The Watcher

by Kate Medina

  ‘Do you think she wouldn’t have recognized me?’ he asked, meeting her gaze.

  ‘You’re not the only teenager on the planet who has a cleft palate. Far from it.’

  ‘I’m one of the only ones with a cleft palate this bad.’

  He was right and she wasn’t about to contradict him, make that ‘platitudes’ mistake again.

  ‘Have you ever had friends?’ she ventured. There was nothing to be gained from beating about the bush.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Do you have any pets?’

  Another shake. ‘My dad is allergic to cats and, because we’re both out during the day, we couldn’t have a dog.’

  ‘You enjoy working at the lunch club?’

  He gave a pensive half-nod. ‘Old people need company, don’t they? Lots of them are lonely.’

  The way he said the word ‘lonely’ cleaved a canyon through Jessie’s heart. She nodded. ‘Yes, lots of them are lonely.’

  He looked up from under his fringe and met her gaze. ‘I met Mrs Fuller,’ he murmured.

  ‘Claudine?’

  He nodded. ‘She was nice. Kind.’

  ‘When did you meet her?’

  ‘She came to the lunch club once. She wanted to make a donation, I think. A big one.’

  Jessie thought of that huge, isolated, gilded mausoleum of a house. Makes sense.

  ‘Do you believe in capital punishment?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not? Isn’t it fair that if someone takes a life, they should lose theirs?’

  ‘At first glance, perhaps it’s fair.’

  ‘So why don’t you believe in it?’ he pressed.

  ‘Because I believe that society needs to set a good example. A society that condones capital punishment tacitly condones killing and that attitude brutalizes everything. You can’t punish someone for killing by killing.’

  Another pensive nod, though if he had been being more honest with her, the nod would have been a firm shake of his head. She knew that he would have endlessly fantasized about killing the bullies, administering slow and painful deaths. She had fantasized the same at his age, fed off those fantasies to keep herself from drowning in depression and self-hatred.

  ‘I was bullied too,’ Jessie said. ‘When I was a teenager.’

  ‘You?’ Incredulity in that robotic voice. ‘But you’re …’ He faltered, his gaze dipping, cheeks flushing. ‘Beautiful.’

  Beautiful and horribly damaged. She didn’t say it.

  ‘My brother died … committed suicide when I was fourteen.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She waved her hand vaguely in the air. ‘It’s complicated, but I ended up burning my father and stepmother’s house down and so I was sent away for a year – incarcerated, I suppose, is a better word, in a mental hospital. When I came back my friends didn’t want to know me.’ She faltered. ‘Actually, worse than that, they deliberately wanted to hurt me. I didn’t understand why.’

  ‘Because it’s fun,’ he said simply.

  ‘Yes. If you’re nasty, bullying is fun.’ She paused. ‘Doubtless you’ve been told that bullies are trying to make themselves feel better by making someone else feel bad.’

  He nodded. ‘It must be standard teacher response.’

  Jessie smiled cynically. She had been told that the girls who bullied her must be desperately unhappy to want to cause someone else such pain. But she hadn’t given a shit if they were unhappy then, and she didn’t give a shit now. Unhappiness didn’t excuse nastiness.

  ‘There are absolutely no excuses for bullying, no justification under any circumstances. Children who bully are nasty, plain and simple, and they always choose easy targets, because they’re cowards.’

  Jessie noticed Robbie’s fingers whitening as he tightened his grip on the cuffs of his sweatshirt; her mind’s eye sought out the devastation of his forearms.

  ‘I’m an easy target,’ he murmured.

  Jessie nodded. She didn’t normally reveal anything of herself to patients, but it had felt right to do so with Robbie. She knew how terribly isolated he felt, had felt, doubtless for the whole of his life. She also knew that he would be looking ahead into a life that held no hope and she had wanted to give him some. Recognized how desperately he needed hope.

  ‘You are an easy target, as I was, and you need to stop being an easy target, as I did.’

  Jaw muscles clenched under his skin. She had jammed her finger hard on a nerve. Deliberately.

