Brighton Beach, 1993
Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears.
Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was – and what happened to her best friend that summer.
But as Nell edges closer to the truth, dangerous things start to happen. Someone seems to be watching her every move, and soon she starts to wonder who in her life she can actually trust …
Fast-paced and thrilling, The Brighton Mermaid explores the deadly secrets of those closest to you.
Dorothy Koomson is the award-winning author of 14 novels including more than 12 Sunday Times bestsellers. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages and she continues to be a method writer whenever possible. She wrote The Brighton Mermaid in part as a love letter to the place she’s called home for more than ten years. And she hopes you enjoy it.
Dorothy Koomson in order: The Cupid Effect, The Chocolate Run, My Best Friend’s Girl, Marshmallows for Breakfast, Goodnight, Beautiful, The Ice Cream Girls, The Woman He Loved Before, The Rose Petal Beach, The Flavours of Love, That Girl From Nowhere, When I Was Invisible, The Friend, The Beach Wedding, The Brighton Mermaid.
Hurrah! I get to say thank you to all these wonderful people …
The ones who help make this book happen: Ant and James; Susan, Cass, Hattie, Charlotte, Rebecca, Emily, Aslan, Jason, Emma, Becky and everyone else at my publishers; Emma D.
To the ones who help to keep me going: my lovely family and friends, G, E & M.
To the ones who buy the book: You.
And a special thank you to Graham, for the police advice.
To those who are missing and those who love them.
Saturday, 2 June
The ground is uneven and crunchy underfoot, and I stumble when I hit it. But it takes a microsecond to steady myself, to force myself upright and then to start running.
I make it off the gravel driveway, through the gap in the hedge and then out into the fields that surround the farmhouse. In this inky blackness, in the distance, I can just about make out shapes – bushes, hedges, a line of trees far, far down over the fields. I need to get to the trees. If I can get to the trees, I can hide.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! The world around me is full of their footsteps, moving across the earth, chasing me down.
My legs are stiff from where I’ve been lying in the same position for so long, and they protest as I try to pick up the pace, attempt to run faster over the uneven, soggy ground.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! The noise … the vibrations … They sound horribly closer now.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! There’s a fire in my chest where my lungs should be, and my eyes are struggling in the darkness as it constantly changes the shape of the horizon. But I can’t stop, I can’t even slow down, I have to keep moving.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! Nearer and nearer.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! I need my legs to go faster. I need them to call up the muscle memory of when I used to do this, when I had to literally run for my life. I can do this. I have to do this. I have to reach the trees. I’ll be safe there, I’ll be able to hide there.
Thud, thud, thud, thud! fills my ears. Thud, thud, thud, thud! They’re right behind me. Thud, thud, thud, thud! My ragged breathing, the whistle of the wind, the creak of my bones are all drowned out by it. Thud, thud, thud, thud!
I have to go faster. I have to—
Saturday, 26 June
‘Maybe she’s asleep,’ I said to my best friend, Jude.
We were both staring at her. She looked so soft, lying there on top of the pebbles, half in, half out of the water, her face serene. Even with the foamy tide constantly nudging at her, trying to get her to wake up, she was still; tranquil, lifeless.
‘She’s not asleep,’ Jude said. Her voice was stern, angry almost, as though she couldn’t believe I was being so stupid.
‘I know she’s not asleep,’ I replied. ‘But if I pretend she’s asleep then she’s not the other thing.’ I couldn’t bear for her to be the other thing and for me to be standing there in front of her when she was the other thing.
‘She’s not asleep,’ Jude repeated, gentler this time. ‘She’s … she’s not asleep.’
We both stood and stared.
From the promenade, I’d spotted her down on the beach, the light of the almost full moon shining down on her, and said we should check to see if she was all right. Jude had wanted us to keep going, getting back to her house after we’d sneaked out was going to be tricky enough without getting back even later than 3 a.m., which was the time now. But I’d insisted we check. What if she’d twisted her ankle and couldn’t get up? How would we feel, leaving someone who was hurt alone like that? What if she’s drunk and has fallen asleep on the beach when the tide was out and is now too drunk to wake up and pull herself out of the water? How would we live with ourselves if we read in the paper in the morning that she’d been washed out to sea and had drowned?
Jude had rolled her eyes at me, had reminded me in an angry whisper that even though our mums were at work (they were both nurses on night duty), her dad was at home asleep and could wake up any minute now to find us gone. He’d call my dad and then we’d be for it. She’d grumbled this while going towards the stone steps that led to the beach. She was all talk, was Jude – she wouldn’t want to leave someone who was hurt, she would want to help as much as I did. It wasn’t until we’d got nearer, close enough to be able to count the breaths that weren’t going in and out of her chest, that we could to see what the real situation was. And I said that thing about her being asleep.
‘I’ll go up to the … I’ll go and call the police,’ Jude said. She didn’t even give me a chance to say I would do it before she was gone – crunching the pebbles underfoot as she tried to get away as fast as possible.
Alone, I felt foolish and scared at the same time. This wasn’t meant to turn out this way. We were meant to come to the beach and help a drunk lady and then sneak back to Jude’s house. I wasn’t supposed to be standing next to someone who was asleep but not.
