The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  He examines his nails in a theatrical manner; he snorts ugly-sounding phlegm to the back of his throat, spits it to the left of where I am standing, then returns to examining his nails.

  I can feel Aaron’s pain; his tension, it ricochets around him as he battles with himself not to step in and try to mediate, try to put an end to the atmosphere John Pope and I always create.

  Every time he’s tried in the last couple of years, it’s ended badly for him. I still do this despite its effect on Aaron, partly because he needs to see that it is possible to stand up to his father. That just because his father demands something, doesn’t mean Aaron has to give it or do it or say it.

  ‘Time’s running out, girly,’ John Pope eventually says.

  ‘No it’s not,’ I reply.

  ‘I said you could have six months. Six months and then I would hand over everything to my friends. They would then start to reinvestigate your father. They would go through his life properly, thoroughly, forensically, like they should have done years ago.’ He says this with relish, almost salivating at the thought of it. ‘And you will be the one to start it off. You will search his house to see what you can find and if I don’t think you’ve searched enough, I will call my friends.’

  ‘We agreed a year,’ I state calmly.

  The searching using DNA and genealogy wasn’t working fast enough for Pope. He wanted results; he wanted me to have found something by now. Two years was long enough, he said. He had given me an ultimatum: ‘Find Judana Dalton, the identity of the Brighton Mermaid or anything tangible we can use or you search your father’s house for the jewellery. And if you won’t do that, I will turn everything over to the police, kick up so much of a fuss that they will have no choice but to talk to your father again.’

  He will unleash hell upon my father, basically. I knew he would do it. And I knew that my family could not stand for that to happen again. Herstmonceux is their island, their escape from everything that began twenty-five years ago. They can be anonymous and safe out there. Dad potters in his huge greenhouse, Mum crochets and goes to church. Police coming back into their lives would be the ruination of them. He gave me six more months and I negotiated a year – but I know he is going to want something by the twenty-fifth anniversary in less than three months.

  ‘Time’s running out, girly,’ John Pope says. ‘Time’s running out and when it’s gone, you will help me.’

  ‘A year. We agreed a year. I’ve taken a year off work. I’m doing it full-time. I’m doing all I can. None of this stuff happens quickly.’

  ‘Time’s running out. If I don’t think you’re moving fast enough, I will call it in.’

  ‘They’ll arrest you and Aaron for hacking into the police database,’ I remind him.

  ‘Small price to pay for catching the bastard who killed those women, isn’t it, Boy?’

  ‘I’m doing the best I can. I’m going as fast as I can. I’ve got more DNA results that should be back this week. I’ll be able to—’

  ‘Next time I call you, you come straight away, do you hear?’

  ‘I come when I can,’ I state.

  ‘Make it sooner,’ he replies. His gaze moves up from his nails to my face. It’s 1993 again. Although I’m the one standing and he’s the one sitting, the dynamic is back: he wants to break me – I won’t let him; he wants me to cry – I’ll never do it in front of him. ‘If you know what’s good for you.’ And your father , he obviously adds silently.

  Go fuck yourself , I reply in my head before I return to the house through the double patio doors.

  He didn’t need to see me, he just wanted to remind me who was in charge. Who could click his fingers and make me dance to that finger-clicking tune.

  This is what happens when you make a deal with an evil man: if you don’t work to produce results fast enough, he starts to reshape and reorganise the deal, he starts to threaten you with everything you fear.

  I have to work faster. I’ve been putting off chasing stuff to do with Craig Ackerman because I found him so creepy. I haven’t started a proper search on Maura Goodrich’s friend, although I have sent off his DNA. I need to work faster, but not panic. If I panic, I will miss something and it could be a vital something.

  ‘I’m so—’ Aaron Pope begins but I hold up my hand because I do not want to hear it.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Aaron, don’t apologise for him,’ I say. ‘Just … just leave it.’

  ‘You know he won’t really call anyone,’ Aaron says. ‘Not until we have something more solid. He doesn’t mind being arrested but he would mind losing face.’

