I Am Watching Read online

  “Must be bloody mad.” The wind tugged at Cain’s voice and flung it away from them. He pulled at the low garden gate, held it open for his brother. “Where’s Isla this fine evening, anyway?”

  “Work. Studying monsters. You know how she is.”

  Ramsey felt his brother watching him, could sense the words arranging and rearranging themselves behind closed lips.

  “She . . .” Cain pulled the gate closed tight behind them. “She works long hours, doesn’t she?”

  Ramsey nodded. If you concentrated hard enough, sometimes you could take words at their face value, could ignore the layers of meaning stacked beneath them. “She’s good at what she does.”

  “You, ah . . . you guys never think of having kids?” The question had the flavor of one long marinated.

  Ramsey glanced at Cain. He was looking down, watching his feet brush through the tumbledown autumn leaves. Cain had married just a little bit before Ramsey himself, but unlike for Ramsey, shortly after the marriage had come a little girl, Kayla. And shortly after that had come a divorce. Cain, it transpired, was not really the marrying type. Or, to put it bluntly, not the monogamous type. His ex-wife had caught him in bed with their neighbor. It had not gone down well.

  The tremulous fingers of a yew tree scraped Ramsey’s cheek, and he brushed the branch aside carefully. Of course he thought about having children. Of creating another person, a tiny shining package, all soft skin and rounded flesh. Of eyes gazing into his own with endless wonderment, knowing beyond all doubt that, whatever had gone before, for this person he was not “one of the Aiken family” or “the only survivor”; he was simply Daddy. Of the quiet of the house punctured by childish wails and high-pitched laughter, and the very immediateness of that need pushing away all else until it became a distant memory. Of life taking the place of death.

  Yes. He thought of it.

  “Maybe,” Ramsey replied. “One day.”

  “Ah.” His brother nodded sagely. “Not quite ready, is it?”

  Why not, Isla? Why not do it? We’re not getting any younger, and if we leave it any longer, maybe it won’t ever happen.

  And Isla looking at him, but not at him in that way she did when she had retreated entirely inside herself. I don’t know. It’s just . . . it’s such a big thing, Rams. And what if . . .

  What if what?

  Nothing. Nothing. Let’s just give it a bit more time? Yes?

  Ramsey pulled his zipper up to his chin. “Plenty of time for grown-up stuff like that.” Plenty of time. It was a mantra and a prayer. That the sand would not escape from the hourglass, leaving them standing there with nothing.

  “How’s work going?” asked Cain. A big brother checking in. “You writing anything now?”

  “Couple of articles. I’ve been approached about writing a piece about the murder—you know the drill—from the ‘survivor’s’ perspective. Kind of an inside look into what it’s like to be a victim.” He shrugged. “Feels a bit like I’m cashing in. I don’t know. That said, I think it’s an important message, that the effects of something like this, they don’t just end when the killings end. They go on and on.”

  Cain nodded. “Get what you can out of it, is what I say. You’ve been through enough. You’ve earned it.”

  Ramsey scuffed his boots as he walked. “I went to see Stephen Doyle earlier. Wanted to make sure he was coping okay, you know, with the murder and everything. It brings stuff back.”

  “Yeah,” Cain agreed quietly. “And is he? Okay?”

  Ramsey blew out a breath. “What can I say? He’s as okay as he can be. Pretty much just sat there the entire time. Barely said a word. Sister is worried to death about him.”

  A right at the bottom of the hill, and the two brothers walked on, tucked in tight against the hedges, in the vain hope that they would find some protection from the wind.

  “Maggie. Maggie.”

  On the corner of Camberwell Street, an elderly man stood in the garden that wrapped around three sides of a semidetached house. He wore pajamas—plaid—leather shoes, a dressing gown, its tie open and waving out behind him like a tail.

  Ramsey frowned, squinting into the gloom. “Ted? You okay?”

  Ted Heron spun on his heel, his dressing gown flying outward. “Who . . . Ramsey?”

  A quick glance at his brother and Ramsey hopped the wall, landed lightly on boggy grass. “What is it, Ted? What’s up?”