She must be cold, I thought suddenly. Her vest top was soaked through and stuck to her body like a second, clingy skin; her denim skirt, which didn’t quite reach down to her knees, was also wringing wet. ‘I wish I had a blanket that I could pull over you,’ I silently said to her. ‘If I had a blanket, I’d do my best to keep you warm.’
It was summer, but not that warm. I wasn’t sure why she was only wearing a vest, skirt and no shoes. Maybe, I thought, her shoes and jumper have already been washed out to sea.
I leant forwards to have another look at her. I wanted to make her feel more comfortable, to move her head from resting on her left arm at an awkward angle, and stop her face from being pushed into the dozens and dozens of bracelets she wore on her arm. Thin metal ones, bright plastic ones, wood ones, black rubbery ones, they stretched from her wrist to her elbow, some of them not visible because of where her head rested. I wanted to gently move her head off her arm and lay it instead on my rolled-up jacket. I didn’t dare touch her though. I didn’t dare move any nearer, let alone touch her.
Her other arm, the right one, was thrown out to one side, as if it had flopped there when she’d finally fallen asleep. That arm had only one slender silver charm bracelet, hung with lots of little silver figures. That arm’s real decoration, though, was an elegant and detailed tattoo of a mermaid. My eyes wouldn’t leave the tattoo, which was so clear in the moonlight. Usually when I saw tattoos they were a faded greeny-blue, etched into peach or white skin, but this one was on a girl with the same shade skin as me. Deep black ink had artistically been used to stain and adorn most of her inner forearm. I leant a little more forwards, not wanting to get too close, but fascinated enough to want to have a better look. It was truly beautiful, so incredibly detailed it looked like it had been carefully inscribed onto paper, not rendered on skin.
I could see every curl of the mermaid’s short, black Afro hair; I could make out the tiny squares of light in her pupils; I could count every one of the individually etched scales on her tail, and I could see droplets of water glistening on the bodice, shaped of green seaweed, that covered her torso. The mermaid sat on a craggy grey rock, her hands demurely crossed in her lap, smiling at anyone who cared to look at her.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was mythical, she was a picture, but she was also like a siren at whom I couldn’t stop staring. In the waters beneath the mermaid’s rock, there were three words in a swirling, watery script: ‘I am Brighton’.
Friday, 23 March
‘And I’m sure you will all join me in wishing Nell good luck with her next venture,’ says Mr Whitby, manager of the London Road branch of The Super supermarket chain. I have worked with him there, latterly as his assistant manager, for nearly eight years. Eight years. I hadn’t intended staying that long but somehow I never got around to leaving until today. I’ve finally saved up enough to take twelve months off paid employment, and, hopefully, at the end of it, I’ll have solved the mystery that has haunted me for nearly twenty-five years. Hopefully, at the end of it, I will be able to walk away with my family still in one piece.
We’re in Read My Lips, one of those ‘hot’ new bars that seem to pop up every few months in Brighton. It’s a short walk from the Pier and we’re in our own cordoned-off VIP area downstairs with brightly coloured squashy seats and mirrored tables. The lighting is the darker side of ‘muted’ and the music is the wannabe side of grime. And it is packed. Ordinarily there would be no way for us to get in here, but Mr W, who suggested we come here for my leaving do, said he had ‘connections’ that would get us in. The twenty of us who’ve come out tonight have been impressed so far. Even more so when he insisted on buying the drinks – completely out of character for a man who usually leaves dealing with customers and staff to his assistant manager. (He seems to have issues with not letting his true feelings – not caring – come through.)
In the slightly brighter corner that we’ve been allocated, Mr W peers at me over his wire-rimmed glasses. ‘I think it’s fair to say that ever since we welcomed Nell into our Super family many, many years ago, we have nurtured and cared for her. We have overseen and, may I suggest, been fundamental in helping her to grow up into the vibrant young woman she is today. Obviously we are all a little sad and disappointed that Nell has chosen to leave us in the run-up to Easter, one of our busiest times, but we can forgive her. That is the nature of the family we have created here at The Super. And it is also the nature of our Super family to be willing, when Nell comes to her senses and realises where her future truly lies, to let her know that there will always be space on the clocking-in board for her.’
I stare at him, shocked. The other people who have come to celebrate with me stare at him, shocked. Not only has he spoken many, many words without doing his usual of breaking eye contact or allowing his tone to reveal how dull he is finding speaking to you, he has delivered a masterful example of passive-aggressiveness. I’m shocked that he has it in him.
The music in the bar could have been designed to accompany his speech – in the gap that follows his words the music crescendos, dramatically underlining what he’s said. It then drops away again as Mr Whitby raises his glass. ‘To Nell,’ he says happily.
Part of the assistant manager’s job at The Super was to let people know it was perfectly normal to feel unsettled and slightly anxious when they dealt with Mr W, so I pull a smile across my face, to tell everyone that despite what he said, it’s OK to raise their glasses too. ‘To Nell,’ my former colleagues chorus before they sip their drinks. I love these people, they make me smile. We at the London Road The Super are oddballs, there’s no pretending we’re not, but I adore them and I’m touched so many of them have come out tonight, especially when most of them have to be up early tomorrow to work a full shift. I’ll miss them.
