Death of a Mermaid

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘Half past ten.’ Mrs Haskins was glued to the screen.

  ‘That’s precise.’ The woman’s age would not deter Toni from arresting Mrs Haskins for wasting police time. She was already doing a good job of wasting her own.

  ‘I always heads up to bed after the news,’ Mrs Haskins confided in Malcolm. ‘I was shutting the curtains when I saw him.’

  ‘That must have been only a glimpse. Did you see his – or her – gait?’ Toni was deliberately obtuse.

  Malcolm winged in, ‘How did he walk? With a limp? Was he rolling from side to side, walking fast or ambling?’

  Yes, all right. With their star witness comatose and the visit to Freddy, Toni’s patience was in tatters.

  ‘It was a proper look. I knew you lot would ask.’ Mrs H nodded at Toni. ‘I sneaks downstairs and, sure I’d be murdered, I goes and opens the door. I was scared out of my wits; suppose he was waiting to get me?’ She clutched at her chest and looked out across the small, cramped, overly hot room as if she was in a TV studio trying to impress an audience. ‘He was sneaking away. Got what he came for, mark my words.’

  ‘You knew we’d ask?’ Toni said. ‘What led you to think the police would be involved? Did you hear an argument? Raised voices?’

  ‘It was a matter of time. Mrs Munday was up to all sorts when her boy was out. I felt sorry for the blighter.’ She gave a sniff.

  ‘You’re suggesting Karen Munday was seeing men. For money?’ Malcolm asked pleasantly. He could be having tea with an aunt.

  ‘How else did she get that car? Not on what them Powers gave her! Not for what she said she did for ’em.’ Mrs Haskins leaned into the television, where the words, ‘I admit I cheated on you with a woman half my age’ bannered the screen. A man of about a hundred and ten, craggy features making him a body double for a risen corpse, grinned to camera. Not cradle-snatching, Toni noted; the woman must be long pensionable.

  ‘Did you recognise him?’ Saint Malcolm asked.

  ‘They don’t come in daytime. She does fish selling then.’ As if ‘fish’ was a dirty word. ‘She’s in that van with no one to keep an eye.’ Mrs Haskins upped the TV volume; the police were wasting her time.

  ‘No love lost there,’ Malcolm said when they were in the car. ‘I talked to Karen’s colleagues at Power Fisheries.’ He consulted his notebook. ‘One said, “Karen Munday had a dry sense of humour; never mind who she upset, Karen’d always speak her mind.” Another woman, Shirley Vance, said, “She touched our lives like no other.” There’s more, all nice enough, although no one mentioned a boyfriend.’

  ‘Perhaps because none of them were real friends. It seems like she only really had her sister, Mo.’ Toni wondered who would claim to be her friend when she died. Not Freddy. Mags?

  ‘It surprises me, guv. Karen’s son is killed. She’s murdered. People usually fall over themselves to claim they were mates, to speak well of the dead, but only her boss, Andrew Power, seemed upset. Richard Power was tight-lipped about Daniel. We all show emotion differently.’ His hair flopping like a mushroom, Malcolm was keeping it formal. ‘Mo told me that Karen’s favourite meal was mac ‘n’ cheese and that she’d wanted to work for British Airways and travel the world. Facts that, while they might not lead us to her killer, give a glimpse on who Karen had been. Did you know any of this?’

  ‘No.’ Would they lead them anywhere? Usually the business of a detective on a murder case was to get to know the victim. Understand the measure of the loss. The human behind the body. Freddy couldn’t bear these small proofs of Karen’s humanity. It told her what she, too, had missed out on. Karen had only ever wanted to be their friend. Would Karen Munday be remembered as a murder victim and a school bully?

  ‘Ricky keeps his feelings under wraps.’ Toni cleared her throat. She wouldn’t tell Malcolm Ricky had broken down. He had raged like a mad bull in her flat; he was beyond comprehending that his mum and Daniel were dead. His own life had been torpedoed. ‘Any joy from Karen’s fish-round customers?’

  ‘Could Karen have been offering more than sea bream?’ Malcolm stopped at the Brighton Road lights. ‘Like Mrs Haskins suggested?’

  ‘If you’re thinking sex-worker, I don’t see it. Selling drugs from the van is a possibility, I suppose. It would explain the car and the clothes.’

