Potential Hydrogen

Emily drags a sign laboriously along the pool deck to put it away for the night. The part which says ‘Pool Closed: Swim School Lessons Only’ comes away from the base which then thuds heavily onto her sodden shoe. Sighing, she tries to wrangle it back together as a couple in their swimsuits approach.

“Um, is the pool open now?” asks the woman with a rising inflection. She’s twisting a lock of hair around her index finger, her boyfriend smiles at her cleavage with unabashed interest.

“Yep, go ahead,” Emily continues to wrestle with the sign. She rolls her eyes, unable to avoid hearing the woman giggling when her boyfriend splashes her. I hope they drown, Emily catches herself thinking, and now I've reached a bitter new low: wishing happy people dead. She finishes dragging the sign into the cavernous space which doubles as storage and pool plant room.

When she's finally done packing away and completing pool tests, Emily eagerly kicks off her wet shoes. Having been at work for over ten hours now, she’s more than ready to be free of the thick chlorine scented air. Unfortunately as she makes a beeline for the exit, a lifeguard corners her smiling, “hey Emily, you off?”

“Yep,” Emily answers, trying to keep walking. She can still hear the annoying flirty couple, splashing and giggling.

“So do you guys need teachers or coaches or anything right now? I’m keen for a little extra work,” she’s smiling fixedly. Although Emily has seen this lifeguard at the pools before, she cannot remember her name. It’s something like Alice or Anne, as plain and white bread as 'Emily'.

“We always need teachers, apply on our website. Vinh does recruitment and training, he’ll contact you.” Emily shoves one of the Swim School’s business cards towards the other woman, then walks determinedly out of the Aquatic Centre to her car. Good luck with the lovebirds - sucks to be you, she thinks. The pool doesn’t close until nine pm, Emily doesn’t envy the poor lifeguard having to ensure the couple don’t do anything - inappropriate. No wonder she wants a new job.

* * * * *

Next morning, Emily is shocked to see three Police cars and an ambulance parked out the front of the Aquatic Centre.

Frowning, she pulls on the handbrake and climbs out of her car. She’s walking slowly through the entryway, clutching her bag stuffed with swimsuit, towel and spare uniform to her chest. It’s all a little surreal: there are four uniformed Police officers that she can see and the pool where lessons are usually conducted has police tape around it. A man in charcoal suit pants blocks her path, “I’m sorry but you won’t be able to swim here today,'' he intones. She notices his shirtsleeves are rolled up and his tie is tucked between the second and third buttons of his shirt.

“I work here!” Emily states raising her eyebrows, “we’re supposed to be running lessons in that pool in less than an hour,” she indicates the taped off area. There’s someone in a hazmat suit poking around beyond the police tape.

Emily feels her heart rate is rising quickly and her hands feel simultaneously sweaty and cold. Cancelling lessons is a huge headache; also what the hell has happened here? The man peers at her, his brow beginning to wrinkle in concern.

“Maybe you should come and sit down for a moment.” Leading her behind the large front desk he introduces himself:

“I‘m Detective Sergeant Smythe.” The D.S. ushers her toward an office, but she can’t help noticing the shape on a stretcher which looks exactly like a body, draped in white fabric. It’s lying on the ground behind the front desk whilst someone in a lab coat stands by, busily tapping on a tablet.

“Please,” the D.S. opens a door and indicates she should sit down.

Emily sinks gratefully into the chair. She was starting to feel really weird, like she has too much blood in her veins - or not quite enough.

“We’re investigating the death of a male person in that pool overnight. You won’t be running any lessons in it today,” intones Sargent Smythe.

“I need to start contacting our customers,” bursts out Emily, “like now! Actually like ten minutes ago,” glancing at her watch has made the panic rise again. She stands up so quickly her chair falls over, making her wince as it thuds into the wall.

“Sit down. Please.” The Detective Sergent has stopped smiling. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

“Emily McMahon,” she says, righting the chair and sitting back down. She can’t stop thinking about her customers arriving with their babies and preschoolers. They’d be all ready for a lesson in the pool which was apparently now a crime scene. Emily is distracted by the urgent need to send a group SMS to her morning customers.

“You completed the pool testing last thing yesterday evening?” asks Sargent Smythe, snapping her out of her worrisome thoughts.

“Yes,” Emily answers, still quite preoccupied.

“I’ll need to ask you some questions,” he says, flipping open a notebook.

“I really have to notify our customers that lessons are cancelled,” Emily looks at the D.S. panic written all over her face.

“How long will that take? he glances at his watch.

