by Ann Cleeves
‘The fourth man in the gang.’ Vera couldn’t help interrupting. ‘The one I never met, the one they called “the Prof.” Do we think he was at Bebington Grammar too? Hector was older, and at a private school just outside Alnwick, so he must have met Brace and Marshall later.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about the Prof. Brace married Judith Waterson when he was twenty-five. A marriage of convenience, according to rumours. Her dad was a magistrate and friends with the chief constable. They seemed happy enough, at the beginning at least. According to lads who knew him at the time.’ He paused. ‘Robbie never married and always lived with his mam. His father died soon after he left school and he was an only child. She had one of the houses looking over the park in Wallsend. Considered quite a smart address at the time.’
‘Do we know why he never married?’ Vera asked. ‘Was he gay, do we think?’
Charlie shook his head to show he had no opinion about that and stuck a couple of photos of Robbie Marshall on the whiteboard. ‘These are the pictures we used when he went missing and we were asking the public for information.’ Joe looked at a thin-faced man, ratty, with specs stuck on a long nose. One photo had been taken at a works do. He was sitting with others at a dinner table cleared of food, a coffee cup and a brandy glass remaining. He grinned back at the camera and his nose was red. The other picture had been taken outside. Marshall was dressed in country-gent clothes, a sweater and a tweed jacket, leaning over a stone bridge that crossed a river. In the background and out of focus stood a tall figure wearing leather boots and a long oiled coat.
Joe wondered if the man might be Hector, but Vera jabbed a stubby finger at him. ‘Could that be the Prof.?’
‘No data.’ Charlie glanced down at his notes, but Joe could tell he didn’t really need them. Since Charlie’s daughter had moved back home, the man had come back to life. After coasting towards retirement, sliding gently into depression because his wife had found herself another man, he’d become one of the most effective members of the team. ‘Marshall was reported missing by his mother on 26th June 1995. The shipyard had been taken into receivership in ’93, after it had failed to win an order from the government to build a new ship for the Royal Navy, but Robbie was still employed there. He was kept on by the receivers to do an audit of the equipment. He was in his early forties and he had the skills to get other work, but he would have been useful to them and I assume they paid him well. According to his mother, he’d enjoyed his new role; it suited him better than the work he’d been doing before. It was all about the figures, and he’d always liked figures.’
Charlie paused to take a breath. Joe was thinking about the great shipyard on the Tyne and all the men who had worked there, of the huge ships that had dwarfed the terraced houses when they slid into the river on launch day. One of his uncles had been a riveter and another a joiner. ‘Would Marshall have been seen as a scab, working for the receivers?’
‘Nah, I think they’d just have thought he was a lucky bugger, coming out of it with a job.’
‘So, did the man simply disappear into thin air?’ Vera was getting impatient now.
‘Almost.’ Charlie was looking at the statement given by Marshall’s mother. ‘It was a Sunday. Robbie Marshall drove north to spend a day walking and bird-watching with his friends John Brace and Hector Stanhope.’ A nod towards Vera.
‘I wasn’t living at home then,’ Vera said. ‘I’d already joined up.’
‘His mother expected him home for dinner. She always cooked the main meal in the evening at weekends, because he’d be out all day. When he didn’t turn up at the expected time she phoned Hector’s house. Hector said that John and Robbie had left half an hour before, and Robbie should be back soon. He apologized if they’d inconvenienced her. They’d been chatting and hadn’t noticed the time passing. An hour later she called John Brace. He wasn’t at home and she spoke to Judith, who told her she wasn’t expecting John back until much later. Mrs Marshall thought perhaps they’d decided to go out together, stuck his dinner in the fridge and took herself to bed. When he wasn’t there in the morning, she reported him officially missing. She told the officer taking the statement that her son had never once been absent from work.’
‘What did John Brace have to say? He must have been the last person to see Robbie Marshall before he vanished.’ Vera had jumped down from the desk and was walking backwards and forwards in front of the whiteboard.