  At school, Karen Munday’s devotion to the Trinity had been real enough, although when she had contemplated being a nun it had been when Mags had briefly flirted with the idea. Where Mags went, Karen went. Toni frowned. She hadn’t thought of that before.

  PART TWO

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  15

  FREDDY

  Freddy paused in the church lobby and, automatically – she called herself lapsed – making the sign of the cross, dabbed holy water on her forehead. ‘The Father, the Son…’ She pattered down the aisle and, a hand brushing the side of the pews as if for reassurance, approached the altar.

  The coffin rested on a trestle beneath the wooden carving of the Passion. It had been brought in the night before. The frailty of Jesus’s prominent ribcage always struck Freddy as undeniably human. He had suffered. The stiff, ruched skirt fitted around the casket was too short, revealing the iron supports beneath. The effect was like a pantomime horse. Hysterics threatened. Then, as abruptly, Freddy didn’t feel anything but sorrow.

  In the last fortnight Freddy had not gone to the library where Mags, apparently, worked. She had set out twice, but her courage – and her legs – failed her. She told herself she’d hated it when Sarah turned up at the fish counter. She wouldn’t do it to Mags. Deep down, Freddy knew the real reason was she was scared. What would she say? Supposing Mags ignored her?

  Four tall candles in gold holders burnt at the corners of the bier. The smell of hot wax took Freddy back to childhood. Confirmation, preparation for marriage… Mass after Mass. She complained, but it was reassuring. A place to belong. She didn’t belong with Sarah. She had nowhere to be. She gazed at Jesus. This was a place to be.

  Andy had been an altar boy. Ricky, too, but it was Andy to whom her heart had gone out. Making his way down the aisle, holding the thurible or the cross, trying unsuccessfully to disguise his shorter leg, limping all the more. Their dad had looked furious.

  ‘You were proud of him, Mum,’ she whispered.

  It had been Freddy and Andy against the world. Against their father.

  Freddy shuddered. She had a vision of the fishery. She was about ten so Andy must have been nine. They were meant to stay in the staffroom kitchen. They had brought toys: Freddy had a doll, Andy had a red car that was missing a wheel. They’d gathered up odd bits of Lego, which had made nothing worth making. They were bored. Freddy dared Andy to leave the room. Run across the car park and touch that post. Andy took every opportunity to run; he believed it would make his leg grow. When it was Freddy’s turn, she did it twice to show who was in charge. Still bored, the children tiptoed out of the kitchen into the fishery.

  The descaling room was empty. So was the shed that housed the freezer tunnel. The catch had been processed and the fishery had been sluiced down. Freddy was explaining how to gut a fish to Andy when they heard footsteps. They knew they were not meant to be in what was called the factory. She grabbed Andy and dragged him behind a tower of fish boxes.

  Men’s voices. One was their dad’s. Freddy felt sick with terror, even though she knew it would be Andy who got told off. She couldn’t place the other man. Risking everything, she peered around the boxes. Her dad was talking in a funny voice. The men’s faces were close, like they were telling secrets. The man wore yellow oilskin trousers reaching to his tummy and held up by straps. Freddy recognised him as the fisherman who was always nice to her, who had once told her a story about a girl called Freddy who ran a trawler and caught more fish than anyone in the whole world.

  Freddy saw her own fear in Andy’s eyes. They kept still. After a while her dad and the fisherman went away. The journey back to the kitchen was one of the scariest of Fredd
y’s life. Although she couldn’t put it into words, Freddy believed her dad would have killed them if he’d caught them watching.

  The fisherman was David Bromyard. What had he and her father been whispering about?

  ‘Hello, Frederica.’ It was Father Pete.

  ‘Hi. Hello.’ Flustered by his silent entry.

  Father Pete smiled. His eyes were solemn. ‘Welcome.’ At their last meeting, she hadn’t noticed his slight Irish burr. Freddy knew that it was hard to ‘get the staff’ these days and fewer men were opting to be priests. A leaflet by the door said that Father Pete had lived in Mexico for twenty years and now oversaw three parishes: Newhaven, Peacehaven and Haywards Heath. Sundays must be a whirlwind tour. Andy had confessed – his word – that he went less often, since the times of Mass changed and didn’t fit with the fishery hours. Andy worked Sundays – unusual; traditionally, many fishermen were Catholics and, like their father, observed the Sabbath. A lot had changed since the day her father had dropped dead.

