The Watcher (23 page)

Where was Becky?

She pushed past the table and bent over Tom.

Dear God, let him live.

Carefully she tried to turn him over and put him down gently on the carpet. He was astonishingly heavy, almost too heavy for her.

‘Tom,’ she whispered in despair. She was horrified, stunned. ‘Tom, say something, please. Tom! It’s me, Gillian. Tom, please!’

She put her hand on his head and with her fingers touched her way round to his face. Suddenly she had wet fingers and she pulled back and looked at them in disbelief. She sank to her knees.

Her whole hand was covered in blood.

Her brain tried hard to produce some logical chain of thought, but it was moving more sluggishly than she had ever felt it move before. As if it did not want to reach the conclusion it was going to be forced to accept in the end.

He could hardly have injured his head on the cushion that his face was pressed into. He had hit his head, struggled to his feet and made it to the table, where his legs had then given way . . . Somewhere in the room there must be blood, perhaps on the mantelpiece or one of the door jambs. She looked around in a frenzy. She could not find the place where he must have hit his head.

Where was Becky?

Becky must have noticed that something was not right. At some point she must have come downstairs to see why her father had not called her for supper. She must have found him. What would a twelve-year-old girl do next? Run out to find help. Ring the neighbours’ bells like mad until someone answered. Paramedics should be here, an ambulance. How could Tom just lie here? Perhaps he had been lying here for hours.

Why was the kitchen door on to the garden wide open?

She suddenly had a new thought, which bathed the scene in a completely different light.

She jumped up.

Where was Becky?

She ran out of the room and bounded up the stairs. All the lights were on upstairs too.

‘Becky!’ She roared her daughter’s name. ‘Becky! Where are you?’

Becky’s room was empty. The Barbie dolls with which she only played rarely nowadays were strewn across the floor. A pad of drawing paper and a number of paintbrushes lay on her desk, alongside an open box of paints and a jar filled with water. The wardrobe door was open. Most of Becky’s jumpers, skirts and jeans were on the floor. It looked as though they had been snatched out in a mad rush. Gillian pulled back the bed sheet, then looked under the bed, then behind the big box of toys. Nothing. No sign of Becky.

She sobbed without noticing she was sobbing. Her husband lay dead in the living room. He might have been killed by a burglar. And her daughter had disappeared off the face of the earth. She had just left everything, apparently in panic. Whatever had happened, it had caught Tom and Becky completely by surprise. They had been having a normal evening and suddenly someone had disturbed the peace of it, entering their house ready to be violent. It felt to Gillian as if she were in a terrible nightmare which, to top it all, she did not understand. She just knew it was horrific and unreal and should end any minute – except that if there was one thing that was clear to her in the confusion, it was that there would be no merciful moment of waking up. The horror would only increase.

She ran into the next room, which was her and Tom’s bedroom. The lights were on here too. The wardrobe doors were open but the room was empty.
Why were the lights on everywhere? Why had someone searched all the cupboards?
Becky had been in her room, painting, it seemed. Tom had realised that his wife was going to be late and had – no doubt grinding his teeth – started to make the evening meal. Why was the light on in their bedroom? Why in the upstairs bathroom too? Why in the guest room? She ran into all the rooms. All were lit, but all of them were empty. No trace of Becky.

Taking two steps at a time, she leapt up the stairs to the attic. Up here there was a little room that they used as a store cupboard and a bigger room where Tom had hung a swing from a beam and put gym mats down on the floor. When Becky was younger, she had rollicked about up there with her friends when the weather had been bad outside or the garden too muddy. Even this light was on.

Gillian was breathing heavily. ‘Becky! Becky, please, where are you?’

She was about to run downstairs, because she remembered that she had not looked in the cellar yet, when she heard a noise. It sounded as though it was coming from the nearby storage cupboard.

She spun around. ‘Becky?’

Then she heard a sob clearly. ‘Mummy!’

