The Brighton Mermaid

by Koomson, Dorothy

  This is one of the worst things about what has happened – it’s making me paranoid and mistrustful. Honestly, Zach hasn’t done anything to rouse suspicion since I met him, but here I am deciding he’s the person who broke in here.

  ‘Were you here the night of the break-in?’ the policewoman asks.

  ‘Erm, no, no I wasn’t,’ Zach says.

  ‘May I ask where you were?’ the policeman asks.

  Another set of nerves are set alight with that question. Not only because I have been thinking the same thing, but also because this is how it started with Dad. The police thinking it could be someone close to me and then running with it. Running and running and running until our lives were ruined.

  ‘Erm,’ Zach begins. I have never heard him say ‘erm’ so many times in one short conversation. ‘Erm, I was probably asleep. I start work at seven-thirty in the morning, so I generally go to sleep quite early.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone can corroborate that, can they, sir?’ the policewoman asks casually.

  My heart feels heavy in my chest, my lungs feel like they are encased in cement. They shouldn’t be asking him these questions, he’s done nothing to arouse suspicion in them, not like he has with me. But that won’t matter, they’ll drag his name and his life through mud before they find that out. I can’t bear it. I can’t stand for this to happen again to someone I care about.

  Zach locks eyes with the policewoman. ‘No,’ he says quietly, ‘no, they can’t.’ Slowly he lowers his gaze and stares at the rug that lives at the centre of my living room. It is equidistant from the sofa, the television and the two armchairs the officers are sitting on. I spent a lot of time making sure of the equal distance between all those things because if even one was slightly off, it would bug me and bug me until I could change it.

  Like their question will bug me and bug me. ‘Why are you asking that question?’ I say. I can’t let this happen again. I’m not a fifteen-year-old this time around. I am someone with a voice and authority and I need to speak up.

  ‘We’re just trying to get as full a picture as possible of what happened,’ the policeman replies.

  Zach doesn’t raise his gaze, doesn’t raise his cup to his lips, he simply stares at the rug.

  ‘Can I take your name, sir?’ the policewoman asks politely. There’s an edge there, though. A slight inflection on the word ‘sir’ that tells me what she’s thinking.

  I watch my sort-of boyfriend let out a small sigh. When he lifts his head he stares directly at the police officers. ‘I’d rather not say,’ he replies.

  What and WHAT?!

  I stare at him and feel the crushing on my chest intensify. Who is this man? Who have I got myself involved with? I lay there like an idiot and let him orgasm inside me without any barrier protection because I didn’t mind the idea of a piece of him being with me for ever. I sat there like a fool telling Aaron that I thought he might be ‘the one’. And now I’ve probably got to deal with finding out he’s some kind of criminal mastermind or gangland boss or known killer.

  ‘It would make things so much easier if you just told us, sir,’ the policeman says. I notice both officers place their mugs on the floor beside their chairs, almost in unison, almost as though they think trouble is about to break out.

  Zach looks at me, his expression a silent apology before he turns back to the officers.

  ‘My name is … Detective Sergeant Zach Searle.’

  Macy

  Saturday, 28 April

  The engagement ring is beautiful.

  Sapphire and diamonds in a white gold band.

  ‘This and a few other bits are all I’ve got left of my parents,’ Shane says. He’s down on one knee and he’s pushing it onto my finger. It actually fits, glides smoothly over both knuckles. (Clyde got me a jelly sweet ring that he ate after a few whiskys one night.) ‘But you don’t have to wear it and we don’t have to use this ring – we can go and get something else if you want.’

  ‘I don’t want anything else,’ I tell him. ‘It’s absolutely perfect.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened to my mum’s wedding ring,’ he says, getting to his feet. ‘Disappeared in the crash that killed them.’ I watch his face struggle with emotion; he stares down at the ground, trying to control himself.

