Swimmer (19 page)

‘Mr Rook!' called Washington. ‘Are you okay, Mr Rook? Where's Laura?'

Washington came over and knelt down beside him. ‘Where's Laura, Mr Rook? What went down in there?'

Jim didn't have the chance to answer. As the Swimmer's spirit vanished from sight, all of the swimming-pool water in the living-room came roaring out of the window as violently as it had roared in. Jim and Washington were swept across the yard, along with sunbeds and parasols, couches, tables and books. They were tossed into the half-empty pool while thousands of gallons cascaded over their heads. The water foamed and churned until it was all frothed up and Jim began to think that the torrent was never going to end.

He heard screaming from the house and then Laura was swept through the doors and across the loggia, and tossed into the pool like a disjointed doll. She disappeared from sight for a moment, but Washington immediately waded toward her, his head bowed down against the water that was still hammering down on top of them. He helped her to struggle to her feet, and then the three of them made their way toward the shallow end while water crashed all around them like the worst rainstorm in human history.

Lieutenant Harris stood in the middle of the dripping living-room and said, ‘
This
' – and he lifted his hand and gave little choppy gestures as if he were a bishop giving benediction – ‘this is not normal.'

‘No,' said Jim.

A bald, businesslike medical examiner came up to them, snapping off his latex gloves. ‘This is a weird one. Never seen anything like it.'

‘Cause of death, at a rough guess?' asked Lieutenant Harris.

‘No rough guess about it. Asphyxiation caused by drowning.'

Lieutenant Harris did some exaggerated pacing around, his feet squelching rhythmically on the sodden carpet. The whole living-room reeked so strongly of chlorine that everybody's eyes were watering. ‘Any evidence of foul play?'

‘Bruising to both ankles and left calf-muscle consistent with being forcibly pulled or dragged.'

‘I see. Pulled or dragged by whom – or by what?'

‘A young woman, I'd say, judging by the finger marks.'

Lieutenant Harris rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I don't get it. How can you be drowned in your living-room?'

‘Look around you, lieutenant. There must have been thousands of gallons of water in here. Judging by the tidemark, it came within three or four inches of the ceiling.'

‘So how did that happen?' Lieutenant Harris asked Jim. ‘How did thousands of gallons of water pour out of the swimming pool and into the living-room? Didn't I learn at grade school that water never runs uphill?'

‘It can do, under exceptional circumstances. You can get a siphon effect, like when you suck gasoline out of an automobile. Or a flash flood. Or a major seismic disturbance, which creates a
tsunami
, or tidal wave.'

‘There were no earthquakes tonight, Mr Rook – not that I know of. No dams collapsed, no water mains burst, and it wasn't raining either.'

Jim shrugged. ‘Then your guess is as good as anybody's. All I know is that the water came out of the swimming pool and flooded the living-room.'

‘Do you know something?' said Lieutenant Harris. ‘Whenever you and I get to meet, which must be more often than the law of averages dictates, there's always something unnatural going on. Something spooky. Something that defies the natural order of things.'

‘This is Los Angeles,' said Jim. ‘The whole city defies the natural order of things.'

Jim drove Washington and Laura back to their homes. Before he let Laura out of the car, he said, ‘Listen, Laura. I think it's better if you call this one quits. I can't take the risk of anything happening to you.'

‘But I want to help you, Mr Rook. And I want to help everyone else in Special Class II. Supposing I quit now and somebody else drowns? How am I going to feel about that?'

‘Laura, I'm responsible for you. And it's not responsible to expose you to this kind of danger. We could have
all
drowned in that room tonight – and then what good could we have been to anybody?'

‘I'm sorry,' said Laura. ‘I'm going to stick with this, and there's nothing you can do to stop me, even if I have to do it on my own. I have some ideas about this water thing, okay, and I want to look through some of my witch books and see if I'm right.'

Jim was damp and exhausted and he didn't want to argue any more. So he opened the car door for her and said, ‘Okay … you go look through your witch books and give me a call tomorrow. Not too early.'

