The Brighton Mermaid

by Koomson, Dorothy

  There is something definitely there. Definitely. I push my fingers deeper inside, reaching for it, almost there … almost there … A sharp pain shoots through my index finger as it scrapes against something, probably a piece of exposed spring.

  ‘Ow,’ I mutter and have to jerk my hand out.

  The end of my finger has been punctured and a bead of blood has formed on my fingertip. ‘Great,’ I mutter to myself and put the finger in my mouth to stem the blood flow before it starts to drip – it’d be perfect if I bled all over Macy and Shane’s lovely cream carpet.

  I suck at the little cut until I’m confident it’s stopped enough for me to take my finger out of my mouth. I examine it again, a tiny hole right in the centre of my finger that is quite painful for something so small and innocuous-looking.

  Click .

  I’m about to put my arm back under the seat when I hear it. The very definite but extremely quiet click somewhere in the house. Shane. He’s back. And he’s creeping around. He must have seen the light in his bedroom and been wondering who it is since the rest of the house is in darkness.

  I jump up and turn to the love seat, check that it’s in the right place before I face the door.

  ‘Nell! What on Earth!’ Shane says. ‘I thought you were a burglar or something!’

  He’s suddenly there and my heart is suddenly in my throat. He has crept through the house super quietly and at super speed.

  ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’ he asks when I don’t speak.

  I can’t speak, of course. I can’t really look at him, either. When I looked at him, properly, for the briefest of microseconds before, I had a flash of the Brighton Mermaid’s face, twisted in terror, petrified with pain. He did that. If not to her, then to other women.

  ‘I, erm, I was looking to see, erm, if, erm, if there was anything here that might tell me where Macy is,’ I say. I can feel heat rising through my body, causing my head to throb and my heart to pound. I have to get out of here.

  ‘You still haven’t heard from her?’ Shane asks.

  Considering the last time he spoke to me he called me a fucking, fucking bitch , he’s being quite normal. When I took the children to my parents’ place, he didn’t speak to me at all, he just hugged the kids and told them what a great adventure they were going on and how much he loved them and would miss them. That’s what’s so hard to fathom in all of this. How he could be so normal, so loving , and be a prolific criminal at the same time? I forget, I always forget that people are rarely ever just one thing. They aren’t all good, they aren’t all bad, they have different sides to them. Only truly terrifying people can separate out the different aspects of their lives as effectively as Shane, though, surely?

  ‘No, erm, no.’ I have to clear my throat a couple of times and take a deep breath. Being so near him is making acting normal very difficult. It feels like I’m under an interrogation lamp and the heat radiating off the lamp is making me wilt. I can feel my fingertip throbbing and I have to put it in my mouth to remove the blood that has started to pool again.

  ‘Are you sure that’s all it is?’ Shane says, stepping into the room and towards the wardrobe side of the bed.

  I take a step in the direction of the door, the opposite way from him, heading for the exit via the window side of the bed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask with my finger still in my mouth. He nods at the bed. ‘You sure you’re not wanting to, you know, for old times’ sake?’

  The pounding of my heart increases tenfold. ‘With you?’ I say, lowering my hand from my mouth.

  Shane takes another step closer to me. ‘Yes, of course, with me.’

  I shake my head, pretending my breathing isn’t difficult. Fear. I’m actually scared of this man. Terrified of him. I have good reason to be, but I didn’t think I could be so physically knocked by it. I take a step towards the door while trying to widen the gap between us. I don’t want to be trapped on this side of the room with him. If I can get to the door, I can run.

  ‘No, I don’t want to, you know , with you,’ I say with only a slight amount of the disgust I feel at the idea of it.

  ‘Oh, come on, Nell, I’ve seen the way you look at me,’ he says. He’s moving closer as he speaks and I’m trying to manoeuvre myself further away but towards the door at the same time. I can hear my breathing, now that I don’t have the jingle of my bangles, I can hear my heart and I can hear my breathing and they both sound ridiculously loud. I’m sure he can hear it. I’m sure he, like other predators, can sense my fear. I’m sure he’s going to pounce because he can hear I’m struggling to breathe.

  I shake my head because I can’t speak. I’m concentrating too much on breathing, on the door, on escape.

  ‘Nell, it’s all right, I know.’

  I have to look at him then and the flash of the Brighton Mermaid’s face bolts across my mind again. ‘Know what?’

  ‘I know you want me just as much as I want you.’

  I shake my head. My chest … it’s so tight. I won’t be able to run with my chest this tight.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Shane asks. In microseconds he’s crossed the gap between us and is standing right beside me. ‘You don’t look very well.’

  The whole world tips suddenly. Like I am standing on the deck of a ship that has abruptly dipped to one side. Shane catches hold of me because, of course, the whole world hasn’t tipped, only I have. I’m not surprised I don’t look very well because right now I don’t feel very well. Surely it can’t just be fear that’s doing this to me?

