The Watcher (10 page)

‘I . . . I’m not sure.’

‘You can think about it,’ said Burton. ‘I’m going anyway. You can decide at the last minute if you like.’

She could only think of one question. ‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

It was hard to speak in Tara’s presence, but Gillian had no wish to carry on talking in monosyllables. John Burton must think that she was unable to form complete sentences.

‘Why do you want to meet me?’

‘I find you interesting,’ said Burton.

She went quiet. How, for Christ’s sake, were you supposed to deal with such a situation?

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said in the end.

‘OK,’ said Burton. She had the impression that he was fairly sure she would come.

‘All right, until then, maybe,’ she said. He replied, ‘Until then!’ and hung up. He had left off the
maybe
.

You’re pretty confident, thought Gillian.

‘Who was that?’ asked Tara straight away. ‘I don’t mean to embarrass you, but you had a rather high-pitched voice and your cheeks are red. What is it?’

‘It was Becky’s tennis coach. John Burton.’

‘And?’

‘He wants to meet me on Wednesday evening.’

Tara looked at her with curiosity. ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

Gillian stopped where she was. She felt her face flush. ‘Not yet. There’s nothing I
could
tell you. Whether there will be one day . . . no idea.’

‘Hmm,’ said Tara. She did not seem convinced that the situation was as harmless as Gillian wished to convey, but she understood that she would not get any more out of her right now.

She looked at her watch, reached for her handbag and stood up. ‘I’m afraid I’d better get going. I’ve got one more appointment today.’

‘Difficult?’

‘It’s all right.’ She looked closely at Gillian. ‘Are you going? On Wednesday?’

Gillian shrugged her shoulders. ‘I still don’t know. Just in case . . . could I tell Tom I’m meeting you?’

Tara smiled. It looked a little malicious. ‘Of course. I’ll give you an alibi any time. Just let me know.’

Gillian showed her out. She wondered if this was the first step towards cheating and whether she had just taken it: asking her friend to cover for her, because she was going out with another man.

It was dark outside. And cold. All the houses in the street were competing to have the shiniest and brightest Christmas decorations.

‘Don’t let the situation with Becky get you down,’ said Tara. ‘I’m no psychologist, but I can imagine that she is struggling with things at home too. Anyone can feel how unhappy and discontented you are. She doesn’t want that for you. Children want happy mums.’

‘But . . .’

‘But mums can’t always be happy. And children learn to deal with that too.’

‘I hope so. I think a little distance will be good for us. Becky is going to my parents again from after Christmas until the New Year. So we’ll have a little break from each other.’

It was what they had done for years. Becky went to her grandparents in Norwich on Boxing Day. The habit dated from the time when Gillian and Tom still went to New Year’s Eve parties or took short breaks together. They had not done any of that for years.

‘Don’t just think about her. Think about yourself too,’ suggested Tara. In the light of the porch lamp Gillian could clearly see her friend’s face. She looked rather worried.

A man went by the garden fence, glancing at the two women as he passed.

Tara shook her head. ‘Him again!’

‘What do you mean, again?’

‘He was hanging around here when I arrived.’

‘Are you sure? It’s dark, after all.’

‘I know. But I could see his face clearly. He was hanging around here earlier.’

Gillian looked at the receding figure. ‘It could be Samson Segal,’ she said. She sometimes met him when she left her house and she thought she recognised his gait. ‘He’s nice. Harmless. He lives at the other end of the street.’
And goes to the wrong pubs and saw you with John Burton!

‘Think about all the crimes that happen each day,’ warned Tara. ‘There are tons of screwed-up characters on this planet.’

Gillian had to laugh. ‘If I was in your line of work, I’m sure I’d think that too!’

‘Just be careful,’ said Tara, unlocking her dark green Jaguar.

Gillian watched her go. Then she pulled on her winter boots with a sigh and slipped into her coat. She would go and pick up Becky, even if that made her daughter annoyed with her again. Was she overdoing it with her caution and care? In Becky’s eyes – most certainly. But the world was a dangerous place, Tara was right about that. And she would know.