‘In his statement at the time, Brace says they drove in separate cars from Hector’s cottage. They chatted briefly outside the house before they set off down the valley. Robbie gave the impression that he was going straight home. Certainly that was the usual pattern on a Sunday and he didn’t mention doing anything different. Brace said he’d arranged to meet up with an informant in a bar out on the coast in Whitley Bay. That was why he’d told his wife that he wouldn’t be back until late. Judith was already asleep when he got home, so she didn’t pass on the message from Robbie’s mam. Brace said he didn’t know Robbie hadn’t got home until the next morning, when Mrs Marshall contacted him in a panic; he told her to make an official statement that her son was missing.’
There was a silence in the room, broken only by the slapping of Vera’s horrible sandals against the lino floor. She stopped suddenly. ‘How much effort did they put into looking for Marshall? He was an old pal of John Brace, superhero and thief-taker at the time. You’d have thought they’d move heaven and earth.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘They found Marshall’s car three days later in the long-stay car park at Newcastle Airport. The assumption was that he’d done a bunk. Off to one of the sunny places where he liked to holiday. His name wasn’t on any of the passenger lists, but the thought was that he knew lots of bad lads in Tyneside and he’d have access to forged papers. One theory was that he’d been creaming cash and equipment from the yard while he was doing the audit for the receivers and he knew he was about to get caught.’
Joe thought all that made sense. He imagined an elderly Robbie Marshall sitting in the sun on the balcony of a Spanish apartment, using a different name, his long nose even redder.
‘Did Hector or John Brace ever hear from him again?’ Vera hoisted herself up onto a desk. It took some effort.
‘I’m not sure anyone asked them. Marshall was an adult. There were more important things to lose sleep about.’
‘His mam would have lost sleep, though,’ Vera said. ‘I don’t suppose she’s still alive.’
‘Aye.’ Charlie didn’t need to check his notes to answer that one. ‘She’s in her nineties but still in the same house.’
‘That gives us somewhere to start then. If she gets flown out to Malaga every summer for her holidays, we’ll know Brace is telling us porkies just to wind us up.’
‘Or to make sure someone’s looking after his daughter.’ Joe hated to admit that Brace might have noble motives for spreading the tale of Marshall’s death, but he knew how he’d feel if Jess was in trouble and he couldn’t get to help her.
‘Aye, maybe.’ Vera sounded as if she didn’t believe a word of it. But then Vera had never had any children.
Chapter Eight
Joe was better at taking centre-stage these days. When he’d first worked for Vera he could tell he irritated her with his reluctance to speak for himself. She’d given him that: a kind of confidence. A belief in his own ability. Today, though, she interrupted before he’d hardly started.
‘Did you find out anything about Patty’s mother? That’d be a good way in.’
‘She could be any number of women. Brace was known for consorting with working girls. Most of them addicts. He saw it as his due.’
‘Do you have names for these women Brace consorted with?’
Holly interrupted before Joe could answer. ‘Patty will be able to tell you the mother’s name. If she got access to her own birth certificate.’
‘So she will. I should have asked Patty for her birth mother’s name while I was there
.’ This was Vera admitting a mistake. A rarity. ‘And the woman must have been special to Brace, mustn’t she? If he acknowledged that he was the father of her child.’ Again she moved on, before the others could reply, and was doing sums in her head. ‘Patty’s thirty-four now, so she’d have been born in ’83. What was going on with Brace at around that time?’
‘He was in his early thirties, one of the youngest detective sergeants. Married but no kids. His wife worked as an estate agent in her father’s business.’
‘The fragrant Judith,’ Vera said. ‘Is she still with us?’
‘Very much so. Pillar of the community. Tory councillor, school governor, living comfortably in the same house in Ponteland. Her dad sold the business at the height of the property boom and must have invested wisely.’
‘Is she still married to Brace?’
‘Nah, a discreet divorce by consent, soon after he got sent away.’
‘She paid him off then,’ Vera said.
‘Maybe. Maybe he had enough squirrelled away for it not to matter. It’ll see him through to the end of his life, once he gets out.’
