The Brighton Mermaid

by Koomson, Dorothy

  ‘Did he ever tell you what he did to my family?’ I asked.

  Aaron shook his head. ‘No. A few of his ex-colleagues said he went above and beyond the call of duty to try to solve the Brighton Mermaid case, especially when it was disconnected from the other Mermaid Murders. A few others hinted that he crossed the line a few times. But no, I never really found out.’

  I pulled a bitter smile across my face and looked up to the sky. ‘They’re still peddling that “good cop doing anything he can to get justice” line, then, are they?’ My tone was as bitter as my smile. ‘Not that he was a racist bastard who got away with all he did because he was part of a system that is set up to always treat people of colour as guilty suspects first and foremost.’

  I looked at Aaron Pope before returning my gaze to the sky.

  ‘He called me a dirty little slut when all I’d done was find a dead body. He harassed my father until he nearly had a breakdown, and my mother did have a breakdown. My sister is probably still suffering from post-traumatic stress because of what she witnessed courtesy of your father. And he has stalked and harassed me for years. He used to follow me all over Brighton – I’d turn around and there he’d be, watching me. Until his accident, he’d been doing it nigh on twenty years … but he and his mates still think he was justified for all of it because he was a police officer.’

  Aaron Pope sank even further in his seat. ‘I knew it was bad,’ he eventually said, ‘because he wouldn’t tell me. Usually he’s fine with telling me what he got up to – proud of it, even – but he’d never talk about your family.’ He threw his head back, looked up at the sky like I had just done. ‘Jeez. I can’t even imagine. I hate that he did that to you and your family. I hate it so much.’

  I carefully studied the lines of his face, trying to see where the differences lay in his features compared to his father’s. ‘In all of this, I think you’re the most special person of all,’ I said.

  He stared at me and said nothing in return.

  ‘Because despite all that, despite believing me and not questioning what I’m saying because you know it’s true, and despite knowing what your father is like, you still want me to come with you, don’t you?’

  ‘Look, my father still has some friends on the police force, and he said … he said if you wouldn’t come, I was to tell you that he has found a link between the Brighton Mermaid and the four other women that they called the Mermaids. Remember?’

  ‘And?’ I said this calmly, even though inside my stomach was turning cartwheels. There was a link? I had done as much research on Ralph Knowles, the man arrested for the murders, as I could. Everything said he was the one: there’d been complaints about him watching people; prostitutes said he’d got rough to the point of dangerous; he had a fondness for non-consensual strangulation; he had form for putting women in hospital; he’d been in and out of prison. But even though on paper he ticked many boxes that said it was him, his sheer lack of guile made me doubt if he truly was responsible. Whoever killed all those women had left very little forensic evidence behind – the killer was careful, meticulous, and Ralph Knowles had seemed to be anything but careful. He’d seemed positively reckless. He went around hurting people and doing a lot of time for his crimes. And now Pope had found a definite connection; he had proof that all the murders were linked?

  ‘He said … he said he knows how to prove your father did it.’

  Slowly, I rotated my whole body to face him. Aaron was staring furiously at the ground, his face pale and sickly. ‘What. Did. You. Say.’ My anger enunciated every single word.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘He said he’d talk to you or he’ll talk to your father.’

  I wanted to punch Aaron Pope in the face. Smack him so hard his dad would feel it; the entire Pope bloodline would feel it.

  ‘I hate your father. I absolutely hate him.’

  He lowered his gaze even further, but not before I saw ‘me, too’ dance across his face.

  ‘Tomorrow night. At the small bit of greenery near here. I’ll meet him there at six.’ We could meet there because it was mainly populated by druggies and nicotine addicts – I wouldn’t care if I never went there again.

  ‘He rarely leaves the house. He spends most of his time in a wheelchair. It’ll be hard to get him there.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck,’ I replied. ‘He wants to start on my dad again, then he can come here and face me like a real man.’

  ‘It’d be easier if you came to our house.’

  ‘You think I’m going to go wandering into a house with him and you?’ I retorted. ‘Pope has meant me nothing but harm from the moment I met him so you honestly think I’m going to go somewhere that will allow him to do anything to me? It makes no difference if he’s partially paralysed or not – he always got someone else to be physical for him.’

  ‘I would never—’

  ‘You’re here, doing his bidding, so I don’t care about your “I would nevers”. I don’t trust him and I don’t trust you. Either he gets himself here at six tomorrow or I start harassment proceedings against him and you. His choice.’

  Aaron Pope looked like he was going to throw up. If he was anyone else’s son, if he hadn’t carried John Pope’s toxicity to me, I would have felt sorry for him and what he would face when he took that message back to his father.

  Thursday, 25 June

  ‘You know what day it is tomorrow, don’t you?’ John Pope said. ‘You know what anniversary it is?’ His voice hadn’t changed, his manner hadn’t altered. In his wheelchair he looked small and broken, but he was still the man he had always been.

  I sat and said nothing.

