The Mermaid's Call

by Katherine Stansfield

  ‘Well,’ Mr Good said, and opened the door. ‘If we have dreams to guide us in these matters, I should best retire.’

  ‘Before you do so,’ Anna said, ‘a time?’

  A pause and then Mr Good muttered, with great reluctance, ‘No more than three days.’ Then more loudly, ‘I see no reason to doubt my original supposition. This man was likely killed by entering the water and being dragged across the rocks, like so many whose ill-fortune brings them to this coast. May God have mercy on his soul. Let the parson do as he wishes and bury the man forthwith.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Mr Good left us then, and it was just me and Anna and Captain Ians in the deadhouse, and the stranger-brother before us. We none of us spoke for a moment, then the captain asked us for our thoughts. Mine was lavender – the scent on the handkerchief Mrs Seldon had given me. And sadness.

  ‘Do you share Good’s belief that this man was killed by the action of the rocks?’ the captain said.

  ‘I wouldn’t say I’m convinced,’ Anna said.

  ‘I knew it,’ Captain Ians said, with some relief. ‘Thank heavens you were able to see him before Robert got him in the ground.’

  ‘We’ll need to see where the body was found,’ she said. ‘That will help us make a judgement, but in the meantime, there are several matters that would seem to make the coroner’s verdict flawed. First, there is the matter of the key.’

  ‘And look at his trousers,’ I said. ‘They’ve escaped the rocks – not a tear in them. His belt still attached. But his belly has been carved to pieces. Only inches between the two parts of him.’

  ‘Quite right, Shilly. Are we to believe the rocks to be so discriminating in their violence?’

  ‘I will own, there’s no logic to the sea’s rage,’ the captain said. ‘I’ve heard tell of limbs washed in, not a mark upon them, save that they’ve been severed from their owners. And there are the gobbets …’

  ‘Gobbets?’ Anna said.

  ‘Another common horror. The name given to pieces of flesh washed in, separate from the body to which they belong. Those that do not resemble limbs. They are … lumps, often.’

  I made myself look at the dead man again, at the place in his arm where the meat was missing. ‘The rocks do that?’ I said. ‘Bite such holes in people?’

  He nodded.

  I could not believe it. Surely it was a living creature did this.

  ‘The mermaids,’ I said. ‘Do they have claws? They’d need them, for violence like this.’

  ‘Putting mythical creatures to one side for a moment,’ Anna said, ‘what of identification? Now that you’ve had a chance to study him, Captain, is there any means to confirm this is indeed your brother Joseph? Beyond the conviction of the dream, I mean.’

  Captain Ians looked over the body, what there was of it, and shook his head. ‘I wish there was. To be certain, to put his name on his stone … But it has been too long. I have not seen Joseph since he was eighteen, when he left Morwenstow.’

  ‘And yet you were certain that the man you dreamt of was your brother,’ Anna said. ‘How could you tell, after all this time since you’ve seen him, and the injuries to his face so violent?’

  ‘That was one of the many strange parts of the dream, Miss Drake. In it, he appeared just as he does now, the injuries the same. And yet I knew, as surely as I knew a woman was involved, that the dead man was my brother Joseph. Even after all this time. But such knowledge isn’t enough. I would have certainty, beyond any doubt, that this is indeed Joseph.’

  ‘Your sister, Mrs Hawker,’ I said, ‘she told us Joseph got a tattoo before he went to sea. Said it was wicked to look at. Did you see it, Captain?’

  ‘I did. I was home on shore leave a few days after Joseph went to Bude to have the tattoo done. I knew it at once to be the design in the church. God knows why he chose such an image. Well, I do know. To anger our father. And it worked!’

  ‘Mrs Hawker said the tattoo was on his arm,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  I set the candle next to the dead man so that we should all better see the part of his upper arm that had a bit missing.

  ‘Could it have been this arm, Captain, that had the tattoo? There is some ink here, I think, just a scrap of it.’

  Anna and the captain peered close to the man’s skin, then Anna was looking at me, and though her mouth was covered by the handkerchief, I knew she was grinning at me. At her detective partner.

