The Trawlerman

by William Shaw

  She waited a second, then stepped forward. As she did so, a gentle breeze blew towards her and within a second, her skin was suddenly cold and her breath was gone. Before she had even understood it, she knew something was very wrong and she turned to run.

  She forced her lungs to fill, ordering herself to stay calm, to stay in the present, to quietly absorb what was happening to her instead of running. It took her another couple of seconds to realise what it was that had triggered that desire to run away screaming. The air around her carried a faint but familiar scent of something very bad.

  ‘Bob? Are you OK? Do you need help?’

  As she stepped forward now, dropping the fish, the tent jerked. She ignored the impulse to run.

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ she said, loudly now. ‘Who’s there?’

  The whole tent convulsed violently, as if it were being shaken by something invisible.

  Thirty-six

  Something dark crashed out of the tent, wide and low.

  It took her another second to realise what she had just seen. She had watched these creatures often enough now, in the late evenings and early mornings when she couldn’t sleep. There had been a badger in Bob Glass’s tent, rustling around, probably stealing his food. It was the badger’s raspy breath she had been listening to, hiding in there. Terrified of being captured, it had burst through the hedge beyond the tent to escape. She laughed out loud at her own stupidity.

  With comic timing, a cuckoo called, somewhere far beyond the Younises’ house.

  But when she bent to pick up the dead mackerel, sprung from its newspaper, it seemed to stare right back at her with its dead eye. Inside the tent, she heard flies buzzing against the nylon.

  She remembered something Bill South had once told her on one of those early summer evenings when they had lain on the ground together, binoculars at the ready. ‘Badgers will eat anything at all. They don’t care.’

  She stayed in the dimming light until the officers had arrived to secure the site, and then, because she had stood crouched at the entrance of the tent, too, for the crime scene manager to arrive so she could record Alex as having been present at the site. I am going to be late, she texted Terry Neill, not knowing what else to say.

  She had looked inside the tent. The badger had eaten what he could get at easily. The skin from Bob Glass’s face was gone.

  ‘You look like hell. What’s wrong?’ was the first thing he said when she finally arrived.

  And when she had told him, he had put down a glass of wine, put his arms around her and hugged her, which was, right then, exactly what she had needed. When he finally released her, he said, ‘I don’t suppose you really feel like eating now.’

  ‘I left the fish behind anyway,’ she said.

  ‘No loss then. What about a drink instead?’

  And when she woke in the morning, and found herself on his sheets, looking out onto the pale sand beach where browned grass was swaying in a light breeze, she was somehow not surprised.

  It had been a very long time since she had slept with anyone.

  She was alone. She could hear Terry downstairs. The view from his bedroom was better than hers. She looked out on a nuclear power station; he looked out onto a wide sea and sky. After a few minutes, he arrived, impressively naked and with coffee. He was older than her; she wondered if he felt it important to show how well-kept his body was.

  ‘You talk in your sleep,’ he said, putting the wooden tray on the bed. ‘A lot.’

  ‘So my daughter tells me.’ She was surprised she had slept at all. He had fallen asleep immediately afterwards. She had lain awake watching the stars moving through the half-open blinds, her mind still racing. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Seven years. No, eight. I lived in Folkestone for a while, but didn’t like the gentrification.’

  ‘Whereas here it’s much more ghetto.’

  He laughed. ‘Here I can ignore every else. I needed to be away from all temptation. What are your plans? If you aren’t doing anything, I’d love to teach you golf.’

  ‘That is never going to happen,’ she said.

  Still undressed, he pulled up Venetian blinds and the sunlight streamed into the window. It felt like anyone who was on the beach would be able to see this man she had just slept with.

  ‘You drunk, last night?’ she said.

  ‘I was. You were in shock.’

  ‘We probably shouldn’t have done that, then.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We probably shouldn’t. I don’t regret it for a second, though. Do you?’

  At that point her stomach rebelled. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She got up and went to the toilet and threw the coffee she had just drunk straight back up again.

  When she returned to the bedroom he was wearing a blue towelling robe and a concerned expression on his face. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Sorry. Flashbacks.’ When she had been younger, sex had been a way of forgetting things. That no longer seemed to apply. The vision of Bob Glass’s faceless face had haunted her through the night, and continued to do so now. ‘It was pretty horrid, what I saw.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I feel like a shit now. As if I’d somehow taken advantage of you.’

  She laughed. ‘How very fucking gallant of you.’ He looked stung. ‘You were the one who was drunk, Terry. I knew exactly what I was doing, and no, I don’t have any regrets.’

  He looked relieved. Her mouth tasted vile. ‘Do you have a toothbrush I can borrow?’

  ‘Of course.’ He went to the bathroom and returned with a bamboo one, still in its box. She raised her eyebrows at him as he handed it over. ‘I know what you’re thinking. I am not a saint. You are not the first woman I’ve slept with here, but no, I don’t keep a special supply of toothbrushes just in case. I buy them for myself in packs of four.’

  She showered, then returned to the bedroom and held the toothbrush out to him.

  ‘I’ll keep it in the drawer. For next time.’

