The Seagull Read online

  ‘The second body was smaller. Probably a woman. Do you have any idea who that might have been? Did Robbie Marshall have a girlfriend?’ It occurred to Vera that Robbie might have combined business with pleasure that night.

  There was a moment of silence. Judith seemed to be making a genuine effort to remember. ‘He certainly didn’t bring anyone along when he was out in the hills with John. I had the impression that I should feel honoured to be a part of those expeditions, and that I was the only woman who’d ever been invited to join them. But there was one night when we all went out for a meal in Whitley. It would have been the early eighties. A little family-run Italian restaurant in one of the streets that runs off the sea front. I can’t remember the name. I think we were the only people there. Perhaps it had even been booked by John for our own private dinner. He liked making those sorts of gestures. Robbie had a woman with him then.’

  ‘Did she have a name?’

  ‘Well, of course she had a name. Whether I can remember it is another matter altogether.’ The old spikiness had returned.

  Vera waited.

  ‘She was rather glamorous,’ Judith said. ‘Big hair and big boobs. Not exactly tarty, but left nothing to the imagination. I was surprised. Robbie always came across as quiet. Not shy, but socially awkward. Cold even. He never made any effort at all to get on with me. I was prepared to be snooty about the woman, but in fact I really liked her. She made us all laugh. I wasn’t drinking because I’d just found out I was pregnant. That was the first time, and it all seemed very exciting and special. I’d only told John. The others were drinking a lot.’ She paused and Vera saw she was back in that little restaurant, savouring the secret of her pregnancy. ‘She was called Elaine. I don’t think I was ever told a second name. She worked in one of the clubs in Whitley.’

  ‘Is that how John and Robbie knew her? Through her work?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Judith said. ‘But Elaine didn’t work front-of-house. She was a kind of PA for the owner. She had some brilliant stories about the things that went on there.’

  ‘Elaine. You’re sure you can’t remember a second name?’

  ‘Quite sure. As I said, I don’t think I ever knew it. And that was the only time I met her. John mentioned her a couple of times after that, in relation to Robbie, but I doubt if they were still an item when Robbie disappeared.’

  ‘Any idea of the club where she worked?’ Vera was starting to think that it might have been worth making the trek to Ponteland after all.

  There was another moment of silence. ‘It was called “The Seagull”,’ Judith said at last. ‘It doesn’t exist any more. It was knocked down a long time ago. There’d been a fire. It didn’t burn to the ground, but it was never rebuilt. It ended up just an eyesore.’

  Vera remembered The Seagull so well, partly because Hector had scoffed at the name. Seagull? What’s a seagull? There are herring gulls, black-headed gulls, common gulls. But there’s no such species as a seagull. And yet Vera thought he’d been in there, despite deriding its name. Not as a regular, but on special occasions with the Gang of Four. She pictured him at home, dressing up for a rare night out, and coming back the next day, probably still too pissed to be driving legally. On one occasion smelling of a woman’s perfume, with lipstick stains on his only good white shirt.

  Judith was still talking. ‘I think there’s a plan to build luxury apartments there now. It was right on the sea front, so there’d be a terrific view.’ Another silence, and again she seemed to have travelled back in time to the first years of her marriage, the time when she still believed in John Brace and anything appeared possible. ‘But it was brilliant then. A bit more sophisticated than some of the places in the town. It didn’t attract the underage drinkers or the folk just wanting a wild night out. It did classy cocktails and real food. There was live music – jazz mostly – and a terrace where you could sit to watch the tide come in.’

  ‘I remember it.’ And Vera could picture the building, gleaming white, with its 1930s curved lines and a blue neon gull on the side. More California than Tyneside. But she’d never been inside. Unlike Hector, she’d never had anybody to go with.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Holly found Laura Webb through a friend of Charlie’s who’d once worked in Vice and had the woman’s address. She was still living in Whitley Bay, but when Holly knocked at the door of the little terraced house there was no answer. There were small front gardens facing out to a narrow street, and next door a woman sat on the grass watching her toddler play.