  ‘Whoa there, Nell!’ Shane says, peering at me, concerned. Once he has steadied me, he doesn’t let go. He keeps a tight grip on my bicep with one hand then with the other hand takes my bleeding finger. ‘Looks like you’ve hurt yourself,’ he says. He smiles. It’s a smile that chills my very soul. Before I can do anything, he raises my hand to his lips and runs his tongue along the palm of my hand. I rip my arm away from him, before I can assimilate the sensation of his mouth on my body. He has a strong hold on me, though, and it takes a huge effort to free myself.

  ‘Looks like you’ve hurt yourself doing something you shouldn’t have been doing,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ I manage.

  ‘Looks like you’ve hurt yourself putting your hand in places it shouldn’t be, Nell.’

  ‘What …?’

  ‘Oh, poor Nell, looking in places she shouldn’t,’ Shane says, still holding onto my bicep.

  I want to run, but I can’t. My body will not move. I try to shift my legs and they are stuck firm to the floor. I try to pull myself away from him and my arms are immobile. My head is swimming, my vision wobbly, and my chest so tight my heart can’t beat.

  ‘I’m not stupid, you know, Nell,’ Shane says quietly. ‘I would never leave my precious things unprotected.’ He leans in so close I want to flinch away but I can’t. ‘You’ll be asleep in a minute, Nell. Be the good girl I know you are, don’t fight it.’

  ‘Wh—’

  ‘What did I do to you? Nothing. You did it to yourself. You shouldn’t go putting your hand in places it doesn’t belong.’

  I look at the cut on my finger and it’s bleeding again, the blood sitting on the tip of my finger like a small, expanding ruby. My throat is dry, my eyes heavy and impossible to keep open.

  ‘Close your eyes, Nell. It’ll all be so much better if you just close your eyes—’

  Macy

  Saturday, 2 June

  ‘Have you heard from your sister?’ Zach is the personification of worried. That’s the only way to describe the look on his face and the way he holds his body – it is like someone has sculpted him to appear that way. He practically pounces on me when I return from a walk down the road to pick up some takeaway.

  ‘Why would I have heard from her? She doesn’t have my new number, unless you gave it to her.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘But you have seen her?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, I saw
her yesterday. But I need to find her. She’s missing.’

  I doubt she’s gone missing, because she’d never leave the children. Or would she? When Zach looks this concerned, maybe it’s not a given that she wouldn’t leave them. After all, I did, and I would kill for them.

  ‘What about my children?’ I say to him. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘With your parents.’ He says that like it’s no big deal. Well, it is a big deal, it’s a huge deal. Why are my children with Mummy and Daddy? I never leave my children with my parents without me being there. Not after the Jude thing. The only people I know I can trust 100 per cent with them are Nell and Shane.

  ‘What? Why are they with my parents? Where’s Shane?’

  ‘That’s the second question I was going to ask you – do you know where Shane is?’

  ‘Why would I know where Shane is? What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Look, it’s really complicated, all right?’ he says far too dismissively when we are talking about my children. Obviously they haven’t been able to get in touch with me, but he can’t just say ‘it’s complicated’ when the most important people in my life aren’t being cared for by the people I thought were better at it than me. When they are, in fact, somewhere I’d rather they not be.

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s complicated. Tell me what’s happening with my children.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know. All Nell said was that she’d left them with your parents for half-term.’

  ‘Half-term? They’ve been there a week?’ Damn you, Nell .

  ‘She said they were fine, they were having a brilliant time with your mum and dad. And that’s all I know. But right now, I have to focus on finding Nell.’

  ‘How are you going to find her? You’re a teacher.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Zach says after screwing up his face. ‘I’m a police officer. Working undercover. Well, I was. Look, I haven’t got time to explain it all but I think your sister is in trouble.’

  He’s police? No wonder Nell wanted nothing to do with him.

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on here, Zach.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s complicated. The important thing is, your sister is missing. It’s possibly something to do with the Brighton Mermaid. It’s possibly not. I’ve tried to track her phone and the last place it gave off a signal was at your house. I’ve been there and there’s no sign of her. Or your husband. I need your husband’s number.’

  ‘He’s not my husband. And have you thought that maybe they’re “missing” together? Dumped my children with my parents and have gone off to some love nest somewhere?’ They obviously took my advice in my note about getting together. I might have known .

  ‘They haven’t. Well, if they are together, they’re not together in the way you’re suggesting. I need you to give me his number.’

  ‘Why do you need his number?’

  Zach hesitates, obviously unsure of what to say, how much to divulge. ‘Tell me!’ I demand. I’ve had enough of this. Enough of Nell and Shane and now Zach keeping secrets. Someone needs to start being honest with me when it is about my children. They can have all the secrets they want as long as it doesn’t include Willow, Clara and Aubrey.

  ‘All right, look. While doing Nell a favour, I found some stuff out about your hus—about Shane. Some terrible stuff. Nell wanted to tell you about it herself and I’m pretty sure she wanted some evidence before she did that. She wouldn’t tell me what she was going to do exactly, but I think she went looking for said evidence. I told her to keep her phone on, I put a tracker on her phone – it was the best I could do to keep her safe. But damn it, her phone was turned off at your house a couple of hours ago, and it hasn’t been turned on since. I think something has happened to her.’

