The Treatment by Mo Hayder Read Free Book Online

belts. “Why not?”
    At that the lifeguards all fell silent and turned to look at Gummer. He seemed particularly harried today. It was the turn of the Squids, the six-and seven-year-olds, and the two girls seemed to be having problems getting into their belts. But Gummer wasn't about to crouch down and help. “You're all a bit slow today, aren't you? What's going on?”
    Behind him one or two of the children whisperedsomething. He turned. “What? What's got into you all?” No one spoke. There were more parents than usual today in the viewing gallery, he'd noticed, and some members of the class were absent. “Something's going on,” he said, turning back to the two girls. “Isn't anyone going to tell me?”
    “Rory,” the taller of the two said suddenly. She was a solemn girl from Trinidad, whose hair was beaded in rows, and she wore a pink Spice Girls swimsuit. Her toenails were painted the same color. “It's 'cause of Rory.”
    “Rory?” He raised his eyebrows. “What are you talking about?” “Rory off of Donegal Crescent.” “What about him? What happened to Rory?” Neither girl spoke. The little one, a smaller, darker skinned girl in a green two-piece, put her finger in her mouth. “We saw the police.” “And did the police tell you what happened?” The two girls looked at each other, then back at him. “No? No one told you what happened?” “No.” The bigger girl shook her head. “But we know what happened anyway.”
    “You
know
what happened? Well, that's very clever of you, isn't it?” He put his hands on his knees and bent a little, his eyes narrowed. He was conscious of being monitored from the viewing gallery—the parents were all sitting together with their wary, watchful expressions, little glittering eyes on him as if they suspected him of something. “Well? Come on, then, what happened?”
    “It was the troll.”
    “Ah, yes.” He had wondered when this would come up. He straightened, picked up a pile of frog floats, threw them into the pool and stopped for a minute to watch them bob off. He rubbed his hands on his T-shirt and turned back to the girls. “The troll.”
    The smaller girl looked down at her feet.
    “Have you ever seen the troll?”
    “No,” said the taller girl.
    “So how do you know all this? Have any of your friends seen the troll?” She shrugged. She turned her toes inward and tugged atthe legs of her swimsuit, jiggling a little as if she wanted the toilet. “Did you hear me? I said, have any of your friends ever seen the troll?”
    She nodded, not meeting his eyes.
    “Which friends have seen him?”
    “Some of them,” she said, looking away casually at the water. He knew she was lying. “He lives in the trees in the park.”
    “Yes?”
    “And he climbed up the drainpipe of that house. The drainpipe of Rory's house.”
    “I see.”
    “Climbed up the drainpipe and murdered them. Ate them in their beds.”
    At this the little girl in the green two-piece began to cry. Tears slipped over her lower lids and onto her knuckles.
    “OK, OK.” Fish straightened up, nervous now that there were tears. “I think we're jumping to conclusions a bit here. No one knows what happened.” Anxious that the parents didn't see what was happening he positioned himself so that the child was hidden from the gallery. “No one knows if it was the troll yet, do they? Do we? Eh? Do we?”
    Eventually he got her to nod her agreement, but she didn't stop crying, her finger still stuck in her mouth. “Right.” He turned and clapped his hands at the others. “Come on, nothing to get excited about. Let's have you in the pool. Take a float if you need one.”
    Later, walking home with his swimming kit in his battered red holdall, he passed four of the gates into the park and found that they were all closed, police notices propped in front of them. He continued on his way, unusually agitated, and when he got home he swallowed his pills immediately, washing them down with black