I Am Watching You

by Teresa Driscoll

  The key in the door at last . . .

  I wait for the sound of the door clicking closed. The clumping of the overnight case. And to my dismay, it is a trigger. By the time he is in the doorway, I am openly sobbing.

  ‘Oh my God, Ella. It’s all right, love, I’m here now.’

  His arms around me. My Tony. And I am all at once grateful for those arms and yet guilty also because I still haven’t been one hundred per cent straight with him.

  ‘There, there, love. Come on now.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’

  And then, after I finally get a grip, the truth pours out of me. Every single little detail this time. About hiring Matthew secretly to warn off Mrs Ballard when I thought the postcards were from her. About going to Cornwall, against Tony’s advice, and upsetting her. About thinking that someone was watching me at the shop but not being sure if I am simply going mad.

  ‘Right. That’s it. How about we just close the shop for a little while? You take a break. We get that rip-off company to come back to check the alarms. And you listen to me . . .’ Tony has his hands on the top of my arms, leaning in to make me look right into his face. ‘This is awful. What’s going on in Spain, I mean, and God knows how it’s going to turn out. I’ve been listening on the radio and Anna’s parents must be going through hell. But you didn’t do this, Ella. This madman Karl is doing this. Not you.’

  I don’t reply. And now Luke is in the doorway. He looks pale and is shifting from one foot to the other. ‘Really glad you’re back, Dad. And I’m really sorry I didn’t come into work with you, Mum.’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t go in on your own?’ Tony grips my arms a little tighter, his eyes wide.

  There is a long pause.

  ‘Totally my bad, Dad. I’ve been so exhausted, so upset. But I’ve just put out some more feelers on Facebook to see if I can find someone to take over the job.’

  ‘You haven’t shared our personal stuff on Facebook, Luke?’

  ‘No. No. Course not. I’ve just said I know of a great part-time job. I’ll vet the responses. If anyone good replies, I’ll pass them on to you to see what you think.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, Luke. Thank you. I expect your mum would rather pick her own staff, but put out feelers, by all means. So long as you don’t share Mum’s personal information. But I really don’t want your mother there early on her own, meantime. Not until we know for sure how all this is going to turn out.’

  ‘But it can’t be the guy on the train, Dad. The person sending the postcards. Not if he’s been in Spain all this time.’

  ‘Could be the other guy from the train. Or some random nutter. Please, Ella. Just do as I ask from here on, will you? Yes?’ Tony loosens his hold and leans forward to kiss me on the forehead and to wrap his arms around me.

  Luke then disappears to make more coffee, and I know exactly what is going to come next from Tony. Sure enough, he is absolutely horrified that I have involved a private detective without telling him. He tries very hard not to sound angry but the disappointment on his face kills me.

  ‘I thought you had told me everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I honestly thought I could spare you and sort it all out myself without worrying you, Tony. With everything you’ve got on. Luke. This promotion.’

  ‘Never mind what I’ve got on, I just can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me. And going to Cornwall? I told you that was a bad idea.’

  ‘I know. And I guessed you would be cross and I just kept digging, I suppose. Trying to resolve it on my own. I do see now it was stupid to keep it from you. I’m so sorry, love. But I was honestly so sure it was Mrs Ballard to start with, and I didn’t want to make it worse for her, to get her into trouble by going to the police.’ I then tell Tony everything else. That Matthew has been liaising with a contact in the force in Cornwall. It is such a huge relief not to be keeping this to myself anymore, especially as Matthew has suggested we meet after his hospital visit so that he can update me. Now I won’t have to lie to Tony.

  Sure enough, Tony says he wants to meet him ASAP. To put him straight.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s right to be liaising with someone outside the force right now.’

  ‘OK. But you might feel differently when you meet him. He’s a nice man. Ex-copper and very experienced. He was the one who insisted I give the postcards to the police.’