  Aaron is always doing this thing of trying to make everything better. I feel sorry for him because I know that’s what his role in life must have been for so long. When he’s working, though, when I watch him write code and programs, he’s a different person. Transformed. His body is upright and strong; his face is focused and intense; he becomes the man he is when he is out of his father’s orbit. He stops being the abused little boy whose father still torments him and he becomes Aaron Pope, adult, business owner, funny, thoughtful man.

  ‘Bye, Aaron,’ I say as I head for the door.

  ‘Bye, Nell. When will I see you next?’

  ‘Soon,’ I reply. ‘Really soon.’

  Macy

  Friday, 13 April

  Every year, Daddy receives a Brighton postcard postmarked with the day that Jude disappeared.

  The first couple of years I didn’t know anything about them. When we moved to the middle of nowhere – also known as Herstmonceux, deep in East Sussex – one came in the bundle of mail that was forwarded from our old house.

  I thought it was junk mail at first because it was a Brighton beach picture and on the back it was blank, except for the typed label addressed to ‘Mr Okorie’. The original postmark said 14 July, a date I remembered well, but it had been posted in London. I thought nothing of it, really, until the next year, when it happened again. It came on a different day, this time not forwarded mail, but it was postmarked 14 July again – this time sent from Glasgow. The third year it happened, again a Brighton postcard with ‘Wish You Were Here’ on it, I went looking in Mummy and Daddy’s room for clues because although the postcards always disappeared, they never turned up in the bin.

  In the bottom drawer, under Dad’s winter jumpers that he never wore, I found all the other postcards. Six in total by then. All of them Brighton postcards but sent from anywhere else.

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table examining the postcard I ‘borrowed’ when we went to visit my parents a few weeks ago.

  I’ve been too scared to get it out until now.

  This postcard has five pictures of the Pier: the Pier from the front, the Pier from the beach side-on, the promenade leading onto the Pier, the Pier from a distance, and the telescope that sits halfway down the Pier. Across the middle it says ‘Wish You Were Here ’.

  All the postcards say ‘Wish You Were Here’ somewhere on them. Daddy has kept them all in the same place, just adding the latest one to the pile.

  I was about to go back downstairs after being to the loo, when I had the urge to look to see if they were still there. When they were, I had another urge to take one so I could examine it properly on my own.

  Is it a message or a threat? I suspect it’s a threat. A sort of ‘I know what you did’ type thing. But that could just be me and my overactive, paranoid imagination.

  ‘Hey, good-looking, what you doing?’ Shane asks, coming into the kitchen. He’s reading his phone and not paying attention to me, but quickly I slide the postcard under my laptop and look up at him.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘Right, don’t know if I believe that,’ he says suspiciously and finally glances up from his mobile. ‘Do you want me to pick up the kids today?’

  I sneak a peek at his phone and see he has a sports page up. That’s pretty much all he does on his phone – read sports updates, check the news.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I say. ‘
I have a lot of work on.’

  ‘Great.’ Shane comes to me and presses a kiss on my neck. ‘I love you, you know. Can’t wait to marry you.’

  ‘Hey! I still haven’t said yes, yet,’ I call after him as he leaves the room again.

  ‘You will!’ he calls back on his way upstairs.

  When I’m sure Shane is upstairs for a while, I slide the postcard out from under my laptop.

  The postmark on this, the latest postcard, came from Glasgow.

  When Shane goes to collect the children, I’m going to do my own detective work on two things: (1) Clyde, (2) the postcard.

  (1) Clyde: I’m going to search for Clyde. I’d rather not look for Clyde, but I need to get divorced. It’s always there, at the back of my throat, on the tip of my tongue, in the well of my chest – this need to tell Shane that I’m still married to the father of my children. Our children. Because they are his now.

  Clyde was never really that interested in the children. Shane is all kinds of interested in them. It’s been an odd eighteen months, and now we’ve got our mojo back, now we’re connecting properly again, I think I do want to marry him. I do want him to know how much I adore him.

