Anna heard the post through the letterbox, and went slowly downstairs – stopping suddenly halfway. There, on the doormat at the bottom of the stairs near the front door, was Bryan in a red T-shirt, smiling up at her from the front page of The Journal, which Mary had delivered. Running down the last few steps, she grabbed hold of the paper.
It was the same photograph as the one she had in her kitchen at the Ridley Arms – the same restaurant; same checked tablecloth; same white-capped sea. The only thing that was different was Bryan, who was smiling. She pictured Laura going through the albums of Deane family life, trying to decide which pictures – pictures taken in innocence – to give the police, who would have asked for photographs of Bryan smiling because Bryan was the victim rather than perpetrator of a crime. Photographs published of perpetrators never showed them smiling.
Over the past few days Anna’s world had become so small that now there were only four people in it: herself, Mary, Erwin and – sporadically – Susan the nurse. Erwin had barely been conscious at any point during the past forty-eight hours and between them, Mary and Anna had been keeping a constant bedside vigil, sleeping in alternate two hour shifts in Anna’s childhood bedroom.
They moved in a silent circle through the house – from Erwin’s room, down to the kitchenette where they ate, back up to the bathroom where they washed then into Anna’s room where they slept. Only Anna found it hard to sleep – especially during the daytime – and so stood looking out the window with a mixture of outrage and envy at the children in the garden of the Deanes’ old house, number fifteen, on the trampoline sucking ice pops mid-air as they bounced in their school uniforms.
She watched the man next door at number twenty-one haul grow bags across his patio and plant them up with tomatoes and was as amazed at this as she was by the children on their trampoline. She was amazed that these things could be accomplished when death was so close to them. Hadn’t they realised that a man was dying in pain in an upstairs bedroom close by?
It seemed extraordinary to her that buses still passed the windows of number nineteen Parkview with passengers; that there were people who could simply get on a bus and go wherever it was they needed to go because they weren’t living with death.
It felt as if she and Mary would just continue to exist like this forever more, moving in the same silent circle through the rooms inside number nineteen Parkview, no longer able to tell the difference between grief and exhaustion.
She went into the kitchenette to pour herself a cup of tea, and that’s what she was doing when the front doorbell rang. She jerked the teapot with shock at the sudden sound – scalding herself – and went to answer it, her left hand throbbing.
It was Martha Deane.
‘Who’s that?’ Mary called out from the top landing.
The sound of the doorbell must have woken her up and she made her way wearily downstairs, stopping when she saw Martha.
‘It’s alright, Nan – you go back to bed.’
Mary hesitated before disappearing back upstairs.
Anna passed her hand over her brow, exhausted, before turning back to Martha.
‘I’m staying at Nan’s – she said you were here. What happened to your hand?’
‘I burnt it – just now, on the kettle. Look, I meant to phone you – after the appeal – but my grandfather’s much worse, and I’m not really sleeping.’ She rested her head against the front door. ‘I don’t know what’s going on at the moment – I’m not really myself.’
Martha bit on her lip, anxious, then turned away without saying anything – walking off down the garden path.
‘Martha!’ Anna called out after her. ‘Martha – wait.’ She caught up with her at the gate.
‘It’s okay,’ Martha mumbled, pulling her arm slowly out of Anna’s grasp.
Anna wasn’t even aware she’d grabbed hold of her. ‘Has something happened?’
‘It’s seeing his picture everywhere. I can’t stand all those people – strangers – seeing him.’
‘You know what?’ Anna said, ‘I could do with some air – d’you feel like a walk? We could go down onto the estuary if the tide’s out.’
‘Okay.’ Martha sounded pleased.
So this was where she was, Laviolette thought as he parked his car outside number seventeen Parkview behind Anna’s yellow Capri. He got out and looked up at the house as he made his way towards the Hamiltons’ front garden where there was a sign sellotaped to the gate, which said No takeaway leaflets or junk mail please. He rang on the doorbell and waited.
It was Don who answered, in trainers and a tracksuit – and not because he’d been running – a roll up cigarette in the corner of a mouth that still held the lines of its youthful sensuality.
