The Dark Water

by Helen Moorhouse

  It was definitely the shape of a person. It moved in a flash across the wall, as though walking quickly from left to right. What thrilled Will most was that, as the shot took in the mirror, they could quite clearly see that it wasn’t a shadow caused by a reflection. There was nothing to reflect.

  Will watched it several times in a row, each time his face becoming more animated and the beginnings of a smile creeping across his features.

  “Good?” asked Martha tentatively.

  He turned to her and beamed. “You bloody genius!” he exclaimed and straightened, grabbing her in a bear hug.

  It wasn’t comfortable – he squeezed too hard, and his jacket smelled musty, the wax slimy – but Martha allowed herself to be crushed in the embrace and smiled at his enthusiasm, closing her eyes for a moment.

  “It’s clear that the shadow isn’t caused by a person – we’d be able to see anyone crossing the room in the mirror! How did I miss this before?” he said, breathless, releasing Martha and turning back to the screen to watch it again.

  Martha glanced at the clock – eight fifteen. “You were looking too hard?” she offered, smiling. “C’mere, didn’t you say you’d meet the guys at half eight?”

  “Hmm?” he asked, preoccupied.

  “Only it’s a quarter past now,” she continued, “and you’ve got to get all the gear set up and it’s Hallowe’en and there’s a caretaker waiting at the house for you . . .” She allowed her voice to tail off as Will glanced at the time at the bottom of the computer screen.

  “Oh Christ, you’re right,” he said, and hurriedly snapped the laptop shut.

  He was going on an investigation he’d been excited about for weeks – a recently renovated former tenement house in Edinburgh’s Old Town. Will and his group from the university were to be the first to investigate it for signs of ghostly activity and they were hopeful of concrete evidence, based on the reports they’d received from the new owners and their workmen – a ghostly apparition of a priest coupled with odd noises and knockings in the dead of night.

  Martha picked his keys up from the table and held them on her forefinger, clinking them gently from side to side to make it obvious, as he searched around the kitchen frantically for them, patting the many pockets on his jacket as he did so. Will smiled as he finally turned and saw them dangling there. He grabbed them with a grin, leaning in to kiss her softly as he did.

  “You know I love you to absolute bits?” he said quietly so that Sue, waiting in the living room, wouldn’t hear.

  “And so you should,” she grinned and kissed him back. “Now please be careful tonight, don’t bring anything back with you, and don’t trip over stuff. And drive safely.”

  “I promise,” he said and pocketed the keys before tucking the laptop under his arm and leaning in for another kiss. “Seeya, Sue!” he called into the living room as he strode out of the kitchen, turning briefly to give Martha a warm smile of parting.

  She followed him out to the hall to watch him head out into the dark evening, feeling the blast of cold air that gusted in through the front door before he closed it softly behind him.

  “Is he bloody well gone?” called Sue from the couch.

  Martha grinned before retreating to the kitchen to pick up the wine and glasses. “Finally!” she answered and flicked off the kitchen light before joining her friend in the cosy living room and closing the door behind her.

  “My God, I thought he’d never leave!” said Sue, reaching out to grab some cashews from a dish on the coffee table. A fire crackled in the grate and the TV hummed low in the corner. “I set it to record so we didn’t miss a millisecond – the Hallowe’en special is going to be too bad to be true!”

  Martha smiled as she settled herself in an armchair and began to pour the wine. She felt guilty at being so excited about what they were going to watch, but Sue was right – it was terrifically bad TV. If Will caught the two of them about to gorge on a two-hour special, he’d go into one of his sulks. “Right then,” she said, “Hit it!”

  Sue jabbed her forefinger dramatically at the remote control on her knee and immediately green footage, much like that which Martha had been watching moments before on Will’s laptop, filled the screen.

  A theremin played a 70’s science-fiction-style theme tune, just audible under a deep voiceover which announced that the next two hours would most likely change the lives of those who watched, and prove without a shadow of a doubt that life after death existed.

