She's Mine

by Claire S. Lewis

  So he’s been lying to me all this time! He’s separated from his wife and child. And each time he told me he needed to get home to be with his family, it was just a fake excuse to cut short the working day. And to think I was beginning to put my trust in him! I don’t know who to believe or what to believe about anyone or anything on this wretched island!

  Brenda had a different story – but then maybe she’s just covering for her boss? According to Brenda, Costa’s in some high-level court hearing with the barristers and other big shots to do with the financial fraud case he’s working on, and won’t be free until five o’clock this afternoon. But this can’t wait. Katie could be in immediate peril. If she’s being held on the yacht her captors could sail out of local waters and over the horizon from one minute to the next.

  Besides, why should Costa control everything? He’s not my keeper. And I bet I’m still on his list of potential suspects. He didn’t play it straight with me, so why should I wait for his approval? He lied to me about his family life. What else is he lying about?

  So I make a snap decision. I’m going to have to make do with this joker with the crooked smile – even if he doesn’t believe in mermaids! If he hires out boats, he must know something about navigating them. And if I’ve called it right that he moonlights on the nightshift then he should know every cove, and cave and hidden twist along the coast.

  ‘Listen, I need your help.’ I say. ‘I’ve got to find a catamaran sailing yacht – a whopping great gin-palace called The Phantasea. Last seen moored at Clearwater Bay. It can’t just have vanished into thin air. The police are supposed to be tracking it down but they don’t seem to be making any progress. I think they’re just stringing me along – not taking anything I tell them seriously. I believe the lost girl, Katie, may be on board. It’s my hunch her abductors are hiding her on the boat.’

  He’s more interested now he sees there could be something in it for him.

  ‘And you may think I’m crazy but I believe the yacht is moored in a place called the Mermaids’ Lagoon – at least that could be its nick name? Does it ring any bells?’

  ‘You can ring my bell any time you like, sweetie,’ he mutters. ‘Come into my office and we’ll look at the map.’

  ‘Office’ is a grand name for the pokey little shed I follow him into.

  He flips the sign on the door to ‘Closed’ and shuts it behind me.

  What have I let myself in for now?

  Then he turns to me, his eyes glowering in the dim light. ‘I hear there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar reward on her head.’ I nod.

  ‘Yes, an anonymous donor – some billionaire in the financial services industry here – put up the reward in response to my online appeal.’

  I feel very pleased with myself for getting that off the ground.

  He puts his thumbs in his waistband and puffs out his chest.

  ‘Well then, I’m your man,’ he says. ‘I’ll help you find her.’

  The entire back wall of the shed is covered by a yellowing map of the Leeward Isles roughly tacked up with drawing pins. As I peer at the map, reading out the names of beaches and towns, he runs his dirty forefinger along the outline of each of the islands. His stale breath is on the back of my neck and I suppress the urge to gag. After a couple of minutes his finger stops: Pelican Island – one of the smallest islands situated in the South East of the archipelago. He taps the map with his finger.

  He grunts.

  He goes over to a metal filing cabinet, yanks open the drawer and pulls out another dog-eared map that he spreads out on a small desk pushed against one side of the shed. It’s a large-scale map of Pelican Island. He points to its southern shore.

  ‘Here,’ he says. Again, he runs his forefinger along the circular outline of the landmass in the south of the island, almost fully enclosing an expanse of inland sea. And now I can see what he’s getting at. I can see it, the outline of a mermaid in the contours of the water – a dog leg, then a smooth bulge in the coastline resembling the head and long hair of a mermaid, falling into a curving inlet (the mermaid’s sinuous body), which fans out at the innermost point into the symmetrical triangular shape of a mermaid’s tail. For a man, who doesn’t have a romantic sinew in his body, he’s demonstrated commendable imagination.

  ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right,’ I say. The lagoon resembles the shape of a mermaid. The way I used to draw them when I was a little kid. I turn and slap his palm.

  ‘What’s it called, that cove?’ I ask

  ‘Deadman’s Cay.’