‘Alright Inspector?’ Don said, worried.
‘I tried phoning –’
‘I never hear it when Doreen’s got the TV on.’
‘Nothing to worry about.’ Laviolette paused, but Don’s face didn’t relax. ‘I was just in the area and . . . mind if I pop in for a few minutes?’
Don hesitated then nodded. ‘Sure, sure – come in,’ he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, suddenly eager to show the Inspector some belated hospitality.
Laviolette followed him through to the kitchenette at the back of the house, which smelt heavily of cigarette smoke. He imagined that this bothered Laura Deane – especially when Martha came home smelling of it after having spent the weekend at her grandparents.
‘Afternoon Doreen,’ he called into the lounge as they passed.
Doreen was sitting only inches away from Jeremy Kyle’s face on the TV screen, which had some sort of magnifying attachment over it.
‘She won’t hear you,’ Don said, putting the kettle on. ‘Tea?’
Laviolette sat down at a small drop-leaf table identical to the Fausts’ next door at number nineteen – both tables had been purchased in the Co-Op’s furniture department during the sixties. There was an ashtray in the middle full of stubs.
Don made tea and the two men sat drinking it, comfortable in their mutual silence – in a way that reminded Laviolette of how comfortable his own father used to be with silence; a trait he’d inherited and that he used to great effect during interrogations.
‘I just wanted to check in with you – following the appeal,’ he said after a while.
‘We didn’t watch it.’
‘I can understand that.’
Don looked at him. ‘Doreen didn’t feel like going out today, but we’re going for a drive tomorrow – maybe up Rothbury way,’ he added, distant. ‘Laura wanted to go into work – I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, having to meet all them people . . . customers and what not.’
‘Routine . . . habit . . . they’re stronger allies than we give them credit for.’
‘Allies,’ Don repeated, unconvinced. ‘To tell you the truth, I think the whole appeal thing was worse for her than Bryan’s actual disappearance. D’you mind?’ He gestured towards his tobacco tin. ‘Want one?’
‘I’m fine.’ Laviolette watched Don roll himself another cigarette – with great delicacy – using a small red roller, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger in the way men used to smoke.
‘Nobody’s contacted you?’ Laviolette asked. ‘Since the appeal?’
‘Like who?’
Laviolette picked up his cup and started drinking his tea again. ‘Like Bryan.’
Don laughed then, unsure why he was laughing, stopped. ‘You’re serious,’ he said, watching the Inspector.
‘Has Bryan tried to contact either yourself or Doreen, in confidence, since his disappearance? It can happen in families.’
Don continued to watch him in disbelief. ‘Bryan’s dead.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘He disappeared ten days ago. He went out to sea in his kayak, and he never came back. He’s drowned – dead.’
‘We’ve got no evidence of that.’
‘And you’ve got no evidence otherwise either. Now you listen to me. It’s a tragedy – a great big fucking tragedy – and we need to be left in peace to grieve. This is my son-in-law we’re talking about – my daughter’s husband – grand-daughter’s father – family. My family. We need to get over this. Appeal –’ Don spat.
‘You’re angry.’
‘Yeah,’ Don agreed, ‘yeah, I am. Bryan’s dead.’
‘Maybe,’ Laviolette conceded.
‘Definitely,’ Don said, finishing his cigarette.
The sound of wailing came from the TV in the other room.
‘There are some things we need to investigate further – unfortunately.’
‘What’s there to investigate for Christ’s sake?’
‘Financial strain.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘We need to establish –’
‘What?’
‘Whether Bryan’s disappearance –’
‘Death –’
‘Was connected to this.’
‘In what way?’
‘In an intentional way.’ Laviolette stopped and looked across the table at Don. Don was a physical man, and right now he was just about holding onto the threads of the conversation. Laviolette knew that if he pushed him much further he’d explode.
Don stared at him. ‘You mean – suicide?’
Laviolette nodded as Don drew his right hand down into his lap, leaving his other hand curled lifelessly on the kitchen table.
The next minute he started to sob loudly.
‘God,’ he mumbled, helpless, his shoulders shaking.
‘I’m sorry,’ Laviolette said.