“An hour minimum. Assuming it's all lessons today and that I can have at least one of the customer service staff help me. I’ll also need to let the rest of the staff know they shouldn’t come in.” replies Emily

“Ah, okay. Well, yeah. You go ahead and do that. Just uh,” he suddenly sounds uncertain,”don’t leave the premises. Okay?”

“Sure thing,” Emily mutters.

* * * * *

It’s two pm and Emily is now fighting an intense headache, and a weird sense of being outside herself. Cancelling lessons for the day had been just as bad as she had anticipated. The Detective Sergeant had found her after exactly sixty minutes and proceeded to ask her many questions. He then cautioned her to not leave the country before again allowing her to go back to work. Emily had then explained the situation to her head office. Predictably that had also been an entirely unsatisfactory conversation. All in all it had been stressful and unsettling, now Emily was exhausted and just realising she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day. That explained the headache.

“Hey Emily,” the voice made her jump. It was the lifeguard from last night and she was standing so close as to be almost touching.

“Hi - Amy,” thank goodness she was wearing a name tag this time.

“Hey, I was supposed to be working in the kiosk today. Instead I just got grilled by the cops,” Amy rolled her eyes. “Anyway, now I have to make coffee for everyone. You want one?”

“Yes, thank you. I would love a coffee. Maybe I can help?” Emily knew just waiting around would only make her feel worse. She needed to drink water and keep her hands busy.

Once she’d downed a bottle of water Emily was feeling significantly more human. She is helping to make the coffees working next to Amy in comfortable silence.

“So what did the police ‘grill’ you about?” she asked, remembering Amy’s choice of words. The other woman seems startled by the question, almost dropping the milk jug.

“Um,” Amy fiddles with the steam nozzle. “I was closing last night. It seems I closed up with two people still on the premises. One of them is the guy who died. The other one is his girlfriend. She had some fairly bad acid burns.” Amy relays all of this in a monotone, her eyes not leaving the milk she’s still frothing. She pours the milk into two coffees which Emily slides her way.

“Wow.” Emily had pieced much of this information together from questions which had been put to her. “So were they hiding or something? When you were closing up I mean,” Emily asks gently.

“Yeah - I mean I guess so. I didn’t see them anyway.” Amy’s putting lids on the coffees and adding them to a tray with another two coffees.

“I’ll take that,” Emily offers.

“Thanks! These are the ones for the cops,” Amy says, still not meeting her eyes and turning away immediately to start on the next round of coffee. Well she definitely seems disturbed, thinks Emily as she climbs the stairs to the office the Police and detectives have occupied for the day. She can't help but remember her malicious thoughts the night before and wonder if Amy had similar feelings.

It was almost as odd the following day, arriving at the pool to find everything back to normal. Emily walked warily through the entryway, smiling hello to the Aquatic centre reception and heading towards the program pool. There are a few elderly people walking up and down, the warm water of the pool aiding them in their exercise. Emily waves at some of the regulars, knowing their faces if not their names. She starts by dragging equipment out of storage and setting up for lessons. People begin to leave the pool as she leans down to get a water sample for the pool tests

“My old skin can’t handle the amount of chlorine in there today love,” one of the ladies says.

Emily looks around awkwardly trying to look at the person speaking whilst elbow deep in the pool. As she stands up she can see the lady inspecting the sensitive skin on the underside of the forearm. Emily steps a little closer, noticing the woman’s skin does look irritated especially inside the elbows.

“Hmm, you should have a lukewarm shower right away," Emily advised. She rushed straight back to the plant room, eager to begin any damage control necessary to get the pool water balanced. The pH was a little on the low side, but within a safe range. She checked chemical dosing as well as the pumps and filters to see if anything seemed amiss. It all seemed to be operating as normal.

Emily re-emerges to find some of the swim teachers in the pool already dragging lane ropes into place. They greet her as she absently picks up a towel and bag one of the early morning swimmers had left behind.

“Ow,’ a shriek startles Emily into dropping the items and dashing across the pool deck. She almost falls into the water, skidding to a halt by Maria who had cried out.

“What! What is it?” She sounds panicked despite trying not to, already on edge thanks to yesterday’s events.

“I stepped on something,” Maria pulls herself up to sit on the edge of the pool. Gingerly lifting out her foot, it’s immediately obvious what the problem is: there’s an earring partially embedded in the sole. Maria gently extracts the earring unleashing a thin trickle of blood. Emily helps her up away from the pool.

“We’ll need to stop that bleeding before you get back in,” she says unnecessarily, Maria knows this as well as her. Thankfully there are two more teachers heading into the pool.

