The Mermaid's Call

by Katherine Stansfield

  ‘The two go well together.’ She turned and looked out to sea. ‘And I can think of another purpose for this place.’

  ‘To show a light,’ I said.

  ‘Captain Ians says one was shown the night before the dead man was discovered, right above where he lay. That’s this very spot.’

  ‘A light to draw a ship onto the cliffs?’ I leant against the door of the hut to stop the world from jouncing about. I was feeling as I had done on waking that morning, when the thrum was inside my head. The memory of being called.

  Anna peered over the ledge on which the hut was built. ‘The path continues down here. We’ve come this far. Let’s see where our victim was found.’

  The wind was awful now, so I tied my shawl over my head to keep my hair from my eyes, and to keep my wig from the sea. Anna had only her hands to help her likewise. And so we skittered our way down to the shore, the path all but sheer at times, the small stones loose underfoot. I didn’t look at the sea, used the thorn, and the gorse that began to appear, to steady myself. My hands were soon sore but I told myself to pay no heed to the pain for it would be worse to hit the rocks below. To have the sea drag me over them. What was the word Mr Good had used? Sawing. Would that I was spared being sawn.

  It seemed to take all afternoon. I felt that I had only ever been slowly putting one foot in front of the other. There had been no Shilly before. There would be none after, for there was no after. Only the path and the hungry sea below. It was like the long wait Nancy Seldon had spoken of. And then I was upright again, when I had been tilted, and my knees went, for we were on the shore.

  When I could bear it, I looked up. The hut was surely miles above us, so much cliff between, and the path a snake upon it.

  ‘How on earth do they carry a body up there?’ Anna said.

  ‘They must be surefooted as mules in these parts,’ I said.

  ‘Quite.’ Anna wandered down to where the sea touched the shore, went into the water a little way.

  ‘Be careful!’ I said, fearful she might fall and so be one of the sawn.

  The beach was mostly stones with only a little sand between them. It wasn’t a wide beach for it was hemmed in on both sides by outcrops of cliff. The tide was a little way out, which was why the knife rocks could be seen. There were plenty of them that stabbed from the rest of the cliffs. It was all high, sheer cliffs and the knives, far as I could see.

  ‘Is this where Mrs Hawker goes for her walks, do you think?’ I said.

  Anna looked up and down the beach. ‘If it is, she’s not here today. It’s too dangerous for her to swim here, surely?’

  ‘Parson thinks so.’

  ‘I wonder if she heeds him.’

  We looked about us. The knife rocks weren’t tall – only three feet at their highest and tapering to nothing at their ends that reached for the sea. I touched the spine of one. It was rough under my palm. Pitted by the sea but sharpened by it, rather than made blunt. There was blood on my palm. The rock had sliced me open. I thought of the morning in Boscastle, when the bar we used to keep Mathilda from biting her tongue had bloodied my hand similar. The thrum in my head had returned, as if the wind had got inside it and was rattling my skull as it had rattled the window in its frame. I got down low, between two of the knife rocks, to escape it, but there was nowhere to hide on Morwenstow’s shores.

  Anna’s boots in my face, turning about as she looked up and down the beach, the crunch of the small stones beneath them. ‘Now that we’re here, the suggestion by the parson and Mr Good that our victim is nothing more than an unlucky sailor washed in has been dealt another blow. There’s an important detail missing.’

  ‘Sign of his ship?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. Not a splinter of wood here, let alone a mast or a sail. No cargo, either.’

  She helped me to my feet.

  ‘And yet we’ve had some dirty weather,’ I said. My words clanged in my teeth.

  ‘True – the storm that hit Boscastle would surely have struck this coast too. We’re not that much further north here. Captain Ians came to us just as the storm was easing, and it was that morning he’d seen the body carried up the cliff path. If the storm is meant to have caused a wreck then where’s the evidence for that disaster?’

  ‘Parson said the ship could have been wrecked on another part of the coast and it was only the body that came ashore here.’

