Death of a Mermaid

by Lesley Thomson

  ‘Do you know who this man is?’ Malcolm caught up with Toni by the car.

  Toni leaned out and slapped the blue light onto the Jeep’s roof.

  ‘I do.’

  49

  FREDDY

  Freddy dipped her finger in the font by the church door and, dabbing her forehead, made the sign of the cross. She took an Order of Mass from a pile on a table. Her family had an unofficial pew near the front on the left of the aisle, but, with the hint of a bob to the altar, Freddy sat further back on the opposite side. She couldn’t see Andy and Ricky. Even if she’d not been working on Mags’s case, Toni wouldn’t come to Mass. Her brush with God had been brief.

  The church was filling. Little children were at the back, their prattle and fuss over the tattered books and toys attracting annoyed glances from some worshippers, indulgent nods from most. Freddy knew that there was no question of one parent babysitting at home. A cradle Catholic meant exactly that. Every Sunday, Freddy had been one of those kids, she and Andy trying to quell Ricky’s cries and gurgles. The memory hurt. Ricky had been a lovely baby.

  Freddy loved the pageantry and ceremony of principal celebrations – Christmas, Lent, Holy Week. In their teenaged years, Mags had put her forward for readings. Freddy would have liked to be Christ in the crucifixion of Jesus on Good Fridays; it struck her as dramatic. But it was a man’s part. She’d settled for narrator. She always got stern looks from Mags for being late with the responses. Unless Freddy had a role, she tended to be distracted. Today she was beyond distraction. Freddy felt dead inside. Where was Mags?

  Ricky would hate Andy’s idea of them crewing the boat. Reenie Power’s will had suited him. Never good at sharing, Ricky would fight Freddy for any part of the business. That night on the road, he’d pointed his car at her and stamped on the pedal. Ricky would never forgive her for leaving either.

  Andy didn’t know about Gold Light; that for Ricky everything was at stake. Ricky must have killed Karen. Did that mean he killed Mags too? Freddy gripped her missal as she let herself recognise this. The police had interviewed Ricky. They let him go. Did Karen threaten him that she’d tell Andy – or Toni? – about the scam? Daniel Tyler had come home that night, found his mother dead and Ricky there. He’d rushed out, picked up his girlfriend and lost control of the car on the beach. Or crazed out of his mind by what he had seen – Ricky was his mentor, his role model – had Daniel deliberately driven into the concrete block?

  Was Ricky having a relationship with Karen? Was he the man that her customer, Rosie, had said Karen had dumped? Freddy shied from the questions, unconsciously dipping her head. Ricky had fooled Andy, but he’d know he couldn’t fool her. Had he not fooled Mags either?

  Freddy caught sight of DS Lane in a back pew. Was he here for Mags? From the way he was sitting, forward with his eyes darting around the congregation, Freddy doubted he was a Catholic. He saw her and nodded. Catholicism welcomed all comers, believers or not. Freddy did not welcome a police detective. Had he followed her? Did Toni know what her boyfriend was doing? More questions.

  Freddy shifted in the pew. There were too many people to ask to move and leaving would arouse Lane’s suspicion. How dare he waste police time trailing her while whoever had got Mags remained free? Had Ricky got Mags? Had anyone got Mags? Subsiding in her seat, Freddy stared at the crucifix. Jesus’s suffering was her suffering.

  Father Pete was greeting the congregation.

  ‘…and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’

  ‘And with your spirit,’ Freddy hurriedly responded. She might be lapsed, but she didn’t need an Order of Mass nor the hymnals in the pew shelf. Catholicism was in her marrow. Clutching her missal (rarely opened, still it went with her everywhere), she knew every word.

  Absorbed by the ritual, she made the responses and sang the hymn. The organ’s solemn notes wrapped around her. She snapped to when Andy approached the altar. He was doing the reading. Freddy felt pleased; in the past, Andy’s dyslexia had barred him from taking part.

  She knelt for the liturgy of the Eucharist. Father Pete’s words washed over her.

  Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,

  For through your goodness we have received

  the bread we offer you:

  fruit of the earth and work of human hands,

  it will become for us the bread of life.

  Right on time, Freddy joined in the response, ‘Blessed be God for ever.’