  ‘It’s different for me. My face … I can’t.’

  ‘That might have been true when you were younger, but it isn’t now.’

  No verbal response, the cues to how he was feeling physical: in the avoidance of eye contact, the tension in his jaw, the whiteness of his fingertips.

  ‘You’re not that child who needs to take this shit any more,’ she continued. ‘It’s because of mental conditioning, delivered and received over many many years, that you are still sucking it up. Fight back.’

  What the hell am I saying? She knew she shouldn’t be talking like this, that the professional veneer had slipped long ago, but she couldn’t help herself. The electric suit was hissing and snapping, cauldron-hot, despite the cold breeze funnelling through the open patio doors.

  ‘You’re giving the bullies free entertainment. Why should you be their fun for free?’

  Robbie’s head was dipped, his expression shrouded by his fringe.

  ‘Robbie …’ she said.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Bullies operate in packs to give them collective strength because they’re cowards. Get one alone. Teach him a lesson that he won’t forget and all the others will hear about it, learn from it. That boy, the one who broke your ankle on the football pitch, what was his name?’

  His continued silence was a red rag to the electric suit.

  ‘Cut the head off the snake and the body dies,’ she pressed. ‘You don’t need to accept this shit any more. You don’t need to keep giving them that free show.’

  A shrill ring. Robbie looked up and met Jessie’s gaze for a fraction of a second, before hers found her mobile – Marilyn – then the clock on the wall. It was a quarter-past-nine. She had been here for well over an hour, hadn’t realized.

  ‘It’s Marilyn,’ she said, to Robbie, pressing the answer button. ‘Hold for just a second, DI Simmons.’ She never called Marilyn that; it was purely because Robbie was listening. ‘Really, it will just be a second.’ She looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Robbie. I need to take this.’

  ‘Marilyn calls.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Marilyn does call. Another session?’ she asked, rising from the chair. ‘Later this week? I’ll text you when I have a better idea of my diary.’

  ‘Are you sure that you have the time?’

  No, I don’t. ‘Yes, of course I have time.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The head of the snake,’ she repeated, as she pulled open the door. ‘Bullies are snakes. Take off the head and the body dies.’

  24

  Somewhere a child was screaming. Denise Lewin fought upwards towards the sound through thick, downy layers of sleep. She jerked awake to a cool, dark room, Simon snoring softly beside her, her pulse through the roof, skin sticky with perspiration.

  ‘Muuuuummmyyyyyy!’

  ‘Leo. Coming, darling.’ Sleepily, she slid out of bed and padded across the landing. ‘Mummy’s coming.’

  He was sitting up in bed, his back ramrod straight, his teddy bear, Baloo, clamped to his chest, staring out through the bedroom window into the garden. Tears were pouring down his face. The moon was bright, a gibbous moon – the thought came randomly to her – bathing the lawn and shrubbery, the silvery weeping willow in the centre of the lawn that rustled and swayed on windy nights in an ethereally pale glow. Why had Simon left the curtains open? She never did that, she knew that Leo scared easily. Leaning down, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders, flicked the bedroom light on with the othe
r hand.

  ‘Nooooo,’ he screeched. ‘See me.’ He jammed his face into the bear’s stomach. ‘See me.’

  ‘There’s nothing out there, darling. No one can see into your room.’ But she flicked the light off anyway, plunging them back into darkness. Leo lowered Baloo from his face; his tear-stained eyes were wide and fearful. Rising, she went to the window. The garden was silent, deserted and motionless apart from the weeping willow, which was swaying, just gently, its sagging, silvery fronds shifting to and fro.

  ‘Look, it’s only that silly old weeping willow. That was what scared you.’

  Leo shook his head determinedly. ‘Nooo. Ghostie.’

  Denise pulled the curtains closed, stuffing the edge of the right carefully behind the edge of the left, so that there wasn’t even a knife width’s gap between them.

  ‘It’s Mummy and Daddy’s fault. We shouldn’t have left the curtains open.’ Perching on the edge of Leo’s bed, she reached for his hands. They were burning hot, clammy with sweat. ‘You’re boiling, sweetheart, and drenched. It’s too hot in here. Let me open the window, just a tiny bit.’

