I Am Watching

by Emma Kavanagh

  As he stepped to close the door, his foot lost traction, slipped on something that lay on the hardwood floor, sending his heart rate spiking. Ramsey looked down to see the letter beneath his foot. Slowly, he bent to pick it up. Block letters sprawled across the front of it. TO MR. R. AKEN. His name spelled wrong. Carefully, he opened the envelope and pulled free a photograph.

  He and Isla kissing on their front step yesterday morning.

  And on the reverse, a single sentence in block letters. I’LL BE SEEING YOU SOON.

  The pen pal – Isla

  “But surely,” said the young woman, “psychopathy is simply a way of approaching the world. I mean, we all exist on a spectrum, right? Like, some of us are emotional, and some aren’t. Aren’t psychopaths just that? A group of people who operate on the low empathy end of the spectrum?” She leaned forward, elbows resting on impossibly narrow legs, skin a sun-kissed beige, blond hair streaked with blue. If you looked close enough, you could make out a mottling in the crease of her arm, on the knees, which poked through the strategically ripped jeans. Sun kissed from a bottle, then.

  Isla nodded as she tried to remember a time when she had given a shit about such things as a year-round tan, ripped jeans. Was there ever one? God, she was tired. She still had not warmed up from her early morning walk across the moor. She swallowed, her vision swimming. Nausea rising again. “The difficulty we encounter when looking at psychopaths is that many studies have shown that their ability to assess the emotional state of others can be extremely well developed. They can be very good at identifying how others are feeling.” She glanced around the tutorial group, the four youngsters nodding solemnly. Was the office getting warmer, or was it her?

  “So,” said Parker, the sole boy in the group, “it’s not an empathy problem, then. Not if they can recognize what other people are feeling. Is it . . . Is the problem that they don’t respond to the emotions of other people? So, like, if I was a psychopath, I might know that you were upset, but that wouldn’t bother me, make me concerned.” He delivered the words carefully, quietly, his eyes flitting between Isla and Scarlett—she of the ripped jeans and fake tan—looking for approval, acknowledgment.

  Isla smiled at him, watched his shoulders sink by a fraction. It was getting warmer. Her head swam. She needed to lie down. She needed to sleep. Had she eaten today? She couldn’t remember. Her stomach twisted painfully. No. No, she hadn’t eaten.

  “But they are responding,” protested Scarlett. “They are just responding differently from most people. Like a predator responding to prey,” she said brightly, finding the world such a fascinating place.

  Forgotten in their debate, Isla watched them. To these not yet adults, this was an experiment of the imagination. It was like a ride on a roller coaster, a horror movie watched with the lights off. For them, none of this was real. Even the newspaper stories, the knowledge that death was stalking just a little over fifteen miles from here, none of it mattered, not really. Because they were safe and whole, and the horrors of this world had not reached them. Not yet.

  Isla took a sip of water, trying to pull her mind back, trying to concentrate. She hadn’t slept. Had attempted an hour, letting her head fall back against the high back of the armchair in the corner of her office, wishing for a reprieve, but eventually, she had given it up. With her eyes closed, the world about her gone, all she could see were the dead bodies of Maggie Heron and Victoria Prew.

  “I think,” interjected another girl, Ursula, a fledgling thing who looked far too young to be allowed out into the big bad world alone, “that the thing I find most fascinating is the ability of psychopaths to disguise themselves. I mean, think about it. Anyone could be one!” Her expression bright, she looked at Isla.

  Did she understand the weight of it? Did she understand the measure of her words? That there were those who brought death, and that they were able to hide beneath a mask of civility. A predator hiding in plain sight.

  “That can certainly be true,” interjected Isla. “But often what you see is that a psychopath will give himself away to the people nearby, that their tendency toward impulsiveness, recklessness, will lead to seepage, their family, friends recognizing that something is just a little ‘off’ about them.”

