Night Watcher

by Chris Longmuir

  Scott attacked the food on his plate with a ferociousness that reflected his attitude to life. It was as if there was a fire and an anger burning within him that needed to be stoked. She watched him, surreptitiously, but it would not have mattered if she had laid down her fork and stared. He would not have noticed.

  Sometimes she wondered about her feelings for him, and although she was sure she loved him when they were writhing in each other’s arms at night, she was not so sure afterwards, when he turned away from her. She wanted him now with a desire that warmed her, making her glow with the depth of her need for him, and reminding her of earlier times when her passion was for him alone. Times when she did not need other men to fill the emptiness that crept over her more frequently now. An emptiness she never seemed able to fill.

  She remembered him as he had been sixteen years ago, when first they met. She had loved him then with an unquenchable passion and could not quite believe it when he had wanted to marry her. He had been older and more experienced than the other boy friends she had known, while she had been a sexually-naïve, fifteen-year old child who thought herself grown up. She remembered thinking he had seemed so sophisticated and mature and she could not understand why he had wanted her, an awkward, skinny girl who was too frightened to speak, and could not believe he was real. Even now he was still handsome, although he had passed his forty-first birthday. His features were strong and well-defined, with a straight nose overshadowing lips which were on the full side, and a chin that jutted outwards a little too far. And she knew, without him raising his eyelids to look at her, that his eyes were dark brown with a sensual, magnetic quality that seemed to hypnotize and fascinate. They could sparkle with anger, smoulder with lust or penetrate with a glare, but above all they could paralyse with a stare rather like a snake hypnotising its prey. His eyes were what made his face so attractive and alive, and she often felt they were what held her to him.

  Forcing herself to look away she glanced at the window, although it was too dark to see outside. A slight movement made her put her fork down with a clatter. She half rose from her chair.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Scott looked up from his plate.

  ‘No . . . well I’m not sure . . . I thought for a moment someone was outside.’

  Scott pushed his chair back and strode to the window. ‘Who’d be out there? We’re not expecting anyone, are we?’

  Nicole did not want to provoke him, so she said, ‘I probably imagined it, but I could swear I saw the shadows move.’

  ‘How can you see shadows move? That’s impossible. Anyway it’s too dark out there for you to have seen anything, but I suppose I’ll have to go out and check.’ He threw his napkin on the table and strode out of the room.

  ‘It’s not really necessary,’ she murmured, but he was gone.

  A few minutes later he tapped on the window and she could see the outline of his face as he pressed it to the glass. His lips moved and she could just make out the words, ‘There’s nothing out here.’ She nodded in response and hoped his foray outside had not made him angry.

  He vanished from sight, reappearing in the dining room with a wide smile on his face. ‘Silly little woman,’ he said in a disparaging tone, and she knew he was all right.

  However, she was not.

  The resentment rose in her like a tide of bile because he had assumed the role he enjoyed most, that of protector and master of the house. She wished he had just stayed angry. She could cope with that, but not this, never this, the patronising, belittling attitude he adopted towards her, which made her feel he was laughing at her.

  She fought against her anger. If she allowed it to take over it would spoil their evening together and he would stomp off, in the sulks, to one of the spare bedrooms. After all, it was not as if she didn’t know why he had to act the way he did. She knew only too well. It was his way of suppressing his feelings about her being the main provider, the payer of the bills, the breadwinner, whilst he churned all his profits back into his software business in a determination to be the biggest and the best. On paper he was probably a millionaire, but it was only figures, it was not the folding stuff. And so he took it out on her.

  ‘Sit down and finish your dinner,’ she said, modulating her voice so he would not detect the resentment, ‘then we can have a brandy in the lounge. I managed to find a rather nice one in that specialist wine shop that’s just opened.’

  The rest of the evening passed without any further unpleasantness, although now and again Nicole shivered as she imagined watching eyes in the darkness outside. She said nothing to Scott, not wanting him to make any more disparaging remarks about silly, nervous females.

  Later, in bed, when he reached for her she fleetingly thought of turning her back to him, but as usual her love for him, or lust, she was not sure which, flared through her body with a heat that made it pliable and moist. Opening her arms she pressed her body against his, twining her legs round him so he could not escape her. In this, at least, she could retain her power over him.

  ***

  The moon filtered its silvery glow through the bedroom window dusting everything with an eerie frosting. Nicole had wanted him to close the curtains, but Scott had refused. ‘You’re like a little cry-baby afraid of the dark,’ he had taunted and, although she had glared at him, she had not argued.

  Nicole had been acting strangely tonight. First there had been her anger – although he’d rather enjoyed that – and then her insistence that there was a prowler outside, he could almost smell her fear and it gave him a perverse pleasure to ridicule her. It was for the same reason he had made her sleep with the window open and the moon shining on their lovemaking. There had been a moment when he had thought she would refuse, but she did not. She never did.