‘But perhaps you were right and he wants more than that.’ Vera was on her feet again. Pacing. ‘He wants to look after his family too. It’s a matter of pride for him. Patty’s his only daughter, and they’re his grandkids.’ She stopped suddenly and seemed to have come to a decision. ‘Joe, you’re with me. Let’s talk to Robbie Marshall’s mother. You’re good with old ladies.’ A pause. ‘Holly, go and see Patty. Get the name of her birth mother. But be gentle with her. She’s clinically depressed and, if you upset her, John Brace might use that as an excuse not to cooperate.’
Before Holly could say anything, Vera was heading off to her office to get her bag and jacket.
* * *
The Marshall house in Wallsend was classic 1930s: red-brick, bay windows and what looked like the original stained glass above the door. Most of the street was made up of semis, but this was detached and stood on a larger plot on a corner. The garden was neat and there were still a few late roses in bloom, a fuchsia to give some colour. Joe supposed Robbie Marshall’s mother had sufficient funds to employ someone to keep on top of the garden. He wondered whether she’d been left money by her butcher husband, or if Robbie was keeping the show on the road from a swanky apartment in Malaga. He thought Vera had set out on this wild-goose chase because she was bored. She had so little going on in her world outside work that she needed the drama of a complicated murder investigation to give purpose to her life. Even though, as yet, there was no body.
Vera rang the bell and Joe heard it chime, very loud, in the house. He supposed that Robbie’s mother was a little deaf. After several minutes he was aware of a sound on the other side of the door. It opened to a small, bird-like woman with tight white curls. She was walking with the aid of a Zimmer and stood side-on to them, so that she could still hold onto the frame.
‘I have my own church.’ The voice was precise. ‘I have no need to be converted.’ She stared at Vera and reassessed her first opinion, thinking perhaps that a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness would be better dressed. ‘And I have my own charities too. I never give at the door.’
‘We’re police officers.’ Vera hadn’t taken offence. ‘We’re here to talk about Robbie.’
There was a moment of silence. ‘Say again!’ The woman clearly thought she’d misheard and seemed used to barking orders.
‘We’re here to talk about Robbie.’ This time Vera raised her voice.
‘Have you found him?’
Vera shook her head. ‘Can we come in, pet? You don’t want the neighbours listening in, and I bet they’re a nebby lot round here.’
The woman gave a little smile to acknowledge the justice of the remark and stood aside. They sat in the front room. Joe thought it probably hadn’t changed much since Robbie was living in the place. There were starched net curtains and an elderly television. A stuffed bird in a glass case on a shelf in the corner. It occurred to Joe that Hector might well have prepared it.
‘I’m Vera. Detective Inspector. What should we call you?’ Vera was sitting on a small sofa and the woman had lowered herself into a high-backed chair in the window. Joe didn’t want to squeeze in next to his boss, so he remained standing.
‘I suppose you could call me Eleanor. It’s my given name and there seems to be a culture of informality these days.’ A pause. ‘Now why are you here, Inspector?’
‘We’ve received some new information about your son. A witness claims to know that he died soon after he disappeared.’
Eleanor Marshall blinked, but otherwise there was no response. Joe wondered if she’d heard.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ Vera said.
‘Of course I’m not surprised. If Robert had been alive, he would have remained in touch with me. The police at the time said he’d gone abroad, but he wouldn’t have disappeared without seeing me first. He was a good son. Devoted. For a while I wondered if he’d been taken ill. Or there’d been a road accident. But I checked the hospitals at the time and there was nobody who matched his description. I’ve been mourning him since he disappeared. But it’s not easy. No body to bury. No grave to visit.’ A pause. ‘The police said he was an adult and that people go missing every day.’
‘There’s a suggestion that he was murdered,’ Vera said. ‘Would that surprise you?’
This time the silenced stretched. ‘There have been times when it was the only explanation I could come up with for his disappearance.’ Eleanor leaned back in her chair and shut her eyes for a moment. ‘If he’d been alive, he would have contacted me. He was an only child and, especially after his father died, we were very close.’
