I Am Watching Read online

  “So, what’s your father-in-law saying? About the murders, I mean. They must have some idea by now, right?” Connor leaned his head back against the desk.

  “Not that I know of,” said Ramsey. “Then, Eric isn’t the most communicative of men. But far as I know, they’re still bumbling around in the dark.”

  Connor nodded slowly. “It’s mad. That someone can do this again and again and get away with it. I mean, you guys, you’ve lived it for all this time. I remember Briganton before this happened. You know my aunt and cousins used to live here? They moved after . . . what happened. I used to visit them when I was a teenager. And this place, it was . . . well, I don’t want to say dull, but . . .”

  Ramsey grinned. “But dull.”

  “Yeah. Dull. Then the killings started. My aunt, she just couldn’t bear to be here anymore, said that all the things, they just changed how she felt about the village. I mean, I know things like this, they happen, but you just don’t expect them here, in a place like this.” Connor sat for a moment, silent. “Whoever this is, I bet you anything he’s basking in what he’s done to this place. How he’s made people afraid.”

  Ramsey rubbed his hands through his hair. “Do you think . . . I mean, maybe he’ll stop. Maybe he’ll get tired of all of this. There’s a lot of pressure on him now. A lot of people watching. You think he might decide that he doesn’t need to do this anymore?”

  Connor ran his index finger across a letter that sat in his lap, tracing an unknown shape. “I wish I could say yes, Rams. I really do. But, these guys . . . It’s rare that they stop. They may manage to control it for a while—months, years, even. But once they’ve got a taste for it, that doesn’t tend to change.” He picked the papers up, shuffled them into a perfect pile. “It’s not uncommon, when you have a serial killer, to see things go quiet, for law enforcement to think, Oh, great. It’s over. Honestly, though, it’s hardly ever about that. More likely, whoever did it was picked up, arrested on some other charge. Maybe they died. Or maybe they moved on, went somewhere else. But wherever they go, they’re always the same. And as long as they are alive and free, the killings just keep coming. So often they crave the fear, that sense of terror that their crimes mean for everyone else.”

  Ramsey sat up a little straighter in the chair, heart beating faster, an idea forming. “I . . .” No. Yes. “Connor, how do we know that this is where the recent spate of killings began?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, What if this isn’t the beginning of a chain, but a continuation?”

  Connor stared at him—or not at him, but through him—his face dark with calculations. “It . . . no . . . Well, I don’t know. You’d need the police records . . .”

  “I’ll call Eric.” Ramsey stood up, could feel his head swimming. He slipped out the door into the empty corridor, pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed quickly. Eric answered on the first ring.

  “Ramsey. What’s wrong? Where’s Isla?”

  “She’s . . .” Don’t say, ‘At the prison.’ Don’t say, ‘At the prison.’ “She’s fine. She’s at work.”

  He could hear his father-in-law sigh. “Okay, right. So? What is it? Called to tell me you’ve brought her to her senses?”

  And he was back to pacing again, a dozen steps this way, a dozen steps that. “I was just talking to Connor. You know, works with Isla?”

  “Right?”

  “And, look, we were just thinking, Eric, what if the murders didn’t begin here? How do we know that the killer hasn’t been working elsewhere, that he’s just arrived?”

  The wind screeched.

  “Well . . . ,” began Eric.

  But no, it wasn’t the wind, was it? It was something else.

  “Jesus, Eric, someone’s screaming.”

  Ramsey took off at a run; Connor’s door flew open as he reached it; Connor took off for the exit doors ahead of him. Far away he could hear his father-in-law’s voice, now all but forgotten, the phone hanging uselessly in his hands as Ramsey raced after Connor’s rapidly disappearing figure, through the doors, out into the bleak black night. The wind whipped around them, tearing at their clothes; a puddle of orange light extended meters beyond the university and vanished into a pool of blackness.

  Connor was spinning rapidly in a circle, shouting, “Where was it? Where did it come from?”