  ‘This could be part of Joseph’s tattoo,’ the captain said. ‘But it is so small a piece, and to have ink here – it’s a common enough site for a sailor to have a tattoo. I’m not sure it’s enough to be certain.’

  ‘But it’s a start,’ Anna said.

  We were done with the dead man now. He could go to his earthly rest and the parson would be saved an unquiet soul walking in his churchyard. This one, at least. Anna and I lifted the sheet and covered him again.

  Outside, the air was almost sweet after the foulness of the deadhouse.

  ‘I wish you well in your endeavours,’ Captain Ians said. ‘When more comes to light, you’ll find me at the Bush. The light – I forgot to tell you!’ He pressed his palms into his eyes with dreadful force. ‘The lack of sleep—’

  ‘Please – don’t harm yourself, Captain!’ I said. ‘What light?’

  ‘I’ve been told that the night before the body was discovered, a light was seen on the cliff, just above where the dead man lay. Someone was up there.’

  ‘A light on the cliff,’ Anna said. ‘A return to the violence of the past?’

  ‘If you believe tales of wrecking, then you should believe in mermaids too, for nothing has ever been proved.’ He seemed to pitch in the wind. ‘The waters off Morwenstow’s cliffs are treacherous enough without false lights being shown. The enquiry in ’43 made that clear, though it did little else for shipping.’

  ‘True,’ she said, ‘but all stories have their roots in facts, do they not? And I am in the business of facts, Captain Ians. A light on a cliff in this part of the world suggests certain kinds of criminal acts – destruction of property, theft, not to mention murder. Perhaps the deceased was a victim of a false light if he discovered someone setting one.’

  ‘Or he was killed because he was setting the light, and someone didn’t like it,’ I said.

  Captain Ians didn’t look pleased with my thoughts on this, or Anna’s. He said he would leave us to it.

  ‘Can we walk with you back to the Bush?’ I said, not liking the way he seemed to teeter, not liking the closeness of the sea. But he shook his head.

  ‘Will you at least allow yourself some rest once you reach the Bush?’ Anna said. ‘There is nothing to be gained by staying awake.’

  He set off in what I supposed was the direction of the inn, though we had yet to see it. ‘Until this mystery is solved,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘I cannot risk it. One dead man is more than enough to feel responsible for.’

  ‘A curious phrase to use, given the circumstances,’ Anna said, once he was away.

  ‘I don’t think he’s confessing proper, even though those are the words for it.’

  ‘Is his goal here simply to excise his own demons, I wonder?’ She pulled up her collar against the wind. ‘Or something else, something bigger. There seems no love lost between the captain and Parson Hawker.’

  ‘The parson doesn’t seem to like either brother,’ I said, ‘even though he’s never met the younger one.’

  The captain rounded the bend and winked out of sight.

  ‘And Mrs Hawker,’ Anna said, ‘though she appeared upset when she spoke of Joseph, it was anger that moved her to speak to us of Frederick this morning. Some family feud?’

  ‘Would this be motive we are speaking of, Anna?’

  ‘It would,’ she said, and quite brightly. ‘Well done.’

  Well done, Shilly, I said to myself. And out loud, to her, I said, ‘Shall we find the parson, then? Ask him how the dead man was found?’


  ‘Yes. Let’s see if our host has reappeared after missing Mr Good’s visit.’

  We headed back towards the vicarage.

  ‘We shall have to be beady for locks, Anna.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  I reached into one of the secret pockets Anna had sewn into Mrs Williams’ dress.

  ‘You magpie!’ Anna said, and kissed me, quick, on the cheek, for I had taken treasure.

  The key that had nearly been lost inside the dead man.

  EIGHTEEN

  On our way back to the vicarage I asked Anna what would happen to my lessons while we were in Morwenstow for I knew if I went too long without them, I’d forget what I’d worked so hard to learn already. She’d told me that often enough since she’d started teaching me.

  ‘Surely you can see we haven’t time for that, Shilly. We have a dead man to identify and a cause of death to discover. You can’t possibly mean for us to pause the case so that you can sound your words?’

