The Watcher Page 8

  The hallway is lit by a series of small lamps. They have an eighties feel, some of the shades look fire damaged, the sort you might find in a charity shop or a skip outside the newbuild side. The sort of thing we wouldn’t even bother selling on eBay.

  Their interior design. Our cast-offs. Our dirt.

  It occurs to me that they could still be asleep. It might not be too late to retreat without a face off. I could turn round, make my way back with myself mostly intact, get a shower and forget all about it. But I’m not going to do that. I’ve got some issues to resolve.

  I wipe down the knife with my jumper, almost gagging at the smell of who knows what from when I dug it into the concrete and matter next to the fleeing rat. I think they are asleep. I think I’m going to have to wake them up.

  I count six doors in a row, all just ajar. They look repainted. It’s cleaner up here somehow, the smell not so acute, it’s almost civilised. I creep down the hallway. The lamplights flickering as I go, a dog barks somewhere in the distance and I try not to jump. I try to settle myself with my breathing method again. I try not to freak out. I settle on the first door, it seems the cleanest way to go. I don’t want to go too far in and get trapped from either side, particularly if there’s a lot of them.

  I brace myself, hold my breath for a second and then kick it open and run in. It’s dark in there and there is no sign of anyone. I turn my key light on and scan the room. I’m almost disappointed.

  A sink, toothpaste. A toothbrush sits by it in a red plastic cup. A mirror leans against a wall on a roughly hewn desk. To the other side, two sleeping bags on a mattress of magazines and cardboard boxes. The room is covered in piles and piles of newspapers, I turn and trip over them. I rise and stack the ones I have knocked over back up. I was always an excellent guest.

  I leave the room and move to the next door. I look at it. Imagining what the hell might lie behind it. The half man, half human behind the bins at night. The ‘desperate addicts’ that exist only in my imagination. Imaginary needles sticking out of their imaginary arms as they salivate. I see a picture show of terrible images. Wild animals.

  I breathe, and kick the door open and, when I see what’s before me, I scream. An eagle. A crudely stuffed taxidermy eagle stares at me from the other side of the room. A golden one, God knows where it came from, I struggle to imagine it was ever alive, ever real.

  I scan the rest of the room with my tiny light. This room feels less like a home but no less well put together. On the right side there is a record player and some old LPs. The basin similarly has a toothbrush as well as shaving cream and a razor. The slat has been removed here in favour of some ragged curtains.

  Crates lie around the floor, perhaps doubling as seats. I smell something like gas and turn my torch leftwards to see an old electric heater oozing liquid, sweating onto the concrete. It’s off, luckily. I have a feeling if you turned it on it would kill someone with what it emitted. They’d have no use for it in this heat anyway. Summer is still here, with a vengeance.

  Then, my cloud of light lifts and hits something stranger. A well-preserved kitchen. A toaster, an electric frying pan, a plug-in grill, cereal, various other foodstuffs piled into a corner. This is not a nightmare. This is a home, or something like it.

  I flash past it again and catch a face. A human child’s face. Staring at me. He looks scared, he is about six or seven, he murmurs, too scared to move or cry, his face scrunched, his hands dirty. I pause, unable to speak, I put my hand to my chest and mutter ‘God’, then I walk towards him.

  Then my phone rings again. I put my hand to it in a flash, but before I can get to it, something hits me in the head hard and immediately I know I’m bleeding.

  I stagger back, my body in shock, as I turn to face what’s behind me.

  15 days till it comes. Time: Unknown.

  WM – Unknown – Alaska House – Shaved head – 2 flock – Aggressive – Sweat drips from the walls – 6’ 1’’.

  I see him. Around six foot tall, tracksuited and holding a big piece of brick. My vision blurs as I look at the outline of his jaw, shrouded in his hood. The brick has specks of my blood on it. Mine I assume. Somewhere behind me, the child is screaming

  He doesn’t scream in fear. He shouts a kind of war cry which is intended to knock me further off my guard. It works too. I’m thinking about my mum suddenly. I’m so sorry. She was right, I so often was a ‘silly girl’ and now I’ve grown up to be a ‘stupid cow’. What was I thinking, hanging around at night, poking my nose into other people’s homes? What was I trying to achieve? The big one in front of me raises the brick high above his head. Higher and higher.

