Something in the Water (12 page)

‘And by infant I mean it may not be fully grown.’ Toshiko indicated the series of computer analysis screens by her workstation. ‘Look at these molecular spectroscopy readings. The concentration levels are incredible. It’s like there’s so much energy contained within each cell, just waiting for a release.’

‘Any chance of that happening now?’ asked Jack warily.

‘No. It’s dead, not dormant.’

‘Good job I shot it, then,’ said Owen.

Jack paced around the workstation thoughtfully. ‘So we have a dead body acting as an incubator for this thing, lying at the bottom of a peat bog for over forty years until Tosh found it.’

‘Lucky old me,’ said Toshiko.

Gwen approached the huddle with a sheaf of paperwork in her hand. ‘I’ve done some research on water hags,’ she announced. ‘I did try phoning Professor Len, but he’s not picking up.’

Toshiko smiled. ‘Pity. I liked him.’

‘Well, he did save your life.’

‘That always does it for me.’

Owen looked up. ‘So you typed “water hag” into Google and pressed enter. I don’t know … With all your police training and dedication to duty I’d have expected more. Whatever happened to the plod’s meticulous fact-finding and slow-but-sure attitude? I think you could have gone that extra mile and tried Wikipedia.’

‘You’re so funny, Owen,’ Gwen said without a trace of a smile. She held up the hard copy for Jack and Toshiko to see. ‘Thought I’d print it off rather than send it across.’

‘Surprised you didn’t write it all down in your little notebook,’ muttered Owen.

Gwen ignored him. ‘Water hags are basically lumps of marsh weed that look vaguely like an old woman lurking underwater,’ she said. ‘That’s the fact side of things, anyway. They were commonly sighted in medieval times in areas of marshland all over the country, but they sort of went out of superstition fashion a long time ago. There are some references in literature and folklore down through the ages, though, and famously there was a giant water hag in
Beowulf
. She was Grendel’s mother, and she used to live under a black lake and drag people down to their deaths with hooked talons.’

‘I think I went out with her once,’ said Owen.

‘Which is probably why Beowulf killed her with his magic sword,’ Gwen said. ‘Put the poor woman out of her misery.’

‘Ho, ho, ho.’

‘There was another well-known water hag in Cheshire called Jenny Greenteeth,’ Gwen continued. ‘She used to lurk in ditches and drag unwary travellers down to her underwater den.’

‘Jenny Greenteeth?’ repeated Owen. ‘Yep, definitely went out with her.’

‘Professor Len said that some of these water spirits could disguise themselves as normal women,’ Toshiko said.

‘There you are then.’

‘The point is,’ said Gwen, ‘it’s all the same kind of location and the same modus operandi.’

‘So Professor Len was right after all,’ said Toshiko.

‘You reckon our dead friend back there was an unwary traveller?’ wondered Jack, jabbing a thumb towards the Autopsy Room. ‘Walking across the Greendown Moss one night forty years back, and dragged down by one of these old witches?’

‘Sally Blackteeth, to be precise,’ said Toshiko. ‘That’s the name of the water hag Professor Len told us about.’

‘And there’s something else which may be relevant,’ said Gwen. ‘These witches or water hags couldn’t have children. They dragged men down into the swamp but it never worked out. So they used to make their own children out of dried snot and mud.’

‘The homunculus,’ said Toshiko quietly.

There was silence for a moment before Owen said, ‘But if these water hag things went off the superstition radar like you say, what’s brought them back again now?’

‘Well, in the absence of Professor Len, I did go that extra mile,’ Gwen smiled sweetly, ‘and came up with this.’ She placed a sheet of paper on Toshiko’s desk. ‘Several more water hag sightings in modern times. They’re not as old-fashioned as you think.’

Jack picked up the hard copy and scanned it. ‘Nine sightings in the last year alone. Why didn’t we spot this sooner?’

‘We’re on the lookout for all sorts of things,’ Toshiko argued. ‘We can’t follow up every single paranormal sighting or report.’

‘But look at the locations,’ said Jack, snapping his fingers against the paper. ‘Six of these were within a five-mile radius of here.’

They all knew what he meant by that – the chromium tower rising through the centre of the Hub, trickling with water, the base practically covered in moss and algae.

‘The Rift,’ nodded Toshiko, moving around so that she could check the report herself. ‘We know these things have a special connection with space-time – and I’ve correlated chronon discharges with nearly all of these areas. If I made a closer comparison, I bet they’d be exact matches.’

