The Watcher

by Ross Armstrong

  I pull the bug from my bag and make for a tall fern in the corner of the sitting room, thinking I might be able to stick it behind that. Staying away from the large windows so as not to make myself visible from outside. I know the things people can see from the outside.

  A knock at the door. I freeze, dropping the bug, which hits the tiled floor of the kitchen part of the room and cracks. Shit. The little box is in about three pieces. I kneel down to look at it.

  Knock. Knock. I slide the pieces into a tiny gap between the built-in wine cooler and the fridge. I push it further inside, into the darkness with my fingers, desperately. Then I get up and go to the door. I quietly lean in and look through the peephole.

  Nothing. They have what would be better described as ‘eye viewers’ in these buildings. Peephole seems so humble. These are industrial size. Giving you a better view of what’s outside, but distorting it a little and making everything look more hall of mirrors strange. But all I see is the hallway. Even this is a peculiar sight at this point, it reminds me that I’m not in my flat. This is not my hallway, these lime green walls are nothing like home.

  I grab my stuff. I did all this for nothing. My bug is in pieces. The flat filled with nothing but nice shirts, sports equipment and a chest I didn’t get to see inside. Then a figure appears, enormous in the eye viewer. A wrinkled face. I step back and hide against the wall, just in case. Even though I know you can’t see in here from the other side.

  Knock. Knock.

  I hold my bag tight for comfort. And lean my back into the wall. I breathe in for fifteen. Then out for ten. In for fifteen. Then out for ten. I look back through the ‘peephole’. Nothing. I take a breath and take my chance.

  I turn the handle and am through in an instant, trying to seem casual. As if leaving my own flat. Nothing unusual. Nothing to see here. I get about five paces before an arm grabs me from behind.

  ‘Hey, you’re coming with me. Come here!’

  I don’t stop to check who it is. I wriggle free and head down the stairs. They’re just behind me. That distorted face, I assume.

  ‘Stop! Right now!’ he shouts.

  But I do get away from him and I hit the green button to release the doors and I can see the sunlight beyond the glass. I’m nearly there.

  As I go through the doors and into the air, I hear the man behind me begin to slow and pant. I’m free of him. I plan to drop my bag and run. Stay away until it gets dark and then sneak back into my apartment without being seen. Then get rid of the clothes I’m wearing and lie low for a while.

  But I don’t do any of that. I run out into the outside world. And straight into the arms of a man in a high-vis jacket. He has a badge. He is over six foot. I’ve not felt this sensation since I was a kid playing games. Caught. I’m ‘It’. I’m fucked. The wrinkled man arrives behind me, wheezing, his hands go to his knees.

  ‘That’s her. She’s the one.’ He’s security for the area, I guess. I haven’t seen him before. I’m not sure of my next move. I don’t know whether to reveal I live here or not. Without thinking, I play the criminal. That’s the thing about situations. They dictate behaviour. More than personality. If personality even exists.

  I writhe. I kick. I shout.

  ‘Get off! Get you’re hands off me! Get the fuck off me!’

  6 days till it comes. Evening.

  WM – Airless white room – Heavy rain, 9 deg – Singular – Brown suit – 5’ 9” – Pensive, analytical, yet somehow casual.

  So now I know what it’s like. Sitting at a table in a small white interview room. Not one you’ve volunteered to be in. The tone has changed somewhat this time.

  I’m waiting for someone to come in and question me. To try to extract things from me. If you’ve seen a TV drama with one of these scenes in, it feels a bit like that. But warmer than you’d expect. Not emotionally. Clammy, I mean. It is resolutely summertime. A high window behind me. No double-sided mirror or anything so fancy. Just a stuffy room.

  I sit on my hands and wriggle around in my seat. I wonder if they’ll be two of them. I reckon one of them will come in and without saying a word he’ll cuff me across the face. I’ll crack and tell him everything. I wait.

  I’ve already pieced together a few things. I didn’t count on so many cameras around the newbuild apartments. The concierge has a few screens that flick from one camera to another. The oval eye in the hallway that looks a bit like a smoke detector. Every hallway has got one. I’d seen the one in mine. Always looking at us.

