Hold Your Breath Read Online Free PDF Page B

out past several large housing estates, before crossing the ring road and heading towards where she knew there was a large woodland area and park.
This was where the woman had said the lido was located, although Tara hadn’t remembered seeing it when she and her family had gone for a walk that way shortly after moving in.
    She realised she’d walked round in a circle after a while and was close to giving up when she saw an entrance to the park across the road. Tara looked crossly at the crumpled map in her
hand. She’d somehow missed the main entrance and walked almost to the top end of the park, adding to her journey. Her sandals were hurting now and her T-shirt clung with dampness to her back.
It was warm, despite the heavy cloud. Everyone kept saying it was the warmest October in a hundred years.
    Grumpily, she cut through a car park towards a large playground and sandpit. She asked a woman on a stand selling ice creams where the lido was and the woman pointed to a large white structure
in the distance. She would have seen it straight away if she’d come in at the right gate. She thanked the woman and wolfed down an ice lolly to ease her parched throat.
    The lido was an ugly sort of building with two columns bordering the entrance that looked as though they had been stuck on as an afterthought.
    An elderly man in a greasy baseball cap was sitting in a booth just inside the gates. He had large ears with long lobes that dangled like fleshy earrings.
    Tara could make out a long slice of aquamarine just beyond where he sat. She felt a sharp kick of longing to feel cool water on her hot and dusty skin.
    ‘How much for a swim?’ she said. The old man eyed her suspiciously, even though she appeared to be his only customer. He spent a moment sorting something under the desk and then
produced a small rubber stamp.
    ‘Three pound, lockers fifty pence non-returnable,’ he said like a robot, unsmiling. ‘Hand.’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘Give us your hand.’
    Tara held out her hand cautiously and the old man grasped it in his own clammy one before stamping it with a blurry picture of a seahorse.
    She swallowed a strong urge to giggle. ‘Won’t that wash straight off?’
    The old man shrugged and turned back to the newspaper spread out on the shelf below the main desk, which was open at a crossword. A chewed-looking biro lay on the top next to a pack of rolling
tobacco and a stained, chipped coffee mug.
    The man started to investigate an ear with his little finger, face turned down again. Tara grimaced and quickly passed through the turnstile to the pool area. The blast of chlorine here was even
stronger than at the leisure centre. A few brown leaves lay on the top of the water. A girl in her twenties, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, was fishing what looked like a crisp packet out of the
pool with a long net. She gave Tara a nod. The only person in the pool was an old woman in a yellow swimming hat covered in huge rubber daisies. Nut brown, she bobbed along like a cork, covering
barely any distance.
    There was no sign of the boy. Tara heaved a sigh. She’d walked miles, getting all sweaty and blistered for a stupid wild goose chase. Maybe he just liked that T-shirt. It didn’t mean
it had his job description on it. Didn’t Beck have one that said
Gangsta
, after all?
    She looked down at the blue rippling water. Despite the crisp packet and the splodges of brown leaves, it lapped invitingly against the tiles, looking cool and refreshing. The tiles were cracked
and faded, but featured a blue and green mosaic, with a simple representation of a fish drawn in two sweeping movements. The image was repeated in every second tile. It must have been quite pretty
once. Tara had to admit it was nicer than the leisure centre. That woman had been right, even if it was all a bit cruddy and old.
    Tara jumped when a screeching feedback sound assaulted her ears. There was a high-pitched screech and then tinny music floated over the