The Angler's Tale

by Jack Benton

  ‘Like the beer in Totnes,’ Slim said, the joke provoking a cackle from the old man. ‘I heard Eliza was a witch.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind, but they blamed her anyhow. Me grandfather was a lad the day they went for her.’

  Slim felt as though someone had slapped him across the cheeks. ‘He was involved?’

  ‘Told me when he was out of it one time, back when I was working out on the boats. Said he was just an oarsman, rowed the others upriver, waited ’til it was done. Heard the talk though, what they did to her.’

  Slim nodded along, trying not to look too keen to hear what the man had to say. ‘What they did?’

  ‘Grandfather, he wasn’t one to run his mouth, not ’til he’d been on the rum. We were coming back from Totnes after unloading some lobster pots up there. Must be back in the fifties, this. Can’t have been more than twelve. He had a few jars off the pier up there and we’re passing the inlet on the way back and he says, “She’s still down there, lad. Still down there, and if you look too close she’ll reach up and pull you down with her.”’

  ‘Eliza?’

  ‘Yeah, down there in that muck by the inlet. Her mother got away, see? Set herself free in the open ocean so her bitter spirit could exercise its wrath. Weren’t about to let Eliza join her, were they, else the curse would come back.’

  ‘What curse?’

  The old man leaned forward, lowering his voice as though not wanting to be overheard. ‘Kids born with no hands or feet, but with fins like a fish.’

  45

  Slim felt too unnerved to return to the abandoned cottage, so headed back to the harbour and took a ferry over to Dartmouth. His mind was racing with ideas, few of which made any sense. Long dead prostitutes, children with fins, women drowned in river mud … it was enough to keep him from sleep for the next couple of years.

  As he got off the ferry and wandered into the backstreets behind Dartmouth’s riverside, he felt another darkness closing in even as night fell around him. His cough had held off most of the day, the antibiotics perhaps finally taking effect, but an old longing had returned, the urge to drown himself, to slam a door shut on the horrors of the world and embrace a descent from which he might never return.

  It was at these moments that he hated himself the most. Walking through the door of a bar and revelling in the familiarity of the sights and smells, knowing that there would be no mistake, that he had made a conscious decision to be here, that he had chosen a stool of his own free will, waved over the barman and ordered a seemingly innocent glass of liquid which was the gateway to everything that was hellish in his life, and knowing, with complete certainty, that he was choosing to lift it to his lips, to take the first sip on what would be a downward spiral that could only ever end with a crash into a hard, bruising floor.

  As always, he began with coherency. Like any good drunk he was the life and soul, a laugh and an ease of manner to gravitate towards. But, like any good drunk, soon there was a moment when things changed, when he had crossed a line and words and thoughts rolled over each other, and a face not smiling was kicking over a stool and moving forwards with fists squeezed into hammers at his sides. And Slim was remembering hard nights in the military when tensions flared and tempers overflowed, and how he’d learned to ward off such troubles only through experience, and how he was now standing up to meet the challenge of the wrong word, the badly timed look. He was aware of pain in his face and his hands, of flashing lights, of doors opening and closing and finally cold gusts of air on his skin and the chill of cobblestones under aching hands.

  More hands, flashing lights, a soft seat beneath him, a slamming door. A harsh voice ordering him to sleep it off.

  ‘Wake up.’

  A hand struck the side of his face. Slim groaned.

  ‘Come on, get out of here before someone sees me.’

  Slim opened his eyes. Still drunk but with the grogginess of not nearly enough sleep, he tried to focus on the speaker.

  He could see nothing other than a silhouette, but the voice belonged to a woman.

  ‘I’m risking everything doing this, you stupid bastard. Get out of here and get moving before we’re seen.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’re lucky it was me and not someone else. I’m not sure what you were doing, but I’d keep away from the docks for a while. Fishermen tend to settle things amongst themselves.’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Come on, get out.’

  A door opened. Strong hands pushed Slim towards the cold. A grass verge cushioned him as he fell. He managed to push himself into a sitting position long enough to watch the taillights of the car as it sped away, then he slumped back down, wishing the ground would swallow him, wishing he were dead.

  Back in the military, Slim could have gone toe-to-toe with most and come out on top, often fuelled by a rage inspired by an unfulfilled childhood, but now, twenty years on, his stomach was smaller than his mouth and the desert-trained physique was a memory. From the look of his hands and the ache when he tried to clench his fists, he had relived his glory days for a while. The numbness at the side of his jaw, the puffiness of his right eye and a loose molar said he’d eventually come out second best.

  His actual memory of the night before was a blur to be picked through over time. At least without a phone the aftermath was limited to his immediate vicinity, but what few snippets he recalled of the storm he had unleashed involved men far bigger than him, stools kicking over, a woman screaming in his face. He had a vague recollection of asking about prostitutes, perhaps catching the eye of someone’s wife at exactly the wrong time. And as things did, it had escalated from there.

  As he lay on his back on the upper floor of Eliza Turkin’s old abode, unsure how he had managed the trek through the forest, he felt the same shame and regret that he always did after a relapse. What damage had he done this time? How many people had he hurt?

