The Watcher (43 page)

The motherly, competent, friendly doctor, Anne Westley. The woman who was so good with children. But who also knew how to reassure a child’s parents.

And Liza Stanford. She had a nasty gash at her temple, the result of a punch she had been given the night before. The punch had knocked her on to the corner of a cupboard. Her husband had not liked their evening meal. Irish stew without carrots. She had not had carrots in the house nor had time to buy any. But he had asked specifically for Irish stew, which always had carrots. She had hoped that he would not notice.

Of course he had noticed.

It had not been her choice to leave the house the next day. The wound was still bleeding. It was not coagulating. But then Finley came back from school saying that he had had a nasty fall during PE. He had broken his fall with his right hand and not felt any pain at first. However, over the course of the afternoon the hand had started to swell and the pain had increased. Liza had hoped that it would sort itself out, but Finley was moaning more and more and she finally saw no alternative but to take him to a doctor. She put a large sticking plaster on her cut, combed her hair as far forward as it would go and slipped on her sunglasses. She would have preferred to go to an A&E department, where she was not known, but Finley, now in real pain, was asking for the doctor he knew and was close to tears.

And so they ended up in Dr Westley’s surgery late that afternoon. In spite of the full waiting room, they were ushered in immediately, as it was obviously an emergency.

It turned out that the hand was badly sprained. Finley was given a splint. Then Dr Westley sat behind her desk and wrote out a prescription for painkillers. Liza sat opposite her. Finley had gone to a corner and was playing with some Sesame Street characters that always fascinated him when they visited.

Anne tore the prescription off her pad and was about to hand it over when she stopped. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

Liza instinctively pushed her hair further forward. As she did so, a trickle of warm liquid ran along her temple and down her cheek.

Oh no, she thought in horror.

‘You’re bleeding,’ said Dr Westley. ‘Wait, let me see.’

She came round from behind her desk, although Liza protested: ‘It’s nothing . . . really . . . don’t worry.’

The plaster was soaked through. Before she had left the house, the cut had largely stopped bleeding. But for some reason it had started again.

Dr Westley bent over Liza, carefully taking off her sunglasses. Her left eye had not escaped completely either, although it was less garishly coloured than it would be in a day’s time. Nevertheless, the eyelid was red and no one could miss its slowly spreading greenish colour. It was hardly going to be mistaken for badly applied eyeshadow. Liza listened to Dr Westley’s quick intake of breath as she took off the plaster with a skilful hand.

‘Dear God,’ she said. ‘That looks bad! Have you had it looked at?’

‘No,’ said Liza. ‘It had stopped bleeding, so I thought it was going to heal on its own.’

‘The wound looks infected. I’m going to prescribe an antibiotic for you. And it should be dressed properly. A sticking plaster isn’t enough. I’ve got a spray to stop the bleeding.’

‘All right,’ said Liza stiffly. She did not dare to look at the doctor.

Dr Westley leant against her desk.

‘How did it happen?’ she asked steadily. As if she was making a point of being calm.

Liza knew that she was repeating the worst cliché, but she really could not think of anything else at that moment: ‘On the stairs in our house. I’ve done it a few times. The stairs are very steep and I’m so clumsy.’ She gave a fake laugh, but the wound hurt so much that she grimaced. ‘I’m always doing stupid things. The bottom of the banister has a wooden ornament and I fell right on to it. I’m lucky I didn’t lose an eye. So silly. I really have to learn how to be more careful, but even when I was at school, during PE I was always . . .’

She stopped.

I’m talking too much, she thought.

‘Mrs Stanford,’ said Dr Westley, who was still standing up, leaning against her desk, ‘please look at me.’

Hesitantly, Liza raised her eyes. She felt naked and exposed without her usual enormous dark glasses. She knew she must look terrible.

‘Mrs Stanford, I don’t want to meddle in what is not my business. But I want to say that you . . . that people can find help in any situation. Sometimes people think their circumstances are completely hopeless. But that’s not the case. There’s always a way out.’