  Tony is about to reply when the news presenter announces they are returning to the scene in Spain for a new development. We both turn to the television screen to see the reporter still standing by the police cordon, with her hand up to her ear as if struggling to hear the link from the studio, and then there is a cut to a really shocking image. Full frame.

  It is a grainy photograph, as if taken from a distance, but there is no mistaking it. A tall man at the window of a second-floor flat, with a blonde woman.

  A gun to her head.

  CHAPTER 36

  THE FATHER

  Henry Ballard was brought up by the kind of parents who believe children bounce. No cotton wool. No fussing. Best way to teach a child to swim is to throw ’em in the deep end. His father’s favourite saying.

  It was this extreme faith in the innate resilience of children which saw Henry quite literally bouncing on bales of hay in the trailer behind his dad’s tractor at the age of four, and learning to drive the tractor himself when he was barely twelve.

  Looking back now on pictures of his childhood, Henry realises he was lucky not to be on a child protection list. Lines were definitely crossed. And yet? Somehow he and his two sisters not only bounced, but thrived. Apart from a broken leg at the age of eight when a cow kicked back as she left the dairy shed, Henry escaped largely unscathed.

  And so, emboldened by a general horror of a ‘nanny state’, Henry approached parenthood himself with a similar, laid-back confidence. They will be fine, he heard himself saying over and over to Barbara as she fussed and fretted over high-factor sun creams and anecdotal evidence about skin cancer risks for ‘outside workers’, as their two daughters ran outside every summer morning, coming indoors only for refuelling.

  Farms are dangerous places, Henry, Barbara would say in return while Henry tut-tutted.

  You watch too many documentaries, Barbara.

  And then little Anna turned five and contracted pneumonia. It started as a standard cough, which Barbara reckoned came from playing in damp hay stored in a side barn, but Henry said she was making too much of it. She’ll be fine.

  Only she wasn’t.

  The drama peaked with five days in the high dependency unit of the local hospital, including a twenty-four-hour ‘touch and go’ period when, disconcertingly, none of the doctors would look the Ballards in the eye.

  Anna, linked by all manner of tubes to bleeping machines, looked unbearably frail as the little screen kept ringing its alarm bell to confirm that her oxygen saturation levels were very poor. The doctors explained each new strategy, including a drug that could make her heart rate race temporarily but would apparently help her lungs.

  One step at a time, the consultant said. We fix the lungs, then we sort the heart rate.

  Henry is sitting in the lounge now, watching the news as he remembers so vividly sitting in the hospital alongside Anna’s bed, racked with guilt as he watched the figures on those monitors. Feeling helpless. Feeling sorry. Sometimes praying to God but then remembering that he wasn’t really a believer. Had nowhere to turn. No longer confident in the resilience of children. No longer laid-back. Carefree.

  And now no longer the same man at all after his daughter, his beautiful Anna, sat beside him in the car that day he drove her to the railway station to catch the train to London. You disgust me, Dad.

  Cathy appears at the door, with a large tray sporting their bright red teapot, a jug of milk and mugs. And then, just as she places it on the coffee table in the middle of the room, someone changes the c
hannel again and there is an icicle through Henry’s heart.

  The picture at the window. A man – presumably Karl – with the gun to the head of his hostage.

  Henry hears a strange sound escape from his own mouth, followed immediately by a much louder, horrific wail from his wife. A sound like that of a wounded animal, followed by fast and almost incoherent babbling.

  ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. My poor baby. Henry. Henry – look. Oh no, oh no, oh no . . . We need to do something. Oh my God, tell me what we should do.’

  She is standing. Then sitting. Then rocking. Then crying. And then standing again and pacing as she talks . . .

  ‘We need to go there. I need to be there. Henry. Oh my God, I can’t be here. I can’t be in this room.’

  The presenter is saying that the photograph, as yet unverified, is being circulated by a European news agency; that the man has now been clearly identified as Karl Preston but there is yet to be official confirmation that his hostage is Anna Ballard.

