The Watchers (3 page)

A lighthouse.

I woke with a jolt. The first thing I heard was the window rattling against its bars. And when my eyes adjusted to the early dark, the first thing I saw was the wooden crucifix above my bed.

An uncertainty flowed through me for a moment, irresistible and overpowering, and then hardened into a single concern: the front door – was it locked? Grandfather always locked it; he locked all the doors when we came in. But perhaps he’d forgotten. I would go and check for him.

I had one foot on the rough bare floorboards when a low earthy drone filled the air. The hairs on the back of my neck shot up and blood pulsed in my ears. At that instant I heard it:
thud thud thud
. A visitor at this time in the morning? I knew something was wrong the instant I creeped downstairs into the shadow-haunted hall. Something was amiss in Grandfather’s study.

I went in, flicked on the light.

‘Hello?’ I whispered. ‘Anyone there?’

No one I could see. And yet clearly someone had been there because the thick brown rug that should have been in the centre of the floor was rolled to the side, all the way back to the enormous bookcase packed with ancient texts. Yet the furniture that rested on the rug – the wide desk, the rickety armchair – remained in its proper place. Then I noticed the picture over the mantelpiece, the one of St John the Baptist pointing enigmatically at the sky. It had been turned on its nail, one hundred and eighty degrees, so that it was hanging upside down.

Again:
thud, thud, thud.
It was coming from the front door.

I went back quickly into the hall. Fumbled with the lock chain, opened the door.

‘Hello, young man. Are your parents at home?’

I was looking up at a tall, spindly man in a black suit, probably in his late twenties. My stomach tightened with fear.

‘Umm, I think my grandfather is here . . . He’s asleep.’

The stranger looked at me steadily. ‘Not your parents?’

His square black glasses gave him a studious air and an easy authority. But there was nothing sincere in his sharp smile and nothing genuine in his pointed, gaunt face. And why, I wondered, would such a young man colour his hair that brilliant shade of white?

‘They’re not here.’ My right hand went instinctively to my wristwatch, fumbled with it. ‘They’re . . . they’re dead.’

‘Dead?’ His head tilted slowly, and when he spoke again it was without a trace of sympathy. ‘How inconsiderate of them to leave you behind. Alone.’

Those words were like a knife in me. Yet I felt a sudden strong impulse to invite him in. I felt dazed by his eyes . . . eyes that remembered midnight. And his skin . . . waxy white, smooth like a child’s, though there was nothing childish about him. A shiver ran up my spine.

‘May I come in?’

‘I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,’ I answered, watching my words turn to frost on the air and suddenly wondering why his did not. ‘I ought to get Grandfather.’

The Black-Suited Man’s face hardened. ‘Your grandfather won’t thank you for waking him.’ He leaned forward. ‘Please, let me in.’

As I was about to step aside, the stamp of feet above made me swing round. A shock of relief shot through me as Grandfather, in his dressing gown, launched himself down the staircase.

‘Well, hello again,’ the visitor said. His lips pulled back over his teeth. ‘I’ve come to collect. Where is it?’

‘Oh God!’ rasped Grandfather, still in motion. He grabbed my shoulder roughly. ‘Get back, Robert!’

To see my grandfather, always strong, so desperate at the sight of this man with plastic skin, wasn’t just surprising, it was terrifying.

He slammed the door on the visitor and shot the chain.

‘The Black-Suited Men, messengers of deception, harbingers of death,’ he whispered.
He sounded afraid, he sounded insane.

Slowly his head swivelled towards the open door to his study. He saw the carpet rolled back, saw
St John the Baptist
hanging upside down. He lunged for me, dragged me after him into the study. There, still clutching me, he stared into my eyes. I would
not
disobey him, he insisted. For my safety and for his, I would do as he said, and the good Lord would keep us safe. But I didn’t feel safe; I just felt confused and scared to death as he righted the painting, then yelled at me to get down on my knees and pray before it.

‘Grandfather, no—’

Something struck the back of my head, and I pitched forward, stunned. The shock was worse than the pain, shock as I realized that he had actually thrown his Bible at me, shock that now he was towering over me, crossing himself.

‘Hear, Holy Father . . .’

After what felt like an eternity he got off his knees and looked warily at his desk lamp. It was flashing on and off, on and off.

‘You’ve been down to the lower fields. Haven’t you, boy?’