‘Get on it – double-check. We need to know for sure.’ Jack tossed the papers towards Gwen and Owen, adding, ‘Look – there was even one sighted in the local canal! Right under our noses.’

‘Anywhere there are stagnant ponds or marshy areas,’ Gwen said, studying the map. ‘Even in city areas.’

There was a polite cough from behind them. When they looked around, they saw Ianto standing a little off to the side. ‘I can only think it appropriate at this point to remind you about Saskia Harden,’ he said.

‘Who?’ Jack frowned.

Owen straightened up, saying, ‘The girl I went to Trynsel to investigate …?’

‘The serial suicide?’

Ianto nodded. ‘That’s right. If you recall, she had been found by the police floating in water, on a number of occasions. In a canal, in a pond, in a disused swimming pool …’

‘Stagnant water,’ said Toshiko. ‘Or as near as she could find.’

‘Could she be a water hag?’ wondered Gwen.

‘Let’s ask her,’ said Jack. He turned to Owen, only to find him already heading for the exit.

FOURTEEN

Owen drove straight to Bob Strong’s house. He felt vaguely guilty for not having taken Ianto’s original request seriously enough, but Strong’s illness had seemed more important at the time and Owen had forgotten all about Saskia Harden.

He was reminded of just how bad Bob Strong was as soon as the door opened. His skin was grey-green and his eyes, beneath the heavy, swollen lids, were veined with blood.

Strong stood in the doorway for a moment, focusing. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said gruffly. He coughed and then stood back. ‘You’d better come in. Hope you’ve got some good news.’

As he spoke, he started coughing again and his knees buckled. Instinctively, Owen caught him, took his weight and helped him back inside the house.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ Strong assured him, leaning on the furniture for support but making sure he took the shortest route back to the sofa. The room was a mess, full of half-drunk cups of coffee, medicine bottles, crumpled tissues and a terrible smell.

Owen sniffed cautiously. He knew what the smell was – sickness, illness. And something else. It took him a moment to work it out: rotten cabbages. Maybe something in the kitchen was going off.

Strong’s cough sounded ragged and guttural, and Owen heard him moan as the pain ripped through his chest.

‘Sit down,’ Owen said. ‘I’ll get you something.’

‘Feel … like … hell …’ groaned Strong, lowering himself into the cushions of the settee.

‘What have you taken?’

Strong’s eyes were closing, as if he was too weak to reply.

‘What have you taken?’ Owen repeated, quickly sorting through the bottles of painkillers and decongestants spread across the floor. There was nothing too serious here.

‘Found anything?’ Strong asked.

‘What?’

‘The blood tests. What did they show?’

‘Nothing,’ Owen said truthfully. ‘All clear.’

Strong was frowning now. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s true. You’re the picture of health, according to your blood tests, mate.’

‘Feels like I’m gonna die,’ said Strong. There had been, for a moment, a fleeting expression of relief on his face, but it was quickly displaced by a look of bewilderment and fear. ‘So what the hell’s wrong with me?’

Owen picked up his wrist and checked the pulse. He counted the beats off against the second hand on his watch. The heart rate was fast but steady. ‘You’re not going to die yet,’ Owen told him. He prised open one of the puffy eyelids and looked at the eye beneath, producing a slim pencil torch from his jacket pocket to help.

The eyes looked sore but the pupils contracted when he shone the penlight at them.

‘Open wide, Bob,’ Owen said, turning the man’s face towards him. ‘I need to have a look at your throat, mate.’

The mouth duly opened, and, using a pencil as a makeshift tongue suppressor, Owen shone the torch into the man’s throat.

It looked red and inflamed, which was what he expected. But there was something else there. Across the wet skin at the back of the mouth were a number of white sores, almost like mouth ulcers, some of them speckled with blood. There was a layer of foul-smelling mucus there too. So far so bad throat infection.

Then something moved at the back of Strong’s throat.

Owen blinked, hardly believing it. He kept very still and shone the torch steadily at the soft flesh.

There it was again: a tiny movement, beneath the skin. The pink flesh rippled slightly as something squirmed under the surface.

Owen clicked off the torch. ‘OK, close up. Nothing happening here.’

Strong swallowed with difficulty. ‘What is it?’

‘Too early to tell.’