Better not to take a risk.

She started walking.

He had bought sausages and some dog biscuits and had actually managed to divert the dog from its usual course. He knew their route well and he was not disappointed this morning. The dog ran down the hill before its owner was in sight. Samson knew that he only had about a minute before the young woman appeared behind the trees. He crouched down on the edge of the strip of grass, half hidden behind the leafless bushes, and held out a bit of sausage, trying to attract the dog’s attention. ‘Here, doggie, doggie! Here! I’ve got something yummy for you!’

Unfortunately he did not know the dog’s name. He had never heard its owner call it. He had to make the animal curious and let the smell of meat do the rest.

Indeed, the dog did come bounding over and greet him like an old acquaintance. It wolfed down the sausage without chewing it and then followed the stranger expectantly. Samson made a loop and entered the park again at another spot, where he could not be seen.

In the distance he heard her calling. ‘Jazz! Hey, Jazz, where are you?’

So, Jazz. Finally the big shaggy dog had a name. Jazz pricked up his ears and turned his head. Samson took out another sausage.

‘Jazz! Nice sausage!’

Jazz’s greed won out and he lolloped over to Samson. After a while Samson dared to grab the dog’s collar and lead him along. They reached the end of the strip of park and crossed the road in order to walk up alongside the golf course, back towards where the dog and the woman had come from. Samson guessed that Jazz’s owner would look for him down at the river because that was the direction she had seen her dog go. No doubt she would be worried that he might try to cross the Esplanade and be run over by a car. Samson planned to hang around the golf course for a while and then go back to the beach later.

He had a long, cold day ahead of him. Of course December was not the best month for such a plan, but should he waste valuable time by waiting until summer? He had taken the chat with Bartek to heart. He did not want to end up a madman with no grip on reality, given over to absurd daydreams. He had to do something. He had to make a move. Bartek was right.

He had thought up the plan two nights ago. He thought it was genius. Kidnap the dog, hang around with him for most of the day and then bring him back to his desperate owner. Explain to her that he had found her somewhere. She would express her gratitude and relief, maybe ask him to come in for a cup of tea. That might lead to more.

Jazz had eaten a second sausage and all the biscuits and he was getting restless. It was clear that he wanted to go back. In the end, Samson took off his belt and slipped it under the dog’s collar, so improvising a leash. He talked to the animal in a calming voice.

‘We’ll go back to your home. Don’t worry. Yes, she’ll look for you and get pretty worried. I’m as sorry about that as you are. But just imagine how happy she’ll be when she opens the door to us. She might even really like me. A woman has never really liked me, you know that?’

Jazz listened carefully and wagged his tail. Samson found it nice to talk to a dog. The dog looked at him with such concentration that it was as if he could really understand what it was all about. You could be sure that he would not tease you or laugh at you, whatever you confided in him. And nor would he tell the secret to anyone else.

‘I also wanted to have a dog,’ said Samson. ‘But first my parents were against it. And now Millie is.’

When he said her name, he could feel the hatred like a small, hot flame in his stomach. Millie, who was so dissatisfied and so cold. Who showed him every step of the way what she thought of him: that he was a loser, a burden, unnecessary. Someone who had done nothing with his life.

‘Millie decides everything in our house,’ he told Jazz. ‘Although the house belongs to my brother and me. But unfortunately he’s completely under her thumb. I just can’t work out how he could marry such a poisonous piece of work. Well, she used to be pretty attractive . . .’

Gavin had never had difficulty with women. He was not a man that all the women flew to, but nor was he someone they all avoided. Everything had always been pretty normal with him. Nothing to attract attention. Gavin was average, in every way. Samson knew that most people would be annoyed to be considered average. But they had no idea what it felt like to be someone who did not get anything right and was constantly used as a doormat. Someone, in other words, who was below average.

‘I think your owner is pretty,’ he said to Jazz. ‘I don’t like her as much as Gillian, but unfortunately Gillian is married.’

