Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (22 page)

Esther asked if they fancied some tea but PC White shook her head. ‘Honestly, you drown in the stuff at our place.’

The two officers seemed horrified by the flyer, though Charlie guessed they’d checked on their system to ensure it wasn’t true first. They went through the technical details – where Esther had got the flyer from, when it had been delivered – as well as taking details of the graffiti attack on Charlie’s car. The problem was, as Charlie knew, that there was no easy way of proving where it came from. They said they would check with local print shops but it was clear from their faces they didn’t expect to get anywhere.

When they got to asking if Charlie knew anyone with a grudge against him, he knew he had to give all of the details. With Esther’s help, they recounted everything that had happened since they moved in. Regardless of whether Dougie’s brother worked for the police, if he stuck to the facts as he knew them, then he surely couldn’t get in trouble – he was trying to clear his name. The officers took the details but parts of it had already been reported and nothing had happened with those, so it wasn’t as if Charlie held out much hope for anything being done. As they told the story, so much of it sounded ridiculous. Esther saying Dougie had been in the car park at the gym, items going missing from their washing line, Dougie’s argument with the carpet van… When it came to mentioning the doorstep altercation where Dougie had promised vengeance, Charlie couldn’t meet the officers’ eyes – that had been on the back of him going to his landlord, after all.

If anything, it sounded like he and Esther had been the aggressors – him specifically – which was clearly what the officers thought as they exchanged raised eyebrows before folding the papers away.

‘All we can do is talk to Mr Jamieson,’ PC White said.

That was the last thing Charlie wanted: ‘Is there any way you could not do that?’

‘We can’t do much if we can’t talk to potential suspects.’

‘It’s just I don’t want to make things worse.’

The officer held up the flyer. ‘You know how serious this could be. Obviously we’ll do what we can to ensure no harm comes to either of you but we can only investigate if you cooperate. There are also civil forms of mediation for neighbour disputes—’

‘—It’s not a neighbour dispute!’

Charlie had interrupted and spoken too forcefully.

‘Sorry,’ he added. ‘I know that Mr, er, Jamieson has a brother who works for the police and I suppose…’

The officer remained unmoved, waiting for him to finish the sentence.

‘…I suppose I don’t know if that makes a difference,’ Charlie added.

PC White squinted at him. ‘I can assure you that if you have a dispute with someone related to a police officer, then that officer would never be involved in any investigation. I can give you a leaflet if you want? There are contact numbers if you’re worried about conflicts of interest – plus there are independent places to complain.’

‘I don’t want to complain – I don’t really want to make a fuss at all, but…’ Charlie tailed off. He’d probably made things worse. ‘…I was wondering if you could go around the houses on the street and say it’s not true.’

‘We don’t really have the manpower to be going door-to-door for that.’

‘Or perhaps you can get something in the local paper or the news…?’

There was another awkward glance between the officers before PC White replied. ‘The problem with that is that you’re drawing more attention to yourself. For now, we don’t know how widely these have been distributed. It could be a dozen houses in the immediate vicinity, it could be a hundred. If it ends up in the media, it’ll instantly put you face in front of thousands.’

‘Right…’

‘So do you actually want us to investigate where these came from?’

Charlie peered across to Esther on the other side of the room but she shrugged, her body language saying it was up to him.

‘I suppose I don’t – you’re right, it could just be a few houses and it’ll only make it worse if I make a big deal about it.’

‘We can still investigate the graffiti attack.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘It’ll be re-sprayed by the morning. It’s a company car, so they’re paying.’

PC White sounded strict, like a headteacher admonishing two fighting schoolchildren: ‘I’m not sure what else you’d like us to do. If there really is something between you and Mr Jamieson that’s going to get out of hand, then I’d rather have it dealt with now.’

Charlie didn’t blame her – calling them out and explaining everything that had happened made it sound so trivial. What couldn’t be put into words was the mental effect it was having on them and their relationship.

