Whatever happened to Caroline Lane? A Margate mystery

Spectator

09-07-2025

Should you search for someone who has disappeared seemingly of their own volition? David Whitehouse, the author of novels that scooped the Betty Trask and Jerwood prizes and were shortlisted for the Gordon Burn and CWA Golden Dagger awards, happened upon a real-life mystery. Having his hair cut in Margate, he was told about a woman who had lived in the neighbourhood and vanished. The story came from a resident of the same block as the missing Caroline Lane. Whitehouse's interest was piqued.
This is the background to Saltwater Mansions, the name of the apartment block from which Lane, a feisty (even grumpy) middle-aged woman had seemingly evaporated with no explanation. She had moved there in 2005 and made her presence well known to the residents' committee organising communal repairs. Although only one person remained in the block who had actually met Lane, Whitehouse does not skimp, and seeks out a man who had sat on the committee and been driven to distraction by Lane's refusal to comply with plans agreed by other residents.
Whitehouse's probing would be a credit to any police force. He is fascinated by the fact that it was only her neighbours who noticed that Lane had disappeared. They reported her as a missing person, but the mystery was never solved.
Whitehouse makes it his mission to find out what happened to Lane. But this is not just an investigation of a disappearance. Along the way, he questions the morality of delving into another person's private life. Isn't it their prerogative to leave town – or the world – if they wish? Is his interest prurient? At the same time he is haunted by the fact that when Lane's neighbours finally gained access to her flat to look for clues they found a vast pile of unopened mail and very little else. Why would this woman have carried on paying her direct debits for 13 years? Why would she have abandoned a flat she owned? And what was the legal situation for her neighbours, who were owed money for repairs, a sum that had swollen with each year?
Whitehouse is interested in people, and his curiosity and ability to listen mean that he finds out the stories of others, many of them complex and coloured by past experiences. He even looks for the reason why his father is as he is, avoiding deep analysis of his emotions or searching conversations. Paradoxically, his long-standing disquiet about his father's inability to open up acknowledges the man's extreme altruism.
A vivid portrait of Lane emerges from those who knew her. During one excruciating committee meeting, when she refused to agree with the other tenants and insisted on piling additional expenses on them by demanding an independent third-party audit, Mr Peake, the long-suffering secretary, 'had squeezed his mini pain au chocolat so tightly it was now roadkill in his palm'.
The small touches can make one shiver. 'Caroline may have disappeared, but it didn't feel like something had happened so much as something hadn't. It was as though they heard an echo when there had never been a sound.' 'Outside Caroline's kitchen window, streaks of rust appeared on the fire escape's metal banisters, a copper red trail glittering in the midday sun.'
Margate, too, is brought alive – downtrodden at first, then discovered by yuppies and gentrified. The rolling sea keeps time in the background like a metronome, its eternal nature testament to the fact that not all mysteries can be solved. Whitehouse realises that he has always associated the sea with an ending, invoking its presence at the close of his novels. His similes are poetic: 'I watched the tide edge out like someone trying not to wake a sleeping lover.'
It would be a spoiler to hint at how the story ends. But the reader is left with the understanding that everyone has their tale to tell, and that the reasons behind events are often mysterious.