  Freddy had not intended to receive a blessing but found herself lining up with other worshippers. When Father Pete’s finger touched her forehead and he looked into her eyes, she feared she’d fall at his feet. Freddy forgot to cross her arms over her chest, as the lapsed Catholic she was, and took the host. Glancing back, the wafer melting on her tongue, Freddy saw Andy in line halfway up the aisle, Ricky behind him. Andy winked at her. Ricky looked through her. Did God see Ricky for what he was? God forgave sins.

  ‘The Mass has ended, go in peace.’

  *

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ Andy indicated a bench by the statue of Mary in the church garden.

  ‘I was coming anyway.’ Freddy was ungracious.

  ‘I told Ricky why you left the fishery.’ Andy hustled their younger brother forward.

  ‘Being gay is no big deal. You should have told Dad that.’ Ricky squared his shoulders. ‘Instead you went and left us to handle him. And you never came to see Mum.’

  ‘I could count on one finger the times he laid a hand on you,’ Freddy said. ‘Believe it or not, it was no fun being his favourite.’ Her temper rising, Freddy made a decision. She would crew Ricky’s boat with Andy. Forget kissing and making up, she’d search the boat, find the secret hold and show the illegal haul to Andy. It would be enough to convince him. Freddy couldn’t tell Toni, because it was possible – and unbearable – that Toni already knew. She’d persuade Andy that they had to report Ricky to Malcolm Lane.

  ‘And you want her in?’ Ricky grimaced at the sky, as if at God. ‘She’s not coming on my boat.’

  ‘Guys, remember where we are,’ Andy hissed. ‘And it’s not your boat until you pay me off.’

  ‘What do you guys know about David Bromyard?’ Freddy blurted out.

  ‘He’s one of our suppliers,’ Andy said. ‘I told you he was Dad’s friend.’

  ‘What about him?’ Ricky looked worried.

  The Munday business. Bromyard must know about the scam. He was a supplier.

  ‘Bromyard implied they were more than friends.’ Her mouth was as dry as leather. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Now was not the time to mention Bromyard’s ring.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ricky leaned in.

  ‘Listen, guys. We’re going fishing tonight. A reunion. Mate, this is not up for discussion.’ Andy glared at Ricky. ‘We’ll crack open beers and toast Mum. Eight o’clock at the harbour. Freddy, I’ll lend you the gear.’

  Shrugging like he didn’t give a toss, Ricky mooched out of the garden. Freddy knew Ricky well enough of old. He was very angry.

  ‘That went well.’ She got up from the bench.

  ‘Leave it to me.’ Andy seemed calm. ‘I’m going to suggest you come in with us. Don’t say anything now. Think about it. It should be all of us. We’d rake it in.’ He went to the path at the side of the church, then stopped. ‘What’s all this about Bromyard? You keep bringing him up.’

  ‘Oh, nothing. His wife’s pet was at the hotel, that’s all.’ Freddy flapped a hand.

  After Andy had gone, Freddy sat on the plinth at the foot of the statue of Mary – after whom Mags was named – and closed her eyes in prayer.

  50

  FREDDY

  Seagulls wheeled above. The lighthouse was a dot then it vanished. The trawler kept a steady eight knots out into the Channel. To the west, lighter grey in the gathering dark was all that remained of what, hours earlier, as they had prepared the trawler, had been what Andy declared a glorious sunset. A distant inf
erno, more like, Freddy had thought.

  Now black clouds bunched on the horizon. A storm was forecast.

  Freddy was there not to catch fish but to trap Ricky.

  While they’d stowed boxes in the hold and the boys checked the fishing gear, the fishing scam hung, like a dead albatross, from the radar mast.

  Leaning over the rail at the prow as the Teresa-Mary ploughed through the waves, Freddy breathed in cold, salty air tinged with diesel and gutted fish. When she’d done the marine courses in Aberdeen, she had recalled her childhood. Believing she’d never been on a trawler before, it had made no sense. Now it did. She was transported back to being three years old, when she had gone on David Bromyard’s boat with her dad.

  Bromyard had told the truth about her dad.

