The Trawlerman

Zoë just replied that she didn’t need money and nobody actually wanted young people any more. Alex had given up arguing.
‘How could they let you get in that state?’
‘She’s fine,’ said Bill. ‘She enjoyed herself.’ He went back to sticking plasters on her fingers.
Zoë looked at her wounds with pride. ‘Eight hours with a scythe and shovel. Some of your lot were there too.’
‘My lot?’
‘Police. Asking if we’d seen anyone suspicious.’
South put a tin mug of tea down in front of her without asking.
‘You were community copper round here when Frank Hogben went missing, weren’t you, Bill?’
He picked up the scissors and cut another inch from the roll of plaster. ‘I was. Why you asking?’
Zoë clenched and unclenched her fingers, feeling the plasters on the skin, watching them both closely while trying to pretend she wasn’t listening.
Alex narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve got a question for you. You think there was something off about the death of Frank Hogben?’
South placed the small pair of scissors he’d been using onto the roll of plaster and eventually said, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be off duty right now?’
‘That’s what they keep telling me.’
South sniffed. ‘Maybe you should take their advice.’
Alex frowned. South was being even more obtuse than usual. ‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll only ask Jill.’
‘Before her time,’ said South, standing. ‘She won’t know anything about it.’ He crossed the room and put the plaster in a small white wooden cupboard with a red cross on the door.
‘Off duty or not, I arrested Frank Hogben’s mother yesterday. She had a knife. She was accusing her former daughter-in-law of killing her son.’
‘She’s not well.’
‘You know all this?’
‘Yes. Mandy Hogben has been ill for years.’
Alex looked at him. He was avoiding her eye. ‘Do you think that’s even possible? What Mandy Hogben was saying?’
‘Tina and Stella?’ interrupted Zoë. ‘The two women who got married yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘I like them. Stella has a vintage clothes shop in Folkestone. She says she’ll give me a discount.’
‘Since when were you interested in clothes?’ asked her mother.
‘Course I am.’ Zoë held up her hands like they were some kind of prize.
‘Did you know Frank Hogben too?’ asked Alex.
‘And his father, Max. Everybody knew them. Max was one of the men who use fists first, then, if you’re lucky, talk later. Everyone was afraid of him, including Frank. I saw him walloping his son with my own eyes down on The Stade over some petty family squabble.’
‘He still alive?’
‘Max Hogben killed himself driving without a seatbelt, stupid arse. He had this car, a Ford Escort RS 1600-i. Supercharged thing. There were only a couple of thousand in this country. They were racing cars, really. His was “sunburst red”, they called it. You could see it coming miles away. It was his pride and joy. Another car just overshot the lights at Cheriton Road and went into the side of him. It was just a simple accident. The other car was only going, like, twenty miles an hour, they reckoned. The driver got out to apologise and Max Hogben was dead. Nothing suspicious about it. He’d hit his head on the B-pillar, internal cranial haemorrhage and that was it. Bad luck and not wearing a seatbelt.’
‘You were there?’
‘Ten minutes after it happened. Never liked Max, or the way he treated his boy.’
He went quiet for a minute, then said, ‘Funny thing. Frank Hogben kept the car. The chassis was fine, it wasn’t much of a bang, so he did it up, got it back on the road and used to drive it around, just like his father had.’
‘The car his father was killed in?’
‘Yep. Same seat and everything. Driving it up and down, one arm hanging out of the window. That’s pretty strange, don’t you think?’
‘Pretty strange.’
Zoë interrupted the moment by asking, abruptly, ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘What?’
‘You heard. Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘No, I do not,’ said Alex. ‘I believe in what I can see with my own eyes.’
‘I know you don’t,’ her daughter said. ‘You don’t believe in anything if it’s a bit too weird for you. I was asking Bill.’
Bill shook his head. ‘Same as your mother. Never seen one. No reason to believe in them.’
‘What brought this on?’ asked her mother.
‘You know Kenny Abel?’ she asked South.
‘Course,’ he said.
Alex recognised the name. Kenny Abel was one of the men who worked for the Kent Wildlife Trust; he ran the group of volunteers Zoë had been working with.
‘Anyway. Wednesday night after work he was in the pub. When he came out, he reckoned he saw the spirits of the murdered people flying up into the air. He didn’t know what it was at the time. Only when he saw it on the news on Thursday . . .’
‘Kenny Abel said that?’
‘Today. Yeah.’
South said, ‘The clue might be that he was coming out of the pub.’
Zoë chewed on the inside of her cheek for a while, then looked away, out of the window. ‘I think it’s really sad that as you grow old, you get more cynical. You lose the ability to believe in anything.’
‘You’re in a funny mood tonight,’ said Alex.
‘Not really. I mean. What if you could see souls? Only, what if not everyone could see them?’
‘He was probably drunk, like Bill said. Things like that don’t really happen.’
‘You wake in the night and talk to dead people. Who are you to say what’s normal or not?’
‘Does she?’ asked South.
‘Zoë!’ scolded Alex. ‘No I don’t.’
‘Yes you do,’ muttered Zoë.
Alex looked at South. ‘Sometimes I have nightmares. It’s part of the PTSD.’
Bill turned to Zoë. ‘It must be scary for you.’
The teenage girl cocked her head to one side. ‘It’s not every night.’
‘You know, if you ever need anything . . .’ South said. He stood and looked out of the north window, towards the lighthouses. ‘Anything at all.’
Somewhere outside a motorbike roared down the Dungeness Road breaking the stillness. The new concrete lighthouse stood illuminated, a black and white rocket against the black sky. The summer air was moist. Every