The Watchful Eye (20 page)

For the first two weeks of August he had a break with Holly, and his mother moved, as planned, back to her house. He and Holly had hired a cottage in a tiny sailing village called Dale, in Pembrokeshire. They spent the fortnight in the traditional way: beachcombing, jumping waves, visiting the local pub for pasties and chips, and preparing meals on a brick barbecue while the waves lapped at the sea wall. It was a pleasant and peaceful time. He returned to some favourable quotes from the local builder with a jokey note that next time he visited the surgery he expected the same VIP treatment.

He had forgotten about Brian.

But Brian had spent the entire summer thinking about Daniel Gregory. He was a little more relaxed with Claudine safely out of the way across The Channel but equally aware that she would soon be back in Eccleston, with Bethan chattering in French, he thought gloomily. Serve him right for marrying a foreigner, his mother responded with typical sourness.

He would never get any sympathy from her.

Plotting Gregory’s downfall, choosing the date, hiding the petrol can at the back of the garage ready for use, had returned some control to him but it was not quite enough.

He took a perverse delight in the poetic neatness of his plans but it was nothing compared to the pleasure he would take in the destruction of the man he had come to hate.

Claudine returned on the very last day of August and he eyed her with disfavour. She seemed more foreign than ever. Most of her and Bethan’s clothes were new, French, bought
by an overindulgent mother who could not believe that he could provide perfectly adequately for his own wife or that the English sold anything of such
chic
. Claudine even
smelt
foreign, of garlic and soap, sunshine, perfume and tart red wine.

Within minutes of opening the front door and calling out that she was home, Claudine knew that Brian was no better. In fact he was worse. Much worse. He was glaring at her with contempt, if not hatred. ‘Have a good time, did you?’

She ignored the sarcasm in his tone and gave no response.

‘Enjoy yourself, my dear?’

When she failed to respond he taunted her again.

‘What – no kiss for your beloved husband?’

Her heart sank.

‘And how was your
darling
mother?’

‘Well?’

Brian turned his attentions on to Bethan. ‘Glad to see me, are you,
darling
?’

Bethan moved behind her mother. ‘
Maman
,’ she murmured.

Brian glared at the pair of them.

Claudine staggered upstairs with the suitcases and wondered when she would be packing them again, ready for her return to France.

On the third of September Elaine got married again and Daniel felt good enough to send his ex-wife and her new husband a wedding present; a dozen Waterford Crystal champagne glasses in a presentation box. Inside he enclosed a
Best Wishes to the Bride and Groom
card.

Sincerely meant. This was obviously what people meant when they used the word finality. His marriage was perfectly and completely ended. A line had been drawn beneath it.

But the product of that marriage still existed.

Having Holly for such a long period had been wonderful. Hard work but such fun. On her last night he sat her and his mother down and asked them how they felt about a new arrangement. Holly stared, round-eyed, at his suggestion that she come and live with him permanently and typically childlike asked, ‘But I will see Mummy?’

‘Of course, darling, you’ll see Mummy. Plenty of her. As much as you like. It’s just that you’ll
live
in Applegate Cottage with me.’

‘And when you’re at work…?’ his mother put in.

He was silent, knowing she would soon work it out.

She eyed him with some amusement. ‘Are you sure you could cope with me living in the same place?’

Holly was watching her grandmother with her mouth open too.

‘Granny,’ she pleaded.

It was enough to melt her heart. ‘It’ll take some organising,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure. It would mean a huge life-change to move down here.’ She gave him another look, softer this time. ‘I take it you’re not suggesting I live with you.’

‘There are some very nice flats up for sale on the High Street,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s a gated complex with its own swimming pool and gym. I think one of them would suit you very well.’

He couldn’t believe he was doing this, actually inviting his mother to live less than a quarter of a mile away from him but he knew this was a practical solution. It would solve not only his life but his mother’s and Holly’s too.

She nodded, still looking incredulous. ‘It would have certain distinct advantages,’ she said. ‘Is there a bridge club here?’