  It will soon to come crashing into my face. The foundations of which will not survive the blow. All I can do is wait for it. I stagger. Here it comes.

  ‘Go on then. Finish it off. Just do it!’ A disembodied voice screams.

  He pauses.

  He takes a breath, but it doesn’t take him long to recover. His stature says he’s not afraid. He can do it if he really wants to.

  ‘What are you waiting for, just finish it off, do it, come on!’

  From behind him the child lets out another raw scream and the big one grips the brick harder.

  ‘Put that down, for fuck’s sake. What are you doing? Put it down now!’

  The voice changes tack. It is hard and guttural, the stuff of eighties horror. Sharp, shrill, but full of intent. My mind falls back to Hellraiser. The possessed Exorcist girl. Texas Chainsaw Massacre screams. The voice terrifies me. And it’s coming from me.

  His hooded top billows open and underneath I see his arms tense under his vest and he lifts it again ready to release. He’s strong. My bravado could only hold him for so long. He is unperturbed. He may have killed before. He grunts and effortlessly brings it crashing down with his full force. Onto the floor.

  It slides across the room, echoing all around the walls like a bullet. It bounces just past my shins and into the wall behind. The child stops crying. We breathe hard. The three of us, in that little room. The squat.

  ‘What the hell are you all doing here?’ I shout. Controlled now, scolding, like a mother.

  ‘What are we— What— This is our home! What are you doing here?’ he shouts back.

  ‘It’s not… You can’t just stay in a place like this. You’re not safe,’ I say. Unable to get to the meat of it. The preamble sounds abstract.

  ‘From what? From people like you?’ he says, his voice low.

  I look around at this makeshift family home I have intruded upon. I am the interloper. They have food, a life here, it’s no less civilised than my own. The climb was a nightmare but inside they’ve made the best of it. They are a family. They are clean. Sports wear, jeans, the youngest has ripped pyjamas, but everything is well preserved. I, however, am covered in blood, glass and other miscellaneous detritus. I look terrifying. I am the monster.

  ‘You want the phone? Take the thing. If that’s what it’s about,’ he says.

  I feel he’s about to force it into my stomach or shove it down my throat but I let it hang between us for a while. I look at it. This is the thing that brought me here. The push I needed, to come over and look for some answers. Where will it lead us? At least it’s on the table. The first bargaining chip. A talking point. So where to begin?

  ‘That’s not what I came for. I came to ask you why you killed her.’

  ‘Fuck off! I didn’t do that. I didn’t do nothing.’

  ‘You’ve got her phone, haven’t you? How did that happen?’

  ‘It’s not like she’s gonna need it, is it? For fuck’s sake! Who are you?’ The tension is high. I’m still an intruder, in his home. He doesn’t like it. I’m making him uncomfortable. Understandably. He could blow at any minute.

  ‘So maybe it was before the police came then. The crowd dispersed and you ran in and took her phone, maybe her wallet and whatever else she’s got. Or maybe you needed to hide some sort of evidence?’

  ‘Oi,
Oi. It wasn’t like that. I just wanted the phone. I needed it.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘My iPhone bust, what dya think?’

  ‘And which body did you thieve your iPhone from?’

  ‘What? I got it on contract, woman. But then I dropped the thing. Cracked the screen. Didn’t kill no one. Didn’t rob no one. Shut up now, you’re making me tense.’

  The kid giggles a bit. The whole thing now seeming ridiculous, even to a child. They can see I’m no monster. The big one softens a touch. The kid is trying to get back to sleep. As if used to these dramas. Shouting in rooms and hallways.

  ‘Is this your kid?’ I say, emboldened.

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Fucking dead. After our dad died the council tried to move us to Reading. I didn’t want to move there, change his school, all that shit. I got a job. Friends. So we’re staying here to the last minute. I don’t know who killed her, if that’s what you’re thinking happened. But, ain’t no one getting killed over a Nokia 8210, trust.’