  ‘Nooooo!’ Leo jerked away from her, snatching up Baloo and pressing him to his face again. ‘Noooo. Ghostie, wash.’

  ‘Wash?’

  Leo nodded frantically. ‘Wash. Wash.’

  ‘Oh, watch,’ Denise said, finally cottoning on. ‘No, sweet-bean, of course there isn’t a ghost outside watching you.’

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Simon, standing in the doorway, stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.

  ‘Sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to wake you.’ She stroked Leo’s hair. ‘Go back to sleep, sweetheart. Daddy’s got his important work to go to in the morning and you’ve got nursery.’

  His tiny mouth fixed into an intractable line, Leo shook his head. ‘Ghostie.’

  Denise stood. ‘He thinks he saw someone, something, in the garden, watching him,’ she hissed into Simon’s ear. ‘It’s just the weeping willow. It’s breezy and the moon is so bright tonight that the willow looks almost luminous. You shouldn’t have left the curtains open.’

  Simon bent and ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Shall I go and check that the garden is empty, bean?’

  Walking to the window, he pulled back the curtains and pressed his face to the glass. He shifted left and right, stood on tiptoes, squatted down, making a show of searching every corner of the garden. ‘Mummy’s right,’ he said, turning back to Leo. ‘It was just that silly old weeping willow. It looks like a ghost, doesn’t it?’ Simon held out his hand to his son. ‘Hop out of bed and come and look.’

  Baloo clutched tight in his bloodless fingers, Leo shrank back against his pillow and shook his head vehemently. ‘Ghostie,’ he insisted.

  ‘OK. Let me grab a torch and go and have a look around the garden. Will that make you happy?’

  After a long moment, Leo gave a tiny nod. Denise sat, squished against him, arm wrapped around his trembling body, while Simon tramped downstairs. A couple of minutes later they heard a door slam and a disc of light appeared in the garden, Simon’s shadowy form behind it, his dressing gown flapping around his ankles. He walked down the length of the garden to the back corner where the broken fence opened out onto the woods, into the other corner, back up the far side, into the centre to search around the weeping willow. He stopped and Denise noticed him hesitate, focus the torch light on a patch of lawn in front of the tree.

  ‘No ghosts out there, bean,’ Simon said, in a jolly singsong voice, appearing in Leo’s bedroom door a few minutes later.

  But Denise didn’t like his expression. Something was wrong. ‘Simon?’

  ‘Like Mummy said, it was just that silly weeping willow.’ Walking to the window, Simon reached his hand through the curtains and Denise noticed him shake the lock, checking that it was fast. Then he pressed the curtains tightly together as she had done.

  ‘We’ll leave your door open and the hall light is on. Mummy and I are just across the landing. Now there is nothing to worry about. Go to sleep.’ He kissed Leo’s head and then tucked the duvet around him and Baloo.

  ‘Has the gardener been?’ he asked Denise, when they were back in their own bed.

  ‘No, I haven’t had him in for well over a month. You said it was getting too expensive, what with the cleaner and everything else.’

  Simon nodded slowly.

  ‘What? What is it, Simon? What did you see in the garden?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘I know you. I can tell when you’re lying, and I saw you peering at something on the ground by the willow. What was it? What did you see?’

  ‘Nothing important.’

  ‘Well, it must have been something.’

  He gave a patient sigh. ‘It was just footprints.’

  ‘Footprints?’

  ‘Yes, footprints, Denise,’ he mimicked in a squeaky, high-pitched voice.

  She ignored his mocking tone. ‘Whose? Mine?’

  ‘A man’s.’

  ‘A man’s?’

  ‘Keep your voice down. I don’t want to frighten Leo again.’

  ‘Hold on a bloody minute. You’re frightening me now.’

  ‘It was footprints, for God’s sake, Denise. Not Freddy bloody Krueger.’

