted his head to stare at the man’s palms, which looked swollen and white against the glass – like those of a drowned man.
‘It’s the Inspector,’ Martha said, in shock. ‘Laviolette.’
At the sound of the name, Jamie burst out laughing, the tattooed web on the side of his neck taking the strain of the sudden hysteria.
Without knowing why, Martha started laughing as well.
The sight of the Inspector, sweating on the pavement as they pulled away, struck her suddenly as the most absurd thing in the world. She pressed her left hand into her stomach – she was laughing so hard it was bruising her muscles – watching in the wing mirror as the Inspector continued to reduce in size by the second until he disappeared altogether when they turned right at the end of the road.
After this, they felt silent.
Martha sat clutching her rucksack on her lap, looking around the van, out the window and eventually at Jamie.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I don’t know – where do you want to go?’
‘Norway,’ Martha said decisively.
Jamie, who’d been smiling happily, stopped smiling and gave his nose a few vicious rubs as he tried to work this one out.
‘I’ve always wanted to go to Norway,’ Martha carried on, ‘it’s just across the sea – I’d like to see the fjords.’
He kept flicking her nervous glances while trying to keep his eyes on the road.
She watched his face tense as he thought about this then laid her hand suddenly on his arm, ‘But not today,’ she reassured him.
Then his face broke suddenly into a smile again.
Martha stared out the window thinking about a lot of things at once – including Norway.
‘How was school today?’ he asked after a while.
For some reason the question made her laugh.
‘Good? Not good?’
‘It’s never good.’ She carried on staring out the window as they passed a gas works on their left.
‘That bag of yours looks heavy.’
‘It is,’ she said, looking down at her rucksack. ‘Books – games kit.’
‘So what is it, O’Levels this year or whatever they call them?’
‘GCSEs – some this year, some next.’
‘How many are you taking?’
‘Twelve – including Mandarin.’
‘What the fuck’s Mandarin?’
‘Chinese.’
Jamie laughed. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. China’s emerging as a market leader.’
‘Listen to you,’ he said, pleased. ‘So the Chinks are taking over the world?’
‘Maybe – in a couple of years’ time.’
He smiled happily to himself, thinking about this.
Five minutes later they turned onto Tynemouth Front Street, the priory ruins rising ahead of them.
‘I know where I am now.’ He twisted his head as they passed Starz Salon. ‘Your mum’s place. We could call in.’
Martha didn’t say anything as they turned the corner past the priory and started to head down the hill. ‘Wait. Stop here.’
Jamie pulled up outside St George’s church.
‘I want to get out. I want to walk on the beach.’
They got ice creams from the van parked opposite – run by a woman called Kath – which doubled up as a mobile library; the shelves at the back of the van were full of books Kath was happy to lend or exchange.
Kath was sitting outside the van on an old stool, smoking and reading ‘Mrs Dalloway’. She waved – recognising Martha.
‘Alright, pet?’
‘Hi Kath – this is my uncle Jamie.’
‘Alright, Jamie?’ Kath said automatically.
Most people were bothered by Jamie when they met him for the first time. They felt a subconscious mental, spiritual and physical aversion; the sort of aversion healthy, intact people instinctively feel towards the damaged and abused – who have been forced to acknowledge things about the world and the people in it that the majority would rather spend their lives never knowing.
Martha hadn’t been bothered by Jamie.
Kath wasn’t either.
She was a terse woman who valued her private thoughts.
Her eyes didn’t linger on his tattoos; they were happy to confront his eyes.
Jamie waited for her to recoil in the way he’d got used to people doing on the outside and that made him feel – for the few seconds it lasted – as if all the breath had been drawn suddenly out of the world.
But Kath didn’t recoil, and he rewarded her with a smile very few people saw; one that – for as long as it lasted – gave his eyes an extraordinary depth.
They headed down the steps cut into the cliff, Martha taking off her shoes and socks as soon as they got onto the beach where there was a wind blowing that at long last lifted the heat.
‘You should take your shoes off.’
Jamie hesitated before sitting down on a rock and pulling his trainers off awkwardly. His feet were white and he wasn’t wearing any socks. Martha could see the impressions of holes across the top of his feet where the eyeholes from his laces had been digging in.
‘Is that better?’ she said as he joined her and they started to walk away from the crowds congregating round the beach café, Crusoes, towards the sea, which was a long way out.
They stood paddling, the water lapping sluggishly round their ankles – Jamie flinching sporadically and checking behind him – as if life was taking place just over his shoulder at a forty-five degree angle.
There were hardly any waves and the water only came to the waists of three children far out to sea, trying to clamber onto an inflatable green dinosaur.
Jamie was watching them intently as if their game would help him to understand something he’d been trying to understand for a long time.
