The Watcher (28 page)

It might be for ten or fifteen years.

She put down her glass and went into the living room. She lowered the blinds on the big window that faced south.

She could not bear the sun any longer.

Samson’s heart plummeted when he heard a knock at the door. Since Bartek had come on New Year’s Day, he’d harboured the fear that his friend would rat on him. Bartek had said how scared he was of being drawn into an ugly incident, and Samson had felt the real force of that fear. In addition, Bartek had mentioned his fiancée’s anger. Samson could imagine that Helen was putting pressure on Bartek.
Go to the police! Tell them what you know! You can still get out unscathed! You’re crazy to help that madman. And we don’t even know if he is innocent.

In essence, Samson was waiting for the police. He knew that it would be cleverer of him to find a new place to stay as quickly as possible and not tell Bartek where he was going, but he was too exhausted. In any case, it was only a matter of time until he would have to give up. His money was running out. His mental energies too. It would probably not be long before he would stroll into the nearest police station and give himself up.

Nevertheless, he started to shake all over now that someone was really wanting to come in. It was one thing to play out the final move in his head, where he could still control the timing and sequence of events more or less, and another to think there were a number of policemen outside his door, clicking open handcuffs, ready to arrest him.

‘Who is it?’ he asked. His voice sounded thin and shaky.

‘John Burton. I’m friends with Gillian Ward. Could you let me in?’

A friend of Gillian’s? How on earth did Gillian know where he was?

Confused, Samson opened the door. The man standing in front of him looked vaguely familiar, but he could not work out from where.

‘Can I come in?’ asked John.

Samson nodded and stepped aside. He closed the door quickly behind John, asking: ‘Who are you?’

‘God, it’s cold in here,’ said John. He kept his thick winter jacket on. At that moment Samson realised where he had seen him: in the Halfway House. With Gillian.

‘You’re a friend of Gillian’s,’ he said, rather lamely.

‘Yes, like I said,’ confirmed John. Without waiting to be invited, he sat in the armchair. ‘No doubt you’re wondering how I knew where you were. I talked to your sister-in-law. She told me about your friend. The Pole. The police have already visited him too.’

Millie, of course. She must have melted like butter with the attractive Burton suddenly in front of her. And she had outdone herself in giving him with all the advice and help she could.

‘Your friend gave me this address.’

Great! Bartek was sending anyone over who asked after him! Why not just publish the address in the paper?

‘If I were you, I’d get out of here as soon as possible,’ John continued. ‘That Bartek is scared silly that he might become involved in something that gets him deported. His fiancée is getting hysterical. The next time a policeman turns up there, the two of them are going to spill the beans. I’m sure of it.’

‘I don’t know where to go,’ whispered Samson.

John looked at him closely. ‘You’re in a difficult situation. You don’t, by any chance, have a watertight alibi for the time of Thomas Ward’s murder?’

‘When was that?’

‘Between seven and half past seven on the twenty-ninth of December.’

Samson shook his head in despair. ‘I only got home at nine. But I don’t think anyone noticed that. My sister-in-law was on a shift, and my brother was already asleep.’

‘Where were you until nine?’

It probably doesn’t matter who knows, thought Samson. Probably nothing in my life matters.

‘I followed Gillian in my car. I had seen her leave home in the early afternoon. I was sitting in my car at the time. So I drove around a bit . . .’

And watched people
; John completed Samson’s sentence in his head. Segal was an oddball.

‘So you followed Gillian? Why?’

That was hard to explain. Maybe he didn’t even understand it himself. He certainly could not explain it rationally. On the level of vague feelings, he knew what was wrong with him, but what were the words for it?

‘I didn’t want to pester her,’ he started. ‘I’ve never pestered her. I just . . . wanted to be a part of her life. No, not a part of it. But experience some of it. Have part of it inside me. Yes, perhaps that’s it. Be a part of it but
inside me
.’ He paused and looked unhappily at John. ‘I can’t explain it.’

‘I think I know what you mean,’ said John. ‘Unfortunately, it all sounds a little . . . neurotic. Obsessed, even.’

He paused. ‘Mr Segal. I’m afraid it’s not just about Thomas Ward’s murder now. You must have read in the papers about the brutal deaths of two single women in Hackney and Tunbridge Wells?’