  ‘She’ll be at work at this time.’ The woman seemed friendly enough.

  ‘Oh?’ Holly wasn’t quite sure what else to say. Laura had a record for soliciting as long as her arm, though there’d been nothing for years. Surely she’d be too old to be working the streets these days. Besides, this seemed a very respectable neighbourhood.

  ‘Yeah, she runs the yoga centre at the metro station. You should catch her there, though she might be teaching a class. You can always grab a coffee next door if you have to wait.’

  Holly drove back to the sea front, left her car there and walked inland along the wide avenue that led towards the station. Even she remembered when this street had been heaving with people, especially on bank holidays. People had started drinking first thing in the morning and carried on all day, staggering from one bar to another. There’d been lunchtime strippers, and bar staff wearing so little that they could have been stripping themselves. Whitley had attracted hen-and stag-parties then, women in halos and wings, and men in corsets and fishnets; they’d come in minibuses and stayed in the cheap B&Bs. Some of her male colleagues had called South Parade ‘Fanny Alley’, had made detours so they could drive along it to eye up the teenage girls who were out partying for the first time, in skirts that left nothing to the imagination and tottering on heels, so that they looked like kids dressing up in their mothers’ clothes.

  Now most of the bars and clubs were closed, the windows shuttered or covered with hardboard. The street had lost its brash energy and postcard humour as well as its sleaze. There were more estate agents’ ‘For Sale’ notices than neon. A plastic palm tree lay on its side outside the Blue Lagoon, and all the guest houses showed that they had vacancies and that contractors would be welcome. Holly supposed that soon the developers would come along, turn the empty bars and hotels into desirable flats. Gentrification was already happening on other streets. Already at the seaward end of South Parade there was a smart new Italian restaurant and something that called itself a gastropub.

  The metro station had a glass roof that must once have been very grand, spanning the lines and both platforms, but now many of the panes had been removed and there were spikes on all the metal struts to keep the pigeons off. The ticketing was by machine these days, but the buildings that had once housed the station staff and waiting room remained. There was a clock tower and an arch to the town, photos of pre-war crowds streaming away from the platforms towards the sea. Now a couple of elderly women waited for the train towards Newcastle and chatted about last night’s television.

  Part of the redundant ticket office had been turned into a cafe, with tables and chairs outside. A big woman was drinking a latte while a dog by her side drank water from a bowl. The yoga centre was next door and, as Holly approached, the door opened and a group of people in leggings and T-shirts began to spill out onto the platform. The woman Holly assumed to be Laura stood in the doorway and waved them goodbye, then turned to greet Holly.

  ‘Do you want to sign up? Our beginners’ group starts in half an hour. We’re pretty busy, but I’m sure we can squeeze you in.’ Efficient and friendly. She was in late middle age now, but still striking: cheekbones to die for, a face like a sculpture, very short hair. When Holly didn’t answer immediately she continued, ‘It’s all very gentle, at least to start with. Nothing to be nervous about.’

  ‘Laura Webb?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wondered if I could ask a few questions.’ Holly showed
her warrant card, attempting discretion. They were still in the doorway between the centre and the platform, and the woman with the dog could hear every word. ‘I’m hoping you can help.’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  Holly hesitated, but the woman in the cafe seemed oblivious to the conversation. ‘The bodies we found near St Mary’s. You’ll have heard?’

  Laura nodded. ‘It’s all the groups have been talking about since the news got out.’ She led Holly into the building, which seemed suddenly shadowy and cool after the bright sunlight captured under the glass station roof. There was a polished wood floor, and bubbled windows high in the two facing walls. Laura unrolled a couple of yoga mats and sat on one, legs curled to her side. She nodded to the other and Holly took it, wondering for a moment what Vera would have made of that and whether she’d have been able to get on her feet again after the interview. A train rattled past, then came to a stop.

  ‘I’m trying to track down a woman called Mary-Frances Lascuola. She seemed to disappear around the mid-eighties.’