  If they’d seen me with my bags heading inside Waterway there’d be nothing to worry them too much there. They don’t know us all by face. They wouldn’t know that one’s not my building. They’re not that hi-tech around here. They’re not that organised. We could then make our way along the hallway looking like anyone else. Nothing to worry about there either.

  But as the concierge’s screen flicked over to first floor of Waterway for a few seconds, we got unlucky. He saw Chris fiddling around at the door, without a key in hand. Even saw the lock-picking act itself in all probability. The cameras can turn and zoom. To see the metal rods, to capture the very moment they turned, to spy Chris’s face. Not, shall we say, exactly fitting the profile of an apartment resident. Looking like what he is. A kid from the estate.

  The concierge sends an ageing security guard over to see me. He sends a message to the police, who are often in the area anyway. In the daytime at least. Keeping an eye on the posh flats. Watching out for undesirables. Keeping the estate lot out of the apartment lot’s drawers. A little apartheid.

  They asked me where my little friend was as soon as they picked me up. Before they even shoved me into a car. They saw us in cahoots on the screen.

  I wait. What’s my move? They know too much for me to play the Samaritan. A neighbour, watching over the place because she saw a suspicious kid hanging around, who happened to wander in and check if everything was all right. They know too much. They’ve reviewed the tapes. They won’t buy that.

  I played dumb on the journey between the car and this plain white room. I gave them nothing. I had my fingerprints taken. Didn’t say a word. I’m not good at small talk anyway. I’ve got inky fingers. I look at them. And wait.

  The door opens and the guy walks in, barely looks up, and sits down in front of me. The same one as before. Maybe he’s got lumped with me. I’m his detail. ‘You keep your eye on this one from now on OK? She’s a one woman crime wave this one.’

  He doesn’t look like police. Not that I know anything about the police. Biggish, but today, projecting efficiency despite his tired, old brown suit. He looks more like an accountant or bookkeeper. I find myself feeling a touch disappointed.

  ‘Hello, again. OK. Well, this is a strange one,’ he says, reading off some A4 sheets crudely shoved into a leather folder. He turns on a recording device. Then continues.

  ‘September twelfth, 2015. Ms Lily Gullick. Ms Gullick… can you tell me in your own words what you were doing attempting to and indeed succeeding in gaining unlawful access to number eighteen, Waterway Apartments?’

  Silence. I shift in my seat. I’ve been sitting here thinking about how to answer this kind of question. For a good while. But I haven’t come up with much so far.

  ‘Is this a “No comment”? I’d give you the “Anything you do say…” but you’ve heard all that a couple of times, right? You know the drill.’

  When? On the way here? I haven’t heard it before now. I haven’t been arrested before. I have been here once before but I came of my own volition. I want to object but instead I sit there in silence. There’s something informal about all this. But it doesn’t mean I feel under any less pressure.

  ‘Is this a “No comment”?’ he repeats, robotically. Not looking at me.

  I don’t want to give anything away. I didn’t take anything. Didn’t break anything. I don’t think I can laugh it off. But I could play it down. Or play it up for that matter? Up or down. Up or down?

  ‘Let the rec
ord show that the suspect—’

  ‘I saw something happening over there. A crime. From my window. I live right opposite. In the other building,’ I blurt out.

  ‘What sort of crime, Ms Gullick?’ he asks, still mechanically.

  ‘Well, I’d rather not say,’ I say, sitting back in my chair.

  He sighs. Looks around the room. Clicks his pen a couple of times.

  ‘So how did this lead to you ending up breaking in to his apartment?’ he says, a grin almost creeping in from the corners of his mouth.

  I hope he’s not laughing at me. I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s laughing at me.

  I shake my head a couple of times. Personality is such a funny thing. It’s all situational, I think. Normal person in one room. A killer in another. It’s the power of editing. Hitchcock said you could take a picture of a man just staring, then the next shot you cut to is a baby. What do we think about the man? He’s a father, a protector. Then you take the same shot of a man and this time the next shot you cut to is of a dead body. Then what is the man to the audience? A murderer. Yet, he’s still the same man, in each of the shots. That’s the power of editing. I need to do some editing of my own.

