The Watcher (30 page)

‘Sadly, yes,’ replied Fielder. He told her briefly about the murder of Carla Roberts, although for now he did not mention that they might be dealing with a serial killer. Ellen Curran was horrified. She had not known anything about it.

‘That’s awful! Oh my lord! Do you know who did it?’

‘We’re still in the dark,’ Fielder had to admit. ‘The investigation hasn’t been helped by the fact that Carla Roberts lived in such isolation. It’s been hard to find out much about her life, let alone discover possible enemies. Luckily her daughter found your letter in her mother’s letter box when she went there to clean out the flat. Your group is one of the few leads we have.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Ellen. ‘Who on earth would have wanted to kill Carla of all people?’

‘Carla of all people?
Was she so popular? Why is it so surprising?’

‘She wasn’t particularly popular, but nor was she unpopular. She was almost invisible sometimes. A wallflower. Quiet, modest, reserved. But always ready to help people out. No, I can’t imagine that anyone held a grudge against her.’

‘How many women were there in your group?’ asked Fielder.

‘Five. Six, including me.’

‘You started the group?’

‘My husband left me three years ago. The classic story. He found someone younger. For a year I thought that it would kill me. Then I decided to get a grip. I found a job and started this circle for women who had experienced something similar. Sometimes it helps to talk to other people who know just what you’re feeling.’

‘I can understand that. So you started the group two years ago? And you moved away nine months ago. That means the group ran for a year and a quarter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was Carla Roberts there right from the start?’

‘No. At the start there were only four of us. Carla started coming after about six months. A little later the sixth woman joined us.’

‘How did Carla find you?’

‘Not the usual way. I had an Internet page. That’s how the others got in touch.’

‘But Mrs Roberts . . . ?’

‘Carla didn’t have a computer. Somehow she’d missed that development. But a year and a half ago, a magazine ran a feature on us.’

‘Which magazine?’

‘
Woman and Home
. You probably don’t know it, Inspector, it’s—’

‘My wife sometimes reads it,’ said Fielder. ‘I know the one you mean.’ A classic women’s magazine. Fashion, beauty, diet advice, celebs.

‘Right. So Carla read the article,’ said Ellen. ‘She got in touch and that’s how we met.’

‘Did you get a lot of approaches after the article? Maybe threatening letters from men who saw divorcees as gold-diggers or parasites?’

‘No. We were sent some letters, but almost all were from women. Positive reactions.’

‘Was there a forum on your home page?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t get aggressive posts there either?’

‘No. But there were very few comments generally. We were just a small group.’

‘Were the names or addresses of the five women who had joined you given on the home page?’

‘No. I’d never have done that. No one could find out who we were.’

‘Is the page still online?’

‘No. I met someone and moved to Hastings to be with him. There’s no reason now to have the website.’

‘Why did the group break up after you left?’

‘That was a pity,’ said Ellen. ‘It’s like that sometimes, isn’t it? You don’t always realise at the time, but it seems that most groups have someone at the centre of things. In this case it was me. After I left, the others couldn’t agree on things, like the dates on which to meet. Often there would be just two of them who turned up . . . so it fell apart. One of the women wrote to me in September to say that she had lost touch with all of them. I found that a real pity.’

‘How often had you been meeting?’

‘Every Thursday. At my place.’

‘This new year did you write to all of them, or just to Carla Roberts?’

‘Just Carla.’

‘Why? Her daughter says you sounded worried in your letter. Why were you worried about Carla?’

‘I hadn’t heard from her in a long time,’ said Ellen. ‘After my move I received the odd email from the others, although very rarely now. Carla hadn’t been in touch at all. Neither with a letter or a card. I thought: it can’t hurt to ask how she’s doing.’

‘Mrs Curran,’ said Fielder. ‘Carla Roberts was killed in such a way that we can assume the murderer felt a strong hatred. It wasn’t a burglary. It wasn’t primarily a sex offence either. The culprit must have been bottling up an enormous amount of aggression. We don’t know if the aggression was aimed at women in general or Carla in particular. So I’d ask you to please think very carefully whether Carla ever mentioned in your meetings anything from her life that could have a bearing on this case. Perhaps some event, some person, anything that might explain such hatred.’

