toothbrushes. She had seen him in the shadows of the top-floor landing as she had dumped yet another box of belongings she couldn't face in one of the spare rooms. She had even felt his breath on the back of her neck as she had taken down the thick, musty curtains that hung in the main lounge. It had smelled of fried onions and sweat.
God, but she wished he would go away.
Rob rolled the screwdriver from one hand to the other and imagined punching the man who invented flat-pack furniture squarely on the nose. Throwing the screwdriver on the floor, he rubbed at his face and tried to find the energy to get on. He picked up the instructions — which were even more difficult to read now that he had crumpled them into a ball and thrown them across the room — flattened them out and stared at Fig 4b until his brain began to melt.
He could hear the sound of running water and felt an urge to ditch all this and go and help Julia have the bath she must be running. Better not, she'd only take the mick if he left the wardrobe unfinished.
'Key of provision'? Don't be an idiot, did they think he was stupid enough not to guess that the Allen key wouldn't be in the box as promised? He had a set of his own, thank you very much.
'And stick it up our translator's arse?' Rob muttered, rubbing his eyes again. It would be easier without the damn things, surely?
The rush of the bath taps continued to call to him.
He threw the instructions to the floor and walked over to the wardrobe, placing his hand on one side. It swung into a skewed parallelogram, and he was quick to right it before the strain pulled one of the bolts out of the soft wood. 'Damn thing may as well be made from cardboard,' he muttered, turning the frame around so that he might be able to fix some strengthening slats to the back of it.
The sound of running water changed from the deep sloshing of a filling bathtub to the patter of water spilling onto wood and tile. It was overflowing.
'Bloody hell!' Rob growled, his patience finally snapping. The water was bound to soak through and damage the floor below.
He kicked the wardrobe hard in his anger, almost relishing the sound of splitting chipboard as he stormed out of the bedroom. He drew to a halt on the landing as he realised the sound of water wasn't coming from the bathroom but rather the spare bedroom. He changed direction, opened the door and stared at the impossibility that flooded the room beyond it. He could see a bathtub, a big old metal affair, overflowing with the water that rushed into it from ghostly taps. He looked down at his feet and watched the impossible water touch the toes of his boots and then roll around them as it found its way past, flowing beyond him and towards the open door. He lifted his foot and the water actually dripped, thick like mercury, from the bottom of his boot. He rubbed the sole. It felt dry. Suddenly his entire body cramped and then, right in front of him, having walked
'Don't…' Rob whispered, stepping forward even as the image of the woman lowered her arms into the warmth of the water and began to cut. He tried to grab at her but her flesh slipped through his fingers with the stinging sensation of stroking a nettle. Blood began to fill the tub and she turned and lay back in the water so that he was leaning over her like a lover. He dropped to his knees, tears coming to his eyes as he continued to try and grab the dying woman in front of him.
'Julia!' he shouted, though whether he wanted her to help or simply to prove that what he was seeing wasn't for his eyes alone, he couldn't say. 'Julia!'
She appeared at the doorway behind him, her hand shooting to her mouth to stifle a shout. That was all the proof he needed that she shared this hallucination. He became aware of the feeling of water on the palms of his hands, the soft brush of the woman's skin, as if she were becoming more real… He looked down and watched as a damp shadow of water spread across the legs of his jeans and the belly of his shirt. He made another grab at the woman and the water exploded around him, splashing his face and blooding his tongue with the taste of copper, before it vanished leaving him soaking wet in a bone-dry room.
'You saw that?' he asked Julia once he could find the strength of mind to speak.
'Yes,' she replied, but could think of nothing else to say.
They stayed there in silence for a few minutes, Julia watching as Rob started to shiver in the cooling, impossible water that covered him from head to toe. Thinking of something she could do, she left the doorway and went to the airing cupboard for a towel. Opening the door, her shocked silence snapped and she screamed as a well-dressed young man fell out of the airing cupboard and onto the floor at her feet.
NINE
Gwen parked the car and sat for a few minutes watching the rain paint patterns with the streetlights on the windscreen.
She often sat in the car for a while before going up to the flat she shared with Rhys. These few minutes of silence were an emotional airlock between her working life with Torchwood and her marriage. When she had first started, she had found it near impossible to keep the two apart in her head. After joining the police force, she had gone through a period of fear that was common in new recruits: the job gave you a heightened awareness of what bad things the world could offer and the result was that, for a while at least, you became convinced danger was around every corner. That feeling had trebled when joining Torchwood. She would watch Rhys sleeping and imagine him a mess of Weevil bites. It just felt so damn dangerous in Cardiff, and she couldn't quite believe that the violence wouldn't reach them. How could it not? It was everywhere…
She had calmed down eventually of course. She would have gone mad otherwise. When your day can be anything from the living dead to extraterrestrial infections, you need to be able to compartmentalise. This was part of that, just leaning back in the car seat, closing her eyes and pushing it all away. Today, the image that stuck to the back of her eyes, like chewing gum, was that of Danny Wilkinson's serrated teeth as they tried to chew their way through tarmac. She had seen worse things, but there was something about it that made her belly churn more than normal. It was a pain she could almost relate to…
She ferreted in the door compartments for a brolly but came up with nothing more useful than an empty water bottle and a crisp packet. Grabbing them for the bin, she opened the door and made a dash for dryness.
Upstairs, having been alerted by the sound of the car engine, Rhys watched Gwen out of the window, as he opened a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc — her favourite, so why would he buy anything else? He'd noticed a long time ago how she sat outside for ages after returning from work. The first time he'd caught her at it, he'd been terrified, his head buzzing with all the imagined reasons she might be nervous about coming in. Convinced she was going to confess to an affair by the time she finally appeared, he'd been on edge all night, snappy with her, waiting for the axe to fall. Of course it never had. Wasn't he always his own worst enemy in the end?
He poured two glasses of wine as he heard her feet on the stairs and the involuntary moan as she shook cold rainwater from her hair. As the door opened, he put a glass in her hand and a kiss on her lips.
'Now that's service!' she laughed, still pulling her damp hair away from her face.
'Damn right. Now sit down, and I'll fetch a towel for your hair.'
She took off her boots and did as he asked, taking a sip of the chilled wine and nudging the James Bond boxed set that was on the carpet with her foot.
'Been getting pointers?' she asked as he came back with the towel.
'Eh?'
She nodded at the DVDs.
'Oh, aye… Passes the time while you're saving the world.' He smiled and draped the towel over her head. 'Have you?'
