The Trawlerman

more than people. Alex looked at the small bowl of green mush her daughter had made. ‘I could cook something.’
‘No worries,’ said Zoë, picking up the bowl and walking towards the staircase.
‘Is that all you’re having?’ she called up after her. Zoë didn’t answer; just closed the door to her bedroom behind her.
She had not been a good mother; she knew that. It was a warm evening still; she stepped outside into it. The air was rich with bugs, swallows swooping after them. Her house had been built inside a low shingle rampart that had once been part of a Napoleonic-era gun battery; to the north, smoke was rising. Beyond the hummock of stones, someone was starting a bonfire somewhere on the shingle.
At ten she called Jill on her mobile. ‘Are you home?’
‘Just. The longest bloody day.’
‘Why?’
Jill didn’t answer.
‘You were at New Romney, weren’t you? That’s where you came from. That house where the people were killed.’
‘I don’t think I should be talking to you about any of this,’ said Jill.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the whole point is you’re supposed to be forgetting about all this shit.’
‘What happened?’
‘You’re insane, you know that?’
‘That’s why I’m off work.’
‘You really don’t want to know. Just it was . . . super bad. Super fucking bad.’
‘Maybe it’s you that needs therapy, not me.’
‘The stuff you see, Alex. Nobody should have to see it. Poor old Colin. That was the third time he chucked up.’
Somewhere someone was playing a guitar; it was hard to tell if the music came from nearby or far away. Sound travelled easily across this flat land. They could hear the noise of the drinkers gathered outside the Britannia.
‘And as for you, even when you’re supposed to be off work, you’re arresting people,’ said Jill. ‘What was all that about?’
‘I don’t know. I looked up and there was this woman. I knew she was going to do something. I just knew something bad was going to happen, and then she pulled out a knife. The weirdest bloody thing.’
‘Like a premonition?’
‘Yeah. Like a premonition. And then when I saw you, I knew something else had gone on. Another premonition. Except I don’t believe in premonitions,’ said Alex.
‘How can you actually say that? You just had one.’
‘I believe in the rational world.’
‘I believe in vibrations that only sensitive people can feel,’ Jill said. ‘Like yogis and enlightened people.’
‘I’ve never been accused of being sensitive.’
Jill said nothing for a while. Finally she spoke. ‘How can you actually believe in a rational world anyway? What we saw today . . .’
Above Alex, stars struggled to shine, competing with the orange glare of the nuclear power station.
‘. . . nothing rational about it,’ Jill said.
That night another terrible thing happened. As she lay on her bed, the ceiling fell on her. She woke with weight of debris pressed so hard on her chest that she could not breathe.
The attic must have been full of earth; she could feel its thick wetness crushing her, paralysing her. The smell of it was all around her, dank and rotting, full of unseen creatures. She needed to get up and find her daughter and make sure she was OK, but she was trapped, unable to move any limb.
And then a cool hand rested on her forehead. ‘Ssh,’ said a quiet voice. ‘It’s OK now. I’m here.’
By the time she woke, Zoë was already gone. It was late; she had the feeling that she had slept badly but she couldn’t remember the dreams she had had.
There was a message written on the envelope of an electricity bill:
Don’t forget counsellor @ 11. Z. x
It was a hot Friday morning. Her counsellor had told her that exercise was good, so she was using her bike whenever she could. On the bike on the way to his office, Alex passed the two brides walking hand in hand along the road towards her and gave them a wave, but they were too deep in conversation to notice her. Normally from here she would cycle up the narrower lanes that ran inland among the marshes; today though she rode up the coast road, air cooling the sweat off her.
The other thing that was good about cycling was that it was hard to think too much when you were on a bike. You had to concentrate on the journey, especially on this coast road where lorries were impatient to pass you even on the blindest corners.
— How do I feel today? I’m bored and frustrated. I want to be back at work.
— Do you think you’re ready?
— Honestly? No.
— Why not?
— This is going to sound strange.
— Try me.
— It’s weird.
— Go on.
— You see . . . I keep feeling I can predict the future.
— What do you mean?
— I had a premonition. Premonitions, really. And they turned out to be true.
— Like a superpower?
— Sometimes I have a terrible feeling that something is going to happen, and then it does. Does that sound nuts?
— In my line of work, I’m not really supposed to use the word ‘nuts’.
— But to me it feels nuts because it calls into question everything I thought I was. I am a rational person. I don’t believe in God or higher powers. I’m someone who believes things happen in a causal sequence. My job as a police officer in a crime unit is to understand that sequence. That’s what we do. I understand the order in which things have happened. I don’t judge it. I just need to figure it out. What causes what to happen. But now I seem to have this terrible feeling that bad things are about to happen and then they do. That’s like . . . things have happened in the wrong order. Or even that I caused them to happen because I knew they were going to. If somebody told me what I’ve just said, I would assume they were having psychotic episodes.
— But you don’t think you are?
— Would you know if you were having a psychotic episode? Isn’t that the whole point? Yesterday I was absolutely sure something really bloody terrible was going to happen.