Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

The wind groaned as if in agreement, and it heralded the arrival of Mr. Cotterham and his son. We shook hands and exchanged names (Penny and Alastair; young Ralph I’d already heard about) and Penny invited me to dine with them. We all mucked in together, peeling vegetables, uncorking wine, setting the table and, before long, we were tucking into excellent pork chops and trading tales as if we had been known to each other for months as opposed to minutes.

By pudding (pears poached in red wine, delicious) I had learned Alastair (a tousle-haired, portly gentleman with a somewhat out-of-fashion moustache—he reminded me of the playwright Colin Welland) was a technical writer who specialised in the history of British military jets since World War II. He already had three books under his belt regarding decommissioned fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. I liked the self-deprecatory way in which he brushed off his achievements as so many dry accounts, and liked even more Penny’s leaping to his defence.

Penny was visibly older than Alastair, but she was slim and healthy-looking, so it came as no surprise to find out she was a yoga teacher. Ralph was polite enough, I suppose, but a victim to that dislocated air that afflicts many children on the cusp of teen-hood. I’m sure he’d rather have been anywhere else than that table with its collection of ageing adults talking about their obsessive, exclusive little interests.

Sure enough, when we’d put down our spoons, he asked to be excused and that was the last I saw of him that night.

We adjourned to the sitting room.

“Comics and Nintendo,” his father said, dismissively, as we sat down.

“At least he’s reading,” I reasoned. “Comics didn’t do too badly for me when I was a lad.”

“That was then,” he said. “Your comics were filled with text. His comics are just excuses for a slew of jokes about burps, farts and bogeys.”

“There are worse things to pore over.”

“Oh, he does, believe me. Do you know a boy who isn’t fascinated by blood and death?”

“Ah,” I said. “But, there’s something you can exercise control over at least, no?”

Penny sniffed at that. “We can stop him from playing violent games, or watching video nasties, or whatever they’re called nowadays—”

“Barbaric Blu-Rays!” Alastair interjected.

“—but,” continued Penny, “we can’t, I won’t, censor the news. Even now.” She poured out the last of the wine.

I stared at her blankly. I hadn’t seen a front page or a news bulletin since Clarissa’s death. “What’s happened?”

“The Fisherman,” said Alastair, ominously.

I drained my glass. “The fisherman? What’s this, a quota story? I don’t see how that could possibly—”

“The Fisherman is a killer. He’s been preying on women for the past month. Always women. Always on or near beaches. Never inland. Their bodies are often found dumped in beds of seaweed.” Here Alastair lowered his voice and craned his neck as if he could ascertain whether Ralph was properly out of earshot. “And always, their wombs have been removed.”

“How ghastly,” I cried, and wished there was some of the wine left so I could rinse away the terrible, claggy feeling of dread at the back of my throat.

“Yes,” Penny said. She seemed a little pale, although that might have been down to the bleaching effect of the nearby lamp. “What’s worse is that these murders have not just been confined to one area.”

I spluttered some disbelieving grunt in response, but Alastair was nodding.

“It’s true,” he said. “The first body was discovered in Morecambe Bay. Two days later there was a body, same modus operandi, washed up on the beach in Oban, and then, where was the next one, Pen?”

“They’ve found them all over. Scarborough, Southwold, Newquay… the last one was in Portsmouth. Yesterday.”

The conversation had knocked the stuffing out of me. Silence seemed to have been enforced by the gravity of the story. Their wombs? What could they possibly—I sighed. I was a seventy-four-year-old man trying to understand the machinations of a world I’d outgrown. It was beyond me. And a part of me was glad.

The weather had died down a little and I didn’t want to go to bed with a thick head, so I bid them a good night and, availing myself of one of the torches by the front door, stepped out into the courtyard. Samphire and mesembryanthemum were growing wildly on the rocks across from the stairwell. I gently ran my hands over the foliage while my attention was drawn to the black cauldron of the sea, faintly visible beneath the ice-white frosting of light edging the clouds.