Martha was watching them as well – remembering what it was like to play in the sea at that age, and not have to think about her body.
After a while, she said, ‘Last night – when I said you sounded like dad on the phone? I meant it.’
‘You were close?’
‘We are close.’ She paused, lifting her foot out the water. ‘He’s still alive. I saw him yesterday. I was coming out of school and he was standing under a tree not far from where you were parked.’ She paused again. ‘I didn’t see him today.’
Martha caught hold suddenly of his arm with both her hands and rested her head against him. ‘He had blond hair, and he looked so thin. He had a dog with him – a Husky.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
Martha shook her head, staring out to sea still, which was empty now – the current had taken the children and their dinosaur elsewhere.
‘He wanted me to see him. He wants me to know he’s still alive.’
Jamie remained silent, thinking about this.
He ran his hand over her hair a couple of times then they started to walk back up the beach, people wondering in the absent way people did
– about the schoolgirl and ill-looking man with tattoos. Martha felt their eyes on them, but Jamie remained oblivious, lost in thought. She didn’t need to ask him whether he believed her – she could tell he did.
‘Have you told anybody else?’ he asked her. ‘The police?’
Martha was about to respond to this when she saw a woman in a white jumper running across the sand towards them.
‘Martha!’ Anna called out.
She’d been standing at the water’s edge – only a couple of metres away – when she’d turned and seen them.
‘It’s okay,’ Martha said automatically, trying to reassure Anna, who was staring at Jamie because he looked a lot more like his brother, Bryan, than she remembered. ‘It’s okay,’ Martha said again.
Anna felt a wave of something close to pity pass over her as she laid eyes on Jamie Deane – who she’d last seen when she was a terrified thirteen-year-old; only a couple of years younger than Martha was now. She wondered if Laura knew her daughter was down on Tynemouth Longsands with Jamie Deane, who she could feel watching her now – without any particular resonance. He didn’t recognise her.
‘Anna Faust,’ she said, pausing awkwardly in the interlude following the introduction. She saw his face flicker with effort as he sought to remember her, and was about to say something when Martha said, ‘He didn’t do it, Anna. Tell her,’ she commanded Jamie.
But Jamie remained silent, his eyes on Anna.
Martha, frustrated, carried on, ‘He spent twenty years in prison for something he never did – because mum lied. The afternoon that man was killed, she was with him. She was with him the whole time.’
Looking from Martha to Jamie, Anna saw again Laura Deane sitting on the top of the stairs that day – sullen, scared – inside number fifteen Parkview.
‘You,’ Jamie said, becoming suddenly conscious of who Anna was. ‘I remember you. Bryan’s little friend.’
‘I knew it,’ Martha put in.
‘Why little?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. For some reason I always thought of you as little. I remember you,’ he said again, pleased. ‘Funny,’ he carried on slowly, more to himself.
Anna watched them climb up the steps past where the Grand Hotel used to stand before it was burnt down, back onto the cliff top road, unable to move from the spot. She was still standing there thirty minutes later when Inspector Laviolette arrived.
Laviolette drove along the coastal road towards Blyth. He wanted to talk to Anna, who he’d given up trying to call, and was just passing the Toy Museum when he saw her canary-coloured Capri parked not far from where Bryan Deane parked Easter Saturday, although she couldn’t have known this.
He parked as close to the Capri as he could and left a note under the windscreen asking her to wait for him in the car if their paths didn’t cross.
Then he stood for a while near the bench he’d seen Bryan Deane standing next to on the CCTV footage, and decided to conduct his own four minute vigil while scanning the beach and sea for Anna. It was low tide and there were no waves so she wouldn’t be surfing, but there were people in the water, swimming – mostly children.
His eyes picked out solitary figures as he checked his watch.
Two minutes had passed – two minutes that felt like ten, but then time was relative. It struck him again how long four minutes could be.
Then he saw her – he was sure it was her; at the water’s edge in a white jumper, her hair blowing. Unlike most of the solitary walkers on the beach, she had no dog with her.
She’d made an impression on him – enough of an impression for him to recognise her at a distance of over two hundred metres, and the sense of recognition was something he felt in his stomach. This made him afraid in a way he hadn’t been for years – decades even.
He checked his watch again.
Ten minutes had passed – ten minutes that felt like two.
He went down onto the beach using the same steps Jamie and Martha had, crossing the sand marked with their footprints still, towards Anna standing in the shallows, her shoes in her hand.
He tried calling out her name, but the wind, which was much stronger this close to the sea, tore it out of his mouth and carried it away.
She must have seen his shadow on the sand, drawing alongside hers – the two shadows stretching out from their owners at a forty-five degree angle – because she turned to look in his direction then, surprised to find herself no longer alone.
