The Watcher (21 page)

‘What does Samson actually do all day?’ she asked him casually. ‘He’s never home and it’s far too cold outside for him to always be walking.’

‘He’s looking for work,’ Gavin said. It sounded like the kind of automatic answer you’d give without thinking about it.

‘But you don’t look for work by wandering round. You write applications!’

‘Maybe he’s doing that. He sits at his computer for hours.’

Millie would not let go. ‘But then he would get answers in the post. Whether rejections or acceptance letters.’

‘Maybe he does it all by email. That’s possible nowadays, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and so where is he during the day?’

Gavin lowered the car magazine he was leafing through and said, almost pleadingly, ‘Just leave him be, Millie. You can’t stand him. I know. But he’s my brother and he hasn’t done anything to you. You’re searching furiously for something to pin on him, and, you know what, the fact that you can’t find anything is driving you crazy!’

She had pressed her lips together and thought: I will find something. Because there’s something to find. You can bet on it!

Now she was standing at the window, her nose against the glass, because she did not believe him. Although he was walking off with a certain purposeful stride. Buying presents! Hopefully he would not buy her one. She did not have anything for him. Gavin had got him a book. That would have to do from both of them.

Samson had disappeared around the corner. Millie could feel her heart pounding, but she told herself that now was her chance. Samson was going to be out for hours – in the shopping centre or wherever he was going. Gavin’s shift lasted until the early afternoon. She herself had managed to keep three days free.

I’ll give it another try, she thought.

She tiptoed up the stairs, feeling rather silly as she did, seeing as she was the only person in the house. For some reason she thought she should act as inconspicuously and cautiously as she could. She opened the door to Samson’s room and stepped inside. It was as tidy as ever. There was not a speck of dust to be seen. The bedcover was laid out inch-perfect on the bed.

That in itself, she thought, just isn’t normal!

She turned on the computer. As it booted up, she looked at the window. They were really going to have a white Christmas. Since the sudden onset of winter last Thursday, when the whole region had been put into a state of emergency, it had continued to snow. The roofs, fences, trees and streets were covered in white. A romantic image. Millie loved Christmas. What annoyed her was the three of them spending it together around the Christmas tree.

No one could be seen outside. She turned to the computer and typed in the password, holding her breath. If Gavin had given Samson any hint . . . but he had obviously kept mum. The magic word
Hannah
opened the computer.

Millie sat down with her hand on the mouse. It took her a few seconds to realise that she was holding her breath. She navigated through the menu.

‘Come on, come on,’ she murmured.

Something important was hidden in here. It had to be. And she was going to find it, whatever it took.

Ten minutes later she had it. The file was named
Diary
.

She opened it. She had her wits about her enough to hurry to the window and look out again. No one around. She was safe from unpleasant surprises for now.

She sat down once more and stared at the screen. Then she began to read.

She quickly realised that her search had been worth it.

Samson was crazy. He was probably even dangerous. She had proof now, and not even Gavin would be able to deny the facts.

The house was cold and smelt mouldy already. It had been empty for a week. Before that the owner had lain dead in the bathroom. Cold, damp air had blown in through the open kitchen door.

Decay happens so quickly, thought Fielder. Why does it always happen so quickly?

Christy and he had driven out again to Tunbridge Wells and its silent white woods. They had parked in the empty car park and stomped through the trees.

‘Christmas should be celebrated in the woods,’ Peter Fielder had said, watching a squirrel shimmy up the trunk of a pine. ‘It’s so peaceful here. So festive.’

‘And damned cold,’ said Christy.

They reached the house at around two o’clock. The officers had closed the shutters and carefully bolted the doors. Fielder had expected darkness and clammy air, but he was still surprised by the oppressive atmosphere. And by the sadness he felt as he went in. He had been in the force for decades. He had learnt to protect himself from the feelings that could come with a case: the pain, anger, despair and hopelessness. He wanted to make sure that he did not let the desolate state of the world get to him psychologically. If it did, he might as well retire.