‘How can you think that?’
‘I have to think everything.’
‘They’re good people, Laura and Bryan. They lead good lives . . . they’ve worked hard for what they’ve got, and you come round here, and –’
‘I know that.’
Don looked up suddenly, passing his arm harshly across his face. ‘Alright, love?’ he said to Doreen, who was standing in the doorway to the kitchenette staring at them both.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened – it’s fine. Go back to your programme.’
‘My programme’s finished,’ she said, watching Don get to his feet and go over to the window, turning his back to them as he carried on sniffing and wiping at his face. ‘Don?’
Laviolette started to make his way to the front door, but Don caught up with him, pulling hard on his arm. ‘Don’t you dare talk to Laura about this. You let her be. You let her be, d’you hear me?’
‘I’ll be in contact, Don.’
‘Know who you remind me of – your bloody father, that’s who.’
It was after this that Laviolette – gloomy, preoccupied – saw Anna and Martha.
Anna and Martha walked down Parkview towards Longstone Drive, glancing at number fifteen where Bryan used to live as they passed.
There was a new front door with frosted glass panels, and – apart from an exhaust pipe under the privet hedge – the front garden had been filled with gravel and looked tidy.
‘Dad never talks about his family – I ask him about stuff sometimes but he won’t talk about the past.’
A woman in slippers and a long T-shirt with Daffy Duck on it came out of the side passage door and put some cartons in the recycling bin, squinting down the path at them.
‘Did you ever know my uncle, Jamie Deane?’ Martha asked suddenly. ‘I didn’t even know I had an uncle until he phoned Easter Sunday and I took the call. Nobody told me.’ She paused. ‘He sounded just like dad.’
They carried on walking – past the large, detached redbrick house on the corner of Parkview and Longstone Drive, built by the council as a children’s home.
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know – he thought he was speaking to mum. He’s only been out of prison six months.’
Anna saw Laura, at the age of thirteen, sitting sullen and scared at the top of the stairs in the Deanes’ house.
‘Did you tell her he’d phoned?’
Martha nodded. ‘She didn’t really say anything. She just looked scared. Why didn’t anybody tell me dad had a brother?’
‘He killed a man, Martha – that’s a difficult thing for a family to talk about.’
They’d reached the stile at the end of Longstone Drive, which they crossed, jumping down onto the footpath that led to the estuary.
The footpath ran down the side of a field of oil seed rape, on the brink of yellow. The slip road to the new bypass rose up across the end of the field and the traffic on it was loud.
‘You should be careful, Martha,’ Anna called out, above the sound of distant traffic.
Martha laughed and Anna followed her down the path.
‘Did you tell Inspector Laviolette about Jamie phoning?’
Martha nodded, running her hands through the tall grasses lining the path, beyond which there were wild roses, hawthorn and brambles. Every now and then different coloured butterflies rose to shoulder level from under Martha’s hands, before dropping back into the grass again.
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing much.’
They got to the road bridge – where the photograph of Bettina that Erwin gave her was taken. There was sand underfoot now as the path followed the River Wansbeck’s mouth so Anna slipped off her shoes.
‘This was my walk – when I lived at Parkview. You get to the sea quickly – away from all the houses and stuff.’
‘Did you come here with mum?’
‘No – this was my walk when I was at the Grammar School. Your mum and I weren’t really speaking by then.’
They rounded the lip of beach at the river’s mouth and were suddenly able to see the coastline stretching south – down to the windmills on the north harbour wall at Blyth where the Ridley Arms was. They walked to the water’s edge leaving footprints in the wet sand, the wind picking up their hair, pulling it back off their faces.
‘That whole summer, we made plans – your mum and me. We weren’t going to let things change between us just because we were going to different schools. It was a summer of oaths and promises that didn’t make any difference in the end. My world changed in a way I’d never anticipated, and for the first time in my life, I was unhappy.’ Anna paused. ‘Unhappiness does things to you; it has a deeper more lasting effect on a person than happiness. I went into myself. I wasn’t really there for your mum, and I think she could have done with me being there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ Anna said, realising this for the first time, ‘I always had been.’