  Then movement, a shifting of the blackness, and in the wind, a kind of moaning—and they were off running again, picking their way through undergrowth and over rain-laden grass to a figure slumped on the ground. Ramsey dimly made out long hair, a slender figure. Then a movement, the scene changed again, and the slender figure with the long hair was pulling backward and away, was pushing up to stand, grabbing hold of Connor’s hands. It seemed that she would collapse without his body holding her up. He knew her, Ramsey realized with a start, had seen her before, earlier that day, when she had come to hand her homework in.

  Her words were indistinct and hard to follow, littered as they were with sobs. “I found him,” Scarlett said. “He’s dead.”

  Ramsey stepped closer.

  In the darkness, what was hidden in shadows became clear. The body of a young man propped against the trunk of a tree, his head lolling forward, his hands folded in his lap.

  “Jesus,” said Connor. “Parker.”

  First the one – Mina

  Mina pulled up alongside a marked police car, its driver’s door hanging open. The university was a sea of lights, the blackness of the countryside punctured by red and blue. Here we go again. She breathed in deeply, could just about make out a small crowd gathered behind the cordon, and Ramsey, his head in his hands. Mina squinted, trying to find the shape of Isla among the figures, but the rest were mere silhouettes. She sat for just a second, trying to calm herself, to find a center ground in which there was not a dead body sitting, in which all that they had known for twenty years had not just been proven a lie.

  Mina climbed out hurriedly and pushed the car door closed harder than she had intended, the slam of it startling her, and saw Ramsey look around, his attention drawn by the sound. Mina raised her hand in a grim variant of a wave, moving straight toward the tree and the lights and the latest in a line of deaths.

  The boy remained where he had been found, sitting half sunken in the rain-sodden grass, his back resting against the aged trunk of an oak tree. He looked breathtakingly young, boy-band hair flopping forward so that it covered his eyes. No color remained in his face, skin the gray of day-old snow. A circlet of fingermarks ringed his neck. He was, what, eighteen? Nineteen at the most?

  Mina stood and stared at him and suddenly, for perhaps the first time, felt old.

  “Mina. Hi.” A uniformed officer, who looked little older than the dead boy before him, appeared at her elbow, his face grim. “Parker MacDonald. He was nineteen years old. He was last seen by his friends at lunchtime today. Failed to turn up to a seminar at four. Scarlett Lee”—he indicated the cordon line, where a narrow, weeping girl stood folded in on herself—“she found him about thirty minutes ago.”

  Mina nodded, because what was there to say? They were all becoming uncomfortably proficient at this game. She stepped aside to allow room for the inevitable flow of forensics in their white suits, passing through the inner cordon, approaching the dead boy. It seemed to her that she had exhausted her reservoir of responses and was now simply running through the motions. Another corpse? Ah well. The PC at the cordon lifted the police tape up, allowing her to pass beneath.

  “Ramsey?” she called.

  He looked pale, had little more color to him than the dead boy. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered quietly.

  There was the sound of weeping off to Mina’s left. The slip of a girl, her head in her hands, was weeping with so much force that Mina found herself wondering if it was genuine or perhaps part of a show. A maneuver to bring herself closer to the heart of the action? She shook herself slightly. When had she become this cynical? An uncomfo
rtable-looking man stood beside the girl, every now and again patting her arm in the thinnest version of sympathy.

  Ramsey followed her gaze. “That’s Connor. Isla’s colleague.”

  “Where is Isla?”

  His eyes darted away, then settled back on her. He gave a sigh and a half smile. “I’m not sure, to be honest. She was out at the prison, but I had expected her back by now.”

  Cold prickles raced along Mina’s spine as a new scenario played itself out for her. It did not, however, have long to solidify, for moments later, there came the roar of an engine, the screeching of tires, and a car door slamming. Mina did not have to look to identify the running footsteps as those of Ramsey’s wife.

  “What’s going on?” Isla’s hair flew out behind her, disorganized and wild. She grabbed Ramsey’s arm as if to stabilize herself. “Mina, what are you – – ” Then, unwilling to wait for answers to be handed to her, Isla peered around, squinted toward the body of Parker MacDonald. “Oh my God. That’s Parker.” Isla’s hand flew to her mouth as tears sprang to her eyes.

  “You know him?” asked Mina.