“As you guys are setting up, keep an eye out for another earring like this one,” Emily tells them, holding up the offending earring. “Or any other jewellery. Or anything else unusual,” she adds. They're looking at her askance.

“Um, okay,” answers Liana, raising a brow as she and Vinnie turn toward the pool. Emily notices them give each other a look and has to resist the urge to justify her strange behaviour. That will probably only make things worse.

Once the shift is underway, Emily takes the bag, towel and earring to Aquatic centre reception.

“Hey, these were left by the program pool this morning - and in it,” she hands them over to Tran who’s standing behind the front desk.

“Thanks Em,” he smiles, “hey did you hear what happened yesterday?” Tran’s eyes glint with the joy of good gossip.

“Yes,” Emily gives him a pained look, “I was here!”

“Oh right, of course. Sorry I guess it was probably kind of a stressful day for you,” he looks suitably chagrined.

“That’s all good. Hopefully it’s gonna be a great anecdote one day,” Emily answers.

Emily wonders how many other people are making light of the fact someone died in the pool. She had an extremely poor night’s sleep last night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the flirty couple as they made their way into the pool. When she finally fell asleep it was to dream of them and her own bitter thoughts wishing them dead. In her dream the man began to decay whilst his girlfriend seemingly didn’t notice and continued trying to kiss his rotting face. It was disturbing, to say the least.

Back by the pool and supervising lessons again, Emily begins to feel more like herself again. Watching the kids swim, answering questions from parents, helping teachers with difficult classes. Two hours goes by very quickly. Realising she hasn't checked in on the other end of the pool, Emily stands up from where she had been helping kids into their class. As she scans across the pool she notices a dark shape adrift near the bottom of the pool. Her heart thunders loudly as she rushes around to where she can see the shape - it looks like a person. As she gets closer she notices he looks pale and bloated, as if he's been in the water a long time. Kneeling by the pool, Emily leans over the edge. The dead eyes flash open angrily, mouth opening to accuse her. She sobs quietly and rubs her eyes to try and see more clearly - but now it's gone. The water is clean and clear.

“Em’, Vinnie calls. She looks up: Vinh is struggling to maintain control of his class whilst he gets her attention. He indicates the reception area with his chin. Emily sees the two detectives she had spoken with at length yesterday. With a last searching look in the pool, she stands back up and walks over to meet them.

“Hi Emily,” D. S. Smythe smiles.

“Emily,” Detective Inspector Patel sounds a little abrupt. “Do you have a moment?”

“Uh, I’m supposed to be supervising lessons,” Emily is still shaken by the apparition in the water. She is not super keen to answer all those questions again. D.I. Patel is of a height with her and seems to be peering suspiciously into her soul.

“This is serious Ms McMahon,” she keeps her voice low. “One person is dead, and another one is missing,” D.I. Patel has still not broken eye contact. It’s unnerving.

“Missing?” repeats Emily dumbly. Sergeant Smyth takes pity, on her,

“Maybe someone else can supervise lessons whilst we go to your office for ten minutes and chat,” he suggests. Emily nods and begins to walk toward the Swim School desk.

“Hey Misha, could you please watch the pool deck for ten minutes? I’ll be in my office,” Emily says, handing over the iPad. Continuing into her office she sits behind the desk and indicates the other two chairs to the detectives.

“Emily I’m given to believe you found an unattended bag and towel by the pool this morning, is that correct?” D.I. Patel launches the question without preamble.

“Yes,” she answers. The D.I. glances down at her notepad.

“Did you also find diamond earrings?” she asked.

“One of my staff trod on an earring whilst setting up the pool. I handed it in with the bag and towel to the Aquatic Centre reception. They keep lost property,” Emily answers.

“The person to whom those items belong has been reported missing this morning,” Sergeant Smythe explains. He and the D.I. look at each other, then back at her.

“We’re hoping you might have more to tell us,” Patel says, sighing. “It’s extremely unusual for this person to deviate from her routine and the family are very worried.” Both detectives are staring at her now. Emily feels jumpy and guilty, but she’s not even sure why.

“Something more like what?” she pleads.

“Like why you and Amy Park are the only two people who have been working here on both occasions.” Smythe bursts out, clearly forgetting he’s supposed to be the good cop.

“What occasions? What do you mean?” cries Emily.

"The occasions on which patrons of this aquatic centre have died or gone missing,” states Patel with characteristic bluntness. “What time did you arrive this morning?”

“Eight-thirty.”

“Did you see an elderly lady walking in the hydro-pool?” Smythe almost speaks over the top of her.