  I summon a smirk. I was stupid to think this was a robbery or petty theft. People are desperate around here but Jean had nothing and I’m betting everyone knew it. It must’ve been something else. He continued:

  ‘Let me tell you something, I see stuff around here. I saw that woman outside on that phone to the council from time to time. Spouting this and that. She had a mouth on her. She ruled this place. She wasn’t afraid. I see lots of things. I saw you come out of the old lady’s house.’

  ‘I’m… I’m a doctor. I was checking her pulse for—’

  ‘Nah, nah. Not in the day. In the night-time. The night before the night she got bumped off. Which makes me wonder. How do I know you didn’t sneak in there the night after too, and kill her? And why don’t I go to the police with all this?’

  A pause.

  ‘Where will you tell the police they can find you? Here?’

  He sucks his teeth and sighs, he’s tired of this. But I have one more try.

  ‘You can keep the phone, I don’t want it. I won’t tell anyone you’re here either. But I want to know who killed her,’ I say.

  It sounds a bit like a threat, but I’ve nothing to back it up with.

  ‘Hey, how should I know? Kanye? Ghost of Tupac? Dalai Lama? Woman was old, she died.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Someone broke in somehow and killed her. Who? Give me a suggestion.’

  ‘I don’t know. And look, there are other people in these buildings. But it ain’t a social club. I got no suspects for you. I don’t know many of them in this place. You know your neighbour’s names?’

  I looked down. It’s true, he’s got me. I don’t know my neighbours names. Just like he doesn’t know his. There’s Lowell. Some other names I’ve invented myself. My fantasy of community. Pet names I’ve given a few of them. That’s about it.

  ‘Yeah, so imagine how it is when you’re all lying low. You’re lucky you stumbled on us, some of the others might have cut you for less. That’s why you wanna get out of here and don’t come back. But kill that old lady? Nah. Can’t see why anybody wanna go and do that. What for?’

  I say nothing. Because I don’t know yet. I shake my head. I want to get out of there. So that’s exactly what I do.

  I notice I’m still breathing kind of hard. I pick up my bag and turn to leave. This was a big risk for exactly nothing. Forget it. We’re done.

  15 days till it comes. Far too late.

  I’m almost out of the door and down the stairs when he says it.

  ‘And you know what? You can tell him not to come round here any more too!’ he shouts.

  It stops me in my tracks. I’ve no idea what he’s talking about. ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy that came round last time, the one who’s fuckin’ hand I cut open ‘cos he was chasing around Nathan.’ He gestures towards the boy behind him.

  I stop and think. More silence. I hear the air whistle through the place.

  ‘Who? Listen, who was this? I don’t know anyone who’d come round here. Who was this guy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I gave him a good old cut though. Might have taken it into the bone. He was a big guy. You remember him, Nathe?’

  The boy shuffles, awkwardly, he looks to the ground. He has a naturally happy little face, but frowns now. He looks up and speaks.

  ‘Man with blond hair,’ he says, eyes trained to the floor all the while.

  I pause and consider the new information. Why would anyone come here? Other than me that is.

  ‘Anything else you can remember about him?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah. Oh… well, he… er… he came from… what’s that…? Waterway. All the names sound the same to me. Yeah, I saw him hustle back to the Waterway building, so that’s where he lives, I guess. Fucking “Waterway”. Bleeding all the while. All right? It’s past bedtime. So. Please.’

  Before I go I feel I want to ask for his name, wish him well and tell him to look after his family. That he seems like a good person and there’s hope. But all those things would be platitudes and guesswork anyway. I have no idea who he is. But for what it’s worth I hope they make out OK. And I hope they make it out before the bulldozers come. But they don’t need my tea and sympathy. I’m embarrassed to do it but I reach into my pocket and offer them twenty quid, a tenner and two fivers.

  ‘You take that elsewhere,’ he says. ‘We don’t need nothing from you lot over there, woman.’

  I look at him hard. It’s late. ‘Please, to say sorry for the late-night visit. Please.’

