The Missing Marriage (16 page)

Laviolette watched her thoughtfully for a moment before nodding, and taking his leave of Mrs Harris – who remained in her front garden, arms folded, virtually motionless, until Jamie Deane's van pulled up fifteen minutes later.

When he got home Mrs Kelly and Harvey were out at a yoga class Harvey was responding well to – becoming something of a class pet – run by a friend of Mrs Kelly's who had recently qualified as an Yyvengar yoga instructor.

Laviolette went straight up to his study, thinking about Mary Faust and Bobby Deane, and what Bobby had said about Bryan being round at Mary's. He thought about phoning Anna, but what was she going to confirm that he hadn't seen with his own eyes – Mary Faust's husband was dying of cancer and she still found the time to visit Bobby Deane. There must have been something between them once.

It was difficult to follow Bobby because time was no longer linear for him: his magnetic fields were constantly shifting and the North Pole could turn up any time, any place. It was only now, Laviolette realised, that when Bobby – insistent, almost irate – had said that Bryan was with Mary, that he was talking about the afternoon of 7th August 1987. He'd completely forgotten that Mary Faust was Bryan's alibi: Bryan had been with Mary the afternoon his brother, Jamie, beat a man half to death and then set fire to him. Mary was Bryan's alibi: Bryan spent that afternoon in the garden at number nineteen Parkview, drawing insects.

He found the interview tape he was looking for and was soon listening to Mary Faust's voice, dry, uncertain, wanting to be helpful.

He'd listened to the tape before, but only a couple of times – not like the Jamie Deane tapes that he virtually knew by heart.

Mary, nervous under the circumstances, but sensing that the environment wasn't hostile to her, went into some vague, unnecessary appraisal of Bryan's skills as a draughtsman.

‘Was there anybody else with you yesterday afternoon, Mary?'

Gently asked by Jim Cornish.

Hesitation on Mary's part then, ‘No. Just me – and Bryan.'

The interview was short because Inspector Jim Cornish wasn't interested in Mary Faust – the questions he asked were barely rudimentary – and he wasn't interested in Bryan Deane either. Inspector Jim Cornish had made up his mind and Jamie Dean, he decided, was guilty, for all sorts of reasons his brain was linking rapidly and at random ranging from Bobby Deane's role in the Strike to the fact that Jamie Deane had two records for GBH.

Laviolette rewound the ten minutes' worth of interview he'd just listened to, playing it again.

It was so simple he'd overlooked it, but listening to the tape now, he realised that Mary Faust was lying – why and about what, he wasn't sure, but she was definitely lying.

Cornish would have sensed it, deep down, which was why he hadn't probed. She was vague about the time she finished her shift at the Welwyn, but by then Jim was too worked up to uncover anything other than the statements he'd decided in advance he wanted to uncover. The overriding force at work in all the interviews and interrogations was Jim's need to indict Jamie Deane. Failing that, he probably would have pushed for Bobby Deane, but Bobby Deane had been hundreds of metres underground that day with about twenty alibis and even Jim Cornish might have had trouble buying twenty alibis – not that he could have bought any of those men. So he went all out for Jamie Deane.

Laviolette heard noises lower down in the house – cupboard doors banging, voices, the TV . . . Mrs Kelly and Harvey were back from yoga.

Mrs Kelly called out, ‘Hello?'

He got up and opened the door to the study.

‘Alright, Mrs Kelly?' he called down the stairs.

From where he was standing in the doorway, he could see the top of her hair – there was a one inch crown of grey where the dye was growing out. For the first time, he wondered whether Mrs Kelly – who had intimated to him in the past that she spent a lot of money on the upkeep of her hair – got her hair done at Laura Deane's place, Starz Salon, on Front Street.

‘You're home,' she said, turning her face up towards him. ‘D'you want me to bring you a cup of tea up?'

‘It's okay – I'll come down. I'm only going to be a few minutes more.'

She nodded and disappeared.

He remained in the doorway, listening to her tread on the stairs as she descended back down to ground level and Harvey.

Then he went back into the study, but he was no longer thinking about Mary or Laura or Bobby or Bryan, he was thinking about Jim Cornish.

Laviolette would never forget Jim Cornish in 1984, his face smashed with drink and laughter, saying to him, ‘You're never thinking of joining up and putting yourself in uniform now in the middle of a strike with a scab for a dad, you daft bloody fuck.'

Jim Cornish had his eye on him right from the start, and while Jim Cornish bothered a lot of people, Laviolette was the only one who made the mistake of letting it show.

During the Strike he'd put in to go to Ashington Pit where there were mostly local police, but instead he was sent to Bates where his dad worked as a safety engineer – was still working, driven in every day in a bus with mesh at the windows and a driver they nicknamed Yasser Arafat because of the scarf wrapped round his head to conceal his identity. Laviolette was recognised by men on the picket line as the son of Roger Laviolette, the safety engineer still going into work – as Jim Cornish knew he would be.