  I tried not to hear the scorn in her voice. I tried not to feel disappointed.

  ‘No … I just thought, with me leaving the drink alone. You did promise, Anna!’

  She muttered something about pri or it ties but I made out I hadn’t heard her.

  ‘What about if we made it useful writing?’ I said, and pulled my skirt free of a bramble that had crept over a gravestone. ‘Something we were going to do anyway, not the names of boats and all of that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A letter. To Mathilda.’

  She tripped then, over what I couldn’t see, but by the time I’d helped her up and she’d dusted off her hands, she said she knew how I could have my lessons and make haste with the case at the same time.

  ‘You can read the world around you, Shilly. That’s useful.’

  ‘What?’

  Anna waved at the gravestones. ‘We’re surrounded by writing every day. Now that you can read some words, you’ll start to see it.’

  ‘But the letter—’

  ‘Let’s not start too ambitiously, shall we? One thing at a time.’

  And then I was certain she started walking faster. Wanting to get away from my plea.

  There was no sign of the parson, or his wife, at the vicarage. There were plenty of dogs and cats, though, and some shouting. We found Gyp the pig in the dining room, helping himself to the breakfast leavings as Mrs Seldon tried to shoo him out.

  ‘Geddon with you! Geddon!’ she shouted, clapping her hands and stamping her feet as if she was doing some strange dance – the Morwenstow reel.

  But Gyp just danced about her, snorting and squealing, as if he knew the Morwenstow reel too, and he liked it. Anna and I took up a corner of the room each to stalk Gyp to the door, and with Mrs Seldon holding high a rolled-up newspaper we got him into the courtyard at the back of the house.

  When we’d recovered our breath, I asked Mrs Seldon if the parson was at home.

  ‘You’ll find him in the church, getting himself ready.’

  ‘What time is service today?’ Anna said.

  ‘Well, it’s evensong at four but that’s not what he’ll be sorting now. It’ll be tomorrow’s job he’s nerving himself for, now the coroner’s been.’

  ‘The man in the deadhouse – his burial?’ I said.

  Mrs Seldon ripped a page from the newspaper and used it to scoop some of Gyp’s doings that lay stinking on the carpeting. ‘That animal … Mrs Hawker’s terrible worried for him, of course.’

  ‘Worried for Gyp?’ I said.

  ‘The parson!’ Mrs Seldon said, and threw Gyp’s doings out the window. I hoped there was no one passing. ‘Now, I must geddon or we’ll have no dinner. You’ll be joining us?’

  ‘Please,’ Anna said.

  ‘I’ll fetch a shawl before we go to the church,’ I said, for I had been in enough churches to know the bone-chill of them, even in April, and the wind still with us too, of course.

  I was halfway up the stairs when I heard Gyp’s squeals and Mrs Seldon’s shouting, and guessed the beast had found his way back in. I resolved to shilly-shally and let Anna do the shooing. She could be stern when she needed to be.

  I got my shawl, and then as I made to cross the landing I stopped. As before, the narrow door by the stairs was the only door there that was shut. And locked, for I tried the handle. In my secret pocket I felt the key grow heavier, felt it say, try me, Shilly. Try me. So I did. But the key didn’t fit the lock.

  ‘You’ll never see that one open,’ a voice said.

  I spun round. It was Nancy. She was a plain creature and no mistake, with her broad face and her too-small eyes. Her hair was a lank cow’s lick of brown now greying. Her arms were full of clothes, taking for washing, I guessed.

  I quickly put the key back in my pocket. ‘I got the wrong door. Thought this one mine.’

  She nodded. Did she believe me? I doubted it mattered so I pressed on.

  ‘Why isn’t it ever opened?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s the parson’s private place.’

  ‘For writing letters?’ I said, thinking of the letters I would like to write to Mathilda, of Anna’s secret letters I’d like to read. The parson might help me. Anna didn’t seem to want to. Stop that, Shilly, I said to myself. Stop thinking bad of her and fretting about Mathilda. The quicker you find the truth in Morwenstow, the quicker you can get back to Boscastle and sort it all out.