  ‘Next time?’ she said.

  ‘It’s an aspiration, not an assumption.’

  ‘You could write my name on it, to make sure it doesn’t get mixed up with any of the other ones from the other ladies who visit.’

  He took it. ‘I’ll be sure to do that. After all, there must be hundreds of brushes with names on it in a drawer in that bathroom now.’

  She laughed. ‘Hundreds, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I hope there is a next time, that’s all.’

  She didn’t answer. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Terry?’

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘You lived in Folkestone. Did you ever go and buy fish at The Stade?’

  ‘All the time. I still do.’

  ‘Do you remember a story about a fisherman called Frank Hogben? He disappeared at sea.’

  ‘The trawler guy? The family had that chip shop?’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘I remember Frank Hogben, yes. That was a story. They had a picture of him in the shop for ages, with flowers and everything. I remember. God, yes. I used to buy fish from him. And . . .’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Oh, you know . . .’ His voice went quieter now. ‘Other things.’

  ‘Did you? What things?’ she asked, checking her phone for messages from Zoë.

  ‘You’re a police officer. The kind of things you shouldn’t talk to police officers about.’

  She looked at him. There was an anxiety in his expression that she hadn’t noticed before. ‘Oh. I see.’ She put two and two together. ‘The drugs, you mean?’

  He looked down, put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘He was your drug dealer?’

  ‘A drug dealer, not my drug dealer. I had a few. I am just trying to be honest with yo
u.’

  ‘Frank Hogben was a drug dealer?’ She frowned. ‘Heroin?’

  ‘That’s right. Are you OK?’

  She nodded slowly, still processing what she had heard.

  ‘What do you want to do today?’

  She pulled on her trousers. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go somewhere.’

  ‘What if we met later? We could go to a nice restaurant somewhere? Zoë could come.’

  ‘I don’t have a good record with restaurants.’

  ‘No. Maybe not. Maybe just get together some other time?’

  ‘Maybe, Terry. Maybe. Is it OK if I leave my bike here?’ She was already dialling an Uber.

  Thirty-seven

  It was one of the two-storey terraced houses in Albion Road; an unprepossessing building with a green bin outside and a bay window that had sagged towards the pavement over the years. There were streets like this in every English town; the ones built right onto the pavement, without the fancy Victorian terracotta or brickwork, render streaked with rust from old satellite dishes.

  Alex rang the bell, hearing a buzz somewhere inside the house.

  Tina emerged dressed in a black top and skirt, smiled, then called back down the hall. ‘Zoë. It’s your mother.’ Then, ‘How are you? Zoë says you’ve been having hard times.’

  ‘Where’s Stella?’

  ‘Gone to her shop. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, Tina. About your husband.’

  Her eyes flickered down towards the pavement.

  ‘You were asking Stella about him, weren’t you?’ Her voice was paper-thin.

  ‘What if he didn’t die on the boat?’

  She remained, staring at her own feet. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. He went missing.’

  ‘Tina. There’s something wrong here. I know there is.’

  Tina raised her head and looked Alex uncertainly in the eye. ‘Why?’

  ‘What did you know about your husband selling drugs?’

  She said nothing, shook her head gently.

  ‘You see, I think it was convenient for him to disappear.’

  ‘No comment,’ she whispered.

  ‘This isn’t a cross-examination, Tina. I’m not trying to get you into trouble. Exactly the opposite, I promise.’

  ‘What are you on about, Mum?’ Zoë emerged from down the hallway in the same shorts and baggy T-shirt she had been wearing the day before.

  ‘I was just asking if you’d been any trouble,’ said Alex smoothly.

  ‘Why would I be trouble?’

  ‘She’s welcome here any time,’ said Tina.

  Zoë put her arms around Tina and hugged her, then stepped past her onto the street. ‘Oh. I forgot we didn’t have a car. How are we getting home, Mum?’

  ‘Go on out. I just need to have a private word with Tina.’

  ‘What about? Are you talking about me? They don’t mind me here, honest – do you, Tina?’

  ‘She’s a delight,’ said Tina.

  ‘Two minutes.’

  Zoë walked a little way down the street, then leaned against a telegraph pole, looking back with accusing eyes.

  Tina was still at her doorway, apprehensive, not meeting Alex’s gaze. Alex went up close to her and said, very quietly, ‘Look, Tina. I know your husband assaulted you.’ A nervous flicker of eyelids. ‘All I want to know is the truth.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you any more,’ she said, with sudden anger, and stepped inside the door. ‘I would like you to go away, please.’

  Before Alex could say any more, she closed the door hard, forcing Alex backwards onto the pavement.

  ‘Oh God. What was that, Mum? What were you saying to her? Were you talking about me?’

  ‘No. It was nothing to do with you.’

  ‘They’re my friends, Mum. What is it you’re so worried about? They’re lesbians? You always pretend to be better than that.’

  ‘That’s not what any of this is about.’

  They were walking back towards the town now. ‘What then?’

  They had nowhere to be but both were stamping along like they were in some crazy hurry to get down the hill and into town. ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Zoë.

