Water Born (19 page)

‘No! I don't want it to be like this. I didn't want any of this. But it's real. It's happening.'

‘What is? What's going on?'

‘He's . . . he's killed a lot of girls. Drowned them. He's dangerous.'

‘No! It's not true.'

‘I'm not lying. Didn't he ever hurt anyone when he was alive?' She closes her eyes, like she's shutting me out. ‘Nan, please tell me. I'm scared. Scared of him.'

She sighs and opens her eyes again.

‘He wasn't an angel, but he wouldn't do that, what you're saying.'

‘Wouldn't he? So it's all right for me to go to the lake, is it? Nothing's going to happen? It's perfectly safe?'

And now she leans towards me and takes my hands in hers.

‘Don't go down there, Nicola. Keep away.' She's looking into my eyes, and I see pain, fear and uncertainty in hers. She's scared too. ‘Nicola,' she says again, ‘promise me you won't go there. Promise.'

Her claw-like fingers are digging in, her eyes searching mine.

‘Okay,' I say. ‘I won't go. I'll head home in a bit. I got what I came for.'

Her hands relax a little, but she doesn't let go.

‘Will I see you again?' she says.

Her eyes show genuine distress, and whatever I feel about her – and I'm really not sure what that is – I know that somehow we've made a sort of connection. A
connection I don't want to lose.

‘Yes, of course. What's your number? I'll put it in my phone.'

‘Ain't got one. I can't be doing with them. Phones bring bad news.'

‘They bring good news too. If I got you one, we could text or something. Keep in touch.'

‘I s'pose.'

‘I'd like it if we did.'

She smiles. ‘I'd like it too.'

I stay for a little while. She insists on giving me a couple of cans for my journey home. Our goodbyes are awkward. We don't hug or kiss – there's no physical contact at all, except right at the end when, as I'm turning away to go through the door, I think I feel her brush the top of my arm. As I glance back, her hand is hovering in mid-air, and she raises it and curls her fingers in an awkward, childish wave.

‘Bye . . . Nan.'

‘Oh God, call me Kerry. Nan's someone old, isn't it?'

I walk away thinking about her little claw-like hand, the lines puckering the edge of her mouth, the red threads clouding the whites of her eyes. And I think of how easy it was to lie to her.

Because, of course, I'm not heading home. I'm following the map on my phone – the one that shows the way from the flats to the park . . . and the lake.

THIRTY-TWO

T
he lake isn't like it was in the pictures. Seventeen years ago it was full to the banks, a grey stretch of water, rippling in the autumn wind. Fourteen years ago it was frozen over, transformed by ice. Now, just like the reservoir, the tide's gone out. The exposed mud that stretches away from the lip of the bank is cracked at the edges, like crazy paving.

I step down, away from my folded clothes and my bag, left together on the bank. The surface is hot, dry and solid. A large bird takes off from the far shore and flaps lazily towards me, scooping the air with its wings.

And suddenly I'm walking over ice, my feet crunching the thin layer of snow on top. The sun's in my eyes and it makes everything twinkle, like fairies live here – a sparkling, diamond world. I'm on my own here. I've left Nan behind with all the other people
.

There's a funny noise, a squeaky, scrapey noise that makes my teeth feel funny. I look round to see if Nan's heard it and I'm falling, dropping down into a black hole. The cold takes my breath away. I open my mouth to shout and the black water rushes in
.

I sink down, down, and it's so dark and so cold and I keep falling until I see the boy. He looks at me and smiles and says, ‘Got you,' like this is some sort of game, except his voice doesn't sound like he's playing. There's something pretty in his hands – something shiny. He dangles it in front of my face
.

‘Do you like it?'

I stretch my hand out and he threads the chain through my fingers
.

‘You're mine now,' he says
.

But there's someone else here too. Plunging into the water. Strong hands holding me under my arms, pushing me up towards the light . . .

The bird's grating cry brings me back to myself. The mud beneath my feet is radiating heat. I look around. The sun is dropping towards the top of the trees, shining in my eyes.

This is where it happened. Where Rob drowned, and where he found me beneath the ice. Kerry said she felt he was still here sometimes. Is he here now? At Turley, I felt nothing of him. No presence. Not a whisper. Here, a growing sense of dread is spreading through me.

I walk towards what little water remains in the centre of the space. As I get nearer, the mud changes consistency. My feet break the scabby surface and find the warm, soft, slippery ooze beneath. It squirts up between my toes and the sharp twang of decay hits my nostrils. Around me the mud is singing – hissing, bubbling, popping in the heat. The surface is alive as gas bubbles rise up, tiny creatures
skating across. The back of my neck is burning in the sun. Flies buzz around my head. I swat them away, but they come back for more.

