The Trawlerman

. . ?’
Alex looked at the woman, stationary in the police car, staring straight ahead, no regret on her face for what she’d just tried to do.
He lowered his voice so the brides could not hear. ‘Mandy Hogben. Tina used to be married to her son Frank Hogben. They married young, you know? Tina was eighteen years old. Frank’s dead. Died in a fishing accident. Nothing to do with her, but Mandy never believed that.’
‘What kind of accident?’
‘Fell overboard on a trawler out of Folkestone.’
‘Why does she blame Tina, then?’
‘Like I said, not right in the head. Not her fault. Just tough on Tina.’
At the other end of the table Tina was crying; her new wife was trying to make fun of her, wiping her tears with her veil.
‘Not a great thing to happen on your wedding day.’
‘You said it,’ said Curly.
‘So he just fell overboard?’
‘No life jacket. No harness. No chance at all.’
‘Why didn’t anybody save him?’
‘Nobody saw it happen. The other guy on the boat was asleep down below. Came back on deck, engine running, nobody on deck.’
Alex thought for a while. ‘So how can they be so sure he fell overboard, then?’
‘I thought you were off work.’
Alex had two more weeks of counselling ahead of her. She would soon be returning to work on what they called ‘light duties’. The phrase filled her with dread. ‘So?’ she demanded.
‘If you’re on board a trawler one minute, and the next you’re gone, that’s about the only explanation there is.’
She studied his face for a second. The sun never reached the bottom of Curly’s wrinkles, she noticed; little deltas of white skin beneath the reddy brown.
‘I used to go out on that boat sometimes,’ said Curly. ‘It was called The Hopeful.’
‘Some name. Did they go back and look for him?’
‘You have any idea what it’s like to lose a man at sea? Worst thing in the world that can happen. They called out the coastguard and everything. But there wasn’t much point. They were in the Channel. It was March. Unless you’ve got an immersion suit on, you’ve got ten, maybe twenty minutes in the water and then you’re gone.’
‘Find his body?’
‘No life jacket on. They never did.’
Alex looked round. The face of the woman in the car was like iron.
‘When was all this?’
‘Seven years ago.’
‘So his body never turned up in all that time?’
The sound of waves on shingle a long way off. ‘That’s right.’
Seven years dead; it takes seven years to make a declaration of presumed death. ‘That’s why they’re getting married. They never found the body, so Tina couldn’t marry again until now.’
Curly didn’t answer.
‘How long have they been lovers then?’
Curly turned his head and looked at her for a while. ‘You’ve got a bad mind, Alexandra Cupidi,’ he said eventually.
At that moment, as if she knew what they were talking about, the dead man’s mother turned her head to the left and stared at them, unflinching. In those eyes Alex recognised that dangerous kind of emptiness. She was beyond caring what anyone thought.
The younger bride, Stella, stood, picked up a bottle of wine and approached Alex with a glass. ‘I wanted to say thanks,’ she said. Her eyes were an extraordinary bright shade of blue. ‘You were cool. She could have hurt you.’
‘Not a great thing to happen on your wedding day.’
She handed Alex the glass and poured wine into it without asking if she wanted any. ‘Well, it’s a day we’re never going to forget, at least.’
‘Sorry about your guests.’
‘We wanted to get rid of them anyway. We’re on our honeymoon now.’
‘Here?’ Alex looked around. This wasn’t the sort of place people usually came on their honeymoons.
‘We’re staying over there.’ She pointed to a low, pale-blue bungalow, the far side of the new lighthouse. ‘A whole week. Mostly in bed,’ she added with a mischievous smile.
Over her shoulder, Tina sat alone at the end of the table, wedding dress already grubby at the hem. Stella had shrugged off the attack; Tina still looked shaken, her face pale and her eyes red. ‘I can’t wait,’ said Stella.
When Alex looked towards the pale-blue bungalow with white-framed windows, she saw also the flashing blue lights of an approaching police car.

Three
It was an unmarked vehicle, a green Skoda, blue lights flashing through the grille. It was coming to take Mandy Hogben into custody. Even at this distance, coming down the straight track, disappearing between houses and patches of scrub, Alex could see that there were two people inside. As it rounded the corner near the old lighthouse, slowing for a gaggle of tourists who loitered on the single-track road, Alex recognised one: the driver.
‘Here they come,’ said the CNC officer, sounding relieved to be about to have the woman off his hands.
The Skoda pulled up next to the CNC car, and a small, neat young woman got out. ‘That her?’ she said, looking at Mandy Hogben sitting alone radiating hatred.
No hello or anything. Which was odd, because Detective Constable Jill Ferriter was Alex’s colleague and her best friend. That corporeal sense of unease was back; a dream-like feeling that something was still very wrong. It wasn’t the woman in grey.
Something was still setting off bells in Alex’s head. She scanned the horizon looking for anything else that felt out of place that would explain this conviction.
‘This is Detective Sergeant Cupidi,’ the CNC officer was saying, suddenly eager to talk to this younger, so much prettier policewoman. ‘She’s the one who apprehended the alleged assailant. Perhaps you two know each other already?’
‘How come they’re sending you out to something like this, Jill?’
‘We were just down the road, doing . . . something.’ Jill’s voice was unsteady, her face pale.
‘Doing what?’
‘Some bad business,’ said Jill quietly.
At that point, Jill’s passenger, a uniformed officer, opened the passenger door, leaned out, and was sick onto the compacted shingle next to the car.
‘Is that Colin Gilchrist?’ asked Alex. She looked from one to the other. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Like I said, dead bad