by Heide Goody
“And now the seal,” she told herself.
Anderby Creek village was north, along the coast, past the big holiday camps and seaside amusements, up where the resort coast gave way to a stretch of wild and untouched shoreline. Along Roman Bank, the narrow coast road which edged the dunes, Sam saw advertising signs for a new housing development, Shore View, with a happy cartoon seal greeting potential homeowners. If Larry was typical of the local seals, they were far from ideal mascots.
Seal Land was a low, blue-painted building on the sandy lane nearest the beach. Even though she knew DefCon4 provided the alarms and security for the place, Sam hadn’t been here in years, not since childhood. But she could still recall the smell of the place: saltwater on concrete, seaweed and urine. Two alpaca and a donkey were grazing on an enclosure out front. It might be called Seal Land, and operated ostensibly as a sanctuary and rehoming centre, but they had a variety of other animals on site to keep the tourists interested.
“Didn’t you used to have penguins?” she said to the Seal Land guy waiting by the main entrance.
“Still do. Jackass penguins.”
Sam tilted her head. “Are all your animals badly behaved?”
“Jackass is the species name,” said the guy. “We’ve got penguins, alpaca, koi, tortoises, alligators.”
“Seriously?”
“Rescued from a failed zoo in Yorkshire.”
“And I thought a seal bite would be bad enough.”
He pointed at the van. “Did he bite you?”
“No, not me, but…”
“You’ve got to be careful. You could get seal finger.”
“There are seal fingers?”
“Bacterial infection. All the crap in seal’s teeth. Causes inflammation and swelling of the bone marrow.”
“Sounds nasty.”
“Only way to treat it used to be amputation. Course, hardly anyone gets it. Average member of the public aren’t likely to take one of our seals on a joyride round Skeg.”
Sam felt the energy drain from her. “A stupid mix-up. I’m sorry.”
The guy directed her to bring the Transit round to a double gate. “Back it in, up to the edge of the pool.”
She did as directed. Inside the sanctuary itself was a crew of Seal Land staff and a vet. Sam vaguely recognised him. She recalled he ran a veterinary clinic, horse stables and animal crematorium in Hogsthorpe, or some other village. The vet wore cords, wellies and a shirt and tie, like he believed all vets should dress like James Herriot. Seals basked in the evening warmth on other pools but this pool was empty.
“Larry doesn’t mix well with others,” said the Seal Land guy.
“The main concern is dehydration,” the vet was saying. Despite the English rustic look, he had a crisp Eastern (or possibly Southern) European accent. “When did he last eat?”
The Seal Land guy was about to answer, but Sam jumped in. “He’s definitely eaten today.”
The vet raised an eyebrow.
“Salmon, hotpot, lasagne, cottage pie,” she said. “Probably some carrot cake too.”
“You fed him carrot cake?”
She shook her head. The vet looked perplexed.
“I thought he’d been in the back of a Securicor van today. I’d been told…”
“DefCon4 at your service.” She did a little half-bow that almost certainly didn’t help, particularly given the shiny gold top didn’t lend much of an air of professionalism.
“Let’s get the ramp up here,” said Seal Land guy.
The vet and the seal volunteers flanked the doors and pulled them wide, standing to the sides of the board ramp to ensure Larry went straight down. The seal flopped down the ramp and over the low wall, plopping fatly into the pool. Streamers of lasagne sauce and gravy drifted off him.
“Blaaaark!”
It was a recognisable sound of joy, and Sam found herself warming slightly to the beast. Perhaps she’d just seen the wrong side of him while he was captive in the van? As if in response to her thoughts he surfaced right beside her, snapping and bellowing in a loud display of aggression. She took a hurried step back.
“You complete dick!”
“That he is,” said the Seal Land guy. “That he is.”
6
Sam didn’t have time to go home and get changed.
