Watchman

by Ian Rankin

  “But, Miles, it wasn’t like that,” hissed Billy. “I mean, there’s no need for—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, not any of it, not now.” Miles checked his watch. “There’s just one more thing—I think you are the most complete bastard I’ve ever met. Knowing you, you’ll take that as a compliment. It’s not meant as one, believe me.” He made to move away, but Billy clawed at his sleeve. Miles turned back toward him.

  “Oh,” he said, “and I forgot this.”

  The catalog was heavy, and it hit Billy Monmouth’s jaw with a deafening crack. He staggered against the nuts and bolts painting, several visitors looking on in horror as blood began to ooze from his lip and his gum. Miles was walking away, and he did not look invisible at all now. He looked like the watched, not the watchman, while Billy Monmouth fumbled for a handkerchief and some self-esteem.

  2

  BILLY’S JAW

  THIRTEEN

  HE DETESTED AVOCADO DIP, ALWAYS had, always would. The very color was an insult to him, and so many parties these days seemed to find a bowl of such sludge de rigueur. What else was there? The smiling minion who had thrust a plate and a napkin (paper) into his hand hovered behind the table, awaiting his selection. The plate, he noted, had one of those plastic rings clipped onto its rim. He was supposed to keep his glass of vile white wine in this venerated halo, and didn’t all the guests look such complete pricks as they did so, not trusting the dreaded ring enough not to leave one hand hovering close to it? This meant that they had no free hand anyway, and so the ring did not fulfill its one and only function. Bloody thing. Sizewell ripped his from the plate and threw it, with a plop, into the avocado dip, where it sank majestically. The waitress, the only observer of this, looked at Sizewell in horror while he smiled at her, happy with life once more, and asked her quite politely for a piece of the spinach quiche and a vol-au-vent or three.

  He was ravenous, having just come from a lengthy and painstaking sitting of the committee, where just about all they had thrashed out were their legitimate and non-legitimate claims for expenses incurred thus far. But the Smythsons’ party had promised lots of food, and so he had not bothered to eat beforehand. For his sin, he was consigned to function on a stomach half full of pastry.

  “Harry, old boy.”

  “Tanya!”

  “Good to see you.”

  “Tanya, how are you?”

  “Can’t complain, you know.”

  No, she couldn’t complain. Only those landed with her interminable company could complain. Tanya Smythson, the unmarried (and unmarriable) elder daughter of the family, had a way of seeking Sizewell out and carving a territory between the rest of the world and them so that no one interrupted and no one came to save Sizewell from his misery.

  Tanya, formidable, buxom Tanya. To be honest, he had taken quite a shine to her on their first meeting. She had seemed game for anything, but now, of course, he knew why: men were her game, and she was becoming frantic as the years progressed and they would not let her into their magic circle. One quick session, he thought, one session with a young thoroughbred would see you straight, would rearrange your metabolism and make you a calmer, less formidable figure. But where was the young man who would give Tanya what she wanted from life? He was nowhere. Certainly he was not Harry Sizewell.

  But now, and to Sizewell’s astonishment, someone was coming toward them, holding out a hand of friendship, smiling.

  “Hello, Mr. Sizewell.”

  “Mr. Partridge, how very good to see you. Tanya, meet Mr. Partridge, one of the Home Office mandarins.”

  Tanya looked ready to breathe fire and brimstone. Nevertheless, she produced a smile from somewhere deep within her.

  “Tanya,” began Partridge winningly, “would you excuse us for just one minute, please? I have to discuss something with Mr. Sizewell.”

  As Tanya moved off, peering into Sizewell’s soul to try to fathom just how put out he was by this interruption, he shrugged his shoulders and promised to see her again later.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered from one side of his mouth. “You’ve made an old man very happy.”

  “Well,” said Partridge, his face soft but his voice as hard as steel, “I did want to have a word actually.”

  “Oh?”

  “How’s the committee progressing?”

