Alex Barclay - The Drowning Child

Ren turned to Paul Louderback. ‘Can we send some guys to Richmond Road to check out Roger Lyle’s house?’

‘Sure,’ said Paul, ‘but that was already done as part of the neighborhood canvas last week.’

‘Can we get into the house?’ said Ren. ‘Get the keys from the real estate agent? Unless Lyle’s son lets us in when he arrives. Pretty shitty, though, when he’s coming back for his father’s memorial.’

‘If the house is up for sale, it’s likely we’re not going to find much in it,’ said Gary.

‘Let’s find out if they’ve got anything in storage,’ said Ren. ‘We need to know.’

By the time Ren checked her inbox, there was one from Bob Freeborn in CVIP, forwarded by Ruddock. It had the first of the indecent images and videos. Ren started to look through them.

Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim.

Jimmy Lyle pulled up in his rental car and parked on Pleasant Lane. He couldn’t park in the driveway on Richmond Road, he couldn’t alert the neighbors that he was back. He couldn’t stand to hear the doorbell ring, to see the porch fill up with casseroles, to feel his ears fill up with condolences, his eyes flooded with pitying looks, or tears, his body squeezed by warm, fat ladies who left their scent behind on his neck, and their unreliable fucking memories caught in his throat.

He unlocked the gate, and started walking up the path through the back garden, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. He stopped and looked up at the small bathroom window. He imagined being a boy, floating up to it, like the window scene in that old movie, Salem’s Lot : one boy on the inside, one on the outside. Inside Jimmy, Outside Jimmy. But in the movie, the horror, the ghastly boy, the smoke – everything was on the outside. Not in the Lyle house.

Jimmy remembered that bathroom blurred with steam, the bath, this time, one time only, filled with boiling water. It was night time. His father was drunk. He didn’t notice. He didn’t notice until he heard Jimmy’s piercing screams, saw his red, falling-away flesh. He didn’t know that Inside Jimmy wanted someone to know, but that when they arrived at the hospital, Outside Jimmy won. Daddy won.

Jimmy walked on. He was used to steeling himself when he knew he was about to face a reflective surface – this time, the windows at the back of the house, the glass kitchen door. He looked up when he got there and his reflection was clearer, starker than he expected. It took him a moment to realize why. The glass was black. Maybe the real estate agent had drawn the curtains. But he hadn’t heard from her all week. There had been no viewings. He walked closer. The curtains were moving. He walked closer again.

The curtains were flies. Lots and lots of flies.

Seth Fuller stood by the pool table in The Crow Bar with his jacket on, waiting for Shannon to come out from behind the bar. It was midnight and there were only three customers left.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ said Seth.

Shannon paused. ‘OK...’ She hugged him.

He winced.

‘I forgot about your back – sorry,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry – I know I hug you too much.’

He smiled. ‘That’s OK. I don’t mind.’

‘Should you really be walking that much, though?’ said Shannon. She touched his cheek lightly. ‘Your poor face. It’s so strange to see you with a black eye.’ She studied him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Please stop worrying about me all the time,’ said Seth. ‘You’re freaking me out.’

Seth walked through the woods by Lake Verny, down into Clyde’s workshop. He unlocked the door. He lit some candles on the worktop. He grabbed an empty crate from under the counter, flipped it over and sat down, elbows on his knees.

He reached into his back pocket and slid out a slim white packet. He read the yellow print: FENTANYL 100mcg TRANSDERMAL SYSTEM. The warning – white on a triangle of red in the bottom right-hand corner – read: ATTENTION: ONLY FOR USE BY PATIENT FOR WHOM PRESCRIBED.

Seth wasn’t sure if that was good English. Should it not have an ‘it is’ in there? ‘For whom it is prescribed’?

He turned the packet over and over in his hands. He thought of the night he overdosed, how that prick Merrifield would have been happy to watch him die.

It probably just looked like falling asleep, when, inside, your body was firing all kinds of pain around you, while you stayed. He liked being numb.

And now he was in pain, all over. And he was in pain from the hug Aunt Shannon had given him. He thought of her, and it was just too overwhelming. When they lived in Tate, it was a little easier. But then she bought a bar on a lake. Then he was hanging over water. At first, he looked at it like a therapist would. Water hung over you – now you’re hanging over water. You have the power now.

Tears slid down Seth’s face. He didn’t have any power. He was powerless. He would never have power.

But he thought he would. He had made up his mind months ago that, one day, he would go back to face Roger Lyle – but only after he had made something of himself, when he was better, when he was running cruises on the lake or hiring out speedboats, when he was making money for himself, for Aunt Shannon, when he’d managed to abandon his fear of water, reclaim his love for it. He would wait a few years until he was married, maybe, when he had a beautiful wife who would help him heal from all the fucked-up shit that he had seen, all the fucked-up shit that had been done to him, all the fucked-up shit that had led him to drugs, to numbing, to prison, to almost dying, to wanting to die, over and over.

And then Roger Lyle fucking killed himself. They’d laid him out in Longacres Funeral Home so people could pay their respects. The thought of mourners filing past that casket, paying tribute, had filled Seth with rage. He began to fantasize about walking in there, standing over that casket and firing a bullet into Roger Lyle’s brain so everyone could see just how damaged his head was.

On Monday night he’d made up his mind to do it for real. He got hold of a gun and Clyde’s key to the funeral home and was all set to go. Even after Aunt Shannon took the gun from him, he’d been determined to go through with it, figuring he’d find some other way to mess with Lyle’s head – smash it with a crucifix or one of those cheap fucking swimming trophies lined up around the coffin.

He’d made it all the way to the gates. And then an image had come into his mind of that beautiful girlfriend, whoever she would be, as he held her hands at that part of the relationship, the honesty part, the part where you laid it all out: your past, your fears, your regrets, the secrets you could only ever entrust to someone extraordinary, to someone you loved deeply. He knew he would love deeply. He knew he could.

Then his heart had started to pound like a warning, his stomach had tightened, tears had spilled down his cheeks as he imagined looking a girl in the eye and telling her that he desecrated the corpse of an old man. The tears didn’t stop when he imagined looking her in the eye and not telling her.

He couldn’t do it, so he’d walked away, walked into Gil Wiley’s fists. As if he’d fuck Isabella. She was beautiful, but she was married, and she was as damaged as he was. They knew what had happened to each other. They had been Roger Lyle’s favorites. They had never spoken about it until last Saturday when she showed up at Lake Verny. She had told him about going to see Roger Lyle, confronting him, trying to find out whether he was responsible for the drownings she had just heard about. And Roger Lyle had been hideous to her. He had been nasty, and dirty, and racist, and abusive. She had stayed strong in front of him, but had collapsed halfway down the road. Roger Lyle was undistilled evil. Isabella Wiley was brave.