‘Yes.’

‘The problem is . . . the gun that shot Thomas Ward is the same one that was used in the other two cases. You see what that means?’

A dawning understanding could be seen in Samson’s sad, incredulous eyes. ‘The same murderer? In all three cases?’

‘That’s what the police have to assume.’

‘And they think it’s me?’ Samson looked at John in horror. ‘I’m s-supposed to have shot three people?’

John shook his head. ‘No one is saying that outright yet. There are too many inconsistencies. But I know that, based on the evidence so far, the police assume that the culprit is a man who has a disturbed relationship with women. And from your notes, which the police know about, they’re concluding that you have – well, at least a certain . . . problem with women.’

Samson nodded. That was undeniable.

‘Did you follow Gillian all day?’ asked John in a level voice. ‘On the twenty-ninth of December?’

‘No. I lost her. On the A127. She was going fast. There was a lot of traffic – suddenly she was gone.’

John nodded. It was easy to lose someone from view on the dual carriageway.

‘And then? There’s a big gap between then and nine p.m.’

‘I didn’t want to go home. I don’t like it there.’

‘Why not?’

He thought for a minute. ‘I’m restless,’ he said. ‘I’m so restless. And I don’t know where to go. I’ve not got a job. I can’t find a girlfriend. I don’t have anything. My life is completely empty.’

John waited for Samson to continue. Samson stared at him.
If only I looked like him. If I had his aura
.

The realisation came over him suddenly, with almost physical force, that this man was in an intimate relationship with Gillian. He was not just a friend. He was her lover. They were having an affair, and had been having it when Thomas Ward was still alive. In fact, he had felt that when he saw them together in the pub before Christmas. He just had not realised. No doubt he had suppressed what he really sensed: the unbelievable tension between the two of them, the sexually charged atmosphere.

You desire her, he thought. A feeling of animosity swept in a wave over him and took away his breath for a few seconds. You sleep with her and you don’t care that she has a family, a husband, a child, that you are breaking it all up. Although, of course, now the husband is dead – how practical – and there’s nothing in your way . . .

Suddenly a question occurred to him: in these circumstances, John Burton must be of interest to the police too. After all, he was in a relationship with a woman whose husband had been murdered.

Couldn’t he be in hot water too?

‘Who are you?’ he asked again. ‘I mean, apart from a friend of Gillian’s?’

John smiled. It seemed that he was well aware of the sudden aggression in Samson’s tone.

He stood up. ‘Samson, I worked in Scotland Yard myself once. I still have some good contacts. I’ve been in touch over the last couple of days, so I know a few things that aren’t public knowledge yet.’

‘I see,’ said Samson, once again intimidated and submissive. He did not understand anything, actually. An ex-cop. Why wasn’t he with the police any more?

‘Among other things, I know more or less what’s in your . . . diary, if we can call it that,’ continued John. ‘So I can imagine that you are at the top of the police’s list of suspects. You shadowed women, mainly single women, for months, and noted down every detail of their days. And then there’s that bizarre story about a young woman whose dog you took in order to try to gain her friendship when you returned it.’

Samson could feel his cheeks burning. He had thought the plan was so clever. Now it just sounded sick.

‘I was trying to get to know her better,’ he murmured.

‘Yes, but that’s a pretty unusual way of going about it, to put it mildly,’ said John. ‘Added to that the fact that it didn’t work and you let out a lot of hatred in your rant about her. She’s on holiday until mid January. Otherwise she would have been put under police protection. That’s how serious it is.’

Samson looked around desperately. ‘But I would never . . . yes, I was angry with her. But I’d never attack her. I’ve never attacked anyone. Or threatened them. They’ll never find anyone who has seen me act aggressively!’

That is one of your problems, thought John. The lifelong suppression of your aggression. Every police profiler would put that on the list of the culprit’s expected character traits.

He did not say so. Samson seemed to him like a trapped animal. He should not make things worse.

‘The way you wrote about Gillian, it sounded almost like you were worshipping her. You got carried away with really strong feelings . . .’

Oh, right? Samson thought, his hackles up. So we see eye to eye on that, then?

