I Am Watching Read online

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Fuck you.

  Now the MRI thumped, beeped. Isla watched Heath’s hands work the button box, the speed of them suggesting enjoyment.

  “Professor? The structural scan has finished processing. It’s ready to be viewed now if you want to see it.” The radiographer didn’t look at Isla, her gaze locked on her screen in an expression of rapt boredom.

  Isla pushed her chair back and stood up. “Please.”

  She felt Connor behind her as the screen moved from black to gray and then an image filled it. She studied the screen, and despite herself, her heart sank.

  “No gross abnormalities,” she muttered.

  Isla gazed at the brain of the killer on the wall, its swirls and ridges. There was no convenient tumor impacting on the amygdala that would explain the aggression, nothing that she could point to and say, “Here, here is where the evil lies.” To all intents and purposes, they were looking at a perfectly normal brain. But then, wasn’t that the thing with serial killers? Weren’t they all, when you looked at them, perfectly normal? Right up until the monster in them was unleashed.

  To stay or to go – Ramsey

  The rain poured down, a relentless barrage that made an almost night from what should have been an early afternoon sky. It turned the flat roof slick, and the wind that blew down from the Cheviots yanked at Ramsey, threatening to pull him over the side of it, send him tumbling down twenty stories onto the concrete below. He wiped his hands across his eyes, gritted his teeth, tried to sound calm. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay.” Stephen Doyle wasn’t looking at him. Instead, his entire attention was directed downward, beyond the lip of the roof where he stood, to the empty air and the solid ground beneath. “It’s not okay. It hasn’t been okay since Leila . . . Do you know how hard it has been? Every day to get out of bed. Every day praying that something will happen, that I’ll be hit by a bus, that I’ll contract some horrible disease, anything, just so that it’s over, so that I can see her again.”

  “Stephen . . .”

  “Twenty years, Rams. Twenty years of what? This isn’t life. It’s torture.” He leaned farther out, so far that it seemed inevitable that gravity or the howling wind would do what will had so far failed to do, would tug him outward, into the abyss.

  Ramsey took one step forward, one back. Any closer and he might drive Stephen over, any farther and he wouldn’t be close enough. His suit trousers clung to his legs; rain plastered the hair to his head.

  Ramsey had been in Carlisle, covering a city council meeting, and had had a dull morning finishing up a dull article on truancy levels, their impact on crime statistics. One of those mornings that make you question your life choices, that make you think, Surely there must be more than this. And there was more, of course; there was Isla. And so he had left the city, had driven the short distance north, past the airport, the modest planes overhead ricocheting in the wind, and then on to the university campus. He would buy his wife lunch, perhaps persuade her to finish early for once, to allow herself to breathe.

  And yet it had not worked out that way. He had slid his car into the parking lot, his gaze scanning left, right, for Isla’s BMW. It was quiet here today, empty spaces filled with little but puddled water. Perhaps there were exams on, he thought. Perhaps it was the weather. He maneuvered the car into a space beneath the shadow of the tower block and twisted around in his seat. But no, there sat Isla’s parking space, resolutely empty.

  Ramsey sat for a moment, considered his options. He should go home. He had work to do, articles that were due in, and yet still he sat there, watching the rain batter against the windscreen. Then his gaze was caught by a loping figure emerging from the arts building. The man walked slowly in spite of the rain, and although he wore a coat, it hung unzipped, the sides flapping in the wind. Ramsey squinted through the rain, the man’s movement triggering a memory. Stephen Doyle. He pushed open the car door, winced as the rain sparked against his face. “Stephen!”

  But if the figure heard, he gave no sign of it, just continued on with his long stride, then disappeared into the psychology building. Ramsey sank back into his seat, considering. It must have been him. Although it had been a couple of months since he had seen him last, the memory of Stephen Doyle, his face seemingly tattooed with a grief that simply would not heal, was seared into his brain. He had heard Stephen had gone back to university. That he had begun a degree, although in what Ramsey would not have been able to say.

  Ramsey wasn reaching for the ignition key when a car skidded into the parking lot, slid into the space beside Isla’s. He grinned, pulled his hood up, and dived out into the rain.

