Sarah May - The Missing Marriage

But Bobby didn’t mention any of this, partly out of habit – because the man sitting opposite was police and it was his policy not to answer any questions put to him by police – and partly because he was already in the process of forgetting.

‘What’s that? Did you just say something?’

‘Have you seen Bryan recently?’ Laviolette asked again, aware that Bobby Deane’s vulnerability was making him uncomfortable.

‘Bryan’s my youngest son,’ Bobby said slowly, uncertain.

‘That’s right,’ Laviolette agreed. ‘Have you seen him lately?’

‘He’s got a little girl of his own,’ Bobby carried on, ignoring the question. ‘What’s her name?’ he appealed, half-heartedly to the Inspector.

Laviolette smiled patiently. ‘Martha.’

This time, the smile seemed to relax Bobby. ‘Martha. He brought her here once. It was a Saturday – he takes her to the stables at Keenley’s, Saturdays.’ There was spittle on his chin; the recollection was making him reckless – despite the fact that his audience was police – because he might lose it at any moment. There couldn’t be anything wrong in this recollection – surely grandchildren were allowed to go horse riding if they chose, and sons were allowed to visit their fathers without breaking any laws.

‘Did Bryan come yesterday?’

‘I haven’t seen Bryan in years. What was yesterday?’

‘Saturday,’ Laviolette responded, debating whether to be more specific or not. ‘Easter Saturday,’ he said after a while.

‘It’s Easter?’ At first Bobby looked surprised – then resigned.

‘Yesterday was Saturday. Did you see Bryan yesterday, Mr Deane?’

Bobby shook his head, running his left hand down the greasy chair arm and starting to pick at the foam. ‘No. He never came in.’

‘He never came in,’ Laviolette repeated gently. ‘So he was – where? – outside?’

‘I don’t remember,’ Bobby said, suddenly deflated. ‘I don’t remember anything.’

‘Mr Deane, your son’s wife reported him missing yesterday – Easter Saturday – and we’re trying to find him, that’s all. We’d like to find Bryan so that he can go home.’

‘You don’t know where Bryan is?’

The Inspector got up, sighing. ‘Well, if you do see Bryan – if you even think you see Bryan, will you give me a call?’

He gave Bobby Deane his card, waiting for him to read it.

Bobby sat turning it over between his thumb and forefinger.

‘Is it alright if I use your bathroom?’ Laviolette asked.

As he disappeared out of the lounge and Bobby Deane’s mind, Bobby sat clutching the air with his left hand. He was holding a piece of leather in his hands – reins, attached to a harness, attached to a pony he was pulling towards the sand dunes rising in front of him.

The pony, so sure of itself underground, was hesitant up here on top – it kept stumbling and stopping even though it was blinkered, bewildered. Bobby would have to pull hard then to get her to move, and yell irritably – until he remembered that the black and white pit pony was the reason for his own day up top as well, and then he’d give her neck a belligerent stroke. All the same, he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t gone running off – this was her one day a year up top. But then one day probably didn’t make the other three hundred and sixty-four any better, he reasoned – in fact it probably made them worse. This reasoning didn’t lessen his own disappointment, however. He’d so wanted to see the pony run. In the end, frustrated, he’d tethered it to a hawthorn and run up onto the dunes with the rest of the boys. He must have been – how old? – as old as Bryan’s daughter the last time he saw her. So he ran with the others up onto the dunes, cutting his feet, which were bare, in the thick blades of dune grass.

He sat moving his bare feet now, in the carpet’s filthy pile, while the Inspector checked the cabinet in the bathroom for signs of occupancy other than Bobby Deane’s. There was nothing apart from a bottle of Old Spice, a cup of tea, a couple of buttons, and a penny whose copper had turned blue. There was a fraying yellow towel hanging from a nail in the wall, no sign of any toilet paper – and a bath full of water.

Laviolette let the bath out then crossed the hallway into the kitchen where there was a piece of board over the hob on the oven and a Calor Gaz camping stove on top of this. On the surface, lined up, were cartons of weed killer, a box of disposable gloves, and various tools. Somebody was using Bobby Deane’s kitchen to cut Methadrone, and it smelt bad in here.

In the lounge, Bobby Deane age twelve had been running with the other boys down the dunes onto the beach. Now he’d taken the edge off his excitement, he thought he should go and check on his pony so he climbed back up and slid down the other side into the field and there, standing by the hawthorn bush and pit pony, was a girl. She must have been collecting some sort of berries because her mouth, her hands and her dress were stained almost black with them, and she was holding a flower in one of her hands. A carnation? Bobby stopped half way down the dunes, watching her stroke the pony.

When Laviolette went back into the lounge, Bobby was staring at the wall opposite where the bungalow’s previous owner had left a barometer hanging – the needle was pointing to ‘Fair’. He was smiling while clenching and unclenching his feet in the carpet.

‘I’m going now, Mr Deane,’ the Inspector called out.

Bobby stared at him in shock. Who was he? How long had he been standing there for, and what was he doing in his house?

‘I’ll ask Rachel later when she gets in from work,’ he heard himself saying, automatically. ‘Her shift finishes soon. I’ll ask her – she’ll know about Bryan.’

Laviolette left Bobby Deane’s bungalow and stood in the front garden for a moment, thinking about Rachel Deane – who he remembered as a long, silent woman – and Rachel Deane’s suicide. Then he crossed the immaculate garden belonging to the bungalow next door. There was a stone donkey on the porch, pulling a stone cart planted with purple pansies; the purple jarring with the yellow the front door was painted. He knocked and a tidy, sour-looking woman answered – promptly enough to suggest that she’d been watching his approach from behind the nets.

He showed his ID, introduced himself and explained that he’d been next door at Mr Deane’s – aware that the woman already knew all this. Only the left hand side of her face and body were visible behind the door as her eyes, worried, searched the street behind Laviolette, torn between desperately wanting to know what the police were doing next door, and not wanting anybody to see the police on her own front step.

‘I’d ask you in, but I’ve just done the floors,’ the woman said, staring at the Inspector’s feet, which weren’t clean.

‘That’s fine, Mrs –’

The woman hesitated then said, thinly, ‘Harris.’

‘Mrs Harris.’ Laviolette smiled. ‘Mr Deane’s son, Bryan, sometimes visits him Saturdays. I was wondering whether you happened to notice whether Bryan Deane visited Mr Deane yesterday?’

‘What’s all this about?’

‘Just follow up to something – a family matter.’

‘A family matter involving the police?’ She waited, but the Inspector had nothing more to add to this, he just stood there smiling at her.

‘Did you see Bryan Deane here yesterday, Mrs Harris?’

‘He was here.’

‘What time?’

‘Around eleven.’ She sighed. ‘I noticed because it was the first time in ages I’d seen his car parked outside – and he was parked in my husband’s spot. My husband’s registered disabled – that’s why we’ve got the bay outside. I was about to go out there and ask him to move – when he drove off.’