‘The police think Gillian might be in danger. And I fear it too. That is why I wanted to meet you. I want to know what you were doing when Thomas Ward was murdered. So . . .’ John steered the conversation back to its starting point. ‘What did you do when you lost Gillian?’

‘Nothing,’ said Samson. ‘Nothing that I can prove. I drove around near here. I sat in two or three pubs. Drank tea. It was cold.’

‘Which pubs?’

‘No idea. Somewhere in Wickford. In Raleigh. I was sad and confused. Just drifting. I wouldn’t be able to find the places again. Let alone witnesses who saw me. I was just thinking about Gillian, wondering where she had gone. Asking myself why my life hadn’t worked out. And then at some point I drove home.’

John looked at him questioningly. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Samson. It is suspected that Thomas Ward’s murderer actually wanted to kill Gillian. Being a woman, Gillian fits the series of murdered women better. At least better than a man. And it appears that everyone around her knew that Thomas Ward had his tennis club on Tuesday nights and that he almost never made an exception. Anyone with a fleeting knowledge of the family would have assumed that Gillian would be at home on her own. And you knew the family pretty well. You had been finding out about them for months.’

‘But I knew that Gillian wasn’t home!’ said Samson, with a glimmer of hope. ‘I was following her!’

‘That doesn’t let you off the hook yet. Because you might have assumed she had returned later on, once you saw the light was on in the house. And of course it’s just a hypothesis, that Thomas was not the intended victim. You might just as well have killed him in the grip of some crazy ideas about his wife.’

Samson crumpled. ‘But why would I have killed the other two women?’

John shrugged his shoulders. ‘Rejection. Your basic problem.’

‘They were far too old for me!’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m not saying that was the case. I’m just explaining what scenarios could be thought up.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Samson quietly. ‘To take me to the police?’

‘What I mainly want is to get a sense of who you are. I’m not going to turn you in. I just wanted to meet you.’

‘So do you think I’m innocent?’

‘Let me put it like this,’ said John. ‘If I thought you were clearly guilty, I
would
tell the police. Understood?’

Samson nodded anxiously. So was he the culprit in Burton’s eyes or not?

‘My fear,’ John continued, ‘is that the police arrest you and you look so suspicious that they charge you. It’s a possibility. Perhaps there wouldn’t be enough evidence to find you guilty, but the case might still go on for a good while. Meanwhile, the murderer is free and no one is even looking for him. I don’t like that idea one bit, since Gillian might be on his hit list. It’s not in my interest to help the police find the most obvious solution to the case and so delay the capture of the real culprit.’

‘It really wasn’t me,’ said Samson. How often had he said that already? How often would he have to say it before he could prove it?

John nodded. ‘They all say that. And I was a policeman for a long time. I’ve met murderers who seemed as harmless and friendly as you and yet committed horrific acts. While some people you would immediately assume capable of anything, and they couldn’t hurt a fly in reality. It’s difficult. Who we are isn’t always written on our foreheads.’

‘What should I do now? Bartek told you at once where I am. You yourself say he’ll tell the police, the next time they visit him. I’m not safe here. And my money has almost run out.’

‘Stay here in your room for now,’ said John. ‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Can I reach you somehow?’ asked Samson.

John went to the door and opened it. ‘No. Wait for me to get in touch.’

‘Please – you’ll come back?’

‘You’ll hear from me,’ promised John.

‘Do you have time tonight?’ asked John. He was sitting at the steering wheel of his car and had just stopped in front of Tara’s house.

Gillian, who was sitting next to him, shook her head. ‘Becky needs me. And . . . I don’t want her to get the feeling we’re always meeting up.’

The cordon had been lifted on the Ward family home but Gillian had decided not to move back for now. The terrible event was still too close, too present. She could not imagine that Becky was ready to go back. She was not sure if she was ready either. She had just wanted to fetch a few things: clothing, make-up, books. John had offered to go with her. She was grateful that she did not have to go on her own. Nothing seemed to have changed, and yet it was no longer the home she had made with Tom, where they had lived with Becky as a family. The Christmas tree was still standing and shedding its needles in the living room. In the fridge, the food was going off. The fairy lights and window decorations looked like relics of a long-gone time. A time of order, stability, familiarity and normality.