Generally he had a good grip on things. But out here today, in this house, this isolation . . .

It was because it was Christmas, he hoped. It was a strange time . . .

‘Sir?’ Christy’s voice cut in on his thoughts.

He pulled himself together. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I just want to look at the attic one more time.’

They climbed the stairs again. They still had nothing. Nothing that brought them any closer to a breakthrough.

Christy had visited the surgery where Anne Westley had worked until three and a half years ago, but she had not been able to find anything that suggested there had been a scandal over a false diagnosis or a professional error.

‘Anne was loved by all her patients,’ a colleague had said, still stunned by the new of the murder. ‘And by everyone who worked here. I can’t remember that she was ever blamed for anything.’

‘Perhaps a long time ago?’ Christy probed. ‘After all, she was here for almost thirty years.’

‘What happened before my time I don’t really know. But if anything had happened, there’d have been talk and I’d have heard about it. No, I don’t think anything happened.’

Christy had gone through the old patient files in painstaking detail. They contained no Keira Roberts. Just to be sure, she had also called Keira Jones, as she had become, and asked about Dr Westley.

‘No,’ said Keira. ‘I never visited a doctor by that name as a child. My doctor lived just a few doors down the road from us.’

‘But did your parents ever mention the name Westley? Could she have been an acquaintance, even if ever so fleeting, of your parents?’

Keira had racked her brains but in the end she had to concede defeat. ‘No. I’m sorry, Sergeant. As far as I know, my parents didn’t know anyone of that name.’

They went past the bathroom where Anne Westley was murdered. In spite of all his years of service, Fielder had to turn away. The thought of the horrors the old lady had faced upset him deeply.

The studio under the roof was the brightest room in the whole house. Even on this dull December day, the light here was good. The walls were clad with wood. There were three large dormer windows facing south. Easels were dotted around the room and finished or half-finished paintings were propped here and there. It smelt of paint and turpentine. A brightly splotched painting smock hung on the door. Light, bright colours and images of flowers and landscapes predominated.

‘Definitely happy pictures,’ stated Christy after a first look around. ‘Although not really my thing.’

‘Hmm,’ said Fielder. He walked slowly from one picture to the next.

‘Do you think we’ll find something here?’ asked Christy despairingly.

‘I don’t know. But I think it’ll help me get closer to Anne Westley. The paintings are a part of her. They say something about her. If you can interpret them right.’

‘My interpretations might be naive, but if I had to describe Anne Westley from her paintings, I’d say she was a cheery, stable, happy woman. Although I realise that none of those characteristics are any guarantee against being murdered.’

Fielder stopped. He lifted a sheet from an easel and looked at the painting below it. ‘Here’s something that isn’t as full of
joie de vivre
.’

Christy stepped closer.

The painting really did look completely different to all the others in the studio. A black background. Two cones of light. A flickering beam from lamps or headlights. It was not painted in a careful or thorough way. Not all the details were filled in, as the artist obviously enjoyed doing in her other paintings. It gave the appearance of being rushed. The canvas looked like it had been daubed viciously with a brush. It was a picture that in spite of the neutrality of the subject matter seemed to express anger.

And fear.

To Christy, it revealed more talent than the surrounding images of flowers, trees and summery scenes. She asked herself how an image that did not show anything but two lights in the darkness could express such strong emotions.

‘What is this a picture of – what’s your first reaction?’ asked Fielder.

Christy did not have to think for long. ‘Headlights. At night.’

He nodded, narrowing his eyes. ‘Do you feel like you’re looking at the source of the light itself?’

‘At the source of the light itself? What do you mean?’

‘Well, I don’t get that feeling. I feel like I’m looking at a mirror image. Not at the light itself, but at an image of the light.’

‘Could be. And what would that tell us?’

‘I don’t know yet. The beam of headlights passing across a wall?’

‘I don’t get what—’

‘Me neither. It might not mean anything. But the painting is so different from all the others we have here. And it was covered. As if Anne Westley herself didn’t want to look at it. And yet she painted it. With pretty strong feelings, it seems.’