She rolled up her jeans and walked into the freezing North Sea as the waves broke over her ankles.
Martha stood watching her for a while before eventually taking off her shoes and socks as well, and joining her in the water, resting her head on Anna’s shoulder.
‘People used to come here in the Strike to collect sea coal and driftwood – anything that would burn. We’d go up to the slag heaps at the power station as well and stand watch while the others filled prams, carts . . . buckets. Those were different times.’
They walked back slowly along the estuary, in silence, until beach gave way to grassy scrub again, and they stopped to put their shoes on. They crossed the field of oil seed rape and the stile where the footpath ended, jumping down into Longstone Drive.
‘That was a children’s home when I was growing up,’ Anna said pointing to the detached red brick house on the corner of Parkview that they’d passed earlier. ‘The kids from there used to run wild.’
Martha looked up at the house.
‘I think it was an end of the line place for the kids who got passed around until there was nowhere left, but there – St Jude’s hostel.’
‘Is that what it was called?’
‘No, it’s a joke – St Jude’s the patron saint of hopeless cases. There were never more than around ten children living there. I always remember this boy who was there for a year – he must have been twelve or something – and he only had half a head of hair. I always wondered about him – because of the hair.’
They were on Parkview again – almost at number seventeen – when Martha said unexpectedly, ‘Mum hates the fact she comes from this place. Did you know she once –’ She stopped talking, looking up the street.
Following the direction she was looking in, Anna saw – simultaneously – Inspector Laviolette outside number seventeen, and Laviolette’s car parked on the street behind her Capri.
‘Anna,’ he called out, seeing her.
They walked up to him, Martha holding onto Anna, clearly upset.
‘Don’t worry – nothing to report. I’ve been touching base with your grandparents following the appeal.’
He gave Martha a thin, bright smile. Then he turned to Anna. ‘Been out for a walk?’
Before she had a chance to respond, he jerked his head in the direction of number nineteen, and said, ‘How are things?’
‘Much worse.’
All three of them hesitated, waiting for someone to say something, when Don – who was standing on the doorstep drying his hands on a tea towel – said, ‘Are you coming in, Martha?’
There was nothing to say after that and Anna watched as Laviolette got into his car and Martha disappeared inside number seventeen.
Once Martha had gone, Anna walked over to the Inspector’s car.
He wound down the window. ‘Are you okay?’ He’d already asked her this, but there was an intimacy to it second time round that unnerved her.
‘I need to ask you something. It doesn’t seem right –’
‘What doesn’t seem right?’
‘You being assigned this case – with the history between you and the Deane family and Jamie Deane on probation now.’
‘Who’ve you been talking to?’
‘It isn’t right.’
‘It isn’t right,’ he agreed. ‘That’s why I’ve been assigned this case.’
‘Enemies?’
‘Enemies,’ he repeated.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She paused. ‘And you know that Jamie’s attempted to contact Laura – are you worried?’
Laviolette sighed. ‘I don’t know. I’m inclined to think that Laura’s done more harm to Jamie than he could ever do to her – or any of the other Deanes for that matter.’
He left her standing on the pavement next to the spot where his car had been parked.
Laura Deane was standing with her arms folded inside a long cashmere cardigan, staring absentmindedly through the salon window at Tynemouth Front Street. Sorrow suited her. She felt relatively calm, and there was a fruitful buzz coming from the salon behind her. People she worked with and people she knew had been coming in all morning. People had been kind, and she’d allowed herself to be visibly moved by their kindness, which people liked. It made them feel as if they were getting something for their sympathy.
She glanced down at her hands – manicured by Liz that morning – which so many people had taken hold of and held. The scent of so many differently perfumed embraces rose from the threads of her cashmere cardigan where they’d been temporarily trapped, released by the movement of her arms as they fell suddenly to her side.
A white transit van with Reeves Regeneration on the side had pulled up on the kerb opposite – right next to the bus stop. The door opened and Jamie Deane stepped down into the road, oblivious to the lunch time traffic. Grinning, he held up a copy of The Journal with Bryan’s picture on the front. Laura could see the red of Bryan’s T-shirt from where she was standing.