  The man looked at him, seemed to be shuffling through his thoughts, trying to get them to line up in order. He had been a police officer once, back before his first stroke. Now at eighty-five, he mostly followed along behind his wife, waiting for her to guide him, make sense of a world that was becoming increasingly nonsensical.

  “I can’t find Maggie,” he muttered. “I . . . She came out to find the cat. But . . . that was . . . I don’t know . . . I forget things, see, lose track.” A tortoiseshell cat butted its head against Ramsey’s leg, purring like a drill. “Now I can’t find her.”

  The brothers looked at one another.

  “Okay, Ted,” said Cain, his voice unnaturally light. “No problem. So . . . she was here, yes? When you saw her last?”

  “I think so,” moaned Ted, his head swinging left to right, as if somehow Maggie might have miraculously appeared on the lawn before them. “That was what she said, anyway. Or . . . I mean, I think that’s what she said. Have you seen her?”

  Ramsey drew in a deep breath. “Cain, why don’t you take him inside? Ted, go on. You look freezing, mate. You go with Cain and let him ask you some questions.” A swift nod from his brother. “And I’ll go and knock next door. I bet you anything that’s where she’s gone. I’m always seeing Maggie and Lillian chatting when I’m out on my runs.” The lies dripped from his tongue like honey. But was a lie really a lie when it was what the other person wanted so badly to hear? “She’ll be in there, I bet you anything.” He nodded, smiling brightly, a brief shared glance with his brother, the moment containing twenty years’ worth of fear, and then he turned, walked briskly across the lawn to the bright red door of the adjacent house. Three loud knocks and Ramsey realized that his hands were shaking. He tucked them inside his pockets, telling himself that it was the wind, that was all.

  A single figure moved behind the swirled glass, movements careful.

  Hurry up.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Ramsey Aiken.”

  The clatter of a chain being slid, the door creaking inward. Lillian peered out at him from beneath a vivid bush of garish red hair. “Hello, love. You coming in?”

  “No, Lillian. I . . . Have you seen Maggie? Is she here?”

  “No, love. I heard her calling for Mitzy, ooh, must have been well over an hour ago now, but I was watching Songs of Praise, see, so I didn’t . . .” She pushed the door open wider, and Ramsey felt the inescapable sense of cards slotting into place. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Ramsey looked up the street and down, then back at Lillian as she knotted her fingers together.

  “Lillian, I think we may have a problem.”

  Family connections – Mina

  The elderly man sat on the abundantly flowered sofa, pajama legs hitched up, exposing a pair of pallid legs that ended in vivid red socks with the distorted woolen face of Homer Simpson etched into them. Mina sat perched on the edge of a scuffed leather armchair, her notepad balanced on her knees, and tried to concentrate on the page, on her writing, and yet time and time again, her gaze kept coming back to those legs and those socks. The image had the shape of a memory as it was being etched, and Mina knew that, for years to come, whenever she thought back to this night, she would think of those socks.

  “I just don’t understand it. I mean, she only went out to call Mitzy.” Ted shook his head. His hand shook, too, as he ran it across the back of the offending cat. She arched her back, reaching up into the touch, apparently oblivious to the trouble she had caused. “That was . . . How long ago was it now, Ramsey?”

 
; Ramsey Aiken sat beside him, his hands folded in his lap, his only concession to fear the one foot that he drummed against the floor. “Well,” he said softly, “I wasn’t here then, remember?”

  “No. No. That’s right.” Ted looked around the small living room. “Maybe your brother would know?”

  Ramsey caught Mina’s eye in a moment of silent communication. Ted’s confusion was getting worse. Twice he had stood up to go and call Maggie, saying that she must not have heard them arriving, that she must be getting ready still. Twice they had had to remind him that his wife had vanished.

  Mina looked at her watch. The call had come in to the station forty-five minutes ago. She had been going through CCTV footage, a pursuit quickly abandoned when the shout went up. Twenty minutes after that, she had arrived at the scene. Which meant that Maggie had been missing for at least an hour, quite possibly a lot more than that. She glanced through the window, at the shape of Cain beyond, his head dipped away from the driving rain, the phone to his ear as he briefed Superintendent Eric Bell. Mina felt a flush rise through her at the thought of the superintendent, at that slowly nodding head, the lips puckered in disdain.

