The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  Katherine took the binoculars. She put the lenses to her eyes and panned across the rooftops of Lausanne to the attractive building with the rounded façade at the corner of Rue Caroline. She focused on the rooftop flat with the green shutters and garden trees and the three men standing on her terrace looking back at her. She dropped to her knees.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘They saw me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Those men on my terrace. Jesus, get down.’

  Rochat ducked next to her, took the binoculars, looked through the stone pillars of the balustrade.

  ‘It’s not those men who hurt you.’

  ‘I know it’s not those men. The men out there are police. Holy fuck, they’re after me.’

  Rochat lowered the binoculars. He saw Katherine cowering next to the northwest turret.

  ‘But policemen in Switzerland wear grey uniforms with grey hats and they carry black guns on their belts.’

  ‘Trust me, those guys are cops. Detectives, real ones.’

  Rochat raised the binoculars to his eyes.

  ‘They’re looking somewhere else now.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the lake.’

  ‘Lemme see.’

  He gave her the binoculars and saw two big men in long black coats, with a third man in a brown wool overcoat. The big men writing in small notebooks as the third man talked. After a minute they re-entered the flat and closed the sliding glass doors.

  ‘Shit, this is all I need.’

  Rochat crouched down next to her.

  ‘But they didn’t see you.’

  ‘They were looking right at me, Marc!’

  ‘No, it’s the binoculars. They play games on you and make you think people can see you because things look so close. Like the hands on the clock on Place de Saint-François.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can look at the clock through the binoculars and you can reach out and touch the hands and fix it because it’s always two minutes early.’

  ‘What’re you talking about, Marc? Because I’m talking about the police on the terrace of my flat, the ones who were looking at me!’

  Rochat tried to think faster.

  ‘But they were far away. Look again without the binoculars. They don’t look like policemen, they look like ants.’

  ‘Ants?’

  ‘Tiny ones.’

  She looked between the pillars of the balustrade, saw the windows of her flat and the indistinguishable shapes inside.

  ‘Yeah, maybe they didn’t see me, but they’re sure as hell looking for me.’

  ‘But they don’t know you’re here. And you don’t look like you any more, you look like le guet.’

  She touched the brim of the black hat hiding her hair, hiding her face. She tugged at the black cloak and pulled it snug.

  ‘Yeah, that’s true.’

  ‘And soon you’ll be going home. Your friend the detectiveman is going to help. He said so.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s true too.’

  She pulled off her hat. Her hair fell to her shoulders. She rested her head against the balustrade, took a deep breath and sighed. The timbers beneath the roof creaked and groaned and Marie-Madeleine rang for ten o’clock. Katherine combed her hair with her fingers, long strands of blond hair across her eyes till Marie’s voice faded away.

  ‘Marc, could you do me a favour?’

  Harper dialled, the tramp picked up on the first ring.

  ‘So, English, I see death hasn’t found you yet.’

  ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘The holy miracle of caller ID.’

  ‘Caller ID, right.’

  Harper heard the sound of Monsieur Gabriel firing up his opiates and sucking hard. His wheezing voice coming down the line as if from another planet.

  ‘The eternity of our beings is such a wonderful gift, is it not?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You sound weary, English.’

  ‘Weary? More like paralytic.’

  ‘Y esta mañana, has visto la luz?’

  ‘The light, this morning?’

  ‘On the ice cliffs above Évian. Beautiful, no?’

  ‘Depends on which side of the loony-bin gate you’re standing.’

  ‘Tell me, English.’

  Harper laughed to himself.

  ‘I saw it more than once. Five or six times actually.’

  He heard the tramp hit the pipe again.

  ‘I am familiar with the sensation.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, means we’re on the same side of the gate. How about this one then. You wake up in a London flat without a single memory of a life. You’re brought to Lausanne and set to wander through strip clubs, bridges, cafés and one falling-down cathedral looking for a dead man. And along the way there’s a bird in a strip club, or a bloke on a bridge, or a down-on-his-luck elf in Café Romand, or a nun in a gift shop. Not to mention a pack of Swiss cops who may not be cops but they’re up to their necks in corpses so what’s it matter. Because what does matter is the sensation I had coming to this morning and watching la luz splatter across those fucking big rocks again and again.’

  ‘And what was the sensation, English?’

  ‘That there’re a lot of people in Lausanne who know things I don’t.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as what I’m doing in this town and what happened to the rest of my life before I got here. I mean, there’s the rub, isn’t it? I’m dragged to Lausanne without a memory. No bloody idea why I’m here other than to watch people die until it’s my turn. And everywhere I go some local clown is pointing me to bloody Lausanne Cathedral. And when that doesn’t work I get pointed to the bloody Book of Enoch. And when that doesn’t work, I’m drugged and pushed to the edge of madness till I’m forced to come to you for the answers.’

  ‘Perhaps madness on this side of the loony-bin gate is no more than seeing things as they truly are.’

  Harper lit up and drew on a fag.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t change the fact you’re the man with the answers, does it? Or am I wasting my bloody time? Because from what I hear these are the days of slaughter and destruction. And time is something you and the rest of Inspector Gobet’s gang are running out of.’