She had an hour in hand before the StoreWatch meeting at Carnage Hall. One hour was time enough to drive the van to the depot; to have an argument with the clerk about who was responsible for the smeary food mess, smashed trays and the remains of a seal transport crate that had been under the tarpaulin in the back; to leave the argument unfinished, collect the Ape 50 and drive it at full speed (twenty-nine miles an hour) down to the seafront and Carnage Hall.
Carnage Hall stood on Grand Parade promenade with the Pleasure Beach fairground behind it. At night it was wreathed in the firework-light display of street side illuminations, gaudy amusement display signs opposite, and the twinkling lights of the big wheel and Rockin’ Rollercoaster behind. In all the Vegas lighting, you could almost forget it was in Skegness. Carnage Hall was a theatre, but also hosted three bars, a ground floor restaurant, and numerous function rooms. It billed itself as Skegness’s premier entertainment centre, but still amounted to little more than a place where you could get a pie, a pint, and front row seats to whatever touring tribute act was currently in town.
She parked up at one of the few spots on the parade where it was legal to do so and went inside. According to the large poster in the foyer ‘Antoine de Winter’s Psychic Extravaganza’ was on in the main auditorium, and there was quite a crowd of people waiting to get in. An information board said the StoreWatch meeting was upstairs in the Frank Carson memorial banqueting suite, so she pushed through.
The Frank Carson was a small room, only suitable for the most modest of banquets. It was set out presentation style with rows of chairs for at least forty people. Less than half of them were taken.
Sam scrawled her name on a badge and sat at the back. She was required to be here, and DefCon4 could track her GPS signal, but she didn’t have to be a willing participant. Cesar set up at the front and handed out agendas. Sam was prepared to believe he had ignored her advice and not bothered with the hospital. More fool him.
She fidgeted uncomfortably as the meeting began. The leotard wasn’t a comfortable fit. It was digging in at her shoulders and her groin. It felt like her blood supply was about to be cut off somewhere.
She was sufficiently distracted that she didn’t notice the man sliding into a seat further along the row at first. She judged him to be an attractive looking guy: he had four limbs, two eyes, looked like he knew how to use soap, and didn’t have the eyes of a serial killer. Sam’s standards of personal desirability weren’t as high as they once were.
“Am I late?” he said. “Struggled to get through that crowd downstairs. Who knew a psychic could be so popular?”
“The psychic, one hopes.” Sam passed him an agenda from the seat next to her. She did it mainly to avert his attention while she tried to adjust the leotard one last time.
He scanned the paper briefly.
“I treat it like bingo,” she said. “When we’ve ticked them all off, we get a prize.”
“We get to leave?” he said.
“Precisely.”
His name badge said: Frost & Sons, Jimmy MacIntyre.
7
The definition of madness, thought Jimmy MacIntyre that morning, is someone who keeps doing the same thing but expects different results.
He spooled out the measuring tape from the edge of Greg Mandyke’s land, across the dusty track to the boundary fence of St Matthew’s church. Five metres. Five metres exactly. Fifty centimetres short of council planning regulations.
He hissed bitterly through his teeth. He didn’t swear. He’d already done enough swearing.
He released the tape-measure and it sprang back into the housing. The metal tape whiplashed noisily.
He walked down
to the track towards the van. Seeing him coming, Wayne stubbed his cigarette out on the door and dropped it. “Is it good, mate?”
“Five metres,” said Jimmy.
“But that’s not enough,” said Wayne.
“No,” agreed Jimmy.
Wayne was a master of stating the obvious. His fat bald head apparently wasn’t big enough to handle much else. No subtleties from Wayne. No lies. No original thoughts. Just a big cheery face, the loyalty of a Labrador and arms that could lug hundred kilo bags of builders cement all day long.
“What now?” said Wayne.
“We go meet Mandyke.”
