The Missing Marriage

‘Nan phoned. Your mum’s been round to see her.’

‘Well, we’ve got the police here already,’ Laura carried on, still calm – articulating each word carefully in an ongoing attempt to eliminate any traces of accent in her voice.

‘Actually I came to give a statement – I saw Bryan on the beach this afternoon.’

A sense of movement passed through Laura’s body that made the Spaniel look up.

Anna swung round to the officer behind her. ‘But maybe not here,’ she added, taking in Martha who – distraught, tearful and enraged – was displaying all the by-products of shock Laura wasn’t.

‘Here’s fine,’ Laura said.

Martha said nothing.

Glancing at Laura, the officer hesitated before sitting down on a footstool covered in the same fabric as the sofa.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Chambers,’ he said, getting out a notebook, ‘and this is Constable Wade.’

He indicated the woman in uniform on the sofa with Martha, coughed and said stiffly, ‘Excuse me,’ then, ‘which beach was that?’

‘Tynemouth Longsands.’

‘What time?’

Anna still wasn’t sure about doing this in front of Martha. ‘About half four. He was about to go out in a kayak – a P&H Quest kayak – red and black.’ She paused. ‘But you’ve probably got that already.’

She felt Martha watching her as Laura said, ‘That kayak’s been in our garage for months and I couldn’t even have told you what colour it was.’

The officer was silent for a moment. ‘Were you in a kayak?’

‘I was surfing.’

‘Had you arranged to meet?’

Laura’s head was balanced on the Spaniel’s head. The Spaniel was whimpering.

Anna wondered – briefly – what the dog was called, before turning back to DS Chambers. ‘No. It was a chance encounter.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘Not in the water, no.’

‘On the beach?’

‘Not as such. Just about the weather.’

The first time she saw him that day, outside number seventeen Parkview with Martha, he looked and felt like somebody’s husband . . . somebody’s father. Standing beside her on the beach, he didn’t. They’d just looked at each other; taken each other in, and here – in front of Bryan’s wife and daughter – the recollection felt like a transgression.

There was a silence.

Laura didn’t take her eyes off Anna, who was about to speak when the silence was broken by the front door bell ringing. Checking her watch, she saw that it had just gone one. She moved position so that she could see up the hallway as Constable Wade went to open the door and a man in a Barbour jacket, soaking wet, stepped into the house.

He flicked a quick look down the corridor and it wasn’t until then that Anna became aware of Martha, standing beside her.

‘Who is it?’ Laura asked.

‘The Inspector from before,’ Martha mumbled, dis appearing back onto the sofa again.

Everyone in the room became suddenly more alert – even Laura, Anna thought, turning round. No – especially Laura.

‘Mrs Deane said just now that you last saw her – was it sixteen years ago?’ DS Chambers, speaking loudly now, swung politely towards Laura, who nodded. ‘When did you last see Mr Deane? Before today that is.’

‘It would have been around the same time – sixteen years ago.’

DS Chambers nodded heavily and looked at her.

They were all looking at her.

‘But you didn’t have anything to say – as such?’

‘I’d already seen him – and Martha,’ Anna said, turning to the Deanes’ daughter, ‘this morning over on the Hartford Estate.’ DS Chambers didn’t comment on this. ‘When I saw him on the beach we chatted about the weather conditions, which were good – until the fret came in.’

‘He didn’t say where he was going when you met him on the beach?’

‘He didn’t – no.’

‘And the next time you saw him – in the water – you didn’t speak?’

‘No.’

Anna had called out to him when she saw him in the water – in his kayak – trying to steer a course through the surfers. In the water she’d felt much lighter and more confident than she had earlier that morning, on land.

He’d looked confused for a moment then smiled quickly, paddling out to her until his kayak was in line with her board and they were both rising and falling in the waves.

His eyes had touched her briefly as she sat with her legs straddling the board then she’d laughed suddenly and given a wet wave before moving forcibly away from him; lying down on the board and paddling hard out to sea towards the cargo ship filling up so much of the distant horizon it seemed stationary.

She took in two more waves and it was while she was paddling back out after this that the sea fret came in.

Looking around instinctively for Bryan, she’d seen him heading in a direct line north away from her towards Cullercoats and St Mary’s Island – against the tide.

Then he disappeared into the fret – and some of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes.

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Like I said, just as the fret was coming in – around five. He must have been about thirty metres out from shore – heading north up the coast.’

One minute the sea had been full of mostly men and some women poised in their wetsuits, looking out to sea – the next it was as though the sun had become suddenly thicker. She had felt inconsolably alone, hesitant and watchful, unable to make out any other black-suited figures in the water.

Glancing back to shore, the line of people at the edge of the beach and the dogs in the water were visible for a few seconds more then they too vanished – along with the beach, the cliffs behind, the building housing the Toy Museum and Balti Experience, and the spire of St George’s Church. She’d tried to keep the board as still in the water as she could – if the nose swung round she knew she’d lose all sense of direction. The beach sounded further away than she knew it was – the waves slapping dully against the shore and voices carrying high one moment only to be suddenly cut off the next. The tide was still coming in, she told herself, aware that the temperature was falling and that she was uncomfortably cold – all she needed to do was take any wave that came and let it carry her in.