When that stopped entertaining him, Jim sent Laviolette up to Cambois power station where strikers were no longer allowed to speak to lorry drivers delivering coal, and after that he was taken on night patrol booking men on the picket lines who could no longer afford to tax their cars – inciting them so that they could then charge them with breach of the peace and obstruction, which meant they'd be banned from the picket lines. At one point, Laviolette remembered, there were more men banned than there were picketing and although Jim was one of those behind all of this – and more, working alongside police imports they brought in from the south to do the really nasty work locals on the force refused to do, and goading officers to press their payslips up against the windows of cars and buses as they passed – it was impossible to pinpoint his face or to say afterwards with any real conviction that you'd seen Jim Cornish do these things.

Jim was a chaos monger – Laviolette had seen him in his element, sweating on the soft tarmac of a July street as he beat a half naked protestor into the gutter, the half naked protestor then turning and beating Jim Cornish into the same gutter with the same frenzied exhilaration. Neither of them was aware of the Strike any more – whatever was going on between Thatcher and Scargill and their own two egos was going on between Thatcher and Scargill. On the ground there were pickets and there were police. The protestor beat Jim Cornish into the gutter because Jim was in uniform and because he no longer had the energy left to screw his wife or the means to feed his children; he had energy only for this and that's why he was doing it. Jim Cornish had no reasons – he enjoyed being beaten by the protestor almost as much as he enjoyed beating the protestor because these were his times.

Decency and order had gone. Civilisation as they knew it was over because civilisation needed work to go to and a home to return to, but there was no work and most homes had been destroyed.

Laviolette had seen the post-war generation explode onto the streets because peace hadn't felt like it was meant to and in their new Secondary Modern Schools teachers hadn't shared with their pupils the things they'd learnt from war. In fact, they pretended war had never happened and just taught them the things they themselves had been taught about loyalty to the empire and society and the nation. When the Strike came, people saw suddenly that none of what they'd been taught was true and that there was no sense in order.

Order had its own particular smell; a smell Laviolette remembered from his childhood when his mother was still alive – fried cabbage, oil heaters, coal fires, hairspray and cheap perfume, which combined was the smell of order.

That order never returned after 1985.

Bryan Deane's kayak – the one that bore him out to sea, never to return – was washed up at high tide on the beach at Whitley Bay the day of Erwin Faust's funeral. It was found at around five thirty in the morning by a woman who worked as an anaesthetist at Ashington hospital, out walking her dog. The woman, who was in her fifties, stood beside her panting Jack Russell and contemplated the red P&H Quest kayak on the early morning beach, which was full of birds. It was already a beautiful day, and as she stood contemplating it, she fought to remember the significance of the kayak. Then, when she did remember – a man had gone missing in it around Easter time and Northumbria Police had launched an appeal – she fought with her conscience over whether she could be bothered to contact the police, which would involve giving a statement and being late for work. In another couple of hours, the beach would be full of people. Somebody was bound to notify the police, and anyway
this
kayak might not even be
the
kayak.

She turned and carried on walking up the beach towards St Mary's lighthouse, listening to the quiet wash of the waves. Then, sighing, stopped and looked back at the red kayak resting on its side in the sand, no longer the magnificent intact red it had been the Easter Saturday Bryan stood holding it, next to Anna Faust on Tynemouth Longsands.

It was the kayak. She knew as soon as she saw Flo running towards it; she knew as she turned and walked back towards it now, holding her mobile.

Laviolette arrived at Whitley Bay within the hour. He sent Sergeant Chambers to the Italian café on the Promenade, and stood contemplating the kayak, which lay a lot further from the water's edge now the tide had retreated, abandoning it to the Inspector's gaze. Constable Wade – now DC Wade – who had been at the Deane's house Easter Saturday, took a statement from the female dog walker and was about to join the Inspector again when she saw him look away from the kayak and out to sea in a way that made her hesitate before crossing the sand towards him.

‘All done, sir,' she said.

‘You make it sound conclusive.'

‘Well at least we've found the kayak.'

‘But what about Bryan Deane?' He turned to face her. ‘You think he's dead don't you?'

‘I do, sir, yes.'

‘Why?'

‘Common sense,' she said, staring out to sea.

‘Common sense,' he repeated, looking quickly at her, amused.

As Laviolette stood on the beach at Whitley Bay, Anna helped Mary fold away the sofa bed she'd been sleeping on in the lounge downstairs at number nineteen Parkview. Mary watched Anna fold the duvet into the box and put the pillows and linen back in their bag before taking them upstairs.

