When you’re naked, enclosed, lying on your back . . .
. . . in the bath.
“Ridiculous.” This time she actually said the word. And in one swift movement, a no-going-back decision, she got in.
The bath had tricked her—but she knew it too late.
The water was not hot. It wasn’t even warm. She had tested the temperature moments before. She had seen the steam rising. But the water was colder than anything Isabel had ever felt. It was like breaking through the ice on a pond on a midwinter ’s day. As she sank helplessly into the bath, felt the water slide over her legs and stomach, close in on her throat like a clamp, her breath was punched back and her heart seemed to stop in midbeat. The cold hurt her. It cut into her. Isabel opened her mouth and screamed as loudly as she could. The sound was nothing more than a choked-off whimper.
Isabel was being pulled under the water. Her neck hit the rim of the bath and slid down. Her long hair floated away from her. The foam slid over her mouth, then over her nose. She tried to move, but her arms and legs wouldn’t obey the signals she sent them. Her bones had frozen. The room seemed to be getting dark.
But then, with one final effort, Isabel twisted around and threw herself up, over the edge. Water exploded everywhere, splashing onto the floor. Then somehow she was lying down with foam all around her, sobbing and shivering, her skin completely white. She reached out and caught the corner of a towel, pulled it over her. Water trickled off her back and disappeared through the cracks in the floorboards.
Isabel lay like that for a long time. She had been scared . . . scared almost to death. But it wasn’t just the change in the temperature of the water that had done it. It wasn’t just the bath—as ugly and menacing as it was. No. It was the sound she had heard as she heaved herself out and jackknifed onto the floor. She had heard it inches away from her ear, in the bathroom, even though she was alone.
Somebody had laughed.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
Isabel was standing at the bus stop with Belinda Price; fat, reliable Belinda, always there when you needed her, her best friend. A week had passed and all the time it had built up inside her, what had happened in the bathroom, the story of the bath. But still Isabel had kept it to herself. Why? Because she was afraid of being laughed at? Because she was afraid no one would believe her? Because, simply, she was afraid. In that week she had done no work . . . at school or at home. She had been told off twice in class. Her clothes and her hair were in a state. Her eyes were dark with lack of sleep. But in the end she couldn’t hold it back anymore. She had told Belinda.
And now the other girl shrugged. “I’ve heard of haunted houses,” she muttered. “And haunted castles. I’ve even heard of a haunted car. But a haunted bath . . . ?”
“It happened, just like I said.”
“Maybe you think it happened. If you think something hard enough, it can often—”
“It wasn’t my imagination,” Isabel interrupted.
Then the bus came and the two girls got on, showing their passes to the driver. They took their seats on the top deck, near the back. They always sat in the same place without quite knowing why.
“You can’t keep coming over to my place,” Belinda said. “I’m sorry, Bella, but my mom’s beginning to ask what’s going on.”
“I know.” Isabel sighed. She had managed to go over to Belinda’s house three nights running and had showered there, grateful for the hot, rushing water. She had told her parents that she and Belinda were working on a project. But Belinda was right. It couldn’t go on forever.
The bus reached the traffic light and turned onto the main road. Belinda screwed up her face, deep in thought. All the teachers said how clever she was, not just because she worked hard but because she let you see it. “You say the bath is an old one,” she said at last.
“Yes?”
“Do you know where your parents got it?”
Isabel thought back. “Yes. I wasn’t with them when they bought it, but it came from a place in Fulham. I’ve been there with them before.”
“Then why don’t you go and ask them about it? I mean, if it is haunted there must be a reason. There’s always a reason, isn’t there?”
“You mean . . . someone might have died in it or something?” The thought made Isabel shiver.
“Yes. My gran had a heart attack in the bath. It didn’t kill her, though—”
“You’re right!” The bus was climbing the hill now. Muswell Hill Broadway was straight ahead. Isabel gathered her things. “I could go there on Saturday. Will you come, too?”
“My mom and dad wouldn’t let me.”
