Creatures of the Pool by Ramsey Campbell Read Free Book Online Page A

surprise, if hardly pleasant, when he says “I felt as if you’d done the walk so many times you were sleepwalking through it. You never brought it alive for me. Too much of the time you seemed to be drifting off the point into some kind of dream of your own. I believe you left most of your customers as confused as I was.”
    “About what?”
    “The Jack the Ripper business, for one thing. I don’t think anyone was clear how much of it was made up.”
    “If you’re asking for my opinion, I think the diary’s fake.”
    “Then you shouldn’t be including it in your tour.”
    “It’s about legends as well as history. They’re part of what we are.”
    “That’s another issue. You’re supposed to be promotingLiverpool and yet you spent all that time on somebody who killed”—he wrinkles his nose as if the water in the glass he’s raising to his lips is stagnant—“people in London.”
    “Prostitutes,” I’m provoked to clarify. “Someone else brought him up before I did, if you recall.”
    “Sure enough, you did seem to keep needing to be prompted. You didn’t always have the answers, though.”
    “If you mean the atrocities I’m working on them.”
    “Don’t you ever think about anything else?”
    “Somebody wanted to know,” I say, only to remember it was me. “Anyway, when you made that kind of comment on the tour—”
    “We need to move this forward. I’m interviewing a team with a proposal for some tours. They’re actors and they’ll play figures from Liverpool history. How do you think you’ll compete?”
    “We’ll have to find out,” I say, which his stare convicts of insufficiency. “I’ve got bookings for this week and next.”
    “I’d like to see the figures since you started, particularly for returns. You need to show me why we should continue to include you in our brochures.”
    “I’m offering a lot of knowledge about Liverpool and what it means to be a native.”
    As I realise he could take this as a gibe he says “Maybe once upon a time that could mean small-town and disorganised, but it doesn’t hack it now.”
    “Sorry,” I say, which I’m anything but. “Are you telling me that’s me?”
    “You must have known there was a strong possibility of rain on your tour, but you didn’t have a contingency plan. All you could offer was hanging around in a passage and coming back for a rerun.” Before I can remind him of the proposal to head for a pub he says “Did anybody take you up on that?”
    “Not yet. I expect they’re waiting for the weather to improve. I’ll invest in some umbrellas if I have to. Bumbershoot Tours, that’ll be me.”
    I thought the term was American—certainly my father would adopt that accent when he used the word—but Waterworth seems not to find it worth recognising. Having stared at it, he says “I’ll hold off making a decision till all your tours have been looked at.”
    “You’ll be tagging along, you mean.”
    “Somebody will.” His gaze makes it clear that no further questions on the subject are invited. “May we assume your father doesn’t usually accompany you?” he says.
    “That was the first time.”
    “And the last, can we hope? Along with the last time you make a detour to visit your girlfriend.”
    “You know that was to sort my father out.” My anger grows as I feel I’ve been forced to blame him. “I think most people quite liked having him along,” I say. “You saw how much he knows. He used to work for the museums.”
    “But doesn’t now.”
    “He did since before I was born. He only took early retirement to make way for someone younger.”
    A strip of seated figures glides into sight behind Waterworth as if a slide depicting an audience has been inserted in a viewer. It’s the upper deck of a bus, which offers little distraction from his stare. Far too eventually he says “Who told you that?”
    “Who would?”
    “He did, I imagine. This is unfortunate.” He takes a sip of water,