Trevor Baxendale - Something in the Water

Then something moved at the back of Strong’s throat.

Owen blinked, hardly believing it. He kept very still and shone the torch steadily at the soft flesh.

There it was again: a tiny movement, beneath the skin. The pink flesh rippled slightly as something squirmed under the surface.

Owen clicked off the torch. ‘OK, close up. Nothing happening here.’

Strong swallowed with difficulty. ‘What is it?’

‘Too early to tell.’

‘That’s what you said last time.’ Bob suddenly started coughing again, and Owen jerked back, not knowing what to expect but nevertheless wary.

‘You been near any ponds recently? Canals? Stagnant water of any kind?’

‘Don’t think so. No. Why?’

‘Do you know Saskia Harden?’

‘Sorry?’ Now Strong sat up, coughing abruptly, a querulous look replacing the worried frown. ‘Saskia Harden? What’s she got to do with anything? How do you know her?’

‘I don’t,’ Owen said. ‘But you obviously do.’

Strong swallowed painfully again. ‘Is she connected with this? Is she carrying something? A virus?’

‘It’s possible. We really need to talk to her.’

‘You’d have to check the records at the medical centre.’

‘We already have. The address on her file doesn’t exist.’ Owen saw Bob frowning and carried on, pressing home the questions. ‘Do you have any idea where she might be? How we could find her?’

‘Wait a minute. I … I saw her yesterday. In surgery. She came to see me. She’s not been well — mental problems, that kind of thing. Some attempts at suicide. I don’t know her all that well, but she …’ Once again the words disappeared under a series of coughs. Strong grabbed a handkerchief, but not before he’d had to bring up an odious lump of green and red matter. ‘Oh, God, I don’t know how long I can take this,’ he gasped. ‘What’s wrong with me? I should be in hospital, surely …’

Owen shook his head. ‘No. Definitely no hospitals. Not yet. I don’t want you taking this into a hospital, not until we know exactly what it is.’

‘But they’ll have facilities,’ Strong argued. ‘Quarantine.’

‘This may not be something they would know how to deal with,’ Owen warned.

‘They have facilities for this sort of thing-’

‘It’s unlikely. No hospitals, not yet.’ Owen stood up, signalling that the subject was closed. ‘Is there anyone else at the medical centre who might know how to find Saskia Harden?’

Strong shook his head. ‘No one. All we know is what’s on the records.’

‘OK. Sit tight.’ Owen stood up, speed-dialling his mobile phone. ‘Ianto? I can’t trace Saskia from here. You’re gonna have to find her yourself. Go back to the police records. See if there are any clues there. If you don’t find anything, go back and check again. And get Gwen to help you — she’s got a cop’s instincts.’

‘Gwen’s gone out with Jack,’ said Ianto.

‘What for?’

‘There’s been a sighting — a water hag, we think. In Garron Park.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Owen snapped the phone shut and turned back to Strong. ‘If you think of anything, anything at all, that might help us find Saskia Harden, ring me on this number.’ He jotted something down on a piece of notepaper and handed it over.

‘OK.’ Bob glanced at the number and then folded it and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

Owen paused, raising a hand to rub at his neck. He swallowed, wincing a little.

‘What’s up?’

Owen shrugged and headed for the door. ‘Nothing. Just getting a bit of a sore throat, I think.’

Jack and Gwen were in the SUV, hurtling through the streets of Cardiff. Jack was at the wheel, Gwen sat in the passenger seat, loading a fresh magazine into her automatic. Jack’s eyes never left the road but he was still talking.

‘I don’t like this,’ he said, biting the words off. ‘I don’t like running after something when I don’t even know what it is.’

‘The sighting was yesterday,’ Gwen said. ‘We have to follow it up.’

‘The sighting was unconfirmed. It’s internet chatter. An old woman lurking near the lake in Garron Park? Give me a break.’

‘Then why are we speeding there like our lives depend on it?’ asked Gwen.

‘May be I’m just tired of waiting around.’

Jack swung the SUV into a tight bend, the street lamps painting stripes of orange across his face as the car roared along the avenue. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘Tosh says there’s a pattern of Rift activity centring on the park. Rift sparks. Best place in the city to find the kind of water these creatures like.’

The SUV skidded to a halt by the park gates, and they scrambled out. Jack flipped open his leather wrist-strap and checked the readings. A green light flickered on the display and it beeped metronomically. ‘Chronon discharge — this way,’ he said, starting towards the park gates.

The main paths through the park were lit, but it was deserted and some areas were in total darkness. Gwen had made a quick study of the geography of the park in the SUV on the way here, but she had taken the precaution of downloading a map of the area, combined with an aerial photo, onto her mobile.

Five minutes later, they were at the lake, and the light from Gwen’s torch floated across the shimmering blackness of the lake. It looked as cold and still as slate.

With a hiss of impatience, Jack snapped shut the cover on his wrist-strap.

‘Anything?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. He took a small single-lens night-sight out of a pocket and scanned the lake. ‘What exactly am I looking for here?’

‘Don’t ask me. Ianto said some school kids reported seeing an old woman floating in the lake yesterday afternoon …’

‘School kids?’

‘It was all over the internet chatrooms, apparently,’ Gwen continued.

‘Ianto has too much time on his hands.’

‘He was searching for specific references — woman, water, local canals, rivers, parks … key words that came up with this.’

‘That was yesterday, this is now,’ said Jack. ‘If she was here then we’re too late. This is getting to be a habit.’

A dog barking some way off drew their attention. It wasn’t a good bark; there was real aggression in there. The sudden, obsessive noise of an irate dog going in for the attack.

Automatically, Jack was moving towards the noise. ‘It’s over there,’ he said as he picked up speed.

Gwen ran after him, shouting, ‘It’s only a bloody dog!’

But there was no stopping him now. His greatcoat flapped like a superhero’s cape as he circled the lake. The barking grew louder, more frenzied, and Gwen’s instincts told her that, whatever was happening, it wasn’t right and they needed to stop it. It could be someone under attack, or just a dogfight, but they had to intervene.

They found the dog by the edge of the lake, where the water was covered with a film of green algae and some tangled reeds. It was a pit bull terrier, a fired-up bundle of aggression, its teeth flashing in the moonlight, saliva spraying from its brutish jaws with every bark. It was jumping around the edge of the water, attention focused on something just out of reach.

The dog’s owner was with him, a muscular young man, no less brutal than the pit bull, wearing jeans and a hoodie. He was waving a length of chain in the air at the dog and swearing. ‘Leave it! Karlo! Leave it I said!’ He was bellowing at the dog now, angry as hell but scared too — he’d lost control.

‘What’s the matter?’ Jack wasn’t looking at the man or the dog. His attention was directed entirely at the water.

‘Stupid bastard saw something in the water,’ spat the man. ‘Rat, probably. Now he’s gone effing mental.’