“You can tell them you’re at my place. And I’ll tell my parents I’m at yours.”
“What if they check?”
“They never do.” The thought made Isabel sad. Her parents never did wonder where she was, never seemed to worry about her. They were too wrapped up in themselves.
“Well . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Please, Belinda. On Saturday. I’ll give you a call.”
That night the tub played its worst trick yet.
Isabel hadn’t wanted to have a bath. During dinner she’d made a point of telling her parents how tired she was, how she was looking forward to an early night. But her parents were tired, too. The atmosphere around the table had been distinctly jagged and Isabel found herself wondering just how much longer the family could stay together. Divorce. It was a horrible word, like an illness. Some of her friends had been out of school for a week and then come back pale and miserable and had never been quite the same again. They’d caught it . . . divorce.
“Upstairs, young lady!” Her mother’s voice broke into her thoughts. “I think you’d better have a bath . . .”
“Not tonight, Mom.”
“Tonight. You’ve hardly used that bath since it was installed. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you like it?”
“No. I don’t . . .”
That made her father twitch with annoyance. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, sulking.
But before she could answer, her mother chipped in. “It doesn’t matter what’s wrong with it. It’s the only bath we’ve got, so you’re just going to have to get used to it.”
“I won’t!”
Her parents looked at each other, momentarily helpless. Isabel realized that she had never defied them before—not like this. They were thrown. But then her mother stood up. “Come on, Isabel,” she said. “I’ve had enough of this stupidity. I’ll come with you.”
And so the two of them went upstairs, Susan with that pinched, set look that meant she couldn’t be argued with. But Isabel didn’t argue with her. If her mother ran the bath, she would see for herself what was happening. She would see that something was wrong . . .
“Right . . .” Susan pushed the plug in and turned on the taps. Ordinary clear water gushed out. “I really don’t understand you, Isabel,” she exclaimed over the roar of the water. “Maybe you’ve been staying up too late. I thought it was only six-year-olds who didn’t like having baths. There!” The bath was full. Susan tested the water, swirling it around with the tips of her fingers. “Not too hot. Now let’s see you get in.”
“Mom . . .”
“You’re not shy in front of me, are you? For heaven’s sake . . . !”
Angry and humiliated, Isabel undressed in front of her mother, letting the clothes fall in a heap on the floor. Susan scooped them up but said nothing. Isabel hooked one leg over the edge of the bath and let her toes come into contact with the water. It was hot—but not scalding. Certainly not icy cold.
“Is it all right?” her mother asked.
“Yes, Mom . . .”
Isabel got into the bath. The water rose hungrily to greet her. She could feel it close in a perfect circle around her neck. Her mother stood there a moment longer, holding her clothes. “Can I leave you now?” she asked.
“Yes.” Isabel didn’t want to be alone in the bathroom, but
she felt uncomfortable lying there with her mother hovering over her.
“Good.” Susan softened for a moment. “I’ll come and kiss you good night.” She held the clothes up and wrinkled her nose. “These had better go in the wash, too.”
Susan went.
Isabel lay there on her own in the hot water, trying to relax. But there was a knot in her stomach and her whole body was rigid, shying away from the cast-iron touch of the bath. She heard her mother going back down the stairs. The door of the laundry room opened. Isabel turned her head slightly and for the first time caught sight of herself in the mirror. And this time she did scream.
And screamed.
In the bath, everything was ordinary, just as it was when her mother had left her. Clear water. Her flesh a little pink in the heat. Steam. But in the mirror, in the reflection . . .
The bathroom was a slaughterhouse. The liquid in the bath was crimson and Isabel was up to her neck in it. As her hand—her reflected hand—recoiled out of the water, the red liquid clung to it, dripping down heavily, splattering against the side of the bath and clinging there, too. Isabel tried to lever herself out of the bath but slipped and fell, the water rising over her chin. It touched her lips and she screamed again, certain she would be sucked into it and die. She tore her eyes away from the mirror. Now it was just water. In the mirror . . .