Greg Mandyke had agreed to meet them in, of all places, a greasy spoon in the town centre. His Tesla was pulled up on the curb, effectively blocking it for anyone who wasn’t pencil thin. He got out to meet them. Greg – silver-haired, tanned and svelte – had once been a true grafter, but as his business grew he was to be found less and less on a building site and more and more on the golf course. Wealthy enough that he barely needed to work at all. Greg Mandyke was where Jimmy saw himself being in twenty years’ time. Where Jimmy had seen himself being in twenty years’ time, until Bob Frost’s death.
“You’re looking well, Greg,” said Jimmy.
Greg slapped his midriff. “I live in the gym these days.”
“I thought you were lucky to avoid prison after that nasty business a few months back,” said Jimmy. According to rumours in the trade, and newspaper reports of the court trial, Greg had threatened to beat up a houseowner over unpaid building costs.
“I was,” he said. “But I had a good solicitor. Got it down to a few hours of community service. And I’ll be wriggling my way out of that, too.”
“How’s that, Mr Mandyke?” said Wayne.
“Doctor’s note,” grinned Greg. “Apparently I’ve got so many allergies there won’t be any community service work they can force me to do. Burger?” He led the way inside without checking they were following. “Morning, Cat. Whatever these gents want. My treat.”
“Aw, thanks, mate,” said Wayne and clapped his hands together.
“From this place?” said Jimmy, nose wrinkled.
“Best in town,” said Greg. “Part of my daily routine. Gym. Burger. Good and evil. Ying and yang.”
“Ant and Dec,” said Wayne.
“Exactly,” said Greg. “Three cheeseburgers, Cat. Everything on them.”
Watching the woman flip burgers on the hotplate made Jimmy impatient. He didn’t want to eat greasy burgers while breathing cooking fumes. Jimmy didn’t have time for this. He had a problem to fix, a deal to close.
“Greg, I wanted to talk to you about—”
“I know what you want to talk about,” said Mandyke, commandeering a table. “Welton le Marsh.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve watched the houses going up. What is that? A dozen new homes?”
“Fourteen.”
“Hardly in-keeping with the local rustic aesthetic, are they?”
“Rustic aesthetic?” This was coastal Lincolnshire. Round here local aesthetic was a static caravan, perhaps with a bingo hall or amusement arcade off to one side.
“You’ve done a good job of keeping Bob’s business ticking over,” said Greg.
“Not just ticking over.”
“No,” conceded Greg. “I’ve seen the proposed site for Shore View too.”
“Nothing proposed about it. Bought, planning approved, the first of the pre-fabs already brought in.”
“But you want to talk to me about buying a strip of my land.”
Jimmy had the plans for the Welton le Marsh development tucked under his arm. He began to unfold them when the burger flipper brought three plated burgers to their table and Jimmy struggled to find room. He laid the plans out, holding them in place with his steel tape measure and a ketchup bottle.
“Welton le Marsh.”
There was the road running through the village down past the churchyard of St Matthew’s, and the little five metre access track Frost and Sons had been using for their construction vehicles. It continued past the big swathe of Mandyke’s land and curved left up along Beck Lane and the edges of woodland and crop fields. A nice wide eight metre section of land had been highlighted, connecting the housing development with Beck Lane.
“I just want to nail down the details for the road we’re going to build here,” said Jimmy.
Greg said nothing, just bit into his burger. A droplet of grease dribbled on his chin.
“These are smashin’,” mumbled Wayne as he ate.
“Are you not going to eat yours, Jimmy?” Greg said.
“We’ve got some leeway on the price, if that’s an issue,” said Jimmy.
Greg took another bite and chewed it thoroughly before swallowing. “I’m not selling,” he said.
Jimmy guessed he was going to say that, but he was still stunned. “As I said, the price—”
“It’s not the price. I don’t want to break up that land. I’ve got my own plans.”
“You agreed.”
“Maybe. Even if I did, it was with Bob.”
“And now it’s me.”
Greg shook his head. “Is it your company now?”
“No.”
“Is Jacinda here?”
“She’s at Shore View.”
“Sending you out like her flying monkey?”
“I run things.”