  Alex stopped. ‘Let’s call a cab.’

  Zoë scuffed her heels on the pavement. ‘You’re not going to spoil all this for me, are you?’

  ‘No. No I’m not. I’m glad. Anything planned for the rest of the day?’

  Her daughter stuffed her hands into her pockets, shrugged. ‘Just stuff.’

  When, finally, they emerged from the taxi, Alex noticed there were three text messages on her phone. Really enjoyed last night and I’d love to do it again; the second read, Are we OK? and the third was a JPEG of a bamboo toothbrush with ALEX written on the handle in biro.

  She was in the front room when she saw the bicycle disappearing down the track towards the lighthouses. Zoë, head down, backpack on, cycling into the breeze.

  In the heat of the afternoon, she walked down the track to Bill South’s empty bungalow. The bird bath was dry. She looked around for something to fill it with and found a black rubber bucket by his back door. She filled it at the outside tap close by and was carrying it round to the front when she saw the car pull up.

  ‘You know, I was expecting you,’ she said as Jill got out.

  Jill was dressed for work. A blue cotton suit, trousers that ended above bare ankles and a plain white T-shirt. ‘Matter of fact, I called round last night after work, after, you know . . . I heard all about Bob Glass, obviously. Apparently he wasn’t very pretty when you found him.’

  ‘No. Poor bastard. He wasn’t.’

  She looked around. ‘Bill not turned up yet?’

  ‘No.’

  Jill nodded, smiled sympathetically, as if she knew how much Bill meant to her and Zoë. ‘He’ll turn up soon. I know he will. You’d have heard by now if anything had happened to him. I need to ask you this . . . Why did you go looking for Bob Glass?’

  ‘I wanted to say sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault this happened.’

  ‘Not my fault, but I always knew it wasn’t him. And I felt sorry. He had PTSD. That’s why he was there. He did his training around here. It’s like he was still in the army. He could never move on.’

  ‘That’s not your fault. You didn’t make him go to Afghanistan.’ Jill stood, hands on her hips, looking down at her feet. ‘You’ve got to stop all this, Alex. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘You want to know the reason I wasn’t in last night, Jill? I had a date.’

  ‘A date date?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jill’s mouth dropped. ‘No way. No bloody way. With a man?’

  ‘Yes, with a man.’

  ‘Go, Alex!’

  Alex mimed zipping her lips, and then told her who the man was. Jill whistled. ‘Terry Neill? I was in his house yesterday to let him know about Biosfera. Was that where you . . . ?’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘Jesus. Seriously lovely property.’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so surprised. It’s not a thing. It was just, nice, that’s all. I was in shock. How was your fireman from Bumble?’

  ‘Recently divorced. Spent a long time talking about his custody battle for the kids and by the main course I was already on his wife’s side.’ Jill stopped. ‘Wait. This was just after you’d found Bob Glass?’

  Alex nodded.

  ‘Oh. Right. Yeah. I do things like that, too.’

  ‘What? End up sleeping with men because you’ve had a really shitty day?’

  ‘Kind of. Yeah.’

  It was a summer evening. They walked a little way down the track and sat on the mound of shingle to the north of the Coastguard Cottages and talke
d, watching kites flying above the beach. From a long way off Alex saw a bicycle coming back down the road; a familiar small figure, spinning along, pushed by the same breeze that was lifting the kites into the air.

  ‘That argument where people heard Ayman Younis shouting. Bob Glass denied it was him, didn’t he, Jill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thing is, Bob Glass only ever told you the truth. Even when people didn’t believe him. Why would he have lied about that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because he knew if he’d been arguing, we’d have been more likely to believe it was him that killed the Younises.’

  ‘Possibly. But what if it wasn’t him? What if someone else was arguing with Ayman Younis?’

  ‘I thought you just proved Ayman Younis had committed suicide, so why does it matter who he was arguing with?’

  ‘Because there’s a reason why he killed himself. Someone stole his money. I went there because I wanted to apologise, but I also wanted to ask Bob if he was telling the truth.’

  ‘And if he was sleeping in the next field . . . maybe he had heard the argument?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Zoë was on the approach road now coming towards them. She stopped when she saw Jill, smiled and waved.

  Alex stood and walked down the slope towards her. ‘Where have you been, then?’ she asked. ‘Looking for caravans to rent?’

  ‘None of your business,’ her daughter replied, then pedalled past her towards the back of the houses.

  Jill was still teetering her way down the shingle slope in her work shoes. ‘Has she got a boyfriend, then?’

  ‘Or a girlfriend . . .’ said Alex.

  ‘You reckon?’

  Alex changed the subject. ‘Any cause of death for Bob Glass yet?’

  ‘Stop it, Alex.’

  ‘Sorry. I genuinely can’t help it.’

  ‘Did you have sex with him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You slag.’ She laughed. ‘There was a bottle of what seems to have been methadone in the tent. Wasn’t prescription. Looks like something he bought on the street. May not have even been methadone. People are selling it cut with all sorts of stuff these days. So right now we assume it’s an accidental OD.’