Death of a Mermaid

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘Oh, I thought that was Mags.’ Sarah was nasty. ‘Those bridges were because you toed the line. Andy’s a cold fish.’ She looked pleased at the pun.

  Freddy lost her temper. ‘Jesus, Sarah. You have crossed a line. If I messed with your brother, you’d kill me.’

  ‘Mess with him any time you like, he’s a pain.’ Sarah checked her hair in the van’s wing mirror.

  ‘I wouldn’t meddle with your affairs, that’s the point.’ Freddy saw red. She locked the van and plunged off down Fort Road. She reached the beach and, her boots sinking into shingle, made for the cliffs. Like an alchemist, she had transmuted love for Sarah into molten hate.

  ‘This place is even more depressing in the day.’ Sarah considered a sign for hang-gliders. ‘“Do not use or land on grass slumps below cliffs as this is a wildlife sensitive area.” Slumps – sums it up, doesn’t it? Concrete and old fences. Slit my throat if I end up here.’

  Freddy had never considered the beaches where she had roamed as a child and teenager as depressing. Beneath the cliffs, shingle gave way to the grassy slumps with sea campion, golden samphire and yellow-horned poppies in the lee of lumps of fallen chalk. Today, clumps of thrift flowered pink against the browns and greens. It was paradise. If only Mags was here.

  ‘Wow, creepy.’ Sarah was peering through the grille across the entrance to the battery. ‘Was it a prison?’

  In their arguments it was Freddy who stormed out without the door key or confined herself to the attic without supper, like some heroine of a Victorian novel. Now she’d done what she’d intended to avoid. She’d brought Sarah to the lunette battery. She felt a jolt of guilt. She had failed Mags. She had failed Andy. Inwardly, she said a Hail Mary. Perhaps she should go and see Father Pete.

  On autopilot, Freddy reeled off the battery’s history as if her school project had been yesterday. ‘…rendered redundant when that pier was built to protect the harbour from the easterly drift of silt and storms. The pier is in the line of fire. The battery isn’t used now.’ As she said this Freddy noticed that the padlock looked new, silver against the rusting iron gate.

  Wind gusted through the grille, a high humming that Mags used to call the mermaid choir. On the horizon the ferry was heading for France. Freddy felt sadness wash over her, as if the ferry had abandoned her.

  ‘A perfect place to dump a body.’ Aside from gangsters and thieves, Sarah defended rapists and murderers. Evil was her business. Freddy would lie, head in Sarah’s lap, picnicking in a buttercup meadow, and Sarah would spot loose earth from a shallow grave beneath a willow tree. A lost glove on a post was a murder clue. A rope from a branch was not the remains of a swing, but a murderer’s noose. The lunette battery would be a gift.

  ‘…by the time it’s discovered the incriminating evidence has degraded. Alakazam, you have the perfect murder.’

  ‘There’d be a smell.’ Freddy wanted to yell her head off at Sarah. Become a whirling dervish at one with the elements.

  A lone angler fished from the end of the pier. Miles out, stick figures against the slate-grey sea flecked with foam; the sails of the Rampion windfarm would be turning fast. No actual rampions on the beach, battered by the waves and the gales, the shore was fringed with sea kale and discarded twine. Freddy balanced on a gun turret plate, an iron dais rusted to ochre. Like it or not, she belonged here.

  ‘Any smell would be attributed to the carcass of a seagull or dead fish.’ Sarah was channelling Hitchcock.

  ‘No one’s dead.’ Freddy scrabbled up a pebble and hurled it at the waves; it fell far short. ‘Get the hell out of my life.’ Her shout echoed in the battery. The wind whistled. The Mermaids’ song. ‘Stop stalking me or, so help me God, I’ll tell the police about the letter.’

  ‘I am not stalking you.’ Sarah was lilting, ever comforting. ‘I saw your van on the ring-road, Power Fisheries, hard to miss.’ She was trying for humour. Freddy was long past making up. ‘I got your messages, OK? I listened. I’m going home. Our home. If you want it.’

  ‘I love you, Sarah, let’s go home.’ The words opened up a future. Freddy’s heart was flinty and grey. Her lips sealed.

  Sarah walked away. Her shoes crunched on the shale. Freddy watched the silver Alfa – sleek and beautiful like Sarah herself – glide soundlessly away.