  ‘I’m a birdwatcher. It’s a hobby. I watch them and take notes as they fly above the lake. Then last night my attention got drawn to number eighteen. I saw a man in there throttle a woman, his wife, I think. He put his hand over her mouth from behind, then he strangled her, I think.’

  There. It’s out. It’s something. I think that went quite well.

  ‘Right. Sorry. You’ve lost me a bit,’ he says, stroking his jawline.

  He folds his arms and thinks. His eyes flicker up and then to the side. He’s not going to intimidate me. I’ve got a story and I’m sticking to it. He locks eyes with me for the first time. He’s more of a bloodhound than I thought. His casual air masks a steeliness inside. That’s his tactic, I bet.

  ‘So, how did that lead you to break in to his house?’ A reasonable question.

  ‘Well, what should I have done?’ I say, indignant, innocent.

  ‘Hmm, call the police?’ A reasonable suggestion.

  ‘I tried you once. Nothing doing. So now it’s difficult to trust you lot. If you’re not going to take upstanding people seriously. I mean, no offence. But all I know about the police is from the media anyway. And the TV. Police corruption? Police cover-up? Police scandal? That’s the sort of thing I hear. Fuck the police?’

  I bite my lip. I’m in a police station for the first time in my life. And I’ve just said ‘Fuck the police.’ He doesn’t say anything for a while. He doesn’t need to.

  ‘No offence,’ I say. And the pen goes click, click, click.

  ‘I’m not saying we should all go around solving crimes ourselves. Vigilante justice. All that. I just didn’t know if anyone would believe me. Or if you’d tell him I’d made the accusation and then I’d be in trouble with him. I thought that might be dangerous. Which I realise as I say that, sounds bit rich, given that I decided instead to… break in, which could also be seen as… dangerous. But I don’t know… I was scared… for her… and me. I didn’t know what to do, so that’s what I did.’

  I pause for breath. There were some good bits in there.

  An emotional sigh rises from my chest and gets exhaled. It’s a nice flourish. I’d like to thank my mother, my father, and God…

  ‘I guess my curiosity got the better of me. Er. My curiosity got the better of me.’

  He frowns and makes a note. A couple of words. In his file.

  ‘And where’s your accomplice. The one that opened the door?’

  ‘I won’t tell you that. I don’t even know. He’s just some kid.’ I nod. Firm in my decision.

  ‘Just a name please, Ms Gullick.’

  ‘No. I won’t tell you that. What’s the matter? Are you fucking deaf?’

  There goes that lack of impulse control again. I’m not sure where that came from. It was all going so well. I’ve never been good with authority figures.

  The next thing I hear is the slamming of a door. We cut, one swift edit and I’m behind bars. I’m not sure if it was my story or my language he objected to most.

  I call home. No answer. I hear our phone ring for only the second time ever. From the other side. Then I try Aiden’s mobile. It goes straight to voicemail.

  He might have his headphones on, and his battery has run dry. Or he’s finally left the flat, and he’s somewhere out of signal. But I wouldn’t have thought so.

  It doesn’t really matter. I won’t be home tonight. I put my head on a rock-hard pillow. My body resting on a cold, firm bed. In seconds, I’m asleep.

  5 days till it comes.

  I’m woken up by a knock on the door. My back hurts. These beds aren’t built for comfort. But I certainly slept deep. I needed to. I slept like a baby.

  I originally woke up at nine. Tried Aiden again. Tried a few other numbers. Tried my second choice, then third. No answer. No answer. Left a few messages. Was led back to my room. My cell. Ha! With nothing else to do. I went back to sleep.

  A voice comes through the door. ‘Ms Gullick. Your husband’s here to see you. He can take you home. The gentleman won’t be pressing charges.’

  I nod, stretch for a second, then get out of there. Like an old pro.

  I’m surprised Aiden’s come to meet me. I didn’t think he’d leave the house. I thought he was too scared. I thought that his thoughts and fears were bigger than his love for me. But I’m even more surprised when I see that the man in front of me is not my husband.

