Swimmer Read online

  Washington’s head had fallen back, although his eyes were still open and a fine trail of bubbles was still pouring from his mouth. Jim dug the point of the scissors under the television cable and cut through it in three quick snips. Then he pulled Washington out from the corner, and dragged him toward the broken windows, walking across the floor with the slow dancing gait of a deep-sea diver. He knew that he simply didn’t have the strength to take Washington up to the surface and he could only pray that the water gushing in through the windows had begun to subside.

  He reached the windows, treading on sodden carpet and broken glass, heaving Washington’s inert body after him. The air in his lungs was almost exhausted and he felt as if his eardrums were going to burst. Then – with one last effort – he staggered out through the window and found himself standing in the back yard with the water only knee-deep.

  He lifted Washington’s head out of the water and managed to manhandle him across to the side of the loggia, above the waterline, his arms and his legs dragging. The living-room behind him was filled with raging foam, like the wake of a ship. By now the swimming pool was almost completely drained, and water was still gushing upward out of the pool and across the yard, as if it were eager to fill the living-room right up to the ceiling.

  Jim dropped Washington into the recovery position and started to massage his chest, but it was only a few seconds before Washington suddenly retched, and regurgitated half a gallon of swimming-pool water.

  ‘Washington? Can you hear me?’ Jim shouted at him.

  ‘I can hear you, man,’ Washington coughed. ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘Are you okay? I have to get Laura out of there.’

  ‘Go get her, man. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Just be careful, man. Somebody tied that cable around my ankle. Somebody did it deliberate.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘I didn’t see nobody, man. I only felt them. There was somebody in the water with me, but I never saw who it was.’

  ‘Well, just take it easy, okay?’

  Jim waded through the water outside the living-room windows and stood for a moment looking at the dark, foaming whirlpool in front of him. It looked as if it were defying all the forces of nature … but supposing there were forces of nature that were far greater than the ones we understand?

  He filled his lungs with air, and then he plunged without any more hesitation straight into the wall of water that filled the space where the window had been. It was like being hit by a water-cannon: he was instantly knocked off his feet, and thrown against the corner of a large white display cabinet, in which smashed-up ornaments and silverware were jangling and bobbing.

  His hip was bruised, but he managed an ungainly upward swimming motion until he reached the gap between the surface of the water and the ceiling. There was less than a foot of air-space remaining, and he was so close to the ceiling that he could hold on to the chandelier to keep him afloat. Two of the chandelier’s bulbs still burned, giving him enough light to see Laura at the other end of the room. She had managed to keep her grip on the top of the door, and he shouted to her, ‘Laura!’ and waved. ‘Do you think you can swim over here?’

  ‘I don’t know! I can try!’

  ‘You haven’t seen Gabriel, have you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think I heard him shouting, but I don’t know where he is!’

  ‘Okay … just start swimming toward me! Watch out for the current, it’s running every which way!’

  Laura hesitated for a moment, and then she launched herself away from the door. Immediately she was swept around to the left side of the room, screaming, her arms frantically thrashing to keep herself from going under.

  ‘It’s okay! It’s okay! Just keep trying to swim toward me!’

  ‘I can’t, I’m going to – blllggghhhbbllee! I can’t!’

  ‘You can! Come on, Washington’s okay! We’re going to get you out of here too!’

  Laura steadied herself for a moment by placing her hand against the wall. Then she called out, ‘I’m coming! It’s okay, I’m going to make it!’

  She plunged back into the whirlpool and this time she managed to strike out toward him, using the powerful current to help her rather than trying to struggle against it. She was carried toward him so quickly that he didn’t know whether he was going to be able to catch her or not, and when he lunged out to snatch her arm he felt the chandelier lurch in his hand. He caught her wrist, but his hand slipped, and he only just managed to grip her fingers.

  ‘You’re going to be fine!’ he reassured her. ‘All we have to do now is dive down and swim out through the back window!’

  ‘I don’t understand!’

  ‘There’s no water in the yard – only in the house!’

  She still couldn’t grasp what he was saying, but that wasn’t important. They had to escape from the living-room now before the water rose any higher. They could worry about scientific impossibilities later.

  Jim held her hand as tight as he could. ‘Ready?’ he asked her. ‘Take a real deep breath!’

  But before they could dive, the water exploded in between them and a gray head reared out, its eyes bulging, its mouth gushing like an ornamental fountain.

  Laura screamed and let go of Jim’s hand. The whirlpool instantly washed her away, so that she struck the opposite wall. The gray head stared at Jim for one hideous moment, gargled, and then disappeared under the water again.

  Eleven

  ‘Gabriel!’ Jim shouted. He thrust one hand under the water to see if he could reach him, but Gabriel was gone.

  Jim called over to Laura, ‘Hold on! I have to go down and see what’s happened to Gabriel!’