  “So, Ted . . .” She spoke carefully, the words wanting to take the shape of those addressed to a child, but then that would be patronizing. He wasn’t a child. She coughed, tried again. “Ted, what time did you say you saw her last?”

  He paused, hand held high in mid-stroke, much to the irritation of the cat, who looked up at him with a low mewl of protest. “I . . . Did I say? I don’t know.”

  Ramsey leaned forward, blond hair catching the light from the standard lamp behind him. “What were you watching on TV, Ted? When she said she was going outside. Do you remember that?”

  Ted shifted, his gaze falling on the dark television set, as if the motion would tumble him back in time and he would see Maggie once more standing before him. “Was it . . . no . . . it could have been . . . no. Well.” He shook his head. “I just can’t remember.”

  “Okay, Ted,” said Mina lightly. “No problem. We’ll figure it all out.”

  Police teams were searching along Hadrian’s Wall.

  It was Cain who had made the call. A Briganton resident has vanished. The air in the major incident room had stilled; forty people had held their breath. Then, the wave of it crashing onto the shore. Someone find Superintendent Bell. We need to brief him. A flurry of activity, then Chief Superintendent Clee stepping in. Right, listen up, chaps. Chaps? We need a team out searching the wall. Now. A unifying thought flying through forty minds. That it was happening again. I need someone to meet Cain at the scene and free him up, interview the missing woman’s husband. Clee had given a vague squint around the room as he fought to remember a single one of their names. Mina had raised her hand. I’ll do it. They had poured out of the station together, Mina to a car, others to vans, had left the station in a convoy, sirens wailing.

  Mina had wanted to believe that it was nothing. That the hysteria shaken loose by the death of Victoria Prew would account for it. That the elderly woman—she was eighty-two, remember—had simply wandered away, got chatting to a friend, gone for a walk without telling anyone. And yet . . . as she watched a van peel away, take a hard right down toward the wall, Mina had known somewhere hard in her chest what it was they would find there.

  “What was Maggie wearing, Ted?” Mina asked quietly.

  “A . . . a long whatsit. Skirt. Was it . . . gray, maybe? Or brown? And a sweater. With red roses on it. I remember that.” He looked sideways at Ramsey. “Loves roses, does our Maggie. Always know what to do if she gets a bit cross with me. Nice bunch of roses does the trick.” He prodded Ramsey in the thigh. “You need to remember that, lad, what with that missus of yours. Always appreciate roses, they do.”

  Ramsey smiled. “Thanks, Ted. I’ll remember that.” He looked at Mina, smiled, and she felt herself flush, instantly cursed the heat as it hit her cheeks. But then, she reasoned, it was to be expected. Ramsey was a celebrity of sorts or, at the very least, the most like a celebrity a little place like Briganton could produce.

  “Mina?”

  She looked up. Owen Darby hung in the doorway of the living room, long and lean and rain soaked. “Can I have a quick word?”

  “Would you excuse me for just a moment?” Mina said, pushing herself up to standing.

  Ted’s gaze followed her, his eyes widening.

  “So, Ted,” said Ramsey. “How old is Mitzy? She’s a lovely looking thing.”

  Mina slipped into the kitchen, pushed the door closed behind her. “What’s up?”

  Owen folded his arms across his chest, feet shifting. “I’ve done the entire street. No one saw anything. Most people, they had their curtains closed, lights on. No one saw Maggie outside. No one saw her leave.”

  Mina sighed. “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything from the search teams?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing yet. They’ve gone over the wall that runs behind the village, and it’s clear.” He shrugged. “Maybe it is nothing. Or, I mean, not nothing. Maybe it’s not that. Maybe she wandered off, has had a fall. They’re extending the search area now. Heading farther out east and west along the wall. A separate team is heading up to Bowman’s Hill.”

  Mina nodded absently. “Okay. Well, maybe you’re right. I mean, God, let’s hope you’re right.” She stood staring at the Formica countertops. “Do me a favor. Let me know if they find anything?”