Daniel laughed. ‘Bound to be,’ he said.

So it was settled. Or so it seemed.

The cottage was about to be legally transferred to him, the builders poised to start the renovations. Elaine took a lot of convincing and there were numerous phone calls and not a few tears. But he could tell that her recent marriage had altered the situation. While Holly liked her mother’s new husband she preferred to live with her father and grandmother who now spoilt her with unguarded indulgence. It had been decided that Holly should stay with her mother until Christmas and then move up to Staffordshire – whether Applegate Cottage was ready or not. Dan had even had a couple of potential buyers view The Yellow House. Both had seemed interested and the estate agent was convinced it would sell quickly.

Daniel was happy with his life.

But because he was so content, imagining that events were sorting themselves out satisfactorily, he was oblivious to what was happening around him.

Vanda’s stomach was expanding day by day, the baby growing nearer to the time when it would no longer be protected by her own body around it. Guy Malkin had moved in with her and his newfound cockiness had made him bold enough to plot. He was working on an audacious plan.

Brian Anderton’s mental state was teetering on the edge of calamity.

And Daniel remained unaware of all but his new, happy family state.

Marie Westbrook was skirting around him, sure that at
some point, when the time was ripe, he would pick up the threads of their romance. But she was unconscious to the fact that Daniel was not throwing even the vaguest of glances in her direction.

In that period, as autumn started to shorten the evenings, only one event brought Daniel even near to remembering all that was brewing beneath the surface. Bobby Millin attended the surgery late in October complaining of backache. And when he had examined her, found nothing serious and issued a sick note for a month she gave him a strange look. ‘That baby’ll be born before long,’ she said darkly. ‘Then what’ll happen, do you think, Doctor?’

He stared at her. He didn’t want anything to spoil this new heaven he was busily creating for himself and his mother and daughter. Their weekends were spent supervising the building work, choosing furniture, carpets, curtains and kitchen units, designing and planning. He didn’t want this woman with her messy, damaged family ruining his life.

‘What do the police say?’ he asked sharply.

‘They’re still investigating.’ Her anger made her voice very firm and unfriendly.

‘We-ell.’ Daniel held his hands out. ‘So what can I do?’

She stood up. ‘Nothing,’ she said and left.

Even the Medical Defence Union seemed to be on his side for once. A very nice woman rang him and in the sweetest possible voice relayed the welcome information that they had completed their investigation and their findings were that he had done all he could for Mrs Maud Allen and that, while the circumstances of her death were regrettable, he certainly had nothing to answer for. Daniel gave a whoop of joy the minute he had put the phone down.

But sometimes happiness is unrealistic. It is certainly transient. All states eventually come to an end and happiness is no exception.

One night, late in October, Claudine had walked down to the wine shop. Brian had fancied some beer and it wasn’t worth taking the car. She was glad to escape the oppression of the house. It was suffocating her slowly as though a snake was tightening around her windpipe. She often felt that she could not breathe the same air as her husband. It was terrifying her so much now that in her quiet, lonely moments, she planned her return to France.

The air was freezing that night, a mystic fog making the High Street look like a set from a black and white film, Sherlock Holmes or a Hammer House of Horror. But she welcomed the icy air and simply walked quickly to fend off the chill.

Bad luck – good luck. Guy Malkin spotted her as he locked the door of the Co-op store. She was going to the wine shop, he surmised. He waited until she came out, her wicker basket heavy on her arm. If he walked a few paces behind her she would not hear. There was always some background noise – a car, music, people talking. But when she turned into the alley it would be quiet and still.

He chose his moment carefully, grabbed her from behind.

He’d watched how they did it on
Crimewatch
. They pull their collars up, their hats down. They make their voices gruff and unrecognisable. They fold their arms around their victim’s neck, making them gasp, frightened and compliant. He did all this, now, pulled at her coat, found her breasts, rubbed against her, touched her lips with his fingers and whispered into her ear.