  ‘Don’t leave me again!’ Laura shrieked at him. ‘The water’s getting higher!’

  ‘Hold on – I have to go down just one more time!’

  It wasn’t that he believed there was any chance that Gabriel was still breathing: he had been under the water far too long. But the way that he had plunged back beneath the surface had suggested to Jim that he had been dragged by something more than the current. He had to see for himself. He had to know. In the end, he was the only one who could save the people around him from being drowned, one after the other, and that was too great a responsibility for him to shirk.

  He wanted more than anything else to grab hold of Laura and swim right out of that room. He hated the idea of being a martyr. But there was nothing else he could do.

  He released his grip on the chandelier and dived beneath the surface. Only one light bulb was still glowing, and it was much darker under the water now. Not only that, the whirling current had filled the water with thousands of fragments of soggy paper, so that it was like swimming through a dense snowstorm.

  He touched Gabriel before he saw him: the medium’s cold dead fingers trailed across his cheek like crabs’ claws and he couldn’t stop himself from letting out a small belch of bubbles. There was no doubt that Gabriel was drowned. He stared at Jim as he rolled and tumbled through the paper snowflakes and his eyes were completely blind.

  Jim looked urgently right and left. Maybe he was mistaken, and Gabriel had sunk so quickly because his stomach was full of water. But then he saw a shadowy shape, only nine or ten feet away from him, circling with the current. He saw two legs flickering, and hair waving.

  He was short of breath, but he pushed himself one more time, swimming wildly across the room. When he reached the opposite wall, however, there was nobody there. He turned around and around, dog-paddling hard to keep himself stabilized.

  No – if the Swimmer were here, she wasn’t showing herself. He had to get out of here now, and make sure that Laura was safe. The Swimmer would have to wait for another time.

  He started to kick for the surface, but as he did so he felt something scrabble at his ankles and then catch hold of them tight. Not something – somebody. He tried to struggle free, but he could feel two strong-fingere
d hands pulling him back down to the bottom again.

  He looked up. Only three feet above him he could see the single remaining light bulb, wavering and dipping through the turbulent water. He tried to kick again, but he was being dragged down too strongly. He looked down, and through the chaos of paper he saw the watery, glistening head of Jane Tullett, with her transparent face and her waving hair and her shadowy eyes. She was staring at him with intense hatred, and deliberately drowning him.

  For a split second he thought, Maybe, if she takes me, she’ll leave my students and my friends alone.

  But he knew that he couldn’t deliberately allow himself to be drowned. Apart from the fact that his instinct for self-survival was overwhelming, what guarantee could he possibly have that the Swimmer would consider his death was revenge enough?

  The Swimmer’s hands climbed up his ankles until she was clasping him around his knees, and then his thighs. Although she was so transparent, she was overwhelmingly strong, and no matter how much he struggled he couldn’t break free. She felt extraordinary – as slippery as if she had been oiled all over, so that when he tried to pull her hands away he couldn’t get any grip.

  God, he thought, she’s really going to drown me. I’m really going to die, in somebody’s flooded living-room, and nobody will ever believe it. He thought of Karen, dressed in black, coming to his funeral.

  He twisted himself over on to his hands and knees. The Swimmer slid around behind him, and slipped her hands around his throat. She didn’t squeeze him hard enough to choke him, but the pressure on his Adam’s apple made him feel that he desperately needed to inhale.

  With all the strength he could summon up, he started to crawl across the living-room floor, with the Swimmer floating above him, her hands still clasping his throat. He didn’t know if he was capable of making it all the way across the room, but at least he had to try. The Swimmer tried to pull him back, but he kept on crawling forward, his lungs aching for lack of oxygen, but refusing to breathe in. With every step he dug his fingers into the wet shagpile carpet to give him purchase; or seized the side of one of the sofas; or gripped the legs of the tipped-over table.

  As he neared the end of the room, the Swimmer tried to strangle him even harder, until his vision was misted with scarlet. But he reached the broken window, where the water was still pouring in, and he crawled over the broken glass until dozens of tiny fragments were sticking into his hands and knees and the foaming water turned pink with blood.

  The Swimmer clutched his throat in one last terrible squeeze and for a moment he was convinced that he couldn’t make it. But then he felt the sharp edge of the window-frame beneath his knees, and he toppled out into the back yard, where the water level had dropped to nothing but a few inches, and the Swimmer toppled out with him.

  Instantly she released her grip, and all he felt was water gushing over his back, as she lost her physical shape. He fell sideways and looked up, and she was crouching down beside him – at least her spirit was, the insubstantial, glistening spirit that only he could see.

  ‘No more,’ he croaked at her. ‘Don’t drown anybody else.’

  But the hatred on her face was undiminished. She stared at him with her shadowy eyes for a little while longer, and then she stood up and walked into the darkness. The only sign of her going was the way her invisible feet made quick, pattering splashes in the water.

  ‘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.