She smiled suddenly at him as if it had taken her a while to remember who he was.
He smiled back, trying to work out whether she was genuinely pleased to see him or not. ‘You were thinking about Bryan Deane,’ he said suddenly.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘I was.’
‘Is that why you came here?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, staring down at her left foot as she drew it through the water.
The tide had turned; it was coming in now, and the waves were picking up and beginning to rush in the way they had a reputation for doing along this stretch of coast. It was a dangerous reputation to ignore, but summer after summer the coastguard were sent out to rescue tourists who’d taken a chance against the incoming tide at Holy Island and got stranded on the causeway.
‘How did you find me?’ Anna said after a while.
‘What makes you think I was looking for you?’
She laughed lightly and, without saying anything, they turned and started walking back down the beach at an angle, the tide was coming in so fast.
‘I saw your car parked on the cliff top. I was coming to see you anyway,’ he conceded, ‘but this saved me the journey. Do you want to get a beer or something?’
She hesitated then, nodding, followed him to Crusoes, the Longsands beach café where they managed to get a table outside on the decking. When he went in to get the beers, she slung her feet over the rope railing, tilted her head back and let her eyes shut.
Laviolette re-appeared a couple of minutes later. ‘I’ve never been here before,’ he said.
‘Any reason why you should have?’
‘I live in Tynemouth.’
‘I didn’t realise,’ she said, watching him.
‘In fact, apart from the investigation, I can’t remember the last time I took a walk on the beach.’
‘Well, you took a walk just now.’
‘I did,’ he agreed, smiling at her – pleased.
They sat in silence, watching people arrive and leave the beach.
‘You’re going to miss this,’ Laviolette observed, ‘when you go back to London.’ Then, when Anna didn’t respond, ‘The offer still stands. DS Chambers is moving back to Teeside to be near his wife’s family.’
Anna nodded, smiling. ‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘It is simple. You’re only renting in London – you haven’t got a place to sell.’
Anna pushed her chin down onto her chest, thinking about this.
‘Have you never thought about coming back?’
‘I’ve thought about it.’
They fell silent again.
‘Is that what you wanted to see me about?’
Laviolette shook his head as a woman came out to clear the table next to them.
‘We’re closing – ten minutes time,’ she said.
Neither Laviolette nor Anna responded.
‘Martha’s seen Bryan.’
Without commenting on this, Anna turned to watch a father attempt to organise his family into a game of beach cricket, the long legged teenage daughter refusing to listen, no longer interested in being a part of this tribe she’d grown up in because that wasn’t where life was at any more. The breakaway years . . . too old to run away from home, too young to officially leave.
Anna found herself staring at the pouting, sullen girl before turning her attention back to Laviolette.
‘She already told you,’ he said, watching her.
Anna nodded. ‘Yesterday. When did she tell you?’
�
��She didn’t.’
‘So who did?’
‘Laura Deane – this morning. When were you going to tell me?’ Laviolette asked softly, without pausing.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know whether I believe her.’
‘Do you want to believe her?’
Anna didn’t say anything. ‘What did Laura say?’
‘That Martha lies a lot; that she didn’t want me wasting time and resources chasing a ghost.’
‘Only you don’t think it’s a ghost Martha saw.’
‘I think Martha wasn’t meant to see Bryan, but she did.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’
‘Here’s another way – Laura phoned the school this morning and had Martha referred to the psychologist. Assuming Laura knows that Bryan’s still alive – she also knows that Martha’s telling the truth. Do you see what I’m saying?’
The boy on the table next to them, reading a book and waiting for a girl, glanced up at them – then at his watch, then back down at the book.
‘There’s a child somewhere in the middle of all this, and she’s losing ground as we speak,’ Laviolette explained in a strained undertone, ‘so whatever it is you know; whatever it is you’re thinking; whatever it is you’re feeling even – now’s the time to share.’ He was leaning forward, watching her intently. ‘D’you want to have dinner with me?’
Anna stood up. ‘Not tonight.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Let’s carry on walking.’
He followed her up the road beyond Crusoes that led onto the cliff top, and they carried on walking uphill towards the headland where the priory was.
They passed a group of school children sitting propped in the shade against the wall of the new public conveniences, eating chips and ice pops – using them as props to flirt with.
‘When we were children,’ Anna said, ‘Bryan used to draw. He was a brilliant draughtsman. It’s a damning testimony to the school he went to that they never picked up on it. After his mother died he used to draw in our garden – insects and stuff; mostly insects.’
They walked past the entrance to the priory and turned down Pier Road onto the Spanish Battery.
‘They really were brilliant – the drawings. I mean, he had a real talent,’ Anna insisted, as if Laviolette was disputing this. ‘The day of Erwin’s funeral, somebody posted a drawing through my door – of a butterfly.’