  Isla held it up before her, a defense against the worst of it. It comforted her, this thought that if you were smart enough, if you knew enough, then the signs of a psychopath, the signs of a serial killer, would be there, if only you were brave enough to look. How many times had she heard it? Stephen Beaumont killed seven people across the state of Georgia, a massacre spread over ten years. And his daughter, in the weary aftermath, looking at Isla, tears running down her cheeks, said, “He had a temper, that was all. How could we possibly have imagined it would go this far?”

  Sometimes it occurred to Isla that she had chosen this career as a shield. That she would cloak herself in knowledge, and in that way she would be safe.

  The ringing of the office phone fractured the conversation, and, for a brief moment, Isla considered waving it away, ignoring it, because she was in a tutorial, and she didn’t answer the phone in tutorials. Then the fear, creeping, inevitable.

  “I’m sorry, guys. Just a second.” She pushed herself up, grabbed the phone from the receiver, praying for nonsense, for admin. Hell, for a call center chasing payment protection insurance.

  “Isla? It’s me.”

  Isla blew out a slow breath, the knowledge that her husband rarely called her at the office settling on her.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  A meaty silence as Ramsey parsed the words, trying to figure out a method of delivery. “Everyone’s okay. It’s okay. Just . . . I really think it would be a good idea if you came home.”

  Later on, she would not remember the excuses she made to her students. She would not remember whether she locked her office door. There would be a dim recollection of passing Connor, of his reaching out for her, his “Isla? What’s wrong?” and of running, of barely acknowledging his existence. The little she would remember of the drive was that it was too fast, too reckless, and yet, perhaps thanks to an intercession from a God who had done little in the way of protecting recently, she made it home alive.

  They were waiting in the living room. Someone had lit a fire, wood logs in the open hearth. Her father stood beside the window—it seemed to her that he was half in, half out, as if he would fly away if only he could. Her mother, on the sofa, arms wrapped around the middle of her. Isla’s gaze flew around the room, fear suddenly making her breathless. Then she found Ramsey, in the armchair. His head was in his hands.

  “Baby? What is it?” Isla squatted beside him, pulling his hand into hers. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  Her husband looked at her, placed his palm against her cheek, and gave her a small smile. Then he gestured toward the coffee table.

  It had been placed in a plastic evidence bag, the image made iridescent by the sheen of it. Isla stood over it without touching, stared at it. It must have been taken yesterday or the day before. There was too much noise in her brain now, too many screams, for her to remember things exactly as they had been. They had been leaving for work when Ramsey had pulled her back to him, had kissed her deeply, and she had thought of the vanishingness of life and had gripped hold of him as if for the last time. She remembered the smell of him, the sound of the rain hitting the porch roof, the pressure of his lips against hers.

  She felt herself sway. No. She would not give in. She stared at the color of the leaves, of the dim light, trying to orient, trying to focus. Around the edges of the image was a smattering of leaves, framing it as if it had been an artistic choice. Perhaps it had. It had been taken through the hedge. It had been taken from perhaps ten meters away.

  Isla tried to relocate that morning, tried to dig out a sense of being stared at. Because you would know, right? If someone was standing ten meters away from you, watching you? Surely you should know? But there, in the recollection of that mornin
g, there was nothing but the smell of her husband and the sensation of his kiss.

  She looked at him. “Did you hear anything? That morning . . . did you . . . ?”

  Ramsey shook his head, expression grim.

  “Jesus.”

  She sank down onto the arm of the chair, her legs pressing against his, comforted somehow by the weight of them. He reached across and turned the picture over, so that she could see the words printed carefully on the back.

  I’LL BE SEEING YOU SOON.

  “It’s a warning,” said her father quietly. “He’s coming for you.”

  Isla felt a weight of tears building up, snaked her fingers through her husband’s. One word circling through her brain over and over. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

  “We need to get you two somewhere safe.”

  Isla looked up at her father, his face hidden in shadow.