  “Slowly, of course, how else would a committee progress?” Sizewell bit into the spinach quiche, feeling it drip water onto his plate. Defrosted then, rather than fresh. He should have known.

  “Good, good. And that other matter?”

  “Hmm? Oh, the threats. Well, he’s been fairly quiet.”

  But Partridge’s attention had already been diverted. “That man over there, do you know him?”

  “The bulbous chap? Seen him around. Why?”

  “Well, before I came to your rescue, I couldn’t help noticing that he was keeping an eye on you.”

  “Or on Tanya?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, would you? No, our man was definitely keeping an eye on you. Do you have a name?”

  “A name?”

  “For him. The bulbous man. Does he have a name?”

  “Probably, but I’m damned if I know what it is.” Sizewell seemed already to have forgotten that he was speaking to the man who had saved him from the agonies of Tanya Smythson. He was irritated by Partridge’s forceful questions. One just did not treat an MP that way, and he would say so.

  “Look here—”

  But Partridge stopped him cold.

  “How can we protect you from threats if you don’t tell us everything there is to know?”

  “You mean about that chap over there? I know nothing at all about him.”

  “I mean about this mysterious committee of yours.”

  “Oh.” The spinach lost whatever flavor it had possessed, and Sizewell seemed to be remembering the slap he had been given by Partridge.

  “I mean,” continued Partridge, “I hear your committee isn’t just looking into defense spending, but into security spending, and, moreover, into security links between the NATO countries and their possible strengthening.”

  “How the devil do you know that?”

  “We must know everything, or else how can we protect you? If we don’t know who your enemies are, we can’t hope to act against them. Bear that in mind.”

  Partridge moved off, slowly, elegantly, and Sizewell felt suddenly obese and clumsy, sweat shining on his forehead and nose, hair sleek and unfashionable. He was deciding to leave the party then and there when the squat man began trundling toward him, a hand shooting out before him like a spear.

  “The Honorable Harold Sizewell?” asked the man, shaking Sizewell’s hand as a candidate in a safe seat would shake that of a skeptical voter.

  “Yes,” said Sizewell, “Mr. . . .?”

  “Andrew Gray,” said the man. “A friend of mine is one of your constituents. He thinks you’re doing a good job, just thought you’d like to know. His name’s Monmouth. Do you know him?”

  “No, I don’t, but thank you.”

  “Not at all, not at all. I know how hard you people work for so little recompense. The public thinks of politicians as leading rich, glamorous lives, but we know better, don’t we?”

  “I agree entirely, Mr. Gray. Are you involved in politics yourself?”

  “Only as an interested outsider. I deal in futures.”

  “I see. And how is the market behaving?”

  “Couldn’t be better. Everyone wants a future after all, don’t they?”

  Sizewell joined in the man’s laughter, and Gray patted him on the shoulder as he moved away, back into the throng. Sizewell’s laughter stopped as soon as the man had disappeared, and in panic he looked around for Partridge, but he had disappeared too. Damn and blast, and just when Harry Sizewell needed him.

  For he was sure that the squat and pugnacious man had owned the same voice that had, with anonymous conviction, been threatening him over th
e telephone these past weeks.

  While Mad Phil slept, Miles kept an eye on the Harvest home. It was late. He should have wakened Phil to swap the watch, but he found that he didn’t need much sleep these days and nights, and besides, Phil looked so peaceful, almost childlike, in his sleeping bag.

  The house across the way was quiet: everything was asleep except the city’s nightlife. Foxes, hedgehogs, and cats on the prowl, all the night creatures who hid from the city’s daytime chaos. Miles, too, was in hiding. Nobody had minded when he had moved his things into the house. He had a little room of his own, with a sleeping bag, radio and pocket-size television, and a camping stove. He had bought a couple of cheap pots and a kettle. The house had running water and even a supply of electricity. What more could he want? He felt like a boy again, embarked upon an adventure.

