The Watcher (20 page)

‘It’s actually rather unusual,’ Luke Palm had to admit.

‘What reason did she give you?’

‘That she felt lonely out here. She had felt lonely for far too long. She didn’t exactly say that directly, but reading between the lines, you could sense that she had endured it for so long out of loyalty to her late husband. All this was his project, really. She felt bad about getting rid of the place once he was dead and gone. But the time had come when she felt she couldn’t bear it any longer.’

‘But she didn’t mention any particular trigger?’

‘No.’

‘My colleagues from the local branch tell me that you said you were here last week, on the tenth of December, to look at the property. And you say that was the day she was murdered?’

‘The calendar in the kitchen,’ Palm said quietly. ‘It still says the tenth. So that’s what I supposed.’

‘You didn’t notice anything when you were here?’

‘No.’

‘Were there any other cars in the car park?’

‘No.’

‘And when you drove away, was any car coming the other way?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’ Palm shook his head. ‘I’d like to be of more help. But there wasn’t anything. At least, nothing I noticed.’

At that moment Christy McMarrow came into the room and asked Fielder to come upstairs.

‘The forensics team have found something,’ she said.

Upstairs, an officer was standing in the bathroom doorway, holding a clear plastic bag in his hand. Inside it was a bullet.

‘He used a gun to open the door that the victim had locked herself behind. He shot the lock to pieces.’

‘Interesting.’ Fielder looked at the bullet through narrowed eyes. ‘At the other crime scene there was no trace of a firearm. So make sure this one is examined thoroughly.’

‘Sir, it’s already been—’

‘Nevertheless. And tomorrow a team has to go back to Carla Roberts’s flat.’

The investigation had been going on all weekend. In spite of searching with a fine-tooth comb, no evidence for the use of a firearm was found in Carla Roberts’s flat. The autopsy on Anne Westley had been carried out. Christy had the results. She took a sip of coffee and said, ‘The coroner confirms what the estate agent suspected about the date of the crime. It looks like the tenth of December is the most likely. The eleventh is a possibility too, but the calendar suggests it isn’t.’

‘What was the cause of death?’ asked Peter Fielder. ‘Did she suffocate on her own vomit?’

‘No. Her murderer thrust the towel down her throat with increasing brutality, but it appears it didn’t make her retch. He stopped her from breathing by taping her nose shut. So she suffocated.’

‘He could easily have shot her, as we now know.’

‘That would probably have been too quick a death for him.’

Fielder nodded. He looked at his notes. They had found out that Anne’s husband, Sean Westley, had been a professor at UCL and that he had died three years earlier of pneumonia. Before her retirement, Anne had worked as a GP in a surgery in Kensington. The couple had not had children.

‘We should ask at the surgery if there was ever a case of medical incompetence or anything negative relating to Anne Westley,’ said Fielder.

‘You mean vengeful parents?’ asked Christy. ‘How does that tie in with Carla Roberts?’

‘It doesn’t. I just want to exclude the possibility. So we both think that we’re dealing with the same murderer?’

‘As we didn’t go public about the cloth used to suffocate Carla Roberts, this one can’t be a copycat crime. The two cases are patently connected. I suspect that in Roberts’s case the murderer had a gun too, but didn’t need to use it. But that would explain why Carla Roberts let herself be tied up by her hands and feet without a struggle: she was being threatened with a pistol.’

Fielder looked back down at his notes, as if the answer would leap out at him if he only stared at them long enough.

‘Where does it all meet?’ he murmured. ‘Is there any connection between Carla Roberts’s and Anne Westley’s cases?’

‘At first glance, what they have in common is their loneliness,’ said Christy. ‘Both of them lived unusually isolated lives. Both of them had lost their partner – one through divorce, the other through death. Anne Westley had no family. Carla Roberts had a daughter, but she was rarely in contact with her. In each case the murderer could do his deed without fear of being disturbed. And could bet on it taking a while before the crime was discovered.’

‘But that’s all they had in common.’

‘That’s a lot. It might be just that the murderer wanted – that opportunity. Never mind which woman or her life history – just that situation.’