‘In all the leaving speeches in all the years, I have never heard one like that,’ Janice murmurs to me when everyone breaks off into smaller groups. She has worked at The Super longer than almost everyone here except Mr W. ‘I mean, that was the equivalent to him throwing himself at your ankles to stop you leaving.’ She smirks. ‘He’s going to miss you.’
‘You mean he’s going to miss the person who’s been assigned his quota of unused words?’
Janice smirks some more. Even I know I talk too much.
‘When I first resigned, he didn’t say a word. Not one word. I had to repeat it because I didn’t think he’d heard me and I thought that if he was going to break his usual silence it would be then. But no, he stored it all up for tonight. To tell me I’ve dropped you all in it with Easter and “mark my words, you’ll be back”.’ I shake my head. ‘Anyway, I need something to wash away the lingering taste of passive aggressiveness. Want something?’
Janice raises her nearly full flute of prosecco. I turn to the others. ‘Anyone want a drink?’ I ask above the music. As a group, they look at me as though I’m crazy – until Mr W stops supplying the drinks, no one is reaching into their pockets. ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘When you talk about this night in weeks to come, though, just remember that I offered, OK? Nell offered to buy drinks even though she isn’t going off to another paying job.’
The bar itself is lit up like a multicoloured beacon in the dark space but not many people are waiting to be served. I rest my bag on a padded stool and reach in for my purse.
By the time I stepped out of the Super building for the last time ever tonight, I was Nell again. As soon as I clocked off my final shift I shed my assistant manager persona and donned my usual T-shirt-and-red-jeans look, slotted in my various earrings, and pushed on my bangles, which go from forearm to wrist on my right arm and all the way up to my elbow on the left. Once I took my mobile off its waistband holster and slipped it into my jacket pocket, that was it. I was me again.
Once I am me again, of course, the messages start again.
Despite the music, the thrum of conversations around me, I hear the bleep-bleep-ting of a message tone from my mobile.
His tone.
It goes off in my pocket, but echoes in my chest.
Don’t read it, I tell myself even as I’m reaching for it. It can wait till morning, I remind myself as I pull my mobile out of my pocket. It’ll ruin your night, I state as I bring up the message.
I know before looking what it’s going to say, but I still have to take a deep breath before I look. It says the same thing every time – it uses the same five words to control me. Sometimes I think I look in the hope it will be different, that the screen after that message tone will say something else. But no, it’s the same as always:
The same five words as always, the same full stop as always. The same lack of greeting or sign-off. He needs to see you. He needs to see you. It bounces on the edges of the music, thumps on the beats of my heart. He needs to see you. He needs to see you. He needs to see you.
I want to type: ‘I don’t want to see him’, ‘Leave me alone’, ‘Go away’… anything … anything that will put an end to this. But I can’t, of course. I am where I am, I am who I am, and saying no to him is not an option. The clock is ticking and I can’t escape that.
Swallowing the emotions, pushing them deep, deep down, I shove my phone back into my pocket and return to taking my purse out of my bag. I turn towards the bar, to the rows and rows of drinks, sitting like shimmery escape pods to the point of oblivion I suddenly desperately need to visit.
My eyes run over the names, the labels, the bottle shapes, the liquor colours, and nothing appeals. Nothing catches my eye and tells me it will take me to where I need to be right now – away from the reality of my life.
I turn to the person on my right, hoping for inspiration. He has a fancy and expensive-looking bottle of beer in his hand and a faint sneer that broadcasts how much better he thinks he is than everyone in the place, possibly on the planet. Nope, won’t be taking inspiration from him.
I turn to my left. The man who stands there, leaning on the bar, is watching me with his head tipped slightly to one side. When I make eye contact he smiles. I grin back.
‘What are you drinking?’ I ask him, not looking at the glass he has on the bar in front of him.
‘Tequila from God’s own country.’
‘You’re Mexican?’ I ask.
‘Nope. I just like to say that.’
‘Tequila it is then,’ I say. ‘Will you have one with me?’
He grins a little wider. ‘It’d be rude not to.’
Saturday, 26 June
Jude looked spooked when she came back from calling the police.
She explained over the sound of the waves and her footsteps crunching on the shingle that she’d had to call 999 three times before anyone would believe her. They had told her the third time she was going to get into trouble if she called again. ‘All right then, I’ll keep calling until you come and get me.’
That’s when they’d believed her. Told her to wait by the phone box but she’d said she wasn’t going to, she was going back to the dead body on the beach. ‘You actually said that?’ I asked her. ‘Those actual words?’
‘Yeah, course,’ she replied. ‘Why?’
I didn’t answer because I couldn’t imagine ever saying something like that, let alone to a police person.
‘It’s really creepy up there,’ she said, shivering. ‘There were a couple of men who were really dodgy-looking. I was scared of what they might do.’
