Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (19 page)

‘Why did he bother asking you for a cigarette?’

Eamonn rocked back into his seat, smiling. ‘Cuz he’s not stupid. In the pub he lost it but I think that was a one off. In court, his lawyer was saying that he’d not asked for a cigarette at all. He kept saying how he was an upstanding member of the community, that he works with kids, runs the neighbourhood watch, has won awards and all that. He made him sound like a right saint – if I’d been on the jury, I’d have found him not guilty. On the camera, all you can see is the two of us talking. His lawyer reckoned I’d called him a bunch of names and threatened him – that sort of thing.’ Eamonn paused for another sip of his drink. ‘Anyway – the court case was after the real stuff you should worry about. As soon as I went to the police after the initial attack, strange things started happening around my flat.’

‘Like what?’

Eamonn finished the rest of his drink in one and offered the empty glass to Charlie. ‘Same again, pal.’

After another uncomfortable experience with the barman, Charlie slipped back into the seat with two pints of Pickled Imp. ‘Knock yourself out,’ he said, pushing both across the table.

Eamonn smirked slightly as he started on the first. ‘When it happened last year, I had a job working at the council. Every time I got home, there’d be something. Someone put shit through my letterbox and smashed my window. At first I didn’t know what was going on but it wasn’t as if anyone else had a grudge against me. The neighbours didn’t see anything. Anyway, after the first court date, his solicitor tried to get everything chucked out. He said the CCTV was inconclusive and all this shite. The magistrates weren’t having it and sent it off to crown court. After that, things went crazy.’

‘How so?’

‘Little things. There was a doormat outside of my flat and it went missing. I lived at number forty but the zero disappeared, so it just said four. Then I started getting hang-up phone calls and junk mail for a “Pat Rick”.’

Charlie felt a disconcerting itch spike through him, which Eamonn noticed. ‘Sound familiar, yes?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Aye mate. I know the feeling. Rubbish dumped outside your place? Noises in the night? I had all that. Then I started seeing him places. I’d go to the supermarket and he’d be at the counter buying a lottery ticket. I used to play footy down the five-a-side courts and there he’d be, walking past. Half the time he wouldn’t even look at me but I’d see him. In the end, I was seeing him everywhere – anytime there was a bald guy, I’d think it was him. If I saw someone with big shoulders and a hat on, I’d assume it was him. I stopped sleeping and took up the fags again.’

‘Did you go to the police?’

‘Aye – but they were soddin’ useless. They knew all about the court case. I said I thought I was being intimidated but they said they couldn’t do anything without proof. You’re not supposed to be anywhere near a witness or victim before a court case but he would always be able to explain why he was in a certain place. So he was just buying a lottery ticket – how was he supposed to know I’d be there too? That sort of thing. I couldn’t prove anything. Then I found out his brother was a chief inspector, so I stopped reporting it. I just kind of figured everything I was reporting was being fed back. Whether that was true, I don’t know – but it’s not worth it, is it?’

‘What happened after the court case?’

Eamonn downed the rest of the pint, finishing with an alcoholic-smelling burp. ‘Christ knows, mate – I think he lost interest. All I’m telling you is not to mess with him. If he’s already mucking with you then you better buckle down. He’s not just an animal – he’s clever too. He’ll make you think you’re losing your mind.’

He started on the final pint, leaving a foamy moustache on his top lip before his final remark.

‘Course, by then, you probably will be losing it.’

TWENTY-TWO: ESTHER

Esther knew Charlie had been keeping something from her ever since he’d arrived home from work on Sunday evening. At first, he’d not even noticed her parents had gone, his mind clearly elsewhere. When she’d pointed it out, he’d stared at her without speaking for almost ten seconds before asking what happened. Esther hadn’t even been able to tell him properly, simply saying there’d been ‘an argument’. The last thing she needed was him beginning to question her sanity too. At least
he
knew Dougie existed.