  ‘But you haven’t been in the garden for ages, so they couldn’t have been yours.’ Her voice rose. ‘You certainly haven’t been since it rained three days ago and before that it was dry for at least two weeks.’

  ‘Stop getting hysterical,’ Simon snapped.

  ‘Don’t patronize me.’ Denise twisted around to face him, furious now. Fury fuelled by fear. ‘Don’t patronize me. I’m asking questions, logical questions, not getting hysterical. That’s such a bloody stupid man thing to say.’

  Simon raised his hands. ‘OK, OK, sorry. But you are overthinking it. The back fence is broken. Loads of dog walkers use the woods. A dog probably ran in here and the owner came in to get it.’ Lowering his hands, he jabbed her gently in the side with one finger.

  She slapped his hand away. ‘Don’t you poke me.’

  ‘I’ll poke my wife if I want to poke my wife,’ he said, poking her again, harder, then sliding his arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him.

  She resisted for a few moments before sagging against him with a heavy sigh. ‘Please take this seriously, Simon.’

  ‘I am taking it seriously, Denise. Really, I am. But you must be able to see that it’s a storm in a teacup. For Christ’s sake, only last week you marched into the house complaining that some dog had shat on your delias.’

  ‘Dahlias,’ she corrected, with a reluctant half-smile.

  ‘Dahlias, delias, whatever.’ Simon stroked his hand down her arm.

  ‘But—’

  ‘But what?’

  Curling her knees up to her chest, she shrugged, feeling stupid. ‘The murders.’

  ‘Come on, Denise, they were a random one-off. Those people were stinking rich and that Hugo bloke was a complete scumbag.’

  ‘I thought you said that you didn’t know him.’

  ‘I don’t know him, but I’ve heard about him and I’ve read about him. His business was buying up cheap freeholds and then ramping the ground rent up a thousand per cent. He was ruining people’s lives, poor people’s lives, while he lived like a king. No wonder someone whacked him.’

  ‘Whacked him.’ Denise nudged him playfully. ‘Who are you? Al Capone?’

  Simon grinned and nudged her back. ‘Do you really think a murderer is going to bother standing in the middle of our bloody garden staring up at the window of a three-year-old? Really?’ He widened his eyes and opened his mouth in a mock scream. ‘Perhaps there’s a serial killer sitting in our bedroom cupboard right now, waiting for us to switch the light out so that he can leap out and—’ The flat hand on her arm turned into a claw and his nails dug into her skin. ‘Whack us.’

  ‘Stop it, you idiot.’
Shrugging off his arm, she lay down and pulled the duvet to her chest.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Denise. Now can we please go to sleep.’ Reaching over to the bedside light, he switched it off, then shuffled over and slid an arm around her stomach. ‘Or maybe, now that we’re awake—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m going away on business tomorrow morning for three long, miserable, lonely days.’ The hand on her stomach slid lower.

  Denise knocked it away. ‘Not on your life, work trip or not. It’s three in the morning and I’m snatching a few more hours before the brat wakes up for the day.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, then rolled away from him. ‘Nighty nighty, lover boy.’

  25

  With first light, the search teams were back on the job, spreading further out around the Fullers’ house, forcing their way through tangled undergrowth and dank woodland that the feeble autumn sun refused to penetrate, maps clutched in sweaty hands, despairing at the size of the search area and the needle-in-a-haystack nature of their task. The location and terrain was torment, with the denseness and what felt like unnatural quiet of the woods and the whispered rumours going around of killer wolf-dogs, and they kept an eye on each other, more nervous than usual.

  Other teams were ‘on the knock’, trudging up and down front paths and driveways in Walderton village – where Lupo had been found tied to the lamp post – and the other villages that bordered the woods and fields surrounding the Fullers’ land. They were asking if anyone had seen a suspicious character in the vicinity on Saturday night or any nights before that, heard anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary or of note, anything at all. They had garnered, as was typical when many interviewees were older people, a list of fantastical sightings: of dodgy telephone repair men who were quite clearly anything but, of delivery drivers purely in the village to case the joint, of shadowy figures flitting between buildings at dusk, of odd noises in the deep of the night.