The Watchers

by Jon Steele

  ‘Of course, a long dark hall.’

  He reached for the light switch but stopped. He dug through his mackintosh, pulled out his own keys with the mini-torch on the end.

  ‘Let there be light.’

  He twisted it on, pointed it into the dark.

  Antique side table to the right. Mom and Dad photos, photos with a woman and three kids. Woman in the photo looked like Blondie a bit, sister maybe. Another shot, Blondie in a sculptor’s studio, half naked and a glass of wine in her hand. Attractive woman in I’m-a-serious-fucking-artist overalls next to her. Stephan’s girlfriend maybe. Next picture confirmed it. Hippie artist bird with the out-of-uniform polite bartender lounging on a divan. Miss Taylor fitting nicely between them. The three of them looking stoned and very friendly.

  Harper walked on, his mini-torch leading the way.

  Guest room to the left. Big windows with balconies overlooking the lake and mountains. The room was empty but for some unpacked cardboard boxes. Further down the hall, an arch opened to a kitchen. High-tech aluminium chair kicked back from a lucite table, rest of the chairs tucked neatly underneath. Harper stepped in. Stainless-steel everything. Appliances, pots and pans, double-barrelled sink. Sink held one wine glass with a trace of red, one plate with a few breadcrumbs, one coffee cup, one teaspoon. He looked in the trash can. Two empty yogurt containers, that’s it.

  Swinging doors led to a dining room. Glass shelves with antiques, the expensive kind. Antique oak table and chairs, a never-been-used feel. Dining room opened on to a large sitting room. Harper worked his way back through the kitchen and down the hall. A guest bath to the right. Baskets full of soaps and shampoos from the Lausanne Palace Hotel, a few towels bearing the hotel’s monogram. Further down the hall a wide arch opened into a crescent-shaped sitting room. Curving floor-to-ceiling windows opened on to a garden terrace and a million-euro view of the lights of Lausanne and the mountains across the dark lake, sitting like snow-capped silhouettes against the starry sky.

  He stepped in, scanned the dark with the torch.

  Plush Italian leather sofas and chairs, Oriental carpets on the floor, huge LCD screen on the wall with a flash stereo kit to match. There was a pedestal with a sculpture of a woman’s form in bronze, Blondie’s form most probably. He panned the torch, saw a shattered table lamp on the floor, chunks of a crystal ashtray near the wall. He raised the torch to a nasty dent in the plaster wall.

  Nearby, an antique backgammon table turned on its side. Black and white discs scattered over the floor, the dice had come up double six. Something black under the table. Harper kicked it into the open. Taser gun, both probes fired. Patch of clear oil on the floor. He touched it, rolled it in his fingertips, no scent. Across the room, next to a glass coffee table, a large furry lump on the floor.

  ‘If you’re the watchdog, you’re doing a crap job of it.’

  He walked closer. Fido was a mink coat. He held the collar close to his face, he could smell her scent. He checked the pockets, something pricked his finger. He pulled his hand from the pocket, saw a small shard of glass in one fingertip. He shook the coat, fine pieces of glass fell to the floor. Wasn’t crystal, it was window glass. Harper panned the torch across the windows in the sitting room. Nothing broken in this place. He laid the coat back on the floor, shone the torch around the rest of the room.

  Glass coffee table splattered with lipsticks and bits of make-up, a packet of condoms and a Cohiba cigar tube. He unscrewed the tube. It was stuffed with high-grade dope. He saw her handbag on the floor. He knocked it over with the tip of his shoe and her gold cigarette case tumbled on to the floor. The embedded diamond sparkled in the light of the torch.

  ‘Found it, now what?’

  He picked up the case, slipped it in his mackintosh. He checked the handbag again. No wallet, no mobile, no keys. Rest of the sitting room looked undisturbed. Harper went back to the hall.

  Closets along the walls, he checked them one by one.

  The woman had lots of designer clothes, many with the sales tag still on them. There were a shitload of shoes, as well as a complete set of Louis Vuitton luggage in descending sizes. No pieces missing. Open door at the end of the hall, bright light within. He stepped slowly to the door. Her scent grew stronger. He leaned around the corner. Master bedroom, overhead light switched on and the light reflecting off the sliding glass doors to the garden terrace, making the bedroom appear twice as big as it was. He switched off his torch and stepped into the room.