  In a sense, she had known it all along. She felt sick. Not because he was gay, but because he’d made her mum’s life a misery and denied his children happiness, all to keep it quiet. He was both a homophobe and a hypocrite. Bromyard had been trying to tell her that her father had punished her for what he was himself. It was Bromyard who had suggested her dad buy her the Seaside Book. Bromyard had been in the background, trying – as Freddy had for Andy – to keep Fred Power’s temper at bay.

  Her face wet with spray, Freddy let herself imagine that the trip was exactly what Andy wanted it to be. Reenie’s three children would be friends again. They would work together, Andy in the fishery, Ricky on his boat and her on the fish round. Toni was as honest as the day was long. Freddy wouldn’t need Mags to be in love with her, if she only knew she was all right.

  Ricky had told them he’d chosen a fishing area that was flat, comprised of shingle, away from the windfarm and larger vessels. There were no wrecks or hangers, which she knew were lost anchors.

  Freddy’s fantasy of an ordinary fishing trip evaporated as a wave slapped the prow. The albatross swung above her. A body dangling lifeless from a gallows. Murder.

  Blinking back tears, Freddy let herself feel what the police believed. Mags was dead.

  She pushed off the rail and, making her way across the deck, craned her head up at the wheelhouse. Ricky was crouched at the boat’s controls. Andy was behind him. In the cabin light, Freddy couldn’t tell if they could see her. Ricky had barely acknowledged her. Had he guessed that she knew?

  Freddy suddenly considered that coming on the trawler had been a mistake. Andy couldn’t watch her all the time. He didn’t believe he had to protect her from Ricky. The confidence she’d felt in the church garden that morning dwindled with the last of the daylight.

  Freddy needed to get Andy on his own soon.

  They were a good thirteen miles out to sea. The storm was building. Freddy zigzagged along the deck with the roll of the boat.

  Life on a trawler was not romantic. The work of gutting fish, slicing off heads, tossing away their insides, demanded a strong constitution. Incipient danger from vicious weather, treacherous currents and a trawler’s precarious stability left little margin for error.

  She clambered down the stairs from the aft deck to the galley. She had to hope that Andy talking to Ricky was deflecting him from seeing she had left the prow.

  While, above the deck, the winches, gantries, drums and derricks were brutally utilitarian, the galley was a Victorian explorer’s lair. Wood-panelled walls with lipped shelves to prevent bottles and containers – Branston pickle, salt, HP sauce, mayo, waterproof canisters of tea and coffee, a pocket torch – from slipping off as the trawler heaved. A flat-screen TV on the wall was angled at cushioned benches around a polished oak table. The Teresa-Mary was a six-berth vessel, but Ricky had converted three of these into compartments for tools, life jackets, spare slickers. Through portholes, the sky and sea were opaque black. Freddy realised with a jolt that she had stayed the night on Bromyard’s boat. Tucked up with her teddy, she’d looked at the night through the circular window.

  King Triton was David Bromyard, not her father.

  She regarded the cabin that was Ricky’s home from home. Toni had said that if he had his way, Ricky would live on his boat. She got seasick so only went on board when the trawler was in the harbour. Had she paid little attention to Ricky’s work? Freddy prayed that this was true.

  She crept to the other end, where there were steps that she knew led directly up into the wheelhouse. Ricky could go below without getting wet or letting in water. To the left of these was the fish hold and a net store. Checking behind her, Freddy wrenched up the handle and hauled open the thick door to the hold.

  Icy air hit her lungs. The insulated hold was like a vast cathedral. The floor was covered with what she estimated was at least a metre of crushed ice. Freddy knew from Ricky’s log book that the boat’s fuel bunkers were full and the trawler was carrying over a tonne of ice. Was it all in here? The trip was for one night – the plan was to catch a haul of Dover and lemon sole, and plaice. Most of Ricky’s trips were a minimum of three nights. Daniel Tyler had been his only crew. Had Tyler known what Ricky was doing? It was possible he had not. Ricky could have got him filling another hold without explaining why he was doing it. But Freddy doubted this. Daniel must have found out and murdered Karen for threatening to betray him to Ricky.

  There was no porthole on the starboard side of the hold. Not unusual, although many boat designers respected symmetry. Her pulse racing, Freddy gripped a safety rail and, keeping to the narrow ledge around the ice, made her way to the other side. She tapped the metal. The hollow prang told her nothing. The wall was too thick to indicate what was – or wasn’t – behind it.

