The Seagull Page 11

  ‘We suspect one of the victims was known to you.’

  ‘I know lots of people.’ No outright denial. No question about the name of the man. Joe found that interesting.

  ‘A guy named Robbie Marshall. He went missing in the mid-nineties.’

  ‘I heard the name when I was growing up.’

  ‘Of course you did.’ Joe felt like punching the air. He hadn’t realized it would be so easy to get even this much of an admission of contact between the men. ‘Everyone who lived in Wallsend knew the name. Not a real player himself, but a kind of fixer.’

  ‘You went to Robbie Marshall if you were looking for work. When I was a kid he could get you into the shipyard.’ Gary crumbled the croissant between his fingers. ‘Even later, when it was taken over by the administrators, there were bits and pieces on contract.’

  ‘And he could find people other kinds of work. Out in the country.’

  ‘If you were that way inclined,’ Keane conceded. ‘I never was myself.’

  ‘Did you ever work for him then?’ Now Joe really was interested.

  ‘Are you saying that was him? The body in the drain?’

  ‘No confirmation yet, but it looks like it.’

  Outside in the street other shops were starting to open. A young lad and lass, maybe on their way to college, stopped in the garden to kiss. Joe felt a moment of envy. They had no responsibilities. Just time to walk hand-in-hand and kiss in the sun.

  Joe repeated his question.

  ‘I was always good at electronics,’ Keane said. ‘I was the only kid in my school to take computer science. It wasn’t cool then. Not really. There were a few basic games. Not many people even had email. Occasionally Robbie asked me to do a bit for him. Nothing organized. Cash in hand. I set up a few PCs for him and his mates, showed them how to get started.’

  ‘And you’d have been how old?’

  ‘I dunno. Sixteen, seventeen. It was before Robbie went missing.’ Keane licked his finger and gathered up the remaining crumbs on his plate, put them in his mouth.

  ‘Do you remember the names of any of Robbie’s mates?’

  ‘There was a guy called John Brace.’ Keane grinned and looked up. ‘A detective. Bent. Like most of them then.’

  ‘And your ex-father-in-law.’

  ‘I should have known better than to get involved, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Is that how you met Patty? Through Robbie Marshall and John Brace.’

  Keane shook his head. ‘Nah, she wasn’t knocking around the scene when I knew Robbie. She’d have been too young. I’m ten years older than her. Anyway, she didn’t track down her father until after we were married. So I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for.’

  ‘What were you letting yourself in for?’

  ‘A free house, at first. Then a load of hassle.’ Keane screwed up the cardboard coffee cup and lobbed it into a blue metal waste bin.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘John Brace was an influential man. Still is, even in prison. First of all, he didn’t like the way I treated Patty when we were married, and then he didn’t like it when I left.’

  ‘How did he make his displeasure known?’

  ‘He sent a few of his associates round to pass on a warning. That was when I got out of the relationship. Patty had pretty well lost it by then, and I thought I’d be doing both of us a favour by calling it a day.’ Keane looked out of the window. Joe wondered if he’d seen the young lovers too.

  ‘Do you still see the kids?’

  ‘Nah. Brace made it clear when I left that I should stay out of Patty’s life.’ There was a pause. ‘A pity. Archie wasn’t much more than a baby when I went, but he was bright, sparky. But like I say, Brace still has influence. It doesn’t do to cross him.’

  Joe wondered if Patty knew that John Brace had warned Keane off from seeing his children.

  ‘Can you remember anyone else Robbie Marshall knocked around with?’

  ‘They talked about someone they called “the Prof.”’ Keane paused for a moment, then added: ‘I never met him, though. Then there was another chap called “Sinclair”. Scottish. He ran a smart club down in Whitley. The Seagull. I set up a security system on the place for him, and Robbie was often hanging around there.’

  Joe cheered again in his head. At least he had one name to give Vera – Sinclair. That was one offering to make her proud.

  ‘What was Marshall doing at the club? Did he work there?’