  One of the things that drew us together is the fact we didn’t want to talk about our families. Me because, well, who is going to understand the craziness of my family history? And Shane because he has no one. Only child to parents who were killed in a car crash when he was nineteen. Every now and again I’ll see how it hurts him, how he’ll wish he had a Nell or a Mummy or a Daddy to share things with. He seems so lonely sometimes and I feel for him in those moments. Of all the unpleasant things I’ve felt in my life – ignored, overlooked, dismissed, undervalued – I don’t think I’ve ever felt lonely. I can’t believe I’m about to say this. Especially given what’s happened to her but … ‘Maybe you should ask Nell to investigate your family tree. See if you’ve got any other family out there.’

  Shane’s face registers surprise. ‘No, no. Not my thing at all. I respect everyone who wants to do it, you know, go with God, but not for me. Too much potential for all sorts of cans of worms to be opened.’ He pulls me into his hold. ‘Besides, I’ve got you and the kids, I don’t need any other family.’

  I’m relieved, actually, that he’s said no. Much as everything is cool right now between them, I don’t want them spending too much time together. I don’t want them to start to remember what it is they loved about the other one. I don’t want to lose my fiancé to my sister, basically.

  Nell

  Saturday, 28 April

  ‘I’m working undercover,’ Zach explains in the silence that follows his revelation.

  He doesn’t look at the two police officers who he has just handed his warrant card to, he looks at me while he talks. ‘There’s been some stuff that I can’t talk about going on at the school and I’m working undercover there for the next few months. I am a qualified teacher, which is why I was able to do this assignment.’

  What in the holy hell?

  ‘I didn’t mean to keep you in the dark. But obviously I couldn’t tell you anything because I’m undercover. That was why I was so long before – I needed to get authorisation from my handler and her boss to tell you.’ He looks at the police officers. ‘All of you. They said I could if it was unavoidable. We don’t know how far-reaching the stuff at the school is.’ He returns to looking at me. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. But this has nothing to do with us, Nell. It is completely separate.’

  I listen to him talk and I’m aware that I’m not blinking because what he has said has made my eyes stay wide open.

  What in the holy hell? I think again.

  ‘When you were attacked, I thought what I’m working on had spilled over into my life away from the school. I was so worried, so scared for you. But it doesn’t look like that’s the case now.’

  When he stops talking long enough for me to know he is waiting for a response from any of us in the room, I turn to the police officers. I force myself to blink a few times to make my shocked eyes work again. I need all of these people to leave. I need my home back. ‘Are we finished?’ I ask them.

  ‘Erm, yes, yes,’ the policewoman says. They seem more shocked than I am. They both stand. ‘Call us if you remember anything else.’ She holds out her business card and I stare at it like it’s going to bite me. Eventually Zach takes it from her.

  ‘You need to go with them,’ I tell him when they move towards the door but he doesn’t.

  ‘Don’t you want to talk?’

  ‘No,’ I state. ‘I do not want to talk.’ I shake my head. ‘If there is one thing I do not want to do, it is talk.’

  ‘At least let me help you finish straightening out your flat,’ he says.

  ‘I would like you to leave with your colleagues.’ I can’t stand to look at him, much less talk to him.

  ‘OK, all right,�
�� he says.

  Returning to a crime scene , that’s what he said at the hospital and I hear him saying it in my head now. No one talks like that unless they’re a member of the police. I can’t believe I didn’t clock that at the time.

  I follow the three police officers to the door, Zach grabbing his jacket and leather courier bag from the hook by the door. The others start down the corridor outside my flat but Zach rotates on the spot to look at me.

  ‘Can I call you later?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course,’ I say to him.

  His face brightens and relaxes in relief.

  ‘I’m not going to answer, but feel free to call as many times as you like,’ I tell him before I shut the door in his face.

  Cleaning, righting everything, putting my flat back together has proved to be more therapeutic than I thought possible. I’ve had to re-clean everything that Detective Sergeant Searle did, of course, because, well, I just can’t stand the thought that he was helping me while simultaneously lying to me.

