The Drowning Pool. Syd Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ was still early evening for me, and after the day I’d had, I didn’t want to be alone. I composed a message requesting company then texted Martha, Sharon and Corinne. I added John as an afterthought though the chances of him being allowed out were remote.

      Downstairs I threw back the French doors and breathed in jasmine-soaked air. Though the dusky shadow of the house covered most of the back garden, the furthermost part was alight with the amber pink luminosity of high summer. The flower-boat swayed seductively in the soft evening breeze, lifting my spirits a little, which was just as well as at that moment my phone beeped several times: Martha was feeling the same as me but was also stranded in her home with kids and no babysitter. Corinne was in London and Sharon was on an internet date. Nothing from John, but then he didn’t monitor his phone religiously like the rest of us.

      I grabbed the wine off the kitchen table and optimistically took two glasses to the hammock. There was something so comforting about its gentle rock that I soon let my eyes close. The worries of the day slipped far away.

      About half-past ten I was woken into a moonlit garden by the bleep of the mobile in the pocket of my jeans. One text from a private gym offering me a membership trial. And one missed call: private number.

      I dialled my voicemail. ‘You have one new message. Last message left at 12.01 a.m.’

      Strange that it had only just notified me of the call almost twenty-two hours later. Although with the cliffs and the beach, the signal in these parts was quite often intermittent.

      As I listened, I could hear hissing interference like choppy waves lurching high and low, similar to when someone has accidentally misdialled you and you can hear the sound of the phone jogging around in a jacket or handbag. Then there was a crashing sound and a bang. The roaring sound rose abruptly and then just before it cut out I heard a woman’s voice, muffled against the sibilant white noise.

      ‘Help me,’ she pleaded.

      The tone was desperate, the texture of her voice rough and rasping. I mentally filed through a list of people who could have dialled my number at midnight last night. All my Leigh chicks were accounted for. Who had I left in the pub? Nancy? No, the voice was older. Sue? Pregnant Sue! But why would she phone me?

      A thought flashed. Of course – check the call log. And that’s when I saw it. The last missed call at 12.01 yesterday night had been dialled from 01702 785471 – my own landline.

      It didn’t make sense. I was home then. I’d got the cab around ten thirty, got rid of Giselle and had passed out by 11.15.

      I played it again.

      This time the voice was clearer, more disturbing.

      ‘Help me.’

      I shivered.

      The garden was in complete darkness now but I must have left a light on in the kitchen because I could see the phone sitting on the wall.

      An uncomfortable thought was starting to form at the back of my mind but I managed to contain it and dropped out of the hammock.

      I walked up the garden path towards the phone.

      A crack on the windowpane stopped me rock still.

      I eased my breathing and strained my ears.

      Somewhere in the distance a dog barked in warning.

      A flutter of panic hit.

      I didn’t want to look at the decking by the window. And yet I couldn’t help myself. Something was drawing me to the French doors.

      Even though I kind of knew it would be there my eyes widened with shock as they absorbed the small, white, gleaming cockleshell.

      I hugged myself, too frightened now to move closer. A strangled whistle sound wheezed in my throat.

      The temperature had dropped to cold, almost frosty.

      About the French doors the air began to crackle.

      Draughts stirred, lifting and billowing the curtains at their sides.

      A darkness beside them was thickening and warping. Something was coming, swirling into being – a shape, a dark mass.

      Then I saw it clearly – the murky shade of a woman in a long gown, discarnate, shadowed with blacks and greys. I had the impression of dark curls snaking around the palest of faces like seaweed clinging to a corpse, a marbled neck and stained cotton dress. But it was just that – a notion. I didn’t see them with my eyes but with my mind, like my imagination was filling the contours within the depth of blackness.

      There was the acrid smell of muddy sulphur and an unbearable feeling of loss.

      For a long second it hovered there like a storm cloud.

      Then a heartbeat later it was gone.

      Chapter Five

      My computer screen flicked on. I fingered the scrap of paper in my hand. It read ‘Marie143’ in John’s looping handwriting.

      When I drove into St John’s on Monday morning, he had been leaning against the wall, waiting for me. As soon as he spotted my red VW Beetle he nipped over and held the door open for me.

      I watched his face wrinkle with concern. ‘I left my phone at the pub. Nancy brought it in this morning. I just got your messages. You sounded weird. What’s going on? You OK?’

      Good question. What was going on? Was I OK? Were things happening because of something going wrong in my brain? Or was this stuff external?

      I hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion on Sunday. Which was an improvement on Saturday when I had been simply ‘weird’ as John had correctly suggested. The seeming physical nature of whatever had manifested seemed very real and I was certain that something supernatural had turned its gaze on me.

      Martha was alarmed, of course. It was all over her face when she arrived late on Saturday night. She came over as soon as her husband, Deano, got home, on the off chance that I was still up for company.

      I had left a rather hysterical message on John’s phone and was just calming myself down, trying to get a grip on what I’d just seen, so her timing was perfect.

      Martha could be counted on for good solid comfort. Her green fingers tended our social circle’s gardens and house-plants when we went away, while her gentle manner and nurturing aura had us all calling on her for a shoulder to cry on whenever things got tough. There was something indescribably soft about her, without any drippy overtone, that made you feel safe in her company.

      Ever practical she sat me down around the large pine kitchen table and made us a cup of tea while I gasped and spluttered through what had happened in the garden, climaxing with the revelation of the phone message.

      I know I sounded quite crazy as when I looked up Martha’s face was crossed by heavy lines of strain. Her honey-sweet voice told me that in her opinion I was probably just overdoing things.

      ‘You know, darling,’ she soothed, ‘you have really been through the wringer these past few years. Life’s not easy and I know being a widow with a young child must СКАЧАТЬ