  She leaned out, clinging fast to the rail, and made sense of the hold. The net was released down from the hatch in the ceiling. The catch landed on the ice. Daniel would have the job of collecting it up and sorting and grading. She moved along to a narrow metal plate – the platform from which they gathered up the catch – a grooved shape was outlined on the starboard side wall. It was a door. She had assumed that one side was the trawler’s hull. Why have a door there?

  Freddy tried to fit her fingers into the groove. It was too narrow. A plastic seal ran along the bottom and top. She tried pushing, but it was solid. She tightroped along the ledge back to the entrance to the fish hold and returned to the galley. Now it was obvious. The door to the fish hold was off centre. It wasn’t immediately noticeable because the stairs were dead centre, with compartments either side. The symmetry misdirected the eye.

  The difference between the wall of the fish hold and the side of the hull was about two metres. Freddy swept her hands down the compartments. She was rewarded. Had she not been looking, she would have missed the inset ring. She pulled. The compartments swung out, blocking the way to the stairs. Freddy stared at what she had hoped against hope not to find.

  The secret hold where Ricky hid the black fish.

  The hold tapered at the prow end. It was as high as the main hold, reaching right to the deck, rising several metres. Space enough to store a quantity of fish worth thousands of pounds. Ricky, and Karen, when she was alive, were minting it.

  There was no ice. Freddy was stunned with disappointment. Ricky did not plan to store fish in the secret hold on this trip. With Andy and Freddy on the trawler, he must be playing it safe. He might have been able to fob Daniel off with a story, but not Andy. The existence of the secret hold was not sufficient proof for Andy. Ricky could say it was the overflow store if a haul was particularly good.

  Freddy slumped on the bottom step below the wheelhouse. The odour of stale blood filled her nostrils. Ricky murdered Karen because she was blackmailing him for a bigger cut. That had to be it. And then what? Had Daniel found his mum dead and his boss standing over her and driven off into the night? Freddy’s head felt it would explode as the narrative rushed in unbidden. Her brother was a murderer.

  Insidious fear crept up Freddy’s spine. Toni must know about Ricky. That would explain why she hadn’t phoned in the last few years. She had been keeping her distance since Freddy had been there. Toni hadn’t
told Freddy that her mum was dying. She had been quick to decide that Daniel Tyler killed Karen Munday. She knew about the illegal fishing. Ricky had always been tempestuous, acting on the spur of the moment, compounding his mistakes because he couldn’t be wrong, whether it was playing a board game at Christmas, or breaking a toy and blaming her or Andy. He had murdered Karen in the heat of the moment and now he was in a different league.

  Toni had put the blame on Daniel, interviewed Ricky for form’s sake and closed the case. It closed the circle of the diagram that Freddy had begun to sketch out. Ricky landed fish over his quota. Karen sold it on and the blind eye of the law was turned by DI Kemp, the cop who shoplifted and got away with it.

  Freddy was paralysed by a mixture of fear and a terrible sense of treachery. She rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palms. She felt confused and purposeless.

  After a few minutes, she mustered herself. She must get Andy on his own. She would convince him. The boat heeled. She fell against the compartments. A roll of gaffer tape slid across the floor of the secret hold.

  There was something at the prow end. Freddy felt in her oilskins for her torch and switched it on. Now she saw that the walls of the secret hold were scuffed with black marks. She bent and touched one. Rubber. As if someone had kicked the walls. She ventured towards the shape at the end; her mouth dry, she licked her lips.

  A tarp was wedged in the tapered end. Gingerly, Freddy lifted an edge and tugged it out from the prow. She whimpered in a dread anticipation of what lay beneath. Something fell from a fold in the tarp. Freddy lurched with the boat and nearly crushed it with her boot.

  A rosary necklace. The chain of delicate silver, the beads a translucent blue. It was identical to Freddy’s. Hers was in her handbag, which she’d left in Andy’s office.

  The rosary belonged to Mags. Toni tore at the tarp, flapped it, heaved it and smacked at it, as if it could yield the answer. She had wanted proof that Ricky was fishing illegally. Instead she had Mags’s rosary. Freddy crumpled to the floor. The rosary was proof that Mags had been in the secret hold.