  Despite his youthful looks, Father Pete must be middle-aged. Pete. Freddy trusted the matey ones the least. He was flesh and blood, with no special power. Yet, in the steady candlelight, with Mum’s coffin inches away, she felt in awe of him.

  ‘Thanks, I popped in… to…’ Her eyes burnt. She dug her fingernails into her palms to stop more tears. Why had she been stupid enough to think she could do this?

  ‘My mother went before I got to see her.’ Father Pete’s eyes flicked over the coffin. ‘It’s been eleven years. I still grieve. The pain will ease. You will find your way of living alongside it.’ He touched the coffin. ‘The manner of our death is not the sum of our life. Reenie was at peace when she went.’

  ‘Good.’ Did she ask for me?

  ‘… I’m glad to hear you’ve stayed,’ Father Pete was saying. ‘It’s a blessing for your family that you’re keeping Reenie’s home warm, alive somehow. For yourself, too, perhaps, it’s a comfort?’

  ‘I’m there until just after the funeral,’ Freddy hastened to explain. After the end of the week, the house would be empty. She felt a stab of dismay. In the two weeks she’d been caring for the various pets – like her, they were due to return to their owners – she’d grown used to the routine. She’d found peace in returning to tasks she hadn’t done for over twenty years.

  ‘Reenie would be pleased.’ He said it so quietly Freddy wondered if she’d heard right. Had her mum confided in Father Pete? A priest’s real power was in the secrets he held.

  ‘It is your home.’ He fingered his cross. ‘Reenie was a brave soul, loyal to her principles. It’s a rare gift to put principles before love for God.’ He implied this was a good thing while surely it wasn’t. ‘Please be in touch whenever you wish, Frederica.’ His gaze moved to the Passion carving and, with a sigh, he said, ‘When our parents go, we’re freed to live.’

  Freddy nearly retorted she’d been freed long ago, but it would have been rude.

  The coffin, solid and definite, expressed the finality of death more than her mum’s body in her bed had. Her fingers busy with the rosary she’d long abandoned, Freddy whispered a prayer.

  Hail Mary full of grace,

  the Lord is with thee,

  blessed art thou among women

  and blessed is the fruit of thy

  womb, Jesus.

  Holy Mary, Mother of God,

  pray for us sinners now,

  and at the hour of our death.

  Amen.

  Working her way through the rosary, decade upon decade, Freddy came full circle.

  Her parents may have gone, but Freddy did not feel free.

  16

  TONI

  The hearse stopped beneath the arch spanning two chapels. Four limousines moved around the bronze statue of a boy reaching a burning cross up to a cloudless blue sky. In turn, like a sundial, the statue’s shadow travelled across the gravel, shortening and lengthening with the hour.

  On the narrow road that wound out of Newhaven, the queue of mourners’ cars up on the grass verge outside the cemetery was causing a mid-afternoon jam.

  Fastening a jacket button like a politician, Andy Power leapt out of the first car before it braked. He leaned in and helped out his wife, Kirsty, and their three Sunday-best-clad children. Toni squeezed Ricky’s hand. Having sorted out his immediate family, Andy was bearing down on their car.

  ‘Richard, old son, look alive!’ The door was flung open. In comparison to Andy’s bright and bushy-tailed efficiency, Ricky looked terrible, bags under his eyes and, of all the days, he’d cut himself shaving. He had never believed his mother would die. Nor had Toni imagined her dad would suddenly not be there. But she was fourteen and her dad had been murdered. Toni wanted the old Ricky back, the one who was on top of things.

  She hustled Ricky onto the drive and, Andy on his other side, they walked up to the hearse. It had been Andy’s idea that he and Ricky be pall-bearers. Toni reassured herself – again – that Ricky was used to hauling crates; he wouldn’t drop his mother. As he approached the hearse even Andy seemed to falter. Toni left them in the care of the undertakers, who surely were used to mourners wanting to join in.