Blood.
She was covered in it, swimming in it. And there was somebody else in the room. Not in the room. In the reflection of the room. A man, tall, in his forties, dressed in some sort of suit, gray face, mustache, small, beady eyes.
“Go away!” Isabel yelled. “Go away! Go away!”
When her mother found her, curled up on the floor in a huge puddle of water, naked and trembling, Isabel didn’t try to explain. She didn’t even speak. She allowed herself to be half carried into bed and hid herself, like a small child, under the duvet.
For the first time, Susan Martin was more worried than annoyed. That night, she sat down with Jeremy and the two of them were closer than they had been for a long time as they talked about their daughter, her behavior, the need perhaps for some sort of therapy. But they didn’t talk about the bath—and why should they? When Susan had burst into the bathroom she had seen nothing wrong with the water, nothing wrong with the mirror, nothing wrong with the bath.
No, they both agreed. There was something wrong with Isabel. It had nothing to do with the bath.
The antiques shop stood on the Fulham Road, a few minutes’ walk from the subway station. From the front it looked like a grand house that might have belonged to a rich family perhaps a hundred years ago: tall imposing doors, shuttered windows, white stone columns, and great chunks of statuary scattered on the pavement outside. But over the years the house had declined, the plasterwork falling away, weeds sprouting in the brickwork. The windows were dark with the dust of city life and car exhaust fumes.
Inside, the rooms were small and dark—each one filled with too much furniture. Isabel and Belinda passed through a room with fourteen fireplaces, another with half a dozen dinner tables and a crowd of empty chairs. If they hadn’t known all these objects were for sale, they could have imagined that the place was still occupied by a rich madman. It was still more of a house than a shop. When the two girls spoke to each other, they did so in whispers.
They eventually found a sales assistant in a courtyard at the back of the house. This was a large, open area, filled with baths and basins, more statues, stone fountains, wrought-iron gates, and trelliswork—all surrounded by a series of concrete arches that made them feel that they could have been in Rome or Venice rather than a shabby corner of West London. The assistant was a young man with a squint and a broken nose. He was carrying a gargoyle. Isabel wasn’t sure which of the two were uglier.
“A Victorian bath?” he muttered in response to Isabel’s inquiry. “I don’t think I can help you. We sell a lot of old baths.”
“It’s big and white,” Isabel said. “With little legs and gold taps . . .”
The sales assistant set the gargoyle down. It clunked heavily against a paving stone. “Do you have the receipt?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well . . . what did you say your parents’ name was?”
“Martin. Jeremy and Susan Martin.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell . . .”
“They argue a lot. They probably argued about the price.”
A slow smile spread across the assistant’s face. Because of the way his face twisted, the smile was oddly menacing. “Yeah. I do remember,” he said. “It was delivered somewhere in North London.”
“Muswell Hill,” Isabel said.
“That’s right.” The smile cut its way over his cheek-bones. “I do remember. They got the Marlin bath.”
“What’s the Marlin bath?” Belinda asked. She already didn’t like the sound of it.
The sales assistant chuckled to himself. He pulled out a packet of ten cigarettes and lit one. It seemed a long time before he spoke again. “Jacob Marlin. It was his bath. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him.”
“No,” Isabel said, wishing he’d get to the point.
“He was famous in his time.” The assistant blew silvery gray smoke into the air. “Before they hanged him.”
“Why did they hang him?” Isabel asked.
“For murder. He was one of the those—what do you call them?—Victorian ax murderers. Oh, yes . . .” The sales assistant was grinning from ear to ear now, enjoying himself. “He used to take young ladies home with him—a bit like Jack the Ripper. Know what I mean? Marlin would do away with them . . .”
“You mean kill them?” Belinda whispered.
“That’s exactly what I mean. He’d kill them and then chop them up with an ax. In the bath.” The assistant sucked at his cigarette. “I’m not saying he did it in that bath, mind. But it came out of his house. That’s why it was so cheap. I daresay it would have been cheaper still if your mom and dad had known . . .”