Ellen Curran did not say anything for a long while. She appeared to be thinking hard.

Finally she said, ‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I really can’t think of anything. Carla never spoke much. If she ever said anything, then it was about her husband. He had cheated on her for years, and in addition ruined the family, and then disappeared.
She
would have had reason to hate
him
, not the other way round!’

‘I’ll need a list of your group’s members,’ said Fielder. ‘Could you give me that? Names and addresses if possible?’

‘I’ve got a list somewhere. I could email it.’

‘I’d be very grateful.’ Fielder gave her his email address. Then he added, ‘Was there anyone in the group who was friends with Carla? In spite of this extreme shyness she seemed to possess? Someone who she was close to? Who she trusted?’

Ellen thought. ‘I wouldn’t say friends, but it seemed to me that she was a little closer to one of us. Liza Stanford. The two of them often sat next to one another. Sometimes they whispered to each other. But whether or not they got together outside of our meetings, that I don’t know.’ She paused.

‘Liza was our exception,’ she went on. ‘That’s what we always said. You see, she wasn’t divorced or widowed or alone for any other reason. At the start, I didn’t want to allow her to join. She was married. But she was unhappily married. Neglected. She often thought it might be better to start again. She wasn’t brave or decisive, and she hoped that we could help her. In the end, I decided that she did belong in our group somehow. That’s why I let her take part. By the way, she was the last one to join us and the one who was absent most often. That annoyed me.’

‘Did she leave her husband?’

‘Not while I was still there, no. Whether she has since, I don’t know.’

‘Did she ever talk about her marriage problems?’

‘She was very vague about them. No, she didn’t really say. I had the impression that she was well off, didn’t know what to do with her life and so got depressed. And of course her husband was to blame because he didn’t pay her enough attention. But if you ask me, something wasn’t right about that woman. I sometimes thought: poor husband! I wouldn’t want to be married to her.’

‘What wasn’t right?’

‘I don’t know. It was just an impression she gave. She seemed so utterly neurotic. Someone who wanted help but couldn’t accept it. Maybe I’m being unfair. I’ve little patience for these rich, bored wives who nurture their problems so that they have something to keep them busy.’

Fielder made a few notes. Then he fired off one last, hopeless question. It would be nice if . . .

‘Do the names Anne Westley and Gillian Ward mean anything to you?’

‘No,’ said Ellen Curran.

The caravan was barely five yards long and three yards wide. Samson had to admit that its gas heaters made it nice and cosy. It was rather sparsely furnished, but it was definitely possible to live here for a while, if you lowered your expectations. It contained a sofa that folded out to become a bed, a table, two chairs, and a kind of cooking corner with a gas cooker and a sink with a tap linked up to a tank. There was a cupboard on the wall in which he found plastic crockery and some foodstuffs: instant coffee, tea, milk powder, a few packets of spaghetti and jars of tomato sauce. A shower and a toilet were squeezed into a tiny corner. Samson hated how cramped it all was. Just like he hated cleaning out the toilet, filling the tank, eating spaghetti every day, being stuck in this tiny space.

But he had no choice and he knew that he should thank his lucky stars. A police cell would be worse.

John Burton had brought him here. Samson hated him really too, but he had to be grateful. He was the only person who had taken care of him – who might even be convinced of his innocence. Although Burton had never said as much. Samson had asked him repeatedly about it, and he had just answered, ‘Until something is proven, I’m not going to believe anything.’

Samson realised that he could not hope for more at the moment.

The flu was going round John’s company and he was having problems keeping all sites manned. The caravan, which was a base for watching a construction site, was currently empty.

‘You can stay here,’ John had said. ‘As long as it’s this cold and snowing so much, nothing will happen over there. No one will come round. In any case, it’s a lot safer than that bed and breakfast in Southend.’