  Keane shook his head. ‘He was waiting,’ he said. ‘Watching. Looking out for opportunities. That was Robbie’s style.’

  Joe wasn’t sure what Keane meant by that, so he moved on. ‘I understand you were a bit wild, back in the day.’

  ‘Aye well, when you’re young, sometimes you don’t know how to hold your drink. I got into a bit of bother. We all have to grow up in the end.’

  ‘Brace said you were a maniac.’

  There was a pause. ‘Maybe – it takes one to know one.’

  Joe walked across the garden to get to his car. The young couple was still there, sitting on a bench, school bags at their feet. They didn’t notice him when he passed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Elderly and Disabled Wing had its own dining room. There was a television fixed high on the wall and it seemed to be on all day, more as background noise for the prisoners who worked in the kitchen than as a focus of attention for anyone else in the room. John Brace didn’t have to queue at the counter with the more able-bodied offenders. Each morning he wheeled himself to his usual table and an orderly brought his food to him. By now they knew what he liked and what he hated and they made every effort to please him. He had a reputation; he still had power on the outside and many of them had families who’d benefited from his generosity. Now an orderly in the regulation striped shirt and ill-fitting blue jeans approached with a tray. On it a bowl of cornflakes mixed with bran flakes, milk in a separate jug. Two slices of toast. Crisp, not soggy. The toast for the other men was made in a batch at the beginning of service and lay, growing soft and cold, until everyone arrived. John Brace’s toast was made when the boys in the kitchen heard his wheelchair approaching down the corridor.

  He thanked the orderly and looked up at the television for the local news headlines. He was expecting the discovery of Robbie Marshall’s body to be at the top of the programme. Vera was a good officer, but even she wouldn’t manage to keep that secret. Besides, Brace couldn’t see why she’d want to. She’d be after all the information she could get, asking people to dig back into their memories more than twenty years to a warm June night by the seaside.

  As he anticipated, the local news began with a long shot of St Mary’s Island lighthouse, then a close-up of the tent built over the entrance of the culvert, the white-suited CSIs emerging, looking serious. The cliché of the crime scene. Brace thought he recognized one of them. Then the reporter started to speak. She was blonde and bonny. The breeze from the sea was catching her hair and on occasion she had to use the hand that was not holding the microphone to push it away from her face.

  ‘The police have not yet released any information about the bodies found in the culvert near St Mary’s Island early yesterday, though it appears that these were not recent deaths, and officers have said that local people should not consider themselves to be in danger. A press conference will be held later today.’

  Brace stared at the television. Bodies. The woman had said ‘bodies’. Plural. His mind was racing but he continued to eat slowly, methodically. He couldn’t show any signs of emotion or anxiety, couldn’t let on in any way that the news item had a special meaning for him. He tried to slow his pulse and to think about what had to be done next. It was the lack of control that was infuriating, the lack of immediate access to information. There were people he needed to speak to, but that wouldn’t be possible until later. It would help if he knew what the police were thinking, but over the years he’d lost his influence within the force. It came to him again that perhaps
he should just let it go. Let the police carry on the investigation in their own way. Perhaps it had been a mistake to involve Vera in the first place. He didn’t have such a bad life in here. Vera Stanhope had been right about that.

  Then he thought that he didn’t have only himself to think about and, anyway, he’d never been one for taking the easy way out. He’d always taken risks and this might turn out to be the biggest gamble of his life. He remembered what he was missing on the outside and knew that he wanted to spend his last years away from this place. It was why he’d put up with the boredom for so long. He had plans and the possibility of a new life. He finished the last slice of toast and put his dishes tidily on the tray. The orderly appeared, apparently out of nowhere, to take it away. Brace felt a little calmer. He was working his way towards a strategy when an officer approached. Brace realized that he’d spoken to Vera on impulse, but now he needed to be ordered and rational. He needed a plan of campaign.

  ‘You’ve got another visit today, John. Your former colleague again.’