I stared at Jude, thinking, Of course there are dodgy-looking men out there – it’s Friday night in Brighton. What’s actually weirder is that there aren’t more people down here on the beach. That we’re the ones who found her.
My eyes darted from Jude to the woman and I couldn’t stand to look any more. Anyway, Jude was back – I didn’t have to look any more.
I turned away. Rotated until my back was to the sea and my vision was filled with the rise of the sea wall, the pebbles that lay in undulating mounds up to the promenade, the shapes the darkness made of the ornate railings. I didn’t know if Jude had looked away like me or if she’d taken her turn standing and watching over the woman who, I had realised, wasn’t actually that much older than us.
It wasn’t long before a policewoman and a policeman were crunching over the pebbles, their faces like thunder. That’s when it became real. That’s when I realised that someone had died. Someone had died and it was going to turn out like it did on the television. We were going to find out that she had been murdered. That her last minutes were awful; full of terror and pain. I looked into the faces of the police officers, saw how angry they were that we were wasting their time like this, and knew our lives were never going to be the same again.
Saturday, 24 March
05:13
I stand, mobile in hand, and watch the clock on the cooker, waiting for it to click onto the right time. Once it hits the specific digits I am waiting for, I’ll be able to call. She’ll answer and things will flip into their correct places. Saturday will start, the whole day will be a perfect dream and the rest of the week will be wonderful: none of us will oversleep; we won’t need to rush any morning; I won’t have to shout; the children will get gold stars and certificates; I’ll manage to appease even the most difficult clients that are always sent my way; and Shane might even hear about that long-promised promotion.
05:14
Shane and the kids, snuggled together on the sofa, laugh at me from behind the icons on the lock-screen as I stare at my mobile. Everything I do, I do for them. Every call I make, I do it with them in mind.
Today’s call, like all the other calls, is not like it was back then when I made the first call. Then I’d been desperate.
I had been up all night. All night. Shane had tried at various points during those hours to get me to go to bed. He’d come downstairs more than once, had watched me pace the kitchen, doing the only thing that would stop my mind racing, and he’d asked me again to follow him up to bed. Try to rest; try to sleep, he’d begged. I’d ignored him. And kept ignoring him until he’d given up, snapped at me that he was going to bed so that one of us would be capable of looking after the children in the morning. I could hear his frustration, could see he was holding back from screaming that this sort of stuff was driving a wedge between us, but I couldn’t stop his anger, nor my pacing. I kept going, even when I heard him leave the room.
Walking the lines of the edges of the black and white tiles of our kitchen floor was the only way to stop my mind hurtling backwards and forwards through time. Moving along each line, straight and perfect, was a way for me to externalise what was going on inside, kept me tethered to the moment. But, that night, even walking the lines couldn’t stave off the quiet terror. It all kept bubbling up inside; struggling, fighting, battling to let itself out. I was constantly dragged back to that night and the moment my life changed, then I was flung forwards, to the hell that would be unleashed if I told.
All night. All night I was thrown about through time, struggling to deal with what happened and its potential consequences.
I have to confess, I’d finally decided as light started to climb up over the horizon. I have to tell Nell. I’d kept the secret for twenty-five years, and I couldn’t keep it any longer. Yes, it would destroy her. Yes, it would decimate our family. Yes, it would unleash again the hell we’d all barely lived through last time. But I couldn’t keep it in any longer. Staying silent was literally driving me crazy and I had to tell.
I’d looked at the cooker clock and it had said 05:14. Too early to call, but far, far too late in terms of confessing. I’d found my mobile, slipped down the side cushion of the kitchen sofa as usual, and started to dial. Then stopped. Then started again. Then stopped. By the time I actually dialled her number, it was 05:17.
05:15
Nell had answered after the third ring. ‘Are you all right?’ she’d asked. I could hear in her voice that she hadn’t been to bed yet. She obviously wasn’t working that Saturday so she’d been up all night, on her computer, searching and searching as usual. This was why I had to tell her. It would get her to stop. It would make her realise why what she was doing was dangerous to all of us.
‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘I’m fine.’ And, as I said the words, I realised I was fine. The terror, the thing that had seized and driven me all night, that had caused me to pick up the phone to reveal all, was gone. It was hearing her voice. It was the normality of Nell that had done it. When we’d both spent so much time being anything but normal, hearing the natural, ordinariness of her tone even at that time of the morning was enough to calm me down.
I felt my worries – a tight little bundle that sat in the middle of my chest, resting heavily on my heart – untangle; become transparent and manageable.
‘So what you doing up at this time?’ Nell asked. I’d heard her stifle a yawn. ‘One of the kids ill or something?’
‘No, no,’ I said. I felt ridiculous, then. I’d been up for hours, walking the lines, trying to hide from what I’d seen a quarter of a century ago, and now these worries seemed small, even ignorable for a while. ‘You need to come over,’ I told her. ‘Clara has a football match and Willow has a gymnastics competition. You need to pick one to go to.’ I sounded bossy, like I was telling my big sister what to do. But you know, now I felt less panicked, I remembered the many things that really irritated me about Nell. I loved her, but I did not love the part of her that sat up till the small hours searching for people on her computer. Computers, because she needs more than one of them to search for people. Nell wasn’t married because she was always searching for people on her computers. She didn’t have kids because she was always searching for people on her computers. Everything about Nell and the way she lived her life was about searching for people on her computers. She would be a different person with a real life, a real family, if she’d just stop searching for people. Yup, when I remembered how Nell had ruined her life because of something that was, at best, a hobby, it made me cross and it made me bossy. I often thought I could shock her into living in the real world by forcing her to take part in family life.