  “He’s clearly got you in his sights. Let’s get you two set up in a hotel somewhere, a nice long way away. Just until we’ve caught him. Until this is all over.”

  “No,” Isla said quietly.

  She felt her husband looking at her, and then a squeeze, the pressure of his hand in hers.

  “Isla . . .” Her father’s voice held a warning.

  “We can’t run, Dad. That way, it will never end.” She spoke to her father but looked at Ramsey, who studied her, his gaze running across her face, as if he, too, was trying to understand. Then another squeeze of her fingers, and a short, sharp nod.

  “Isla’s right,” he said quietly. “I’m tired of being a victim.”

  “But, Isla, Rams, love . . . ,” interjected her mother. “Think, now. There’s no shame in leaving. Don’t you think—”

  “No,” said Ramsey quietly. “Bonnie, I’m sorry. I know you are both trying to protect us. But Isla is right. We’re staying.”

  Her father moved closer, his hands sliding onto his hips as he prepared for war. She could see it as if it had already happened, the argument, the thrown accusation.

  “You understand the danger you are both in?” Her father was not her father now. It had happened but rarely during her childhood, yet each occasion stood bright against a dim background of recollection. Now he had the hard edges on him, the barely held back anger, which made her stomach flip. It was, her mother said, his policeman voice, designed to dominate, to be obeyed. “You understand what you are saying? That you have been identified as a target? That so far, whoever this is has had no difficulties whatsoever in killing whomever he sets his sights on?”

  Eric wasn’t looking at Ramsey, but at Isla, words hard, eyes pleading. Isla felt a tumble of guilt with the crashing awareness that it wasn’t just herself she was risking. She looked at Ramsey, met his gaze, his hand tightening on hers. The silent conversation.

  We stand our ground. Agreed?

  Agreed.

  “We’re not leaving, Dad.”

  The fire crackled, popping in the hearth; a flurry of wind threw tree branches against the window. In the room, silence. Isla had shifted her gaze, was no longer looking at her father but at the fingers of her husband, interwoven with hers. They would stay. They would not run. They would catch him.

  “Well, then.” Bonnie’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. The sofa creaked as she pushed herself to standing. “What about I make us a little something to eat? I think we could all use some lunch. Some soup? Isl?”

  Isla looked up at her mother and smiled. “That would be great, Mum. Thank you.”

  “I’ll pop the kettle on too. I think we could all use a nice cup of tea, don’t you? Eric, love, you’re staying?” There was an uptick on the end of her words, words hopeful and doubtful all at once.

  “No.” Her father was watching them, face dense with storm clouds. “No. I’m going back to work.”

  What was that expression as he looked at Isla? Disappointment? Irritation?

  “Isla,” said Eric. “That thing we talked about earlier . . .”

  Visiting Heath McGowan.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t do it. Understand?” Her father fixed her with a look, one that was meant to be obeyed.

  Isla opened her mouth to object, but her father was already gone. Her parents had slid from the living room, and the low thrum of their conversation now eased its way back under the poorly fitted door, so that the words vanished in the crackle of the fire and the whirring of the wind, and yet the anger remained.

  “Well, that went well,” said Ramsey softly.

  She leaned forward, rested her head against his. “We’re going to be okay.”

  Did she mean it? Or was it little more than a useless platitude, a reassurance in the face of certain doom? What were they doing? What was she doing? Ethan Charles, Albany, New York, murdered six women by slitting their throats ear to ear. When they found him, he was carrying in his pocket the tongue of one of his victims. Stephen Vincent, killed three in Birmingham—two women and a man. Before their deaths, he raped and sodomized each of his victims repeatedly.

  What the fuck was she doing?

  “I just need to pop to the loo, okay? Could you see if my mum can find everything?”

  The hallway was empty now, but the anger seemed to hang in the air, the ghost of an outrage lingering behind. Isla took the stairs quickly, let herself into the bathroom and closed the door behind her, slid the thick metal bolt into place.