I pull one foot out of the mud. I'm wearing sticky grey socks now. I'm clothed in mud. As I step forward, my sole slips sideways. I flail my arms, trying to regain my balance, scared of falling. There's no one here to see, but it's not the embarrassment of slipping over I'm terrified of, it's the mud itself – the thought of it on my face. I gag a little, cough to clear my throat. I'm breathing hard, sweating freely.

I make myself walk on. The mud goes halfway up my calves and stops rising, thank God. I wade through towards the water, watching, listening, waiting. He must be here. He must be. I look around. There's no sign of him. I can hear kids' high-pitched voices drifting on the still air. An ice-cream van plays its off-key tune, weirdly distorted.

A shadow sweeps across the surface of the water. I look up. The sky is split in two overhead; one side is a clear, midsummer blue, the other is dark and dense, a solid bank of cloud boiling and churning within itself. I can't make sense of it – the sky has been clear for months on end. The cloud is like an alien ship, taking over the sky, casting its shadow on the earth.

In shade now, I've reached what's left of the lake water. A white, powdery scum sits on the surface. The grey mud seems inoffensive compared to this. A hot breeze ripples the water, making little waves, pushing it towards my legs. I step forward. The water's tepid. My foot sinks into the unseen mud below.

My mouth's dry. I swallow, gagging at the thought of the lake water in my throat. It's not going to happen, I tell myself – it can't be very deep, after all. The mud only shelved gently as I walked across it. I'll just wade in far enough so that I can see Rob. I won't get my face in this stinking, viscous stuff.

When I'm up to my waist, I turn round and look back at the shore. It seems a long way off. A picture comes into my head: Mum, Dad and Rob. Here. Seventeen years ago. Swimming, larking about, shouting, squealing, laughing. Before it all went wrong. Before Rob died. Before my dad . . . murdered him.

Did he, though? Two boys and a girl. Two brothers. What really went on?

He was a good boy deep down
.

We did things . . . things I'm not proud of
.

There's evil in the water
.

He's back
.

Suddenly I feel very, very alone. I should have brought someone with me. I shouldn't be here on my own.

‘Yes, you should have brought
them
to me – Neisha and Carl.'

The light's playing tricks on me, light and shade dancing on the surface of the water, but now I can see him. Rob. Waist-high, like me, ten metres or so ahead.

‘Rob.'

I can talk to him like this, with my head above the water.

He smiles. His eyes are disturbingly bright. He's zinging with energy.

‘You found me,' he says.

‘Yes.'

There's something deeply unsettling about him today. Anxiety stabs me under my ribs.

‘Come in, Nic. Come deeper. You're not scared, are you?'

‘No, I'm not scared.' But I am. Shivers of fear ripple up and down my spine.

‘Don't lie to me. I
know
you, Nic.'

He's still some distance from me, but his voice is in my ear, inside my head. How's he doing that? I stand my ground, try to remember why I'm here.

‘I need to talk to you,' I say.

He stops moving, and somehow that's worse than his restlessness.

‘So talk.'

He's got the look he had in that school photo, the one in the news article, taken with Dad. He's kind of tipped his head back a bit, so he's looking down his nose at me. I'm not sure I can do this any more. But I'm here now, aren't I?

I take a deep breath.

‘I want this to stop.'

He angles his head a little more.

‘This? What do you mean, “this”?'

‘The killing. The hurting.'

‘I did it for you.'

‘I didn't want it.'

‘Didn't you?'

‘No! I didn't want anyone hurt!'

‘Yes, you did. Deep, deep down – you did.'

It's true, isn't it? Those feelings of resentment, of wanting to get my own back. But everyone has those. It's part of the mix of being human.

‘What about all the other girls? The ones who died this summer?'

‘I was looking for you. Process of elimination.'

‘That's just sick.'

I start backing away. This was a mistake. Am I in too deep to save myself?

‘Sick? Sick?' I didn't see him move, but he's in my face now. I flinch and keep trying to step backwards, but the mud seems to be holding me.

‘Dad said I should stay away from water, and he was right. I'm leaving now. I shouldn't have come.'

‘Dad?
Carl?
' He says his name like it's a dirty word, then he snorts, turns his head and spits. ‘You don't want to believe anything he says, Nicola. He wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the arse.'

‘Why do you hate him?'

‘Do you really want to know?' He seems even closer now and his voice – his voice is inside me.

‘Yes,' I say.

‘He murdered me, Nicola. Got rid of me so he could be with my girl.'

‘Your girl,' I say. ‘Neisha.'

‘You worked it out,' he says. ‘Yes. Neisha.'

‘And you loved her?'

‘Love. What's love?'

‘You never loved me.'

Mum's voice! Here? I turn round and there she is, ten metres behind me, hand in hand with Dad.

‘Mum? Dad?'

I'm laughing and crying at the same time, so relieved that they're here.