  He tried to push the darkest thoughts from his mind, concentrating instead on how he had got back, trying to remember. The car that had dropped him on the verge outside Greenway.

  A woman’s voice.

  It took him some time to get himself into a workable condition. He had no food left and vomited up the last remaining energy drink right after downing it. Staggering to the river and climbing awkwardly down over the concrete buttresses, he drank as much cold, grainy water as he could stand, then dunked his head into it until he began to feel better.

  He climbed back up and sat down on the edge of the abandoned railway cutting, staring at the collapsed bridge. Was Eliza buried somewhere in the mud under there? Had she reached up and dragged Max Carson down?

  It was a ridiculous thought. Slim blamed the cold water for making him shiver, then stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets to warm them.

  In his left pocket, his fingers closed over something. He pulled out a beer mat, wincing at the smell of stale beer as he turned it over.

  On the underside, someone had written a phone number in bright red pen.

  46

  Greenway was closed for the day. Slim, after spending some time observing the grounds for staff still on duty, finally made his way inside the complex, first picking a lock on the cafe’s door and pilfering a couple of sandwiches, then making his way to the visitor centre.

  He felt too sick and weary to hide himself from the video cameras, figuring that they would only be checked if he tripped an alarm. He headed straight for the computer he had cracked, logged onto his social media and checked for any messages.

  Nothing. He scanned Eloise’s page, but she hadn’t been online according to the system since the day she had sent the message.

  More out of an unconscious effort to avoid doing anything important, he also checked the social pages of the other main players, finding them as inactive as he had expected. On Irene’s, however, someone perhaps unaware of her death had posted a generic picture of a dog and added a comment: thinking of you today. Hope you’re doing ok x. Slim made a
mental note to have Don check the date, although guessing by the picture, it was likely the anniversary of the passing of a beloved pet.

  Finally, finding nothing which could help him, he cleared out his viewing history and logged off. Then, aware there was nothing else he could use as an excuse, he pulled out the beer mat and went outside to use a payphone he had seen in the courtyard.

  His hands shook as he held the receiver, partly from the hold the booze had regained over him, partly from nerves. He had no recollection of getting the phone number or what it signified. It could be anything at all.

  It rang and rang, finally cutting to an automated voicemail which claimed the mailbox was full. Slim let out a held breath. So much for that. At least it was a working number. He grimaced, trying to remember what it was for, but his memories of last night went no further than the fists swinging for his face.

  He called Don, passing on the information he had found on Irene’s social media page. Don had no other news however, so next he rang Kay.

  ‘Slim, damn it, can’t you get a phone so I can contact you?’

  ‘It’s a work-in-progress,’ Slim answered. ‘I’m still off the grid.’

  ‘I’ve noticed. Look—’

  ‘Kay, someone picked me up yesterday. I don’t know who. A woman. Maybe she—’

  ‘Slim, listen to me, will you?’

  Slim rubbed his eyes with fingers which ached just a little less than his head. He wondered if total disintegration would make him feel better.

  ‘Don, I—’

  ‘This is Kay, you damn idiot. Just shut up a minute. We found something.’

  Slim opened his eyes. He stared at the ground, at boot marks in the gravel, thinking of a different kind of gravel, that of the Iraqi desert.

  Where the horrors had first begun.

  ‘Slim? Are you still there?’

  He snapped back to reality. ‘I’m here. Sorry. Go on.’

  ‘We found a match. My contact ran it through a sex crimes DNA database, and came up with a match.’

  ‘A match?’

  ‘The DNA from the hair sample you sent me. It matched that of a registered sex offender.’

  Slim frowned. ‘I’m not following. Eloise is a sex offender?’

  ‘Not Eloise, but her DNA sample, it was a fifty-percent match to one on record, meaning it’s almost certainly a close member of family.’

  ‘Run that by me again.’

  ‘The original sample relates to a sexual assault charge filed in 2001. It never went to trial because the claimant received a settlement, but the sample given by the accused was kept on record.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  Kay took a deep breath. ‘Are you sitting down? It was Max Carson.’

  47

  Eloise Trebuchet was Max Carson’s daughter.

  It explained a lot.

  Heading back to the National Trust visitor centre and logging on to the computer again, Slim did some research of his own to fill in a few of the blanks Kay had left him. Tabloid rumours had peaked for Max Carson in the mid-nineties, when he had briefly crossed from radio over into television to present a couple of late night magazine shows aimed at teenagers and students. Archived articles talked of backstage drug use, affairs with guests, drunken orgies. Slim, who had lived through the tabloid storm of the first Iraq war and had very different memories of it to those he had read about, doubted most of it was true. It was media fodder, one beer turned into twenty, a stolen drunken kiss turned into a months-long affair, a single line of cocaine become a powder storm vacuumed off a prostitute’s back.

  Where there was water there were usually waves, however, and Eloise’s age made it likely she was a product of Max Carson’s heyday, before falling ratings and unwanted media attention sent him back to pasture on regional radio.

  Among the sludge there were multiple rumours of illegitimate children which would take months to sort through and follow up. What was certain, though, was that Eloise not only had a reason for being in Dartmouth at the time of Carson’s death, but had a very real motive for murder.