  He studied her, then nodded. “Of course.”

  Mina let herself back into the living room. Ted was talking in wandering, stop-start sentences. Would they have to get some kind of carer in? she wondered. Was he safe to be left alone? There was a daughter, living up in Glasgow. She should call her.

  Mina opened her mouth to ask for the number and then closed it again.

  Ted had stopped talking, was staring at the blank television screen, frowning.

  “Ted? What is it?”

  “I . . . a car.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I heard a car.”

  Mina and Ramsey shared a look.

  “What car, Ted?”

  “Well, it was . . . Let me think now . . . What was on? It was . . . the news. That’s what it was. I was watching the news, and I remember because at first I thought it was on the TV and that’s where I’d heard it. But no, it wasn’t. It was outside.”

  “Okay, great. What exactly did you hear?”

  “I heard a car door. But not a car door. More like . . .” He gestured, lifting his hands up into the air and bringing them down. “More like a trunk being closed. Then I heard a car door. Then the car drove off. And it was when the news was on.”

  “And this was after Maggie had gone outside?”

  “Yes,” he said triumphantly. “And I know it was, because I went to say to her, ‘Who on earth is that out on a night like this?’ And she wasn’t there. And I was going to go and look for her, but then I remembered, she was getting the cat in. So . . . does that help?” he added anxiously.

  Mina smiled. “That’s a great help. So, let’s think. What time is the news on?”

  Ramsey didn’t look at her, was looking down at his hands. His voice low, he said, “Seven. The news is on at seven.”

  And her insides turned as the mathematics of it all worked itself out. That it was now coming on to ten. That Maggie had been gone for almost three hours.

  “Okay . . . I . . .”

  “I just worry about her, you know. She’s been so upset.”

  “What do you mean? You mean about the murder?”

  “Aye, well. It hits home, see. Ramsey here, he knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, lad? When you’ve lost someone like that, and then to have it happen again.”

  “I . . .” Mina cast back in her memory, looking for some hook to hang the conversation on. “I’m confused.”

  Ramsey’s voice was low. “Maggie is Kitty Lane’s cousin.”

  Mina stared at him, the pi
eces shifting into a new shape.

  “Let me just pop outside and see if there are any updates.” It wasn’t news she needed, but air. Mina ducked out the front door, grabbing her coat as she went, sucked in the coldness of the night. The wind was cruel now, and thin drops of rain had begun to fall. Mina looked up into them.

  Shit.

  The world was moving beneath her feet, and she put out a hand to the low stone garden wall, steadying herself. Maggie was Kitty Lane’s cousin. And two days after a woman was murdered, her body abandoned on the wall, Maggie had vanished. Bile eased its way up her throat; heat rushed to her face.

  Shit.

  Mina pulled her mobile phone from her pocket, dialed quickly.

  “Major incident room.”

  “It’s Mina Arian. I need to speak to the SIO.”

  A muttered conversation, dull sounds, which to her mind seemed to carry irritation within them. But then, that was probably just her. The rain had soaked into her hair, plastering it in spindly rivulets to her face, and she swept them from her cheeks.

  “This is Bell.” Did he sound angry? Or was that simply the way he always sounded?

  “Sir, it’s Mina Arian. Sorry to bother you, but there’s something I think you should hear.” The words rolled, a snowball tumbling downhill. “Maggie, the woman who’s missing. There’s a link between her and one of the victims from the original series. Kitty Lane. They were cousins. And, sir, we’ve worked it out. She’s been gone for nearly three hours now. It’s another one, sir. I’m sure of it.”

  There was a long silence on the line. “Yes,” said the superintendent. “Yes, I know they’re cousins.” Another silence. Then, “Firstly, I think it’s important you calm down. Don’t forget that you are currently Ted’s contact with this investigation, and the way in which you handle yourself will reflect on all of us. Secondly, I take on board what you’re saying, but frankly, Mina, Maggie is getting on in years. She’s been looking after Ted single-handedly. And yes, this thing with Ms. Prew, it’s bound to upset her. Like as not, she’s gone off on her own for a bit.”