  Sue mouthed aloud along with the final few sentences which were part of the credits each week: “‘They’re young, they’re ready for anything, and they believe. We are ghosts . . . ghosts are them . . . Ghosts R Us!’”

  The theme tune grew louder and the ‘cast’ of the newest ghost-hunting show on TV flashed up one by one on screen, all in their early twenties and equipped with various cameras, thermal imagers – the sort of equipment that Will used on his investigations – all captured in various states of what seemed to be terrible fear. And at the end, one last ‘character’: the resident psychic medium who accompanied the team every week. Gabriel McKenzie.

  CHAPTER 3

  November 1st

  Martha buttered a third piece of toast for Ruby who was perched on a kitchen chair and wiggling from side to side while cramming as much of a crust into her mouth as she could manage.

  “Now say ‘Ruby Doo’,” instructed Sue earnestly.

  “Dooby Doo,” replied the almost-eighteen-month-old, as clearly as she could.

  “Excellent,” said Sue, taking a drink from her coffee mug. “Now say ‘Stinky Poo’.”

  “Dinky Poo,” came the response, accompanied by a broad grin which revealed most of the contents of the little girl’s mouth.

  Martha burst out laughing at Sue’s face which registered complete disgust.

  “Ruby!” Sue cried, outraged. “What have I told you about speaking with your mouth full? Now say ‘Sorry, Sue’!”

  This only served for Ruby to open her mouth wider to repeat the phrase and as a cue for Sue to tickle her. Bits of soggy toast sprayed over the table and Sue’s dressing-gown sleeve as the two of them giggled.

  Martha smiled and moved Ruby’s plate a safe distance from her wriggling form as the little girl writhed out of Sue’s grip and almost fell off the chair.

  “Beebies!” Ruby demanded suddenly.

  Patiently, Martha helped her get down from her chair and watched as she waddled toward the living room, toast in hand, to watch the TV which Sue had left blaring before they sat down to breakfast. She was glad of some peace and quiet to chat with her friend.

  “So,” she said, “on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain and anguish of deprivation at the moment?” She mimed smoking a cigarette and looked at Sue, eyebrows raised.

  “Oh, don’t talk to me – I’m bloody dying for one!” came the response, as Sue took herself another slice of toast and began to butter it roughly. She smeared it with honey and took a huge bite. “I’m going to be the size of a house at the rate I’m going but Simon says that smoking’s the one thing about me that he’d just prefer I didn’t do around him so I’m taking that as an incentive. Been on the fags way too long, I guess. And before you say anything it’s not that I feel he’s trying to change me or anything – he just does that thing where he looks so damned disappointed every time I excuse myself to go and light up that I just can’t enjoy them anyway!” She took a second and third bite of the toast and polished off the slice, immediately picking up another.

  “Simon says . . .” mimicked Martha in a playful voice and grinned at her friend. “You’ll have to bring him up next time you’re coming – I’m very curious to meet the man who can turn you off ol’ Mr Smoke.”

  Sue rolled her eyes and grinned back. “He is rather dishy!” she said, shrugging her shoulders demurely, fluttering her eyelids and feigning ladylike shyness.

  She finished the second piece of toast, put a hand out for another and checked herself, clasp
ing her coffee cup instead. “And your new house will be just about good enough for him to be brought to as well!” she said, her eyes scanning the large kitchen around her. “I love coming to stay since you moved onto millionaire’s row.”

  Martha nodded and took in a breath through her teeth. “Don’t mention the war,” she replied. She, too, loved the big house with its huge garden, which she and Will had fallen in love with the previous spring. They were finally settled there now after the move, but she sometimes caught herself wondering if they hadn’t been happier in Will’s flat in the centre of the city.

  “Oh?” asked Sue, concerned.

  Martha made a dismissive movement with her hand “Oh, it’s fine, but the mortgage is a bit of a killer.”