On the other end of the phone line, Nell had taken a deep breath, had stayed silent for a second and then said: ‘Sure. Fine. When do I need to be there?’ She’d showed up on time, she took Clara to her football match, during which Clara had scored the winning goal. Then Nell had made a huge fuss of Willow on winning a medal for the first time in any of her gymnastics competitions, and then she’d stuck around to help Aubrey with his ever-expanding model replica of Brighton Pier.
It’d been an amazing day, and that had turned into an incredible week: no lateness; Shane was promoted then given the nod for another huge promotion; I came up with a concept that a difficult new client loved; and the children came home with five different gold stars and reward certificates.
05:16
I bring up Nell’s number, ready to hit ‘call’ when the time comes.
After that first week I had cast my mind back, tried to find what had been different about that week which could have caused our good fortune, and I realised it was the phone call with Nell. It was the only thing that had been different, out of the ordinary.
The next Saturday I did it again, I called her at exactly 05:17. Spoke to her. Asked her to come and be a proper part of our family life after work. And the week went brilliantly again. Even better than before. When it happened again for the third week, I realised that it was the phone calls. Something about connecting with my sister at that time of the morning on a Saturday, about bringing her over to our house, made all the difference.
I’ve been calling her every Saturday at 05:17 for nearly nine months. And those nine months have been as darn close to perfect as we can get. In all that time, she has answered every single call. Guilt, of course. Every time Nell picks up the phone to me at that time of the morning, she does so out of the guilt she should right-fully feel.
05:17
I press ‘call’ and start my weekend.
Saturday, 24 March
Ring, ring, ring.
It’s 5:17 on Saturday morning. I know that because my phone is ringing.
Ring, ring, ring.
It’s 5:17 on a Saturday morning and my phone won’t stop ringing until I answer it. I have a few more seconds before I need to pick it up so I don’t open my eyes, or reach for the offending item, I just let the sound jangle through me, tap-dancing on every single nerve in my head.
I never want to answer the phone when it rings at this time every Saturday, but I always do. It’s a compulsion; a force outside of my will that makes me raise my hand, pick up the phone and then give myself over to the words, thoughts and needs of the person at the other end.
‘Are you going to get that?’ the voice beside me asks.
Even though his voice has startled me, I stay perfectly still and keep my eyes closed. Usually when the phone rings at this time on a Saturday I’m alone. I’m home and I’m alone. The fact that I’m not alone also means I am not at home. That means I need to fake sleep until I remember as much of last night as possible.
‘Hey! Nell!’ the man beside me says loudly. He knows my name, which is a good sign. A great sign. It means we must have talked at some point before we came back to his place. ‘Are you going to answer your phone?’
‘No,’ I croak. ‘I am not going to get that.’ My voice is battered, my throat furrowed by dry spikes. I was either smoking or I was talking loudly and singing even louder. I groan at the thought of it, hoping it was the smoking rather than the singing.
‘All right, can you please get that,’ the man says. ‘It’s too early and too Saturday for that noise.’ Despite the irritation in his voice, he sounds nice. Like a nice man I had a nice conversation with before we came back to his place.
I open my eyes and roll towards the sound of my phone. Beside my bleating mobile is a small glass of water, and a hotel telephone, notepad and pen. OK, not his place – a hotel.
As I reach for my phone, the rows and rows of bangles on my arm clink together as they pool at my wrist. You’re too loud for this part of my hangover, I tell them silently. Too, too loud.
I jab at the ‘cancel’ button to the racket, then press and hold down the power button until my phone is off. Because it will start ringing again as the caller desperately tries to connect again during the sixty seconds of 5:17 a.m.
I clatter the phone back onto the bedside table. I should turn it off more often, but I don’t. I can’t. I fear what I might trigger if I do.
‘There. Better?’ I say to the man on the other side of the bed without actually looking at him.
‘Yeah. Much. Thank. You.’ He says this as though he is forcing each word out through his teeth.
OK, so maybe he isn’t that nice after all.
Saturday, 24 March
She didn’t answer.
She cut off the call and didn’t answer. And now she’s turned off her phone.
I’ve called back three times now, trying to get her to speak to me before the cooker clock flicks from 05:17 to 05:18, and each time it goes straight to voicemail. I can’t believe she’s turned off her phone. How dare she!
HOW DARE SHE!
She knows why she needs to answer, it’s an unspoken agreement between us – I call, she answers. She doesn’t even have to talk for long. If she picks up, listens to what I need her to do, everything will be OK. How dare she do this!
I lob my mobile across the kitchen. It lands, quite by chance, on the cream leather sofa by the door and bounces unceremoniously on its cushions before coming to rest.
