Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (15 page)

Staniforth nodded shortly, turning to Charlie. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Charlie Pooley and I was hoping to have a couple of moments of your time.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s about one of your tenants…’

Staniforth glanced towards his secretary and then back at Charlie, beckoning him towards the other room with a sideways flick of his head.

It was a lavish affair inside: a leather sofa, huge television on the wall, games console, stereo, speaker towers and computer. The only indication it was an office was a solitary gun-metal filing cabinet in the corner. Staniforth sat on the sofa, pointing at the computer chair, where Charlie sat.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Charlie Pooley.’

‘Which tenant are you having a problem with?’

‘His name’s Douglas Jamieson but a lot of people seem to know him as Dougie. He has a girlfriend named Leah.’

Staniforth didn’t seem interested in eye-contact but couldn’t hide the flicker of recognition drifting across his face. He began picking at one of his fingernails, not looking up.

‘What about them?’

‘We bought a house on the road that runs parallel to Green Tree Road but Dougie seems to have taken an… unhealthy… interest in my wife. He follows her and he slashed the tyres on her car. He’s been doing all sorts.’

‘Did you contact the police?’

‘We’ve spoken to them but don’t have concrete proof of everything, so they’ve not been able to do anything.’

Staniforth flicked away a piece of dirt Charlie couldn’t see. ‘So what do you expect me to do? If the police say there’s no evidence, I can’t do anything.’

‘It was just that I saw there had been problems in the past… especially with Leah.’

Staniforth finished playing with his nails, peering up and catching Charlie’s eye for the first time but not seeming too aggressive with it. ‘It’s out of order you coming here.’

‘I know – but we’re at the end of our tether.’

Staniforth rolled his eyes, tutting like his secretary had. Charlie didn’t know if it was at him, or because he’d had numerous complaints about Dougie and Leah before.

He answered with a sigh: ‘Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.’

EIGHTEEN: ESTHER

Esther’s day hadn’t gone
too
badly, not that it had been productive either. The highlight was when Patch showed up and she spent half an hour feeding, tickling and talking to him in the garden. The problem was that she couldn’t face going to the garden centre, or anywhere, in case Dougie followed. She hadn’t done any further unpacking or tidying at the back of the house, let alone worked on the other rooms. The lack of sleep and general sense of not being comfortable at home had left her panicking about the smallest things – but what made it worse was that she was completely mindful of everything happening to her. She knew that checking the windows was something she didn’t need to do but she couldn’t stop herself. That awareness was sending her into a deeper downward spiral.

After returning to the house, Esther moped on the sofa waiting for five o’clock when she was going to start checking the locks. She knew Charlie was going to be home by six and wanted to give herself a full hour to get through it all.

Esther began her routine in the smallest bedroom at five minutes to five but kept getting things wrong because she was trying to go too quickly. By the time she’d lost count of the up-downs in their bedroom, ten minutes had already passed, which only made her more anxious. What she’d convinced herself was going to only take fifteen minutes each morning had now become something that was taking her half-an-hour three times a day.

She found that trying to rush was counter-productive because she’d get things wrong and end up having to start again. Although it took longer, it was better to go a little slower, which would make things quicker overall.

Esther returned to the smallest bedroom and started on the window again: up-down, up-down…

She finally had everything finished and definitely secure by quarter-to-six: fifty entire minutes to get it right was a new low.

Esther returned to the sofa waiting for Charlie to arrive home. She thought about cooking but wasn’t in the mood – there was still some bread left, plus tins of soup and beans and a few frozen meals. She’d had toast and a little cereal that morning, plus an apple in the afternoon – that was plenty and Charlie kept saying she didn’t have to cook for him anyway.

As she waited, she found herself drawn to the carriage clock on the windowsill at the back of the room. It had been a retirement gift given to her father from his company and he had passed it onto them as a leaving/new house present. Esther knew he’d never liked it: trinkets weren’t his thing. It was her mother who had taken a fancy to it.