  I just have to get divorced first.

  Looking back, I cringe when I think about why I got married in secret. At the time I was convinced I couldn’t trust any of my family since I knew they all had these huge secrets. I was going to get myself a secret too, I was going to show them. So we got married in secret and I felt nothing. Not happy, not triumphant that I’d got one over on them. Just nothing. Well, maybe a bit silly because my plan had fallen flat. It made it worse when Clyde left and I couldn’t tell anyone about my husband leaving me. Well, I have to fix that. I have to find Clyde. Once I’ve started on that search, I’ll start on number two.

  (2) The postcard: I turn the rectangle over in my hands. Once I’m done with Clyde, I’m going to see if I can find anyone in the Glasgow area – where this postcard came from – who has a similar name or description to Jude. And I’m going to have a proper look at the actual postcard, see if there’s any invisible ink, any impressions for rubbing, reactions to heat or something. Anything.

  Because I suspect that the sender of the postcards knows what I know, saw what I saw, and they don’t ever want Daddy to forget about that night.

  Nell

  Friday, 20 April

  ‘Stop staring at me, Aaron,’ I say.

  Even though he is sitting slightly behind me while I type codes into his computer, I can feel his eyes on me. We’ve barely spoken since I arrived here and I’ve tried to shrug off his attention for a good half an hour, but I can’t stand it any more. I can feel him avert his eyes, and his voice, when he speaks to mumble ‘Sorry’, is sheepish at having got caught.

  My fingers pause over the keyboard and I wonder again if it’s wise to come here when Aaron has developed feelings for me. It’s hard to do what I’m doing without his resources, and since neither of us trusts email or virtual clouds, I have to come here. Sit in his office, and type in codes to see what comes back.

  On paper, the Pope house is nice and cosy, a wonderful place to live. Since moving back in after his father’s accident five years ago, Aaron has modernised and decorated the house, making it easier for his father to get around while bringing it into the present day. The walls are painted in a bright yellow to cheer things up; he has installed soft-pile carpets all over the house, to make it easier if his dad falls. There are wider doorways, larger windows to maximise light and virtually no sharp corners. Bold, bright artwork is hung on the walls, and the kitchen is full of modern, often wacky gadgets. Every room has a top-of-the-range screen and TV system. Aaron has done all he can to make the place bright and cheery, homely and welcoming, but the reality is that this house is sad, and it doesn’t feel like it will ever be anything but sorrowful and damaged.

  I start to type again, and then pause after a couple of minutes because ‘You’re doing it again.’

  ‘I can’t help it,’ he says with a genuinely regretful groan.

  On paper, Aaron is perfect. He has a line of light brown freckles across his nose; he has grooves behind his ears where his glasses dig in; he smells amazing. He is slender but muscular with it, and I’m always physically aware of him in not unpleasant ways. He is clever, he makes me laugh and I enjoy spending time with him. But the reality is, Aaron is John Pope’s son. And no matter what, he will always be John Pope’s son.

  ‘You know I can’t help it,’ Aaron repeats. His expensive, ergonomic swivel chair squeaks slightly as he turns towards the door.

  ‘Go and do something else while I do this, then,’ I tell him. ‘You don’t need to sit here. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘I like sitting here. With you.’

  I stop typing, throw my head back and press my fingertips onto my eyelids. ‘Please don’t do this, Aaron,’ I say. For the past nine months or so, every time I’ve come here to input new DNA sequences into his computer, we end up having this conversation.

  ‘Nell …’

  ‘Just don’t,’ I insist. I don’t want to have this talk with him again because I can already feel that it won’t go the same way it usually does. His father threatening me again the other week has set me on edge. Has reignited the urgency with which I need to find a major breakthrough with what I am doing. I’m not feeling generous to the Pope men at the moment, so I know this won’t be a conversation that ends with us pretending to move on from it. This time, I can feel that this chat will end badly for both of us.