Liza looked the grey-haired woman right in the eye. She could see the doctor was affected and shocked.

She knows. She knows exactly what’s happened.

She said nothing, then looked away.

‘I’ll dress your wound,’ said Dr Westley after a while. There was a certain resignation in her voice. ‘Is that all right?’

Liza nodded.

She let the doctor deal with her cut, while Finley continued to play in the corner without even looking up. It did not escape her attention that Dr Westley was also throwing concerned glances at the child. She was obviously anxious that Finley did not react when his mother had the blood rinsed from her face and was bandaged. Liza wondered if she would reach the obvious conclusion: that Finley often saw his mother in an injured state and that he had learnt to cut himself off inside, because he would not otherwise be able to bear it.

Dr Westley had not said anything else. But when Lisa finally left the practice, she thought: perhaps she will get in touch again. Perhaps she will offer me help. She knows what’s happened and she was pretty shocked.

She didn’t know if the idea of an insistent doctor was something that scared her or gave her hope. Probably both. She was afraid that everything could get worse if someone meddled. And yet at the same time she felt certain that things could not go on the same for ever, although she herself was not strong enough to take any decisive steps. Now and then over the following days she imagined that someone else would take on her case and get things started, which could only really mean reporting her husband. The thought filled her alternately with hope and panic. She went on a rollercoaster emotional ride until at some point she realised that nothing was going to happen. She never heard anything more from Dr Westley.

‘And that was the end of it as far as I was concerned,’ she had said to John. ‘I wasn’t going to get any help from Dr Westley.’

A thousand thoughts raced through John’s mind as he drove through the city at night, repeatedly needing to check he was not breaking the speed limit. He felt agitated. There were too many disconcerting possibilities opening up.

One was the fact that he had suspected Dr Stanford. But should he consider Liza a suspect too?

The woman had been through hell. The scoundrel she was married to had let loose a sadism on her so extreme that John was shaken to the core, and as an ex-policeman he had seen a lot and was not easily flappable. The man was sick, without a doubt. But was he a murderer?

How deeply had it embittered Liza that she was not given any help by the two women who knew about her problem? Had she expected a sisterly solidarity and not understood why it was not given? She had told him about it without any emotion. She had even denied holding a grudge against the women. Her voice was level and calm as she spoke. John could remember questionings where the person opposite him had sounded just like that – and later turned out to be a downright liar or even a murderer.

One thing was sure: Carla Roberts and Anne Westley would both have opened the door to Liza and let her in.

Had Liza gone underground to start a campaign of vengeance?

He smacked his hand down on the steering wheel. Damn, he was getting deeper and deeper into this case. First Samson. Now Liza. Both were sought by the police. Both were suspects. He knew where both were staying.

With all that he knew, he should have gone to the police long ago. He was making himself culpable. He was heading for a catastrophe with his eyes open.

He was dead tired and yet buzzing with adrenalin. He knew this odd mixture from his days as a policeman. He had experienced it especially during tiresome surveillance work. Utterly worn out and in pain from the effort of keeping his stinging eyes open too long. And yet at the same time sensing the danger that was imminent, keeping every fibre of his body awake and tense. He thought it must be similar when you were on drugs.

He turned into the street where he lived and immediately looked up to the windows of his flat. He was relieved to see that they were in darkness. Samson must have gone to sleep already, thank God. John had no inclination to get into a night-time chat with him.

He parked his car, stomped through the snow, unlocked the building’s front door and climbed the stairs, swaying with exhaustion. When he entered the flat, he peeked into the living room. He could see the vague outline of Samson’s body. He was wrapped in his sleeping bag on a camping mat, breathing evenly. Luckily he had not woken up.

John went to his bedroom, pulled off his clothes and let them just drop to the floor. Collapsing on to his mattress, he suddenly remembered Gillian with painful clarity. He had not changed the sheets since her visit and he convinced himself that he could still smell her.

He buried his head in his pillow. He had to tear this woman out of his heart, whatever it cost. He did not want to suffer and mourn her, give himself over to despairing thoughts.