Greg ate the last of the burger and licked his fingers. For a lean guy, he could put food away. “I had the greatest respect for Bob Frost,” he said. “The greatest. We used to golf together. Shooting out by Anderby Creek…” He looked away to the sky and the seagulls. “Nasty business that. In the end.”
“For his sake then,” Jimmy tried.
Greg refocused. There was a stern set to his face. “Thing is, Jimmy, you should know better than the rest of us. A verbal contract ain’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
Wayne chuckled, a mouth full of food. “Good one, mate. Paper.”
“I’m not leaving you in the lurch,” said Greg. He traced a finger over the map. “You’ve got a route in here. Sure, you might have to reconsider that last house, but it will work.”
Jimmy wanted to tell him that the track was too narrow, that the county council planners would not approve plans for a public highway of that width. He could tell him – but it would be a last desperate plea to get Greg to sell. Plan B would be scuppered, and Plan B was a shitty plan as it was.
“Come on, mate, play fair,” he said. “What are you going to do with that land anyway? You’ve had it fifteen years or more. It was a bad investment on your part. Just bloody wasteland.”
“Bad investment, huh?” Greg picked up a napkin and wiped the grease off his chin. “You think you belong at the top table, Jimmy? Think you can tell me my own business?”
“At least I don’t threaten to hurt old people when my projects go over-budget,” snapped Jimmy.
Greg licked at his teeth. “Get your things off the table. Eat your burger like a good boy.” He dropped his napkin on this plate and left.
If he’d thought about it, Jimmy would have followed him out and keyed the Tesla’s paintjob as Greg drove off, but he was too dumbfounded. He watched the car as it went.
“Fuck!” he spat and threw his burger onto the plate.
“No swearing in here,” said the woman at the counter.
“Didn’t you want your burger?” said Wayne.
Jimmy took out his phone to message Jacinda and saw she had already messaged him.
* * *
This container is full of capitalist whores. Shore View ASAP.
* * *
“Fuck,” he said.
8
It was a twenty minute drive north to the Frost and Sons development at Anderby Creek. Anderby was a nowhere place, a splash of houses, a dribble of caravans, a pub and a small store too eclectic to properly count as a village shop. It was an odd place and it attracted oddities. The Seal Land zo
o was just off from the sea front. Up by the dunes they had a purpose built ‘cloud observatory’, which to Jimmy’s eyes was nothing more than a raised platform with adjustable mirrors on the top. And, now, it had Shore View.
Anderby Creek’s high street was just a poorly paved sandy track. Running off it at an angle was an even more poorly paved track that wound up into the dunes to the south.
“You ever been to Seal Land?” said Wayne. “I like seals.”
“What’s to like?” said Jimmy. “Dogs with flippers. Greedy bastards. And they stink of fish.”
Wayne honked and clapped his hands like a sea lion and nearly lost control of the van in the process.
“Just drive,” said Jimmy.
The track came out on the top of the dunes and the cleared space that was going to become Shore View. At first glance, there wasn’t much to see, but a lot of groundwork had been done. Concrete foundations had been laid for forty accommodation units. Power lines had already been installed, with cables and junctions springing up next to each plot like twisted weeds of black plastic and copper.
At the furthest end was an unloaded shipping container. To one side was a flatbed truck; on the other was Jacinda’s red coupe. Jacinda leaned against the bonnet and stared out to sea, a foul look on her face. Like the sea had some sodding nerve being so damned sea-like.
Wayne pulled up.
“Wait here,” said Jimmy and jumped out.
Jacinda Frost, an only child and unmentioned daughter in Frost and Sons company, was a couple of years younger than Jimmy. While still an apprentice on Bob’s building team, Jimmy had driven with Bob to collect the horse given to Jacinda for her sixteenth birthday. Jacinda had been a twig-thin teenager, and the horse had towered over her Jimmy recalled. A dozen years later, the horse was now dog food and Jacinda was still a twig: long, slender, brittle and thorny.