  ‘Hmm… that sounds ominous. Well, maybe that’s its real name…Can you take me there?’

  He goes back to the filing cabinet, unlocks the bottom draw, and takes out a pistol and a fistful of bullets. He shoves the bullets in the front pocket of his jeans, and hooks the pistol into the back of his leather belt.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ I say.

  He grabs a faded denim jacket from the door and puts it on to hide the pistol.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says.

  On the way out, he grabs a tourist leaflet from a tatty display.

  Join us for a sunset cruise to the Mermaids’ Lagoon.

  ‘Here, have this.’ He winks.

  So his performance in front of the map was just that… a performance!

  He turns and holds out his hand. ‘By the way, it’s Mitch.’

  I remember that name…

  ‘Mitch Stanley.’

  ‘Scarlett Reyes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  *

  The little blue-and-white motorboat is all too familiar as we strike out across the water towards Pelican Island. The distinctive smell of diesel and the feel of the splintering wooden bench against my skin brings back uncomfortable memories. But at least I’ve found a way of working with Costa that I can live with. I can’t imagine ever reaching an accommodation with this rough diamond. Better the devil you know!

  ‘So what makes you think the child may be hidden on a yacht at Deadman’s Cay?’ he asks, once the water flattens out, and we settle into the cruise.

  ‘Well, it’s complicated,’ I say. ‘For starters, Christina – that’s Katie’s mother – gave Katie a picture book of Peter Pan to bring on holiday and I was reading the story to her the night before she disappeared. Christina told me she treasured the story as a little girl and now Katie loves it too.’ My throat catches while I stumble on the present tense that I still need to believe in, as a memory of Katie dressed up as Tinker Bell and showing me how to ‘fly’ at the apartment in New York comes into my head.

  I take out my phone. ‘Christina sent me a message… She’s always been a bit on the edge, and now with the shock, and the stress, and the sedatives she’s doping herself up with…There’s been radio silence from her for the past thirty-six hours, and suddenly this morning she sends me a quote from the storybook Peter Pan… wouldn’t mean anything to you.’

  He cuts the engine, sits down facing me and puts out the oars.

  ‘Try me,’ he says. ‘All children, except one, grow up… that’s me!’

  I can’t help laughing. ‘More like one of the Lost Boys, I’d say.’

  He starts pulling on the oars, taking long, strong strokes that propel the boat through the water. He tells me he wants to save on fuel as he forgot to load extra supplies but I think mainly he wants to show off his muscles.

  ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ he says in a tone of self–irony as he settles into the rhythm. ‘Once upon a time I was a high school teacher. Got into a bit of trouble with one of the kids, so dropped out and washed up here. Believe me, I’ve got the soul of a poet.’

  I’ve had my own ‘bit of trouble’ so I shouldn’t jump to conclusions though it sounds as if his ‘bit of trouble’ involved inappropriate behaviour rather than illegal substances – or perhaps both?

  ‘What happened?’ I say.

  ‘Usual story, got too close to one of the kids. Bright kid but failing at school. Cute-looking girl too. I wanted her to b
elieve in herself, gave her extra tuition in the evenings.’

  I bet he did!

  ‘Turned out dad was beating her up. The girl was black and blue. I couldn’t turn a blind eye so I reported him to the principal. The father accused me of abusing his daughter to hide the fact he was knocking her around. That’s when the school closed ranks against me.’

  He spits out the words.

  ‘Didn’t want a scandal. The mother was too scared of the bastard to speak up against him – she was his main target. The girl was getting caught in the crossfire. The charges against me didn’t stick but the school kicked me out anyway.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ I say. We’ve got something in common – we’re both fall guys. If he’s telling the truth that is. No smoke without fire. My gut reaction was to mistrust him when I first saw him at the Coco Shack – and they say you should trust your first instincts. And, oh God, then there’s the sandals, Katie’s sandals found stuffed in the bins of the Coco Shack the morning after I saw him there. The paranoia creeps up inside me.

  Is it him? Has he got her? And if it’s not him, how many other drop-outs and losers are there hanging out on this island? Any one of them could have taken Katie.

