I Am Watching You(80)

I’m on my third coffee, working more slowly than usual. Seems to be the way these days. I daydream a lot, cannot help it, my thoughts often drifting to places I would rather they did not.

And now I pause, staring at the new secateurs in my hand. They still feel strange. Still unsure if the police will ever return my own. Evidence. Don’t want them back, actually. What I want back is the old version of our lives.

Before . . .

I check the clock. Just one more hour until closing. A sigh. I must press on, get this done and into the cooler. We don’t tend to get much trade at the end of the day, especially in the rain. Funny that the weather so affects what people buy.

And now I hear a rustle outside the door. The surprise of a late customer. The tinkle of a bell and the shaking of an umbrella. I stand and move through to the counter to catch her eye . . .

A shock. One of so very many.

For a time we just stand, eyes locked, and I do not know what to do. I can feel tears welling – the shock, I suppose, but it feels unhelpful. I wonder why she is here. Am nervous that she is here.

I am looking at her and I can hear my heart racing. I am remembering Matthew’s voice on the phone.

They found Anna’s body in a freezer. At Tim’s secret flat – the flat that, according to the terms of his father’s will, he was supposed to let, to help fund himself through university, but which, instead, he used as a secret bolthole. The flat where they found his diaries full of photographs and mad and shocking rants. Watching and photographing Anna since she was very young. Hating her to talk to anyone else. Keeping a record. Watching. Always watching . . .

Apparently he would sometimes have dinner with the family and pretend to go home, but instead would camp out in an old stone shepherd’s building high on the ridge. Watch them all in the kitchen below. Watch Anna until she went to bed, making notes in his diaries.

‘Ella. I’m sorry to surprise you like this. Do you have a moment?’

What to say?

I look at her, eyes sunken and sad and changed forever, and I wonder if there is anything to say between us. Wonder why she is here.

‘Of course. Come through to the back. I was due to close soon anyway.’ My manners again. Always with the manners.

I move to the door to switch the sign to ‘Closed’ and pause a moment, closing my eyes to the picture. I do not want to think of: DS Melanie Sanders standing on their doorstep, sent to break the news.

She has been given a promotion off the back of the case, but told Matthew she did not want it because she felt it was his work not hers. He talked sense into her, but I do understand. Such a struggle to go forward. She still wants Matthew to go back into the force. But he can’t decide . . .

I move the spare stool through to the workbench at the rear but she opts to stand. Turns down coffee, also.

I wonder if it is my place to ask the questions. Do the small talk. How is she coping? But what’s the point? How does anyone cope with this? I decide to wait. And find that I need to sit even if she does not.

‘I was wondering how Luke is doing?’

Is this really why she came? I don’t think so. But I think of him and I think of Anna and feel guilty that I am so glad mine was the child to live . . .

‘Better, thank you. He is off the crutches. The shoulder is still tricky. He has quite a limp. But with physiotherapy, we hope . . .’

‘Good. I’m glad he’s improving.’

That’s not why she’s here. Why is she here?

‘I really am so very sorry about Anna, Mrs Ballard.’

‘Barbara, please. Call me Barbara.’ She has looked away.

My voice is cracking now, and so I pause. Take a breath.

‘I was the one who first brought him into the house, you know. Tim.’ She twitches her mouth to the left. ‘Into the family. Into Jenny and Anna’s little gang. I felt sorry for him. His mother never took any interest. Always off with her men. Did you know she had a fling with my husband? I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Matthew told me everything. Tim’s diaries. He set up a camera in his mother’s room. To blackmail her lovers. Made some cash, then caught someone he did not expect . . .

Again we lock eyes, and I see her lips trembling as she nods. A jerky nod that says, Don’t make me cry. Don’t say her name again, please . . .

‘So, turns out it was my fault in the end. Tim. I felt sorry for him. Always out around the village on his own, even when he was quite little. I thought I was being kind. Feeding him up. Taking him in. But’ – she pauses – ‘turns out it was my fault . . .’

‘You mustn’t think that . . .’

I hear the echo of so many people saying the same to me, and regret the platitude. Guilt, we all learn, has its own rules.

‘He wants to come back, my husband.’ She is looking at the floor. ‘Funny thing is I am actually considering it. I miss him, you see.’

I find that I want to reach out to touch her arm. To offer some comfort. Something. But I don’t.

I am wondering if she will go to the trial. Matthew says the charges are to be murder and attempted murder. Tim is expected to plead diminished responsibility, but Matthew believes the murder charge will stick. Turns out Tim set up the alibi in Scotland with chilling calculation. Picked an outdoor pursuits centre that he knew logged walking parties only as they signed in on day one. He booked in three days ahead of Anna’s trip to London, supposedly for a week, but stayed for just twenty-four hours – enough time to post a couple of pictures on social media, careful to moan about limited Wi-Fi and just enough ‘presence’ to fool the police, who made only a cursory check on his alibi. Later reviews of all the CCTV footage confirm he actually returned to Cornwall to sneak onto the London train among the final passengers, disguised in a hoodie and sunglasses. He then followed Anna and Sarah from the West End theatre to the club.