  Mirrored closets along one wall, one of the closet doors left open. Dresses tossed about the floor and bed. Harper walked across the room to the en suite bathroom. Oak armoire, art deco sinks and fixtures, antique bath the size of a small car. More stolen soaps and towels from the Lausanne Palace. Nothing looking used for days.

  He turned back to the bedroom.

  Except for the scattered dresses on the bed and floor, nothing seemed out of place. He walked to the bay window, checked the antique dressing table. Hairbrush, combs, perfumes. He opened the drawers. Make-up, assorted creams, LP’s bar ashtray with a half-smoked joint.

  Harper closed the drawer and walked to the bed. Like a normal bed. No mirrors on the ceiling. No hooks for the whips and chains. Not a handcuff in sight.

  He pulled open the bedside table drawers.

  Hand creams, another LP’s ashtray with a fat joint on standby, operations manual and charger for an X26 taser gun. He dug for his own smokes and lit up, half tempted to huff one of Mademoiselle’s spliffs. Might clear up one or two things. He walked in circles, following his thoughts.

  She had cash, lots of it. She was a pothead but no sign of hard drug use, though she was addicted to all things designer. She liked to steal towels and ashtrays from the Palace Hotel. She never had dinner guests, not to mention stay-over clients. Never used the flat for business. It’s where the kid lived.

  Right.

  She comes home. Comes home, hell. Her voice on the answering machine, terrified. She came here from somewhere else, somewhere she was escaping from. Somewhere she had to break a window to get away from maybe. Gets home, calls Madame Badeaux for help. Someone’s waiting for her or comes in after she arrives. Argy-bargy in the sitting room. Someone gets zapped with the taser gun. She runs away, leaves everything.

  No, too easy, no one gets away from these killers.

  They let her go. Why?

  Because they want someone or something else. Blondie with the stars in her eyes was a sideline … maybe.

  He walked to the dressing table again and touched her brush, her combs, the long strands of blond hair. He picked up a bottle of perfume and smelled the cap, remembering her at Place de Saint-François. Drinking vin chaud, giggling, thinking Lausanne was like living in a fairy-tale. Then the ‘but why’ hit him. Because the fairytale was a trap she’d been lured into, just like him. And just like him, she had nowhere to run.

  ‘So where the hell is she?’

  Harper saw himself in the mirror, her perfume bottle in his hands. Sad sod that you are, he thought. Sniffing her mink, sniffing her perfume. What’s next, boyo, her knickers in the cupboard?

  Ten bells rang out over Lausanne.

  Harper’s eyes refocused in the mirror. He saw the reflection of the bright room in the windows at his back. Beyond the glass he saw something moving in the night.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  He set the perfume bottle on the dressing table, reached over and hit the light switch. The room went black. He slid open the glass doors and stepped on to the terrace. Across Pont Bessières, above the old city, Lausanne Cathedral stood in a blaze of light as if hiding in plain sight. Only thing giving it away was the spark of light rounding the belfry tower.

  ‘Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of Saint Clement’s.’

  Rochat shuffled quietly into the loge. He set the burning lantern on the table and hung his overcoat and hat behind the door. He made a cup of tea and sat at the table. He picked up a pencil and went back to the drawings in hi
s l’ange de lausanne sketchbook. He brushed away leaded dust and smoothed the lines of his drawing of the angel as she lay wrapped in the duvet and sleeping.

  He had filled one page with detailed studies of her hands. Her fingers were long and pretty, almost touching someone or waiting for someone to touch her. Another page was filled with her shoulders and neck peeking from the duvet, the smooth curves emerging and swelling and then sinking down to a swanlike neck. Two more pages were filled with drawings of her face. The bandage was hidden from Rochat’s eyes and, as he drew her, she looked the way he first imagined her in the windows above Rue Caroline. The perfect shape of her nose and gentle lines of her chin, her long blond hair falling down over her sleeping eyes.

  He looked up from the drawings.

