I've Been Watching You: a stunning crime thriller from The North East Police Series (24 page)

Suddenly he lost it, shouting ‘Fuck!’ as he swept the metal tool across the table to his left, sending the screens and keyboards flying with a clatter.

He stopped again, his head cocked to one side, as he focussed his glare back on Ben, as though everything that had gone wrong was entirely her fault.

A sharp arrow of pure fear shot through her pounding heart. She knew that look. He was going to kill her.

Taking in a slow breath, she waited, not moving until he was right in front of her. He raised his arm with the intention of swinging the crowbar at her head, and still she waited, looking straight into his eyes. A guttural sound escaped from his mouth as the metal rod moved towards her, but all she could see was his tiny pupils like small black islands in a sea of pale blue. The bar moved almost as if in slow motion. It was centimetres from her when she finally leapt into action. Turning her body so her shoulder absorbed the blow instead of her head, she elbowed the man to the solar plexus, feeling his breath exit his body with a loud ‘whoomph’. Pulling back, she grabbed the arm holding the crowbar and moved behind him taking the arm with her, her foot already moving to the rear of his knees to knock him from his feet. Using her strength, she pushed him to the floor, his left cheek impacting with the carpet, and his grunt muffled against the rough surface.

Through his grunt, she heard footsteps running down the corridor towards her, but they sounded as if they were in a tunnel, pounding feet just outside of her consciousness. She was panting, fear and adrenaline giving her the strength she needed to keep the man on the floor. Ali burst into the front office with several detectives at his side. They were expecting a fight, and they all paused in shock as they registered Ben sat on top of the suspect, his arm twisted behind him as he whimpered with pain.

‘Ben, you can let go, we got this.’

Ali’s soft voice penetrated through, but it was his hand on her arm that made her look up. She moved, allowing one of the DCs to take her place, silent as Ali led her from the room and into the small office behind the front desk window.

‘Ben, you OK? Did he hurt you?’ he asked softly, his hands on the top of her arms as he looked her up and down, checking her for signs of injury.

The adrenaline was starting to subside, and Ben felt herself start to shake. She focussed on keeping her breathing steady, staring at the poster on the wall behind Ali’s back, reading the words over and over until she felt herself stop shaking.

‘I’m OK,’ she finally replied, ‘He caught my shoulder with the crow bar, but I’m OK.’

‘Let me see,’ said Ali, gently trying to manoeuvre her.

Ben stepped away from him, ‘I’m fine, Ali. Honest. He barely touched me.’

‘You should still get it checked out. It might be worse than you think. We’ll need some injury photo’s doing too.’

‘I’ll get it sorted tomorrow, Ali. Do you need me to make my statement now?’

Ali frowned a little. He didn’t quite know what had just happened but it was clear Ben did not want him touching her. Deciding to focus on finding out what had occurred, he put the other stuff to the back of his mind. There would be plenty of time for that later. Maybe Cass would know what’s going on with Ben.

‘What happened? How’d he get in?’

‘I think he had a key. I was putting some stuff in the transit store and saw something on the CCTV. When I looked closer he was outside, and then the door slammed and he was in here. I think he’s high or something. I told him there was no money in the front office and he just lost it. I had to restrain him, I didn’t have a choice. He had a crowbar. Was going to hit me with it.’

‘Hey, nobodies arguing with you, Ben. You did what you had to do, and might I add, you did it better than most cops would have. Where’d you learn those moves?’

‘Self-defence training,’ she replied. ‘Not force provided,’ she added as Ali raised his eye brows in question. He knew all too well that the police didn’t provide forensic personnel with self-defence training, and it was something he campaigned for every time it came up in the yearly meetings.

Ben felt light-headed, her vision was swimming and she could see black spots. But she tried to ignore it, adding, ‘Can I ring Kevin please? You’re going to need a CSI here to take photos and I presume you’ll be wanting me to make a statement. Although I couldn’t do the photos anyway – conflict of interests I sup –’

She felt her sentence trail off at the end, saw the hoods of her eyes as they rolled back in her head, and thought ‘shit’ as the dizziness caused her to tilt.

