The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘You make it sound sordid. I invest in people, Enelle, and I always get a return on my investment.’

  ‘What about Sirene? What sort of investment was she?’

  ‘I help runaways, Enelle. The girls who learn they are not important or wanted at home. I look after them, care for them, give them somewhere to stay.’

  ‘How do you meet them?’

  ‘Why would I tell you everything, Enelle?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you? I’m guessing you don’t get much of a chance to talk about what you’ve managed to do.’

  ‘The world is full of places where the unwanted go. I find them and make them feel wanted.’

  ‘Then rape and kill them, let’s not forget those small things.’

  ‘I do not kill people,’ he says.

  ‘What do you need these two for? I don’t understand. If you spend so much time breaking the girls down, and then recreating them, what do you need these two jokers for?’

  ‘I can’t be here all the time. The girls need to be allowed to go to the lavatory, to be fed, given water …’

  ‘Raped … killed …’

  Mr Dalton rests his face on his hand and then looks at me as though trying to work me out. ‘I have always had a soft spot for you, Enelle. There’s something very earnest about you and the way you live your life. It would make me ashamed if you were my daughter, how sexually uncontrolled you are, but I like you. I truly believed you would be the one to find Judana for me. But alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case.’ He sighs. ‘What am I going to do with you, Enelle? I really do not know.’

  ‘You could let me go?’ I say. ‘That’s a valid option. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to believe me against you, are they?’

  ‘As your father found out, though, Enelle, mud sticks. They may not believe you, but they will start to look into my life a bit too closely for my liking.’

  Mr Dalton has grey eyes. They are like steel and they are cold. I look directly into them, and he looks directly into my eyes. ‘You’ve only got one option then, haven’t you,’ I state. He finds killing distasteful, but that doesn’t mean he won’t allow it. And that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t confront him with the reality of this situation.

  He looks away first. For a man who thinks he is a superior being, I’m surprised he does that. But I guess he hasn’t been confronted by someone who has known him practically her whole life and who is seemingly on a level to understand what he must do if he won’t let me go.

  I appear to be fine, pragmatic and stoic, even, about what they will have to do, but I am not. I am jelly inside, terrified. I keep hoping that something will happen to save me, and then I keep remembering that is not possible.

  ‘You, watch her,’ Mr Dalton says to Shane suddenly. He gets to his feet. ‘If you think you can do that without causing another big problem for me to solve.’

  Mr Dalton’s disdain for Shane is very clear on his lined face. He tips his head to the door, nods to Craig Ackerman, who follows him down the length of the kitchen/living room and out of the house.

  ‘I suppose they’re going to work out what to do with me once they kill me,’ I say to Shane.

  ‘None of this needed to happen, Nell,’ he replies. ‘What were you doing? Why were you in my house searching through my things?’

  It’s good that he’s asked me that. It means he doesn’t know that I’ve told anyone else, except for maybe Aaron, who Craig – I presume – tried to kill.

  ‘I wasn’t searching through your things. I was looking for the set of keys you have to my flat.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says.

  ‘I realised a couple of days ago that the locks had been undone before the door was kicked in. That’s why there wasn’t as much damage and the police were able to get someone to easily patch it up. I guessed that the only person who would have keys to give to the burglar would be you. Probably copied from the set Macy has. I worked out it was you from the dead rat. You’re the only person who knows about my pathological fear of them, besides Macy.’

  ‘I had to get you to back off,’ he says. ‘Why wouldn’t you just back off? When you were living with us, taking care of the kids and the house, you were happy then, I could tell. All you had to do was keep doing that and forget all that other nonsense and it would have been fine.’

  ‘You killed someone, Shane. It’s never going to be fine.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ he snaps. ‘I didn’t kill any of them.’

  ‘Them? So there was more than one?’ They are connected, the women they found along the coast.

  He shakes his head. ‘Just shut up.’

  ‘I heard what you said in the van, you know? I know you were going to let him kill me just as long as you got “a go”.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘What would you be doing to me right now, Shane, if Mr Big over there hadn’t turned up?’

  He doesn’t reply.

  ‘Did you have it all planned out? What you’d do, before Craig killed me?’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘What are you even doing with those two, Shane? How did you get involved in all of this?’

  ‘Just stop talking, Nell.’

  ‘Why should I?’ I say. ‘They’re out there, now, planning how to kill me and what to do with my body. Why should I shut up?’ I sit forwards in the seat. ‘You said it yourself, I never stop talking. Why would I stop talking now?’

  Shane doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Look, just chat to me, please?’ I say, my voice small and scared. ‘I’m more than a little bit scared about what’s going to happen to me. Just talk to me. Help me understand. Was it all fake between us? Craig said you’d done it to keep an eye on me – did none of it mean anything?’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you, Nell? It was me that kept you alive. Craig wanted to kill you, and your friend, but I said no, I’d get close to you and find out what you knew. I made sure you didn’t keep on trying to find out who the Brighton Mermaid was. Because you know what? Craig wouldn’t care if Dalton got angry. He would have killed you and then would have taken Dalton’s anger. I stopped that. I saved you.’