  ‘He did, but even if that were the case, it’s hard to believe that not even a scrap would appear here.’ She held out her hands to the shoreline. ‘That there would be a sailor but not so much as a splinter from his ship. I suppose they could have cleared the beach for their own ends.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The people of the parish. If a vessel is wrecked and any part of it washes onshore, it’s fair game for scavengers. There are many who believe there to be a link between the needs of coastal people and the wrecks that land as manna from heaven on their doorsteps.’

  ‘You’re thinking of the light again,’ I said. ‘That someone lured a ship onto the rocks. You think that’s how the man died?’

  ‘It’s plausible.’

  ‘It’s a poor thing to think of people, Anna!’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s a poor thing to do, even if times are hard. To survive shipwreck and then be murdered by those you’d hope would be your saviour – it’s a horrific way to die. And all for a cask of wine or a few weeks of firewood.’

  ‘But Captain Ians told us that nothing has ever been proved of purposeful wrecking. You’re always telling me how important proof is, Anna. You seem blinded to it here.’

  ‘Our task isn’t to hold another enquiry into wrecking, Shilly. That’s what governments are for. Our work is to discover who the dead man is, and how and why he died.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like he came off a wreck, does it?’ I said. ‘There’s nothing of his ship here, and I don’t think that’s because the people of Morwenstow have cleared every last bit of it. It’s because there wasn’t a wreck in the first place.’

  ‘There’s another possibility we haven’t considered − a slight one, but we must address it. What if the dead man did wash in from a ship, and he was cut by the rocks during his passage to shore, but his ship didn’t come to grief? He could have been thrown overboard instead, perhaps dead before he even hit the water.’

  ‘And then his ship sailed on without him?’ I said.

  ‘It would explain the lack of debris here.’

  ‘But not the key we found inside him.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Anna said. ‘Given the forceful nature of the water here, it would surely have been separated from the body if he truly was washed in. More likely someone deliberately shoved that key inside him after death.’

  ‘So we’re decided he died on land, then,’ I said.

  ‘That we can agree on.’ Anna tucked a strand of her wilful wig back behind her ear. ‘But it seems no coincidence that his injuries are consistent with a wreck victim. Though Mr Good’s examination was cursory, the coroner was familiar with the nature of the wounds.’

  ‘So if the dead man was killed on land and looks like dead sailors do in these parts then …’

  ‘Then there’s a good chance he was made to look like one of those washed ashore to hide his identity.’

  Then the wind whipped my scarf from my head. Anna chased it up the beach to the cliff where it snagged on a spindly bit of gorse that clung there. I went to follow, for I had had enough of the knife rocks and the talk of poor people luring others to their deaths.

  But I seemed to be looking at the water instead of at the cliff and my shawl snared there. And the wind was in my face, not behind me. And then there was water over my boots. See how it coloured them darker. A snag of weed bright across the toes. And then the water was higher, and my stockings were wet. I stiffened with the shock of the cold, but I was still moving, and the water was higher still, and all the time the words on the wind. Taking shape, taking sound.

  I walked into t
he sea.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Shilly.’

  A hand on my arm. Another on my chest. Anna in front of me now, not the water.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said, and pressed herself against me, which was a mercy for my body was all for the water. My bones leant towards it.

  ‘I-I don’t know.’

  I sagged in her arms and we were both wet then, for we were in it up to our knees. All at once I wanted to be away from the sea, far, far away. As far as the moor, even. Anna took hold of me and turned me round, to face the shore again.

  ‘Don’t let go,’ I whispered.

  ‘I won’t, but pick your feet up. It’s no good splashing.’

  I tried but then I fell, for something had tripped me. A stone, but rolling in the water? That couldn’t be right. There wasn’t enough weight to it.

  Anna bent down to see it better. ‘What on earth …’ She leapt back with a shriek and then she was the one splashing us both.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  She let out a deep sigh. ‘The word Captain Ians used when we were in the deadhouse. Gobbet. I think we’ve just found one.’