‘Tell me about him.’ Vera settled herself on the sofa, which hardly seemed strong enough to carry her weight. It was as if she had all the time in the world.
‘He was never a sturdy boy. Not one for playing out in the street. He suffered badly from asthma as a child. Allergies. He was a reader. I taught him to read before he went to school.’ A pause. ‘I was a teacher before I married, but Bernard didn’t like the idea of having a wife who worked, when he could support us both.’
‘How come Robbie went to Bebington Grammar, when you lived down here in Wallsend?’
‘We were living in Bebington when Robert started senior school. That’s where Bernard had his first shop. He opened a second here in Wallsend and we moved. But Robert had settled in Bebington; it was a good school. Bernard drove him up in the mornings and Robert got the bus back in the evening.’
‘He met John Brace in school. What did you make of him?’
Joe thought Eleanor was considering before she answered. ‘John was a bright boy.’
‘A good friend for Robbie?’
Another pause. ‘I was grateful that Robert had made a friend. He’d struggled in junior school. He was absent a lot because of illness and he couldn’t share in the rough-and-tumble games.’
‘But?’ Vera gave a little smile to show she understood that Eleanor hadn’t been entirely happy about her son’s relationship with Brace.
‘John was a strong character. Forceful. Another only child, but spoilt at home, I think. He was used to getting his own way. It wasn’t a friendship of equals.’
‘They shared an interest, though, didn’t they?’ Vera leaned forward, her elbows on her fat knees. ‘The Natural History Society.’
‘Yes, and that was another reason for keeping Robert at Bebington when we moved. The society meant so much to him. It got him out into the countryside, and I thought the fresh air was good for his asthma. He’d been passionate about wildlife since he was very young.’ Eleanor looked up suddenly. ‘I should have offered you something to drink. It was rather a shock to find you on my doorstep. Would you like tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee would be lovely, but my sergeant here will make it, won’t you, Joe?’
Joe thought he had a very unequal relationship with Vera, but he played the polite subordinate and as
ked Eleanor if she’d like one too. He left the doors open when he made his way to the kitchen and could still hear the conversation. Eleanor seemed to become more confiding when the two women were left alone in the room.
‘Bernard could never understand Robert’s interest in the countryside. He was more of a man’s man. Football. A few pints with his pals in the club. You know.’
As he filled the kettle, Joe wondered how the teacher and the butcher had got together. They must have been an ill-matched pair. He couldn’t imagine Eleanor going with her husband to St James’ Park.
‘Robbie never considered university?’ Vera asked. ‘Something like zoology or ecology? I’d have thought that would suit him down to the ground.’
‘He was bright enough!’ Eleanor was fighting her son’s corner even after all those years.
‘I’m sure. He just didn’t fancy it?’
‘I think it was more to do with confidence,’ Eleanor said.
‘Not John Brace pulling Robert’s strings then? Worried that your Robert might find other friends with a similar interest if he started on a degree?’
The coffee was made but Joe stayed in the kitchen. He didn’t want to break the spell that Vera seemed to have over the woman.
‘I think there might have been some of that going on.’ Eleanor paused. ‘I tried to persuade Robert to consider university, but he wouldn’t have it. And he wouldn’t hear anything against Brace. I gave up in the end; he always had a stubborn streak. Besides, when he joined the shipyard we all thought he’d have a job for life.’
‘And he enjoyed it, did he?’ Vera’s voice was bright with interest.
‘He seemed to. He got promoted and seemed well enough liked.’ But Eleanor sounded dismissive. She would have preferred a son who was a university graduate. His choice of career path still disappointed. Joe thought Sal would be just the same, if Jess decided not to go down the uni route. She had her heart set on somewhere fancy, if not Oxford or Cambridge, then Durham. There was a lull in the conversation and he took the chance to carry in the coffee tray. He set it on a low table next to Eleanor and handed her a cup, gave the second to Vera, who took it with a sly wink.