  “Connor!”

  Connor spun round, arms filled with bags and box files. “Rams.” He blinked the rain from his eyes. “You looking for Isla? She’s still out at the hospital. With McGowan, you know?”

  It sent a prickle through Ramsey, the thought of that.

  “She’ll be a while yet.” A heavy frown, his hair flopping into his eyes. “What the hell did you manage to do to your arm?”

  “I slipped, jogging.” Ramsey rolled his eyes, tucking his sling-held arm beneath his loosely draped coat. “Pain in the arse. Especially driving.”

  But Ramsey’s attention drifted from Connor to a movement high up on the roof. He peered into the rain, straining to make sense of it. The dark sky, the never-ending rods of rain, the horizontal line of the roof that bisected his vision. And hovering on the edge of it a long, loping figure.

  “Oh God.”

  Connor followed his gaze, head tilted backward, and his mouth grew slack with the realization of what they were witnessing. “Jesus . . . is that . . . ?”

  “It’s Stephen Doyle. He’s going to jump.” Ramsey took off running, footsteps light on the slick ground.

  Now Ramsey stood on the rooftop and watched Stephen lean outward into the abyss, his coat flapping wildly. Stephen’s face becoming slack, resignation setting in.

  “I know, Stephen. I know,” Ramsey said, blinking away the rain. “But you’ve lasted. You’ve made it this far. Don’t throw it away now.”

  He sensed Connor behind him, moving around him, held out a hand. Keep back. A quick glance to his side, enough to ensure that they both understood: This is close.

  “Throw it away?” Stephen gave a harsh laugh, which was tugged away by the wind. “Throw what away? That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I have nothing. There is nothing to throw away. You know I lost my job? They said I was taking too many sick days . . . Unreliable, that was the word. You know I’m doing this damn degree?” He gave another harsh laugh. “My tutor just told me I’m failing. Failing. Something that any eighteen-year-old can do, I’m failing. I’ve even moved back in with my sister. Like a damn bum. Everything I had vanished with Leila on that day.”

  That day. It had been one of light and warmth and sunshine, when Leila Doyle had been hanging the washing out. A balmy summer’s afternoon. When Stephen had gone looking for her, he had found her slippers, a basket of still wet washing tipped across the lawn. But of Leila there had been nothing. It had taken three days. For three days her absence had hovered over Briganton like a storm cloud. Then, on the fourth day, a police patrol had found her rapidly decaying body seated against the wall.

  “I don’t sleep. I haven’t slept in years. Every time I close my eyes, I see her body, those”—his hands came up, fingers curving into a shape—“those fingers around her throat.” Stephen shifted so that his right foot balanced half on, half off the roof.

  Ramsey felt a prickling across the back of his neck. “I know.”

  Every night closing his eyes, every night promising himself that this night would be different. The darkness descending and then there they were again, the bodies, multiplied now into thousands, hundreds of thousands, each staring at him with empty eyes. Moving through them, searching, fear grappling with his insides, knowing what he would find, because it was the same every single night. Then
seeing it, in among the mountain of death—Zachary, arms reaching out, lips moving. Leaning in so he could hear the last breath of voice. “Rams – – ”

  He stood on the roof in the pouring rain, felt Connor moving alongside him, watching him, waiting for him to lead. The thing was, life for those living in the shadow of the killer on the wall was an uneven sort of dance, an unsteady jiggling motion designed to sidestep the past, while simultaneously keeping it in center focus. It was important people didn’t forget. How often had he said that? And yet, when you couldn’t forget, you couldn’t forget. And so you became suspended in a kind of hinterland that was neither the past nor the present, but some heady, uncomfortable mixture of the two.

  “We were trying for a family. Did I tell you that? Leila, she always wanted a big family, four, maybe five kids. She didn’t want anything else. Just to be a mother, to be married to me. It was . . . it was such a good feeling to know that I was enough for her, that the idea of our family was all she dreamed of.” Stephen wasn’t looking at him, was leaning forward, looking down at the drop. “She would have been such a good mother. I think about that sometimes, about what it would have been like if we’d started already, if we’d had a kid. Thing is, I know it’s selfish, but I just think it would have been better, you know, that I would have had a part of her still with me. That I would have had to have been normal.”

