“Security?”

Donald grinned. “I’ve got insurance.”

“You sly old bugger.” Harry sighed. “What you going to do instead?”

“I’m going to open a pub,” said Donald, and Harry gave a great snore of laughter.

“But of course you are. What else could you possibly do? Every copper’s dream. A pub, he tells me.”

“I’ll be leaving next week,” said Donald.

Harry stopped laughing. “Next week. You are taking the piss.”

“Give my jobs to Ricky. He’ll be like a dog with two dicks.”

“Three days. I give you nearly twenty years and you give me three bloody days. Look, I know it was tough with Ellen, it makes you re-evaluate, but… ”

“You see,” said Donald desperately, “If I hadn’t let him go, I would have killed him.” A pause. “I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him more than you can possibly imagine. I still do. It doesn’t have to be him. Just anyone who gets in my way will do me fine. And I don’t think that’s going to go away. If you keep me on, Harry, I’m going to start a war for you.”

Harry rested his chin on his hands and looked at him for a long time.

“What about Mum?” asked Alicia. A new question. His heart stuttered.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re leaving her behind. At the – at the graveyard.”

“Oh, darling.” He reached clumsily back between the seats and grabbed her hand hard. “Oh, sweetheart. Darling. That – what we’re leaving – that’s not Mum. Okay? Wherever she is, I promise, she’s not there. If she’s anywhere, she’s here with us.” He managed a watery smile. “Telling me to keep both hands on the steering wheel and watch the road.”

“So she’s coming with us? Sort of, I mean?”

“She’s coming with us,” Donald agreed, and squeezed her fingers between his.

A cool female voice was reading the headlines. Out of a background hum of talks aimed at restoring and meeting in Frankfurt to discuss and proposed privatisation will now go before the, a name he recognised. Drive-by shooting. Possible revenge attack. Officers have vowed to leave no stone unturned. Sleep peacefully, Ricky. You were a prick and you wanted my job, but you didn’t deserve that.

“Dad, when we next stop, can I come and sit in the front with you?”

“That sounds like a plan to me,” he said, and turned off the radio.

The daughters of mermaids

Sometimes, when a sailor or a fisherman has been out at sea for too many cold lonely salty days, he might glimpse a shoal of mermaids playing in the waves.

He sees their human parts first – long coarse spirally hair, stiff with salt and adorned with shells and seaweed, and their fierce faces, slim bare arms and backs that are strong enough to drag a boat and everyone aboard it down beneath the waves. Then one of them will turn over in the water, and he’ll see the sharp flash of sunlight on their silvery scales.