Daniel had felt fidgety that night. He had been too excited at the prospect of his imminent life-change to merely sit at home and either watch TV or surf the Internet for a female he no longer wanted or needed. So he had decided to visit The Eagle for a pint or two of ale and now he was walking home.

He knew instantly that someone was in trouble. He could hear the gasps, the fright, the panic of the woman and the grunts of the man.

It wasn’t until he spoke, ‘Hey there. What’s going on?’ and the youth sped off, pulling up his trousers as he ran, leaving the woman crying inconsolably, that he realised it was Claudine Anderton who threw herself into his arms. He held her until she settled, her sobs became more spasmodic and her shaking stopped, then he asked her who it had been.

‘I don’t know, Daniel,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, I don’t want to know. Some evil monster. Take me home, Daniel, please, take me home.’

What could he do but return her to her husband? The town policeman, who the moment he opened the front door to see his wife in such a state – clothes awry, buttons ripped off, crying inconsolably in Gregory’s arms – eyed him with suspicion and loathing.

It was no use for Daniel to protest. ‘Come on, Brian, do you think I’d…?’

The policeman glared at him.

Daniel tried again. ‘Be reasonable.’

But what he didn’t realise was that Anderton was beyond reason. He saw only what he saw: his wife upset, clinging on to Daniel, her clothes in disarray. That was what he saw. And he remembered the story about Chelsea Emmanuel who had claimed the doctor had molested her. He threw a punch which landed squarely on Daniel’s nose. Daniel gasped and fell back. Then Anderton grabbed Claudine by the arm and slammed the door in Daniel’s face.

Daniel was left on the doorstep, nursing his bleeding nose and knowing he would do nothing. He was in no position to make an accusation against the town’s policeman.

He couldn’t afford to.

In times past, to celebrate the foiling of the Catholic plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament people used to burn effigies of the Pope. Tagged on to the end of the original ditty is a second verse which few of us chant these days.

Guy Malkin simply hated the fifth of November. He’d never liked his name anyway. But when the little brats ran after him shouting ‘Penny for the guy, Guy,’ he could have wrung their scrawny little throats. Something had happened to him since he had met Claudine and hooked up to Vanda. He had changed. But others didn’t know that he wasn’t quite the passive, ordinary little bloke any more. He had a secret. And that secret made him powerful.

So just let them come. He was ready for them.

Guy knew the whole of the ditty, both verses, and he liked the words. Particularly the first few lines of the second verse. He enjoyed imagining the Pope choking on beer and cheese. He muttered them to himself as he left work that night. He had plans. He was going to go to the bonfire tonight.

Saturday evening began murky. Damp enough for people to need petrol to ignite their bonfires, but not wet enough to stop the festivities.

Eccleston, of course, held its own organised bonfire.

It being the end of half term, Holly was staying for the weekend and his mother, at the last minute, had announced her intention to visit too. She and Holly seemed to have
formed an invisible and powerful bond that surprised him. His mother was changing, becoming less self-absorbed, less pitying, happier. He was surprised at how much he liked her.

Daniel had decided that this weekend they would all attend the bonfire. Then, on the Sunday, Holly could have another riding lesson while he would look again at the Welsh pony and see if the school was willing to sell it to him. He liked the animal. It seemed safe and placid. After all – he didn’t want anything too skittish or dangerous for his daughter. Just a nice, sweet-tempered beast for his little girl to trot around the local lanes and bridle paths.

Guy Fawkes’ night was a nightmare for the two police officers on duty, PC Brian Anderton and WPC Shirley Evans. Shirley was tired. She had an eight-month-old baby who was just cutting her teeth and so was miserable. Her mother-in-law had very reluctantly agreed to have the baby so that Paul, her husband, could take their six-year-old to the local bonfire in Eccleston. She felt grumpy, partly through lack of sleep and partly because she wouldn’t have minded being at the bonfire herself. Not in an official capacity but as a mum.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, she glanced at her colleague and Brian seemed even more odd tonight. On edge, irritable and downright weird. She heaved a long sigh. She just didn’t want to spend the next eleven hours with a moody guy! Tonight of all nights.