At the front, a thin piece of wood tick-tocked from side to side. When she and Charlie placed it there upon moving in, Esther had paid little attention to it. When they’d watched television together, eaten together and cuddled up to one another, she’d not noticed it. Now, she couldn’t stop staring at the metronome as it ticked to the left, then tocked to the right counting down the time until Charlie got home and there was someone for her to talk to.

At exactly six o’clock, Esther began to feel the ever-familiar sense of sinking in her stomach. Charlie was late – he must have been in an accident. When he’d returned from Dougie’s house the previous evening, he said that he hoped things were done with but she’d seen in his eyes that there was something he wasn’t telling her. It had gone badly and Dougie had taken his revenge by doing something to Charlie’s car.

One minute past: He was definitely hurt. Perhaps Dougie had done something to the brakes and Charlie had ended up hitting something on the drive home? He’d tried to stop at a junction and skidded across, slamming into another car, or a lamppost.

Esther glanced to the phone waiting for the inevitable call.

Two minutes past: Charlie was seriously injured. Perhaps he’d been on the dual carriageway, driving quickly and something had gone wrong with his steering. He’d tried to overtake someone but ended up slamming into the back of them. There was a big burning fireball of twisted carnage with him at the centre, hammering on the windows looking for an escape.

Three minutes past: That was it – he was definitely dead. What was she going to do here by herself? They’d taken on the mortgage based on his salary and now he wasn’t going to be around. Could she go back to her parents’? For the past few years, her entire life had been about Charlie and her: she was his world and he was hers. Now he was dead and she didn’t know what to do.

Four minutes past: Where. Was. He?

Tick to the left, tock to the right…

At seven minutes and twenty-one seconds past six, there was finally the sound of a key in the lock. Esther shot up from the sofa, rushing into the hallway as Charlie bundled in, satchel over his shoulder. Before he closed the door, Esther slapped him hard on the back.

‘Where were you?’

‘Ouch! I’ve been driving home.’

Charlie closed the door and pressed against it as Esther growled up towards him. ‘You’ve always been home by six before.’

‘The traffic’s really bad – I think there’s been an accident somewhere. What’s wrong?’

He reached a hand out towards her but Esther slapped it away. ‘I was worried.’

‘I’m here now – it’s okay.’

This time, Esther let him pull her towards his chest, enjoying the feeling of his arms around her as she tried to block out the faint click-clacking from the clock.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Esther waited until Charlie went upstairs to use the toilet and then quickly made sure the front door was secure, feeling proud of herself for getting through the routine in a little over a minute and not getting it wrong.

Charlie pottered upstairs, unpacking some of the remaining boxes as Esther sat downstairs by herself, watching the muted television and listening to the clock.

When Charlie returned downstairs, he joined her on the sofa and they went through the charade of asking about each other’s days, chatting about what was on screen, making vague plans for when her parents came up: anything that allowed them to ignore the main subject on each of their minds.

Just as she was beginning to feel relaxed, there was the long chime of their doorbell followed instantly by somebody pounding the door. Esther and Charlie jumped together, the combined din echoing ominously around the empty house. Charlie nudged the blind aside, peering onto the driveway and then quickly shrinking away.

A man’s voice boomed from outside: ‘I saw you in there. Come on – open up.’

Esther didn’t need to ask who it was – she saw the answer in Charlie’s face.

He edged to the front door with Esther a little behind. She was feeling protective of her husband and the house – but the fact Dougie was actually there, not hiding in the shadows or inside a car, made her feel better because it was something real, not a figment of her imagination.

Charlie rested on the handle and unlocked the door slowly. She saw him take a deep breath, which only made her feel more nervous, as if he was sucking the air out of the house.

As soon as he clicked the door open a fraction, it was shoved from outside, bouncing out of Charlie’s grasp. Dougie had one foot on their doorstep, thrusting his body forward as if he was going to shove his way inside. Esther jumped backwards with a yelp, their cramped hallway feeling even narrower than before. It was the first time she’d seen him without his cap: he was bald, with thick shoulders and forearms. Veins bled through the whites of his eyes as he rocked backwards slightly, spitting his words furiously towards them but not crossing the threshold.