I wanted to explain that from there I could see the hangars at RAF Brawdy across St Brides Bay, to see where we used to live, to see the watchtower that Dad used to love. But I was too frightened to say anything, so I just nodded with a slowness that felt exaggerated.

‘I told you to stay away from the cliffs,’ he said after a long moment. The naked lightbulb on his desk was flickering harsh light across his expression. ‘Do you know why?’

I shook my head.

‘There are giants in the ground there. Watchers.’

It seemed such a peculiar remark for a serious, intelligent man. But I could tell that he believed what he said and was keen that I believe it too. ‘Their existence flickers on the edge of this world. Mischievous, dangerous beings.’

‘Why are they dangerous?’ I asked, wide-eyed. ‘What do they want?’

‘To open the mind of man . . . and flood it with horror.’ When he continued he spoke softly, as if he feared being overheard. With every word, my heart pounded harder. ‘The Watchers were judged by God and bound for seventy generations. Their faces are made of shadows, and those who look upon them shall die.’

I kept thinking,
He believes this, he actually believes this. Is that why Mum never mentioned her childhood, why she never brought me here to Ravenstone?
Had Grandfather scared her away with such stories?

‘You trust me, don’t you, boy?’ A keen Atlantic wind rattled the window, and as I looked upon his saturnine face, my eyes pulled to that angry scar, a shiver ran through me.

‘Because one day, boy, the giants will return. Doesn’t the Lord’s good book tell us so?’ He nodded with the fervour of a fanatic. ‘And there will be wars and rumours of wars between nations . . . signs in the heavens—’

‘That man at the door,’ I interrupted, ‘who was he?’

But the question I really wanted to ask was,
What had he come to collect?

Suddenly, the desk lamp, still flashing, exploded with a shower of glass.

And again came the knocking. Not knocking, pounding. A terrible noise that shook the house – shook us.

One.

Two.

Three.

‘Grandfather, what’s happening?’ I was trembling all over.

From outside a hum of voices. Trampling feet crunching over ice and gravel.

That was when I saw them through the parted curtains: five or six men swaddled in thick dark coats, cameras and binoculars looped around their necks. One man carried a map. Another a shotgun.

Grandfather ignored the men outside, his whisper so low I could barely hear him. ‘The Watchers appear at times of change. At times of danger. They are returning, boy. And we must be ready.’

– 2 –

Friday 4 February 1977, Westminster, London

It was just gone six thirty in the morning when the jangling telephone in the hall dragged me from the depths of sleep.

‘Get that, would you, Robert?’ Selina called sleepily from her bedroom across the hall.

Only half awake, I saw in my mind my hand reaching for the phone. I had a vague idea who it was, that this call was important.

My eyes snapped fully open. I sat upright, rubbed the nightmares from my eyes. This was it – the penultimate day of the select committee evidence sessions. My stomach twisted with anxiety as I thought of the shit storm that was coming.

‘We’re going to be fine,’ Bestford had said the night before as we were leaving his office in Parliament.

But I knew my boss was wrong. No amount of preparation could be enough because the future of the British government depended on what happened today.

‘Robert, the phone!’

Somehow getting out of bed at that moment was easier than usual. But it was the window that held me back from going out into the hall to the phone.

‘Robert!’

‘Just a second.’

I did try to resist the urge to check the window, like I tried every day, but it was too strong. My gaze focused on the catch, making sure it was still in place. Then I tapped the frame, left side first, then the top, and finally the windowsill. It had to be done strictly in that order, otherwise I’d get as far as the bedroom door before going back to do it all again. And again.

Ringgg . . . ringgg . . . ringgg . . .

I padded across the wood flooring of our narrow hallway, taking care to avoid Selina’s half-unpacked suitcase, and plucked the telephone from its cradle on the wall.

‘Hello?’

The line crackled. No one spoke.

‘Hello?’ I said again.

The muffled static sound continued for another five, perhaps ten, seconds before three loud clicks sounded and the line went dead.

Three clicks.

Good. That means he wants to see me
.

‘Who is it?’ Selina asked from her bedroom.

‘No one,’ I answered.

I went into the living room and sat down in the semi-darkness on the small yellow couch Selina’s parents had given her before she had rented me her spare room. Everything about the flat was yellow and orange and brown, and though I hated the modern decor and the claustrophobic feel of the space, its location – Vauxhall – was perfect for work, and to share with Selina, even just as flatmates, was its own pleasure.

There, before me on the coffee table, next to two empty wine glasses, was the thick file of local newspaper cuttings Selina and I had discussed before bed.