  ‘What terrible things?’ I feel sick. Zach is saying Shane has done something to my sister. But that can’t be right. That definitely can’t be right.

  He glances down at my hands, then back up at my face. I’m probably wringing my hands. If I’m not, I want to be. Because I am scared. I am very, very scared. What he’s saying is making the clawing, cloying panic that lives with me, that sits on my shoulder, whispering in my ear about all the things that could and do go wrong, roar; it is screaming at me about how this will turn out.

  ‘Look, it’s best that we don’t panic,’ Zach says gently. ‘We just need to do everything we can to find Nell. OK?’ He lays a hand on my shoulder to calm me, and my panic detonates like a neutron bomb. Zach wouldn’t touch me unless things were dire! The terror burns inside me, liquefying every part of me. She’s going to die. My sister is going to die. And the man I have kept in her life all these years is the one who is going to kill her .

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ Zach says. ‘She’ll be fine.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ I say. My fingernails, recently manicured to be short and painted a deep blood red, claw at the knuckles of the opposite hand.

  Zach watches me for a couple of seconds, then reaches out to still my hands. ‘She’ll be fine,’ he repeats. ‘We just need to find her. Only we can do that. OK? Does your hus—does he have any type of phone locator on his mobile?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I reply. Zach hasn’t let go of my hands. I know it distresses people when I do things like that, but I can’t stop. It’s the only way to get the stuff inside, out. ‘I don’t know about his phone. We don’t really talk about it. Why would we? We both just go out and use our phones. We’ve never lost them or anything so it’s not something I’ve ever thought about. He has two phones – one’s for work. But I don’t know anything else. I don’t know, I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s fine.’ He closes his eyes and tips his head back. He’s thinking but I need him to be talking. To be explaining what is going on.

  ‘If she’s missing, why don’t you just put an all-points bulletin out for her?’

  ‘That’s what the Americans call it, over here it’s a APW, All Ports Warning. And I can’t just do that unless I have very good reason. And no, me thinking she’s missing isn’t a good enough reason.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Right.’ Zach lowers his head and looks at me. ‘OK, I need someone to check on his phone for me. I know people in London but no one down here.’ He takes a firmer hold of my hands suddenly and I guess it’s because he’s about to say something that will upset me. ‘Do you know someone called Aaron Pope?’

  I shake my head quickly. ‘The only person I know called Pope is … No. No. Is he related to … ?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ I try to pull my hands away from Zach but he clings on tightly. ‘I have to go and see him. He’s the only one I know of down here who has the skills to help me find Nell while at the same time keeping it under his hat.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘I need to find Aaron Pope’s address and to go and see him. He will help find your sister by helping me to find your husband.’

  ‘He’s not my husband! ’ I scream at him. I shove him off me. ‘And why would he help you find Nell?’

  ‘She’s … she’s been working with him, trying to find out who the Brighton Mermaid is.’

  The Brighton Mermaid. THE BRIGHTON MERMAID. My whole life has been dictated by that woman, even though she’s been dead for twenty-five years.

  ‘Look, Macy, I don’t have time to stay here and explain it to you. I have to find out his address and then go to see him. If you want me to tell you everything, you’ll have to come with me and I’ll explain it all in the car. But I can’t delay. I need to find your sister, do you understand? Everything is going to be fine, but I need to get moving to make sure it is.’

  ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near that man,’ I state.

  ‘I understand,’ Zach says, ‘but I need to go and see him. OK? You’ll be all right here, won’t you?’

  I nod. I need to ring my parents anyway. Find out how the children are. I need to clean up Zach’s fla
t – it’s not as pristine as I would like it. I need to—

  Zach is staring at my hands. ‘Right, OK, look, I can’t leave you here like this. You have to come with me and wait in the car or something. Get your coat and shoes back on, while I find out this guy’s address.’

  I’m not really hearing him. The sea is rushing into my head. Filling up my brain. I just want this to stop. I just want all of this to stop.

  Nell

  Saturday, 2 June

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve got us into this mess,’ one of the voices says.

  I’m moving. We’re moving. I’m lying down and my head is swimming, my mouth is filled with slime, and my whole body is moving. I want to open my eyes, I want to scream through the gooeyness coating my tongue, but I don’t dare. Not when there are voices and I’m probably in a car or a van being taken somewhere. I know the voices. One is Shane, the other is Craig Ackerman, except he doesn’t sound as posh as he did when I met him.

  ‘I didn’t get you into this, you got us into this.’

  ‘How? How did I get us into this?’

  ‘Why did you have to give her a DNA sample? That’s what started all this.’

  ‘I didn’t know she was going to take DNA samples. You didn’t tell me that, did you? “Oh, she’s giving up her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid is, you need to keep her occupied. You need to get close to her, see if she remembers seeing you that night.” Well, you didn’t fucking tell me that she took DNA, did you?’

  ‘You could have put her off.’

  ‘Oh yes, I spin some ridiculous story about wanting to find out if I have any birth relatives and I’m going to say no to a DNA swab? How’s that going to work? That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to get them back.’ Something slams against something solid. ‘This is all your doing. All your doing.’