Night Watcher

by Chris Longmuir

  ‘C’mon Julie, help me just a little bit,’ he pleaded, as he steered her along the pavement, his shoulder buckling under her weight.

  Julie’s head lolled against his and she mumbled something incoherent as she lifted her arm, which had been dangling down his back, and wrapped it round his neck.

  ‘Attagirl,’ he said. ‘Now just let’s see your feet moving and we’ll be there in no time at all.’

  Harry ignored the curious stares of the few people who were on the street as they stumbled along the pavement. He kept his eyes fixed on his target, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping hold of Julie so she would not fall. ‘Soon be there,’ he panted, as the entrance to the alley grew nearer. But the last few yards felt like miles.

  When he reached the entrance to the alley he propped Julie against the wall and, coughing and wheezing, tried to get his breath back. Several people passed by, but if they seemed a mite too interested, Harry scowled at them, and they soon hurried on their way. After a time his breathing became more even. He repositioned Julie on his shoulder and, with some difficulty, steered her down the alley.

  Harry had to prop her against the wall again as he searched for his key and unlocked the door. He manoeuvred her inside, but was unable to hold her up while he keyed in the alarm security number. ‘Oh, Julie,’ he murmured, ‘what a state you’ve got yourself into.’ Bending down he pulled her up, ‘Won’t be long now,’ he said, as he half-lifted and half-dragged her along the passage.

  The lift hummed gently upward sounding eerie in the silence of the store. The doors shushed open and Harry dragged Julie through them into a pool of darkness. The security lighting at the far end of the shop floor did not quite reach the lift, making the shapes around them seem strange and menacing. However, Harry did not need lighting to know his way around and he manoeuvred Julie through the avenues between the rows of furniture until he reached the bedding department.

  ‘Which one, now? The best, of course,’ he muttered as he inspected the display and, choosing one of the most expensive, he hoisted Julie into the bed.

  She flopped, pulling him down with her so that he had to untangle himself from her arms. Her body sprawled where she had fallen, her blouse twisted upwards under her breasts and her skirt had ridden so far up it exposed thighs, topped with cream lace panties that hardly covered anything. Harry drew in a long, shaky breath. She was a very attractive woman.

  With trembling fingers he loosened the buttons of her blouse and slipped it from her shoulders, drawing in his breath at the amount of scarring on her arms. But, deciding it was none of his business, he turned his attention to her skirt which just slipped off after it was unfastened. With a deep sigh of regret Harry grabbed a duvet from one of the displays and tucked it round her.

  ‘Only the best for you, Julie,’ he murmured, ‘sleep well and I’ll make sure I get back here in time to wake you before the store opens.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Darkness was his friend. It moved with him as he slipped from shadow to shadow until he reached his own secret entrance.

  Nobody knew he had a key, and nobody knew the alarm system no longer worked down here in the bowels of the building.

  He was home.

  He rested awhile in his secret, dark place, listening to the rats and mice scraping in the corners. They were his friends. He felt an affinity with them. Soon their soft rhythmic scrapings lulled him to sleep, but sleep was not natural for him and he woke again to the lullaby of familiar noises – the scrabbling, scraping sounds, the hiss of the pipes and the faint drip of water on stone.

  The smell of the dark cradled him. It was a moist smell, like something on the turn, not quite rotten, but well on its way. Mixing with the fetid aroma was the familiar scent of oil and grease, entwined with something akin to paraffin or petrol.

  His legs had stiffened under him. Leaning forward he massaged his calves, flexed his knees and rotated his ankles. It was time to go wandering again, while he thought about his next attack on the woman. He would leave a gift in her office. That would be nice.

  The store, slumbering in silence as he walked through it, was his domain. During the daytime it belonged to the people, but at night it was his. He could wander wherever he liked. Do whatever he liked, in this place of dark secrets and shadowy corners.

  Always he started from the bottom of the store and worked his way up. He particularly liked the food hall with its tall shelving units casting darker shadows than anywhere else in the store. He was there now running his hands along the shelves among the familiar objects. Selecting a packet of cheese he nibbled at it as he climbed the stairs, what he did not eat would do for the mice.

  He liked enclosed spaces, but had never felt safe in the lift. It was something to do with the motion, and something to do with his lack of control over it. The stairs, however, reminded him of tunnels, particularly when they were dark. He liked the dark and he liked tunnels. Maybe he should introduce the woman to some of his tunnels. He had an idea this would increase her fear.

  He wandered through the first floor fashion department. It was another favourite of his. He liked to stroke the materials; rub his hands over the furs – pity they were all fake nowadays – and finger the silks, rubbing them against his face and imagining what it would be like if they were on her.

  The door sighed shut behind him when he left, cocooning him on the stairs again. He climbed higher until he came to the next door which led into the furnishing department. Sometimes he came here to sit in their fancy chairs or lie in their fancy beds. They never knew.

  Tonight though, there was a mound in one of the beds. He crept towards it, his footsteps silent on the carpet, until he stood alongside. He was curious. As far as he knew he was the only one who crept about the store at night, so who could be sleeping here.