As he drove Washington home, he said, ‘You got any theories about what happened tonight?'

‘I don't know, sir. It was totally unreal. But I got the feeling that the water was more than just water, if you can understand what I mean. It was almost like the water was out to get us.'

‘That's interesting. That was my feeling too. It wasn't just the Swimmer … it was like the actual water was trying to get its revenge on us.'

He pulled up outside Washington's apartment building. Two pretty girls in hotpants were sitting on the wall outside swinging their legs. ‘Hey, Washington! Coming down to the Ice Club tonight?'

Washington climbed out of the car. ‘I'll give you a call in the morning, Mr Rook. Don't try to turn me off this thing. I want to find this sucker just as much as you do.'

Jim gave him a weary wave of acceptance and drove off.

Back at his apartment, TT immediately scurried into the kitchen and started mewling for food and milk, but Jim went to the icebox first and took out a beer. He popped the top and swallowed a huge mouthful that made his cheeks bulge. ‘Owners before pets,' he told TT, after an eye-watering swallow. ‘It's called the pecking order.'

He went through to the bedroom and dragged off his damp shirt and pants. His linen jacket was so crumpled that he hung it up on the back of the bathroom door, in the hope that the steam from his shower would help some of the creases to fall out.

Wearing a clean T-shirt and jeans, he went back into the living-room and switched on the television. He was just in time to see the tail end of a report on what had happened at Gabriel Dragonard's house. ‘Police are still baffled by the huge surge of water that apparently filled the mystic's home and drowned him. Three survivors from the incident said they were lucky to be alive but could offer no explanation as to how thousands of gallons of water had suddenly gone on the rampage – flying in the face of all the known laws of physics. And now this …'

He was emptying cat food into TT's dish when the doorbell chimed. He went to the door still carrying a spoon and the half-empty can, and peered through the spyhole. It was Susan Silverstone, and Michael. ‘Hold on!' he said, and opened the door. Susan came sweeping past him, silvery-faced, her black hair drawn up into an elaborate braid, wrapped in a long black dress with a deeply plunging neckline, and wearing five assorted silver crosses on five silver chains. Michael followed closely behind her, wearing an old cotton hat that made him look like a cross between a baby and a senior citizen, and petulant enough for both.

‘I'm sorry,' said Susan. ‘I didn't mean to interrupt your supper.'

Jim looked down at the can of cat food. ‘Oh … that's okay. I was almost finished anyhow. Come on in.'

‘We just caught the news,' said Susan, and it was more of a question than a statement.

Michael repeated, ‘Yes … we just caught the news.'

‘We saw you,' Susan added, accusingly. ‘You and your two students. You held a seance, didn't you?'

‘We held a seance, yes, and it ended very badly. We were lucky we didn't all drown.'

‘Don't you realize how irresponsible that was?'

‘I don't think we had much choice.
You
didn't want to contact the Swimmer, did you? In fact, Michael expressly told you not to, didn't you?'

‘Come on, Jim,' said Michael. ‘Didn't I say that I'd do everything I could to find another medium?'

‘Sure you did. But
have
you found another medium?'

Michael looked defensive. ‘No, I haven't, not yet.'

‘No, you haven't, and I don't believe you were even going to try. What's going on here, Michael? We have to hunt this Swimmer down. It's critical. My whole class is in danger, not to mention anybody else who tries to help me. More than that, I don't want Gabriel Dragonard to have drowned for nothing, just like Mikey and Dennis. And I don't want Dottie to have suffered for nothing, either.'

‘Look, there's a whole lot more to this than you can possibly know,' said Michael.

‘Yes, I think you're right. And that's why I'm doing my damndest to discover what.'

Michael was obviously agitated. He kept tugging at his earlobes and running his hands through his hair. ‘I told Susan that she shouldn't try to contact the Swimmer because I really care about her, and I didn't want to see her hurt. For God's sake, Jim, we're not just dealing with one or two vengeful spirits here, we're interfering with the elemental forces of the millennial world.'