  Nancy was frowning at me. ‘You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Only, you was muttering.’

  ‘I … I didn’t sleep well. Heard something, on the wind.’

  Nancy said nothing. Didn’t move away either. She knew what I spoke of.

  ‘You’ve heard it?’ I said.

  ‘We all hear it,’ she said, and shifted the washing in her arms. ‘Living here, got no choice.’

  ‘What is it? Who is it?’

  ‘There’s stories. Parson will tell you. He loves all the old tales. Catch him when he’s in his study. That’s where he does his writing. Downstairs, by the dining room.’ A stocking slipped from her grasp and I picked it up for her. ‘He’s got that many books in there. He’ll show you if you ask. He likes talking about his books with visitors. Might help his nerves before tomorrow, and that would help Mother and me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to talk to him about books.’

  ‘He won’t mind that. Long as you’re happy to listen.’

  ‘It’s not just listening, though, is it? It’s questions too, and if someone puts writing in your hand and thinks you’ll know—’

  ‘You don’t know your letters?’ she said.

  A mistake to let her know this, for wasn’t I now a better sort of person, married to one such as Mr Williams with his fine coat and his easy way with people like the Hawkers? But Nancy and I were the same kind of person. I’d carried my fair share of other people’s washing. And so the words had slipped out.

  ‘I’m learning,’ I said, ‘slowly …’

  ‘It don’t matter the time it takes,’ Nancy said. ‘If it’s important, it’s worth the wait. We’re all waiting for something.’

  ‘But what if it won’t come? What if I never learn?’

  ‘Then the Lord will grant it to you in the next world. And sometimes he has to do that, for this world can be cruel. Sometimes waiting isn’t enough.’

  She was sounding like her mother that morning with her talk of being called by the Lord. And I had some thinking then, of the kind of people the Seldons might be. The kind Parson Hawker didn’t like. The kind who met in their own homes to speak of God, and who listened to John Wesley.

  There was a crash of glass or china or some such precious stuff downstairs, then shouts of people and squeals of pig.

  ‘There he goes again,’ Nancy said.

  After she’d gone down the stairs, I waited the time it would take to fetch something from our room, then I went down myself. I didn’t go further than the hall, just shouted to Anna f
rom there that I was ready to go to the church and talk to the parson. I wasn’t risking Gyp charging again.

  Anna came, red-faced and harried. ‘The Bush is seeming more and more an attractive proposition.’

  ‘You’d better ask Captain Ians if they have pigs staying before you pay for a room,’ I said. ‘And speaking of rooms …’

  I told her of the locked door upstairs, the one Nancy said was never opened.

  ‘A lumber room?’ Anna said.

  ‘It would be a small one. Given where it sits next to the stairs, there wouldn’t be much that would fit in there. And it would be opened every so often, wouldn’t it, if it was a lumber room?’

  ‘That would depend on the things kept there, wouldn’t it? How often they were needed. I’m sure it’s nothing, Shilly. The main detail to note is that the key found on the dead man doesn’t open the lock. Our search for that key’s purpose continues.’

  ‘We shouldn’t tell the parson of it,’ I said.

  ‘I agree. The locked room aside, some of his actions cast doubt on him – him missing the coroner’s visit.’

  ‘And if it is Joseph Ians lying in the deadhouse, he seems to dislike him.’

  ‘But enough to kill him? Until we know more, we should keep our thoughts about the body to ourselves, Shilly.’

  As we made to leave the porch, singing-that-was-squawking rang out from the direction of the kitchen.

  Anna winced. ‘Dear God, what is that?’

  ‘Mrs Seldon.’

  ‘She won’t be joining many choirs.’

  ‘But would she lure people to the sea,’ I said, ‘lure them to their deaths?’

  ‘Mrs Seldon might tempt people to self-destruction if only to spare themselves that dirge. I might be tempted myself.’ Anna shut the porch door with great firmness. ‘Come on, Shilly. We’ve got more worldly concerns to deal with. I’m hopeful the parson can help us.’