‘Right,’ said Fielder. ‘The chance principle. I can see that makes sense in the Westley case. That there was a psychopath hanging around in the woods, lurking in wait. It would have been easy for him to find out that a woman lived here all on her own and that no one came by regularly. But how would he have found out that Carla Roberts was so isolated? No, there must be something else. Something that Westley and Roberts had in common, besides being all alone. The pensioner in Hackney who just scrapes by and the former doctor and professor’s widow out in Tunbridge Wells who is well enough off, thank you very much. That’s two different worlds there.’

‘Carla Roberts didn’t always live off a modest pension in a block of flats,’ Christy reminded him. ‘Before his construction company went bankrupt, her ex had earned a lot of money. It’s possible that the Robertses and the Westleys were part of the same social sphere in London at one point.’

‘And knew each other?’

‘It’s not out of the question, is it? For example, Dr Westley might have been the GP that Keira Jones, Carla’s daughter, visited. That would be easy to check.’

‘Yes. Other connections will be harder.’

‘We’ve got a hell of a lot of work ahead of us.’

He nodded wearily. Then he remembered something else. ‘The attic in Anne Westley’s house . . . She loved to paint. Was there any clue in Carla Roberts’s flat that she shared that hobby?’

Christy shook her head regretfully. ‘No. Not in the slightest. Not a single paintbrush was found in the flat, let alone a drawing or anything similar. I can ask the daughter again, but I honestly think we can forget that.’

Monday, 21 December, 10.05 p.m.

Gillian Ward is no better than Michelle Brown. Both of them are ungrateful and snooty, think they’re something special, but they are rude. I brought one of them her dog back. That dog seems to be her life. (She obviously can’t get a man, which doesn’t surprise me, given how she is – I wouldn’t want her if she came begging on her knees.) And I took care of the other one’s daughter. Her only child! And what do I get in return? A tepid ‘thank you’ and nothing more! Somehow she seemed almost suspicious of me. As if I had taken the girl with me for some base reason!

Her husband was even worse. Thomas Ward is the most unsympathetic man ever. He came in here on Thursday as if he was storming a terrorist cell. He just wanted to grab his daughter and disappear immediately. It was almost painful to see how difficult it was for him to thank me. Gavin always thought he was rather nice. I really can’t understand that. I’m surprised the man can stand, with the weight of his arrogance. And yet he’s throwing away his marriage and I bet he doesn’t even realise it. He just lives for his company and his sport. Of course, everyone’s life is their own, but you shouldn’t forget your wife and kids in the process. One day Gillian will run away, that’s crystal clear. And then he’ll be left standing there gormlessly wondering what he did wrong. I’ll be happy when he’s all alone and has to come back to an empty house. The annoying thing is that it wouldn’t take him long to find a new woman. He looks good, earns well, and that’s all women think about. Even if they are treated badly. Men like me, who would be nice to their wives, and give them our time and affection, we are ignored.

I know that he thinks I’m some child molester. It would be laughable if it didn’t feel so humiliating. I’d never do anything to a child. I like children. I’d so dearly love to have my own. And as for Becky – I just wanted to help. What should I have done? What would Thomas Ward have preferred, for me to leave her there in the dark and just walk on?

I saw Gillian leave in the car that afternoon. She wasn’t in the office that day. I’m neglecting the other people I watch because I can’t tear myself away from her. She came out of the house around 4 p.m. and she looked different somehow. She wasn’t heavily dolled up; maybe she had a bit more make-up on, not too much. I think it was her aura that was different. It’s hard to describe. She seemed so appealing. More appealing than I had found her before.

I started to get worried after she left. I think that if I’d had my car with me at that moment, I’d have followed her. But it was in the garage, and by the time I’d gone home and fetched it, she would have been miles away. For hours I was asking myself where she had gone. I felt jittery, plagued by dark forebodings. Something was afoot in the family and it wasn’t good. Thomas Ward had triggered it. But often things then develop their own dynamic and it’s possible that they already had in this case.