The officers left, reminding Charlie and Esther to call 999 if there were any issues, which only brought it home to them more that they could be in danger. Hopefully, enough people had taken the flyer and either binned it, or at least used the Internet to search for his name and realise it wasn’t true. The problem was that so many people believed the things put in front of them, factual or not. It was like those ridiculous chain emails and social media posts that clueless people endlessly forwarded around, believing the top line without bothering to make the merest of checks. Half the country probably thought the world was flat because someone posted it on Facebook.

This is what Eamonn had tried to tell him – mess with Dougie and you were on your own.

TWENTY-SIX: CHARLIE

Charlie was beginning to know what Esther felt like when she talked about being watched. As he came out of the house to drive to work, there were two children, eight or nine years old, bounding along the street together kicking a football. Charlie found himself peering at them, remembering his own summer holidays when he’d spend hours playing football in the park with his mates. After a few seconds, he realised that if any of the neighbours spotted him looking at kids, then it would only reinforce the lies. It wasn’t just his space that had been invaded, it was his very thoughts and even the direction he was allowed to face. He could feel the eyes in the windows around, watching, wanting him to make a move so that they could storm outside with their pitchforks. How long were things going to be like this?

Knowing there was little he could do for now, Charlie squeezed his legs under the steering wheel of Esther’s car and pulled away. Every time there was a child on the side of the street, with or without a parent, Charlie forced himself to face ahead and pay no interest. If a child came dashing into the road from the side, he’d knock them down but at least he couldn’t be accused of molesting them.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t stop himself from eyeing every fellow motorist with suspicion. Perhaps they’d seen his photograph on the poster and were ready to run him off the road?

At work, Charlie strode past the bellboy, wishing him good morning and receiving a vague open-mouthed grunt in reply. That was normal – though he couldn’t help but notice the man’s gaze following him the entire way into the hotel. Usually, the moment Charlie had passed him, he’d be back on his mobile phone or, occasionally, helping a guest.

The receptionist, Olivia, was a bright, almost too enthusiastic graduate who wanted to end up in hotel management and had taken the job with the admirable hope of working her way up. She was one of the few people Charlie would trust around the hotel to actually get things done. If he could have his way – which he would – he’d get her doing a different job as soon as he could move on a few of the dead wood.

Charlie tried to sound cheery as he passed the desk. ‘Morning.’

Olivia was usually assertive and confident but she immediately buried herself behind the computer screen in a flash of black hair. ‘Hello, Mr, er, Pooley.’

‘Anything I need to know?’

Charlie tried to manoeuvre himself to see her but Olivia was hiding from him, squirming low into her seat and tapping at the keyboard.

‘No, it’s been a quiet night.’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘No-one’s been giving you any trouble, have they?’

‘No.’

‘So why are you hiding?’

‘I’m not.’

Charlie peered down at her, trying not to make an issue of it, aware he was seeing conspiracy everywhere.

‘I can barely see you at my height, so our guests are going to struggle aren’t they? You’ve not got spine problems, have you?’

He tried to laugh it off but Olivia wasn’t smiling as she pushed herself into a full sitting position. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

‘Look at me, Olivia.’ She didn’t move for a moment until eventually, reluctantly, she twisted her face. Her eyes stared somewhere over Charlie’s shoulder. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’

‘No.’

‘“No” you’re not sure, or “no” there’s nothing wrong.’

‘No there’s nothing wrong.’

Charlie continued watching her for a few moments, wanting to press her but knowing there wasn’t too much else he could ask. For all he knew, she’d had an argument with her boyfriend.

After an uncomfortable silence, he continued along the hallway, telling one of the staff members to tuck his shirt in and receiving another strange look for his trouble. He wanted to stop and question him about what was going on but there was a nagging sense that this
was
normal and it was he who was seeing things differently. All those mornings of wondering why Esther was being so distant and edgy and now they’d spun a half-circle and it was him distrusting everything.