  What could be more natural? Ramsey had thought that too. Isla, I think we should start trying. For a baby, I mean. I think I’m ready. Aren’t you? Ramsey had held it out to his wife, a gift or a burden, he wasn’t sure, had offered it up like it was the most normal of normal things. And yet that wasn’t why, was it? He wasn’t just a man who had reached the age at which one started having children. He was a man who was stuck, who had become enmeshed in the past, and no matter how much he wriggled and squirmed, he had still not succeeded in releasing himself. But a baby . . . that was what normal people did. That was the shape of a normal life. It was a terrible thing, to want a child in order to save yourself, but if Ramsey dug deep, that was the truth of it. He wanted his child to set him free.

  “I know what you mean,” he told Stephen, but the wind had stepped up its efforts, the howling turning into a dull roar, as if an army marched across the moor. Ramsey’s heart began to race as he saw Stephen swaying with the pressure of it, could feel Connor stepping closer, a low noise in his throat, almost a growl. “I want more than anything to be normal too.”

  Isla hadn’t answered. She had opened her mouth, as if she would, and then, with the sense of a last-minute reprieve, the phone had rung, and she had hurried to answer it. They hadn’t spoken of it since.

  Connor touched Ramsey’s elbow, making him jump. Eyes a question: Shall we grab for him?

  The world had shifted, its focus narrowing onto this single point in time. Stephen Doyle; the position of his feet on the roof’s edge; the slackness of his features, as if the life had already drained out of him; the angle of his body away from the building and out toward the tumbling ground below.

  Stephen shook his head slowly, his gaze now on the ground. “It’s better this way,” he mumbled.

  Ramsey felt Connor squeeze his arm, could see it as if it had already happened. That one short step—here safety, there oblivion.

  Stephen was inhaling, a noticeable filling of the chest. Preparing.

  “You know how I survive?” The words tumbled from Ramsey’s mouth.

  Time was suspended. Stephen, glancing back at him, frowned. It was a slight movement, small enough that you would miss it if your every sense wasn’t trained upon it, but his body shifted, a small lean back toward the building.

  “I refuse to let the monster win. I . . . I have dreams too. Nightmares. I see the bodies. Feel the fingers. But . . . I fight it. Because if I give in, if I give up, then he’s won.” He was aware that his voice was getting smaller. “I won’t let him win.” Ramsey glanced at Connor, a quick nod. “Stephen, I know it feels that this is your only option, but . . . you have survived. For twenty years, you have survived. I know it hasn’t been easy. I know that you’ve . . . been tempted.” An overdose had followed closely after Heath’s trial and conviction. Another one on the ten-year anniversary of Leila’s murder. “I know there have been many times when you’ve wanted to end it. But you’ve survived. That in itself is an achievement.”

  Something was happening, a thought spreading across Stephen’s face. Doubt, perhaps?

  “This choice . . . ,” Connor said quietly. “It can never be undone. And yet you have managed all these years without having to make it. Please, at least let us try getting you some more help. Let’s see if we can make this bearable, at the very least. I have friends—they’re the best people in the world to help trauma survivors. We can go downstairs now, make some calls, get you some help straight away.”

  Stephen stood, looking out into the gray night, and then leaned forward, peering down toward the ground. Then he was falling, tumbling, tumbling, body hitting the pavement with a crack. But no, he wasn’t. He turned back, away from the abyss, reached a hand out to grip the wall, clung to it like a mother clung to a child, like he hadn’t intended to throw himself to his death mere moments before. Ramsey felt Connor dart ’round him, unstuck at last, and saw him take a tight hold of Stephen’s wrist, one hand on his shoulder, guide him back to the rooftop.

  Ramsey simply stood, his head light.

  “Come on. Let’s get you inside.” Connor’s voice was now overlaid by fake joviality. “Rams? Shall we? Stephen, we’ll give your sister a shout and then shove the kettle on. Nice cuppa, that’s what we need.”