  ‘They shouldn’t be showing this.’ Cathy is taking out her phone and strides towards the hall while Henry moves forward to try to console his wife.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Barbara.’

  ‘How can you say that? How can you say that? We need to go, Henry. We need to go to Spain. We can’t be here. I can’t be here.’

  By this time, Tim is trying to soothe Jenny, who is also crying. Henry catches Tim’s eye – the young man also in a state of apparent shock.

  ‘We can’t just go to Spain, love. Not yet. We need to be in touch with what’s happening.’ Henry glances about him. He is thinking that if they are on a plane, they won’t be able to follow the news. He looks finally towards the door, realising that he needs the opinion of the family liaison officer, but she is on the phone still in the hallway.

  ‘I could take Jenny to Spain if you like. Wait for you there?’ Tim is leaning forward, staring into Henry’s face. ‘Would that help? To at least have someone from the family there?’

  Henry runs one hand through his hair, his other arm around his wife’s shoulders as she is sitting back down in the chair now, her head in her hands.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Let’s see what Cathy thinks. This is all happening so fast. I don’t know what they will advise. No, no. I don’t think I like the idea of Jenny not being with us.’

  And then Cathy is standing in the doorway, her face pale. Henry realises there must be more news, but her expression is not good and for a moment he is too afraid to ask what exactly the new information might be.

  WATCHING . . .

  Friday

  Now everyone is looking at her and I do not like it.

  I do not like it at all.

  It is my job. Supposed to be me. Because I really understand, you see. I am the only one who knows how to watch over her properly. To keep her safe. To understand her. The only one who sees who she really is. How very, very special she is.

  When I see other people watching her, looking at her, smiling at her, I get this noise in my head. It is like a clicking at first. Quiet clicking. And then it gets louder and louder until it sounds like thunder all around my brain. And then it thunders around the room and the sky and right out into space.

  It’s doing that right now. Getting louder and I don’t know what to do.

  I just need space to think. I need the noise in my head to stop and I need all of these people to . . . stop looking at her.

  CHAPTER 37

  THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  Matthew feels a yawn break as he reaches for the wiper switch. Mild drizzle – the most annoying kind, especially as he keeps forgetting to change the wiper blades. The soft spray of mist is just too much for the intermittent setting, but not wet enough for the full setting. He tries the washer spray. Empty. Hears his own sigh at the squeak of protest from the screen as he switches between the two wiper speed options. Too dry. Too wet. Too dry . . .

  The radio news presenter is on the sport. Matthew checks his watch. There will be a summary of the headlines soon. Good. Bound to include the latest from Spain. Melanie has said he can phone again in case she gets an update from the family liaison officer. She is still fuming over being officially reported by the DI, which is why she is going so off-piste now. Also, she trusts Matthew; she knows he won’t let her down.

  He thinks of Anna, takes a long slow breath. He has a bad feeling.

  He looks at the clouds. Drifting fast in the strong wind. And now he feels the paradox of a smile emerging on his face as he thinks next of his daughter in her silly pink hat in the hospital cot. Her temperature is apparently down a bit – nothing to worry about, the nurses say. Just a good idea to pop her under a lamp until she learns to regulate her body temperature a little better. As he left, Sally was settling down for a doze and little Amelie was snuggled up in her crazy pink headgear to keep her cosy under her lamp. Very sweet. Very funny.

  Amelie. Amelie. Amelie.

  Mine, he thinks. Both mine . . . It still feels so surreal. A family.

  But – wait. The jingle for the headlines. Matthew turns up the volume so he can hear better over the annoying grind of the wipers. The presenter summarises what he already knows – come on, come on, we know all this – and at last links to a reporter on the scene who is interviewing a police spokesman. Some controversy over new pictures circulating on social media. The spokesman, with a strong Spanish accent, is saying that this is very unhelpful. That the police team are building a rapport with the hostage-taker and this is damaging. Dangerous. Irresponsible. The reporter is saying that it must surely be impossible these days to control things, what with social media. Next, the spokesman is agitated. Says he has to end the interview to take a phone call but is urging people to please be sensible. Not to share these pictures. Please.