  A week had passed since his meeting with Billy. It was cold at nights now, but he kept warm in his sleeping bag, and did not think of Sheila too often. He became immersed in Harvest, reading and re-reading the case notes, and watching, day and night, watching.

  Forest Hill was a far cry from St. John’s Wood, but there were two good cafés along with a late-opening liquor store. What more did he need? He would drink a can or two of beer while watching the tiny television screen. Late at night he watched talk shows, but during the day he preferred the children’s cartoons. There was one he liked in particular: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. Jack had been an omnivorous reader of comics, and Miles, having taken an interest in his son’s reading, still remembered Spider-Man, a meek college student who, bitten by a radioactive spider, found himself with phenomenal powers.

  More than the TV, however, he was interested in Harvest. The woman interested him most. She was a clean and tidy-minded twenty-eight-year-old, with short dark hair and the pinched 1930s look of so many Irishwomen.

  He had a good view of her bedroom. He had watched her walk past her window in a terry cloth robe, brushing her hair with short, vicious strokes, entering the bathroom, and, through the obscured glass, had watched her drop the robe onto the floor and step into her bath. He had watched one of the men, the mechanic, interrupt her in her room, bringing her cups of tea, trying to charm his way into her bed. Miles hoped that the mechanic was cold at night in his narrow bed, as cold as Miles was himself.

  In the guise of a television repairman, one of the firm’s electricians had gained access to the deserted living room and had planted a couple of neat bugs. It had been a beautiful operation. A jamming device had ensured that one of the men called the TV rental company to complain, and the company notified the electrician, who went in and did the job. But little had been learned from the devices. There had not even been a hint of political dialogue in the house. It was as clean as could be.

  If it were a cell, then it was the best Miles had ever seen. But it could still be a cell. They were highly trained these days, trained more or less to forget about their ultimate meaning. Certainly, a mechanic and an electrician would be of incalculable use to a terrorist cell, as might someone with access to a building site (where detonators and even dynamite would be available). But what about the man who worked steadfastly and somberly as a groundskeeper? Could he be some kind of screen, putting the watchmen off the scent? Could he be hiding some specialization? Or might they be planning such a crude bombing that the matériel they would need was weedkiller?

  “Fancy a beer, Miles?”

  Mowbray handed him a can, pulling one open for himself.

  “Thanks,” said Miles.

  “You’re welcome. How’s things?”

  “Fine. They’re all watching television.”

  “I meant regarding your own situation.”

  “Oh.”

  Mowbray, like the others, had been very circumspect about Miles’s sudden occupation of the house. “I’m sure we all understand,” he had said. Miles had wondered.

  “What’s the word back at HQ, Richard?”

  Mowbray shrugged his shoulders. The one thing Miles missed about Billy Monmouth was his vast knowledge of office gossip. It had occurred to Miles recently, though, that Billy knew just a little too much. He was like a huge filter for drips from every level.

  “Not much,” said Mowbray. “Jeff Phillips is off on some kind of course.”

  “Oh?”

  “Without a word to me.”

  “What else?”

  “Well, you asked about Peter Saville, but I can’t find out a thing. He seems to have been transferred. I think someone called it a ‘lateral promotion.’”

  “Who did? Who said that?”

  “Hell, I can’t remember, Miles.”

  “Was it Billy Monmouth?”

  “Of course not. He and I are barely on speaking terms. There was one thing, though. You know Tony Sinclair, don’t you?”

  “He worked on Latchkey with me. He was on probation.”

  “He’s out, gone. Resigned.”

  Now this was news, and Miles narrowed his eyes as he tried to focus on its meaning.

  “Tony Sinclair?”

  “Mmm. It seems he wasn’t enjoying the work. What was he like?”

  “He loved the work. That’s what he was like.”

  Jeff Phillips transferred, Tony Sinclair “resigned,” Peter Saville vanished. Curiouser and curiouser. Did it have something to do with the Israeli? It seemed like that. Anyone who had anything to do with the Latchkey case and its aftermath was being moved on.

  “Bit of activity over there,” said Mowbray, peering out of the window.