  Freddy was alone. She was, as Father Pete said, free to follow her dreams. Never again need she tangle with Sarah over forgetting to fix her toothbrush onto the electric holder after cleaning her teeth, misfiling cutlery or putting out the wrong recycling bin.

  ‘Great place to dump a body,’ Sarah had said.

  ‘Mags!’ Freddy yelled, her voice feeble in the wind. She tugged at the padlock. The reek of decay from inside the dark chamber was seaweed and stagnant seawater. A dead seagull. That was all.

  Hands plunged disconsolately in her yellow slicker, Freddy felt far from free. She pulled out Mags’s Revelations of Divine Love from her coat. She could do with a revelation. The little volume was Freddy’s proof that Mags had come there. Did she come to tell Freddy that she was going away? Did she realise too late that she’d dropped Mother Julian?

  Freddy should tell Toni about Mags’s text. She couldn’t bear to see Toni’s I-told-you-so look. Except Toni wasn’t like that. She had never needed to be right.

  If Mags had known she’d dropped Julian, she would have come back for it. Freddy looked again at Mags’s message.

  I’m walking on a pilgrimage. Leave me alone.

  Didn’t you go on a pilgrimage? The walking was a given, surely. Freddy tried to take refuge in Toni’s refusal to start a missing-person enquiry. Toni was a CID detective, the expert. Mags had only been missing for six days, including this one. The text proved she wasn’t missing. Mags would be avoiding her. She’d called Sarah a stalker, but maybe that was Freddy. Stalkers refused to believe the evidence of their own eyes. If she told Toni about the text, she’d tell Freddy not to worry.

  Mags would never have gone on a pilgrimage without Mother Julian, would she? And she wouldn’t have rung in sick to the library, effectively stealing time. That was a sin.

  The lighthouse at the end of the pier winked, the lamp brighter now that darkness was falling. The lunette battery had always been a happy place. It wasn’t tonight.

  33

  TONI

  ‘He never asked me.’ Ricky drove the cutter wheel across his pizza with such force Toni thought he’d crack the plate. ‘I’m a partner.’

  ‘He’s the CEO.’ Toni was pissed off to find out from Ricky that Freddy was staying in Newhaven. She hadn’t seen her since refusing to instigate a search for Mags when she had turned up at the pub four days ago.

  Toni needed to explain. Someone was reported missing nearly every minute. Police resources were tight so priority went to children, the largest demographic of the missing. Mags didn’t fit key categories – not a domestic violence victim or mentally ill or suffering from dementia. Ricky said Mags was on a pilgrimage. She’d since been to the library and found that Mags had told them she was sick. However justified she had been in turning down Freddy’s request, Toni felt bad. Freddy was upset and, as she’d split with her partner, she had no one there for her.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Ricky was asking.

  ‘What? Yes.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Christ, Ricky. Lighten up. This is meant to be a nice night out. Recently, with all the extra fishing, you’ve been a nightmare.’ Toni pecked at her La Reine. ‘At least you are a partner. Freddy is reduced to begging for a tinpot job from Andy.’

  It’s a good job.’ Ricky swigged his Peroni and rummaged a hand through his thick black curls. His saving grace was his god-like looks. And that he was nice.

  ‘Seriously, about the boat, you said you’re ahead for this year. Can you slacken off?’

  ‘There’s always costs.’ Ricky got the waiter’s attention and ordered more drinks. ‘Andy should have asked me about Freddy.’

  ‘You’d have sai
d no.’

  ‘I might not have.’ He carved out a slab of pizza, folded it onto his fork and crammed it in his mouth. ‘She’s my sister too.’

  ‘What, so you’re okay about Freddy coming back?’ That would make things a lot easier.

  ‘Not okay exactly. Just that I’d have liked a say. Andy does what he likes.’

  ‘So do you,’ Toni said under her breath

  Against her advice, Ricky had taken out a hefty loan to buy a twelve-metre trawler in which he fished on the Channel several days a week. Power Fisheries used independent fishermen, mixing up suppliers according to cash flow and customer orders. Since Ricky was a boy, he’d been fascinated by the sea, like his sister. But while Freddy learnt to dive and explore the depths almost as soon as she could walk, Ricky had wanted to stay above the water. When Ricky and Toni got together Ricky confided his ambition. Toni encouraged him to live the dream, to be himself. Andy had stipulated that Ricky carry the risk. He had agreed that the company would guarantee to buy his stock. At first it had gone well. Toni had never seen Ricky so happy. But over the last weeks, that had changed. Absorbed in various investigations, Toni had taken a while to see that Ricky was discontented and short-tempered pretty much all of the time. She put out a hand. ‘Your mum being ill and then going so quickly, it’s going to take time.’