‘Penny for the guy, Guy.’ Vanda called out cheekily, linking her arm in his. He felt his face flush bright red. She was always goading him, teasing him. Well, she’d better watch out. She didn’t know, did she? She didn’t know he had a secret side to
him. A secret heart. She’d have a shock if she knew what he was capable of. The squad car cruised alongside him, Anderton half leaning out. ‘Off to the bonfire then, Guy? To see the guy burn, Guy?’

With a loud cackle the squad car slid along the road leaving Guy staring after it.

Again he flushed.
If only they knew!

Guy continued up the street, Vanda taking two steps to his one long-legged stride.

On this night
everyone
took the piss, called him names, chanted those stupid rhymes right in his ear, made daft comments about putting him on the bonfire. Even the policeman.

Well, sarky officer, he thought, you can mock me if you like. I can’t stop you, but from inside
I
am mocking
you
. Because you don’t know the first thing about me, do you? He turned around and stared after the car. I’ve got your wife’s knickers spread out on my bed. Pearl earrings? The ones she’d ‘lost’? I have those too. And plenty more besides. I was nearly inside her the other night. Me. You might think you have control but I can tell you, I am the one for all I look strange, different and odd. I have control because you don’t have the first idea. He took some pleasure from the fact that PC Anderton was in ignorance. He wasn’t so very clever.

He swaggered off, trying to imitate Johnny Depp’s swaying walk in
Pirates of the Caribbean.
Vanda struggled to keep up with him. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘wait for me.’

He barely acknowledged her.

Brian continued to cruise up the High Street, scanning the crowds for Daniel Gregory. Plenty of people were walking to
the bonfire, he noticed, passing Claudine and Bethan walking purposefully up the hill towards the gate. He pipped his horn at them and they both turned and waved.

He couldn’t be sure if it was his imagination but it seemed to him that Claudine still looked wary. Even when he eyed her in his nearside wing mirror. Wary or guilty?

He spotted Gregory and his mother, also walking in the same direction no more than a few yards behind his wife. Gregory’s mother, he noticed, was holding Holly very tightly by the hand. He nodded approvingly. One should always watch children carefully in such a noisy, dangerous, confused and dark environment. Everyone from the entire town seemed to be walking in the same direction, towards the same place, the huge stack in the centre of the field, roped off by the local farmer. Brian smiled at himself. He would wait until the bonfire was lit, the flames dancing and the fireworks screaming and cracking. He could easily lure Gregory to the far corner of the field. Only a murderer can appreciate what pleasure it gives to commit the crime over and over again in your mind. You watch your intended victim suffer a thousand times, see him die a hundred times. Premeditated murder is to kill over and over again.

He had already planned how he would lure Daniel away from the rest of the crowd. This is the nice thing about your target being a doctor. It was so easy. He could make something up. Anything.

An old lady, having struggled up the hill, seized with a crushing pain in her chest. A child who had been burnt by a sparkler, a vain young woman, ill-advisedly wearing high heels into a farmer’s field, twisting her ankle from a careless step into a rabbit hole. Brian could think up dozens of these
simple stories. The simpler the better – the more credible. In fact, he would not decide which one he would use until he actually started speaking.

And then, Doctor Gregory, he thought, I will pay you back for your duplicity, in pretending to be a good, loyal, trustworthy family doctor when all the time you were a monstrous perversion. A sad stalker who stole my wife’s personal belongings so you could drool over them like a sex-starved bloodhound. A sexual predator on an underage woman, a doctor who profits by his mistaken diagnoses, a doctor who watches a tiny child die without lifting a finger to help it. This is who you are.

Yes, Daniel. Even if you had not stolen my wife’s belongings you would still deserve to die because you have failed the people of this town. You and I both have an important role to protect the citizens of Eccleston. I have carried out my duty faithfully. But you…!