She didn’t know why she’d mentioned the missing screw in the door number to her parents, let alone the leaves. When she thought about it, they were silly things to bring up but she’d been noticing lots of little things outside of the house. There was the small circular scrape on her car that she didn’t remember seeing before. When she stared at it and tilted her head, it almost looked like the letter ‘D’. One day, she’d found a single, rusting nail on the edge of their drive. She had thrown it away but another had appeared a day later in almost the exact same spot. The rubber sealant around the glass in their back door was beginning to come away from the frame, a neat crease crackling through it as if it had been cut. At the back of the house, just underneath the window, there was a single brick where all of the pointing cement had been scraped away. Esther had peered along the whole width of the wall but it was a one-off.

She hadn’t mentioned any of it to Charlie for fear of him giving her that ‘are-you-losing-it?’-look. Perhaps she was – she’d never noticed the shape of bricks in her life.

That night, as usual, Esther waited for him to go to bed before checking the locks downstairs and up and she slept reasonably well knowing that her parents weren’t next door and that the window was definitely secure.

The following morning, Charlie’s phone alarm went off and she waited for him to go downstairs. When he didn’t shout up to say there was a problem, she followed him, sitting in the kitchen and yawning her way through two cups of coffee.

Charlie was only half paying attention to her as he dipped in and out of the fridge, making himself something for lunch. ‘What are you going to do today?’ he asked.

Esther wanted to ask him what he was keeping from her but wasn’t sure she wanted to know. ‘Finally cut the hedges back and perhaps dig out a few of the ones along the side. It depends on how deep the roots are.’

He started to reply when the phone rang. Esther calmly walked through to the living room and peered at the caller ID.

Charlie was waiting behind her. ‘Are you going to answer it?’

‘No.’

‘I’m sure your mum’s not calling for another argument.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Do you want to talk about why you sent them home?’

‘No.’

Charlie sighed loudly but Esther couldn’t wait for him to leave so she could go around the house and check the windows. She was also getting to the point where she had nothing to talk to him about. When they lived with her parents, they’d talk about plans for the future when they finally got their own place. Now they were here and she spent all of her days by herself, there wasn’t enough going on in her life that she could chat about.

It was almost as if Charlie read her mind because he had one hand on the door ready to leave when he turned to face her. ‘Shall we do something later?’

‘Like what?’

‘We could go out and eat somewhere.’

‘Where?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know – we’ll drive around and find something we like the look of. Let’s be spontaneous – well, sort of.’

‘We don’t have the money.’

‘We’ll get by. We don’t have to go somewhere mega posh. This is the type of thing we talked about being able to do when we got our own place, remember: getting dressed up and going out whenever we wanted, without having to worry about creeping in late and waking up your parents.’

‘I know…’

‘So let’s do it.’

Esther ran through the order of the day in her mind. If she could get back inside the house by four o’clock, she’d have time to shower, change and check all of the windows and the back door before Charlie arrived home. She’d make sure she was out of the house after him so that she locked the front door, then she shouldn’t spend the whole evening worrying about the house.

‘Okay.’

He cracked into a smile, showing a hint of the old days before kissing her quickly on the forehead.

As soon as he was gone, Esther dashed upstairs and started with the window in the smallest room. As she moved onto the bathroom, she stopped in front of the sink, staring at her own reflection in the mirror. Her mother had said her eyebrow was twitching involuntarily. Was it true? She started poking at her skin, rubbing her finger through her eyebrow until small white flakes began to crumble. There were darker rings around her eyes from the lack of sleep plus she had definitely lost weight on her chin, despite that cow Leah calling her fat.

She tried raising a single eyebrow but couldn’t manage it without both going up. Her mother was either seeing things, or… well, she didn’t know why her mum might make something like that up.

Having lost her place, Esther returned to the smallest bedroom and started her window routine again.

Up-down, up-down…

Esther was in the front bedroom checking the lock when she noticed something strange happening outside. A mother was walking along the street with her two children but when they reached the pavement directly outside of Charlie and Esther’s home, the mother stopped to stare at the house, allowing her children to run ahead. It was only for a couple of seconds but plenty enough to send chills through Esther.