We’re getting reports every day now, Robert. Twenty-two in just twelve months. All from around St Brides Bay. Even the coastguard doesn’t understand . . .

I opened the file. The lurid headlines screamed up at me:
SCIENTISTS BAFFLED BY MYSTERY RUMBLINGS . . . EXPERTS PREDICT MORE SIGHTINGS
.

I tossed the cuttings aside, unfazed. During my time on the Defence Select Committee I’d become something of an expert on military activity in our skies. Balloons, unusual plane manoeuvres, aircraft observed in unusual atmospheric conditions; so many prosaic explanations for ‘unexplained aerial phenomena’. I could still remember my grandfather’s voice warning me about dark forces, fires in the sky. I hadn’t yielded then to his fanatical paranoia that mischievous beings were watching us from above, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to do so now.

I switched on the radio; Johnny Rotten’s voice filled the room. The Sex Pistols were singing that Britain had no future, and I was wondering if they might have the right idea. I snapped it off and went instead to the television: crowds demonstrating outside nuclear power plants, Jimmy Carter addressing the United Nations on mounting tensions with the Soviet Union. Nothing but wars and rumours of wars, missile proliferation, arms treaties. The new US president was going to have his work cut out.

We all were.

‘It can’t have been no one, Robert. At this hour?’

I looked up to see Selina framed in the living-room doorway, slender as a willow, a blue towel rather disappointingly covering her breasts, though the sight of her still-damp thighs was pretty gratifying.

I said, ‘Wrong number, that’s all,’ not seriously expecting her to accept that answer but knowing I had to say something.

‘But that’s the fourth call this week.’

‘We’ll sort it. Selina, listen, there’s something I need to ask—’

‘You think it’s intentional?’ she interrupted, going to the kitchen counter. ‘Someone making trouble?’

She looked straight at me as she flicked the kettle on, working her jaw slightly, the way she always did when something was bothering her. I gave her my best smile, which she usually met with her own wonderfully calming one, but not today. Concern lingered on her face, and there was an unfamiliar glimmer in her eyes.

I heard myself say, ‘We mustn’t forget to lock the flat when we leave today, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘But really, we must lock the flat.’

‘I know, Robert.’

I managed to swallow the third iteration. She saw my tight jaw and looked away. Sorry for me or just weary of me?

Shit
. I wanted to punch myself. I wanted to tell her how traumatizing it was, to convey some sense of the isolation never being certain about something as simple as locking a door or window caused. Doctors had used all sorts of words to describe the way I was – words like obsessive and compulsive and paranoid – but no matter how hard they searched for some reason, some trigger, they could find none.

Even if there was a trigger, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

What I certainly did want was to make Selina, anyone, understand. It didn’t matter how long I searched through my mind for reassurance or how long it took me to carry out my checks, the answers would never satisfy my uncertainty. It was like suffering from bowel cancer but only having the vocabulary to describe a mild stomach ache.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said gently.

‘Take a break when the evidence sessions are over, please. You need to let out the frustration. Trust me, I know.’

Selina had a job interview in the City today. I wished her well, of course, but I’d miss her terribly if she got it. We had worked together for Paul Bestford, chairman of the Defence Select Committee and MP for Pembrokeshire, since leaving university. And during those three years I’d come to rely on her calm common sense and support.

‘What time’s your interview?’

‘Three o’clock.’

‘But you’ll miss the start of the committee session.’

‘This is
your
crusade, boyo.’ A playful attempt to remind me of my Welsh connections. ‘You don’t need me. You’ll be fine.’

I wasn’t so sure. There was only one thing worse than dealing with unreliable witnesses: an unreliable committee chairman whose relationship with the bottle was becoming the subject of whispers in the Palace of Westminster’s many bars. In Parliament the gossip flowed as freely as the wine, and I could tell from the way the other researchers muttered about our boss that they thought his time was limited. And I needed Bestford.

It was easy to remember the first time I met him. He’d come to our school after the ‘Great Flood’ and given a talk about all the reinforcements to the sea walls that would make the Havens safe again. I carried that memory with me into adulthood. And by the time I had left university at twenty-two, he was chair of the Defence Select Committee. I got the job as soon as I applied. Partly because I understood the constituency and its issues, mostly because I was passionate about scrutinizing defence policy.

‘Call in afterwards, if you have time. Please?’

‘I’ll try my best. Robert,’ she said after a pause, ‘do you think I’m making the right decision?’