  He saw her on the bed, thinking he’d never before seen someone sleep so deeply, so soundly. Even Monsieur Booty, curled up next to her, would stretch and open an eye now and then. But the angel didn’t move, she didn’t stir.

  ‘Because that’s how angels sleep, Rochat. Yes, I’m very sure that’s how angels sleep.’

  Earlier in the night between nine and ten o’clock bells, Rochat had been drawing in his piratz book because he imagined he could include the angel in the story. He imagined the angel was captured by Screechy the Evil Wizard and that Screechy took her to his ice castle in the land of Saskatoon and she was under his sleeping spell. And the silly pirates flew over the Boiling Seas of Doom on the back of Pompidou the Giant Caterpillar, holding on to their paper hats and waving their wood swords, to capture her back. And they wanted the future-teller diamond back, too. ‘Give her back,’ yelled the pirates. ‘She’s our angel! And the future-teller diamond, too!’ And Screechy stuck his head out from the tower and yelled, ‘No, you can never have her, she’s mine now, so ha, ha on you! And let me tell you something else, you dumb pirates, I’m looking at the future-teller right now, and let me tell you, your future doesn’t look so good, so there!’ And so the pirates decided to come up with a cunning plan to rescue the angel. But Rochat hadn’t been able to think of a plan of any sort. That’s when he decided he’d draw the angel as she slept instead.

  The small window above the table was open slightly. Rochat heard three double-tinks drift up from the tinny bells of the Hôtel de Ville. Monsieur Booty heard them too, he opened his eyes and took a long stretch. Rochat put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Shhh. Don’t disturb her. She’s very tired and needs to sleep.’

  The beast jumped from the bed to the floor and hopped up to the table for a look at the drawings.

  ‘What do you think, you miserable beast?’

  Mew.

  ‘Me, too.’

  The beast stepped over Rochat’s arms, on to his lap and curled into a ball.

  ‘Well now, I was beginning to think you didn’t like me any more.’

  He scratched the beast behind the ears, the beast purred.

  ‘I know, it’s nice to have her visiting, but I’m very sure she’ll be leaving soon. She wants to be here for la grande sonnerie times on Saturday, then she’ll go home. That’s what she said.’

  Monsieur Booty looked up with half-open eyes.

  Mew.

  ‘Because that’s what angels do, you dumb beast, they come and they go. They’re only made of light, after all.’

  The timbers creaked and groaned and Marie rang for midnight. But even with the great bell’s longest and loudest shout of the night, the angel didn’t stir. Rochat set Monsieur Booty on the table with the sketchbook.

  ‘I’m sorry, your royal fatness, but I have to go to work. And when I come back I’ll make tea for me and a bowl of milk for you.’

  Mew.

  ‘Pas de panique, I’ll warm it up for you.’

  Rochat put on his overcoat and hat. He picked up the lantern and went quietly out of the door. He shuffled around the tower, calling the midnight hour. When he finished, he hooked the lantern to the railings and climbed through the timbers. He gave Marie a soft tap on the edge of her skirt.

  ‘All is well, madame. No something evil returning to Lausanne tonight. I’m going to switch off the lights on the esplanade now, so don’t be frightened. What?’

  Rochat pressed his ear to the bronze, listening to her deepest tones.

  ‘Why would you ask such a silly thing? Rochat will always be with you, Marie. Have a nice snooze.’

  He unlocked the winch shed and pulled the steel handle with the big hand-written sign ‘LIGHTS OFF!’ and an arrow pointing to it. The floodlamps on the esplanade switched off and the belfry fell into darkness. He locked the shed and checked on the snowman. Looking a little crusty at the edges but still standing. Rochat retied the scarf around its neck.

  ‘I’m very sorry about your hat, Monsieur Neige, but the angel’s using it. You can have it back after she goes home.’

  He jumped on to the south balcony and shuffled towards the loge.

  A tiny flame sparked on the esplanade.

  Rochat’s eyes followed a thin trail of smoke into the dark of the chestnut trees. A lone streetlamp at the top of Escaliers du marché cast a long shadow from under the chestnut trees and out over the cobblestones. Rochat hid behind a stone pillar. He didn’t breathe, he didn’t look down. He heard footsteps on the esplanade and a voice climbing the stones of the tower to find him.