  He fingered the edge of the duvet and pulled it away from her chin. It was the other one, although what she was doing here he could not imagine.

  He studied her. Her face was flushed with sleep and her short hair lay in a tousled mess on the pillow. There was something childlike about her. He stroked her hair back from her face with one finger following the shape of her head. Hardly touching her skin, his finger traced the curve of her neck – such a lovely, smooth, white neck – his finger hovered for a moment and then withdrew. She mumbled, but did not wake which was just as well because he did not know what he would have done if she had awakened.

  He had a sudden urge to leave her a gift so he returned to the fashion department and selected the most expensive silk scarf on display. Then he went back to Julie’s bedside and draped it round her neck.

  He stroked her hair before returning to his mission of leaving the perfect gift in the bitch-woman’s office. But after that he would return and keep watch over the other one. It would be a long night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  By the time Harry got home he was not sure which part of his body ached most. He had walked all the way from the town centre because the buses stopped running hours ago and he did not have enough money for a taxi.

  He hesitated, with his hand on the garden gate while he scanned the windows for a glimmer of light, and was thankful to see nothing but darkness. It was years since Babs had waited up for him to come home, but she never knew when to expect him nowadays and he could not tell her because he never knew himself. It seemed that as the pressures of his job increased, so did his restlessness.

  Harry longed for the old days when he was happy at work and Babs could have set her clock by his movements. But that was in the days before Nicole rose to her elevated position. Maybe that was the reason she disliked him so much, because he could remember when she was just a sales assistant. That was before she started balling Patrick Drake, and earned her promotion on her back. Oh yes, he knew all about high and mighty Mrs Ralston. She hadn’t always been so powerful.

  Sliding his key into the lock he opened the front door as quietly as he could, easing it shut on
ce he was inside. He did not put on a light, he did not need it to feel his way up the stairs and he was afraid it might wake Rosie or Babs. Avoiding the loose floorboard on the top landing he eased Rosie’s bedroom door open and tiptoed over to her bed. She looked like an angel when she was asleep. He smiled and brushed his lips against her cheek before he sidled out the door again.

  He wanted to relax in a hot bath to ease his aches and pains, but decided not to in case the rumbling of the water pipes wakened his sleeping family. So he crept along the landing into his bedroom, slipped his clothes off and slid into bed.

  Babs turned, mumbling in her sleep. Harry longed to reach out to her, but knew the coldness of his body would wake her, and he did not want to explain why he was so late. Not that Babs would reproach him, but the disappointment in her eyes haunted him and he was finding it increasingly difficult to face her.

  Harry lay in the dark, eyes closed, but not sleeping. This was the time when all his worries collected and pressed down on him and tonight was no exception. He did not recall falling asleep, but the harsh clanging of the alarm startled him awake. He shot his arm out of the bed, feeling for the button to silence it before the noise woke Babs. But he did not make it in time.

  ‘You were late home last night,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I wasn’t that late,’ Harry lied, guessing she would have been in bed by eleven o’clock.

  ‘I worry, you know,’ she said throwing the duvet to the side and slinging her legs out of the bed.

  ‘I know,’ he said pulling her back and covering her up. ‘You lie there. I’ll get my own breakfast and bring you a cup of tea.’ She had not realized how early it was and with a bit of luck, thought Harry, she’ll fall asleep after her tea without noticing the time.

  Babs did not answer, but he could see the reproachful look in her eyes and he was glad to escape to the kitchen.

  Drumming his fingers on the worktop he waited for the kettle to boil. He had already decided not to bother with breakfast in order to save time. The cleaners started work two hours before he did and he had to get there before they arrived, if he did not they might find Julie. But he had to take Babs her tea before he left so she would not get up and question him.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said, moving the clock away and putting the cup on the bedside table. ‘No need for you to get up yet, Rosie’s still asleep.’ He kissed her forehead and left.

  Outside there was no one around except for a scruffy looking dog pawing at rubbish bags and raking through the spillage. He ran along the street, afraid he would miss the bus, but then had to stand and wait for five minutes.

  Wind rustled round the shopping square sending pieces of paper, silvery foil carry-out trays and leaves scudding across the paving stones. Ali was taking the steel shutters off his supermarket windows. Harry raised a hand in greeting to him, wondering if the man ever slept because he always seemed to be there.

  The wind pummelled him making Harry pull his coat around his body. His blood must be getting thinner, he thought, for the mornings seemed to be colder nowadays. He was still shivering when the bus pulled up in a belch of fumes. He got on, huddling in a seat beside the heater, and relaxed. The bus would get him to the store in time to wake Julie. It would not do for her to be caught sleeping in the furniture department.

  ***

  It was still dark when Julie woke and for a moment she thought nothing in her life had changed. She was back in her Edinburgh flat and the last few months had simply been a nightmare from which she had now wakened. In her dream state she knew that if she got up she could walk to the old-fashioned casement window where she could look out on the Mile which was what everyone called the High Street. She liked the Mile, that long narrow street that led in one direction to Edinburgh Castle and in the other direction to the Palace of Holyrood. She had been lucky to get a flat there in one of the old-fashioned tenements, though it cost her the earth.