  I’m appalled at myself for being so trusting and gullible. From the moment I met him to finding out the truth, I’ve been pretty open with him. Several times over the last few days I’ve been tempted to tell him about the Brighton Mermaid, about Jude, about the searches I have done and the searches I’m doing. I wanted to tell him about Sadie in Leeds, about Aaron and John Pope. He was looking after me, he was so selfless and kind when I hadn’t really told him anything about myself or why I thought I’d been burgled and hurt, that I wanted to open up to him. We were close – I wanted to bring us closer.

  And all along he’d been worried that what happened to me was his fault because he’d been living the ultimate double life. He thought that, and still didn’t tell me the truth. Was anything about him true?

  He could have a wife and children in London, for all I know. Well, that’s if he is from London. I don’t know London at all – he could have made up a place called Lewisham for all I know.

  All those papers and printouts he picked up and stacked in the living room as well … He will have read them. He will know that some of the information on them didn’t come through strictly legal channels. He could probably have me done for having a lot of that stuff in my possession. That was probably how he finally worked out that it wasn’t down to him and I had got myself into trouble all on my own. How relieved he must have been to realise he was off the hook.

  When you make a mess you make a complete and utter mess, don’t you? I’ve told myself several times.

  I stand in the middle of my living room, in the middle of my perfectly centred rug, staring at my flat. It’s all fine now. You’d never be able to tell that someone trashed it the other day. In fact, this is probably the tidiest and cleanest it’s been in years.

  I can’t be here .

  When Zach was here, it was OK. I didn’t mind so much. When I was cleaning up after Zach had gone it was OK because my mind was focused. Stopping has given me a chance to think, and thinking is not good for me.

  I have nowhere to go, though.

  If I go to Macy’s, I’ll have to explain about Zach. If I go to Aaron’s I’ll have to be around Pope. If I go to Zach’s I’ll have to deal with the whole big-fat-duplicitous-boyfriend thing.

  I can’t be here, though .

  I don’t feel safe. I haven’t had a chance to get the locks changed. What if whoever broke in found some spare keys and comes back while I’m sleeping? What if the violence they’d visited on my stuff will now be visited upon me?

  The knock at the front door makes me jump. Technically no one should be able to get in here without buzzing first, but people don’t check, they don’t challenge, they just let anyone wander in. That’s probably how the burglar got in. They just waited and followed someone in.

  The police said during our first conversation they’d spoken to all my neighbours and none of them had heard a thing. I creep to the front door and wait to see if whoever it is knocks again.

  There is silence for a time. But I think someone is there. Lurking. Waiting.

  Bang-bang-bang! The second knock is louder and makes me physically jump. I clutch at my chest, suddenly sick to my stomach.

  ‘Enelle?’ my father says. ‘Enelle, are you in there?’

  Dad? Dad! I unpeel myself from where I’ve been cowering behind the door and rush to open it.

  ‘Daddy!’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’ It’s taking all my strength not to grab him by the hand and drag him in and never let him leave. As nonchalantly as possible, I stand aside and let him in.

  ‘Macenna called me,’ he says as he steps inside. He has a large duffle bag with him. I’ve never really known my dad to carry any type of bag, let alone a duffle one. It clinks as he walks past and for one awful moment I have a flash that my dad is here to kill and dismember me. I am messed up. I am properly messed up. ‘She told me what happened here.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, that. Why did you not call us, Enelle?’

  My father is looking at me like my sister looked at me with his face in the hospital the other day. I don’t want to say why, so I kind of shrink a little and shrug my shoulders while opening my hands.

  He holds up the bag. ‘I brought some tools to change the locks.’ He looks at the door. ‘Whoever fixed it did a good job. I will change the locks and then we will have to see about getting you a new door, as well.’