I nodded and said encouragingly, ‘It’s your time to move on,’ even though I felt the opposite.

I saw her now with me: the countless hours together on the campaign trail in Broad Haven, pounding pavements, knocking on doors. She’d had that natural way with people that made them smile and talk about their problems as though they really believed we could help. Her entire life was politics, no doubt about that, but on those doorsteps she had so easily shown interest in television chat shows, music and supermarkets. Me, I dealt in facts, numbers and statistics, and the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases. It had come to divide us: Selina was afraid Bestford was losing touch, that the Cold War and his work with me on the committee was two steps too far from the rugged realities of country living for farming folk to demonstrate their understanding at the ballot box.

Still, today was a very important day. And still we were a team. We had to be. Parliament was an odd place, perhaps not quite the madhouse you saw on television, but certainly the only environment where you might catch an MP throwing a punch at a bar or happen across the prime minister dabbing a coffee stain from his tie. I’d grown sick of the smiles and handshakes that concealed hidden agendas and the constant tensions about the issues bringing the country to its knees. After the late-night votes you would overhear MPs in the bars muttering glumly about the forthcoming ‘collapse’. I was tired of hearing that too. It wasn’t just the picket lines and fear of the country’s lights going out again; it was something more profound. We had lost our way.

Selina looked straight at me. ‘You could leave too, you know. Pursue a proper career.’

I smiled at that even as I was trying not to remember Mum saying the very same thing to Dad when we lived at RAF Brawdy. She had hated everything the military stood for, not just the wars, weapons and lies but the injustice. It was an era when America kept nuclear weapons on British soil, just in case the Cold War turned hot. She argued that criminal activities were taking place on our own soil, that American bases in the UK were accountable to no one but the Pentagon. And these days I mostly think she was right.

‘I mean it, Robert. Perhaps it’s time for us both to get out.’

As Selina waited for me to say something in defence of our dubious profession, I found myself staring at the photo of my parents on the mantelpiece, a family snapshot, creased and faded. All at once I was a child again.

The photograph had been taken outside RAF Brawdy’s main gate. Dad’s face was stonily set as he frowned at the middle distance, behind the photographer. I was distracted by something in the sky. Mum, meanwhile, was wearing a smile that did nothing to conceal her defeat. Her anger. She was also wearing a patch that covered her left eye.

On the morning of Thursday 8 February 1963 – ten months before Mum and Dad lost their lives in the Havens Great Flood – peace activists surrounded RAF Croughton, a US Air Force base and CIA relay station in Northamptonshire, and cut through the perimeter fence. Their mission? To draw attention to the deadly nuclear arsenal they believed was illegally stored on the base. RAF Croughton was one of the most important bases in NATO, and though my father had known Mum was attending the protest, he hadn’t known what she and the others intended to do. Had he known there’s no way he would have allowed her to go. Trespassing was still trespassing, even if the protestors only wanted to plant a peace flag. Except something went wrong. Something terrible. I remembered Mum leaving the eye department at the hospital in Haverfordwest. Back when the Beatles were top of the charts. I remembered her complaining for months about nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and weakness. She used to say her eyes were burning, as though they’d suffered sunburn. By the time December came, painful blisters were forming on her skin, and she had lost clumps of hair.

What had happened at Croughton? There were rumours of an incident on the base that night, an explosion of some sort, and Mum, along with the others, was arrested for criminal damage. Precisely what had happened remained a mystery, partly because Mum didn’t remember, mostly because the British and American governments hadn’t accepted the need for an official inquiry. They were stonewalling. They had been stonewalling for fourteen years, and I still wanted to know why. I wanted to know why Mum’s medical records from that night had gone missing. I needed justice.

It was what I had been working towards all this time – since Ravenstone, since I was old enough to believe I might make a difference – finding out something about that night that others had missed. Today was the day I might finally get to the bottom of it.

‘Selina, I need your advice.’

She nodded, smiled.

‘Remember those military expenditure figures I mentioned?’

‘You mean the classified figures?’

I nodded and watched her eyebrows draw together. It was the same look she gave me whenever I suggested us drafting a politically bold – which meant risky – speech for Bestford.

‘I’m thinking of using them today in the session. Taking Colonel Corso by surprise.’

She shifted uneasily. ‘Robert, I don’t know where you got them, but those figures are highly classified. Inadmissible.’

But still evidence
, said a voice in my head.