  Brace looked up and nodded. It was what he’d been expecting since seeing the news. ‘Give me ten minutes to clean my teeth?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ The officer stretched and yawned. ‘Let’s make them wait for a change.’

  Brace smiled easily and wheeled himself towards his cell. Although he waved to fellow inmates on the way and it would have been impossible for them to recognize any change of mood, he knew that he was becoming someone quite different. He had to be a kind of detective again, wily and untrusting. Making things happen. Vera might be determined to discover what had happened that summer night more than twenty years before, but he had to follow his own agenda. He couldn’t let her take control of the situation. There were people he needed to speak to. He needed to gather his friends around him again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At the gate Vera felt as if she was being treated as a regular. The officers nodded her a greeting, asked her if she thought the weather would break any time soon. She was early, and staff members passed through the waiting room on the other side of the automatic door. Vera nodded to the chaplain who’d set up her original visit. He was with the woman from education who’d been running the A-level English group. They were laughing and chatting, and Vera wondered what the chaplain would make of the fact that his request for a senior officer to speak to the men on the EDW had led to the discovery of two bodies. Then the flow of staff stopped. It seemed to Vera that she’d been waiting for a long time and she was just about to shout through to ask what was going on, when an officer came to take her to the interview suite. Brace was already there. They were in the same room as before and he was settled in his wheelchair on the side of the table nearest to the door. She had to squeeze past him to take her seat.

  ‘You’ll have seen the news!’ She spoke before she even sat down. Before she’d arrived, she’d been determined to be angry, and the wait had made the fury real; it had fuelled her sense of righteous indignation. ‘I hope you’ve got a bloody good explanation, John Brace.’ She collapsed on the plastic chair and made herself shut up; this wasn’t a time for self-indulgence. She stared across the table at him as the silence lengthened.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Honestly, Vera, I didn’t know. I was as shocked as you must have been to know that someone else was buried down there.’

  ‘So what are you telling me? That you didn’t notice the body already stuffed into the exact spot where you’d decided to hide Robbie Marshall? Come on, Brace, you can dream up a better excuse than that.’ But her anger was already starting to dissipate. Something about the way he was sitting, looking unexpectedly old and ill, made her pause for a moment and wait for his response. Then she reminded herself that he’d always been a con man, and age wouldn’t change him.

  ‘Really, I didn’t see anything. It was dark and I wasn’t hanging around.’

  ‘So it’s pure coincidence that you and some other bastard chose the same place to hide a body?’ Allowing her voice to rise into a shout.

  ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t think of any explanation. The first body could have been there for years, before I turned up with Robbie. We both know it’s hard to age a corpse when it’s been in the ground that long.’

  Vera stared at him. ‘You do realize you’re still our prime suspect for both murders? Any forensic evidence and you’re bound to be charged.’

  ‘There might be forensic evidence. I admitted I was there. But I gave you the information about Robbie in the first place. Why would I do that?’

  Vera wasn’t sure she had an answer. She stood up, frustrated. She’d come to Warkworth hoping for answers. All she’d ended up with were more questions.

  At the door she stopped and looked back at him. ‘The second body couldn’t belong to Mary-Frances Lascuola?’

  There was a moment of silence before he spoke. ‘How the hell would I know? We had a fling. I thought she was a bit special. She was the mother of my child. But she was an addict and she couldn’t give up, and I couldn’t handle that. We’d lost touch years before Robbie Marshall disappeared. I guess it’s possible she ended up in a grave in Whitley Bay. Probable even. But if she did, that had nothing to do with me.’

  In the car park Vera got her phone from the glove compartment and checked her messages. The first was from Dr Keating, the pathologist. ‘I’ve made a start on the bones. Come along to the mortuary early this afternoon and I might have some news for you. Valerie Malcolm, the forensic anthropologist, will be joining us.’ The next was a voicemail from Brace’s ex-wife. Peremptory and unemotional. ‘I saw the news this morning, Inspector. I need to speak to you. I’ll wait in until you arrive.’