  ‘I can see the lantern on the railings, so I know you can hear me. I know she’s up there. Her name’s Katherine Taylor. She lives on Rue Caroline.’

  Rochat didn’t move.

  The voice from the esplanade climbed the tower walls again.

  ‘My name’s Harper, I’m her friend.’

  Rochat leaned from behind the pillar and saw someone in the shadows, puffing on a cigarette.

  ‘Her friend?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are you lost too?’

  ‘I don’t think so. This is Lausanne Cathedral, isn’t it? Look, why not come down and talk before we wake up the skeletons.’

  Rochat shuffled to Marie, tapped her three quick times.

  ‘Marie, there’s someone by the fountain and he knows the angel’s here and he says he’s her friend and he knows about the bones in the crypt too. What do I do?’

  He pressed his ear to her skirt and listened.

  ‘Oui, merci.’

  He shuffled to the railings, held his lantern into the night.

  ‘How do I know you’re not one of the bad shadows playing a mean trick to hurt her?’

  It was quiet for a long time before the voice climbed the tower again.

  ‘No, mate, I’m not a bad shadow. I’m her friend. That makes me one of the good guys, doesn’t it?’

  twenty-seven

  Harper waited by the fountain and watched the lantern move along the railings of the belfry and disappear in the southwest turret. The archers’ windows cut in the tower walls dilated with light as the lantern circled down. Long minutes later he heard the rattle of keys from behind a skinny red door, half hidden behind a ton of collapsed scaffolding and mountains of shovelled-aside snow. The door scraped open and a small form wrapped in a long black overcoat and black floppy hat emerged, the lantern in his hand swinging low near a crooked foot. The closer the lantern came, the more Harper recognized the foot.

  ‘I’ve seen you before. You were feeding popcorn to the ducks at Port d’Ouchy, Sunday last.’

  ‘And you were going to Évian on the ferry. I told you it was through the trees and past the weather-teller. You said I had feathers in my hair.’

  ‘I’m afraid you did.’

  Rochat raised his lantern close to Harper’s face, close enough to see the lines at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘You’re a detectiveman, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I saw you on Pont Bessières. I imagined you were a detectiveman trying to solve a mysterious mystery in Lausanne. But you were looking the wrong way.’

  Harper could tell the lad was dead serious.

  ‘W
hich way should I have been looking?’

  ‘The other way, monsieur.’

  ‘The other way. I’ll keep that in mind. Listen, that lantern of yours is rather bright. Would you mind?’

  Rochat lowered the lantern.

  ‘Pardonnez-moi, monsieur.’

  ‘Miss Taylor, is she all right?’

  ‘They cut her face with a knife but it isn’t deep. I cleaned it with medicine and made bandages for her but she puts the bandages on herself. She’s very tired.’

  ‘Did she tell you what happened?’

  ‘She didn’t have to tell me, I can see her flat from the belfry. I saw two men come into her flat, they came from the bad shadows. She was on her cellphone and they cut her. She shot one of the men and then ran away but she didn’t kill him. I saw it through binoculars.’

  Harper glanced towards Rue Caroline.

  ‘Her flat’s the other side of Pont Bessières, more than a kilometre away.’

  ‘They’re very good binoculars, monsieur, they’re Zeiss. Swiss farmers use them to watch cows in the mountains.’

  Harper stared at Rochat, gave himself a moment to sort out the lad’s story.

  Men from bad shadows. Had to mean coming out of the dark hall into Miss Taylor’s sitting room. On her mobile. Fits with the message left on Madame Badeaux’s answering machine. Shot one but didn’t kill him. Explains the spent taser gun on the floor. The lad may have a vivid imagination but he made sense in his own peculiar way, Harper thought.

  ‘Sorry, mate, I didn’t ask your name.’

  ‘Marc Rochat.’

  ‘My name’s Harper, Jay Harper.’

  ‘Enchanté, monsieur.’

  Harper held his fingers in the cold water running from the iron spout of the fountain.

  ‘Can I drink from this?’

  ‘You can drink from all the fountains in Lausanne, that’s why they’re here. But on December twentyones they turn them off till spring.’

  ‘Twenty … ones, right.’