  ‘Nell, you know how I feel about you. I’m sure you feel something for me, too.’

  ‘I like you as a person,’ I state. ‘Despite everything, you’ve become a friend. A good friend.’

  ‘Why won’t you give me a chance?’

  ‘You know why.’

  So far, so normal for this conversation.

  ‘Look at me, please, Nell.’

  This is the point where it’s going to change. I can feel it in the air around us; it tingles along my skin, swirls butterflies in my stomach. This is the point where he’s going to say something that will make me say something and everything will start to fall apart.

  Slowly, I spin on my chair, away from the desk of computers, to face him. Aaron is wearing a plain black T-shirt today with dark green jeans. His pale arms are exposed, and I stare at them rather than risk looking at his face.

  ‘Nell, look at me. Please .’

  I lift my gaze to meet his eyes. And he stares back at me from behind his glasses, from behind the courage he’s found to do this.

  ‘I’m not my father,’ he insists. ‘I am nothing like him. What he did to you and your family is horrific. But I’m not him.’

  ‘No, you are not your father,’ I say. ‘But you do his bidding, Aaron. Always . You never say no to him, do you? He wants to see me, you send me a text. And you keep sending them until I come here. If I don’t come soon enough, you turn up at my home. You’re not him, but he’s got you behaving like him. And I can’t deal with that.’ I’ve never said that to him before because it does what I knew it would – it cuts him. I can see how every word slices at him, wounds him. That is the ultimate insult, telling him he is a proxy John Pope, and I don’t want to hurt Aaron. I like Aaron. A lot.

  ‘But I—’

  I cut in with ‘And anyway, I’m seeing someone.’

  Aaron sits back in his chair, exhales deeply and looks vanquished – all the fight he had in him suddenly washed away.

  I spin back to the computer. I have to take a few deep breaths before I type in the final sequences, but that wasn’t so bad, we didn’t get into it properly and we can spare each other that pain for now.

  Aaron wrote this computer program to combine as many of the available DNA search databases as possible. Most of the databases that combine other databases online are for autosomal DNA, the DNA that you get from both parents. Aaron has created a computer program that combines mitochondrial (mother’s female lin
e), Y-line (father’s male line) as well as autosomal DNA. Whenever I have new results or he adds new databases, I have to retype all the DNA codes I have into it because I need to make sure no one who might do what Aaron has done has access to the Brighton Mermaid’s or Jude’s DNA. They are not meant to be ‘out there’ and I do not want anyone tracing what we’re doing back to us.

  Aaron has also created a facial recognition program that is designed to match any missing persons images with images of people who have been found without names and identities. Neither of the programs he has created is strictly legal or totally illegal. Everything Aaron does for his dad and for me skirts so close to the line of legality that we never talk about it, and we certainly never send emails or texts about it.

  ‘I’m going to leave for a bit,’ I decide. It’s too uncomfortable in here. Nothing of significance will come up on the computers anyway, it very rarely does straight away, so the best thing to do is leave, allow what we talked about to pass and then come back.

  I grab my bag and move towards the door, but as I pass him, he takes my hand to stop me leaving. Slowly, Aaron presses his fingers between mine and then stands up.

  ‘I’m not my father, Nell,’ Aaron Pope says, still with his fingers threaded loosely with mine.

  He raises his eyes to meet mine when I don’t speak. He takes a step closer to me. ‘I’m not my father,’ he repeats. He moves to place his other hand on my face but I recoil so visibly he lowers it again. Instead he moves closer to me. So close it’s obvious what he wants to do.

  ‘I’m not my father,’ he says again.

  ‘Aaron—’

  ‘I know you feel something for me. I just know it. And you won’t even give me a chance because of someone else. You’ve told me in so many different ways without actually saying the words how he ruined your life. How everything you do feels like it’s been done to spite him, to show him, to not let him win. And you won’t give me a chance because of him. You’re letting him do it again. You’re letting him ruin something else for you.’