  ‘How did you get involved with all of this?’ I question. ‘How did you even meet Dalton?’

  ‘He was my solicitor. I was accused of stuff I hadn’t done. He got me off, made it all go away.’

  ‘And taught you how to get away with it after that?’ I realise. That’s why nothing ever stuck to Shane after his first conviction – Dalton had coached Shane on how to get away with his crimes.

  ‘I hadn’t done it, any of it. I didn’t need to be taught to get away with it.’

  ‘What about Craig? You always said you had no family. Why did you lie when you have a brother?’

  ‘He’s my half-brother and he found me. My dad left his mum before I was born, and he tracked him down and then tracked me down. He thought it’d be best if no one knew we were related when … He just thought it would be better.’

  It’d be better that no one would link them when they began doing what they did with Dalton .

  ‘What happened with poor Sirene?’ I ask. ‘Why did she end up like that?’

  ‘Because she ran away. If she hadn’t run away …’

  ‘Where did she run away from?’

  ‘Nell, you don’t understand what … Sirene was a runaway. She had no one. We took her in, gave her a place to stay, food to eat; we took care of her.’

  ‘What did she have to give in return?’

  Shane doesn’t say anything because whatever he says will sound terrible because it is terrible.

  ‘You all just forced yourself onto her whenever you fancied it, right? All as part of Mr Big’s plan to break the girls down. Repeatedly raping her so she was broken.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. We all have needs. She needed a place to stay – we had other needs.’

  ‘Did she know that’s what she was exchanging for her “needs”? Or did Dalton –
and I know it was him because I can see how he would get a runaway to trust him – did he just charm her into a place where he kept her prisoner? I bet it wasn’t just those two, either. I bet you did terrible things to her as well.’

  ‘I didn’t. You know me, Nell. The others might be like that, but I’m not. I was nice to her. I looked after her. I made sure she was all right.’

  ‘Oh, I bet you did. You were the nice one, the one who talked to her, patched her up if the others hurt her. I bet you were wonderful to her to get what you wanted. Did Sirene look at you how I used to?’ I ask. ‘Were her eyes filled with devotion and adulation because compared to the other two, you were “nicest” to her?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I was good to her.’

  ‘Were you? Or did she just cry less with you? Did she not suffer much physical pain so she could keep the tears inside when it was your “go”?’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Because I think it was probably worse with you, actually, Shane. I think she probably saw really quickly who charming Dalton really was after he had started his process of breaking her down. You can’t fail to see what a creep Craig is. But not with you, I don’t think. I think you were nice to her, I think you talked to her and spent time with her, and that’s what made you the worst of the three of you. Because you were nice, she probably kept thinking, kept hoping, that you’d save her, you’d unlock the doors and set her free one day. Yes, you talked to her, found out her name, whispered sweet words to her, probably made sure you didn’t hurt her too much when you raped her, but really, you were worse than the others because all you were doing was messing with her mind. Making sure she was so utterly confused—’

  ‘JUST SHUT UP!’ he screams at me, puce with rage. ‘SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!’ I can see he is restraining himself from physically hurting me. ‘JUST SHUT UP!’

  I lower my gaze and sit back in the seat, breathing as hard as I was after I ran away earlier. I probably shouldn’t have done that, riling a dangerous man is never a good idea, but I couldn’t stomach his nice-guy act any longer. He actually believes what he is saying. He honestly thinks that he isn’t as bad as the other two because he emotionally manipulated that poor young woman.

  ‘You know, they’re probably out there right now, planning how to kill you as well as me,’ I say conversationally when Shane has resettled himself in the chair opposite me.

  ‘Are you trying to get into my head, Nell? Really? You’re an amateur.’

  ‘I’m not trying to get into your head. I’m merely pointing out an obvious truth: all of us here know that they’re going to kill me, so why do they need to go off and discuss it? I know it’s going to happen, you know it’s going to happen – so stay here, talk about it freely. You all take pleasure in the fear and intimidation of women anyway; why would they deny themselves the pleasure of watching me fall apart as they discuss putting an end to me? Dalton said it himself, he likes to break women down, he likes to watch it happen. So what possible reason could he and Craig the killer have to go away and have a secret discussion all alone? Hmmm … let me think. Could it possibly be that they’ve decided the lame duck who has caused them all the problems they’re having tonight needs to go too? Hmmm?’

  While I’ve been talking, Shane’s face has been drawing in, his eyes widening while he moistens and remoistens his lips. It’s slowly dawning on him that I might be right.

  ‘They wouldn’t do that to me,’ he says suddenly, shaking the thought out of his head.

  ‘No, course not. They wouldn’t betray or kill anybody. It’s just not in their nature.’

  Shane stands up, and turns towards the other end of the room, where they left. I’m glad I’ve managed to trigger his paranoia. If I’m not getting out of here alive, then I’m at least taking Shane’s mental well-being with me. And it’s one for Macy, who he said he’s been manipulating all this time.