  ‘My sister bogged off years ago, chucking up her chance to be in the firm. She broke Dad’s heart. It killed him. As soon as Mum passed, back comes Freddy, wanting her share. Christ knows how you give her the time of day.’ He drowned the last segment of pizza in chilli oil. ‘You should never have texted her.’

  ‘That was Mags. Anyway, Freddy was my friend. Is. And like you say, she’s your sister – you should talk to her. Life is too short.’ Especially for Daniel Tyler and, perhaps, Daisy Webb. Thinking this, Toni put down her fork. She bit her tongue to stop herself telling Ricky the truth. It was Freddy’s secret, not hers. The night she left, Freddy had spent the night at Toni’s, a large house overlooking the sea on the edge of town. With sandwiches made by Toni’s mum, who gave her a ten-pound note from her purse, the eighteen-year-old Freddy had set off into the blue. As she’d promised her pig of a father, Freddy had never contacted Andy and Ricky and, until three weeks ago, had never returned.

  ‘It wouldn’t help.’ Ricky looked glum. Their date night was sinking fast.

  There was a terrible crash, followed by clapping and cheering from first the kids at the table then others in the restaurant. Their waiter, a young woman no older than Daniel Tyler, stared bewildered at a broken plate and a pizza crust at her feet. The manager, an older woman, zoomed in with a long-handled dustpan and brush and swept up the pieces.

  ‘Why do people cheer when that happens?’ said Toni. ‘She might have the breakage docked from her wages.’

  ‘We did it at school. One back on the teachers.’ Ricky had joined in the clapping.

  ‘You have to be kidding. Mother Goose would have had us in solitary. Anyway, this isn’t school.’

  ‘Solitary – isn’t that what nuns do anyway?’ Ricky grinned. The broken plate had upped his mood.

  ‘We were told purgatory was worse than Hell. Your soul is forgotten or something. Hell sounded more fun to me.’

  ‘You dare sit there having a laugh with your boyfriend, after what you’ve done!’ One of the group who had smashed the plate broke away as the others stepped out into the street.

  What first occurred to Toni was that the girl was stunning. Short jet-black hair curled and bouffant, eyeliner sweeping from the outer corner of her eyes. A short dress with a wide twirly skirt, like she’d stepped from a Forties advert promoting something wholesome and fragrant. What occurred next was that the girl looked like Karen Munday.

  ‘Sorry?’ Toni dabbed her lips with her napkin.

  ‘You should be shot for saying Dan was a murderer!’ she screamed. Ever the detective, Toni noticed lipstick on a front tooth.

  ‘Hey. Cool it.’ Ricky shoved back his chair, catching the tablecloth. The glasses clinked.

  ‘I’ve got this,’ Toni snapped at him.

  ‘Oh, what, you arresting me for no reason, like you did Dan?’ A good few centimetres shorter than Ricky, the girl didn’t flinch. ‘You’re not a copper, so piss off out of it.’

  ‘Time to leave,’ Toni didn’t bother to point out that she hadn’t arrested Dan. He’d died in the crash. This girl wasn’t bothered with facts.

  ‘You don’t get to order me around.’ Doris Day with her hands on her hips.

  ‘Can I help?’ It was the manager.

  ‘This young woman is leaving.’ Toni didn’t take her eyes off Whip Crack-Away.

  The girl snatched up the water jug from the table and hurled the contents over Toni, drenching her. Ice cubes dropped onto her lap and skittered over the tiled floor. Ricky grabbed the girl and shoved her arm up into a half-nelson.

  ‘Call the police.’

  ‘I am the police. Let her go, Rick.’ Toni mopped herself with a napkin. To Doris Day, ‘What’s your name?’

  The girl made a snarling noise, but the fight had gone out of her as the reality of assailing a police-officer sank in.

  ‘Jade.’

  ‘Jade what?’

  ‘Munday.’

  Shit. Toni should have known that in a town this size the striking resemblance to Karen would not be coincidental. ‘So, you knew Daniel?’

  ‘He’s my cousin. He is innocent. He’d never hurt Aunty Kaz.’

  Involuntarily, Toni ran her finger over the raised skin on the back of her hand where, long ago, Aunty Kaz had stubbed out her cigarette.