  ‘You think one of the bodies could be her?’ Laura had her head turned to one side, so she wasn’t looking directly at Holly. She sat very still; with her head turned in one direction and her legs in the other, she could have been holding a yoga pose.

  ‘It’s possible. We don’t know anything for certain yet.’

  ‘I knew Mary-Frances,’ Laura said. ‘You must be aware of my past or you wouldn’t be here. Mary and I lived and worked together for a while. You know how sometimes you drift in and out of people’s lives. We met up in a bail hostel in Shields and then rented a flat not very far from here. Both of us determined to stay clean.’ She paused. ‘We even got proper jobs for a while, waitressing in a club on the front. The Seagull.’

  ‘Well, you stayed clean, at least.’ Holly was finding it hard to imagine this strong and competent woman as an addict, picking up men on the streets to pay for her next fix.

  ‘Not then. Not for long. Mary was the one who’d started pulling her life together, when we were living in the flat in Whitley. I couldn’t stop.’ There was no emotion in the woman’s voice. She could have been talking about a stranger. ‘I lost the job in The Seagull very quickly – I was far too unreliable. Mary stuck with it for a bit, then had a massive relapse and she got the sack too. The last time we were together we were attending a rehab place in Bebington. It was a day-centre, not residential, and we were still living together in the flat. The project worked for me. Not for Mary, though. She dropped out and I never saw her again.’

  ‘When was that?’

  Laura shrugged as if the dates didn’t matter. Holly thought she was remembering the friend who’d disappeared from her life.

  ‘Did you check at the club where she’d been working previously?’ Holly tried to picture this chaotic seaside existence of loose connections: seasonal workers, drifters, ex-offenders. No wonder Mary-Frances had found it easy to disappear.

  ‘No. I didn’t try very hard to find her. Addicts are selfish creatures and I was focused on keeping myself straight.’

  ‘What was the name of the rehab place?’

  ‘Shaftoe House. It’s a big Victorian pile in the middle of the town. It used to belong to a pit-owner, then it became part of a mental-health hospital. It’s still there, still helping people with their recovery, but it’s run by a charity now.’ Laura paused. ‘I go in for an afternoon a week to run a yoga and meditation class.’

  ‘We were told that Mary-Frances had died,’ Holly said, ‘but we can’t find confirmation. Did she use any other names?’

  Laura shook her head. ‘Not when I knew her. She was very proud of being part-Italian. It seemed very exotic to the rest of us.’

  ‘She had a baby in 1983. Did you know Mary-Frances when she was pregnant?’

  ‘No, by the time I knew her, the baby was already in care. She talked about her sometimes. You know, those sentimental conversations you have late at night. She’d imagine what the bairn would look like, if she’d started nursery. Sometimes she made out she felt guilty, but really she knew it had been the right thing to give her up for adoption.’

  ‘Did she tell you about the father?’

  Laura turned her head slowly, so she was looking at Holly for the first time.

  ‘The bent cop, you mean.’

  Holly knew it was ridiculous, but she felt herself blushing. It was as if she was being accused, along with her whole profession. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘He came to the flat a couple of times, flashing his money around, sweeping Mary off to some smart hotel.’ A train pulled to a stop and outside there were passengers’ voices: teenage lads swearing. ‘Always showing off, always making out that he was in control and better than the rest of us. He was famous for promising to drop the charges against us, in return for sex. All the girls knew him.’

  ‘How did he treat Mary-Frances? Was he ever violent?’

  The answer was immediate. ‘No! John Brace was a bastard to the rest of the world but, you know, I really think he cared for her.’

  ‘Despite wanting sex with other women?’

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t have seen any contradiction in that.’ Laura seemed to be searching for the right words. ‘He had that sense of entitlement. Because he was a bloke and a cop. It was a kind of weird power-trip. And it was a different time then, you know?’

  Holly thought she didn’t really know at all. ‘So the last time you saw Mary-Frances was when she disappeared from Shaftoe House?’