  The groundskeeper and the electrician were leaving for the pub, which left the randy mechanic alone in the house with the secretary. Miles made a note of the time and the circumstance. A couple of the lads downstairs would keep tabs on the pub-goers.

  “What are you reading, Richard?”

  “Graham Greene.” Mowbray studied the cover of his book. “Quite credible really. Only cost me a quid, but it’s falling to pieces.”

  “It’s a spy novel, right?”

  “Sort of. Not our stuff though. The other place: cloak-and-dagger games with the Russkies.”

  Miles, nodding in shadow, wondered what sort of games the mechanic was playing tonight, and thought back to his early days with Sheila. He remembered a drunken friend making repeated passes at her during a noisy all-night party and the way he had brawled with his friend in the middle of the dance floor. In those days he had fought to keep Sheila. And now . . .?

  The lights went out in the living room, then came on simultaneously in the bathroom and the woman’s bedroom. She walked to her window and stared up at the sky, asking herself questions perhaps, or just dreaming. She played with her hair, twirling it so that she looked ruffled and feminine. The light went off in the bathroom, and, as Miles and Mowbray held their breath, the mechanic appeared in the doorway behind the girl and sought her permission to enter. She heard him, but kept on staring out of the window. Her face alone gave away her intent. With slow deliberation, she closed the curtains, and her silhouette was approached by the man’s, until they merged and moved back into the room, out of sight.

  “Lucky swine,” muttered Mowbray, returning to his book. Then, a little later, “Would you believe it? There are two pages missing. Two pages.” And he threw the book into a corner in disgust, where more pages fell away.

  “I should think that’s us for the evening, Miles.”

  “Yes,” said Miles, “I should think so.” He felt lonely all of a sudden, and chilled to the bone.

  FOURTEEN

  THE HELL-RAISER OF FLEET STREET!

  Stevens, at his desk, stared at the clipping for the thousandth time. There was the photograph, the two sentences of journalese beneath it, and the bloody headline. They had been looking for some action, and, finding none, had caught sight of Stevens and a photogenic young lady. Bets had been laid, and the manager, who had promised them all a photograph and a story, had attempted his seduction. Everyone got an early night; they had their picture and their bar
e words of captioning.

  THE HELL-RAISER OF FLEET STREET!

  They’d be laughing their heads off back in Edinburgh. Look at what happened to our golden boy, they’d be saying. Sons of . . .

  He picked up the ringing telephone.

  “Hello?” he said. And heard the same measured voice, a poetry-recital voice, the kind of voice people paid money for. But was it the same voice? He would puzzle the day away thinking that one over, once he had heard the message. Straight off, however, he prepared himself for a few more words of wisdom from “Deep Throat,” ready to tell the man that he needed more to go on . . .But his thoughts short-circuited when he heard what the voice had to say.

  “That’s for starters,” it said. “Lay off Sizewell, or there’ll be more, much more. See you, hell-raiser.”

  And with that the telephone went as dead as Jim Stevens’s tooth.

  “Jim!”

  It was Macfarlane, his editor, calling from the inner sanctum. Rising from his chair, numb with shock from the call, Stevens had little time to wonder how many times he had walked this walk from his desk to an editor’s office.

  “What can I do for you, Terry?”

  “Close the door for a start.”

  Stevens did so, muffling the sounds of the outside office.

  “This isn’t a social call then?” he asked.

  Macfarlane, seated behind his ancient desk, relic of the newspaper’s earliest years, pushed back his thinning hair. “Jim, I’m going to tell you what they told me—lay off.”

  “Lay off what?”

  “I don’t know. They said you’d know.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Too important for names, Jim. Over my head.”

  Jim Stevens sat down.

  “Well,” he said, “who gave you the message?”

  “Do you really want to know? God gave me the message. God himself, calling from one of his half-dozen country houses. Your boss, my boss, this paper’s boss.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You better be, or you can type your job out, stick it in an envelope, and post it to the moon.”