  * * *

  Vera drove straight to Ponteland and the grand and rather ugly house where Brace had once lived with his wife. Judith opened the door immediately. ‘I’ve just made some coffee, come through.’ Despite the apparent welcome, the words sounded graceless and awkward. Once again they sat in the kitchen. Vera found it hard to imagine John Brace in this space, with its granite worktops and fancy gadgets. Had he made himself a bacon sandwich here, eaten pizza out of a box at the end of a long shift?

  ‘Have you got any information for me?’ Vera looked at the woman.

  ‘Information? No! Why?’

  ‘You phoned me and asked me to call on you. I’m in the middle of a murder investigation. You were married to a detective long enough to know I’ll be a bit busy for social visits.’ Vera nodded to the blue glazed mug on the table in front of her. ‘I’d go a long way for a decent cup of coffee, but not this far.’

  ‘You’ve found Robbie Marshall.’

  ‘No confirmation of that yet. We’ve found a body.’ A pause. ‘Two bodies.’ Vera looked up. ‘Any idea who the second might belong to?’

  ‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you.’

  ‘You have an idea who might be buried in there?’

  Judith shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. I wanted to tell you that if you think John is a double murderer, you’re making a mistake.’

  ‘He’s in prison because he was involved in the death of a gamekeeper called Glen Fenwick.’ Vera thought it was too easy to forget that. Brace wasn’t only a corrupt cop who’d used his office to rake in the cash; he’d set up his own business selling muscle to country landowners, and a lovely woman was a widow as a result.

  ‘No! He hired those men to frighten Fenwick off, not to kill him. They were wild, off their heads with drink and drugs. John was devastated when he found out what they’d done.’ Judith paused for a moment. ‘John wouldn’t kill anyone. He certainly wouldn’t have killed Robbie Marshall, whatever the provocation or circumstance. The one thing you need to know about John is that he’s a sentimental man. I know everyone thought he married me for my money, but it wasn’t like that. We loved each other for a while, until it all went sour. And for John, friendship is more important than a marriage. He might have given his life for Robbie Marshall, but he wouldn’t ha
ve killed him.’

  Vera remembered Brace’s passion as he’d spoken about his daughter and thought Judith was probably right. He was a very sentimental man. ‘Everything points to the first body being Marshall’s,’ she said. ‘Do you have any idea who else might have been buried with him?’

  Judith thought for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I was telling the truth when I said I didn’t really know Robbie. I made an effort to get on with John’s friends when we were first married. Some of it, I even enjoyed. The walks in the hills. All that exercise and fresh air. Then ending up for the night in some pub miles from anywhere.’

  ‘You’ll have met Hector, then?’

  ‘Big man? Rather jolly.’

  Was he jolly? Perhaps if he was trying to impress a bonny lass like you. A rich bonny lass. And he was big then, before the drink addled his mind and his brain stopped reminding him to eat.

  Judith was still talking. ‘But all the stuff that went along with it. Trading in birds’ eggs. Skinning and stuffing dead animals. The sense that the rest of the world didn’t understand that they were actually the custodians of the countryside. All that seemed rather ridiculous. I disliked it even before I understood that it was illegal and dangerous.’

  ‘So there were three friends: John, Robbie and Hector.’ Vera found herself warming to the woman, liking her even. ‘But they called themselves the Gang of Four, so there was someone else. The Prof. Did you ever meet him?’

  Judith shook her head. ‘I don’t think he was local. They talked about him in hushed terms: “The Prof. might be coming down next weekend.” As if he was almost a legendary figure. He was certainly the leader, the organizer.’

  ‘They talked about him coming down, not up?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ She frowned. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  Which meant that he might be Scottish, but that didn’t help a lot to identify him. Vera thought Judith was right and the group had been ridiculous. Grown men playing at Enid Blyton, with their adventures on the hills, their picnics and their elaborate ruses to escape capture. Their strange sense of honour. But the result of their antics had been deadly serious: two bodies left rotting for twenty years in an ancient drain.