  “He’s . . .” Isla breathed deeply, sliding her hand into her husband’s and leaning into him. “He’s in my tutorial group. Is it . . .” There was no need to finish the sentence. Or even to begin it.

  “Yes,” said Mina. “Yes, it’s the same.”

  Isla’s head dipped, and she squeezed her husband’s hand tighter as he rested his head on hers. “Oh God.”

  Precisely.

  Mina opened her mouth, searching for something to say. But all she could see was that dead boy, the fingermarks on his throat, the inexorable knowledge that for all her digging, for everything they had done, the sum total of what they knew was less now than when this had all begun.

  They knew that it was not Heath, that it had never been Heath.

  And they knew that whoever this was, he was not done.

  Then, from her pocket, came the merciful ringing of her mobile phone, and Mina’s stomach flipped. Wondering just what was coming next, she said, “Just a second,” turned her back on Isla and Ramsey, and moved farther into the parking lot. “Hello?”

  “Mina, hey, sorry. I know you’re at the scene,” Owen said. “Only, she’s rung four times, and she really wants to speak to you. Thing is, I don’t really get what she’s on about. Something about a letter and a nephew . . .”

  “Wait, stop. Who’s ringing you?”

  “Rachel Flowers. No, Rachel . . . Gilbert. Said she’s had some letter . . .”

  Mina watched the forensic team begin to set up as the crowd that surrounded the dead body of Parker MacDonald grew. Where were they all coming from? How did they know?

  “Fine,” said Mina. “Patch her through.” There was a click and then a muffled sound on the line. Was it crying? “Rachel? Rachel, are you okay?”

  “Mina, it’s my nephew.” Her words were like a spear through a gazelle.

  “Your nephew?” Mina’s insides sank. “I’m sorry . . .” She looked back at the boy on the ground. “Do you mean Parker?”

  A silence. “What? No. My nephew’s name is Jake. You met him. Remember?”

  A flash of a handsome young man hoisting a little boy up on his hip, a wide grin.

  “Yes. Sorry . . . I . . .”

  “Mina, I can’t find him. He never came home last night. And when I went to the door just now, there was an envelope. It was addressed to me.”

  It was the day before, and they were discussing her husband. It was now, and they were discussing her nephew. Sometimes the conclusions are inevitable.

  “There was a picture inside.” Rachel’s voice was rising now, flecks of panic tinging it. “I think he’s dead.”

  Mina couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. “Rachel, I’m on my way.”

  She did not say goodbye to Isla or to Ramsey. In truth, Mina had forgotten their existence. All that mattered was to get into the car, was to drive, drive, drive, as if she could drive fast enough to outrun this nightmare that was chasing them.

  Thinking more than once that this could be how her life would end, Mina weaved through narrow country lanes, the car feeling light on the wet surface. And yet, in spite of that, it did not, and after minutes or hours, she arrived at Rachel Gilbert’s door, her nerves in shreds, but other than that, mostly in one piece. Rachel was waiting for her as Mina opened the garden gate, was standing in the brightly lit hallway, in a pair of leggings, an oversize jumper, her scalp smooth.

  “Mina,” Rachel said shortly. “Here it is.”

  She thrust the plastic bag into Mina’s hands before she had even stepped across the threshold or had time to register the sound of water running, the childish shrieks that came from up above them. Mina glanced up, disconcerted suddenly.

  “My husband is bathing the children. I don’t want them around for this.”

  “Yes,” Mina breathed. “Of course.” Rachel Flowers—Gilbert—had not moved from the hallway, with its wooden floor and its art deco lamp on a dense oak dresser. She folded her arms across her chest. In the light, it was clear that she had been crying. But in spite of that, her chin was up.

  “I put it in a plastic bag,” Rachel said. “To protect any evidence.”

  “Right. Yes. Good idea.” Mina’s vision was swimming. She frowned, attempting to bring the photograph into focus through its clear plastic cover. Green, an endless stretch of it. The suggestion of the arc of a hill. The figure of a young man seated in among the green. “When did you see him last, Rachel?”

  “Last night. He went out to meet some friends, and I haven’t seen him since. But he’s not a child. And I wasn’t worried. . . and then . . .” Her voice cracked, broke. “Is he dead?”