Christy agreed but didn’t see how they were any nearer a breakthrough.

‘Sir, this is getting so speculative. We don’t know if—’

He interrupted her impatiently. ‘Right. We don’t know anything. But we have to start somewhere. I’m neither a psychologist nor an artist, but something leaps out at me from this painting: fear. More than anger or aggression. Anne Westley was afraid of someone or something. And that reminds me of Carla Roberts. She was afraid too. She told her daughter that in their last call. I can see a similarity there. That’s why it’s important.’

‘But does it get us anywhere?’

He was still looking at the painting. ‘No idea. But if you ask me, Anne Westley knew that she was in danger. That is why she hurried to sell her house two weeks before Christmas. The murderer might have been hanging around for a long time. And she had already noticed.’

‘And now?’ asked Christy.

He didn’t reply. He tore himself away from the painting. It was no good staring at it any more. Its effect was so intense, especially with its connection to the murdered woman, that it had seared itself on to his retina. He would carry it around with him, look at it and hope that some revelation would come.

They went back downstairs. Christy glanced at the drawings on the walls, the nice carpets on the floor and the curtains in the windows. Everything had been arranged with so much taste and care. From what the house said about Anne Westley, it seemed hardly imaginable that she could cause as much hate in someone as this crime seemed to suggest.

‘I’m going to assign one or two people to look into the late Professor Westley’s life and colleagues,’ said Fielder. ‘Although I don’t expect much. If it had been a personal act of revenge, then Carla Roberts doesn’t fit in. And vice versa. We have to manage to find some connection between the two women. That’s our only chance.’

Christy touched him gently on the arm. ‘OK, boss. But enjoy your Christmas first. You’ve earned it.’

He looked at her. Asked himself how she celebrated Christmas. She lived alone with two cats, as he knew. Did she hang up a stocking at the fireplace? And if so, who filled it?

As if she could read his thoughts, she said: ‘I’m going to have a cosy day tomorrow. I think I’ll stay in bed half the day and just get up now and then to fetch another cappuccino. Lovely ones with foamy milk and sprinkled with chocolate. I’ll channel-surf, chilling out and forgetting all these terrible crimes!’

He smiled and caught himself thinking that it would be nice to share such a day with her. With television and cappuccino. Especially in bed.

He hurriedly broke his reverie with a cough. He should not think like that.

‘My mother-in-law is coming to visit,’ he replied despondently. ‘Just like every Christmas.’

‘Is she terrible?’

‘Rather confused. And up for a fight.’

Christy laughed. ‘Keep your chin up. Somehow Christmas always passes pretty quickly.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Fielder. At least this year he had this: a walk with Christy in the wintry woods.

That was better than nothing.

It had snowed again during the night. By morning it looked as if the world was slowly disappearing under the snow. However, by the afternoon at least the main roads had been cleared. Further snowfalls were forecast for the night.

Gillian had found the festive period difficult, but had tried to make the best of it. She and Tom had planned to go sledging and ice-skating with Becky, but on Christmas morning Becky had come down with a sore throat, and by the afternoon she had a fever. She was in bed for two days, and even once she was up again, she had to stay inside. The obligatory trip to Norwich was cancelled. Although Becky had grumbled that she was too old for holidays with her grandparents, now she started to cry like a little child. Her mood plummeted so far that soon all three of them felt rotten. Gillian and Tom did their best. They cooked with her in the evening. They lit the open fire in the living room. They played cards with her or watched for the umpteenth time – resigned to their fate and Tom shaking his head constantly –
Twilight
on DVD. The fairy lights on the tree bathed the room in a warm light, while the snow, cold and darkness outside provided a perfect Christmas atmosphere. It was just what a small happy family should look like, in their warm cosy home. And yet Gillian knew that it was fake – and not just because of Becky’s cold. Tom was itching to get back to the office, because work was waiting for him. The Christmas rituals and the expectations of quiet time felt like unbearable stagnation to him.