In the past, if she doesn’t answer first time, she always picks up the second time I call. If I need to ring again, it’s always still 05:17. She never turns off her phone. Never.
I watch the cooker clock flip from 05:17 to 05:18. And that’s it. My chance gone. If I hadn’t already done so, I would throw my phone across the room in the hopes of hearing a satisfying smash as it hits something solid. ‘What have you done to us, Nell?’ I ask, with my right thumb knuckle wedged in my mouth. ‘What have you brought down on us?’
Saturday, 24 March
I throw my arm over my eyes as I ease myself back onto the bed. I’m reaching for the blurry, ethereal strands of last night that float around my mind like clouds in a still sky. I need to fuse those strands together to make one coherent timeline because certain things aren’t really making sense now. Like the fact I’m fully dressed. I’m in bed with a man and I’m fully dressed, right down to my odd socks and multiple bangles.
Last night … Last night was my leaving do.
Last night … We went to Read My Lips, the hottest new bar in Brighton.
Last night … Mr W made a passive-aggressive speech. I went to the bar. I got the ‘He needs to see you’ text.
Last night … I talked to a man and bought him tequila.
Last night … I think I came home with the man I drank tequila with.
This morning … I’ve woken up next to the man I think I drank tequila with – fully clothed.
‘Was that your husband, boyfriend or girlfriend calling to find out why you didn’t come home?’ The man – whose name I’m desperately trying to remember – asks now the room is silent.
‘None of the above,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘It was my sister,’ I say to him. ‘She calls me at five seventeen every Saturday morning for a chat.’
What is his name? His voice is sounding familiar, so I think it is him from the bar, but his name is drawing a complete blank.
‘Why?’ he asks, clearly not believing me.
‘All sisters call at that time on a Saturday morning,’ I reply.
‘Mine doesn’t.’
‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one?’
‘And aren’t you just the most darling ray of sunshine?’ he says.
‘There’s no sunshine when I hurt this badly.’
‘Poor you,’ he coos. ‘Imagine how you’re going to feel when the effects of room service booze kick in.’
Oh God. Last night … I threw myself on this bed, picked up the telephone and in an ultra-posh voice ordered a bottle of tequila and ‘your very finest champagne’.
‘I’ll pay for it,’ I say with a groan.
‘Uh-huh,’ he replies.
Even though I can’t remember his name, I’m forced to look at him then, to underline what I am saying by making eye contact. I can’t speak for a moment because he’s gorgeous. He’s propped up on two white pillows facing me, and he’s divine. The set of his features, the slice of his cheekbones, the gentle slope of his brow, the curve of his chin, the bow of his lips, the smooth, hairless lines of his head, the eyebrow-free openness of his face, the eyelash-less emphasis of his gaze, work together to make him simply beautiful.
Zachariah. Zach.
His name is Zach and last night I kissed him in the bar. When Mr Whitby had departed, when other people had left and we’d had three more shots in quick succession, I leant across and kissed him. He’d kissed me back, our lips tingly with lime and salt and long notes of tequila as they moved together. Kissing Zach made the tequila more potent; it swirled in my bloodstream, twirled in my head. With every shot, chased down with a long kiss, things seemed a little better. I forgot about the sheer terror of what I was undertaking in the coming year, I shrugged off the worry of how what I was doing would reverberate through my family, and I managed to shove the ‘He needs to see you’ text message to the back of my mind.
Zach had told me he’d moved to Brighton that day for work and hadn’t sorted somewhere to live yet so was staying in a hotel. I’d asked him if his room was nice, and he’d said he’d show me if I wanted. I did want. And I had obviously made liberal use of his room service menu.
‘I will pay for it,’ I say, about the tequila and champagne.
‘OK,’ he says, still looking sceptical. ‘Fine. Whatever.’
We stare warily at each other for a few seconds. His lack of facial hair, I realise, makes him seem completely open, since he doesn’t get to hide behind the expressions that are emphasised and nuanced by eyebrows and eyelashes. I haven’t met many men who are completely hairless, but to be fair, I haven’t met many men who are as good-looking as him, either.
‘Did we … you know … do it?’ I ask, because I’m still intrigued about why I have my clothes on.
‘We did not,’ Zach states.
I’m surprised because of the kissing. In the bar, where neither of us cared who saw us. In the lift, where we missed his floor more than once. Even on this bed … The kissing seemed to be a promise of lots of … you know … doing it. ‘Any particular reason why we didn’t?’ I ask.
‘You were very drunk. I don’t have sex with drunk women.’
‘OK. Good policy. But I should point out that I don’t usually get that drunk.’
‘I’m glad to hear that you don’t usually get that drunk,’ Zach replies flippantly.
‘You don’t sound very glad,’ I say.
The world swims in front of my eyes suddenly. I’m going to pass out. Or vomit. Or both. I have to slam both hands flat on the bed to steady myself. As I do so my bangles and bracelets come together and sound again like a loud crash of cymbals rather than the tinkle of metal on plastic on metal.
‘You make a lot of noise with those bangles,’ Zach comments.
