The Case of the Fickle Mermaid (19 page)

“Be that as it may, you reached some bargain, did you not?”

“Why should I tell you my business? What right have you to come poking your red shiny nose into my affairs?”

Gretel took a breath. It was not, at that moment, anything like an even match. Had she been at her best, elegantly turned
out, properly coiffed and fashionably dressed, things might have been different. As it was, she had no hope. In front of her, glowing with anger but still radiantly beautiful, sat the mermaid, slender, sparkling, and lovely. She herself was salt-scrubbed, sunburnt, mad-haired, and even more madly clothed. If the mermaid was going to start bandying about insults, Gretel was bound to lose that contest. She rose above the slur.

“I was called to the
Arabella
by her captain, who fears for his men and his livelihood. I am a detective, and the task I have undertaken is to help him. You, fraulein, wittingly or not, are the cause of much of his woe. That said, there is another who wishes disaster and ruin upon him, and that man is the very same who pays you to sing. What has he given you, and what is his name? Or would you like me to tell you precisely what a man looks like when he has been dead three days with his throat slit? I warn you, I shall spare no detail,” she insisted. She well knew that she had implied that the mermaid's singing had been somehow responsible for a person meeting such an unpleasant end. She also knew that this was unlikely to be the case. She further knew that the notion of such culpability, coupled with the threat of a graphic description of the gruesomeness of such a death, might be sufficient to shock the mermaid into cooperation. In this, as in so many things, Gretel's instinct proved to be correct.

“I don't know his name!” she insisted, her expression now a mixture of sulkiness and alarm. “He never gave it to me.”

“What did he look like?”

“He came only at night and wore his hat low. He never plainly revealed his face to me.”

“And what bargain did you strike with this shadowy figure?”

“He asked me to sing, out on the promontory, on certain nights.”

“He gave you dates and times?”

“He did.”

“And were you always to sing here, on this island?”

“Not always. Sometimes I was to sit on another. I can swim quite a way with no difficulty at all, you know,” she said, running a hand down her powerful tail.

“And did he tell you why he wanted you to sing?”

“He was reluctant, at first. But I persuaded him, eventually. I have my little ways,” she explained with a coy smile.

“I can well believe that. So, what was his purpose?”

“He wanted rid of the cruise ships.”

“You mean Captain Ziegler's cruise ship?”

The mermaid shrugged.

“He did not specify the
Arabella
, you are certain of that?”

“He just said cruise ships. He gave me no names. He said he wanted me to sing to frighten the sailors and scare them away. I asked him why, but he was very stubborn on that point. He simply would not tell me more.”

“And what did you gain from this arrangement?”

“Oh, he paid me handsomely.”

“Did he indeed?”

“I am not a silly creature. People often think that of us, too. Dangerous and silly. It is horrid to be considered so, and really not true at all. I wouldn't do what he wanted for pennies. I'll show you,” she said, and in one startlingly swift movement she flung herself back into the pool and disappeared into its depths.

Gretel could do nothing but wait. She stared at the point where the creature had vanished for what felt like an unreasonably long time.

At last the mermaid broke through the surface, sending a shower of water over Gretel as she leapt out to sit once more on the crystal rocks, this time closer to her interlocutor.

“Here, see?” She held up a leather pouch, which she untied, tipping the contents out onto the cave floor beside her. Gold coins gleamed in the eerie light. Many of them.

“That's a fair amount of money, fraulein. You certainly know how to obtain your due. But tell me, what will you do with it?” She gestured at their surroundings. “You surely have everything here you could want or need.”

“Oh, this place.” The mermaid shook her head. “It is all very well now, in the summer months. It is pleasant enough
now
. But come winter . . . I cannot properly tell you how cold this cave becomes. Nor how bitter the winds that chase across this island. Nor how frigid and dark the sea.” This time the tears that filled the mermaid's eyes betrayed a genuine suffering.

“I think I can imagine,” Gretel told her, thinking of the bleakness of Amrum, the ferocity of the changeable weather in the vicinity, and the vast emptiness of the sea.

“Well, I've had enough of it,” the mermaid told her. “I want to go somewhere
warm
. Somewhere where the sky is blue more often than it is gray. Where the winter nights are not so very long. I want to live in a place where I can dry my hair in the sunshine and feel the sun warm my body. And when I get a little too hot I can slip into the warm sea. A sea that is filled with light and color. Even I cannot swim such a distance but would require a vessel to take me where I wish to go. That is what I want, Fraulein Gretel. That is why I agreed to sing.”

“You are saving for your passage, I see. It would take a fair amount to travel to such a place, but I deduce, judging by your current wealth, and given that you surely intend singing some more, you will soon have sufficient for your ticket. What may be harder to find is a captain willing to let you aboard his ship.”

The mermaid looked perplexed. “But my money is as good as anyone else's.”

“That is as may be, but you must understand that the talent that has earned you your riches may also be the thing that prevents you from getting what you desire.”

“I don't see how. I can promise not to sing.”

“But how are you to be trusted? Word is spreading fast in these parts that there is a mermaid, a singing one at that. The more people hear of disappearing sailors and mysterious deaths, the less likely any one of them is to let you on their vessel. How could they take the risk? In truth, you need not sing so much as a single note; your presence alone could be enough to send half the crew overboard.”

“But that is ridiculous,” the mermaid replied, her face showing the extent of her growing consternation. “I am a harmless creature. They surely would not give way to such superstitious fears.”

