Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (21 page)

Except that it didn’t.

She moved downstairs barefooted, stopping halfway down as the door clicked open again.

Charlie emerged into the hallway. The colour had drained from his face and he had slumped slightly, looking shorter than he actually was.

‘What’s wrong?’ Esther asked.

‘It’s my car this time.’

Charlie went into the living room as Esther waited in the front door frame, staring out towards his car, where jagged silver letters glistened out from the polished black bonnet of his company BMW. Esther didn’t need to step outside to see what it said: someone had spray-painted the word ‘scum’, with the ‘M’ compressed to make everything fit. If it hadn’t have been done to them, it would almost have been laughable.

In the living room, Charlie was holding the phone to his ear but he spoke to her anyway. ‘I’m trying to call the dealership but no-one’s answering. Can I take your car?’

‘Okay.’

‘Will you be able to drop this off at the garage later?’

‘You want me to drive around in a car with scum written on the front of it?’

‘Sorry.’

Esther held her hand out and took his keys. ‘I’ve been called worse.’ Charlie hung up the phone and stopped to hug her. Esther’s voice dropped to a whisper: ‘Do you think it’s…you-know-who?’

Charlie didn’t answer at first, gulping, contemplating. ‘I don’t know – it seems kind of obvious if it is. Everything recently has been more subtle. Not that I know who else it could be.’

He was right that it felt different – more noticeable than anything Dougie had done before, plus it was the first time Charlie had been targeted instead of her.

In the moment that he held her, Esther sensed something between them that had been lacking in recent weeks: a spark that was hard to put into words. Many of the other acts had pushed them apart but it felt as if this was bringing them together.

Soon, Charlie folded himself into her car, stalled his way off the drive, and disappeared out of sight. Esther returned inside and started in the smallest bedroom with her checks. She might be feeling a little better about it now she’d properly spoken to Charlie about it – but she still couldn’t let it go. Up-down, up-down…

Esther watched from the top window as adults and children hurried past, noticing the graffiti on the car and either laughing, shrugging or ignoring it.

That was until a different mother and son crossed the road so that they didn’t have to walk past the house. Esther watched the mother’s body language: short, hurried glances towards their home from the other side of the road before she crossed back a few houses along. It wasn’t just paranoia – the woman had gone out of her way to cross the road in order not to walk directly in front of their house. Esther had no idea who she was, presumably someone local given she was on foot, but that was two people in two days – and they were the ones she’d noticed.

Hmmm…

Esther finished her checks, made the call to the dealership, ignored the sniggers as the woman asked her to repeat what the graffiti said, and then went out for a drive in a car labelling her scum.

It was almost funny to see the reactions from pedestrians and other motorists. Esther watched the drivers in front glance in their rear-view mirrors and then do a double take, trying to read what the message said in reverse, before giving up and turning around.

At the dealership, word had clearly gone around that she was bringing the car in because there was a small crowd of salesmen and mechanics making a poor job of concealing their sideways glances towards the car.

Esther caught the bus home, becoming a little lost and getting off at the wrong stop. Instead of the one at the end of their road, she ended up having to walk from the parade of shops half a mile away. Typically, the run of blazingly warm days had come to an end, replaced by the all too familiar grey wash and howling wind. Esther didn’t know the side alleys and cut-throughs well enough, so had to follow the roads. It dawned on her that this was the first time she’d been out on foot by herself since they’d moved in. At her parents’ house, she’d walked everywhere, even though they had two cars. She’d been here over a fortnight and had either cooped herself up indoors or driven everywhere. It was no wonder she felt riddled with cabin fever.

Outside her house, Esther caught a flurry of movement from the other side of the fence out of the corner of her eye, with Liz’s front door closing abruptly. Esther hadn’t noticed anyone there in the first place but moved onto the other driveway and rang the doorbell. She could hear Gary and Mark screaming inside. There was a flicker of a curtain to her left but when she turned, there was no-one there. Esther tried the bell again, waiting as the door was opened a face-width crack.