  Sue poured herself another coffee from the pot on the table and made a ‘whoo’ noise as she exhaled, her eyes wide. “Do you guys still have Will’s place in Barcelona?”

  Martha nodded, although it was a lie. The Barcelona apartment had had to be sold to pull together the funds for the deposit on the house but she didn’t want to tell Sue that just yet – it seemed so much like putting all of their eggs into one basket prematurely. She didn’t want to tell her either that she had gone back to work part-time because she needed to, rather than wanted to. Or that Dan hadn’t paid maintenance for three months in a row. Martha hadn’t even told Will that yet.

  She was glad of the distraction as Ruby waddled back into the kitchen, tugging ineffectively at the waist of her pyjama bottoms which had slipped down and made them dangerously long around her feet.

  “Toast! Toast!” Ruby demanded, pointing at the table.

  Sue obliged, picking up a knife and proceeding to butter while Martha pulled up the pyjamas and rolled them halfway up Ruby’s legs to prevent her from tripping. It was timely, as the scrape of the key in the front door led the toddler to whip her head around and almost trip in the process of getting to the hallway.

  “Wull!” she shouted at the top of her voice, toast forgotten, as she bolted to greet her adored Will, returning from his night’s investigation.

  Martha could just about see the front door from her seat and smiled as she saw Will whisk the child up into his arms, giving her a kiss and squeezing her to him in a hug.

  “Wull!” repeated Ruby, patting his stubble-covered chin before wriggling to get back down again as she heard something of interest from the TV.

  Will placed her safely on the floor and she ran off again in the direction of the living room.

  “Morning, Sue!” said Will and kissed Martha on the cheek.

  Sue raised her mug of coffee in salute.

  “You look pooped,” observed Martha, standing to take a mug from the cupboard behind her.

  Will gave a tired smile and accepted it gratefully, pouring himself the last of the coffee from the pot on the worktop.

  Martha began to spoon fresh grounds into the pot.

  “Not for me, ta,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m going to have this and get an hour’s kip or so if that’s okay with the ladies?”

  “You actually look like absolute shit,” observed Sue, a smile playing on her lips as she began their usual insulting banter.

  Will gave a tired grin. “And you’re still fat,” he replied, leaning against the breakfast bar.

  “Oh, I dunno,” replied Sue, glancing down at her eight-stone frame. “Weight can be lost – but looking like you do – that’s not possible to change. What on earth were your parents thinking? Doing . . . what do you call it? . . . reproducing!”

  “How did the investigation go?” interrupted Martha who had sat through hours of such duels when her partner and friend were together.

  Will looked at her and smiled. “Absolutely bloody brilliant. Wish you’d been there – I can’t wait for you to have a look through the material. We had a trigger object move and I’m almost sure we’ve got it in a clear shot – and as for the audio – fantastic stuff! And I haven’t even had a chance to listen to all the EVP’s yet.”

  Sue observed them, understanding only in part what they were talking about.

  “And what did Big Mr McPsychic think of it all?” she asked.

  Will frowned and looked at her, then back at Martha, annoyed.

  Martha shook her head at him and then turned to Sue. “Oh, Gabriel couldn’t make it last night ’cos of the – thing – the show,” she said.

  Will rolled his eyes and pushed himself upward from where he was leaning on the counter top to cross to the sink and pour away the last of the coffee. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” he said and strode from the room without a second glance.

  Martha watched his back as he left the room, a sight that she saw too often lately. “See you then,” she replied quietly and took a deep breath. She was going to need more coffee.

  CHAPTER 4

  November 1st

  In a central Edinburgh apartment, a tall, well-built man sat forward on his expensive leather sofa, his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with exhaustion. He had barely slept again, in anticipation of visitors that had ultimately never arrived.