He would change the sheets first thing in the morning.

No sooner had he made this plan than he fell asleep.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Gillian. She and Tara sat opposite each other in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Outside the window it was still pitch black. ‘I’ll find a room somewhere and go off the map for a while.’

She had lain awake all night thinking. She felt safe in Tara’s flat but she realised that she could be mistaken; above all she understood that she could not put her friend at risk. It was thoughtless of her to move in with someone and assume nothing would happen. It could be just as fatal for her to go back to her own home. She still did not know if someone had been there or not. Tara was right. It was foolish of her not to have called the police immediately. At least they would probably have been able to say whether she had imagined the intruder. At the moment, she was completely in the dark.

Can’t be helped: that was the conclusion she had come to, tossing and turning on the sofa. But at least I should act sensibly now, she had thought.

‘Are you sure?’ Tara replied. She still looked rather sleepy. It was half past six in the morning.

‘Yes, I’m sure. Until we know whether or not someone is out to get me, and until we know the reason for what’s happened, we shouldn’t take any chances. Not with my life or yours. It’s better if I disappear for a bit.’

‘I think you’ll be able to come back soon. The police are working twenty-four/seven on the case. They’ll find the guy.’

‘I’m going to start to think about my future,’ Gillian said. ‘I’m taking my laptop with me. I’ll look online for a job and a flat in Norwich. Everything here will carry on fine without me. I’ll send the estate agent a key, so he can start to show people around. If I have to go to Norwich, for a job interview for example, I’ll just drive up there. No problem.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Tara. ‘Listen, I have to go to the office now, but it’s Friday, so I can leave work early. How about I drive you to Thorpe Bay this afternoon, so you can pack everything you need? From there you can set off in your own car.’

Gillian protested. ‘I can’t accept that, Tara. You’ve got too much on your plate right now. Let me take the train.’

Tara shook her head. ‘It’ll take you forever. I can drive. Really, it’s no problem.’ She finished her coffee and stood up. ‘You’ll wait here for me?’

‘All right. Thanks,’ said Gillian.

She hoped that she had made the right decision.

John woke up. Even in his sleep he had sensed that someone was in his room. Startled, he sat up in bed hurriedly and found himself looking at Samson Segal’s smiling face.

‘Did I wake you?’ Samson asked, concerned.

John stopped himself just before replying in annoyance that Samson seemed to want to wake him; why else would he be creeping around his room?

‘It’s OK. What’s the time?’ he asked.

‘Almost eight o’clock.’

‘Oh damn it,’ said John. ‘I should be in the office already.’ He looked at his alarm clock on the floor next to his mattress. In his tiredness last night, he must have forgotten to turn it on. That had never happened to him before.

‘You were really late last night,’ said Samson. ‘I waited until half past nine, but then . . .’

‘It was a long evening,’ said John. He stood up and looked out of the window. Day was breaking. The flat smelt of fresh coffee.

‘I’ve made breakfast,’ explained Samson. ‘I’ve been out already. I bought a loaf of bread.’

‘You’re supposed to stay inside!’

‘But then we’d have had nothing to eat. Yesterday evening too . . .’ He stopped talking, embarrassed.

John ran his hand through his tousled hair.

‘I’m sorry. I should have thought of that. I’m just coming for breakfast.’

He disappeared into the bathroom, had a long, hot shower and decided to skip his shave. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper and went into the kitchen. As there was no table, Samson had put the plates and cups on the work surface and pulled up an old bar stool. He poured the coffee and gestured to the stool. ‘Sit down. I eat standing up.’

‘Me too,’ said John. ‘So you can sit down.’

Samson carried on standing up, but he put his cup of coffee on the stool.

At the end of the day, it would not be a bad idea to invest in a table sometime, thought John.

He was torn over the question of how much to tell Samson. Normally he never shared his thought processes with others until he had come to a conclusion that satisfied him. He had always been like that, even when he was in the police. On the other hand, Samson was not stupid, and he had watched the Ward family for months. Maybe he would remember some important detail if John shared what he knew.