Syd Moore - The Drowning Pool

For my boys Sean and Riley. And for Liz, undoubtedly causing havoc in the heavens.

I am hugely indebted to Kate Bradley, without whom The Drowning Pool would have never seen the light of day. I would also like to add to the long list of people I owe thank yous: Keshini Naidoo and the incredible team at Avon; Father Kenneth Havey, for his advice on the Robert Eden extracts; Cherry Sandover, for her introduction; Ian Platts for his; Clair Johnston for her research into Sarah Moore; Simon Fowler for his excellent photography; Harriett Gilbert, Jonathan Myerson and my tutors on the Masters in Creative Writing at City University, and the esteemed writing group that developed from it; Steph Roche for her unstinting support and late night chats; my friends and family, especially my dad for ensuring I always strive to do better and my mum, for keeping the faith.

Title Page

Dedication

Extract from White’s Directory of Essex 1848

George Gifford, A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes 1593

Chapter One

The night it happened Rob, a friend of Sharon’s, was…

Chapter Two

That June was one of the hottest we’d had for…

Chapter Three

Looking back, all the signs were there. Human beings have…

Chapter Four

When I woke I was moody and morose. Though I…

Chapter Five

My computer screen flicked on. I fingered the scrap of…

Chapter Six

It’s difficult in retrospect to try and describe how I…

Chapter Seven

As it was, on the Thursday, nothing happened. I psyched…

Chapter Eight

The storm was on everyone’s lips that day. When I…

Chapter Nine

The conversation with Marie had been pretty sobering. Inside it…

Chapter Ten

I’d forgotten that this weekend was the annual Leigh folk…

Chapter Eleven

The Old Town was packed. Sunday was the less traditional…

Chapter Twelve

The holidays stretched before me like a lazy cat. Although…

Chapter Thirteen

The Records Office was an odd-looking modernist structure set in…

Chapter Fourteen

The other day I found the book I had been…

Chapter Fifteen

Sharon’s untimely collapse that night proved fortunate, at least for…

Chapter Sixteen

My head was beginning to ache as I put down…

Chapter Seventeen

I was woken at ten by a text from Martha.

Chapter Eighteen

I arrived in good time for my appointment, hoping to…

Chapter Nineteen

When I got home I was knackered but there was…

Chapter Twenty

The view over the town square was awe inspiring. Andrew…

Chapter Twenty-One

Tobias Fitch was propped up on his bed. The stroke…

Chapter Twenty-Two

We said our thank yous to Claudia and Laurens, refusing…

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was only later, when we sat back at the…

Chapter Twenty-Four

I suppose the first thing that alerted me to the…

Chapter Twenty-Five

Puzzles have never been my strong point. Even when I…

A Note to the Reader

Read On

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

LEIGH, a small ancient town, port, and fishing station, with a custom house and coast-guard, is mostly situated at the foot of a woody acclivity, on the north shore of Hadleigh Bay, or Leigh Roads, opposite the east point of Canvey Island, in the estuary of the busy Thames, 4 miles West of Southend, 5 miles South West of Rochford, and 39 miles East of London. The houses extended along the beach are generally small, but there are several neat mansions, with sylvan pleasure grounds, on the acclivity, which rises to considerable height, and affords, from various stations, extensive prospects of the Thames, and the numerous vessels constantly flitting to and fro upon its expansive bosom. The trade consists chiefly in the shrimp, oyster, and winkle fishery … Besides great quantities of oysters in the season, nearly a thousand gallons of shrimps are sent weekly to London. The boundary stone, marking the extent of the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of London, as a conservator of the Thames, is about 1½ mile east of Leigh, on a stone bank, a little below high water mark, and it is annually visited in form by the Corporation. Lady Olivia Bernard Sparrow is lady of the manor of Leigh, or Lee, which was held by Ralph Peverall at the Domesday Survey, and afterwards by the Rochford, Bohon, Boteler, Bullen, Rich, and Bernard families. Three copious springs supply the inhabitants with pure water, and the parish contains 1271 inhabitants, and 2331 acres of land, including a long narrow island, called Leigh Marsh, between which and Canvey Island, are the oyster layings. A fair for pedlery etc., is held in the town on the second Tuesday in May.

The Church (St. Clement) is a large ancient structure, near the crown of the hill, and has a lofty ivy-mantled tower, containing five bells. It has a nave, aisles, and chancel, in the perpendicular style, and the latter is embellished with two painted windows, carved oak stalls etc., and contains several handsome monuments. The nave is neatly fitted up, and has a good organ, given by the present incumbent. The rectory … is in the patronage of the Bishop of London, and incumbency of the Rev. Robert Eden, who is also rural dean, and has erected a handsome Rectory House in the Elizabethan style. The tithes were commuted in 1847. The Wesleyans have a chapel here, and in the town is a large Free School, attended by about 170 children, and supported by Lady O.B. Sparrow, who established it about 16 years ago, for the gratuitous education of children of this parish and Hadleigh, in accordance with the principles of the Church of England.

‘Truly we dwell in a bad countrey, I think even the worst in England … These witches, these evill favoured old witches doe trouble me … they lame men and kill their cattle, yea they destroy both men and children. They say there is scarce any towne or village in all this shire, but there is one or two witches at the least in it.’

The night it happened Rob, a friend of Sharon’s, was down by the railway tracks walking his dog. He said the lights and the shrieking freaked the terrier and started it barking. I don’t remember hearing it. But he heard us. ‘You were making enough noise,’ Rob said, ‘to wake the dead.’

Which is kind of funny as that was exactly what we were doing.

Though, to be honest, we were so hammered none of us noticed the mist or a slip of shadow darting between us. We just wanted to carry on boozing. I used to think if they ever made a film of my life, that’s what they’d call it. Though obviously now it’d have a very different title. Drag Me to Hell could be a contender.

Just shows you how much has changed.

Sitting here by the window, the chill kiss of autumn is on my cheek. Watching the dried lemon sunlight slanting across the room, summer feels like another world away. It’s pretty difficult to get my head round what happened. But that’s where this comes in: getting it out of my brain and onto paper, where it can be nicely controlled, explained and edited. To make sense of it before it dissipates and I forget it altogether. That’s what they told me would happen.

Yet the making sense of it irks me so. Can one actually make sense of the senseless? Certain things happened because of bad luck, plain and simple: wrong person, wrong time, wrong confidence, misplaced trust. Call it chaos theory, the butterfly effect, or my personal favourite the shit happens model. You can’t explain it because, from time to time, bad things happen just because they do.