Gretel sighed, the sound floating mournfully around and around the interior of the cave. However much the mermaid denied accusations of being dangerous and silly, it was hard to defend her against either charge. Her plan had been quickly formed and poorly thought through. When the mysterious visitor had offered her money to sing, she had seen a way of obtaining her greatest wish, but she had not applied logic and sound thinking to her plan. She would most likely end up with a pile of gold that was useless to her and be forced to remain forever precisely where she was. The mermaid's plight struck Gretel as quite pitiful. It was also quite open to manipulation.

“How would it be, fraulein,” Gretel asked her gently, “if I were to find you a captain who would be willing to take your gold and convey you swiftly and safely to the more tropical climes you seek?”

“How do I know you won't trick me? How do I know you know such a person?” The mermaid stuck out her bottom lip. She was struggling to be brave, for it trembled noticeably.

“I will bring him here to meet you. You may talk with him yourself. I will bear witness to any agreement forged between you.”

There was a pause while the mermaid considered this suggestion, evidently searching it for hidden traps.

“Why would you do this for me?” she asked Gretel.

“As I believe I mentioned earlier, I am here as part of my duty as a detective. I have a case to solve, and solve it I shall, and removing you from these waters would go a very long way to achieving that end.”

“Very well. Bring this captain of yours. But be quick. I am due to be called upon by my benefactor very soon. If he arrives before you do, I will consider you having failed me. I will take his money and take my chances with it. If this cooperative captain of yours does not come to me, in person, in good faith, I must make as much money as I can. The only course left to me will be to raise sufficient gold to soothe the fears you speak of. Even though that might take me a great deal of time. And who knows how many silly sailors will disappear because of it. I will never give up, do you hear me? One way or the other, I will have what it is I want.”

“In that case, fraulein, I will take my leave. I must return to the
Arabella
as quickly as possible. All I ask at this point is that you refrain from singing tonight. I wish to attract a vessel of some sort to the island so that I might be taken off it. If you are endeavoring to frighten them from it at the very same moment, I may not succeed.”

The mermaid flicked her hair over her shoulder and slid onto her mossy bed, where she reclined decoratively. “I don't much feel like singing this evening, anyhow,” she said.

“I will bid you good night, then,” said Gretel. As she reached the entrance to the cave, she heard the mermaid call after her.

“Two nights and two days, fraulein. Return swiftly, for I will wait no longer.”

THIRTEEN

B
y the time Gretel reached the beach and the lifeboat, dusk was descending. Hans was nowhere to be seen, but his footprints were clearly visible in the sand. Muttering curses, Gretel trudged in his wake. On her journey back from the mermaid's home, she had paused at the freshwater stream to drink, but had had nothing to eat since the previous day and her energy levels were lower than low. The last thing she needed was to have to hunt for her brother. She made her way along the shoreline. As she rounded a curve, the sand banked steeply inland, and the dunes were replaced by more rock, rising to cliffs. These were similar to those she had encountered in the other direction, but lower. She kept doggedly to Hans's footsteps
and soon saw his familiar form, recumbent upon the sand, the mer-hund dozing beside him. She reached them somewhat out of both breath and patience.

“Hans! This is no time for sleeping,” she snapped.

“Not asleep,” he insisted without moving. “Merely resting my eyes.” He had fashioned a hat out of his kerchief, which sat knotted upon his head in a ludicrous style.

“You were supposed to be collecting wood for a fire,” she reminded him.

He waved a pudgy paw to his right. “Done,” he told her.

Gretel ground her teeth. “Three planks, a rotten bough, and a clump of seaweed do not a woodpile make.”

“That's all there is. Unfavorable tides, one must suppose. Or winds. Or currents. Or some such. I gleaned every splinter available, I promise you. There is no more to be had.”

Gretel detected a slur in his words. She leaned over her brother and sniffed. “You've been drinking! Do not tell me that all these tortuous hours, you have been in possession of a hip flask.”

“I have not.” With some effort, he sat up, and as he did so he lifted a bottle to show her. “I found this. While I was looking for the wood. Over there, in a tiny little cave.”

She snatched it from him and took a swig. “Brandy!”

“Rather a good one, too. There's loads of it, all carefully packed in wooden crates. Doesn't look like flotsam or jetsam to me, have to say.”

Gretel drank a little more. Her stomach knotted at the unexpected arrival of alcohol when it had been anticipating food. Nausea swept through her briefly before being replaced by a pleasant fuzzy warmth. She savored the dark flavors. The familiar dark flavors, for this was not, she realized, the first time this particular brandy had passed her lips.

“Hard to come by,” Hans noted, “that sort of quality. French, I'd say. Variety of booze that import tax usually makes
maddeningly expensive. Somebody must have come all the way out here and put the stuff in that cave,” he went on, shaking his head. “I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.”

“Oh, but I can, Hans,” she said. “I can.”

An hour later, with darkness proper having fallen upon the little island, Hans took his cigar lighter from his pocket and put a flame to the pyre they had built. It was not high, it was not broad, nor did it consist of anything much in the way of good wood. It did, however, contain quantities of liquor, so that it caught with an eyebrow-singeing
woomph
. Gretel pulled her brother back to a safe distance, where he stood and watched the impressively tall flames while she watched the horizon. For what seemed like an age, there was nothing, save for the expanse of dark water and the sound of the ebbing tide lapping at the shore. Which was all but drowned out by the roar of the fire. Every time the blaze dwindled, Hans emptied another bottle of brandy onto it. On each occasion there was an exciting flaring, greeted by a childish cheer from Hans and a whimper from the mer-hund, followed by a rekindled inferno, which gave off rather enjoyable fumes.