  Irene Power’s casket slid off the rails onto a gurney. Toni ground her teeth as, initially out of sync with the professionals, Andy and Ricky each shouldered their share of the weight. The six men began a slow tread up the long incline to the waiting grave at the top of the hill. Toni held back to let Kirsty, her children and Freddy pass. She’d seen Andy introduce his family to his sister before the funeral Mass, which was held at the Catholic church in the town. Beyond tight smiles, there had been no further interaction between the two women, and the younger generation of Powers showed no curiosity in their long-lost aunt.

  Spring sunshine picked out the graves. Wild flowers flourished between the headstones. Aside from the pall-bearers’ steady plod, there were discreet coughs, cars rumbled by on the C7 below, and from a stand of trees separating the cemetery from fields came the piercing call of a blackbird.

  Andy and Richard relinquished the coffin, the task achieved and confidence restored, their arms folded as if their next role was to ensure that the undertakers paid out the straps and lowered Reenie Power’s coffin into the family plot in a seemly fashion. Men. Toni was sure she glimpsed Fred Senior’s coffin: dark, rotting wood. He deserved to rot. More likely it was earth sodden by the recent rain.

  The priest’s voice rang out, ‘All praise to you, Lord of all creation. Praise to you, holy and living God…’

  Andy scooped up soil and dropped it onto the wood. Kirsty slipped her hand into his and pulled their kids close.

  Ricky was in a bloody trance. Toni stepped forward, grabbed a handful of soil from the displaced mound by the hole and practically threw it at him. She could feel his emotion, like electricity thrilling through him. Poor bloke. You couldn’t blame someone for something they couldn’t manage. Freddy was the last. She took her time. Sprinkling the earth as if it were seeds onto her mother’s grave. Ricky stiffened and Toni hoped he wasn’t going to lose it. Perhaps a disadvantage of having known your boyfriend when he was a kid was that she had witnessed Ricky’s fits. She had teased him about them, but since they’d been together, he had never lost his temper. Until Freddy came back. As Freddy and Andy had expected, he’d been livid that Freddy was staying in their old home. It hadn’t helped when Toni had pointed out that, as the eldest, Freddy had lived there first.

  ‘…let us take leave of our sister Irene. May our farewell express our affection for her; may it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope… joyfully greet Irene again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself…’

  Someone was scurrying along one of the paths back towards the chapel. Short hair, trouser suit. It was Mags. She always wore black so today had been bang on message. Toni saw Andy look as concerned as she felt. Was Mags all right? Andy had covered every aspect of today. He’d emailed lists, issued black-bordered invitations, b
amboozling Ricky with timings and cars. Now Mags was rushing off early. That would not be in his schedule.

  There was another figure on the path. Shading her eyes, Toni squinted in the sunshine. She sucked in her breath. Freddy. At the church, Toni had seen Mags avoid Freddy. She’d be trying to go before Freddy could speak to her. Freddy was gaining on Mags. Toni dreaded what would happen next.

  17

  MAGS

  ‘Mags! Wait. Stop.’

  Cursing her heels, Mags gave up. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my text.’ Freddy didn’t sound accusatory. Mags felt worse.

  ‘We’re short-staffed…’ She couldn’t finish the excuse. Sin upon sin. But for some lines like a veil draped over her face, Freddy looked the same. Her eyes narrowed, she would be puzzling to make sense of Mags, her mum, everything.

  ‘Don’t do this, Mags. After all this time—’

  ‘After all this time there’s no point. I have to get to work.’ Mags resisted the sudden urge to pull Freddy to her. ‘I have to go.’ She made for the statue of the boy as if he would save her. Nothing would save her.

  ‘Can we at least meet? I’m going back home soon.’ Freddy caught up and stopped her. She put out a hand, but must have thought better of touching Mags; it fell lifeless by her side. ‘Thank you for caring for Mum. Andy said you two were close.’

  ‘It’s what anyone would have done.’ Mags could not say how being with Reenie Power had brought her closer to Freddy. When Reenie smiled it was Freddy’s smile; when she held her hand it was Freddy’s hand. The hand that was inches from her now.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Freddy said.

  A beam of sunlight caught the bronze statue and the glare shone on Mags as if from God.

  ‘It’s not a good idea.’

  ‘I want to say a proper goodbye.’ This time Freddy brushed the sleeve of Mags’s jacket. A moth’s touch. ‘You told me about Mum. You asked me to come. You knew I’d come.’