Liz glanced both ways, only glancing briefly at Esther.

‘I was just wondering if you wanted a brew, or something?’ Esther asked.

Liz opened the door a few more centimetres but shook her head. Her eyes kept darting to the street behind. ‘No.’

‘If you’re busy, we can do something later?’

‘No.’

‘Or tomorrow?’

‘No.’

The door began to close but Esther took a half-step forward, stretching out an arm. ‘Have I done something?’

Liz held the door in place, focusing on Esther properly for the first time, her lips pursed, eyes narrow. ‘I said we should knock on your door and ask but Steve said no.’

‘Ask what?’

Liz’s face disappeared and then re-appeared moments later. Her arm was outstretched through the narrow gap in the door, pushing an A4 sheet of paper into Esther’s hand. By the time Esther had read the first word, the door had clicked closed, the reason for the graffiti now obvious.

TWENTY-FIVE: CHARLIE

Charlie stared at the leaflet barely able to take it in. At the top was a large photo of him standing on their driveway next to the car. He was squinting because of the sun, his face screwed up like some sort of fairytale ogre.

PAEDO

This man is Charlie Pooley
He was caught molesting a 5 year old boy. He was released from prison last year and housed around the corner from YOU to hide him from justice in his own area.

The police know his name and now you do too.

It hadn’t listed their address but with the car in the background and Charlie’s face clear to see, it wasn’t hard for people to know who it was referring to.

Esther and Charlie were sitting on the sofa as he digested the words. Esther was rubbing his arm, her body half entwined with his.

‘I didn’t know if I should call you home,’ she said.

‘You were right not to… this would’ve thrown me completely.’

‘After I read it, I knocked on Liz’s door and told her it wasn’t true.’

‘What did she say?’

Esther was suddenly all elbows and knees, fidgeting and almost catching him in the face. ‘She said it was fine, but…’

‘But what?’

‘If you look at it from her point of view, well, you can sort of understand it. She barely knows me and she doesn’t know you. She’s got her kids to look after – if there was even the tiniest danger to them, then she’s going to do all she can to protect them. She probably does believe me but there’s always going to be a small iota of doubt because that’s natural.’

Charlie re-read the leaflet, knowing Esther was right.

‘…
You’re going to regret going to Aaron, pal. You mark my words
…’

This is why they’d not heard anything from Dougie in days. It was as Eamonn had said, he wasn’t stupid – firebombing their house or doing anything obvious could come back to him. Instead, he could light the fuse and let other people do the work for him. The graffiti almost certainly hadn’t been Dougie, but trying to prove he’d posted the flyers was going to be all but impossible.

The biggest worry was if anyone took the poster too literally. If a few unstable gullible types really believed it, then they could be in danger.

Charlie called the police’s non-emergency number, waiting on hold until he eventually got through to someone. He could feel Esther staring at him, wondering why he was calling the police – but what else could he do? At first, the person didn’t understand what he was saying, thinking he was claiming there was a paedophile in the area. Eventually she said she would send an officer out but that it could take a couple of hours.

Not fancying a two-hour wait indoors, Charlie thought he could at least do one proactive thing. The grey clouds had cleared, though it was still cooler than recent weeks, the bristling breeze whipping across his arms as he went onto the street. He stared at the flyer, trying to compare his picture to where the car would usually be parked. It couldn’t have been snapped by someone on the pavement in front of their house, else he would’ve seen the person, so Charlie crossed the road.

Esther was at his heels. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Trying to find out where the photo was taken from?’

‘Does it matter?’

Charlie didn’t reply. It didn’t really but at least he was doing something – for all he knew, the photo had been taken through a window by one of the neighbours. If that was true, it was at least something he could tell the police when they came around.