“I saw several elderly ladies walking in that pool this morning, same as usual,” Emily answers, desperately casting her mind back to try and picture who was in the pool this morning.

“If she only arrived at eight-thirty am it’s unlikely they would have crossed paths,” murmurs Patel to Smythe, looking at her notebook again. Tension in the room dissipates, they don’t have many questions for her after that.

The interview with Detectives Patel and Smythe had ends fairly swiftly. Emily supervises the rest of the morning lessons in a sort of daze. Now she is packing away the last of the equipment. She regrets not looking more closely at the bag and towel which had been left behind, or trying to find out who they belonged to. The missing woman was quite elderly and swam in the pool every morning - her membership card was swiped at 5:59am. She would have been the first person in the pool. Emily’s mind goes round and round trying to recall who had been around first thing this morning. Having fetched a pool water sample she’s now completing pool tests leaning over test tubes carefully measuring sample water and crushing the reagents.

“How’s the water balance?” Emily jerks up in surprise, knocking over a test tube. The noise from the pumps and filters had covered the sound of Amy coming into the plant room. The test tube rolls off the table, magenta stained pool water and shards of glass make a splatter pattern on the concrete floor.

“Well now I’ll need to re-do the total chlorine,” answers Emily, frowning at the mess on the ground.

“All the other tests came out normal though - right?” Amy looks uncertain or anxious. Both probably, Emily thinks to herself as she sweeps up the broken glass.

“Yeah, the pH and alkalinity are normal. Calcium Hardness is down from a few days ago so that’s good.” She pauses, “did those two detectives speak to you again today?”

“Mmhmm,” murmurs Amy, rummaging in the cupboard which holds test tubes and reactive tablets for pool water testing. Emily looks at the tall lifeguard as she hands over a new test tube, wondering if she’ll say more. It seems not, and the only sound for several long moments is the whirring drone of hydraulic machinery whilst Emily completes another chlorine test. Amy stands close behind, peering over her shoulder as she’s recording results in the pool test log. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Emily rushes the clean up, almost smashing another test tube.

Somehow Amy is at the door before her, blocking her exit from the plant room.

“So did you say there are jobs going at the Swim School,” Amy asks. Emily cannot figure out whether Amy is blocking her exit on purpose.

“We can always use more teachers,” Emily said, which is true.

“So are the roles, full time or part time? Could I do what you do?” Amy stares with her usual intensity. Emily feels strangely intimidated.

“Well - there are casual swim teaching roles. The only full time jobs are mine, Vinh’s and Jana’s,” she answers defensively. Amy scowls.

“Isn’t there someone who looks after the plant room,”Amy’s tone has become a little accusatory.

“Yes, you know Simon? That’s his job” Emily babbles, deciding to try opening the plant room door. Amy moves aside, even if only slightly, Emily carefully turns the door handle,

“Excuse me,” Amy is still in front of the door so Emily cannot open it.

“Well I applied online last night, but I haven’t heard anything yet,” Amy moves aside so the door can swing open. Emily slides through as soon as she can fit, with Amy right behind.

“Well Vinnie and I have been on shift all morning, so not able to do any admin - including check on the recruitment emails,” Emily says reasonably. She smiles up at Amy, aiming to look happy and relaxed though she feels shaky and on edge.

“Okay cool. I'll hear from you later today,” Amy sounds vaguely menacing somehow, but she walks away.

It’s five am and a single koel’s mournful cries are the only sound outside. A car drives past on the quiet suburban street, then the magpies join in carolling prettily. Emily sighs and throws off the covers rising from bed, certain she won’t find sleep again. Her awful dreams now include an elderly lady with her hair caught in the filter inlet. Stuck underwater, the woman struggles weakly as she slowly drowns.

Perhaps a swim will help her feel better - that usually does the trick. After a brief cool shower, dressed in swimmers, toting her net bag of swim gear, Emily arrives at the pool. It’s five-thirty am and there’s only four other cars in the car park. She’s aware that the pools are only open to competitive squad swimmers from five am until six am, but she knows all the staff. It’s a safe bet they’ll let her swim in one of the indoor pools. The auto doors are still locked, so she waves awkwardly for a minute or two before the person at the front desk notices. It’s Tina, who Emily knows well, having taught her son to swim when he was younger.

“Hey! You’re here early,” Tina says.

“Yeah I want to try and get a swim in before work,” Emily answers.

“You hungry? I have coconut rice or mangoes.” Tina’s food smells divine, but Emily knows she’ll get terrible stomach cramps if she eats before swimming.

