I Am Watching You(34)

Henry feels a lurch in his stomach as he meets the familiar amber stare. He pets the dog’s head – stay – then heads through to the office, taking the key from his pocket. Henry chooses his oldest shotgun, takes ammunition from the back of the wooden filing cabinet in the corner (not strictly very safe but he has let things slip a little), relocks the steel cabinet and walks back through to the boot room, where Sammy still stands, head tilted, waiting for permission.

‘No. Not today, boy. You stay here.’

The dog looks bemused. Ears back. He stands proud and moves slightly.

‘I said stay – you hear? Back in your bed. Now.’

Their eyes meet again and Sammy slinks back into his bed where he sits all beady-eyed, staring and panting, tongue lolling, as Henry leaves the room.

Outside it is cooler than he expected. Henry looks across to the little lawn opposite the drive, remembering once more the tents and the trampoline. The girls shrieking with laughter from a den in the bushes.

He remembers how Anna loved to be swung around by her legs in the middle of the lawn when she was very small. How sad he felt when she became too tall for it to be safe anymore.

You’re too tall.

Oh, please, Daddy.

You’ll bang your head. I can’t.

He remembers the vigil, which had so surprised him. It was quite touching that so many people came. The candles. The singing. Barbara and Jenny standing with their arms linked together, too upset to join in. Their lips tight, so they would not cry.

He looks back up at the house, the curtains all drawn upstairs still, and moves as quietly as he can on the gravel to the adjacent barn. He uses the small side door, leaving the large double doors for the tractor bolted at both top and bottom. He moves into the far corner to sit in the midst of the spare straw bales from the vigil.

Henry places the gun on the ground and feels his heart rate increase. Is he afraid?

No answer comes back.

Instead, a whole album of images plays out in front of him. A pack of cards shuffled and spread. Barbara and him on their honeymoon. Such different people. The girls when they were tiny babies. Anna with her fair hair; Jenny so dark.

Henry wonders if his subconscious is trawling the sentimental memories so that he can convince himself to bottle out. But – no. Very soon the police will find out he was not sleeping in the car because he was drunk. Very soon they, and Barbara, too, will find out the truth.

And then a new thought.

You idiot, Henry.

They will hear the shot from the house. Damn. They will come and they will find him. And they will see. Maybe Jenny, first. Why on earth did he not think of this before?

Henry takes his phone from his pocket, trying to work out a strategy. He could ring the police. Tell them to come. Yes. He could bolt the doors from the inside also, so the police will deal with it. Will this work? Or should he walk some distance from the house? Maybe up to the ridge?

But then someone else will have to find him. Some other poor innocent.

Only now does Henry truly realise that he has not thought this through at all.

Quickly he feels in his pocket for a scrap of paper. A pen? He finds nothing but some old receipts, a small piece of wire and an empty chewing gum packet.

He closes his eyes and feels the frown as he thinks of Anna’s friend Sarah and her pills. Did she think it through? Mean it? Did she write a note? How will he explain himself if he doesn’t leave a note?

Henry’s heart is now beating so very fast that his chest is actually aching. He sets the gun ready – cocking it first with two hands – and then places it back on the floor, pointing at his neck.

For some reason he is thinking of a television drama in which the make-up artist said they used liver to create the blood and the mess of a brain, to make it look realistic. He imagines that he has already pulled the trigger and wonders what it will be like. Nothingness? Or something else? Henry is not at all religious so he does not know what he expects. But he is surprised to find that he is worried about pain.

Henry moves the shotgun slightly to face the ceiling of the barn, and makes a decision. No paper and no note, so he will have to ring. Yes. He takes the phone in his right hand again to make the call to the police.

He has the number of DS Melanie Sanders programmed into the phone, and decides he will speak to her first. He likes her. She seems straight. Decent. So much nicer than the guy from the Met. He hears it ringing. One ring. Two. Three. He prays she will answer. Five. Six. His heart continues to pound as he closes his eyes tightly, praying it will not be some recorded message.





CHAPTER 21


THE FRIEND

Sarah says nothing in the car on the way home while her mother chatters and chatters. She is to stay off school. Take as long as she needs. Build up her strength.

Her mother says she is glad Sarah has made up with her gang of friends, and that she must look to them for support now. No one is blaming anyone. There is to be no more nonsense. Why don’t they have a pizza night soon? Watch a film?

Sarah is surprised to feel unsteady on her feet as they walk through the front garden. Probably all that time in bed. She looks at the three rose bushes below the sitting room window and notices the large number of blooms. When she was taken from the house in the ambulance she remembers lying on the stretcher and passing the flower bed by the front door. There were no blooms then. Now there are five. No. Six. It feels odd somehow, for this to have changed so quickly.