  I stare at my dad. He doesn’t ever come to Brighton. He used to love it here, but after what Pope did, he had to leave for his and Mum’s sanity. Over time, they’ve simply stopped coming here. If we want to see them, we go to their place. But here he is, for me. I think, sometimes, that I forget that my parents love me. What I did, who I brought into their lives, ruined things for them, but they still love me. They still care about me. You can love someone and not like them. You can love someone as a default and be inured to what hurts them. You can love someone and not be bothered by what befalls them. My parents love me and they care about me.

  ‘OK,’ I say. I want to hug him. I always want to hug my dad. I always want to be close to him and tell him I’m sorry and find out if he’s forgiven me yet. Mostly, though, I want to hug him, to feel his arms, which are big and strong, around me, holding me safe, fighting away my fears. We’re not like that, though. My dad’s not like that. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ He waits until I get to the end of the corridor, about to go into the living room, before he speaks again: ‘We’ll talk later about why you didn’t call me, Enelle.’

  He is going to tell me off but I don’t care. My dad’s here and I don’t feel as scared any more.

  ‘Do you ever see the Daltons?’ Dad asks.

  It took him a while to change the locks, but once he’d done that we sat in the living room, drinking black coffee and watching television. He went to cook us something but was dismayed by my empty fridge, poorly stocked cupboards and barren vegetable drawer. He’d side-eyed me, being a grocer’s daughter who’d worked in a supermarket, with such woeful kitchen supplies, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Not in a few years,’ I reply.

  ‘When was the last time?’

  ‘I’ve seen them a few times out and about, but the last time I spoke to them was back in 2007, I think it was when I … I went to speak to them about finding Jude.’

  ‘You found Judana?’ My father is staring right at me when he asks this. And I can’t look at him. I feel ashamed that I didn’t tell him what I’ve been doing, even before John Pope became part of the process.

  ‘No. I wanted to look for her. So I went to their house to ask about Jude’s mum’s family tree. I thought if I could trace all her relatives and find some that were missing, it would lead me to where Jude went.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It didn’t work, obviously. I’ve found lots of other people over the years but not her.’

  ‘I see.’

  I finally chance a look at my dad. He is staring at me
and it feels like he wants to tell me something important. His hair greyed a long time ago; with every arrest, every stint in custody, it greyed a little more, starting with a few streaks along the sides, until his head was covered in more grey than black, and then his hair was completely grey. Then white. It makes him look older than he is, more ancient than he acts.

  ‘She was a nice girl,’ he says.

  I’ve been hanging around Pope too long, because the way Dad says that, it makes it sound like he knows she’s gone; that she doesn’t exist in the world any more.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ I say to present-tense her, allow her to still be alive in the here and now even if she isn’t physically here. It sounds odd, and it is odd, if I think about it. I last saw Jude when I was fourteen. That means I don’t actually know her any more. She’s not a girl, she’s not a teen. She’s a grown woman with a life that doesn’t involve me in any shape or form. The ‘Jude’ that Dad and I are talking about is past tense; she doesn’t exist as that entity any more. Judana Dalton is alive, I just know she is, but Jude isn’t. Still, I need to present-tense her, keep her alive.

  ‘Go and pack a bag, Enelle. You cannot stay here alone tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Daddy, honestly.’

  ‘Do not argue with me,’ he says. ‘Go and pack a bag.’

  ‘But Da—’

  ‘Yes?’ he cuts in.

  Why am I even bothering? It doesn’t matter how old I get, my dad will always be my dad and he will always be the man who I have to listen to, no matter what. ‘All right.’ I’m secretly pleased, actually. I didn’t want to stay here alone anyway, and right now, I don’t have to.

  Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much .

  Nell

  Wednesday, 2 May

  Dad tried to insist on coming up with me after he dropped me off, but I wouldn’t let him. I am going to have to get used to coming back to the flat on my own, unless I want to move in with my folks (I don’t) or I am going to go into my flat and never leave again (I’m not). Being away hasn’t helped with the clock that is ticking in the background, I haven’t been able to do many proper searches, nor visit any records offices. I have been aware all the time that Pope could pull the trigger at any moment and the idyll my parents have will be shattered.