The Couple at No. 9(45)

He leads Lorna to a funky little coffee shop with music and tables set outside on a terrace overlooking the beach. People are milling about, some drinking pints and others sipping cappuccinos in huge colourful cups and saucers.

‘What would you like? It’s my treat,’ she says, waving away his offers to pay. ‘It’s kind of you to talk to me.’

‘It’s my pleasure. I’m happy to have the company.’ He grins. He has a dimple on his left cheek. He says he’d love a beer and Lorna decides to order a glass of wine. It’s not like she has to drive, she tells herself. She can get a takeaway coffee afterwards to drink on the train.

Alan has found a table at the corner of the terrace, overlooking the bay and the ice-cream-coloured row of beach huts. She sits next to him and takes in a deep breath of the sea air. She could live here, she thinks, with the sun on her back, the music, the hustle and bustle. She suddenly yearns to be back in San Sebastián.

Alan thanks her for his pint and takes a long glug, the froth settling on his top lip. ‘This has hit the spot.’

She laughs. The wine and the sun and the music have made her feel giddy and helped ease her disappointment at finding out Daphne died before she could have become her mother’s lodger.

‘So tell me,’ he says, putting his pint down on the wooden table, ‘what’s all this got to do with Sheila Watts?’

Lorna explains about the bodies found in the garden, the article about Sheila, her mother’s lodger also being called Daphne Hartall. She pulls the newspaper clipping from her bag and hands it to Alan. ‘And then I saw this, your quote in the paper.’

He scans it and hands it back to her. ‘I haven’t got my glasses on. Would you mind reading it?’

She does as he asks, making sure to read slowly and clearly – she’s often accused of being a fast talker. When she gets to the end he’s looking out to sea, as though half expecting to spot Sheila on the beach.

‘She was a strange one,’ he says, his gaze still on the far distance. ‘A bit of a loner, you know. But we were friends.’ He turns back to her. ‘She lived in the flat below mine. Not where I live now. In Stone Road.’

Lorna has no idea where that is but she nods along. ‘But you didn’t know a Rose Grey?’ she clarifies.

He shakes his head. ‘No, no, definitely not.’

‘I just don’t understand why my mother would have kept an article about Sheila Watts unless she or her lodger knew her.’

Alan takes a noisy slurp of his beer in answer.

On the beach below she watches as a teenage boy frolics in the sea with a brown Cockapoo. She lifts her eyes back to Alan. ‘What happened the night Sheila died? Can you remember?’

‘It was New Year’s Eve. A group of us went to the local pub, then decided to see in the new year at the beach. Sheila didn’t know any of my friends but she tagged along. Like I said, she kept herself to herself, really. She’d only been in Broadstairs for a few years. She was originally from London, I think. She said she travelled around a lot.’

‘My mum was from London. Maybe they knew each other before Sheila came here.’ A breeze has whipped up from the sea and Lorna puts her jacket back on. They are sitting in partial shade now.

‘Maybe. Anyway, that night Sheila was particularly quiet. She hardly spoke in the pub. She sat morosely in the corner, drinking. Although she didn’t act drunk. I asked her a few times what was up. Like I said, we weren’t close as such, but I’d got to know her a bit over the two years she was my neighbour. Sometimes she’d come up to my flat for a cup of tea. We’d talk a lot. Deep talks, really. About my sister dying and how she’d lost someone too. She didn’t say who. The night Sheila died she seemed jittery and on edge. Personally I always wondered if she was an ex-junkie. Very thin. Paranoid.’

‘Paranoid? About what?’

‘Convinced she was being followed. I often wondered if she owed money to her dealer or some such.’ He laughs. It’s deep and throaty like he’s getting over a bout of bronchitis. ‘I’m probably reading more into it all now, with hindsight. But she was cagey. That’s the right word.’

‘So what happened when you got to the beach that night?’

‘Sheila wandered off by herself. I asked her if she wanted any company but she shook me off, told me she was feeling maudlin, that she always did around New Year, and that she’d like to be on her own. Me and my mates were sitting and drinking and then I noticed Sheila was stripping off and getting into the sea. Mad, if you ask me.’ He shudders. ‘Bloody cold, the sea in December.’

Lorna grins. ‘I can imagine.’

‘I sat with a couple of my mates, sinking a few cans. We all got drunk and we forgot about Sheila. It was only later, when we started walking home, that we realized she wasn’t with us. My mate, Phil, and I ran back down to the beach, where she’d left her clothes but couldn’t see her in the sea. It was like she’d just been,’ he grimaces, ‘swallowed by the water.’

‘And that was when you raised the alarm?’

‘Yes. She obviously drowned. Maybe she’d drunk more than we knew. We felt terrible.’

‘That’s awful,’ says Lorna, and despite the heat of the day, she feels goose-bumps pop up on her arms. The sea, as much as she loves it, has always terrified her. It’s like a mighty beast, and you never know what mood it’s going to be in. It deserves respect. ‘Do you think it was an accident or suicide?’