  Neither of us wanted to touch the lump of flesh, but neither did we want to let it float out to sea and be lost. Together we passed my shawl under it, to make a kind of sling, then lifted it clear of the water and carried it into shore. There we laid it down, gentle as if it was a babe. An ugly babe, though. The gobbet was the size of a small ham, grey from having been so long in the water. The skin was torn but the water had taken the blood. Had swelled the whole gobbet too.

  ‘It looks the right size to fit the hole in the dead man’s arm,’ I said.

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Anna used the shawl to roll the gobbet over and we gasped, for there on the skin were lines and colours.

  The gobbet bore a tattoo.

  It was a face, that of a devil, surely, for it had the round red head of a dog but a dog with a beak, a wide green beak, wide as the whole dog head. And in the beak were yellow teeth, a person’s full set grinning, and a huge tongue, blue, poking out at us. The eyes were the only part without colour. Just outlines, no beads within them. And somehow that was the worst of it. The empty eyes.

  ‘The green,’ I said, ‘it’s the same as the scrap of ink on the dead man, next to his terrible wound.’

  ‘True. And it’s certainly a distinctive design,’ Anna said. ‘Look there, beneath the tongue. A pair of letters, isn’t it? C and J.’

  ‘Just like Mrs Hawker said. C for Charlotte and J for Joseph. This must be Joseph Ians’ tattoo, which must mean it’s him in the deadhouse.’

  ‘It’s certainly looking that way, but we must be sure. Mrs Hawker and the captain said the tattoo was based on a carving in the church. We’ll compare them.’

  ‘So we’ll have to take the gobbet back up with us.’ I wished then we hadn’t found the gobbet, for the thought of wrapping it up and carrying it was dreadful. I would tell Anna I was too sore-headed to do it. But she wouldn’t likely listen for her teeth were making their tapping sound, her thinking sound.

  ‘The way this piece was parted from the rest of the body, it looks no different from the other violence done to the man. This could also be thought the work of the rocks sawing him into pieces. Mr Good would likely think so, had he stayed long enough to see this missing piece.’

  ‘But you don’t believe that,’ I said. I covered the gobbet with the shawl for I couldn’t bear to see the blind eyes of the devil.

  ‘Surely it’s too convenient that the sea should take the exact portion of flesh where an unusual tattoo should be. A tattoo that might help identify this man.’

  ‘But the sea gave it up to us.’ I turned to look at the water tumbling onto the little stones, onto the black knives. ‘It could be that the mermaids want to help, even though it might have been a mermaid that clawed it from him in the first place.’

  Anna laughed, as if I had made a joke, which of course I hadn’t. These were my thoughts on the case. This was the thrum in my head.

  ‘Captain Ians’ dream might have been what brought us here, Shilly, but we don’t have to give credence to it in its entirety. I think we can safely rule out the involvement of women of the deep. More useful would be—Well, would you look at that.’

  I looked. In the hut far above us, a figure.

  ‘Is it the parson?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure … But whoever it is, they’re watching us.’

  ‘I need to get away from here, Anna.’

  ‘I know. You’re cold. But if you will go wading into the sea.’

  I let her think that was what it was. I couldn’t have told her the real reason for I had no words for feeling like I would drown myself if we stayed any longer at the water’s edge.

  Anna did as I had hoped and wrapped the gobbet in the shawl, then lashed the strange burden to her back. We began the climb up the cliff path. It felt longer than the way down for my weariness was terrible, and my skirt heavy with the sea, which wouldn’t leave me. I’d be wet for ever. A drowned woman, walking.

  ‘Last bit,’ Anna said, and hauled me over a boulder.

  We were back at the hut. Anna opened the door. Empty, but the air was thick with smoke that made my nose prickle.

  Anna sniffed. ‘Latakia. The parson’s tobacco.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  We crossed the fields and came to the stile. The church was just beyond it. Anna said she would go inside, try to find the carving that Joseph Ians had used as likeness for his tattoo and see if it was the same as the face inked on the gobbet. She didn’t want to keep the gobbet any longer than she had to, and I didn’t wonder at that.

  ‘You should go back to the vicarage, Shilly. Get out of those wet clothes.’