“Thanks Tina,” she smiles, “but I don’t wanna throw up in the pool - Simon will never forgive me,” she names the regular duty manager who particularly hates bio hazard clean-ups.

“Oh my goodness. He was Duty Manager on shift the other day when the -” Tina pauses and looks around unnecessarily, there’s no-one in the vicinity.

“What?” Emily prompts.

“When they found the dead man!” Tina whispers conspiratorially.

“Oh no - he must have been livid,” Emily can imagine.

“Yeah,” Tina agrees, “I mean he was, but he also seemed,” she pauses thinking. “I don’t know, kinda scared or something.”

“Hm. Well I’m sure it was disturbing for everyone,” Emily says. She’s not willing to think more about the events of the past few days. She wants to just get in the pool and think about nothing other than her stroke, breathing and counting sets of laps. Unfortunately now she can't help but wonder if the police know Simon was on the premises at the same time as the 'occasions'. Continuing into the aquatic centre she sets down her things by the pool and tucks her hair up into her favourite peach coloured cap.

The outdoor fifty metre pool has several swimmers in each lane. There’s an adult squad swimming in the indoor twenty-five metre pool. Although they’re only using two lanes Emily needs solitude so she opts to use the program pool.

Placing her pull buoy at the edge, she gets into the water with her kick board. It’s warm, too warm for proper swim training really, it does feel nice getting in though. Tension drains from her muscles as she kicks up and down. Putting her board on the edge, she tightens her goggles and begins a simple freestyle drill when she notices something sparkling on the pool’s tiled bottom. She dives under to retrieve it, then stands up pulling off her goggles to see more clearly. It’s the other earring - twin to the one found by Maria the day before. It looks like there’s some weird gooey stuff stuck to the part which goes through the earlobe. With a shiver of revulsion, Emily wades over to place it carefully on her kick board. She’ll hand it in to Tina when she gets out of the water.

Pushing off the wall to begin her laps again she realises her fingers and toes are feeling numb. Strange considering the water is probably around thirty two degrees celsius. Maybe she has circulation problems. After a few laps, Emily is settling into a comfortable rhythm. Eighteen strokes, flip turn push off, eighteen strokes: this pool is a weird length. As she turns to breathe, Emily notices an elderly lady has joined her in the pool for some water walking. This pool attracts many people for such an activity, being the ideal depth and temperature. She hadn’t realised it was six am yet, it felt like she only just started swimming. As she swims past again, Emily realises she cannot see the woman underwater.

Emily stops swimming abruptly. The elderly woman’s torso drifts closer, Emily pops her head underwater again willing herself to be able to see the rest of the person. No luck, under the surface the pool looks completely empty. Dread fills her limbs with leaden weight, her skin itches and burns. The legless torso continues to approach,

“You better get out Emily,” says the voice of an old lady in her mind. The apparition stares at her but it’s mouth doesn’t move, “Emily! EMILY,” the voice in her mind is increasingly urgent. The shade is right in front of her but she’s transfixed and cannot move. It looks like an image on analogue television, sort of grainy lacking sharpness and clarity.

“Get out while you can Emily, you’re being devoured,” the voice sounds dry and dusty with disuse. Emily looks underwater again and realises she can no longer see her own toes. It seems like she should feel scared, but she just feels slow, heavy, lethargic. Her feet have dissolved now as well, numbness steals up towards her wrists. Emily can feel her heart rate slowing, faltering to a stop. Her consciousness drifts free, the pool slowly dissolves her.

* * * * *

Amy is feeling optimistic today, a six am start feels like a sleep in. Starting at five am has been awful, and she’d done it for the previous two days. Tina presses a container of sticky coconut rice with mango on her as she passes the reception desk. What a lovely lady she is, now Amy can really look forward to her break later. Noticing a net bag of equipment by the program pool she veers over in that direction. There’s no-one around, nor should there be. The centre isn’t yet open to the public. Simon is just emerging from the pool plant room.

“Hey, was there someone swimming here?” Amy notices a peach coloured swim cap floating on the pool’s surface. There’s a kickboard and pull buoy at the end on the edge.

“No, I don't think so,” Simon answers, “it’s only squad members until six remember.”

Amy reaches into the water to get the swim cap. The skin on her hand immediately begins to itch and burn.

“What's the pH in here?” she asks, her hand is really smarting.

“Oh - ah. It’s a little on the low side,” Simon says, not meeting her eyes.

“How low?” Amy’s hand is now an angry shade of red.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” he answers dismissively, “you should probably rinse your hand though.”