A doctor who commits so many cardinal sins is surely capable of anything.

His first smile of the evening came as he watched the nurse from the surgery strolling nonchalantly a few paces behind Gregory. The doctor, he noticed, was unaware that he was about to be ‘bumped into’. WPC Shirley Evans noted the smile and misinterpreted it. She thought that her colleague’s mood had lifted. And then Brian Anderton saw someone else – or he
thought
he saw someone, a ghostly vision from his past. He watched the woman walk slowly towards the bonfire. Surely. It could not be her?

Yet he watched, mesmerised.

She was thinner than he remembered her, but just as insignificant. Almost a shadow, a wraith walking with the
crowd but somehow not quite part of it. She had always been like that. There – yet not there. Never quite real.

Daniel was unaware of the policeman’s presence. He saw Claudine and Bethan from a distance but made no attempt to approach them. The girls smiled and waved shyly at each other but neither asked if she could join her friend.

The bonfire was finally lit and the air filled with crackling sparks and the whoosh of the flames as they soared heavenwards. It was a clear sky now with a sprinkling of stars but as the fire grew brighter and hotter the stars appeared to fade.

Everyone’s attention was now on the display of fireworks. The
oohs
and
aahs
as starry cobwebs filled the sky, the shock of bangs as staccato and deafening as gunfire, the explosions of stars, gold and red, silver and the brightest magnesium white.

Holly was at once in awe, entranced and frightened. Daniel’s mother grasped her hand tightly and he suddenly realised how important this role was to her.

He had made mistakes and one of these had been to think of his mother in that one role when she had another one, much more important to her now. That of grandmother.

He watched them with a warmth of affection. This, now, was his family.

And from the back of the field Brian Anderton watched too. He searched for the woman he had noticed earlier but she had vanished. Perhaps she had never been there except in his mind.

Something, he never knew what, made Daniel turn around. There was activity in the far corner of the field. A large big-bosomed woman was towering over a shrinking girl. He
frowned. It was hard to make out exactly what was happening because they were on the very edge of the light from the fire. But it seemed as though the larger woman was holding a sparkler too near the girl’s hand. He started forward. It was so close it must be burning her. So why didn’t the girl pull away? Why did the two women simply stare at each other?

Perhaps he had always known the reason why.

Bobby Millin was hurting Vanda. Torturing her own daughter.

And that was when it all started to fall into place.

Not Vanda
was his first confused, instinctive thought. Of course not Vanda. She had cared for the child in the best way she could. It was Bobby. Life-saving, angel of mercy, Bobby.
She
had been the one. Oh, that he could have been so blind.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. The number of times Bobby had ‘resuscitated’ her tiny, silent granddaughter. And who had been with Anna-Louise the night the little girl had died?

So who had
really
pressed the pillow to the toddler’s face until she had finally stopped breathing?

He knew now.

Proving
it was going to be the problem.

Brian hadn’t made precise plans. He simply knew that tonight was the night. After all, he had been the one who had planned it so. He knew that tonight would change everything as surely as if he had been blessed with prescience.

And in a way he was. He could picture Daniel’s startled amazement as he doused him with petrol, watch his surprise turn to terror as the lighter clicked. Only as he was burning and screaming would Brian finally tell him why.

The fireworks were still exploding, the fire sending sparks high into the night as he started away from the crowd. It was time he fetched the petrol can. ‘Best check on the car,’ he said, adding in response to the WPC’s enquiring look. ‘No need for you to come, Shirley,’ he said kindly. She instantly turned her attention back to a group of youths who were too engrossed in rolling a spliff to notice her. She breathed in deeply, caught the sweet scent of the one they had already lit and sighed. It brought back happy memories of when she had been a student, footloose and fancy-free. No wretched job then. No home to run to, no husband and no baby. She sucked in another deep breath and sighed. She hadn’t appreciated her freedom then.