He rounded the corner to go to his office but froze at the sight of the suited man sitting outside of his door.

Something actually was going on…

Alan Byers was the regional manager for the hotel chain – the man who had hired him. Charlie had met him half a dozen times and found him friendly, never short of a joke about the latest calamity at one of the hotels out of their region. When he’d visited the previous week, he’d told Charlie about a south-coast hotel where a wife had followed her husband one lunchtime. He’d arranged to visit a prostitute who’d hired a room for an afternoon – unbeknown to the staff. Things had ended up with a three-way expletive-ridden, clothes-free, stand-up row with both women telling him exactly what they thought of him, all in full hearing of the reception area. For the actual staff and the southern regional manager, it was a PR disaster; for the other three regional managers, it was comedy gold – the type of thing that would be spoken about at Christmas parties for years to come.

As Alan stood, there was no comedy gold in his face. His brow was rippled with a plethora of worry lines blending into one another. He didn’t offer his hand to shake, instead nodding towards Charlie’s office.

‘We should probably talk in there.’

Charlie didn’t reply, unlocking the door and heading inside. He knew what was coming.

Alan waited for Charlie to sit behind the desk and then checked both ways along the corridor before closing the door firmly. He sat opposite Charlie, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chairs. ‘Do you know why I’m here, Charlie?’

‘No.’

He took a folded-up sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the desk. Charlie went through the rigmarole of opening it up but the contents were exactly as he’d thought.

‘None of that’s true,’ Charlie said, sliding the paedophile leaflet back across the desk.

‘Have you seen it before?’

‘Someone posted it to our neighbours over the weekend. We’ve had the police out to try to sort things.’

‘Have they?’

‘Not exactly. We don’t know where they came from and it’s hard to prove anything.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news—’

‘—You’re suspending me?’

‘We have to. Everyone on the management board received one of those flyers in yesterday afternoon’s post. I didn’t want to have to do this over the phone, which is why I’m here in person. It’s full pay pending an investigation. If it’s any consolation, things shouldn’t take too long – we’ve been in contact with the authorities this morning. It’s just that upper management felt uncomfortable with the notion of you being here while things were…’

He tailed off but Charlie wasn’t prepared to let him off the hook: ‘…things were what?’

‘Unclear.’

Charlie picked up the wedding photo from his desk and folded the stand down. He tried to fit it into his pocket but the frame was too big, so he ended up cradling it awkwardly on his lap. ‘Nothing’s unclear. I had to have a criminal check before you even hired me – there can’t have been anything on that because I’ve never even been arrested, let alone cautioned, convicted, or anything else.’

‘I know that, Charlie, but—’

‘—So what’s the problem?’

‘It’s not just my decision. You know what people are like, if it got out that we didn’t do a full investigation, then we could be sued.’

‘You can’t be sued because I haven’t done anything wrong.’

Alan shook his head. Charlie knew he’d been the person that had gone out of his way to try to get him the job, even though there had been all sorts of logistics to organise because Charlie didn’t live in the area at the time. He could see the hurt in the man’s eyes and wondered if it was because he felt duped.

Alan sighed: ‘It’s not that simple. This is above me or you. I can’t overrule our bosses.’

‘Do you believe me?’

The miniscule pause was enough for Charlie to start packing up the rest of his personal items from the desk.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m leaving.’

Charlie began looking around the office for a box. There must be an empty photocopier paper one somewhere.

‘What do you mean you’re leaving?’

‘I’m quitting.’

Alan stood abruptly. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

Charlie found a flattened box alongside the filing cabinet. He bent the flaps around so that it didn’t collapse and then put the wedding photo inside. ‘How can I work here when the staff think I touch kids up? Even when you end up clearing me, they’re going to remember. The minute I try to discipline anyone, they’ll throw it back in my face.’

‘So you deal with that if and when it happens. Look, don’t do this now. Just go home and I’ll call you later. This will all be ironed out in the next few hours and we can carry on tomorrow as normal.’