  Scott liked the quiet of the night, the dark, and most of all the solitude. It was restful and allowed him to be the man he had always been. Recently he had felt swamped by Nicole who seemed to be an entirely different person to the girl he had married. He lay in the dark, and acknowledged just how tired he had become of her voice, her demands and her needs.

  A moonbeam bathed Nicole’s face, spreading upwards to silver the hair fanned over the pillow in frosted strands. She was almost beautiful in a sensuous kind of way, although it was a beauty that no longer appealed to him.

  A flash of anger stirred in his gut. It appealed to other men though, and he was sure she was making a fool of him again. If he found out who it was he would take care of him, in the same way he had taken care of the last one.

  Scott turned over, so he did not have to look at Nicole puffing the air out of her mouth in the beginnings of a snore, and wondered where the little girl he had married had gone. He had to admit though, that she was still fantastic in bed, even if her breasts were too full and her hips too curvy.

  His thoughts turned to his last visit to Manchester and to Emma. Now there was an attractive girl, small and with the body of an adolescent, for although she was twenty-one, she looked fourteen. His wife certainly could not compare with Emma, because Nicole’s body had developed a voluptuousness that did not appeal to him.

  He only stayed with Nicole because of her success and her ability to bring in a top salary. In some ways it made him feel less of a man, but although he was usually reluctant to admit this, it also made her indispensable. It was Nicole’s money that left him free to invest and expand his own business, but the day would come when he did not need her anymore and then it would be goodbye Nicole, and he could plan a future with Emma.

  Nicole muttered in her sleep, turning over and slinging her arm around his waist. It felt alien and uncomfortable, sending a shiver through him. Gently he lifted her arm off his body and slid out of the bed. His hair flopped over his face and he reached onto the bedside table feeling for a scrunchie to fasten his hair behind his head in its familiar pony-tail.

  Soft carpet pile tickled his toes while cool air bathed his skin. He tucked the duvet around Nicole’s naked body and, reaching for his ba
throbe, crept out of the bedroom.

  The house throbbed with silence as he walked barefoot to his study. Once inside he swung gently in his swivel chair and powered up the computer. It came alive with a steady hum, the screen flickering in the dark, competing with the moonlight. Scott turned his attention to the chat rooms. There was no competition. He would rather communicate with his computer than watch the moon any night.

  Several hours passed before he returned to the bed he shared with Nicole.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She had seen him. He had not meant to let her see him. But, remembering the startled look in her eyes, he shivered with pleasure.

  There had been scepticism in her husband’s eyes when he crossed the room to look out the window. The man had not seen him though. He was too quick and clever for him.

  Now he lay on the earth under the windowsill inhaling the smell of mould until it filled his nostrils and intoxicated him with its aroma. But he knew he could not stay there because, even though the husband did not believe, he was coming outside to look. He could not let the husband see him, or he would lose his hold of fear over the woman.

  Tree branches beckoned to him from the orchard and he slid beneath their protective arms. He slipped from tree to tree until he reached his own special tree: the one with the massive, spreading branches reaching over the wall, allowing him access to the grounds.

  He lay along a branch, moulding himself to it until he was almost a part of the tree itself. He watched the husband leave the house and enter his territory: the territory of the night and of the dark.

  The husband was a fool. A simpleton who could not even check the grounds properly, and never suspected his presence here in the tree. So, he watched and waited while the man pranced around and made faces at his wife through the window.

  Fool!

  Snakelike, he slid out of the tree and crawled to the window when the man returned to the house. The woman was not pleased. He could see it in her face. But she bowed down to her husband and hid her feelings behind a mask.

  He waited and watched. He saw her use her sex to enslave the man. It was the way she wielded her power. Afterwards, he saw the husband escape from her bed. He did not blame him. The man probably sensed her power, her desire to enslave him and make him do things against his will, like the evil deed he had done for her that dark summer night which now seemed so long ago.

  He continued to watch, for this was when the real demons appeared. He could see them on her face as she slept. They made her toss and turn, although she did not wake until after the man returned to sleep beside her.

  The man would tame her demons for a time. But they would come back again, because she had the power.

  Only he could kill the demons for all time. And he was the only one who could take her power away from her. It was his mission. Given to him by God.

  A slight breeze ruffled through the trees and bushes, the night was almost over and soon it would be dawn. Like all nocturnal creatures he would have to leave. So he sidled into the orchard, up the tree and over the wall.

  He had things to do before dawn.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Patrick Drake’s Department Store was one of the most impressive buildings in Dundee. It spread over a whole block of the High Street with large display windows in three streets, and reached backwards, almost to Whitehall Crescent, at its rear. Not only did it occupy so much ground space, but it also stretched upwards for five stories and down for one. If you counted the bottom basement, where there were heating ducts and a conglomeration of pipes and wires servicing the upper regions, then the store extended downwards for two levels.

  Julie had been working there for the past two months, thanks mainly to Nicole’s guilt trip over the accident; she was in charge of the food hall which occupied most of the basement floor. The restaurant which took up the rest of the space was managed by her friend Betty, whose cooking skills brought a steady stream of customers downstairs. There was also the coffee shop one floor up, in one corner of the ground floor, which served the best of coffees, a selection of teas, and tempting cream cakes.