  ‘The boy here knows computers. He knows how to get into things. He helped me to start to piece together some of the information that I had. Someone broke into my house while I was at the hospital. Stole all the things I had about the Brighton Mermaid, about your friend. I can’t remember what it was that I had. It was important. The boy told me I said it would change everything. I can’t remember, it’s gone. But the boy has found out some things. It’s reminded me of other information – there was another link. We didn’t pursue it because we couldn’t find it on him. We looked in all his usual hiding places, but nothing turned up.’

  I sat and said nothing.

  ‘The strangulation, the lack of shoes, the repeated rapes, but the alibi that severed the link to the Brighton Mermaid. It wasn’t Ralph Knowles. The other link they told no one about was the jewellery. They all had missing jewellery. Usually rings, but also earrings and a necklace. The Brighton Mermaid had two pieces missing, because your friend took her bracelet. They all had indentations on whichever finger the ring had been on; the forensic examiner said on darker skin, there was usually discoloration from long-term jewellery wear. One had a torn earlobe where the earring had been. One had a rash where the forensics people believed a necklace had irritated her skin – but there was no sign of it. Jewellery. They were all missing jewellery. Knowles didn’t have it. He wasn’t smart enough to hide it that well. Whoever did it took those things as trophies.’

  I sat and said nothing.

  ‘You have to find that jewellery, Nell. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure. You have to search your father’s house until you find it. You have to find that jewellery or I will tell everything I know to those who will search and will find it. All they need is new evidence or a new line of investigation and they will open it all up again.’

  He finished talking. Waited for me to speak to him; for me to answer his threat with acquiescence.

  I stared at him, long and hard. Waited for my voice to calm itself so I would not scream, I would not swear, I would not give him the reaction he craved. He’d always wanted a reaction from me. I think that was why he’d kept coming for me over the years – because I would not react the way he wanted, I would not show that he had got to me.

  Instead of speaking to him, I turned to his son. ‘You have a way into the police databases?’ I asked Aaro
n Pope.

  ‘I don’t do that,’ he stated. ‘Any more.’

  ‘If you did still do that, would you be able to get me the DNA sequences for Jude and the Brighton Mermaid?’

  ‘What are you talking about DNA for?’ John Pope demanded. ‘It’s the jewellery. It’s the jewellery that will solve this. Find the trophies he took and we’ll have him.’

  ‘But could you?’ I asked Aaron Pope.

  ‘If I still did stuff like that – which is illegal – then yes, I could. Possibly.’

  ‘Would you be able to get me access to the files they have on Jude and the Brighton Mermaid?’

  ‘No. Even if I did still do that, you can only go in a few times before they notice. And once they notice, they track you down and put you in prison. When you do that sort of thing to them, you don’t ever escape prison.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But if I did still do that, I’d be able to get you the DNA and that would be about it.’

  ‘Boy, take me home,’ demanded John Pope.

  ‘Give me your address,’ I said to Aaron Pope. ‘I’ll come over and get the DNA files in a week or so. Is that enough time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Boy! I said take me home!’

  ‘Do you write computer programs?’ I asked.

  ‘I own a software company,’ Aaron Pope replied. ‘So, yes.’

  ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t even know what I want help with.’

  ‘I do. To get me and him out of your life. By solving the mystery; clearing your father’s name.’

  ‘And you’ll help me?’

  ‘In a heartbeat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want the Brighton Mermaid out of my life, too.’

  ‘Boy! Home! Now!’

  I stood up from the bench so I loomed over John Pope. His grey-white hair was slicked back, making him look like an ageing gangster whose minions denied him access to a mirror. He hated that I towered over him now. I could tell he hated everything about this meeting. The fact he’d had to come here at all would be bad enough, but the fact he was vulnerable in front of me, the fact that I didn’t speak to him, the fact that when I stood I became a giant and made him feel insignificant – just like my dad had made him feel the first time he met him – was probably driving him mad.

  ‘You stay away from my father,’ I warned John Pope. ‘I will look for Jude. I will follow all the leads you have with the Brighton Mermaid and the other women. I will do whatever is necessary to solve this, including being around you. But you stay away from my father and my family . Is that understood?’

  He glowered up at me, his eyes burning with the white-hot hatred he had for me. ‘Boy. Home. Now.’

  That was John Pope speak for: ‘Understood .’

  When I had his address on a slip of paper torn from the edge of the newspaper I’d been reading when they showed up, I said, ‘I’ll see you next week,’ to Aaron Pope.

  He nodded.

  I didn’t acknowledge John Pope before I walked away.

  Friday, 3 July

  The Pope house was a large red-brick place set in a horseshoe-shaped close with views out over the glittery green Downs. It had three good-sized bedrooms, another smaller bedroom, a decent-sized bathroom upstairs, and an eat-in kitchen with two large reception rooms downstairs.

  ‘This is what I could get my hands on,’ Aaron Pope told me. We were upstairs in one of the bigger bedrooms that he used as an office. ‘Hopefully it’s what you wanted.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Run it through the programs that I use. See if there are any relative matches out there.’

  ‘Look.’ He took the sheaf of papers stuffed inside a brown folder out of my hands again. ‘If you’re going to do this, you can’t just use your normal computer. You need to create a private network, get hardware that is hard to hack, put up extra software protections.’

  ‘Sure I do.’