Ben didn’t want to wake up. She could feel someone stroking her cheek, telling her to open her eyes, but she didn’t want to. Slowly she realised that there was something hard under her back, something rough and textured against her cheek, and she just knew she wasn’t at home in bed. Forcing her eyes open, she saw Ali’s concerned grey ones staring back.

She groaned as she tried to sit. ‘I passed out didn’t I?’

It was more of a statement than a question, and Ali nodded back.

‘I’ve just phoned your aunt, told her I’ll drop you off, or do you need a paramedic? We can take your statement tomorrow.’

He held his hand out to help her to her feet, and stood close in case she fell again. Ben felt her cheeks change to deep red. She was mortified. She had just passed out at work in front of pretty much the whole of the major incident team.
That could only happen to me! I take down a suspect then pass out for the sheer hell of it. What a complete numpty.

‘Ali, it’s fine. Let me do my statement whilst it’s all fresh in my mind. I don’t need a medic. I’ll ring Aoife now, and tell her I’ll be back shortly.’

Standing aside to let her past, Ali followed her through, and tried not to eavesdrop as she made the phone call.

‘Aoife it’s me ... No I’m fine ... Aoife ... Aoife, stop OK. I’m going to give my statement then I’ll be home I promise. I’m OK. Loves you.’

‘Is your aunt OK? She was pretty upset when I spoke to her a moment ago.’

‘She will be, as soon as I get home anyways,’ said Ben, flashing Ali a quick but tight smile. ‘Let’s crack on, alright?’

15
^th
June, 2315 hours – O’Byrne residence, Sunderland

Ben was home. Finally.

Giving the statement felt like it had taken forever, and it had been hard. Writing every last thing down and signing it off. It was almost like she had been transported to the past, though without quite as much of the trauma involved as the last time. It had actually felt good knowing she hadn’t forgotten her training, that all those hours put in on the mat had actually accomplished something. 

Reassuring Kevin that she was still fine to work her on-call that night was even harder, but she truly felt like she was fine. It hadn’t been nice, thinking that some random stranger was going to attack her with a crowbar, that an offender had invaded the sanctity of the police station. But Ben was trying to look past all that. He had entered the station illegally, using keys someone had dropped outside. Whichever cop that was would be getting a rollocking, no doubt about that. She had just happened to be there.

She paused at the front door, her hand on the frame for a second as she laid her head on top. She suddenly felt so tired. She remembered feeling that way all those years ago, when the initial trauma and shock had worn off and she had been left on her own for the first time. She recalled feeling so utterly lonely, so desperately alone, despite Aoife being only rooms away. There were often still times when she closed her eyes, and all she could see was
him.
Standing over her, telling her he was watching. It had taken her so long to get to where she was now. It had been years of looking over her shoulder and struggling with paranoia and panic attacks. But she’d made it this far.

A scuffle with an offender was nothing compared to all that. Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the door, already knowing Aoife would be climbing the walls with worry.

‘Hey, Aoife, I’m home,’ she said, opening the door to the living room. Aoife wasn’t in there, so Ben wandered through to the kitchen, again finding it empty.

Her heart swelled as she figured her aunt was upstairs with Grace. She was so grateful her aunt was there. If something had gone wrong today, Grace would have been looked after, she knew that. A lump grew in her throat and she forced it back down as she quietly opened Graces bedroom door. Grace was fast asleep, her dark curls spread over the pillow giving her an angelic appearance, and Aoife was sitting in the rocking chair holding a cuddly bunny. Her cheeks resembled a map, with rivers of tears running down to her chin, and she looked utterly devastated.

Ben knelt in front of her aunt, and pulled her close as Aoife started to sob.

‘I don’t ... know ... what I’d do.’ Aoife stopped trying to speak, wrapped her good arm round Ben and held her so tight that for a moment she thought her ribs would break.

‘I’m OK,’ whispered Ben into her aunt’s hair, inhaling the scent of lavender. ‘Shh, I’m alright. Everything’s OK.’

After a few minutes, an embarrassed Aoife pulled back.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered, ‘It’s just ...’