‘The which of the what?'

‘Listen, Jim, the last time Susan tried to do anything like this, it practically took her apart, physically as well as mentally. She almost died – even though she's one of the strongest sensitives I've ever met. Like I told you, it's taken over a year to get her back together again, and she's still very vulnerable. I don't want that to happen again.'

‘If you find another medium it
won't
happen again.'

‘That's my whole point.
Any
medium who tries to fight these forces is in just as much danger – no matter how good they are. Look what happened to Gabriel Dragonard. Jesus – if only I'd known what you were planning to do, I'd have stopped you.'

‘Gabriel knew that there were risks.'

‘He knew that he could be drowned in his own house? I don't think so. Nobody really understands these forces yet. We don't have the technical knowledge or the psychological strength to control them. Besides that, they're constantly evolving from day to day, so we can never know what to be prepared for.'

Jim said, ‘I see. So when you promised that you were going to look for another medium, you were just stalling me. You were just trying to stop me from persuading Susan to do it.'

‘All right, yes, I admit it. I might have let you do it before we talked to David DuQuesne. But when we went to meet him, I really began to understand what we're up against. Let's put it this way: Swimmers have only appeared in the past hundred and fifty years, haven't they? And why?'

‘Search me,' said Jim. ‘But you obviously have some kind of a theory.'

Michael said, ‘Water has always had powerful spirits of its own … you only have to read Ancient Greek sea stories and Native American legends to know that. But a hundred and fifty years ago, the water was too pure for a stray spirit like Jane Tullett to use it as a way of getting her revenge.'

‘So what's happened since?'

‘These days the water's polluted. That means that the supernatural forces in the water are polluted, too. You give people contaminated water to drink, what happens to them? Cholera, dysentery, liver disease … freak pregnancies like they had in Japan. That's exactly what's happened to the spirits in the water. They're sick, Jim. The spirits themselves are sick.'

Michael lifted four fingers. ‘In the ancient world, okay, there were four basic elements … air, fire, water and earth. Out of those four basic elements we developed medicine, religion, astrology, spiritualism and magic ritual. The elements were true and they were pure. The air was unpolluted … fires came from the burning of natural combustibles like wood and coal … the waters were clean enough for fish to thrive in them … and the only fertilizers in the soil were organic composts and animal manure.

‘But now the air is full of lead and sulfur and carbon monoxide and God knows what else; fire comes from burning plastics and all kinds of disgusting trash; the rivers are full of industrial effluent; and the soil is full of chemical fertilizers and seepage from landfill sites. Every time you drink a glass of water in Los Angeles, you can guarantee that it's passed through the bodies of eight other people before it's reached your lips. If you poison your natural environment, don't you think you're going to poison your supernatural environment too?'

Jim swallowed some more beer. ‘It's an interesting theory. But what kind of proof do you have?'

‘Susan. What happened to Susan, that's the proof. That's why – when David DuQuesne started to explain about urban legends – I suddenly realized what we were really up against.'

‘So are you going to tell me exactly what it was that happened to Susan – or is Susan going to tell me what happened to Susan, or don't either of you want to talk about it?'

‘She doesn't want it all raked over again. It's taken her so long to come to terms with it.'

But Susan said, ‘No … I think Jim has the right to know.'

‘You're sure?' said Michael. ‘You know what could happen if you do.'

‘I'm sure.' Susan walked over to the window and looked out over the sparkling lights of Venice. Her silvery-white face was reflected in the glass, suspended there like the moon. ‘It happened just over a year ago. A seventeen-year-old girl called Mary came for a consultation because she'd been having persistent nightmares about somebody coming into her bedroom at night – a young boy, as far as she could tell. He would sit on the end of her bed with his back turned and cry, very quietly. She said the nightmares were so vivid that it was hard for her to believe it wasn't really happening.'

She paused for a while, and in the kitchen Jim could hear TT rattling her dish against the floor as she lapped up the last of her food. ‘Is that all?' he asked. ‘He just sat on the end of the bed crying?'