Jazz gave a little
wuff
.

He stroked the dog’s shaggy head. ‘Your owner has not even noticed me yet. But that might change today. You needn’t be afraid at all. You’ll see her again tonight.’

They had reached the golf clubhouse. There was only one car in the car park. Apart from that, the place was deserted this cold early morning. Since it was, Samson dared to walk around the building. There were no lights on in the windows. No one was inside. A large poster at the front door announced a black-tie Christmas ball. It was to be held that coming Saturday in the clubhouse. As the poster said in particularly large and bright red letters, the famous London lawyer Logan Stanford had organised it. The climax of the evening would be a prize draw whose proceeds would go to help street children in Russia.

Samson knew Logan Stanford. Not personally, of course, but from the gossip rags that Millie liked to read so much and left strewn around the house. Stanford was an extremely successful lawyer with first-class connections to the rich and powerful of the land – even to Downing Street, it was whispered. He had oodles of money and influence. And he was known for constantly organising charity events up and down the country. His nickname was ‘Charity Stanford’ and he did his best to live up to it. He collected huge donations and made sure they reached the neediest people. Nevertheless, Samson could not help but have reservations about him whenever he saw him on the colourful pages of
Hello!
yet again. He thought that Stanford looked rather smug. And his guests too . . . All those lifted faces rigid with Botox; lavish evening dresses, sparkling jewellery. Champagne by the bucketload. High society was celebrating itself in the first instance, but the end result was money for people who were much less well off than the British upper class.

‘So what?’ Millie had once said when he expressed his unease. ‘What’s the problem? At least they’re doing something. If they have fun at the same time – who does that hurt?’

He himself could not really say what it was about it that annoyed him. Perhaps it was the feeling that these people were less concerned about the misery in the world than their own self-aggrandisement. Perhaps he had trouble reconciling the issues faced by Russian street children with the artificially enhanced wives of the top ten thousand people in England.

But perhaps that was silly of him. Perhaps the important thing really was the end result and not whether everyone involved had a pure heart and undertook their charity activity out of utter conviction. Mille was right about that: at least they were doing something.

Samson hung around the clubhouse and car park for quite a while before finally daring to go down towards the river. Of course there was the risk that he would meet Jazz’s owner, no doubt hysterical by this stage. It would not be a problem. He could claim that he had just found the dog and was taking it back home.

He reached the beach without having been seen. The sand was wet and heavy. The fog hung in heavy clouds over the water, muffling the cries of the seagulls. It was no longer as cold as it had been a few days ago, but Samson found the dampness in the air almost worse. It crept under your clothing and into your bones. It not only froze your body, it hollowed it out.

They walked along the beach, past the empty, closed-up bathing huts with their colourful fronts and the carved wooden decorations on the roofs. There was nobody at all about. Jazz seemed to have got used to the situation. He jogged along beside Samson, occasionally sniffing at the stinking flotsam that the river had washed up, and when it smelt particularly interesting, he lifted his leg. He seemed to be in a good mood.

Samson could have kicked himself for not having thought to park his car somewhere nearby. If he had, he could have warmed up now and then. He was an idiot. He had planned to wait until late afternoon to bring Jazz back. Jazz’s owner would be at her wits’ end by then and so all the more grateful to him. But by then Samson would have caught a cold.

Very clever of me, very clever. Typical.

After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the spit of land where the Thames became the North Sea. Here at Shoeburyness there were wonderful beaches and meadows, dotted with the old fortifications built to defend Britain from a German invasion during the war. Samson knew the area. He and Gavin had often played here as children, although it was a fair distance by foot from Thorpe Bay. Gavin had taken his friends there and Samson had been allowed to go with them. Because their mother insisted. The other children had grumbled but reluctantly put up with him. Samson had learnt then what it meant to be unloved. Not to be accepted.

He thought about what he had said to Jazz at the golf club. It felt like hours ago. That he found Jazz’s owner pretty. Why had he thought he had to tell Jazz? Because it was not what he really felt?