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’
‘If you were ever in a life-threatening situation where you had to hide, I wouldn’t think much of your chances.’
‘Well, thankfully, I’ve never been in such a situation, and hopefully I will never find myself in one.’
‘Yeah. Thankfully.’
I crank my head round to look at him askance. ‘Seriously? Seriously? We were that off our heads we thought going to bed together was a good idea?’
With a small shrug he replies: ‘I guess I must have been drunker than I thought.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means I agree with you – you and me without booze doesn’t seem to be the best idea.’
‘Yeah, well, it sounded like you were saying you wouldn’t have looked twice at me unless you were drunk.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of saying something like that.’
‘Watch it, you, or I’ll … “room service” you again … but this time I won’t pay for it.’
A smile nudges at his lips and he turns his head away before it becomes a real grin. ‘All right, all right, truce?’ he says.
‘Truce,’ I reply grudgingly.
‘Now we’ve cleared that up, you fancy sex?’
‘Hell no!’ I shudder at the thought of it. I have morning breath and hangover hair, plus neither of us has exactly covered ourselves in glory in these last few minutes.
‘Fair enough,’ he says with a shrug.
Oh. Now that I’ve turned him down for sex, does that mean I have to leave? Because I don’t think my legs will work if I try to use them now. Actually, I don’t think I can move very far without chucking up. ‘Erm, you know how we’re not going to have sex?’ I begin.
‘Yes?’ he replies.
‘I was wondering, kind of hoping, actually, that I could go back to sleep? Here? I know it’s a bit cheeky – well, a lot cheeky – and I know the last few minutes haven’t been the most fun of your life, but I am so very tired I have to swallow my pride and ask you, beg you, if necessary, to let me catch a couple of hours of sleep. I promise I’ll be no trouble, I’ll just close my eyes and go to sleep. I’ll even take off my bangles so as not to disturb you.’
He is silent for a few seconds. His eyes roam over my face like curious fingers learning and mapping out my features. ‘All right. Fine. Go to sleep. But only if you don’t plan on staying all day when you wake up.’
Charming. ‘As soon as I wake up, I will leave. I’m already dressed so I won’t even need to go near the shower. I can walk straight out of here and right out of your life.’
‘Eurgh! You’ve got to use the shower. What sort of filthiness is that?’
‘I was just trying to make sure we keep this as short as humanly possible.’
‘Yeah, well, there’s short and then there’s filthiness. You have to have a shower before you go. In fact, I insist on it. Don’t commit a crime against your fellow travellers by being that commuter.’
‘I’m not going to commute anywhere – I live in Brighton, remember?’
‘Fair enough. But you still need a shower.’
‘All right – shower, dressed again, outta here.’
‘Sounds good.’
I chance a glance in his direction to find him staring me, a small smile on his face – he was smiling at me like that at the bar, just before I spoke to him, I remember that.
His smile makes me beam at him. More and more of our time together last night is seeping in now: the firmness of his body against mine, the way his hand felt resting in the small of my back, the soft sigh of wanting more and more of his kisses.
‘See you later,’ I say.
‘Yes, Nell, see you later.’
Saturday, 26 June
‘Tell me again what you two were doing out so late?’ the policeman asked us.
Jude and I were sitting in a little room with three chairs at a table, two on one side and one on the other. We held hands, trying to comfort each other but in reality we both seemed to take it in turns to shake so violently we made the other quake with us.
I was cold. Really cold. My lips felt coldest, or maybe it was my fingertips, or maybe it was the centre of my chest where my heart was. I was cold and shaky.
Every time I blinked I saw her: the untroubled face, the motionless body, the detail of her tattoo. Every time I breathed I realised that the woman with the Brighton mermaid tattoo wasn’t going to do that ever again. Every time I looked at my hands I saw the remnants of the black ink they used to take our fingerprints, and was reminded that they thought we’d done it. The police thought we were responsible for what had happened to the woman we found on the beach.
Their behaviour since they’d taken us from the beach – the policewoman sitting stonefaced between us in the back of the police car – right up to this moment showed that they thought we were guilty of a crime. They’d said they were taking our fingerprints to eliminate us from the investigation, but it felt as if they were actually checking in case we’d been in trouble before. They’d said they would call our fathers but it felt like hours since we’d been there, and they hadn’t arrived. They said they wanted to know what had happened, but whenever we explained they didn’t seem to believe us.
And this police officer, he kept coming back to this room. He was the one who had asked us the most questions. The others kept coming and going, some of them standing by the door, arms folded, keeping an eye on us, others coming to sit down opposite us and start up the same battery of questions: ‘Who is she?’ ‘Are you sure you don’t know her?’ ‘What were you doing out there at that time of night?’ ‘Were you drinking?’ ‘Taking drugs?’ ‘Engaging in sexual acts?’ Over and over, on and on. They were hoping, I realised, that we would slip up. This officer, though, out of all the other ones, seemed most determined to prove we had done something.
‘I’ve got a child about your age,’ he said when neither of us spoke to answer his question. ‘He’d catch all sorts of hell if he was out behaving like you two at that time of night. Unless he had a very good reason.’ He had a hard edge to his voice now. ‘So tell me, what were you two doing out at that time of night?’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘What very good reason do you have for being out there at that time of night?’