  The rich, famous father who had rejected her. It made perfect sense.

  But what about her possible attempt on Slim’s life, and the email?

  I’ll kill you for what you did.

  They had been together when the police took Slim for questioning. Did Eloise think Slim was an informant of some kind who had ratted on her?

  He cleaned up the computer and headed back outside, feeling a renewed sense of optimism. At last he had a lead. He also had a motive. An illegitimate child spurned by her celebrity father driven to kill him out of revenge. It was worthy of a tabloid spot of its own.

  Then why was Eloise still here, working not so secretly in the very place where she could have murdered her father?

  Slim grimaced. Only one way to find out.

  48

  He took a bus to Paignton. With Greenway closed, Eloise had to come home at some point. Nervous about confronting her again, Slim headed straight for her flat, wanting to get it over with. He still felt terrible, the cough shuddering through his body at regular intervals and bringing wary looks from passers-by. With his battered face, unkempt beard and filthy clothes, he imagined he resembled something of a social nightmare. At one point he noticed a road sweeper moving slowly along the street ahead, and wondered if it wouldn’t be for the best to just stand and let its spinning brushes drag him away.

  No one answered his knock, so he tried again. Silence.

  He could retreat to the same kebab shop as before and watch the road, but he might miss her again. His legs ached and all he wanted to do was rest.

  He took the pick from his pocket and opened the door.

  As he went inside, he reminded himself that Eloise had possibly tried to kill him. Without doubt she had threatened to do so. He had to be careful.

  In the back room he found a place out of her line of sight to crouch as she came through the door. He might need to grab her, and the few seconds’ grace before she saw him would prove vital.

  He lowered himself down. Her suitcases stood to his right, half in front of him, one lying with its top unsecured, a bundle of garments hanging out.

  And something else … a piece of paper, a photograph—

  The front door banged. Slim was so transfixed by the image half protruding from her luggage that he was left motionless as a young woman dressed in a jacket and with a handbag slung over her shoulder pushed through into the room and turned to face her cases.

  Their eyes met. Eloise froze. The air seemed to go still. Her mouth fell open in slow motion and a sound emerged that was little more than a long gasp, like a deflated, powerless scream dripping out onto the floor.

  Then she was scrambling backwards for the door, losing her footing, kicking out in his direction, catching him cleanly in the face as he jumped up to reach her.

  Slim grunted, seeing stars as the weight of her hips came behind the blow, but he moved on autopilot, aware he would get no other chance. He rode the blow, pushing through it, taking a second kick to the eye but catching her other ankle as she tried to get away. She was wearing jeans, giving him plenty of grip, so he wound her in, flipping her over as he did so to negate the power of her hands as she tried to fight him off.

  His old army strength had all but gone, but he remembered enough of studied wrestling tactics to pin her, holding her face down so she couldn’t get out a scream loud enough to bring help.

  He was half across her, using his body weight to hold her down. She was crying, a sound which sent tremors shuddering through his heart.

  He understood now. The picture he had seen so briefly had explained so much. Explained why the girl was working at Greenway. Explained why she was never home.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, but I needed to talk. Please don’t be afraid. I might look like shit warmed up on a grill but I’m no danger to you.’

  Two girls, similar enough to be easily mistaken by a casual
observer, arms around the other’s shoulders, smiling into the camera.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lauren Trebuchet asked, her voice shaking with fear.

  49

  ‘You could have left a note,’ Lauren said. ‘I can read, you know. Was it really necessary to break in and then assault me in my own flat?’

  Slim sighed. ‘I’m sorry. But I wasn’t looking for you, remember? I was looking for your sister. A girl who threatened to kill me and possibly even tried.’

  It was Lauren’s turn to sigh. ‘She has a habit of doing things like that,’ she said. ‘That’s why I followed her down here, because I was worried about Carson … about her father.’

  Lauren had found coffee from somewhere, heated over a little camping stove because she hadn’t planned to stay long and was yet to bother getting the electricity switched on. Slim clutched a mug in two aching hands, having refused an offer of a wet towel to press against the bruise slowly closing up the eye the pub brawlers had missed.

  Lauren, still glowering with anger, but at least no longer trying to kick his head off, sat across the room, legs pulled up in front of her, a cup of coffee held over her lap. Now that he saw her up close, Slim could tell them apart. Their features were similar, but Lauren was a little fuller in the face, her skin tone a little more Mediterranean than Eloise’s British paleness. Her eyes, too, had none of the maniacal glare of her sister.

  ‘We’ve known for a long time,’ Lauren said. ‘Our mother met him at a party in the late nineties.’ She cracked one palm against her leg. ‘Boom. Thirty minutes with a drunken radio celebrity and hallelujah, here’s a daughter.’

  ‘He had no part in her life?’

  ‘None whatsoever. My mother never said a word until after the man we’d both always considered our father passed away from cancer when I was seventeen and Eloise fifteen. We weren’t well off and I think Mum liked the idea of squeezing a little money out of Eloise’s rich, famous real dad.’