She crept down the stairs, fumbling for the front door key in her pocket and wondering what could be wrong. On the driveway, she was almost worried to turn back to house but, when she did, there was… nothing. No graffiti, no broken window, no chopped wires: nothing that shouldn’t be there.

Esther was about to head inside when she realised she was being watched. She spun towards Liz’s house next door, seeing the top of Mark’s head over the fence. He looked like he’d just got up, with messy hair and crinkled clothes.

‘Are you all right?’ Esther called to him.

The boy nodded.

‘Do you want to come over and play football in the garden later?’

Mark shook his head vigorously.

‘Have you gone off it?’

Another head shake. ‘No.’

‘Okay.’

Esther stepped back towards the front door when Mark called after her. ‘Mum says I’m not allowed to come over any longer.’

‘Why not?’

‘Dunno – she said we weren’t ever allowed to come here again.’

‘Did she say why?’

Before he could answer, there was a large bang and then Liz’s voice yelled ‘Mark!’ The boy made one quick quizzical look at Esther, then turned and ran for the front door.

TWENTY-THREE: CHARLIE

As Charlie weaved his way off the estate, he kept an eye on the rear-view mirror. He didn’t think they were being followed but there was nothing wrong with being careful – especially given everything Eamonn had told him. He’d asked Esther if she’d seen anything of ‘you-know-who’ but she said not. It was almost too much to believe that he was going to leave them alone but it was six days since they’d heard from Dougie and Esther had almost seemed like her old self when he’d arrived home. Not only had she hacked at all of the hedges at the back of the garden, she’d started digging out a couple of the ones closest to the house where she wanted to create a full allotment patch for herself. She’d even put on her short black dress again.

Instead of heading in the direction that would take him to work, Charlie turned the opposite way towards the town. He didn’t really know where he was heading but kept going all the way through the centre, turning off the main A-road and weaving through the country lanes.

The smell of mown grass eked into the vents as early evening sunshine shone through the glass making it feel like a midsummer’s afternoon. The countryside was so gorgeous that Esther broke the silence, pointing out rabbits playing in the verges and a vast yellow field of crops ready for reaping.

Before long, they were noting places they could visit: marked trails, signs for car boot sales, a pub next to a canal that would have been perfect to eat at if it wasn’t for the fact that it was closed for refurbishment.

Charlie could feel his stomach grumbling as he continued to drive. He eventually pulled in at an Italian place a little off the main road. He switched off the engine and opened the door but Esther didn’t move.

‘This is all right, isn’t it?’ Charlie asked.

Esther was leaning forward, peering from side to side along the road. ‘I don’t know. It’s a little open.’

‘We can go somewhere else if you want?’

‘Yes.’

Charlie closed his door again and continued driving. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Esther eyeing the wing-mirror on her side, even though was no-one behind him.

They passed cricket pitches with men in white spending the evening shielding their eyes from the sun, a pub with a packed beer garden at the front that Charlie didn’t even suggest stopping at, a car showroom in the middle of nowhere, a vicious humpback bridge that almost sent them through the roof and a whole host of brown tourist road signs signalling walks and tracks among the hills and rivers.

When they’d bought the house, they’d had no idea how much beautiful countryside there was around them.

Charlie eventually stopped at a grey-brick, thatched roof country pub just outside of a hamlet he’d never heard of. There was a small car park at the rear, shielded from the road by the pub and a row of tight dark green trees. Esther gave it the nod of approval and they even entered through the garden at the rear, rather than heading onto the main road. A friendly young waitress welcomed them and offered a table at the front. Usually it would have been perfect, the arch of the bay window amplifying the natural light of the sun, but Esther shook her head. She wandered aimlessly around the dining room until she found a spot in a small crook at the back where a person would need to be able to stare around right angles to see them through a window. The waitress shrugged a ‘fine’ when Esther asked if they could sit there, no doubt confused because it was pretty much the worst seat in the house.