‘You talked to Aaron?’

Esther had no idea what Dougie was shouting about. Charlie placed a hand across her protectively, stumbling over a reply that didn’t seem to involve any complete words.

He was cut off by Dougie anyway, who was leaning on their doorframe, slightly more relaxed but with a sneer on his face.

‘Do you think he’s going to kick us out just because you go and complain to him about me?’

Esther tugged on Charlie’s arm: ‘What’s going on?’

Charlie had slumped onto the wall and Dougie answered: ‘Your prick of a husband went to our landlord to try to have us thrown out. The only problem is that he’s my cousin, so as soon as you’d stopped bitching about us, he called me up and said someone had it in for me.’

As he ran a hand through his hair, Esther could see the shattered look on Charlie’s face. Is that why he’d been late? Why hadn’t he told her? And why did he keep getting himself involved in things when she specifically told him to leave them alone?

She suddenly felt a surge of aggression: Dougie was at
their
house, shouting
at
them. The reason she was so edgy about everything was because of him – and Charlie was making things worse.

Esther shoved her husband’s arm aside, striding ahead with such force that Dougie stepped backwards from their step.

‘Why can’t you leave us alone?’

For a moment, Dougie seemed unsure how to react, glancing from Esther to Charlie and back again. He licked his lips as they slipped into a grin. ‘Aye – so it
was
you who put him up to this, was it? Why am I not surprised?’

Behind him, the evening was dissolving into a superb wash of orange, yellow and blue. On the pavement, a thin woman with long dark hair wearing small denim shorts and a loose low-cut top stepped onto their driveway. Charlie hadn’t told Esther much about what had happened when he’d gone to Dougie’s house – but he had mentioned that the woman who lived there was named Leah. From the aggressive way she was marching forward, Esther could only assume this was her.

Dougie half-turned, holding out an arm and wrapping it around Leah’s shoulders, pulling her towards him. ‘Don’t worry, babe – this is who I was telling you about.’

Leah’s eyes narrowed, glaring Esther up and down. ‘This fat bitch?’

Esther couldn’t help but smooth her top down across her stomach. Dougie had called her ‘fat’ when she’d first been in the car close to him and now his girlfriend had.

Charlie finally pushed himself away from the wall, drawing himself level with his wife. ‘Will you both just leave us alone?’

Spurred on by having Leah at his side, Dougie puffed his chest out and pushed himself onto tiptoes. Even then, he was still shorter than his girlfriend.

‘Just because you wanted a bit of rough and I said no, now you’re trying to get us kicked out.’ He squeezed Leah’s shoulder. ‘I told you, babe, she’s obsessed with me. Every time I go out, she’s following me around, then she sends this goon round to our house to kick off. Every time I drive past the house, she’s out front trying to flag me down, wanting me to go inside with her. She followed me to B&Q and the gym. It’s getting ridiculous.’ Dougie nodded towards Charlie. ‘Rather than trying to get us kicked out to keep her away from me, you’d be better off keeping an eye on your missus, mate. I think she loves the shaved-head look.’

‘She’s not interested in you.’

‘You sure, pal? Why does she keep following me around then?’

‘She doesn’t.’

Dougie stepped back, grinning. His teeth were slightly crooked, the sunlight catching a stud in his ear to match the watch on his wrist and rings on his fingers.

Leah hadn’t stopped glaring at Esther, her top lip snarled. ‘You lay a finger on my man and I’ll kill you, understand?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Like fuck you don’t.’

Dougie raised a chubby finger and pointed it towards Charlie. ‘You’re going to regret going to Aaron, pal. You mark my words.’

NINETEEN: ESTHER

Esther spent much of the following few days waiting for the inevitable to happen. Each morning, she awoke from patchy, broken sleep and waited for Charlie to go downstairs. She expected the call to come that someone had broken in, or something had been damaged. Instead, there was nothing except for the daily junk mail addressed to ‘Ms B Itch’.