This policeman acted like a man who was taller, wider and more imposing than he really was. His dark blond hair was cut severely at the sides, his shoulders were slightly hunched, which made him look thinner, and he had a scar on his cheek. Whenever he spoke his eyes narrowed and his lips became distorted with a sneer. It was him, I was sure of it, that was keeping us here, stopping us from seeing our dads. I didn’t even care that I was going to be in huge amounts of trouble with my parents – I just wanted this to be over.
‘You’re going to tell me,’ he said. ‘Whether you want to or not, you’re going to tell me what you were doing on that beach with that girl. You’re going to tell me which one of you hurt her. Killed her.’
Jude broke down. She couldn’t take any more. She clung on to my hand, bent her head forwards and started to cry. Her shoulders were shaking and she made small gulping sounds that I’d heard before but not very often. Jude was the strong one, the one who took risks, the one who’d convinced me to lie to my parents and say I was staying at hers for her birthday. Once her mum had gone to work, her dad had told us not to stay up too late because he was heading to the club in Brighton to meet his friends, as he did most Friday nights. We’d told the police this. We’d told them that when her dad had gone out, we’d got ready and gone to a party a sixth-form boy from school was having.
We’d been invited last minute, and Jude liked the boy even though I thought he was far too full of himself. He over-gelled his hair, sprayed on too much aftershave and kept commenting on girls’ ‘juicy butts’. But when he’d found out Jude’s birthday was on the same day as his, he’d come up to her – right in the middle of the canteen – and said, ‘Come to my party, if it’s your birthday too. Bring your mate with the juicy butt.’ And he’d winked at her and then at me and walked away. Everyone around us had just stared and Jude had told us we were definitely going to go.
I hadn’t wanted to go. But Jude had persuaded me. Had said it would make us two of the popular girls at last. No, Jude, I should be saying to her right then. It has made us two girls sitting in a police station being told off by a police officer.
I wanted to cry. But I knew, even if I didn’t know anything else, it would make this man happy if we both started crying. He hadn’t managed to catch us out, so now he wanted to make us cry. And he’d succeeded with Jude. She was the strong one, usually, but I was the stubborn one – always.
I stared at the man’s scar, a dark pink curve that turned his cheekbone into an oval. He glared at me for staring at his scar, and I could almost see him decide it was my turn to cry, too. Jude was probably wise to get it over with, but I wasn’t going to let him do that to me. I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary – other girls sneaked out of the house all the time and often did properly wild things. They didn’t go to parties and stand at the edges feeling out of place amongst the other people who were drinking and chatting and fitting in with each other – everyone at the party had seemed to know how to be together and we hadn’t. The sixth-former who’d invited us to his party had been super-nice – offered us drinks, told us to have some snacks, told us we should go upstairs and play Spin The Bottle if we wanted. But Jude and me, we weren’t like them. We were different, younger, and we didn’t really belong there.
We’d stuck around for a bit longer, daring each other to try the punch, to try a beer, to try something bright blue that people were downing from small glasses. But neither of us was brave enough. We sat on the sofa and watched the older kids get drunk, then we’d both eventually decided without actually saying anything to each other that it was time to go home. Jude hadn’t known what time her dad would get back from the club, so we’d decided we’d have to sneak in and pray that he was still out or asleep. And as we’d been coming home, there she was … The girl we found.
And now here we were, the two girls being broken by a policeman.
I’m not going to cry, I thought. I. AM. NOT. GOING. TO. CRY.
He could see that I wasn’t going to give in. ‘You two are a couple of those dirty girls, aren’t you,’ he said quietly. ‘You act all good and prim for the parents, but really you’re always out, catting about. You can’t keep your legs shut. You’re dirty girls. Dirty little sluts.’
His words were vicious and cruel, like arrows fired rapidly from a bow, and they made Jude cry more, her weeping loud and uncontrolled. Those words, nasty as they were, made me even more determined. I gently let go of my sobbing best friend’s hand and sat back in my seat, folded my arms across my chest and stared right at him. Right at him.
His eyes flashed outrage, and his lip curled as he accepted the challenge – the gauntlet that I, a weedy little teenager who was already in huge trouble with her parents, had thrown down in front of him.
I am not going to cry, my face told him.
You think you can take me? his nasty smile replied as it slimed wider and wider on his face. You really think you can take me, little girl?
He came to the table and slammed his hands down, leant forwards, right into my face. It felt at that moment that it was just him and me in there. Just the two of us about to fight it out. He’d win, but only after a long battle. I wasn’t going to make it easy – I wasn’t going to cry at the first drop of his toxic words. It would take so much more than he realised. His lips drew back as he loaded more of his poison-tipped words into his bow, ready to fire them at me. I stared straight into his eyes; I was not looking away. He’d made Jude cry, and that was not right. I might be young and I might not know very much, but I did know what he was doing was wrong. We were, at best, witnesses. He had no reason to think of us as suspects, to treat us like convicted criminals.
He snarled: ‘How many—’
now