‘I’m Anna Faust – a friend of the family,’ Anna said, stepping inside number two Marine Drive.
The ceiling was punctured with high wattage halogen bulbs whose light reflected harshly off the white walls and polished wood floors so that there were no dark corners, and no shadows. The inside of the house looked like the outside had led her to expect it would. There were no surprises, and nothing that stood out as personal, which – despite the obvious space – made Anna feel claustrophobic.
‘Friend of the family,’ the constable announced as Anna followed her and Martha into a spacious sitting room where there was another officer – male, late twenties, balding, and not in uniform – and two colossal sofas facing each other across a coffee table, fireplace, mirror, and fading white bouquet.
The constable sat down in one of the sofas, her arm round Martha’s shoulders still as Martha, sniffing in an attempt to stop crying, twisted her head so that she could watch Anna.
Laura Deane was sitting in the other sofa, curled in a corner with a small chestnut Spaniel over her feet – also watching Anna, whom she hadn’t seen since they were eighteen.
A faint trace of emotion crossed Laura’s otherwise immaculate face – a face that had had work done to it: Botox, for sure, possibly a chin tuck, and the nose was definitely thinner than Anna remembered.
Laura wasn’t sitting on the sofa so much as positioned in it, and she was positioned carefully with her legs, in loose linen trousers, pulled up under her. She was wearing a tank top the same bright white as the walls to set off her spray tan, and a loose cardigan over it that looked expensive. Light reflected off the heavy jewellery hanging from her wrists and neck and the overall effect was of somebody who either spent a lot of money on themselves or who had money spent on them – maybe a combination of both.
She was as immaculate as the house around her, and gave Anna the same impression of emptiness. It made her want to ask the woman sitting on the sofa in front of her where Laura had gone. Was she keeping her hidden in the attic? Was she up there screaming and banging on the door right now – desperate to be let out? Where had the girl with the mole on her thigh and skin that turned caramel in the real sun gone? Where had the girl with the long blonde hair that was forever getting knotted with twigs and bark and leaves from the trees she climbed gone?
Maybe Laura was thinking the same thing about her.
Maybe they’d just grown up, that was all.
Only Laura, taking in Anna – she did this by barely moving her eyes and remaining otherwise expressionless – had an air of triumph about her. As though she’d just discovered that she’d won the race after all – a race Anna wasn’t even aware they’d been running.
‘Why are you here?’
Anna turned to Martha – who’d pulled herself away from the stranger in uniform she had gone to for comfort instead of her own mother – and who was now sitting upright, her knees pulled into her chest.
‘I’ve known your mum a long time.’ Anna paused. ‘And your dad as well.’
‘So? I never saw you before this morning.’
‘How long has it been?’ Laura said, carefully. ‘Sixteen years?’
‘S-s-something like that.’
Anna exhaled with relief and opened her eyes, which shut automatically whenever she lost words. Only sporadically, and in extreme circumstances, did her childhood speech impediment come back. The moment had passed – and with it the feeling that she’d been standing, momentarily, in a precipitous place.
‘I heard you’d come back. I’m sorry about Erwin.’
‘And I’m sorry – about Bryan.’
The two women stared at each other, without sympathy, aware that the only reason Anna was here, inside number two Marine Drive, was because Bryan Deane wasn’t.
‘How did you know – about Bryan?’ Laura asked calmly.
‘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