That day, I walked my usual round. It was cold and snowing, but I couldn’t make myself go back to my nice warm room. I wanted to know when Gillian would be home.

As the snow fell more and more heavily, I stood there watching the house. Its Christmas decorations came on automatically at some point. And then Becky suddenly appeared out of the dark. It was a little after six. I had seen her go over to her friend’s house at lunchtime. Judging from the number of girls there, it must have been a birthday party. Now the party was obviously over, but Gillian wasn’t home yet. That wasn’t like her. She’s not like that. I started to think it might be down to the snow. She might be stuck somewhere. It was the first real snowfall of winter, and that always brought traffic to a standstill.

Becky rang the bell, but of course nothing happened. She rang it again. She stepped back, looking up the facade. She rang the bell again. After a while she hammered her fists on the door and then started to cry.

In that strange silence that the world sinks into when it snows, I could hear her sobs. It almost broke my heart.

I crossed the street and stopped at the garden gate, calling out to her: ‘Becky!’

She spun around. I was standing under a street lamp. She could easily recognise me. It was lovely to see how the fear and mistrust vanished from her face. She recognised me. The man who lived in the same street.

‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice was heavy with tears.

‘No one home?’ I asked, although I knew the answer.

‘No. No one. And I don’t have a key with me.’

‘Did your parents know you were coming home now?’

She shook her head. ‘I was supposed to spend the night at my friend’s house, but we had a big fight and so I left.’

At least that was a reassuring explanation for Gillian’s behaviour. She thought her daughter was going to be at her friend’s house all night. She could not have guessed that Becky would come home.

‘You know what,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll catch a cold if you stay out here much longer. Either I should take you back to your friend’s house
—’

‘No!’ she shouted.

‘Or you can come to my house. Then I’ll bring you home later. What do you think?’

She was unsure. Naturally. It had been drummed into her that she should not go with strangers, and I was a stranger for her. But one she knew by sight and whom she and her parents said hi to. That was no doubt what decided it for her. She came with me. In any case, she didn’t have a choice. As she had obviously had a complete falling-out with her friend, I was the only option.

We gave her orange juice and home-made biscuits. I think she liked us. She told us about school and the party she had just been at – and that she would not ever speak to her ex-best friend again. It was charming. She was looking forward to Christmas and to seeing her grandparents. She always went to theirs on 26 December and stayed until the start of January. They are her mother’s parents and live in Norwich. So Gillian is from East Anglia. That suits her. It’s so open and green there. I can imagine her among the lakes and rivers of the Norfolk Broads. I can see her in the lavender fields and I know that summer will burn pale, silvery strands into her long strawberry-blonde hair. After a day at the beach her skin will be covered in freckles, and the sea wind will make her hair even more unruly and wavy.

Millie said I should leave a message on the family’s answering machine straight away. For a change, that wasn’t a bad idea she had. Nevertheless, we still had that unspeakable visit from the Wards. The way he acted was disgusting and . . . yes, I’m deeply disappointed in her too. Somehow I thought she might come by again later. If not the next day or at the weekend, then today at the latest. To thank me or apologise for her husband’s behaviour. But no. She acts as if she doesn’t know me. That’s why I said at the start that she is like Michelle Brown. I didn’t hear any more from her either. She is out and about with her dog again, and me? For her I don’t exist.

Women don’t notice me. Whatever I do for them. It’s as if I were invisible. Or give off some bad odour that keeps people away. I thought Gillian was different. But she treats me like trash too.

I can’t let my hate grow. Hate destroys. Destroys the one who feels it too.

Looking out of the window of the downstairs toilet, Millie could see the street. Samson had just gone out. He had said he wanted to go into town to find a few last presents and that he did not want to take the car because he feared he might not find a parking space, it being Christmas Eve. As usual, Millie didn’t believe him. By now she was completely convinced that he did not go looking for work when he left the house in the morning, and whatever he did during the hours that passed before he turned up again in the evening, it could not be anything good. If it were, he would talk to someone about it. At least to Gavin, with whom he had a fairly normal relationship. She had mentioned it to Gavin a few days ago.