  ‘That’s right. Occasionally I imagined I caught glimpses of her after that. Once I was walking down Northumberland Street in Newcastle and I thought I recognized her in the distance. But it was just before Christmas and the street was packed so tight you could hardly move. I couldn’t catch up with her. Another time I was on the metro. Someone got off at Cullercoats and that could have been her, but I only caught a glimpse of her back. I think more likely I was daydreaming. Letting the ghosts of my past come back to haunt me.’ Laura smiled. ‘They bother me less than they used to.’

  ‘Did you ever meet a guy called Robbie Marshall? He was a friend of John Brace, worked at Swan Hunter’s?’

  Laura seemed to consider for a moment before speaking. ‘Maybe. The name’s familiar. It was a long time ago. And I knew lots of men back then.’

  ‘Is there anyone else I can speak to? Any other women who might have more information about Mary-Frances? Family?’

  ‘Her parents both died when she was in her early twenties. I don’t think there was any other family.’ She looked at her watch. ‘The next class will be in soon. I should open the door for them.’

  ‘Friends, then? People she worked with at The Seagull perhaps?’

  Laura was distracted now. ‘I was never in with that crowd. Like I said, I was sacked after a couple of months. Besides, I didn’t really fit in.’ She paused. ‘Even pissed or drugged, I didn’t like some of the things that went on there. Flash guys acting like film stars, thinking money could buy them whatever they wanted.’ Another pause. ‘You could ask the bloke who used to own the place if Mary got close to any of the staff. He’s a Scot called Sinclair. Whitley’s Mr Big, if you believed his own hype. He’s a reformed character now, a community leader, member of every committee going.’ A pause. ‘I always thought he was a bit of a creep.’ She got to her feet with one supple movement. ‘I doubt he’d remember after all this time, but it’s worth asking.

  Holly scrambled to stand too. ‘Any idea where I can find him?’

  ‘Maybe at the office at the Dome. He’s a consultant with the sea-front regeneration project. Trying to recapture the town’s past.’ The words were dismissive. ‘Or his own.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Vera stood in the mortuary next to Paul Keating and took in that special scent of disinfectant and decay. She’d never been squeamish and these bones, spread out over two tables, were so distanced from a living, breathing human that she found it hard to feel emotional about them. Scraps of
clothing were still attached in places, but so degraded that Vera thought they’d be unlikely to tell them much. Keating hadn’t been alone in the room when Vera had arrived. He’d been talking to a woman who was as tall as he was, a little stooped, as if she’d grown up apologizing for her height. She wore thick-rimmed glasses that gave her an air of academic austerity.

  ‘This is Valerie Malcolm, the forensic anthropologist from the university.’

  Vera had heard of her and knew she had a good reputation. Bodies didn’t usually stay in the ground for very long in the UK, so forensic anthropologists had little experience unless they worked abroad. Malcolm had been based in the US for years. There, because of the vast spaces between communities and the unexplored areas of wilderness, it was easier to make people disappear and bodies stayed hidden for longer. The door opened again and Billy Cartwright, her favourite crime-scene manager, scuttled in.

  ‘I thought you were on holiday for another couple of days.’ But Vera was delighted to see him; her team was complete.

  ‘The plane got in this morning and I knew you’d never manage without my expertise.’

  ‘You and your young lass had enough of each other, have you?’ Vera let the innuendo stretch. Billy shrugged and grinned and knew better than to respond. Malcolm was already looking at the bones on the first table and seemed not to be aware of the exchange.

  ‘The first individual is clearly adult male,’ Keating said.

  ‘Not a young man.’ Valerie Malcolm looked up from the table. ‘You get a feel for younger bones. They’re suppler and more moist.’ It seemed an odd description for bone, but Vera said nothing and the anthropologist continued, ‘And there’s no athleticism here. But no sign of arthritis or other major damage, either. A little wear on the spine. This was a man in middle age, I’d say. Healthy enough but not super-fit.’