‘That’s what you said last time.’ Bob suddenly started coughing again, and Owen jerked back, not knowing what to expect but nevertheless wary.

‘You been near any ponds recently? Canals? Stagnant water of any kind?’

‘Don’t think so. No. Why?’

‘Do you know Saskia Harden?’

‘Sorry?’ Now Strong sat up, coughing abruptly, a querulous look replacing the worried frown. ‘Saskia Harden? What’s she got to do with anything? How do you know her?’

‘I don’t,’ Owen said. ‘But you obviously do.’

Strong swallowed painfully again. ‘Is she connected with this? Is she carrying something? A virus?’

‘It’s possible. We really need to talk to her.’

‘You’d have to check the records at the medical centre.’

‘We already have. The address on her file doesn’t exist.’ Owen saw Bob frowning and carried on, pressing home the questions. ‘Do you have any idea where she might be? How we could find her?’

‘Wait a minute. I … I saw her yesterday. In surgery. She came to see me. She’s not been well – mental problems, that kind of thing. Some attempts at suicide. I don’t know her all that well, but she …’ Once again the words disappeared under a series of coughs. Strong grabbed a handkerchief, but not before he’d had to bring up an odious lump of green and red matter. ‘Oh, God, I don’t know how long I can take this,’ he gasped. ‘What’s wrong with me? I should be in hospital, surely …’

Owen shook his head. ‘No. Definitely no hospitals. Not yet. I don’t want you taking this into a hospital, not until we know exactly what it is.’

‘But they’ll have facilities,’ Strong argued. ‘Quarantine.’

‘This may not be something they would know how to deal with,’ Owen warned.

‘They have facilities for this sort of thing—’

‘It’s unlikely. No hospitals, not yet.’ Owen stood up, signalling that the subject was closed. ‘Is there anyone else at the medical centre who might know how to find Saskia Harden?’

Strong shook his head. ‘No one. All we know is what’s on the records.’

‘OK. Sit tight.’ Owen stood up, speed-dialling his mobile phone. ‘Ianto? I can’t trace Saskia from here. You’re gonna have to find her yourself. Go back to the police records. See if there are any clues there. If you don’t find anything, go back and check again. And get Gwen to help you – she’s got a cop’s instincts.’

‘Gwen’s gone out with Jack,’ said Ianto.

‘What for?’

‘There’s been a sighting – a water hag, we think. In Garron Park.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Owen snapped the phone shut and turned back to Strong. ‘If you think of anything, anything at all, that might help us find Saskia Harden, ring me on this number.’ He jotted something down on a piece of notepaper and handed it over.

‘OK.’ Bob glanced at the number and then folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

Owen paused, raising a hand to rub at his neck. He swallowed, wincing a little.

‘What’s up?’

Owen shrugged and headed for the door. ‘Nothing. Just getting a bit of a sore throat, I think.’

FIFTEEN

Jack and Gwen were in the SUV, hurtling through the streets of Cardiff. Jack was at the wheel, Gwen sat in the passenger seat, loading a fresh magazine into her automatic. Jack’s eyes never left the road but he was still talking.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said, biting the words off. ‘I don’t like running after something when I don’t even know what it is.’

‘The sighting was yesterday,’ Gwen said. ‘We have to follow it up.’

‘The sighting was unconfirmed. It’s internet chatter. An old woman lurking near the lake in Garron Park? Give me a break.’

‘Then why are we speeding there like our lives depend on it?’ asked Gwen.

‘May be I’m just tired of waiting around.’

Jack swung the SUV into a tight bend, the street lamps painting stripes of orange across his face as the car roared along the avenue. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘Tosh says there’s a pattern of Rift activity centring on the park. Rift sparks. Best place in the city to find the kind of water these creatures like.’

The SUV skidded to a halt by the park gates, and they scrambled out. Jack flipped open his leather wrist-strap and checked the readings. A green light flickered on the display and it beeped metronomically. ‘Chronon discharge – this way,’ he said, starting towards the park gates.

The main paths through the park were lit, but it was deserted and some areas were in total darkness. Gwen had made a quick study of the geography of the park in the SUV on the way here, but she had taken the precaution of downloading a map of the area, combined with an aerial photo, onto her mobile.

Five minutes later, they were at the lake, and the light from Gwen’s torch floated across the shimmering blackness of the lake. It looked as cold and still as slate.