  ‘Right. You got everything, darling? Bag? Keys? All that?’ he says, trying to play it cool. He’s not really succeeding. He’s sweating. He takes my bag from me for no particular reason. Then he drops it and all the contents spill out. We drop to the ground together and awkwardly pick it up around a police officer’s feet. I’m not entirely sure I want to go with him. But I want to get out of here, and fast. So I don’t really have a choice.

  We rise. I give him a kiss in the cheek. I feel I have to. I go to hold his hand as we leave and then take it away at the last minute. Not sure whether it’s necessary to play along with the ruse. I don’t want to give him anything more than I need to.

  Outside, we head towards his Vauxhall Astra and he finally relaxes.

  ‘Wow. That was bloody exciting, wasn’t it? Wow,’ spills out of Phil’s mouth. Although I’m not sure if he found it more exciting or titillating. Transgressive. Perverse. Yes. That’s what it was, for him.

  He wasn’t my second choice. Or my third.

  ‘Well, Lil, I don’t know what you’re mixed up in. But I’m glad to be of service in some way, glad to be part of it. Happy to be in the game,’ he says while starting the engine. A real cheeseball.

  ‘Did you really need to say you were my husband?’ I ask.

  ‘Hmm. I wasn’t sure, didn’t understand your message entirely. But I thought I would tell them that, just in case. In case I had to be “next of kin”,’ he says lamely, as if he’s using technical information. He loves even the softest kinds of jargon. He loves code words and secrets.

  ‘Next. Of. Kin,’ he says to himself again. Apropos of nothing. He looks at me with a glint in his eyes as he says that.

  ‘After your message I called in and they said they’d just received word that the… er… victim wasn’t pressing charges. They asked if I was your husband. I said yes,’ he says, fiddling with cassette tapes.

  ‘Did you have to show them ID or anything?’ I say, curious.

  ‘Yeah, but I said you kept your maiden name, which you did, right?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’ I say, distractedly looking out the window.

  I don’t remember telling him that. I know I should be grateful. But he disturbs me this morning. He seems to know a lot more about me than I thought he did.

  We pull up to the apartments. He insists on walking me to my door. Aiden will be behind it. Completely unaware. Again. Oblivious to whe
re I’ve spent last night. Cowering under the covers. He’s becoming a very small man. It’s difficult to feel respect for anyone when they show so little care. When they cower in the shadows.

  I turn away from Phil. I put my key in the lock and half open the door and then stop. He still stands there. That was really his cue to leave.

  ‘What did you do then?’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Phil. Thank you so much. It’s all fine. Please go back to work.’

  ‘No, come on. Who was the “victim”? Ha. Can’t be that bad, right?’

  I stare at him. I want him to go away. I take a deep, deep breath.

  ‘I killed an old lady. Broke into her flat in the middle of the night. Took her by surprise. Bludgeoned her over the head with a piece of brick. Pushed her to the floor. Then I left as she bled out over the linoleum. I did all that. Just for fun. Because I couldn’t sleep.’

  He stares, open-mouthed.

  He has that look in his eye like he wants to smile. I think he loves what I’ve just told him. He wants in on it. I think it really does it for him. That’s what I think. I wait. It’s a stand-off again. I feel like he’s about to admit something to me. But I wait. And he’s not giving anything away. Not yet anyway.

  ‘But she’s not pressing charges so I think I should be fine,’ I say, turning. Breaking the quiet.

  ‘Ha. Good one. Cup of tea for my trouble?’ he says, his hand on the door.

  ‘I need to lie down. I need some rest,’ I lie. I’ve had enough rest. I need to get back to watching him. Back to the drawing board. The fact that Brenner didn’t want to press charges is a clear admission of guilt. I know what I saw.

  ‘Oh, come on. I’ll cheer you up. Just a quick brew.’

  I try to stop him but I can’t. We stagger messily into the flat. He trips on the way. Or does he push m?. The blinds are down, the bedroom door is closed. And so is the door to the living room. It’s light outside but it’s dark in here. In my hallway.