  He frowns, reluctantly takes it and nods. It’s time for me to go.

  I stop at the door.

  ‘Hey, why did you call me the other night then? Trying to scare me or what?’

  ‘Ah yeah, sorry about that. Nathe playing around with the thing. Hit missed calls when he was trying to play snake. Didn’t you, little man?’

  Nathan smirks and grabs the phone and fires up his little game again and walks out of the hallway sucking his thumb.

  ‘It’s Lily. My name’s Lily,’ I say.

  He sizes me up. Runs his tongue along his top lip. He thinks. He doesn’t want to give me too much. Maybe I shouldn’t have given him that. I don’t know a thing about this guy.

  ‘You can call me Chris.’

  So I guess that’s his name. I nod, trying to seem tough, but I’m not kidding anyone. I’m newly self-aware. I know how badly cast I am as the tough girl. It’s like the lights have come on at the end of the party and I’m half naked somehow. I nod again. And get out of there.

  I manage to negotiate the stairs with little mishap on the way down. Outside, I take out my notebook. I write ‘blond hair, injury to the hand, male, 5’ 11” at least’. I’ve got a description. It’s something. Just enough to go twitching.

  I look about the estate as I head towards the road. I’m not planning on coming back. But I’m not afraid of it here any more either. This is my estate and no one can do anything about that. I own it. And I’m going to find this guy. Then I’m going to stop him screwing up my neighbourhood. But first I’m going to take off my piss-soaked clothes. And have a shower.

  Something approaches from the distance behind me. I turn to face it, chest out, raising myself rather than shirking. I’ve learnt a thing or two in the past few days.

  It growls, pants and comes to me. Terrence. Where have you been all this time my friend?

  I look in his dark eyes for a second, then I grab his collar and take us both home.

  14 days till it comes. 7 p.m.

  Various – Various – Waterway Apartments – Various – Various – Sleeping, hiding, laughing, eating, cooking, cleaning, crying, reading, watching movies, exercise – 16 degrees – All the shapes and sizes.

  I took the day off today to keep my eyes open. Trained on Waterway. My bum’s gone a bit numb. I was sat here all of yesterday too. Waiting for something. Making notes in my book. Getting more specific. Headings and subheadin
gs. Graphs and charts. Crisp, white paper stuck to walls. My art teacher would be proud.

  Research. Waiting for my man to show his face.

  Aiden thought it was a good idea to skip work as I ‘looked tired’ and ‘smelt a bit funny’. But he has no idea about what I got up to the other night. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to know. No interest even. He feels very far away at the moment, does he care about me at all any more? He’s got stories of his own he’s working away on. He doesn’t have time, it’s a fragile commodity.

  It’s slipping away from us all. With every hour that goes by, finding Jean’s killer becomes statistically more unlikely.

  He barely blinked when I told him I was looking after a girl from work’s dog for a while. Even though he knows I don’t have any friends at work any more. And the building rules on animals are sketchy, but tend towards a ‘hmm, no thanks’. He didn’t consider how suddenly and mysteriously Terrence appeared one night. Or that I hate dogs. His mind is elsewhere. On spies and espionage. On eighties politics and Cold War secrets. Bow tie cameras and exploding cufflinks. He hibernates inside his mind and taps away at the keys. Tip tap tip tap, clatter clatter clatter, tip tap tip tap, tip tap tap.

  I only ventured outside once today to get supplies from the corner shop: milk, cereal, assorted tins, pitta bread, Gouda, the nice toilet paper, carrot soup, pomegranate juice, miscellaneous vegetables, my top-three favourite types of biscuits. Essentials for holing up for a while. On the way back, just outside our building, I saw Lowell. Coming down the footpath. Jogging home from his lunchtime trip to the climbing wall. He still had his gloves on to demonstrate this to anyone watching. He works from home sometimes. I waved, he did too. As he got closer it seemed like he was limping. This made me nervous.

  ‘Hi, Lil. How are you? I think I might have pulled something. Think I overdid it a bit.’

  My worst fears were realised.