‘Aoife, it’s OK. I get it. But I’m alright, I promise. He didn’t hurt me.’

Ben watched as she gave herself a shake, took Ben’s hand to steady herself and pulled herself to her feet.

‘We deserve a glass of wine. Come on, downstairs.’

‘I’ll have tea, Aoife, I’m on call tonight.’

‘On call? They didn’t even give you the night off?’ Aoife’s horror was written all over her face.

‘They offered. I refused. I’m fine. It was a bit scary, but I’m fine.’

‘Ali told me you kicked the intruder’s arse?’ Finally, a familiar twinkle appeared in her aunt’s eye and Ben knew her aunt would be OK. Shock was a funny thing. She could only imagine how it must have felt having Ali call and explain what had happened. It wouldn’t be natural to expect anything but the worst.

And she really was fine.
Even if my shoulder does hurt like a bitch.
She smiled to herself as she figured that if her shoulder hurt, then his stomach and shoulder would be hurting a lot more. 
I must ring Davey and thank him again. If it wasn’t for him persevering with me I’d never have been able to take that guy down.
Her martial arts instructor, David Cunningham, was one of the best in the business. He worked tournaments all over the world, and specialised in teaching women to handle themselves.

Chapter Seventeen

16
^th
June, 0035 hours – Thompson residence, Sunderland

He found himself in the bushes again. And tonight the rain was falling heavily. His black summer jacket and combats already soaked through. The good thing though, was heavy rain made it darker. He liked the dark, needed it even. Especially tonight.

He’d watched her leave the house at eight on the dot to head into the town for her night out with the girls. She hadn’t seen him, of course. No-one saw him unless he wanted them to. He’d already accessed her laptop from home and deleted all traces of him. Now he needed to check her room and make sure she hadn’t been stupid enough to write about him in the journal he knew she kept.

He had watched from the shadows as her guardian had turned her bedroom light out almost an hour before. Even allowing time for someone to drop off, he was confident she would be sound asleep under the heavily floral bedding in the chintzy, feminine bedroom down the hall from Clarice’s room. He had seen it when he installed the camera, had seen all the rooms in fact. He knew the layout inside, even what both women kept hidden at the bottom of their knicker drawers.

He smiled to himself at that thought. Knickers – it was such an old fashioned word. There had been a vast difference between the two drawers. Gill, the older one preferred high cut briefs, pretty and floral whilst maintaining comfort. And Clarice, his Clarice. Hers were functional, matching sets of plain knickers and bra’s, but buried beneath the top layer he found the pot of gold. Matching sets of thongs and balcony bras, in bright colours and patterns.

He wondered when she wore them, whether it was for nights out like tonight. And he felt himself grow hard. It wouldn’t be too long before he would find out.

Clarice had been chatting to him all night, he’d left the bar an hour before with the intention of doing his checks, but had said he would be back soon. He was confident that she would wait for him. Her friends were all very drunk by then anyway and dancing around their handbags. Clarice was more restrained, he had noticed, often ordering a coke instead of alcohol, but not telling her friends.

They wouldn’t even recall him being there.

He smiled into the darkness.
Then again, neither will she.

He’d told Clarice to meet him at the end of the road leading to the club at 1.30 a.m. – she had agreed. He was a nice guy, had offered to walk her home despite the rain, had even gone to his place to get an umbrella so she wouldn’t get wet. At least, that’s what he had told her.        

He had been picturing her in his head all night, pulling on her sexy underwear, dressing up just for him, applying her make up so that he would be pleased. In reality he hated make-up. It made women look like the tramps they were, attracting the weak men like moths to a flame.

Not him though, he wasn’t taken in by a sweep of mascara and a coating of lip gloss. All that meant was he had to try that little bit harder to make them understand that their place was not in this world. Girls like her, Clarice, they deserved to die.

He remembered his mother had liked make-up. Frowning he tried to conjure up her face in his mind. After losing everything, it seemed the best he could do.

But he couldn’t do it. Maybe it had been too long. Or maybe he just hadn’t cared enough to remember.