In a flash she was in the junk room. It was a terrible mess in there. She had wanted to tidy it up for ages, but recently she had had neither the time nor the energy. Suitcases and travel bags were piled up, as well as boxes, Becky’s old toys, magazines that someone had once thought they might want to look at again, a few old pieces of furniture and rolled-up carpets. It was impossible to make head or tail of it all.

‘Becky?’ asked Gillian fearfully.

The lid of a large suitcase rose slightly. Becky’s face appeared. Strands of her hair fell in a jumble across her forehead. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Her skin was pale and covered in red blotches.

‘Mummy!’ Her voice croaked. She had still not got over her throat infection.

Gillian stumbled over the mess underfoot, knelt down beside the suitcase and lifted the lid, wrapping both arms around Becky.

‘Becky! For God’s sake . . . what happened? What on earth happened?’

Becky tried to sit up, but she fell back down with a groan.

‘Mummy, my legs! My legs hurt so much!’

Gillian rubbed her daughter’s legs vigorously. Becky must have been lying in the suitcase in a completely cramped position, possibly for hours. It was no wonder that all her bones ached.

‘That will go away, darling, it’ll be over soon. What happened?’

Becky looked around, wide-eyed with fear. ‘Is he still here?’

‘Who?’

‘The man. He did something bad to Daddy and then he looked all over the house for me. Maybe he’s still here.’

‘I don’t think so. Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’

Gillian could see that the pupils of Becky’s eyes were unnaturally dilated and stared in a frozen way. They needed a doctor immediately. They needed the police.

She lifted Becky up. ‘Is that OK? Can you walk?’

Becky suppressed a moan. ‘Yes. No. It’s . . . OK.’ Her face contorted with pain, she leant on Gillian, who was trying to push the junk to the side with her foot in order to make a little pathway for Becky and herself. Somehow they reached the door.

Becky shrank away from the dazzlingly bright light in the stairwell. ‘Are you sure he’s not here any more?’ she whispered.

Gillian nodded, calmer on the outside than she felt on the inside. ‘I’ve gone through the whole house. There’s no one here.’

She had not been in the cellar. Of course their house would have to be one of the ones that had a cellar. Gillian had always been pleased it did, because it meant extra space. Now she wished things were different.

But why would someone hide down there?

The murderer waiting for Becky to appear from her hiding place. Becky, who could be dangerous for him. Who could identify the culprit.

They hobbled down the stairs. Gillian steered Becky into her bedroom. ‘Lock yourself in here now! And don’t open up until I tell you to, all right?’

Becky immediately grabbed hold of her mother. ‘Mummy! Don’t go away, please! Don’t leave me on my own!’

‘I have to call the police, Becky. And the emergency services. Please wait here. And lock the door!’

‘Mumm—’

‘Please!’ Gillian could hear how her nerves made her voice sharp. ‘Do what I say, Becky!’

She drew away from her daughter. It was clear that Becky was on the point of getting hysterical, and before she could, Gillian had to get her to safety and call the police.

‘Into your room, Becky! Right now!’

Becky looked at her mother. Her face was still as white as chalk apart from the feverish blotches. That frozen stare.

‘Where were you, Mummy? Where were you all evening?’

Gillian did not answer her.

He was out of breath when he arrived at the front door, although he had made an effort to walk normally. He had been afraid of drawing a policeman’s attention if he tore through the dark streets like a madman. He did not know how quickly the wheels turned. Was there already a search warrant out on him? Did every policeman have a photo and description of him? Was a manhunt in full swing?

He wiped his hand across his brow and realised with surprise that his face was wet. And that on this cold night, almost ten below freezing.

It was half past ten. Another hour and a half until midnight. But all over the city rockets were already going up and spraying their wild, colourful patterns across the dark sky. Here and there groups of happy people, some of them rather far gone already, were roaming through the streets, although not all that many people. It was just too cold. Whoever could was staying inside.

He looked up at the facade. A town house in the centre of Southend. All the floors had lights on, apart from the top floor. Loud music blared from somewhere or other. Of course. Who went to sleep early on New Year’s Eve? People were partying, meeting up, dancing and having fun.