  Mina didn’t look at her, looked instead at the photograph, and the position of the head and the position of the hands, and that faint mark around the lad’s neck.

  “I . . .” It was a roller coaster, another dip down into a precipice. “Look, Rachel, I’ll get some teams out looking for him. If he’s injured, we need to get to him as quickly as we can.” But she was lying, and she knew that she was lying. “Just give me a second.” Mina dug her phone from her pocket and stepped back into the chill wind, the promise of rain. Dialed quickly, walking with calm, measured steps down the path, away from the house. One ring, two rings, three rings. Answer the bloody phone.

  “Owen Darby.” He sounded flustered, breathless.

  “It’s me. I need a search team.” She hadn’t slipped the latch back on the garden gate, and the wind had taken it, was banging it again and again against its frame.

  “Okay . . . yeah, they’re already en route . . . Ah, they should be getting to the university any minute now.”

  The wind snatched at her face, forcing tears into her eyes. “No, Owen. Not to the university.”

  “What?”

  Mina glanced back at the house, where Rachel stood in the doorway, watching her. She turned her back on her, dropped her voice. “I think we have another one.”

  A long silence and then, “Oh my God.” There was a sound that made Mina wonder if he was crying. “Where? Where is it?”

  “I . . .” Mina squinted down at the photograph, the formless shapes in the bleak light. She moved closer to the house, holding the photograph up to her face. “I think it’s Vindolanda. The hill just beyond it. Tell them to start there.”

  “I’ll get a team out as fast as I can.” Owen didn’t even bother saying goodbye.

  Mina stood on the path, watching the gate slam open and shut, open and shut, thinking of the dead and those who killed them. Then she sighed in lieu of crying and turned back toward the house.

  Rachel’s face had slid into flat resignation. “So . . .”

  “A team will go out looking.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Mina opened her mouth, intending to lie to her. But something in Rachel’s gaze stopped her in her tracks. “Yes, Rachel. Yes, I think he probably is.”


  Rachel began to cry then, fat tears rolling down her smooth cheeks. And yet not once breaking her gaze from Mina’s.

  “You know it’s his fault, right? Eric Bell. You know that this has happened because of what he said,” she accused.

  Mina shifted. Whoever is responsible for these killings is targeting females.

  “This guy, whoever’s doing this, he’s trying to prove Bell wrong, isn’t he?” said Rachel, brushing her palms roughly across her cheeks. She waved her hand. “You can’t say, I understand that. But the thing is, I know Bell of old. If he had listened back when I got that photograph . . . maybe this wouldn’t be happening now. But he didn’t care then, and he doesn’t care now.” She folded her arms tight across her chest, keeping her gaze on Mina. “My nephew is dead, Mina, and it’s Eric Bell’s fault.”

  The shadow within – Isla

  It was a waking nightmare, one filled with the yowling wind, the laden skies, the swirl of blue lights, and the body of a boy sitting propped against a tree.

  I’m not the killer on the wall.

  For Isla, it seemed that the whole world had turned into a repugnant farce. That death could follow death, one after another after another, mocking her belief that she had ever known enough to solve this unanswerable riddle. As she’d stood at the police cordon, her husband’s arm tight around her, the sobbing of Scarlett a sound track to an unending movie, it had suddenly become clear just how naive she had been. Twenty years. Twenty years of chasing monsters, of fighting to understand the worst of the worst, and yet she knew nothing. She was a child playing doctor, telling herself that she had the tools to keep the world around her safe, if only she could look at it from the right direction, turn the prism in just the right way so that the light split just so. She had stood at the police cordon, watching as the forensic team swarmed across Parker’s body like locusts, and there it had become clear. She knew nothing at all.

  I’m not the killer on the wall.

  How long had they stood there? Here, now, in the soft warmth of her own bedroom, it was no longer clear. It had been long enough for the tent to be erected, long enough for her father to appear, walking the scene with his stiff back, his immovable face, commanding his forces, doing something real, something that mattered. It had been long enough for her fingers to turn stiff with the cold, for her cheeks to begin to burn, and her back to ache.