  In all his forty-odd years, it was the first time ever Gabriel had been alone at Hallowe’en. Normally he couldn’t think for spirits coming through, trying to get messages across, all shouting together. It was his Boxing Day sales, he always joked – people crammed up against the glass trying to get to the other side and, there, keeping an eye on letting them through as best he could, was his brother Laurence – his spirit guide. But not this year. This October 31st he had been totally alone, unable to bring himself to watch that stupid TV show, which was being shown as ‘live’, when it had been recorded two weeks previously. It was all that he could do to actually get the TV crew to physically go to the location they were meant to be investigating and, even then, certain segments were always touched up afterwards in the TV studios.

  Right now, however, that was the least of his worries. Where the hell had his gift gone? Why was there no contact from spirits any more? And where was Laurence? Since he’d been twenty-eight years of age his brother had been his constant companion – presenting himself as a nine-year-old boy physically – but able to communicate with Gabriel as an adult. Was Laurence angry with him for the same reasons as Will? Had he seriously managed to annoy the living and the dead by trying to earn himself the few extra quid that the TV show paid?

  Gabriel ran his hands down his face and inhaled deeply, surveying the scene before him in the George Street apartment where he had moved the previous spring. It covered an entire floor of the Georgian building, painted and decorated in a modern fashion but respectful of the original style. He loved it. It was his dream home, the kind of place where he had always wanted to live. At the moment, however, it resembled a student flat-share rather than the elegant and stylish home to which he had always aspired. The coffee table was piled high with newspapers, half-filled coffee cups, an empty bottle of whisky and a couple of empty bottles of wine.

  His black coat, his work ‘uniform’ as he liked to think of it, was flung across an armchair where he’d left it days before. At least three pairs of shoes were strewn across the un-vacuumed carpet. At his feet a bed of crumbs and crusts from his staple diet of toasted sandwiches lay, causing a crunch when he stood up and sticking to his bare feet. Over everything in the room was a layer of dust and it was this that he longed to get rid of most, except he couldn’t. Not yet. Because that’s where he kept finding the fingerprints. And even though he hadn’t dared to yet, he needed to have them checked in some way – or at the very least have someone else witness them to prove that he wasn’t going mad.

  And he also needed someone to read the message on his desktop pad. The one that terrified him. He had found it over a week ago now, maybe more, and covered it with a newspaper so that he didn’t have to keep looking at it every time he passed. Or turned that way. Or even thought about it.

  He hadn’t written it himself and there had been no one else in the apartment, not even the cl
eaner because he’d phoned her to say he was unwell and that he’d call again when he needed her. He couldn’t get the image of the message out of his mind – a long squiggle as if the pen was being dragged across the page first, leading into the distinct shape of two words written like a child might if their hand were held by an adult’s, or by a drunk person, or someone writing with the wrong hand very badly . . . Gabriel had been rolling the message around his mind, around his mouth, since he had seen it there. ‘Do it’ it said simply, before the words faded into another long squiggle.

  Do what, he wondered. What should he do? And who had put it there in the first place and why?

  Gabriel rubbed his face again and shook his head almost to clear the vision of the words from it. He couldn’t do this again today – sit here all day in his boxers and a T-shirt. Nor could he bring himself to start cleaning up just yet – he just wouldn’t know where to begin.

  Gabriel made a sudden growling noise aloud as if to motivate himself and stood up, inhaling sharply as he did. shaking out his hands. It was a beautiful sunny day. That was it. He’d just go – get dressed, and have a stroll in Princes Street Gardens. Just get out of here for a while – away from the dust and the dirt and the puzzlement and the loneliness. The loneliness he felt, despite the fact that he felt quite sure he wasn’t completely alone.

  CHAPTER 5

  November 1st

  “You’re telling me they haven’t spoken in six months?” Sue said incredulously.

  “Not since last May. Around about the time Gabriel moved to his apartment in George Street.”

  Sue shook her head as the two friends turned from the coffee stand and walked toward the nearest bench to sit down.

  Martha rested her coffee on the bench between them and undid Ruby’s straps, lifting her out of the pushchair and readjusting her woollen hat before allowing her to toddle off a little way by herself to follow a pigeon that she had spotted pecking at the ground.