If they were not being hunted by the police.

He hoped that Bartek was home. And that the party noises reaching down to the street were not coming from his flat. What if there were now thirty people up there in a party mood? He hesitated, then pressed the doorbell after all. He had no choice. He needed a hiding place, and if he looked for one outside, he would freeze to death on this icy night.

It took a long time before the door buzzed. Samson pushed it open and started up the stairs to the second floor. He had been here a few times. He could not remember that the few stairs had ever been a struggle before. Now he had to stop again and again to catch his breath.

He was completely exhausted mentally. His nerves were shot. It seemed that affected his breathing.

Bartek was standing on the half-landing by his flat, peering down. A hubbub of voices and dance music flooded the stairwell.

It
is
his party, thought Samson despondently.

Bartek looked first shocked and then embarrassed as he recognised the late guest. ‘Oh, Samson, nice of you to come by!’ he said slowly. ‘We have a few guests over and . . . well, I meant to invite you too, but you don’t like parties, so I thought that maybe . . .’

Samson climbed the last steps.

‘Bartek, I need help,’ he said.

‘You look terrible.’ Bartek pulled the door almost to behind him. ‘What happened?’

‘The police,’ said Samson. ‘The police are after me.’

‘What?’

‘Millie reported me to the police. Gavin warned me. And now . . . I don’t know where to go.’

‘God,’ said Bartek. He did not seem nearly as cool as normal. In fact, it looked like the situation was a bit much for him to deal with.

No wonder, thought Samson. He has a flat full of guests. All he wants to do is have fun, and I turn up with a story that must sound completely absurd.

‘What do you mean, she
reported
you?’ asked Bartek. ‘What has she reported you
for
?’

‘I’m in it deep,’ said Samson, and thought he was still understating the situation. He had never been in it as deep as this before in his life. ‘I told you that I . . . well, what I do all day.’

‘That you . . . watch women?’

The way that sounded! Samson himself thought the phrase came across as highly suspicious.
You watch women
. The words conveyed an image that had nothing to do with what had actually happened, but that was the problem. His hobby was so strange that he could only hope that regarding the recent events he would just be considered a harmless freak.

‘I wrote it all down,’ he explained quickly. ‘My observations and thoughts and so on. And I saved it all on my computer. Millie spied on me. She cracked my password, read it all and printed it out. For her, it’s proof that I’m dangerous.’

Bartek shook his head. ‘Well it’s not exactly normal, what you do.’

‘The day before yesterday, a man was murdered. In our street. Shot. In his living room.’

‘I read about it,’ said Bartek. ‘But why—’

‘Since then, Millie must have been nagging Gavin about taking my notes to the police. He tried to talk her out of it, but in the end, Millie always does just what she wants. And this morning she marched down to the nearest police station and declared to them that she thinks I am a suspect.’

‘But I don’t think the police would—’ Bartek started to say, but he was interrupted. The door opened and a young woman wearing a short black dress and daringly high heels looked out.

‘Ah, there you are, Bartek! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’ She studied Samson carefully. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ said Samson. He barely knew Bartek’s fiancée, Helen. Twice when he had visited, he had said hi as she passed the two men. She could obviously not remember who he was.

‘My friend Samson,’ explained Bartek.

‘Oh yes, hello, Samson. Why are you out here? The party’s inside!’

‘We’re just coming,’ said Bartek. ‘Samson has a little problem to work out.’

Helen laughed. Samson realised once more that she was very attractive. As good-looking as Bartek. One day the two of them would have beautiful children.

‘All right. Well, once you have sorted out the problem, come inside,’ said Helen, disappearing back into the flat.

It was apparent that Bartek was starting to get impatient. ‘Well, like I said, Samson, I think—’

‘Wait,’ interrupted Samson. His friend had to understand why the situation was such an emergency. ‘The man who was killed two days ago . . . was the husband of the woman I like so much. I told you about her. You know, the family I’ve spent most time . . . watching. That’s in my notes too.’

‘Shit,’ said Bartek.

‘And then there’s something else . . .’