Aware that Kirsty on reception had also noticed him, Laura said, ‘Who’s that?’
‘Some nutter. D’you want me to call the police?’
Laura didn’t answer, and they both carried on watching as Jamie got back into the van, yelling something at a man in a blue car who’d sounded his horn at him.
Mo’s daughter, Leanne, stared sullenly at Laviolette as he pushed the bacon, eggs, loaf of bread and butter across the counter, smiling patiently at her as she counted the handful of change he gave her. He continued to smile as she dropped most of it on the counter and started counting again, the shop lighting bouncing harshly off her carefully oiled hair, pulled back in a bunch.
‘All there?’ he said.
She nodded, slammed the till drawer shut and watched him leave the shop, get back in his car and drive away.
Then she called Jamie, who didn’t pick up. She remained sunk heavily over the counter, lost in admiration at the stars that had been airbrushed onto her nails.
When her phone started ringing, she grabbed at it.
‘What is it?’ Jamie demanded.
‘That copper’s just been in here,’ she said, enjoying herself. ‘The one who came to see your dad that time.’
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know.’ Leanne ran her tongue quickly over the nails on her forefinger. ‘He just bought some stuff – bread, bacon –’
Jamie cut her off. ‘I don’t give a fuck about his shopping list – where’d he go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well go and see if his car’s parked outside dad’s you dumb fuck – then phone me back.’
*
Laviolette pulled up outside number eight Armstrong Crescent, watched through nets by Mrs Harris at number six, and Leanne – under instructions from Jamie Deane – from the fire exit at the back of the shop.
He knocked on Bobby Deane’s door and waited, turning instinctively round to see Leanne – across the green at the back of the shop – staring at him. He waved, and she disappeared. Then the front door to Bobby’s bungalow opened.
For a moment Bobby’s eyes rested with intent on the Inspector, as his mind sought out Laviolette. Then he gave up. He was holding a copy of The Journal in his hand with Bryan’s picture on the front.
Laviolette held up the bag of food.
‘What’s that?’ Bobby asked, not really interested.
‘Lunch.’
Bobby thought about this. ‘Are you Meals on Wheels? Did you come yesterday?’
Laviolette hesitated then nodded.
‘I’m hungry,’ Bobby said, still unconvinced, his eyes on the bag as the Inspector walked past him, into his house.
‘Can I go through to the kitchen?’ Laviolette asked.
Bobby nodded and followed him.
The kitchen felt cleaner than it had last time, and there were no signs of Jamie’s Methadrone production line.
‘D’you remember me?’ the Inspector asked.
Bobby shook his head. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Bacon – eggs. Have you got a frying pan?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘D’you mind if I look for one?’
‘Okay.’
Laviolette started opening cupboards at random until he found a pan in the one under the sink along with a couple of Pyrex dishes, some plates, a plastic jug, stainless steel toast rack, six egg cups, a pair of scales, and an old Happy Meal toy. There was also a basket of cleaning fluids.
The pan had once been non-stick and smelt strongly of the countless cans of soup that had been heated in it.
Bobby remained in the kitchen doorway and watched as Laviolette fried the bacon, with difficulty, in the small pan. ‘The food used to come in tin foil trays.’ He paused. ‘You wore a red sweater with words on it.’
‘Well this smells better than any ready meal, doesn’t it?’ he said to Bobby, who didn’t respond.
He was wearing slippers today, Laviolette noted, and no coat, and hadn’t referred to the fact that his son’s photograph was on the front of the newspaper he was holding.
Laviolette finished cooking the bacon, putting it on a Pyrex dish in the oven to keep it warm, and decided to scramble the eggs he’d bought. There only seemed to be one set of crockery so Laviolette put his food on the dish he’d been keeping the bacon warm on then took everything through to the lounge followed by Bobby, who stood at a loss in the centre of the room, his eyes on the steaming food.
‘Why don’t you sit down in your armchair?’
Bobby shuffled over to the armchair and Laviolette put the plate of food in his lap, pulling The Journal gently out of his hands.
‘You’ve got it?’
Bobby nodded and sat holding the plate, staring en raptured at the food.