  Julie always arrived at the store in the morning before any of the other section managers, although there was no need for this. She liked to ensure that her section was ready when the doors opened. Besides, it gave her the chance to have an early cup of coffee before getting down to the business of the day.

  Early morning staff entered through a rear door at the back of the building. The alley leading to this door was vastly different from the sparkling appearance of the frontage and was invariably strewn with papers, rubbish, and condoms left behind by the previous evening’s amorous seekers after privacy.

  At the rear of the alley, beyond the door, a stone staircase descended to the subterranean depths of the lower basement. Two large iron skips leaned against the railing which separated the stairs from the main body of the alley and, depending on the day of the week, these were either overflowing or almost empty. However, they never lost their stink of rotting produce and other unidentifiable smells that made Julie think something had died and not been buried. Julie had tried holding her breath as she walked up the alley, but could never hold it long enough, so she compromised and held it, just before she came to the door.

  Lately a tramp had taken up residence in the alley, probably because it was reasonably quiet and dark at night and provided shelter from the cold wind that rushed up the River Tay. The security staff did their best to move him on, but he always returned, and each morning he seemed to be huddling ever nearer to the door recess. This morning he looked frozen as he squatted on the frosty pavement in his huddle of tattered clothing, paper and cardboard, over which he had pulled a dirty blanket. Julie shivered at the thought of how cold he must be and feared that some morning she would find him beyond help.

  Most of the staff seemed frightened of him and gave him a wide berth, but Julie did not share their fear and could only pity him. Maybe that was because she had been accustomed to tramps in Edinburgh, sitting in Princes Street with their backs against shop frontages, their begging bowls, or whatever they were using for begging bowls, in front of them. Despite being used to them though, she had always had a niggling feeling that no one should have to beg, and she often suspected that what they wanted was money for drink or drugs. So, while she was sorry for them she never threw money in their caps, although she sometimes slipped them a bar of chocolate or a sandwich.

  This tramp, however, did not have a begging bowl or a cap or anything else in front of him. He was just there, a miserable bundle of rags, inviting sympathy rather than fear.

  Julie’s heels clacked off the paving stones, throwing an echo upward between the buildings the alley sliced its way through. It was deserted except for the tramp and herself. She paused as she drew level with him. For some reason she always expected him to look up and acknowledge her presence, but he remained bundled in his makeshift bedding giving no indication he knew she was there.

  A flurry of wind teased at the edge of her coat making her shiver and she wondered how he must feel as the awfulness of being cold and having nowhere to go forced its way into her consciousness. But he was always there no matter how bad the weather. This alley was his, although he never argued and never objected when the security guard came out and hustled him on his way. He simply moved on, although they all knew he would be back once the store closed down.

  The tramp, in his cocoon of blanket, paper and cardboard, was motionless as Julie walked round him, and for a moment she wondered if he was still living.

  An unwanted memory of Dave flickered and returned to haunt her. It seemed that one day he had been a living, breathing man and then, in the blink of an eye, he had been gone.

  The bundle heaved slightly and she knew her fears were groundless, although it reminded her of the level of her obsession with death. An obsession she knew would consume her until she laid Dave’s memory finally to rest. And that would never happen until she had dealt with Nicole
.

  A bell was cemented into the stone of the door surround, a large grey button attached to a heavy electric cable that reached upwards and vanished into the building somewhere above her head. She pressed it and, although she could not hear anything, imagined the sound wriggling its way up the cable and into the building.

  ‘Morning, Julie. All ready for a new day then?’ The security guard who opened the door smiled at her. She smiled back. She liked Harry, he was quiet and gentle, although perhaps a bit too sensitive for the job.

  ‘He still there then?’ Harry nodded at the tramp. ‘Poor bugger, I’ll have to move him on soon. Still, it’ll be a good hour before Madam puts in an appearance so I’ll let him sit for a while.’

  ‘Better not let her hear you call her Madam,’ Julie grinned up at Harry, ‘or she’ll have your guts for garters.’

  ‘I think she has them already.’ A tired look flitted over Harry’s pleasant features. ‘I’m getting too old for her shenanigans and that’s the truth, Julie. If it wasn’t that I needed this job I’d walk out, but if I did where would I get another one.’ He shrugged his shoulders and closed the door. ‘If it weren’t for my wee Rosie . . . ’

  Julie put her hand on his arm, ‘I know, Harry. But her bark’s worse than her bite you know.’ Julie did not really believe this, she had seen the way Nicole treated Harry. She tightened her grip in what she hoped was a comforting squeeze. ‘Maybe if you told her about Rosie, maybe she’d be more understanding.’ Even as she said it, Julie knew it would not make any difference to Nicole it would only make her treat Harry worse than she did already because she would know his weakness.

  Harry shook his head, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, she’d only use it against me. Anyway, I don’t particularly want to let her know about Rosie and listen to her nasty comments.’