  ‘I mean it. You can’t just put data out there that you’ve got through less-than-upfront means. If you wanted, I could write you a couple of programs to make your searching a bit easier, but only if you get the proper computer hardware.’

  I surveyed Aaron Pope again. He didn’t look so much like his father now that I’d spent more time in his company. It wasn’t simply because he wore glasses and didn’t have the scar – Aaron Pope was different and it reflected in the lines of his face. He didn’t have the hard edges, the spiky attitude of a man who hated the world and expected the world to suck up his hatred and do as he commanded.

  ‘Why would you do that? Write me some programs, I mean?’

  ‘I told you, I want the Brighton Mermaid to be out of my life, too.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘Is it?’

  I tipped my head to one side as I continued to study him. He was immediately uncomfortable with my gaze; worried, it seemed, that I would find out something by simply looking at him. ‘Have you lived in Brighton all this time?’

  ‘No. I was in London, for many years. Stayed after college. Came back two years ago.’

  ‘What’s your story, Aaron Pope?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, barely able to lift his head.

  ‘I mean, why are you here?’

  He frowned, but wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘I’m looking after my father. He needs someone to take care of him.’

  F.O.G. He reeked of F.O.G. I knew I did, too. It was why I was here, in the house of a man I hated, working with him towards solving a mystery that he thought would prove my father guilty and I knew would reveal him to be innocent.

  F.O.G.

  Fear.

  Obligation.

  Guilt.

  I’d seen it so many times: in the mirror; on the face of my sister; on the faces of my parents.

  Fear.

  Obligation.

  Guilt.

  It was why you went against what was best for yourself to do what was convenient for other people. It was why you wanted to say no but ended up going along with something that would make your life difficult. It was why I had seen flashes of true hatred on Aaron Pope’s face when he talked about his father, but here he was obviously looking after him. Not flinching or even reacting when his father called him ‘boy’.

  Fear.

  Obligation.

  Guilt.

  You see it on the faces of those caught in impossible situations, children who have been mistreated so long they automatically defer to the needs of their abuser.

  I was wrong about John Pope, I realised. I thought he wouldn’t dream of being physical because he didn’t have the stature for it. I thought John Pope always got someone else to do that bit for him; it never occurred to me that if he had someone smaller than him, someone who loved him unconditionally …

  ‘It’s good that you’re looking after him.’

  ‘It’s what anyone would do for their parent,’ Aaron Pope mumbled. Poor Aaron Pope.

  I hadn’t yet sat down in his room because I had no reason to. I’d come to pick up the DNA file and then I was going home to start the long process of typing it into my computer in code form. After looking at him a bit longer, I pulled out the chair from in front of his large desk, neatly adorned with four computers, and sat down. ‘Tell me about this computer thing, then,’ I said.

  ‘You really want to know?’ Suddenly he could face me now we were talking about a neutral subject.

  ‘Well, if I’m going to do this, I have to do it properly, don’t I?’

  Aaron Pope smiled. And with that smile it was clear – he looked nothing like his father.

  Friday, 20 November

  Aaron Pope came into his office and sat on the seat next to mine. He didn’t speak; I continued to type, pretending I didn’t notice he was pale and shaking, acting as if I hadn’t heard his father shouting. Aaron Pope hadn’t raised his voice once in retalia
tion to the words – as loud and clear as anything – his father had spewed at him. He must have stood there and taken it. Listened to all the hideous things his father had ranted at and about him but not fought back. F.O.G. Good old Fear, obligation, guilt.

  This was what it must have been like when he was growing up, I realised. This, and worse, was what it must have been like for him.

  The silence between us grew and grew, long minutes spinning themselves around us.

  ‘You can talk to me if you want,’ I said suddenly. I hadn’t meant to say anything, I’d meant to keep my counsel, do what I had to do and leave, but I couldn’t. I’d watched him from the corner of my eye, trembling, like I had done the first time his father had gone for me – and I had to do something, even if it was something as simple offering to listen.

  He stared at the screen and said nothing, but folded his hands under his armpits to try to hide how much he was shaking.

  ‘Any time,’ I continued. ‘You can tell me anything at any time.’

  He slowly turned his head towards me. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Don’t want to or don’t know how to?’

  He immediately returned to looking at the screen.

  ‘Like I said, any thing and any time.’ I spun back to my screen, too. ‘Any thing and any time.’

  Now

  Nell

  Saturday, 7 April

  On days like today, when the weather is clear, the sun has come up and the wind is down, John Pope sits in his garden.

  So he doesn’t have to deal with the stairs, his bedroom is downstairs in the second reception room, which lets out directly onto the garden.

  He has a blanket over his legs, he has his radio on a wrought-iron table and beside that he has a bottle of whisky and a glass. It’s not yet 11 a.m. but John Pope has a drink whenever he feels like it. If he doesn’t get one, he rages at his son until Aaron gives in.

  I stand in front of him and don’t speak. Whenever he ‘needs’ to see me, I come but I do not speak until he speaks to me. We always do this. We always wrestle with each other to see who will give in first. He has time since he rarely has anywhere to be, but I am stubborn. Especially when it comes to John Pope.