‘We just need to get through today,' she said, taking in Mary, motionless in the middle of the lounge in her dressing gown and slippers, her hair flattened by the net she slept in, and her jaw hanging loose without the false teeth to give it shape. ‘We just need to get through it,' she said again.

Mary nodded, distracted, and she was still standing in the same spot when Anna came back downstairs.

After breakfast, which was eaten in silence, Mary watched Anna clear up, without comment while Anna stared through the kitchenette window at the weeds flourishing in the otherwise barren garden, which in previous years had been filled with a burgeoning crop of broccoli, runner beans, summer cabbage, potatoes, spinach and sweet peas.

‘We should get dressed,' Anna said, turning round to face Mary and when Mary didn't respond, she took hold of her elbow and pulled her gently to her feet before leading her upstairs, into the bathroom. ‘Maybe you should wash your face.'

‘I don't wash my face,' Mary said, watching the sink fill with water. ‘I get those facial wipes – they're lovely and soft on my skin.'

Anna left her in the bathroom with the door open and went to get the suit they'd chosen in Newcastle at the weekend from the wardrobe in Mary and Erwin's room.

The bed was made, empty.

She hadn't been sure, after Erwin died, what she was meant to do with the bed linen. It seemed to her that something ceremonial should be done with it; something to mark the fact that the linen had borne the passage between life and death, but she didn't know who to ask because she'd never buried anybody before.

In the end she folded the bedding into a bag and left it in the wash house.

She unzipped the M&S suit bag Mary had been more pleased with than the suit itself and laid it out on the bed, suddenly aware of Mary standing in the doorway, watching her.

‘You changed the bedding.' She paused. ‘Where's the other set?'

‘The wash house.'

‘That's my spare set,' Mary commented, staring at the bed.

‘Well, your good set's in the wash house.'

Mary nodded.

‘D'you want to get dressed in the back bedroom or –'

‘I want to get dressed in here,' Mary said, shuffling decisively into her bedroom. ‘Erwin was always such a tidy man.' She looked around her. ‘Hung everything up – all his clothes – never left things lying around. I never had to clear up after him.'

Anna laid the suit out on the bed. ‘If you need anything, I'm just next door,' she said, going into her own room and shutting the door behind her.

She sat down on the end of the bed looking out the window at the cloudless sky and feeling the warmth of the midsummer sun where it fell on her knees and thighs, and could have crawled back into bed and slept the entire day away because she couldn't imagine it ever ending, this public death.

Erwin's private death had been unendurable enough. There were the moments they thought he'd gone then some part of him would flutter . . . quiver . . . his left eyelid or his throat, while she and Mary knelt on either side looking as if they were pinning him down; trying to prevent him from flying away.

Then the moment did come and it was as though everything in the room rushed suddenly to the foreground. From the pale green lampshade and crocheted runner on the bedside table to the Wilbur Smith book from the library, and the Casio watch laid out carefully across the cover (obscuring the man in a Safari outfit with cocked rifle).

Erwin had decided to die.

Even though there hadn't been much of it left at the end, there had been enough for them to feel his life, stopping. They knew he'd gone even though he was lying on the bed between them still. The nurse, Susan, had said that was how it would be, but Anna hadn't wanted to believe her, because she was jealous of Erwin's death, and needed it to be unique. But Susan had seen it all before.

All they were left with after Erwin's irrevocable departure were the things he no longer needed, and it was terrible: clothes, shoes, coats (with shopping lists in the pockets still) . . . the Penguin biscuits in the larder . . . the shed full of tools . . . a cassette of Westminster Cathedral Choir in the tape player . . . a newspaper that had slipped under the sideboard with his biro jottings on the sports pages from when he'd last played the pools . . . the bottle of eau de cologne with its blue and gold label, which had been the one smell from his childhood he was able to buy in England.

Through the bedroom wall she heard the coat hanger clanging against the wardrobe doors, and started to slowly get dressed herself.

Fifteen minutes before the hearse and car were due to arrive, Don and Doreen rang on the door. They were travelling with them in the car. Don gave Mary and Anna large, hard hugs then told Mary to get the sherry out and as all four of them stood drinking to Erwin, it was as if something lifted momentarily.

‘We really appreciate this, Don,' Anna said, ‘especially given what you're going through at the moment.'

Don shook his head. ‘We're going to get you through this, Mary,' he announced, ‘even if we have to do it drunk.'

It was then that the hearse and car pulled up to take them to St Cuthbert's where Mary and Erwin had been married.

‘They're here,' Mary said quietly, suddenly mortified at the sight of the empty sherry glass in her hand, and aware that she wouldn't have noticed the cars pulling up at all if it hadn't been for the sun bouncing off the long black roofs. Looking outside, she realised suddenly that the street was full of people. There were people lining it on either side; people standing on the garden wall. People had come to say goodbye not just to a man, but to an entire generation – a generation that was leaving them and taking the world they'd lived in with them.