After crossing in a straight line, Charlie walked past three houses and then turned back towards theirs, checking the angle of the photo to where he was standing. He wasn’t sure how he felt: it was so much worse than a physical injury because it was something he might never recover from. He had no way of knowing how widely the flyer had gone – perhaps just their road but maybe it was the entire estate. Anytime someone looked at him strangely, he’d wonder if they’d seen it. If things had been in reverse and he’d been told the man next door was a violent rapist, he’d do whatever he could to protect Esther, even if there were questions about how true the allegations were. Mud stuck and this was thicker and stickier than most whispers might be.

A little further along the road and Charlie found the spot where the photo had been taken from. In between two houses was a narrow cycleway, overgrown with thick overhanging leaves. From their house, it looked like two trees but the cover gave whoever had taken the photo a perfect spot to mingle among the branches unseen. Charlie took out his phone and framed the shot. He couldn’t zoom in far enough but any half-decent camera would do the job. With a digital image, a computer and a printer, someone could knock out hundreds of posters within an hour of taking the picture.

Esther stopped in front of him, cuddling into his chest. ‘We should go home.’

‘I’m not going to be bullied into staying indoors because of this.’

‘I’m not saying you should but the police will be here soon and we’ll see what they can do.’

Charlie began following her along the street but stopped as she crossed the road, desperate to think that the flyer was a one-off. He turned to the closest house, a red-brick semi-detached with white-rimmed double-glazed windows, a tidy lawn, clipped hedges and crumbling driveway – the same as hundreds in the area.

He walked along the driveway, flyer in hand and knocked on the door. As the sound of a clicking key echoed, he found himself sweating, suddenly nervous.

A squat grandfatherly man with an ordinance survey map of wrinkles on his face opened the door, confusion etched on his face. From his loose clothes and slippers, it was clear he’d been set for the night and wasn’t used to visitors in the evening. He squinted at Charlie as if he’d seen him before but couldn’t place where.

Charlie tried to sound confident, though his voice cracked on the first word. ‘Hi, my name’s Charlie Pooley and—’

The man started to close the door but Charlie stretched an arm out. ‘—Please don’t do that. Honestly, I’m just a normal bloke, I live across the road.’

Charlie turned and pointed towards their house, where Esther was standing on the driveway hands-on-hips.

The man had the door half closed, eyeing Charlie unhappily over his glasses. ‘What do you want?’

Charlie held up the flyer. ‘I was wondering if you’d had this though your door.’

The way the neighbour ran his tongue along his top set of teeth, eyes narrowing, gave the answer away.

‘Okay,’ Charlie added. ‘I just wanted to say that it’s not true. Honestly – I didn’t know anything about it and I’ve called the police. I’m hoping they’ll be able to deal with whoever put that through your door.’

The man shrugged. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘I just… I don’t know. I’m not a paedophile, I’m just… normal.’

‘I’m delighted for you – now I’m watching TV if you don’t mind.’

He started to close the door again, so Charlie spoke quickly to get his final question in: ‘Can you tell me when it came through your door?’

The man peered both ways along the street, making sure no-one was watching him talk to the paedo-in-hiding. ‘It was on the mat when I got up on Saturday morning’ He pulled the door closed, then re-opened it before it locked in place. ‘Now piss off before I call the police.’

Charlie crossed back to the house where Esther put an arm around his waist, beckoning him back into the house. He had no idea what he’d been thinking – it wasn’t as if he could go up and down the street, knocking on every door to tell them he wasn’t a paedo.

Esther said she’d cook but Charlie wasn’t hungry. It felt like his very identity had been taken from him. When it was someone messing around with their house, their property, that was something to be angry about. This was beyond that: as if they were trying to steal who he was.

Two police officers arrived within the hour, though Charlie wondered if the neighbours would think the marked car was parked outside because they were on a kiddie-fiddler clampdown and he was top of the list.

PC Campbell introduced himself first. He was a typical police-type: tall and well-built with the sense that he could probably kick your arse if he wanted to. PC White had an array of radios and other equipment strapped to her body but had a steely stare coupled with a friendly voice.

They entered the living room and arranged themselves on the sofa, pulling out a clipboard, pens, pads and half the contents of a stationery store from various pockets.