Samson had been relieved to say goodbye to the wretched dive. It had been starting to get to him, but now he had been here for three days and had the feeling that he had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The shabby hotel room had been desolate, but at least you could see the hustle and bustle of life on the street below the window. You did not have the feeling of being completely excluded from the normal world, which was what you felt here. A construction site somewhere in the south of London, where tower blocks were to be built, far from anything else. There was not even the most basic infrastructure. When Samson drew the caravan window’s grubby, yellowing curtain aside, he saw the shells of unfinished buildings, towering up like ruins against the grey winter sky. He saw a few cranes and many carefully locked containers. These containers – or rather, what they contained: tools and spare parts for machines – were what the company was paid to guard.

At least it had snowed so heavily that everything lay under a white blanket. Rain and drizzle would have been worse, turning everything into a muddy brown mess. But even so, the isolation and emptiness of this place was deeply depressing. Sometimes a bird would cry. Samson had not seen a single person. The absurdity of his situation was crystallised in the fact that on the one hand he desperately wanted someone to appear, while simultaneously knowing that if someone did, he would be frightened to death. In his position, people meant danger. He should be happy that he was sitting here in relative safety in the back of beyond.

But for how much longer?

How long would it last?

How long could he endure it?

Today he had set off on a walk. He had followed the perimeter of the enormous building site and thrown his old crusts of bread to the birds. He had breathed in the bracingly fresh air and recognised that he would not manage to keep going out here much longer. He was in a deep mental crisis, probably already in a depression, and with every hour that passed he only sank further in. He started to think that the police might not be his greatest enemy; that the real danger came from inside, from his melancholy, his despair, his lack of hope. The worst thing was not being able to see any end to it. A few times since the previous night he had thought that death – in spite of the horror it caused – would also be a relief. He understood the risk that lay in such thoughts: the risk that one of these cold, snowy January days, or on an equally cold, dark and snowy day in February, he would end up hanging from the caravan roof because he had no longer been able to bear the cries of the birds in the silence and each day’s emptiness.

Returning to the caravan, he heard a car engine and saw headlights shining up the dirt track that led to the building site. After a short moment of shock, he relaxed. He recognised the engine.

It was John’s car.

Yesterday he had not come and today Samson had been hoping all day for him to turn up. It was crazy. He could not stand the man and he knew he was sleeping with the woman he himself dreamt of. But in his complete isolation, Burton was the only person he could hope for. The only one who spoke to him. His one remaining contact with the world. He hated him and simultaneously wanted him desperately to come. That longing made him despise himself too.

He stood waiting on the caravan’s steps. Burton parked, got out and walked over. Large and broad-shouldered in his black leather jacket, he had a grey scarf flung casually round his neck.

Of course Gillian went for him.

The knot grew in Samson’s throat.

‘You went for a walk?’ asked John. He had a pile of magazines and newspapers in the crook of his arm. Handing them to Samson he said, ‘Here. Something to read. You must be bored to death, right?’

‘It’s very quiet out here,’ admitted Samson.

John took a few steps to his car, opened the boot and took out two large bags. ‘Food. And a few bottles of beer. Alcohol doesn’t solve anyone’s problems, but sometimes it helps in bearing them.’

‘I don’t actually drink alcohol,’ said Samson. He immediately regretted opening his mouth. John had meant well.

John shrugged. ‘I’ll leave the bottles anyway. You might change your mind.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Samson had opened the caravan door by now. ‘Don’t you want to come in?’

‘No time. I’ve got to meet someone.’

‘Gillian?’ Samson’s question slipped out.

John shook his head. ‘No.’

‘How . . . is Gillian?’

‘I’d say pretty much how you’d expect in the circumstances. She still seems quite traumatised to me, but she isn’t apathetic. She’s trying to take her first steps in this new life. She’s arranged for her husband’s life insurance to be paid out, has talked to the bank about the mortgage and has gone into the office. Oh yes, and she’s sent her daughter to visit her parents in Norwich.’