  Harper listened to the sound of Gabriel’s ragged breathing.

  ‘It is time for us to meet again, English. Though I’m not sure you’re ready to know the truth.’

  ‘From what I can see, Monsieur Gabriel, truth is a moving target in this place … did you say again?’

  ‘I will wait where you saw me before, at the place of my midday meditations.’

  ‘Mate, I’ve never seen you. I don’t know you from Adam.’

  ‘You knew me long before the time of Adam. You have known me from the time of the unremembered beginning.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Noon, under the lantern tower of Lausanne Cathedral.’

  Ripping back through time.

  Watching himself search through the cathedral.

  Coming up the ambulatory steps to the transept.

  Sparkles of light on the flagstones, bright sun rushing through the coloured glass of the Cathedral Rose. Turning slowly to see a ragged form standing at the centre of the crossing square. His face aglow with colour, arms stretched to his sides, palms open to the light.

  ‘Bloody hell, you’re the tramp on the altar square.’

  ‘Let there be light, English.’

  The line went dead.

  thirty

  ‘How do I look?’

  Rochat laid the scissors on the table.

  ‘You look like the picture of Joan of Arc I remember from my school book.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you wanted me to cut your hair short and I remembered a picture of Joan of Arc from a school book because she had short hair.’

  ‘Oh shit. Where’s the mirror?’

  Rochat took the hand mirror from the
shelf and gave it to Katherine.

  ‘Hey, it’s really good. Where did you learn to cut hair?’

  ‘I drew the hair on your head with the scissors. It was easy.’

  ‘Easy? Trust me, women in LA would sell their firstborn for a haircut this good. You could be the next big thing in hair styling.’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.’

  ‘It’s a good thing, merci.’

  ‘Now, do you have any money you could loan me?’

  Rochat dug through the cabinet under the bed and found a tin box. He gave it to her.

  ‘Papa brought me this when I was little, it had chocolates inside but I ate them longtimes ago and keep money in it now.’

  She stared at the picture on the lid: the Matterhorn reflected in an alpine lake.

  ‘Zermatt. I was supposed to be in Zermatt next week.’

  She opened the lid, saw tightly fitted piles of Swiss banknotes in fifties and hundreds.

  ‘Yikes, how much is in here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Katherine counted the notes out on the table.

  ‘Jesus, there’re a hundred thousand francs here. What the heck do they pay you to wave your lantern?’

  ‘They don’t pay me anything.’

  ‘So what’s this?’

  ‘Monsieur Gübeli gives me some pocket money for allowances every month. I don’t spend much so I just keep it in the tin because he told me to keep it in a safe place.’

  ‘Remind me, which one’s Gübeli?’

  ‘He brought me to Lausanne. He takes care of the bank my grandmaman and papa owned before they died. And he takes care of my building in Ouchy.’

  ‘You have a building in Ouchy?’

  ‘I have a building in Ouchy.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘L’Hôtel de Léman. Half of it is apartments and it has a little clock on top.’

  ‘I know that place. It’s yours?’

  ‘Grandmaman and Papa gave it to me before they died because I’m not part of the family fortune because Papa’s wife is a Bavarian countess and the children are spiteful.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what they said.’

  ‘Were your grandmother and father, like, rich?’

  ‘Grandmaman lived in a big castle in Vufflens.’

  ‘You mean the castle with the butler and all the maids you told me about the other day, it was real, you weren’t imagining it?’

  ‘I wasn’t imagining it.’

  Katherine stared at him.

  ‘Man, you’re so full of surprises.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Merci.’

  She fingered the cash.

  ‘So could I borrow four thousand francs?’

  ‘You can borrow four thousand francs.’

  She counted some bills, stuffed the rest back in the tin, closed the lid.

  ‘OK, got some paper and something to write with?’

  Rochat tore a blank page from a sketchbook and gave her a drawing pencil, Katherine took the paper and started writing.

  ‘I’m making a list of things for you to buy. You know where Globus is?’

  ‘Around the corner from Café du Grütli, but …’

  Rochat started rocking back and forth on his heels. Katherine touched his arm.

  ‘Marc, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t read very well and I’m not good with numbers. I might make mistakes.’

  ‘Don’t worry, just go to the section where they sell women’s clothes and give this list to one of the ladies behind the counter. She’ll get everything for you. I’m putting down sizes so it’ll be really easy, OK?’

  ‘What kind of things am I buying?’

  ‘Things I need to get out of town.’

  ‘So you can go home?’

  ‘Well, on my way at least.’

  Katherine wrote quickly. Blue jeans, tops, lingerie, couple twinsets, make-up. Enough things to travel light for a week. She held the note out to Rochat, then she snapped it back.

  ‘Hey, how do you think I’d look with black hair?’

  Rochat imagined it.

  ‘Not like you any more.’

  ‘Perfect. Do you know where there’s a pharmacy?’

  ‘On Place de la Palud, across from Café du Grütli.’

  ‘Is everything in this town next to Café du Grütli?’