  “Yes,” said Ramsey weakly. “That . . . yes.”

  Stephen, tucked between them now like an errant sheep between two dogs, nodded slowly, his voice low. “Aye. No, you’re right. And if it doesn’t work out, I can always kill myself another day.”

  The sense of being stared at – Mina

  Detective Constable Mina Arian looked out into the world beyond. The rain had taken on a whole new force, the rising wind driving it sideways into the house, the open patio door. She felt it soaking into her trouser leg, turning the beige material brown. The wind pushing at her, driving her back, nature in charge. You, inside. This evening is not for you. She shivered, let her eyes track along the square paved garden path. Its sides were lined with flower beds, the low plants clinging to the ground, as if afraid they would be torn out, thrown into the night sky. Something moved in the distance, two lollipop bay trees bending and swaying with the wind. Three metalwork Mister Tumnus lampposts lined the central path, throwing out an orange light that moved and danced across the ground. And then, through the low wrought-iron gate, the wildness of the moor, all scrubby and dark. Hadrian’s Wall was out there in the darkness, the stones of it sitting perhaps a hundred feet beyond the garden boundary.

  “You’re very exposed here.” She squinted, trying to make out shapes in the shadowy light. “What’s separating you from the moor? A hedge? How high is it?”

  Victoria Prew tucked her cardigan tighter around her, shivered. All angles and edges, long deep red hair that hung around her shoulders. It looked like one good gust and she would be gone. “I don’t know.” The faint burr of a Scottish accent was just about discernible. “I guess five feet? I wanted to keep the view.”

  The call had come in at 6:00 p.m., just as they were packing up for the day, the shift skittering to an unremarkable end. The four of them in the criminal investigation department office had stood, their coats already on, bags slung over shoulders, and had stared at the ringing phone. Finally, Mina had sighed heavily, dumping her bag back on her desk, and had picked up the receiver.

  “Possible break-in. Officers have attended, passed it on.”

  Of course they have, she muttered to herself. She glanced up at the other three detectives, farther from her now than they had begun, as each of them attempted to inch their way toward the door.

  “We’ve got a call.”

 
A loud shared groan, and then the mental calculations, the chess game beginning. Well, I have to pick my kids up. Well, I worked late last night.

  Mina’s gaze fell on Detective Constable Owen Darby, the only one who had not yet spoken, who stood, shuffling his feet like a schoolboy in trouble. He ducked his head, sheepish. “I’ve got a date.”

  Mina sighed heavily. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll go on my own. But each and every one of you owe me!”

  Mina looked at Victoria Prew now. She was, what? Forty? Make-up artfully applied, screaming money, lips pursed in a blatant red. You had to take your time with a red like that; you had to keep on top of it. It wasn’t the kind of thing for someone chasing small kids around or mucking out animals. A bright white blouse tucked into a breathtakingly narrow pencil skirt. The cardigan—a rich gray cashmere—the only concession to the chill of the evening.

  You could tell a lot about people by the way they dressed. Mina slipped her hands into her suit trouser pockets, feeling them tug against her thighs. Thunder Thighs. That was what they called her at work when they thought she couldn’t hear them. She glanced again at Victoria Prew and her thin-as-a-pencil skirt and sighed inwardly.

  “Mmm.” Mina scanned left to right. The next house along had a high wall, seven foot at least, to separate it from the moor. She would be willing to bet her next pay packet that there would be no convenient gate built into it.

  “How long have you been in Briganton?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  Mina nodded. Six months longer than Mina herself.

  The village of Briganton suffered from an extreme case of split personality. Proud of its history, continuously populated since the twelfth century, like stepping back in time and so on and so on. And yet simultaneously ashamed of what had come next. If you searched for Briganton on Google, what would come up would not be the history, at least not at first. No, to get to that, you first had to wade through the horror of the bodies left upon the wall. The villagers, the ones who had lived it, they kept it buried, weighting it down beneath the detritus of everyday life, and yet you could read it in their every move, in the way they walked, their gaze twisting this way and that, in the way they treated the moor.