Later, PC Turman would make his report. He would say how he had been pressed against the side of the pool, crushed by the wind. He would find out what had happened to Rob Hawker only when he was admitted to the hospital himself: how the builder had been thrown free from the building, breaking his legs on one of the window frames.
Turman had seen the Doctor try to save Schofield, grabbing her hand. Even then, in the middle of such madness, he’d been impressed by the older man’s reactions, how he must have calculated exactly when to throw out his arm, grabbing Schofield as she sped past.
Not that it had done them any good.
The ladder ripped away from the tiles and they span into the air. Turman had called Schofield’s name, even as they ploughed into the bottom of the pool.
There’d been a flash of light. Blinding. Hot against his skin.
And then all was calm. The wind. The dirt. Even the voices that he knew he must have imagined. They were all gone.
A sheet of transparent plastic slapped against him, covering him like a shroud. He pushed it aside, forced himself to crawl back up the slope toward the shallow end. He was bleeding, his uniform shredded from the shards of broken tiles that had sliced past him in the storm. All he wanted to do was rest, to sleep, but he needed to see what had happened to Schofield. Needed to see her body.
Because he already knew she was dead. The Doctor too. They had to be. The force of the impact. The sound of them hitting the floor. Nothing could survive that.
They weren’t there.
Schofield. The Doctor. They were gone. All that was left was Schofield’s hat and the Doctor’s torch, smashed into little pieces against the floor.
That’s what he’d thought, until he stood up.
That’s when he spotted it, etched deep into the tiles.
It was a circle.
A large circle spreading out from the exact point they had fallen.
That’s why Turman had laughed.
That’s why he’d been babbling when the ambulance crew found him.
That’s why he was talking about elves and fairies.