  I sound brave, like I’ve assimilated what’s about to happen, but I haven’t. I wonder if it was like this for Sirene and the other mermaids? If they knew deep down what was going to happen to them in the end, but kept on thinking someone would save them. For someone to save me, people need to know where I am. No one knows where I am, and by the time Zach starts to look now I don’t have my phone, it’ll be too late.

  I look over the suddenly jittery form of the first man I ever went with, my sister’s wannabe husband. At least he’s feeling as scared as I am. Probably more so, because I can’t picture it in my head how they’re going to do it, but he’s seen it many, many times – he will know what they’re capable of and how they do it.

  The back door bangs shut behind the other two as they return to the farmhouse and come through into the dining area, down towards the lounge.

  ‘Take her upstairs,’ Dalton tells Craig. ‘Tie her up in one of the rooms and lock her in. We’ll sort her out later.’ He then focuses on Shane. ‘You and I need to have a serious talk about what is going to happen next.’

  ‘No,’ Shane says suddenly. He moves to stand between me and Craig. They’re both roughly the same height and build, and being near to each other, I can see they’ve both inherited the same traits – forehead shape, brows, angle of cheekbones and shape of lips – from their shared father. It’s amazing that I didn’t see it before. ‘Leave her alone.’

  Craig looks back at Dalton and I don’t need to see his face to know he’s given Dalton a ‘told you so’ look. He’s clearly told Dalton that Shane might not be compliant in what happens to me, and they’ve discussed what to do about it.

  I was only half playing when I said about them plotting to kill Shane, too. But it seems I was right. The way Craig and Shane are squaring up suggests that Craig wouldn’t think twice about harming his sibling.

  I know Macy hates me sometimes, and it’s a real, genuine, palpable hate, but she does also love me. She does care about and worry about what happens to me. There is a connection between the two of us that is unspoken and real. There seems to be none of that between Shane and Craig. I wonder if that’s because they didn’t grow up together. I wonder if it’s because they’ve been linked mainly by this thing they do, and this thing they do is so dangerous that they’re always checking if the other is watching their back or actually examining it for where to stick a knife in.

  ‘If you want to talk about what’s next, then you do it with her here,’ Shane says. ‘He’s not taking her anywhere on his own.’

  Dalton’s anger flashes first in his eyes like the igniting flame of a furnace, then settles down on the set of his jaw, the clench of his lips. ‘What happens next is what always happens next,’ he eventually says to Shane.

  ‘Neither of you is touching her,’ Shane replies.

  ‘All for one, Shaney, and one for all,’ Craig states. ‘That’s the way it’s always been. So we’re all complicit, we all have as much to lose, none of us are going to start telling on the others.’

  ‘Neither of you is touching her ,’ Shane repeats in a dangerous voice. ‘She’s mine.’

  Dalton is still angry; it rests there on his face like a mask. ‘Shane, I didn’t want this to happen. I don’t want to hurt Enelle, touch her in that way. It wouldn’t feel right. But you caused this mess and we now have to do as much damage limitation as possible. There’s too much to lose.’

  My heart has been beating fast and loud since I was in the back of the people carrier. It has been loud in my head, louder than my ragged breathing, but now it picks up pace. The danger of this stand-off is flogging my heart like it is a racehorse that is being whipped into winning a championship race.

  I look at the three men in front of me, each of them examples of the horror of humanity, each of them ready to hurt each other and do me harm.

  Even if Shane was doing this for the right reasons – to save me – and not because he believes he owns me and doesn’t want anyone else touching his property, I don’t think much of his chances. Not against his brother. There’s a crazy, uncontroll
ed wildness in Craig Ackerman that is fast manifesting in the tensing up of his muscles, his dangerous stance, his clenched fists.

  My heart. It’s beating so fast, getting faster and faster, it’s actually agony. It feels as if it’s going to race itself into flatline.

  I throw my arms across my chest and gasp loudly at the pain that has just clawed through me.

  I curl forward, and Shane looks round at me, and with his eyes off both of them, Ackerman decides to pounce.

  Macy

  Saturday, 2 June

  John Pope’s son doesn’t say much. He alternates between the two screens he uses, completely focused. We went straight upstairs and I’m standing here wondering if his dad is in the house. Zach said this is his house and that Nell told him that his son is his carer. He must be in the house somewhere. Possibly downstairs in the room off the hallway that had its door closed.

  I hate that Nell came here because she was scared of what Pope would do if she didn’t. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me. All right, I do know why she didn’t tell me. But it must have been so lonely for her. She doesn’t act like it. She always acts like she’s OK with everything and that she’s just wafting through life looking for the identity of the Brighton Mermaid, searching for Jude, and nothing gets her down.

  I hate that Nell came here and was in the same house as that man.

  I hate that that man’s son is the only person who can help us right now.

  Aaron Pope slams his fist down on the desk, so hard the keyboard lifts up, as do a couple of pens and scraps of paper. ‘I can’t do it,’ he virtually growls in utter frustration. ‘I can’t get the triangulation to work.’ He forces his hand in his mouth and bites down, hard, while glaring at the large screen in front of him. He’s panicked, I can see that.

  Zach hasn’t said much either because he’s panicked too.

  I know panic.