  I look away from him and fix my eyes on one of the blades, cutting in and out of the water.

  ‘Did you hear, the police have been making enquiries down at the Coco Shack?’ I say. ‘They’re searching the premises today.’

  ‘The police are always down at the Coco Shack,’ says Mitch. ‘The only thing they’ll find down there is used needles.’

  ‘They found her sandals,’ I say. I might be making a very stupid mistake…

  ‘Shit!’ He pulls the oars in and rests them across his knees.

  The boat bobs in the water and suddenly the land looks a very long way off but he doesn’t seem to be faking his surprise.

  ‘Have you come across DC Kramer?’ I ask.

  Mitch sniffs loudly. ‘He’s bad news – worst of a bad lot. Bent. Takes a cut on every drugs bust and does his own trafficking on the side at the Shack and plenty of other places. I’ve done some business with him myself in the past – but I don’t trust him. Mind, he’s not the only one,’ he says pointedly.

  I remember Costa’s words: It’s only Mitch. I’ll deal with him later.

  I must be looking anxious because as Mitch starts rowing again, he says, ‘I would never lay a finger on a kid.’

  I’m going to have to give him the benefit of the doubt as far as Katie is concerned. My ‘first line of enquiry’ as they say in detective stories, is still Damien – Damien with Christina as his accomplice (whether willing or coerced) caught up in some kind of gambling and drug smuggling ring involving extortion and blackmail.

  ‘Look, I’ll show you the text Christina sent me this morning – see what you think…’

  I’m having to shout above the wind.

  I clamber over to sit next to him on the bench and grab one of the oars in one hand, while holding out my phone in the other.

  ‘She sent me this at 6 a.m. this morning.’ I read it out to him.

  ‘if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon… just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing…’

  ‘That’s a quote from the very chapter called “The Mermaids’ Lagoon” that I was reading to Katie the night before she went missing.’

  ‘If you want my opinion, the mother’s off her head,’ says Mitch.

  ‘Well, she studied English Literature at university, so she’s into that kind of thing. But I thought this might be her way of telling me that The Phantasea is moored at the Mermaids’ Lagoon and that Katie is onboard and in danger. Her partner is controlling and abusive. I don’t trust him. He’s probably monitoring her texts – so that’s why she’s resorting to cryptic messages.’

  ‘Have you replied?’ says Mitch. ‘Get some communication going.’

  ‘I tried phoning her, no answer.’

  ‘Well, keep trying.’

  I punch out a couple of question marks and press Send.

  A minute or two later, there’s a ping on my phone.

  I read the message out to Mitch.

  ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure.’

  ‘I told you she’s nuts!’

  Mitch pulls in the oars and starts up the engine again.

  ‘We locals have our own legends for Deadman’s Cay. There’ve been a number of fishermen drowned in shipwrecks on those rocks – they’re treacherous.’

  ‘Katie’s father drowned, you know, in a dreadful car accident,’ I say. ‘That family seems plagued with misfortune.’

  Mitch keeps his eyes ahead on the horizon as we navigate along the coast. ‘Comes in threes, death…’ he mutters darkly.

  Eventually he pulls back the throttle and we glide between two rocky spurs into the mouth of the lagoon. We’re not alone. Towards the far shore of the lagoon a large tourist boat is anchored and a crowd of booze cruisers are up on deck basking in the sun. The more adventurous are diving off the end of the boat and swimming out like a shoal of strange fish into the clear turquoise waters. The sound of brash American accents fills the air. The swimmers take their turn, hauling themselves up onto a large flat rock sticking up prominently out of the water, posing for photographs and diving sleekly back into the depths.

  Mitch rows to a sheltered spot just off the beach and we anchor some distance from the cruise boat.

  ‘There’s the rock,’ I shout.