‘It feels hot.’
‘It’s not too hot, is it?’
‘No – no.’
Laviolette disappeared back into the kitchen to get some cutlery for them both then, sitting down on the microwave he’d sat on during his last visit, they started to eat in silence, Bobby staring at a fixed point on the floor as he chewed.
‘You’re eating as well?’ he asked after a while.
‘Is that okay?’
Bobby nodded, and carried on eating – almost shyly now.
Laviolette waited until they’d finished before picking up the newspaper Bobby had been holding.
‘This looks like Bryan,’ he said, sounding surprised. He wanted to get Bobby’s attention without agitating him. ‘Doesn’t this look like your Bryan?’
Bobby stared over his empty plate at the photograph of his son, smiling under foreign skies.
‘Bryan,’ he said, giving Laviolette his plate and taking the newspaper off him. ‘Bryan,’ he said again, looking hard at the picture – in the same way he had looked at Laviolette earlier. ‘That’s not Bryan,’ he concluded.
‘It is Bryan,’ Laviolette insisted, gently. ‘He’s gone missing – that’s why he’s in the papers. We’re trying to look for him.’ Laviolette started to read the piece out loud and after a while Bobby pulled it out of his hands, excited, staring at the photograph – suddenly absorbed by it.
He was about to say something when Laviolette heard the front door opening, and stood up thinking it must be Jamie Deane.
‘That’s not Bryan. He’s far too old,’ Bobby was saying. ‘Bryan’s only fourteen,’ he concluded, triumphant as Mary Faust walked into the bungalow’s lounge, staring from Laviolette to Bobby, shocked. ‘And he’s not missing, he’s been round at Mary’s all afternoon. You ask Mary – she’ll tell you,’ Bobby carried on, excited. ‘Tell him, Mary,’ Bobby commanded, not at all surprised to see her standing there.
‘Mrs Faust,’ Laviolette said, taking in the keys she was holding in her hand still.
‘I’ve come round to check on him,’ she said, awkwardly, her eyes on the plates. ‘You made lunch?’
Laviolette nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to Bobby about Bryan – Bryan being in the papers. We’ve been talking about Bryan, haven’t we Bobby?’
Ignoring this, his eyes on Mary, Bobby said, ‘Tell him about Bryan.’
Mary turned obediently to the Inspector. ‘Bryan’s been with me all afternoon,’ she said, uncomfortable.
Laviolette stared at her, puzzled, and before he had time to say anything, she picked up the plates and took them through to the kitchen, staring at the sink as it filled with water.
He watched her wash and dry the dishes in silence, stacking them on the kitchen surface – until Bobby appeared, suddenly anxious, holding the newspaper still.
‘Rachel loved Bryan. She loved him best out of all of us, and that’s why he took it so hard when she . . . when she . . .’
‘You loved her didn’t you Bobby?’ Laviolette said, suddenly overwhelmed by this fact. ‘You loved your wife very much.’
Bobby was panting in short sharp rapid breaths that made Laviolette worry he was about to have a heart attack.
‘Stop it,’ Mary said forcefully, drying her hands on the tea towel. ‘He’s not well.’
‘No, he isn’t well. He needs round the clock care.’
‘I try to come at least once a week, but it’s difficult with Erwin ill,’ Mary said helplessly.
‘He needs professional care.’
‘I’ve tried talking to Don and Doreen about it, but he’s not really their responsibility. I can’t do any more. Family matters are private, but – look at him.’ Mary’s face was crumpling.
‘Who are you?’ Bobby asked her suddenly, interested.
‘A friend, Bobby,’ Mary said, close to tears. ‘A friend.’
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Laviolette said, taking hold of Mary’s hand. ‘And if he says anything at all – about Bryan – I need you to phone me. Anna’s got my number. And I’m sorry for your troubles,’ he finished ambiguously.
When he left the bungalow, Mrs Harris from next door was waiting for him. ‘So that’s what it was about – the other day. Bryan Deane’s gone missing,’ she concluded, triumphantly, before the thin smile slid sideways off her face. ‘Or he’s on a beach in Spain somewhere.’
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.