  ‘Jade, listen. It’s terrible how your family have lost two relatives in this way. But you hunting for someone to blame won’t bring your Aunty Kaz or Dan back.’ Toni kicked an ice cube. ‘I’d suggest you go home. Right now, life’s shit, so this time I won’t arrest you for assaulting a police officer.’

  ‘Stupid bitch! You let her off lightly,’ Ricky said when Jade had gone. He stroked back Toni’s sodden fringe and kissed her forehead. Toni longed to sink into him.

  ‘She’s the tip of the iceberg. I’ve had anonymous notes at the station. Malcolm gets off – he’s a bloke. Trolls hate that a woman was in charge. Others think it inconceivable that a blond cutie like Daniel could kill his mum. I’m a witch who should burn in Hell. Admit it, Rick, you agree.’

  ‘That you’re a witch?’ Ricky winked. He gave Toni a wad of napkins from the dispenser. ‘I do not agree. You did a good job, Inspector Kemp.’

  Toni didn’t say that one of the notes had accused her of using a dead boy to bump up her solve rate. In the dead of night, Toni believed she had done that too.

  *

  There was a light on in Mags’s flat.

  ‘Rick, I just want to drop in on Mags. Make sure she’s OK; she called into work sick.’ Ricky’s arm through hers, Toni gave it an encouraging squeeze. ‘I haven’t seen her since Reenie’s funeral.’

  Since Freddy had confronted her in the pub, Toni could not forget how worried she had looked. On the rebound from a relationship with this Sarah, did Freddy hope that Mags would forsake her faith, come out as a lesbian and live with her happily ever after? If so, Freddy was barking up the wrong everything.

  Surely nothing sinister could have happened to Mags. She led a comparatively regular life, moving between her flat, the library and church, and had mentioned going to Lourdes but, to Toni’s shame, she rarely gave attention to Mags’s religious goings-on.

  Yet Toni couldn’t get out of her mind that when she’d seen Mags coming out of the church last week she had been agitated. She had said she had to tell Freddy something. She had not been avoiding her. She had said she was going to see her. What had happened to change her mind?

  ‘Mags was there for Mum. It’s payback time.’ Ricky’s words were clumsy, but the sentiment was there. He pressed the buzzer to Mags’s flat. They waited in silence.

  Toni had doubts swilling around in her head. Doubts a
bout Mags, doubts about the Munday murder. Jade Munday had struck a chord. If they saw Mags, it was one doubt she could allay.

  A man came up the path to the flats. They stood aside for him to enter. With a nod to security, the man didn’t hold the door for them, but didn’t look behind to check it had shut so missed the bit where Ricky wedged his foot in the gap. They heard a door bang on a flight above.

  ‘What floor?’

  Toni had been to Mags’s flat twice – to borrow a novel by Graham Greene when she’d flirted with joining a book group – and the other day. Now, rattled by Jade Munday, she went blank. She usually met Mags at a curry place on the high street.

  ‘Second on the right, I think.’

  Bounding up the stairs, Ricky rapped his fist on the door. Toni winced. If someone banged on her door at ten at night, she’d think twice before answering it, and she was a police officer. The door had no spyhole.

  Toni put her ear to the door and called softly, ‘Mags, it’s Toni. Me and Ricky. To see how you are.’ She felt the full force of her mistake. Mags would hate uninvited callers.

  ‘Looks like she’s in bed, Tone. Sleeping off her bug, maybe.’

  ‘Sshhh, then.’ Toni was about to drag Ricky away when he tilted the letter box and, crouching, peered through.

  ‘There’s mail on the carpet. Mags, you there?’ he called.

  ‘Don’t. You’ll scare her,’ Toni said.

  ‘Looks to me like she’s out. Andy did say she was walking on a pilgrimage.’

  ‘Now he tells me.’ Toni gave Ricky a biff on the head.

  ‘You said Mags wasn’t well. I imagined that you’d know better than Andy.’ Ricky looked aggrieved.

  ‘That woman at the library said she’d heard that Mags rang in sick, but didn’t know who took the message. Thinks it’s some bloke called Edward who’s no longer working there. She rang him, but he’s “disaffected” as she put it, so isn’t answering.’ Toni hadn’t pushed it; at least she knew Mags was not missing. Something to tell Freddy, if Freddy would speak to her. ‘If she’s on a pilgrimage, that explains it.’