Alex Barclay - The Drowning Child

Shannon Fuller walked through the living room and down the hallway to Seth’s bedroom. She knocked.

‘Enter!’ he said.

She opened the door. He was sitting on his bed, watching a video on his laptop.

‘Did you hear who died?’ said Shannon.

‘No,’ said Seth. ‘Who?’

‘Roger Lyle.’ She waited for a reaction. ‘You remember Mr Lyle? The swim coach.’

Seth nodded. ‘Of course I remember him. What happened?’

‘Well,’ said Shannon, ‘apparently, he killed himself. He was out in the retirement home and he went into his closet, hanged himself.’

‘Well, they won’t be putting that in the brochure,’ said Seth. ‘“Lots of hanging space”, “sturdy closet rails to take the weight of your abandoned loved one”.’

Shannon’s eyes widened. ‘Seth, that’s not very nice – Mr Lyle was always very good to you.’

Seth nodded. ‘He was.’

‘You won so many medals.’

‘I did,’ said Seth. ‘What a champ.’

‘Where are your medals?’ said Shannon.

‘I have no idea,’ said Seth. ‘They weren’t anywhere when we were moving here.’

‘Really?’ said Shannon. ‘That’s a shame. They would have looked great on the wall.’

Seth looked at her with a patient expression. ‘You’d want to be pretty desperate to rely on glory dating back over ten years. Child swimming champ...’

Shannon smiled. ‘I have no doubt you will go on to great glory in the future, so I guess you won’t need your medals to fall back on.’

‘Jeez. I hope not.’

‘The memorial service is on Thursday,’ said Shannon, ‘they’re waiting for some family members to arrive from overseas. Do you want to come with me, pay your respects?’

Seth nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘Poor Jimmy—’ said Shannon.

‘Yeah,’ said Seth. ‘Poor weird Jimmy.’ He paused. ‘Well, at least a space has opened up in the retirement home. Pay it forward.’

Shannon was frowning. ‘I think you got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.’

‘The cold side,’ said Seth. He stood up, stretched his arms. ‘I’m going to go take a walk.’

He grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on.

‘Walk?’ said Shannon. ‘At midnight? Where?’

‘Just into the woods,’ said Seth. ‘I thought maybe I could check the cabins, see what kind of mess the cops made of them. I feel people are stepping all over our lives.’

‘Aw, Seth, sweetheart,’ said Shannon. ‘We’re going to be OK.’ She hugged him tight.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

Seth kept the beam on the flashlight low as he walked the path down to the cabins. The air was freezing, he had forgotten his jacket, his eyes were streaming. His hands were stuffed into his pockets for warmth. There was a bunch of keys in the right one, two single keys in the left.

As he walked, his shoulders were tight, he was hunching, holding his breath again.

‘Breathe,’ he said to himself. ‘Breathe.’

He tried to relax his body. He was tired of having to keep reminding himself to. It didn’t come naturally. He couldn’t remember a time when it had. But he guessed it was before his eighth birthday. He remembered his eighth birthday. It was the last one he spent with his mama – she was dead before the year was out. It was the best birthday he ever had.

His eyes were streaming now, not from the cold, but from the tears. He was aware of every sound in the woods, the leaves as the breeze blew through them, whatever critters were scurrying about, the lapping of the water. The crunch of his boots on the path felt loud and almost unbearable. But he loved all these sounds, because they weren’t prison sounds. They weren’t the sounds of caged men, desperate to avoid silence. Twenty-four seven the noise went on and sometimes he thought his head would blow.

He stopped at the farthest cabin. Instead of going left down to it, toward the water, he went right, up a slope with no path, no trail, no evidence that there was anything up there. There was certainly nothing that made it on to any map, nothing that would have appeared on an aerial view of the property.

It was a small hut, no bigger than eight by ten. The roof was covered over by earth, ivy grew around it, and it was sheltered by trees. It had thin windows with wooden shutters, and strong locks. Clyde Brimmer had built it back in the late eighties, and spent a little time every spring maintaining it as best he could.

Seth had just taken the key from his pocket when he heard footsteps coming toward him. He froze. He turned around. A woman was standing in the shadows, close enough that he could smell the liquor on her breath. She was swaying back and forth.

A cloud shifted in the sky, and she was illuminated by the moon. Seth squinted into the hazy light.

‘Isabella?’ he said.

‘I can’t stand this any more,’ she replied.

Deb McLean was leaning against the table at the top of the Tate PD conference room, her legs crossed at the ankles, her arms folded. Ren was studying her from the front row. Her blonde hair had been cut stylishly short since Ren last saw her. She was dressed in a smart black suit, white shirt, and heels that were hidden under bootleg pants that hit the ground.

Deb had her cell phone in her hand and was typing. Every now and then, she looked up from her screen to watch the investigators filing into the room. Ren’s phone beeped with a text. From Deb.

OK – have spotted three potential future husbands. ;-)

Ren looked up. Deb smiled and winked at her then put her cell phone down on the table.

‘Hello, Tate,’ she said, when Ruddock gave her the nod. ‘Happy Sunday. My name is Deb McLean, I’m a court-certified expert in aquatic deaths and homicidal drownings. I also train divers, water rescue and recovery teams, and I carry out ongoing research in the field.’

She stood up.

She has to be four ten, max. I know she has sneaked at least three-inch heels under there. She’s never going to be ready to ditch the bootlegs.

‘I’m happy to help you in any way I can on your investigation,’ said Deb. ‘I read through the details of the case on the flight here. So we know: the death of Aaron Fuller was no tragic accident, the death of Luke Monroe was no tragic accident. Lake Verny is innocent, the peanut butter sandwich is innocent. Ladies and gentlemen, the only tragic accident here was the birth of their killer.’ She paused. ‘It may or may not be one and the same person, but, nevertheless, there are people out there who get their kicks from drowning or near-drowning their victims. There is no evidence of a sexual nature to the crimes you are dealing with, but, very often that evidence will no longer be present on the body. I’ll explain more about the sexual element later.’ She looked around the room. ‘I’m here today to talk to you about ASSes.’ She smiled. ‘That would be Aquatic Sexual Sadists. My term.

‘An ASS tortures his victims for his own sexual gratification, using water as his weapon,’ said Deb. ‘I’m saying “his” because it’s easier, and because it’s more likely it’s going to be a man. OK – an Aquatic Sexual Sadist doesn’t just want to torture and cause pain. He wants to bring you, his victim, to the brink of death and show you that he – and only he – can give you your life back. Your torturer is also your savior. This is the most powerful feeling an ASS can have.’

There were some chuckles around the room.

‘He wants to be god,’ said Deb. ‘He wants to be your god.’

Clever lady, bringing us directly into the story. You. You. You. You. You.

‘If you think of a domestic violence situation,’ said Deb, ‘where your partner strangles you until you pass out, then releases the neck pressure to allow blood flow to return to your brain. Well, he or she uses this behavior – and the ongoing, oppressive threat of this behavior – to have control over you in all areas of your life. ASSes, however, only need the near-death-to-life, near-death-to-life experience. That is their thrill.’ She paused. ‘Some ASSes concurrently commit rape as they’re drowning their victims, though we’ve established that this is not the case here. What we’re dealing with is a killer who wants to drown his/her victim entirely, who no longer wants to be a savior, or who maybe never did; someone who simply wants to end lives. This category of killer falls under the subcategory of lust killer. These type of Aquatic Sexual Sadists may torture their victims with repeated near-drowning sessions prior to killing them.’