  While we wait in hope for the appearance of The Phantasea, he placidly sets up a fishing rod and I get out my phone and look up the tourist websites. Marooners’ Rock – that’s what they call it in the advertising blurbs I look up online. I was right – some of the sunset booze cruise websites say it’s named after the rock in Peter Pan where the mermaids sit and comb their hair and dive in and out of the waves. It looks fun. It’s a throwback to happier times watching the day-trippers. I wish I could be there with them sunbathing on the rock rather than being stuck here with my very own pirate looking for a lost girl – literally.

  After the best part of an hour, the cruiser hoots its horn and the swimmers make their way back on deck. Music blares from its speakers now, shattering the peace. The cruiser drifts past our little boat. A group of Damien-lookalikes hang over the rails, beer bottles in hand. They wave and wolf-whistle as I raise my hand and smile.

  ‘Hey gorgeous, come on board,’ shouts Damien-lookalike-number-one. In my former life… But I turn away. Katie needs me now. I’m not giving up. This could be our last hope.

  Now the lagoon is deserted. We listen to the thump of the music gradually receding across the waves. Mitch steers the boat into the shallow water behind an outcrop of rock.

  ‘We’ll slide the boat in here’ he says. ‘We can see the entrance to the lagoon from here and we’re well hidden.

  It’s a waiting game now.

  Time slows and I’m mesmerised by the changing sky as the sun goes down and the moon comes up. I didn’t bring anything to eat or drink and it’s getting cold and damp on the boat. The minutes drag by.

  The lagoon is sinister. I imagine I can see the shapes of mermaids sitting on the rock and I remember the lines from Katie’s storybook:

  The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon, when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for mortals then…

  I feel danger in the air now. Like a dog, I can almost smell it.

  26

  Scarlett

  I’m woken by a shaft of sunlight striking my eyelids. I’m lying awkwardly on my side in the rowing boat, facing the rising sun. It must be well after dawn as the light is so intense. I’m aching all over. It’s been a long night, with only a blanket for shelter and Mitch to keep me company. He’s still sleeping, humped over and sno
ring at the other end of the rowing boat. Like a stray dog, sleeping rough doesn’t seem to bother him.

  After the anticipation of last night, I feel flat and despondent. We kept vigil until the early hours of the morning, exchanging stories and memories, watching and waiting and scanning the entrance to the lagoon for a yacht that never appeared. What a stupid, childish idea – chasing mermaids – when I should be at the police station helping Costa go through the files. We’re still no closer to finding Katie and this quest for The Phantasea may well turn out to be no more than a fantasy and a fabulous waste of time. Why was I so sure I’d find The Phantasea at the Mermaids’ Lagoon? I was foolish to embark on this escapade on the basis of a couple of cryptic clues given to me by a woman whose reason is clouded by tragedy and tranquillisers!

  I’m feeling parched and sunburnt and just desperate to get back to the hotel for a cold drink and a hot shower and a few hours of decent sleep.

  I stand up, lurch over to Mitch and shake his shoulder roughly.

  ‘Wake up, Mitch, wake up, it’s time to go. We’re wasting our time here.’

  *

  I hadn’t counted on Mitch being stubborn as a mule. He tells me that I’ve wasted enough of his time already, that he isn’t a quitter and nor am I – we have to see it through. What’s more he’s just beginning to enjoy himself.

  ‘Let’s give it another day,’ he says. ‘Do you want to find Katie or don’t you?’

  I’ve had enough of taking orders from him, so I whip off the blanket and shout in his ear.

  ‘For God’s sake get up. I’m dying of heatstroke and thirst out here in the sun. We’ve got to get into the shade.’

  Eventually Mitch sits up and pulls out a rucksack from under one of the seats. It’s his secret stash of liquid – four litres of bottled water and a few beers. A pair of old-fashioned binoculars are at the bottom of the bag.

  ‘Were you going to wait until I passed out before sharing?’ I say, glugging down the best part of a litre of water. ‘Glad to see you came prepared!’ I add, nodding at the quaint binoculars – then it occurs to me that these are probably part of standard kit for his ‘offshore business dealings’! Having slaked my thirst, I notice that I’m also starving. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. Maybe he prides himself on being a self-styled Crocodile Dundee survival warrior, but I need regular sustenance.