  The news moves on to another story. Matthew checks his watch again and looks at the bag of washing on the passenger seat. He has agreed to pop in to see Ella and meet her husband, but he does not want to stay long; he needs to get home and get these chores done for Sally. Amazing how many babygros and bibs and bits and bobs a tiny baby can work through in twenty-four hours. There is also a list of things his wife needs. Lip salve. Tissues. Some kind of body lotion – he’s forgotten the name already and is glad she wrote it down.

  Matthew tries a few different radio channels. What pictures? What the hell is going on in Spain now? He finds himself imagining the team briefings behind the scenes. He feels the familiar pull. The sense of loss. Regret. Remembers sitting alone in his new office soon after leaving the force, so desperately missing the sense of being part of something. Something really important.

  So how are you adjusting? Sally asked him back then, night after night. He always lied. Fine. I’m fine.

  Matthew left the force because he messed up. He was responsible for the death of a boy of just twelve. His boss begged him to stay, to take time out to reconsider and to go through some counselling. There was an inquest and there was an independent police inquiry. Both exonerated him of all blame but that made no difference to Matthew. He was the one who had to look the mother in the eye at the inquest. He was the one who woke at night sweating.

  It had been a Thursday. Raining that night, too. He was called out by a small, independent supermarket sick of shoplifters. A boy had snatched some cigarettes while the manager was serving another customer and then bolted. Matthew happened across the child running down an alleyway not far from the shop. He gave chase.

  Oi! You! Stop now . . .

  Even as he ran, Matthew was planning to let the child off with a warning. He had done this several times. The lad was fast but short. Just a kid. But Matthew never got the chance to be lenient. The boy panicked and bolted over a fence and down a bank to the railway line.

  Matthew shouted for him to stop but the boy ran across. It was a live line.

  It was a terrible sight. A terrible smell.

  Matthew was badly burned while pulling the child from the live rail.
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  I should never have chased him, he told Sally. If I hadn’t made him panic, he would be alive. Two packets of cigarettes, Sally. Two sodding packets of cigarettes.

  You were just doing your job. His wife stroked his hair. He always remembers how tenderly she stroked his hair as he talked and talked – all night.

  And so Matthew turned his back on his job. Turned his back on supermarkets who wanted him to chase shoplifters, no matter their age. No matter their motive.

  He decided to set up his own business, imagining that it would be better to pick and choose who he helped.

  The only problem, as Mel so frequently reminds him, is that he is bored. Cut off from the really important cases. Not many people come to a private investigator with important cases. Too often it is missing people, who disappear because they do not want to be found. And wives worried about their husbands playing away.

  Matthew fumbles in the glovebox and finds a forgotten chocolate bar. Good. Sugar. He is now remembering the negotiators’ course. Being so surprised by the statistics. That the majority of hostage situations are actually resolved without injury. Of course, that was before suicide attacks. Before the new wave of very different crimes.

  The team in Spain will hopefully be doing it by the book – old-school, just as Sally guessed. They would be praising Karl for keeping things calm. Keeping Anna safe. Well done. You are doing great. This won’t be forgotten. That you are keeping everyone safe.

  Matthew closes his eyes and wishes it were him. In the police van. On the phone. In charge.

  Never use the word ‘surrender’, they were taught. ‘Coming out’ was the preferred phrase. Let’s talk about how you can come out safely, Karl. How we can help you out of there safely.

  During one of the seminars, Matthew asked how they were supposed to respond to demands. Didn’t hostage-takers always make bonkers demands? A getaway car? A helicopter? And money. What was the official police response to ransom demands?