  She stretched her arm out expecting it to meet Dave’s warm body sleeping next to her, but there was only empty space and a cold bed. She remembered then. It was not a nightmare, it was real, and yet, when she had been sleeping she’d had the strangest sensation Dave was sitting there watching her. The feeling of being watched was so strong that she struggled into a sitting position and looked around her. But, even in the gloom she knew she had been mistaken, no one was there and even if there had been, it could not possibly be Dave because he was dead. She turned her face into the pillow and scrubbed her eyes with the corner of the duvet cover.

  Tiredness swamped her. Her eyes closed. If she slept again maybe the nightmare would go away. But her eyes were full of grit, her tongue was sandpaper, and a hammer was beating inside her head. If only she could sleep she would not want to wake up ever again – but it was impossible.

  After a time she sat up. Her head swam and there was a nauseous feeling in her gut. She struggled against it, trying to figure out where she was, because she was not in her Edinburgh flat, nor was she in the Dundee one.

  Where the blazes was she?

  Gradually she acclimatized, although it only added to her confusion. What on earth was she doing in a bed in the furniture department? Julie rubbed her forehead with a clenched fist hoping it would bring back a memory of how she got there, but it did not work. She had a vague recollection of a noisy pub, of drinking a lot, of a man with nice eyes, but beyond that, nothing.

  Her head throbbed with the effort of thinking. Someone must have brought her here. But who? She shuddered. Surely she had not been so drunk she had slept with someone. And if she had, where was he? Christ, why couldn’t she remember? God she must have had a real skinful last night. More than usual, because she had never before suffered from amnesia.

  She struggled out of the bed. She could not be found here when the store opened. How would she explain it? Particularly when she could not explain it to herself. As she rose something fluttered to the floor and, bending, she picked it up. There was a puzzled expression in her eyes as she looked at the silk scarf. It was beautiful, but it was not hers. She had never seen it before. Maybe the man with the nice eyes had given it to her. She shook her head. She could not remember.

  Julie shivered. The heating had not come on in the store yet and she was wearing only her bra and panties. Looking around she spotted her coat, skirt and blouse folded neatly on the bed next to the one she had been sleeping in. She grabbed them and headed for the elevator. She would get dressed in the toilets downstairs and after that she would worry about what might have happened last night.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Nicole woke with a raging thirst and a beating head. After the police left she had drunk most of what had been left in the bottle of Glenfiddich. She was not usually a whisky drinker, but she had been so upset and annoyed by the way they had treated her that she had started on the bottle and kept going until it was almost empty.

  ‘Oh,’ she moaned, clamping a hand on her forehead. Why hadn’t they believed her? Why did they treat her like some kind of lamebrain? Smiling at her in that supercilious way some men have when they are talking to a woman. She hated that. It made her feel so inferior, as if she was a child again listening to her father telling her she was stupid. It was that sod, Scott, of course, filling their minds with ideas that she was paranoid, just a silly woman imagining things. She turned over in the bed ready to lambast him, but he was not there. His side of the bed was empty.

  Nicole struggled into a sitting position, each movement sending a stab of pain through her temples. She looked at the clock, but could not focus. The daylight filtering through the window stabbed at her eyes so she supposed it must be morning. She sank back into the pillows, not caring what time it was. She would go in late – it would make up for all the extra hours she worked. Her eyelids slipped shut, but the headache kept her from sleeping. She started to count the stabs of pain thumping through her head with the regularity of a pulse-beat, but gave up because the effort of thinking was too great. The bed undulated benea
th her and the room would not stay in one place. She tried to ignore the swimming sensation that made her feel she was floating, but when the wave of nausea hit, she forced herself to stumble from the bed into the bathroom. The white pile carpet swallowed her knees as she leaned over the toilet, but the porcelain was cool on her forehead. It helped to slow the room down until it had almost stopped spinning. She started to feel slightly better.

  ‘That was some night you had!’

  Nicole did not need to look up to know that Scott would be smiling as he leaned against the door. One thing she knew she could never expect from Scott, was sympathy. Bastard.

  ‘What d’you care,’ she mumbled. ‘You’ve never cared much before.’

  ‘Of course I care,’ he sounded genuine, but when she looked up it was just as she expected. He was smiling.

  Nicole struggled to her feet determined not to give him the pleasure of thinking she was suffering. Acid burned at the back of her throat, but she swallowed hard, trying to ignore it. The hammer inside her brain continued its staccato beat and her eyes lost their focus for a moment. She frowned, concentrating her gaze on a tile just above Scott’s head until her vision cleared again and she was able to walk to the door. Scott did not move out of her way and she had to push past him. She continued her careful walk out of the bedroom, intending to go to the kitchen and make an assault on the coffee pot, and almost fell over the suitcase before she saw it.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ Nicole struggled with the fuzz in her brain. She could not remember Scott mentioning a trip and she wondered if he was leaving her.

  ‘Paris,’ he said. ‘I told you yesterday I’d be leaving early to catch the cross-channel ferry. I have a meeting arranged with one of the biggest distributors of software in Europe. If I can get them to distribute our software it’ll mean big money.’