  Then she vomited into the toilet bowl.

  Stephen Vincent had kept his victims alive for more than a week, chained in the basement beneath his house. Had abused them, tortured them, over and over again. He hadn’t removed the earlier victims, had chained his latter ones up beside what little remained of their predecessors as a potent warning of what was to come.

  Isla sank to her knees, feeling the heat rush through her, another round of nausea hitting.

  What was she doing?

  They should run. Her father was right. They should run and run and get the hell away from here, and what was she thinking, taking this stand? Reckless, that was what her father had called her more than once. You’re cavalier about your own safety, Isla. And she was, wasn’t she? Careless and selfish and seemingly unable to remember that she was not the only one at risk here.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, flushed the evidence of her fear away. Rinsed water from cheek to cheek, thinking of a locked drawer and envelope upon envelope.

  There were voices coming from the kitchen, the soft thrum of music, the smell of soup beginning to wind its way up the stairs. Isla walked with soft steps to the study and eased open the door. The filing cabinet sat in the back right-hand corner. She reached for a cup that sat on a high shelf of the bookcase beside it, retrieved a small silver key, then sank to her knees, carefully and quietly unlocked the bottom drawer, and pulled out a box file.

  Deep breath.

  Isla sat down on the floor, her back against the wall, legs crossed, and flipped open the lid of the box file. Inside, the papers formed a weighty pile. After sliding her fingers underneath, she pulled the papers free, separated them into four piles, the way she had so many times before. Four piles, arranged left to right in a row before her.

  Isla closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again, drew the first pile closer. A sheaf of white paper, lined, its roughened edges torn from a notebook. She read the top one, its words as familiar as a lullaby.

  Dear Prof,

  I hope you are keeping well. Things are the same here. I’m taking art classes. Will have to send you a picture next time, ha-ha. I read your recent paper re brain stuff but didn’t get most of it. Maybe you can explain it to me next time I see you. Glad to see you won that award. Telling all the boys about it. When are you coming to see me again?

  Yours,

  Stephen

  P.S. One of these days I’m going to come to your house in the dark and fuck you until you want to die.

  There were more than a dozen of these, a one-sided correspondence that had started about a we
ek after she first interviewed Stephen Vincent. She followed the thread of the uneasy letters, picturing his stick-thin arms, his narrow fingers. They came to the office. Every couple of months there would be one waiting for her in her cubbyhole. Unpleasant, and yet what he knew about her, those nuggets of her life that he referenced, all of it was easily available. She breathed out carefully, laid the sheet back down.

  The second pile consisted of a sheaf of folded A4 paper, each sheet bearing a picture sketched in pencil in quick, sure strokes. Isla picked up the top one, a Madonna and Child, the mother’s eyes closed, her cheek resting peacefully on her child’s head, blissful in its serenity. Inside the makeshift card, a message in beautiful cursive script.

  I’m going to slice you open from your pussy to your throat.

  Every Christmas another card would appear in her cubbyhole at the university, stamped and postmarked. Isla studied the picture, feeling nausea rise again. She had never been able to identify the artist, although she had narrowed it down to two possibilities. A wannabe serial killer foiled before he could really explore his talents, Duncan Lea met a middle-aged woman through an online dating service, took her out for two extremely romantic dates, and then, on the third date, took her back to his apartment, where he had prepared a meal of duck with pomegranate, her portion generously laced with Rohypnol. After eating, he slit her throat open. Her badly mutilated body was discovered by his landlord two weeks later, after neighboring residents began to complain about the smell. Or Lionel Allen, a highly charming and educated man, a schoolteacher specializing in mathematics, who murdered nine young men across the West Midlands.

  Isla replaced the Christmas card on top of the pile; then her fingers moved to the next stack—the one-hit wonders pile. A delirious assortment of charm, vile threats, and the promise of worse to follow. Some sourced, identified; others a mystery.