  ‘You’re wet too.’

  ‘You look to be feeling it more than me.’ She cupped my cheek in her hand. ‘You’re very pale. Why not—’

  ‘I would stay with you. It won’t take as long, will it, if we look together.’ I opened the church door.

  It was bright inside, brighter than the grey day beyond and brighter than when we had come last to the church and found the parson gloomy there. I feared there was a service and we had disturbed it, so I stayed close to the door. But then I saw there was no one seated on the benches.

  ‘Did ’ee find ’em?’ a man’s voice called.

  ‘I …’ The gobbet? Had this man known what was down there, beneath the parson’s hut?

  He was at the far end, where the altar stood crowded with lamps. He was much smaller than the parson. Short, thin and with the makings of a stoop. Past sixty and not a hair on his head. He held a cloth. A pail was at his feet.

  He came towards us and seemed to see that we were not who he was expecting. ‘Forgive me! I thought you were Nancy coming back.’

  ‘It’s us who must ask forgiveness for disturbing your work,’ Anna said.

  We made our way to him, into the light. The straw beneath my feet was thicker than before, and I thought I might lie down in it, to warm myself, for a chill was on me. Had taken root.

  ‘Is it the parson you’re wanting? He’s back over the vicarage.’ The man dropped his cloth into the pail. ‘But today mightn’t be a good day for callers.’

  ‘I’m afraid we are already troubling the parson as we’re guests of the Hawkers,’ Anna said.

  ‘Ah – you’re the pair!’ The man’s face brightened. ‘My wife told me there was people staying.’

  ‘Then it’s Mr Seldon?’ I said.

  ‘Quite right, missus. If you’m wanting the church to yourselves I can leave this—’

  ‘Please, don’t stop on our account,’ Anna said. She gave him our names, Mr and Mrs Williams. ‘You’re making ready for the funeral tomorrow?’

  Mr Seldon took up his cloth again and began brushing dirt and dead flies and all manner of things from the altar. ‘Best I can, but I’ve the farm as well as being sexton, see. Nancy helps me when she can be spared from the vicarage. S
he’s about here somewhere now. I thought you was she when you came in. That’s why I asked if you’d found ’em, the flowers. She’d gone out to see if she could find some early ones for the service.’

  ‘Well, we have found something,’ Anna said. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  She took the shawl, still tied as a sling, from her back and laid it on the floor. The gobbet was resting so the tattoo was hidden.

  ‘Ah that’s as well,’ Mr Seldon said softly. ‘I hoped it might come in, his arm being like it is, with the … gap.’

  ‘I gather you aided your wife in preparing the body for burial?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I did, sir. Part of sexton’s work in the parish, given the numbers that wash in. This was a grim find for you both.’

  ‘But a fortunate one,’ Anna said, ‘with the burial tomorrow. There’s time to put the gobbet back with him. Make him whole as can be to meet his maker.’

  ‘Well, we can but try, though the rest of him is gone soupy since this morning. Almost as if he was holding on for the coroner and now he can let go. Ah, it’s a hard thing we must bear in Morwenstow, Mr Williams. The Lord tries us very hard, the parson most of all. Now, you leave that with me, and I’ll take it to the deadhouse on my way home.’

  ‘We’re not quite done with it yet,’ Anna said. At this, Mr Seldon’s eyes widened, so she added quickly, ‘But rest assured, our actions with the flesh will be most respectful. There is something we would ask you.’

  She bent beside the gobbet. With the handkerchief Mrs Seldon had given us that morning, Anna turned the gobbet over so that the tattoo was showing. My heart turned over with it, such was the shock of seeing the inked head again, with the beak and the sightless eyes.

  Mr Seldon gasped. ‘Why, it’s … it’s the face, from this very church!’

  ‘Can you show us?’ I said.

  ‘Certainly, it’s just down the aisle here. But I don’t understand. How could—Who …’

  He shook his questions away and grabbed a lamp, gave Anna another, and we set off towards the middle of the church, leaving the gobbet where we had laid it on the floor.