‘He doesn't know the meaning of the word, Nic,' she says. ‘Come here. Come here quickly.'

She holds her free arm out towards me, and it sends me back to the days when I was little, when I'd toddle away from her in the garden or the park or the shopping centre. She'd crouch down and hold her arms open wide, and she wouldn't have to say anything – it was the only signal I needed, and I'd run back and let myself be wrapped up in her embrace, feel her warmth, breathe her in. Safe and sound.

I try to move, but I'm stuck.

‘No!' Rob shouts.

I look from him to Mum and back again. Above us, thunder is rolling around the sky. The mud beneath my feet seems to be dissolving. I'm sinking as I speak. I step to the left a little, find some solid ground . . . then that, too, seems to melt away.

‘Have you hurt her, Rob? Have you put your hands on her?' Mum says. Beside her, Dad's arms are taut. I can see the tendons in his neck standing out like wire under the skin.

‘Of course not. What do you think I am?'

He's moved in the water. Now he's between me and them. I feel cut off, like a connection's broken. I want my mum. I want my dad.

‘I know what you are,' Mum says.

‘I care about Nic,' Rob says.

‘You don't care about anyone.'

Mum and Dad are shifting where they stand, too, trying to find their footing. Beneath us, the mud is turning into quicksand.

‘I cared about
you
once,' Rob says.

‘No. You hurt me. You tried to kill me. I was too young to handle it then. It's different now.
I'm
different. You're not hurting my daughter.'

Mum's voice is clear and strong. Her words carry the punch of a prize fighter.

Rob hurt her? He tried to kill her?

And then I hear Rob's voice.

‘I won't hurt Nic, Neisha. Drowning doesn't hurt.'

A bolt of forked lightning snakes from the sky to the edge of the lake, followed immediately by a noise like the world is tearing down the middle. For a split second the faces behind me are bleached out, the water turns into a blinding mirror. I try to scream but it freezes in my throat.

There's nothing beneath my feet now, nothing to hold me up, and I sink up to my neck. Instinctively I paddle my arms and legs, treading water. I try to swallow my rising panic. I can swim, right? I can
really
swim, so this is all going to be okay.

I look across at Mum and Dad. They're in the water, too. I can see the whites of Mum's eyes as she jerks her face clear of the surface. She's terrified. Dad's thrashing his arms. He spits water out of his mouth. ‘Nic, swim for the shore!' he shouts.

All we have to do is head for the edge. It's not that far. There's not much water, after all. But they're both wearing jeans and T-shirts. Sodden heavy cloth, dragging them down.

There's another flash and an explosion at the same time, and I'm hit, pushed through the water, all the breath knocked out of me. I'm blinded, blindsided. A piece of flotsam tossed and turned.

When everything stops moving and my eyes adjust, I'm under water. I can't see anyone else. I don't know which way is up, so I let my body work it out – feel it, sense the difference in light, the effect of gravity – then I flip round and head for the surface, breaking through, gulping air into my lungs.

I look round for the others.

I can see the back of Mum's head, a few metres away. I call out to her and she turns round. There's a vivid red mark down one side of her face, forked like a branch, as if a tree had just whipped her and left its imprint. Her eyes are wide and curiously dull. I don't think she can see me. I don't think she can see anything.

She's not swimming but she's moving away from me in the water, being carried off to my left in the current. Current? We're in a lake. Why is the water swirling like this? I can feel the power of it against my body. Mum's moving to the left, I'm being swept to the right. I don't understand.

Mum looks back at me. Her mouth opens and shuts, and then she disappears under the surface.

‘Neisha!' Dad's seen her too. He's the other side of her,
and now he starts swimming towards the spot where she was – desperately grabbing at the water, kicking hard – but he's swimming against the current, being taken further away.

‘No, Dad, let me!'

The water's carried me round now, so I'm getting nearer to where she disappeared. And now it clicks. The current is circular, like some sort of whirlpool. I swim a few strokes, going with the flow, then take a long deep breath and dive down.

It's difficult to see anything in this muddy, churned-up world. I force my eyes to stay open, twisting my head this way and that. I usually have to fight my body's natural desire to float when I'm swimming under water, but here the water feels like it's drawing me down. Something hits the side of my ribs. I flail my hands in the water, trying to push whatever it is away. Instead of the scrappy bark of a branch, my hand finds something delicate and fleshy. I'm holding someone's wrist. Without letting go, I move my other hand up the arm, then across the body to get a grip under their armpit. I turn the body so that I can see the face close to. It's Mum.

Her eyes are open and vacant. For a moment, I think she's gone, but suddenly there's a flicker of recognition in her face and she starts moving her arms and legs, almost as if she was climbing a ladder. Her hands are pushing me down. Her knees catch my legs and stomach. She'll kill us both if she carries on like this.