Under a Watchful Eye(9)

There had been something more threatening about Ewan’s appearance in Plymouth, too. He’d moved from out of the corner of Seb’s eyes and deliberately positioned himself in Seb’s line of sight, at the end of the street, and in the direction Seb walked, as if a meeting was inevitable.

Ewan had then passed away, without Seb being aware of the figure moving its feet. Two separate groups of people had crossed the monument from each side and Ewan had vanished.

Seb had seen more of Ewan that time. Streaks of white in the beard. What had looked like a dark raincoat was zippered to his neck and pulled in tight at his waist, covering the thin torso. Jeans too. Black jeans that were worn too tight for a man of his age, and were too short for the length of his legs. When they were students, Ewan’s jeans were always too short, an inch of sock always visible above his dirty trainers.

Seb had returned to his car, but at once disliked being inside the gloomy parking level where he’d left his Mercedes and was alone. Hurrying to be anywhere but inside the shadows and silence of a multi-storey, he’d tripped up and scuffed a shoe, his jog up a concrete stairwell poorly coordinated. But Ewan was long gone by then.

Hoping that a short voyage on water would place him beyond the range of the visions, or whatever they were, he’d then intended to drive to Dartmouth, to take a boat to Totnes. This was two days later, but Ewan had appeared again, and at the side of a road a few hundred metres from his home.

Seb had been driving in the direction of St Mary’s Bay and had turned into Ranscombe Road, only to then struggle to keep the car straight after seeing Ewan standing alone on the pavement. At full height too, without the shy man’s stoop that had also been strangely absent during his previous appearances. At that point, Seb still refused to call them manifestations, but this would change.

What he’d seen of Ewan’s face from the moving vehicle, and within the passing of a second, suggested an unappealing pallor embellished with a grimace. There was no smile. Just the bloodless features staring at him, with loathing.

A great discomfort, fuelled by fear and sharpened by shock, had impacted his senses and he’d veered towards the side of the road, at a parked vehicle. Forced to brake, a horn had then blared from behind. A tradesman’s van had passed his car with a roar of acceleration.

Classic FM, on the radio, returned to the car’s interior.

When Seb had looked up, Ewan had gone.

Seb had returned to the house, no more than half a mile away, and to a place that Ewan must have been telling Seb was now within his reach.

That same afternoon, Seb had intensified his frantic online search for any information on Ewan Alexander. As with the other investigations, he’d found no trace of his old roommate. But, as he’d worked with the door to his office open, three bath-sheets drying on the balcony had moved at the edge of his vision. He’d swivelled his chair towards them, struck by a conviction that the towels had raised their corners, like hands, to beckon him.

Solely the work of his imagination, transforming the raw material of the inexplicable into the animation of ordinary objects. But he’d rushed to the balcony . . . only to hesitate when the sun umbrella under the pergola next door became a tall figure, bowing a concealed head.

Another illusion. But his blinds had come down in every window of the house that afternoon, and had not been drawn until Becky arrived on Saturday.

Too nervous to feel shame at his desultory attempt at sex, Seb had continued to top up their glasses. Having lived alone for twenty years, he’d vowed never to uncap a bottle before four p.m. Any self-imposed abstinence was long dead by that weekend. Becky had showered in silence and then dressed-down.

They had gone out for an early dinner in Brixham harbour, saying little to each other during the walk down the hill. Nodding now and again to acknowledge Becky’s stilted observations about the loveliness of the quay, his focus had remained on the faces around them. Becky’s disappointment in him was palpable but the least of Seb’s worries, considering who might appear within the evening crowd at any time.

Guiltily, he’d also acknowledged that her corroboration was a motive for inviting her to stay. He’d wanted Ewan to appear so that Becky would see him. If she couldn’t see him, then only God knew what was wrong with his mind. Of course, if she did see him and Ewan was really there, it wasn’t great news either, but at least it would mean he wasn’t going mad.

In the restaurant, Seb had pushed his lobster round the plate, while anxiously sipping several pints of Bays Gold. At some point between the first course and dessert, Becky’s patience had reached fumes.

‘I’m not going to ask you again, but something is wrong, Seb. You’re different. Are you upset with me?’

‘God, no.’

Her concern turned to irritation. ‘You’ve got something to tell me. Are you breaking up with me? Couldn’t you have done it on the bloody phone? I’d have thought an email would have been your chosen medium.’

‘No, no, no. Please. Don’t think that.’

‘Then what is it?’ She’d reached out and touched his hand, one that had barely released a glass since the mutually unsatisfactory tumble in bed that afternoon. And that’s when his confession had begun to seep out.

‘I’m worried about . . . something. My health. Mental health.’

‘What is it? Has it come back? The depression?’