Tidetown Read Free Page A

relationship with the daughter of the mayor. Their letters were short and carefully worded to avoid controversy and to sidestep the displeasure of the prison authorities.
    One note, which Angelica keeps under her pillow and which was written on handmade paper she had sent to the twins on the one-year anniversary of their conviction, makes her heart jump every time she reads it.
    We have come to believe, Angelica, by virtue of your name, that you are a special messenger who has been sent to us from on High. Yours in Fellowship, Perch and Carp Fishcutter .
    â€˜Call the one and only witness,’ demands Angelica (judge, narrator and voice of all). ‘Bring on the ghost of Mr Fishcutter, the so-called victim,’ she shouts to the invisible Clerk of the Court.
    From under her bed she drags the bedraggled toy skeleton, its bones hanging limply together by cotton threads, its bloodied head lopsided and wan across its chest. Angelica holds the sorry figure upright, lifting its skull to reveal eyeless sockets and a gaping mouth.
    â€˜Your witness, my honourable friend for the defence.’
    Justice Cruela leans back and begins her questioning.
    â€˜Is it true that your actions, your sins, your guilt before God, and all that is right and wholesome and just, led you to beg your devoted daughters to free you from this mortal coil?’
    â€˜Objection,’ shouts Prosecutor Harmony, ‘a leading question.’
    â€˜Overruled,’ proclaims Judge Angelica.
    â€˜From that land from whence no traveller returns? True or false?’
    â€˜I did, it was I,’ from the gaping mouth of Skeleton Fishcutter.
    â€˜Objection,’ pleads Prosecutor Harmony.
    â€˜Objection overruled,’ commands Judge Angelica, picking up Prosecutor Harmony by the neck and plunging her head into a nearby flame, singeing and scorching her frizzy hair. ‘Be quiet or be damned.’
    â€˜And so, they are innocent, your daughters, the benign, benevolent, dutiful daughters, Perch and Carp Fishcutter. The murder of which they are charged, patricide as some learned folk would say, was at your request, at your cajoling?’
    Prosecutor Harmony remains silent, head bowed, hair smouldering and severely shortened.
    Skeleton Fishcutter rattles his bones, gapes wider his toothy jaws, then falls to his knees.
    â€˜Oh, damned am I among fathers,’ he sobs his tearless sob. ‘No, do not call me father, do not call me man, for I am not worthy of such noble appellations. Call me ghoul, call me spectre. Kill me over again, daughters dear. And then forgive what I have done.’
    Judge Angelica blows across the candles to set the flames a-dancing, casting wild shadows against the billowing curtains.
    â€˜Let us be clear, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I will ask the witness one last question.’
    â€˜Object …’ murmurs Prosecutor Harmony, before thinking better of it after receiving Judge Angelica’s pincer gesture suggesting eye gouging.
    â€˜Bloodied Skeleton,’ continues Justice Cruela, ‘ghost of the ethereal remains of one Mr Fishcutter, formally of the parish of St Anthony of Tidetown, who do you say was responsible for your murder?’
    â€˜It was I,’ says the hollow bony mouth, to the gasps of the courtroom gallery, ‘by trickery and demonism, beguiling and bewitching my own pure and innocent daughters. Wrench the skull from my wretched neck, scrape my bones of their sheaths, suck out the marrow and feed me to swine, but free my darling children from this loathsome charge.’
    Skeleton Fishcutter clatters and falls to the ground in a crumpled heap of ribs and thighs, remorse and self-loathing.
    â€˜Jury, what is your judgement?’
    â€˜Not guilty,’ says the tortoise, his head popping from his shell at the opportune moment.
    â€˜Clear the court, free the prisoners. To my chambers to celebrate,’ exclaims Angelica, as she swoops up the twins, leaps onto