  Rochat thought about it.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘OK then. I’m writing some things on the other side of the paper, I’m putting a big star at the top of the page so you’ll know the things on this side come from the pharmacy, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  She handed him the list.

  ‘Here you go.’

  Rochat took the list, turned and headed out of the door.

  ‘Here I go.’

  She listened as he shuffled down the tower till it was quiet.

  She sat on the bed with Monsieur Booty on her lap. The tin box with the cash in sat on the table like a cookie jar waiting to be raided. Ninety-six thousand Swiss francs inside. Enough to hop a train to Italy or France and get lost and live in a style to which she was accustomed, for a few months at least. More she thought about it, the more it seemed like the way out. No passport checks at the borders, not for someone with a cute smile. Get a place and lie low, figure out the next step. She picked up Monsieur Booty, stared him in the eyes.

  ‘What do you think, fuzzface, think it’d be OK if I take the money and run?’

  Mew.

  ‘C’mon, he’s loaded.’

  Mew.

  ‘You’re right. He’s been awfully nice. But I’ve still got to get out of this place.’

  The timbers creaked and Marie-Madeleine shook the loge eleven times. The mother of all hookers weighing in with her own advice.

  GONG … go and sin no more. GONG … yadda, yadda, yadda.

  ‘OK, you win. I’ll be a good girl.’

  Katherine scooted Monsieur Booty from her lap, folded the duvet and tidied the loge. She swept the mound of long blond hair from the wood floor and dumped it in the bin under the table. She picked up the hand mirror and saw her reflection in the glass. The cool bob of a haircut, the scar on her face, the look in her eyes. The look that made all the boys go weak at the knees. Wasn’t quite the same with a sliced-up face but still workable in a tight spot, she thought. Could still turn a few tricks on the run to make ends meet. And she could start with her roomie in the belfry. Teach him a few things before his big date with the farmer’s daughter. Rock his world, say goodbye. Leave him thinking he’d imagined the whole thing. Face it, she thought, a hooker by another name is still a hooker. That way, it wouldn’t be stealing. Just a little business between friends. Besides, he’s fucking loaded, yeah?

  She opened the tin.

  Such a lovely pile of cash.

  She reached for it as a soft knock met the door.

  Taptaptaptap.

  ‘No fucking way.’

  Taptaptaptap.

  Katherine slammed closed the lid. She walked to the door and pulled it open.

  ‘Don’t tell me, Marc, you forget where Globus—’

  ‘Hello, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘Harper.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late.’

  ‘How did you get up here?’

  ‘I walked. Bloody long way up those steps.’

  ‘The tower’s supposed to be closed to tourists.’

  ‘That’s what the sign says on the cathedral doors. I went around to the side door and picked the lock.’

  ‘You know how to pick locks?’

  ‘Rather surprised myself on that score. Mind if I come in, I’m not that comfortable standing out here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, no one looks up any more.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Marc says no one looks up, no one’ll see you.’

  ‘Marc?’

 
‘He’s the guy with the lantern.’

  ‘Right. I met him and his lantern last night on the esplanade.’ Harper glanced back over his shoulder towards the sky. ‘Actually, three steps that way and it’s a fast way down to the esplanade.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Heights, Miss Taylor, I’m not keen on heights.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No, actually.’

  ‘Then you’d better come in before you hurt yourself, big guy.’

  She turned from the door and Harper stepped into the loge, checking the odd angles of the skinny room.

  ‘What a funny old place this is.’

  Katherine sat at the table, suddenly aware of her appearance. The second-hand clothes, the slice on her cheek. She turned away, combed what was left of her hair with her hand, trying to hide the scar on her face. Harper watched her, gave it a moment.

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The haircut. Do-it-yourself job?’

  ‘No, Marc did it.’

  ‘Really? Where is he anyway?’

  ‘He’s gone to buy me some clothes.’

  ‘Planning to make a run for it?’

  ‘I’m in an awful jam, Harper.’

  ‘So I gather.’ Harper set a shopping bag on the table. ‘I brought you something to eat.’

  ‘Great, I’m starving. I was giving up on you, you know.’ She opened the bag: jambon cru and Emmental cheese baguettes. ‘Swiss fast food. Gee, aren’t you the big spender.’

  ‘There’s also some antiseptic and stitching strips in the bag. You’re lucky, Miss Taylor.’

  ‘On the run and hiding out in a cathedral looks like lucky to you?’

  Harper pointed to the slice on her cheek.

  ‘I mean your face. The cut isn’t deep or ragged. We’ll clean it and put on the strips. They dissolve from normal washing in a few days. There’s some vitamin-E capsules in there too. Squeeze one of these on the cut four times a day. Few weeks from now, you’ll hardly know there’s a scar.’

  Humiliation burned in Katherine’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Harper. I think it’s a hot new look for me. From perky Playboy centrefold to she-bitch dominatrix. I’ll wear black rubber, do the stiletto-heel number. I hear pain’s where the real money is. It was never my thing. I was always a give-the-boys-a-thrill sort of girl. I liked seeing the twinkle in their eyes when they went over the edge, you know? I’m lucky when you think about it. It’s not like you have to be pretty to give a man pain.’