Isabel turned and walked out of the antiques shop. Belinda followed her. Suddenly the place seemed horrible and menacing, as if every object on display might have some dreadful story attached to it. Only in the street, surrounded by the noise and color of the traffic, did they stop and speak.
“It’s horrible!” Belinda gasped. “He cut people up in the bath and you . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I wish I hadn’t come.” Isabel was close to tears. “I wish they’d never bought the rotten thing.”
“If you tell them—”
“They won’t listen to me. They never listen to me.”
“So what are you going to do?” Belinda asked.
Isabel thought for a moment. People rushed past on the pavement. Market vendors shouted their wares. A pair of policemen stopped briefly to examine some apples. It was a different world from the one they had left behind in the antiques shop. “I’m going to destroy it,” she said at last. “It’s the only way. I’m going to break it up. And my parents can do whatever they like . . .”
She chose a monkey wrench from her father ’s toolbox. It was big and she could use it both to smash and to unscrew. Neither of her parents was at home. They thought she was over at Belinda’s. That was good. By the time they got back, it would all be over.
There was something very comforting about the tool, the coldness of the steel against her palm, the way it weighed so heavily in her hand. Slowly she climbed the stairs, already imagining what she had to do. Would the monkey wrench be strong enough to crack the tub? Or would she only disfigure it so badly that her parents would have to get rid of it? It didn’t matter either way. She was doing the right thing. That was all she cared about.
The bathroom door was open. She was sure it had been shut when she had glanced upstairs only minutes before. But that didn’t matter either. Swinging the monkey wrench, she went into the bathroom.
The bath was ready for her.
It had filled itself to the very brim w
ith hot water—scalding hot judging from the amount of steam. The mirror was completely misted over. A cool breeze from the door touched the surface of the glass and water trickled down. Isabel lifted the monkey wrench. She was smiling a little cruelly. The one thing the bath couldn’t do was move. It could taunt her and frighten her, but now it just had to sit there and take what was coming to it.
She reached out with the monkey wrench and jerked out the plug.
But the water didn’t leave the bath. Instead, something thick and red oozed out of the plug hole and floated up through the water.
Blood.
And with the blood came maggots—hundreds of them, uncoiling themselves from the plug hole, forcing themselves up through the grille and cartwheeling crazily in the water. Isabel stared in horror, then raised the monkey wrench. The water, with the blood added to it, was sheeting over the side now, cascading onto the floor. She swung and felt her whole body shake as the metal clanged into the taps, smashing the C of cold and jolting the pipes.
She lifted the monkey wrench, and as she did so she caught sight of it in the mirror. The reflection was blurred by the coating of steam, but behind it she could make out another shape that she knew she would not see in the bathroom. A man was walking toward her as if down a long corridor, making for the glass that covered its end.
Jacob Marlin.
She felt his eyes burning into her and wondered what he would do when he reached the mirror that seemed to be a barrier between his world and hers.
She swung with the monkey wrench—again and again. The tap bent, then broke off with the second impact. Water spurted out as if in a death throe. Now she turned her attention to the bath itself, bringing the monkey wrench crashing into the side, cracking the enamel with one swing, denting the metal with the next. Another glance over her shoulder told her that Marlin was getting closer, pushing his way toward the steam. She could see his teeth, discolored and sharp, his gums exposed as his lips were drawn back in a grin of pure hatred. She swung again and saw—to her disbelief—that she had actually cracked the side of the bath like an eggshell. Red water gushed over her legs and feet. Maggots were sent spinning in a crazy dance across the bathroom floor, sliding into the cracks and wriggling there, helpless. How close was Marlin? Could he pass through the mirror? She lifted the monkey wrench one last time and screamed as a pair of man’s hands fell onto her shoulders. The monkey wrench spun out of her hands and fell into the bath, disappearing in the murky water. The hands were at her throat now, pulling her backward. Isabel screamed and lashed out, her nails going for the man’s eyes.