People had come to pay tribute to the German, and when Mary stepped out the front door into the sun the silence was thick with respect.

Laviolette walked back across the beach to the Promenade and got another coffee from the café before climbing the bank onto the headland next to the mini golf course where his car was parked.

He sat drinking his coffee, the sun brilliant on the sea to his right then, sighing, phoned Laura Deane to tell her that he thought they'd found Bryan's kayak.

Laura, sounding pleased to hear from him – for the first time as far as he could recollect – stood at the salon's reception desk absently stroking her neck and said lightly, ‘Inspector – I was about to call you. My doctor said I should think about taking a short break and I wasn't sure whether or not I needed your . . . permission.'

He exhaled loudly. She was flirting with him and he was aware that, like most women, Laura Deane was probably more proficient at flirting with men she disliked than those she liked.

‘I'm not sleeping,' Laura carried on, ‘and since the appeal I keep getting these anxiety attacks. There's a name for them . . . I can't remember . . . I feel like I'm about to black out then I start to fall. I fall –' She paused.

Laviolette had the impression she was holding her breath.

‘Where were you thinking of going?'

‘The other side of the world.'

‘For a short break?'

‘No more than ten days.' She paused again. ‘I thought coming into work and carrying on would make it better, but – I'm tired of carrying on, and I'm not coping. I'm not coping with anything.'

He drew his hand absently through the dust on the dashboard then, sighing, said, ‘I phoned to tell you that a kayak matching the description of Bryan's kayak was washed ashore this morning at Whitley Bay.'

‘This is bad news, isn't it?' she said quietly. ‘Do you need me to come down to the beach?'

‘No – it's fine.' Laviolette hesitated. ‘Unless of course you want to?'

‘I don't know. I don't know what to do.' She started to cry. ‘What am I meant to do?'

‘Whatever you want to do – whatever's best.'

‘I don't want to see the kayak. I don't want to come down to the beach and see the kayak.'

‘That's fine. D'you want to have a think about it and phone me back in half an hour?'

‘No, I don't. I want to get on a plane and pretend none of this is happening.' She broke off. ‘Is that selfish of me?'

‘Would Martha go with you?'

‘If I can persuade her to, which I doubt.'

Laviolette was silent. He
almost
believed her – there wasn't enough of a reason to disbelieve her.

‘You don't think I should go?' Laura prompted him when he didn't say anything.

‘I'm thinking about Martha – there's going to be media exposure here with the discovery of the kayak. When would you go – if you go?'

‘Tomorrow morning – it's a cancellation. I need to confirm within the next thirty minutes.'

‘Tomorrow morning,' Laviolette repeated, thinking. ‘Okay – go,' he concluded heavily.

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really,' he laughed suddenly, in spite of himself.

They both stayed on the line, unsure how to end the call.

‘Inspector? You said that the kayak matches the description of Bryan's kayak – how sure are you?'

‘It's Bryan's kayak, Laura.'

As Mary walked down the aisle at St Cuthbert's Church, holding tightly onto Anna's arm, she glanced down at her feet, trying to comprehend the time that had passed since she'd last walked down that aisle just over fifty years ago. Her ankles, then, had been the ankles of a twenty-two-year old, and covered in a pair of nylons she had to put nail varnish on in two places to stop the ladder running any further. She'd worn a pale blue suit and brown war issue shoes, and unlike today the church had been empty because she was marrying a German POW.

She'd been waiting on tables in the café that was now Moscadini's – where Bryan used to wait for Anna after school. Erwin had been working for a firm of painters and decorators who'd been hired to paint the café. They'd noticed each other immediately, and Mary had somehow known what was going to happen as soon as she saw him that first time, tall in overalls that didn't belong to him. In fact, Erwin didn't look like he belonged to himself at all after the years spent in camps.

What happened afterwards had been effortless . . . until Bettina, but then Bettina was the great tragedy of their lives.

They sat down at the front of the church, which was full. There were people standing.

Looking down the length of the pew – the scent of the lilies unbearable this close – she was sure there was somebody missing; somebody they were still waiting for, and now there wasn't any room. She felt Anna squeezed up against her, and started to panic.

‘Move up,' she hissed.

Don turned to her, confused, unsure what to do. ‘There's no room for Erwin.'

Don looked at Anna, who nodded at him before taking hold tightly of Mary's hand.

‘It's alright, Nan.'

‘He'll want to be here at the front with us.'

‘It's alright.'

Then Mary saw the coffin in front of them, and remembered. ‘I forgot,' she whispered wetly into Anna's collarbone. ‘I forgot.'