Watched: When Road Rage Follows You Home (27 page)

As Esther ducked away from the light just in case there was anyone around, the letterbox popped open and clanged shut, followed by the thud of something landing on the doormat.

Charlie reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time as Esther opened the living room door. They glanced momentarily at each other, sharing the same thought: it was a Sunday.

Lying on the mat was a plain brown envelope. Esther picked it up but there was nothing written on the front or back. When she held it up for Charlie to see, his eyes widened before he hurried into the living room, pulling back the curtains for a glimpse of whoever had left it.

‘Was it him?’ Esther asked.

‘I couldn’t see anyone.’

They sat together on the sofa and Esther handed him the envelope. It was made of card and felt packed with something flat and bendy. Charlie took a deep breath, echoing her thoughts. Neither of them wanted to know what was inside, yet a sealed envelope held its own power because everyone had a natural curiosity about what was inside. He ran a finger under the flap, peering inside before tipping the contents onto his lap.

Esther gasped as he turned the unwanted gift over. On top was a photograph of Charlie driving, sunglasses on, waiting at a junction she didn’t recognise. The second showed him leaning over a hotel reception desk, talking to a black-haired woman with a smile on his face.

‘That’s Olivia – she works for me,’ he whispered unnecessarily.

He moved slowly through the stack: Esther on the driveway picking up rubbish, a photo of Charlie half-dressed taken through the bedroom window one morning, Esther driving, both of them at the supermarket, a snap of them sitting on the sofa taken through the living room window.

Esther jumped up and wrenched the curtains closed, turning on the living room light and sitting down with a resigned thump.

The next picture was the worst: she was sitting by the pond watching the ducks. It was at a moment when she had been thinking that perhaps things weren’t too bad after all, but even that moment of harmony was now tainted.

As soon as Charlie moved to the next one, Esther gasped, spluttering, crushed by a crippling sense of invasion. She was lying on the lawn at the back of the house, with Patch sitting on her stomach. She remembered the moment perfectly because he’d been pawing playfully at her hand, mewing and then rolling over. She tried to figure out where the photo had been taken from, when the reality hit that someone must have been standing on their driveway, peeking around the side of the house with their phone or a camera, raiding her private moments.

She thought things couldn’t get any worse – but then Charlie unveiled the final picture. Esther stared at it, unable to process what she was seeing. Unbearably, incomprehensibly, she was standing side on, utterly naked. It took Esther a few moments to recognise that it was definitely her. How could it be?

Charlie peered from the photo to her and back again before Esther snatched it away. She stared at the detail, looking for clues to where it could possibly be from.

‘I’m on the landing,’ Esther said, turning the photo back towards Charlie and pointing at the lampshade at the top of the stairs.

‘Why are you naked?’

‘I… I don’t know. There was a moment a week or so ago when I took a shower and forgot to take a towel in. I ran back into the bedroom – I literally ran. I could only have been in front of that upstairs window for a second, not even that.’

Charlie was still staring at the photo, mouth open.

‘Charlie!’

‘What?’

‘Someone must’ve been waiting in the alley at the back for ages to take that.’

‘Okay.’

She was suddenly angry, slapping him on the legs to get his attention. ‘You can’t think I stopped at the top of the stairs to pose for it? What do you think I am?’

Charlie shook his head, blinking rapidly. ‘I know… I don’t… I just don’t know what to say.’

Esther ripped the photo in half.

‘We could take these to the police,’ Charlie said.

Esther held up the two halves. ‘If we do that, who’s to stop anyone printing out a thousand of these and posting them everywhere – or printing out more of the posters with you on.’

‘So what do we do?’

Esther took the pile of photos and threw them in the bin. ‘There’s only one thing we can do – we move.’

Charlie opened his mouth to argue but she could see in his face that he knew the truth. Regardless of how much it cost them, they were done with this house.

THIRTY-THREE: CHARLIE

Esther was right – she always had been. The strange thing was that realising it was over made things feel so much better, even though their lives were as bleak as they’d ever been. The paedo and the exhibitionist – what a couple they were.

Charlie called the hotel and said he was going to be late because he had a doctor’s appointment. It didn’t matter what he said – by the time he got to work, one of the smart-arse kitchen staff would have spread the word that he was late because he’d been down the local police station to sign onto the sex offenders register, or something equally offensive.

Instead, they drove to the chain of estate agents from which they’d bought the house. Esther sat low in her seat, clearly not wanting to be seen but Charlie didn’t ask what was wrong. Part of the problem from the past two weeks was that they’d not bothered talking to each other. He still hadn’t told her about the newspaper reports he’d seen regarding Leah and Dougie’s crimes, let alone the shed full of potential weapons. She’d not told him about the pills and likely other things. Perhaps if they’d been completely honest with each other from the start, things might have turned out differently.

It was too late now but a new start somewhere else, utterly broke, might at least give them something to rally behind.

Charlie avoided the main roads as best he could until emerging from a side street directly opposite the estate agent. The photos had been the final straw because it was a message that they weren’t safe anywhere: driving to work, lounging in the garden, rushing from the bathroom to the bedroom. There was a watching eye everywhere. Charlie wondered if they were being observed now, someone sneering behind a lens, knowing they’d won.

Esther was pale from a sleepless night, with the grey morning and change of weather matching their moods. As he parked the car, she reached across and squeezed his hand, a shadow of her former self but still beautiful.

A glimmer of something amazing was still so much better than the entirety of something that never had a spark in the first place.

‘We’ve got to do this,’ she breathed.

‘I know.’

‘We’re going to be poor for a few more years but we’re used to that, right?’

‘I remember when we were living in our old flat. The corner shop put the price of noodles up and I thought you were going to lynch the guy behind the counter.’

Esther laughed, completely unexpectedly. Charlie couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that naturally, not a snort or a reflective huff, a genuine giggle.

‘Maybe not lynch, perhaps just hit with a stick a few times.’ She squeezed his hand again. ‘Come on, let’s see what they’ve got to say.’

A man in a too-smart, too-tight suit was waltzing around the inside of the estate agent’s, opening blinds and seeming far too cheery for two minutes past nine on a Monday morning. He was so immaculately groomed that he must have been up for hours: blow-dried, back-swept dark hair, perfectly even goatee and not a hint of nostril or ear hairs. Charlie dreaded to think how long it would take to get his appearance up to those standards.

As Charlie and Esther entered hand-in-hand, he gave them a wave and a wink. ‘I’ll be with you in one minute. Just let me stick the kettle on.’

He disappeared into a backroom following something approaching a pirouette, leaving them staring at the empty door.

‘I hate him already,’ Esther whispered.

‘Me too – he’s an estate agent. You’re supposed to hate him.’

‘Good point.’

‘It was probably his idea to put the price of noodles up.’

Esther laughed for a second time and, for a moment, the world was right again. Then the agent returned and the reality of what they were doing dawned again.

The details were simple enough until the agent reached the question: ‘How long have you been living there?’

There was an uncomfortable silence before Charlie replied: ‘Three weeks.’

The man had been happily tapping away on the keyboard but stopped, fingers poised over the keys. ‘
Weeks?’

‘Yes.’

He stared earnestly at Charlie as if trying to read his thoughts and then tried it with Esther, before breaking into an uneasy laugh. ‘Is there anything I need to know?’

Esther replied: ‘If anything, it’s in a much better state than it was.’

‘Can I ask why you’re selling?’

‘We don’t like the area.’

‘Right… just give me one minute.’

The agent hopped up, holding up a single finger to indicate the minute he seemed to think they wouldn’t understand otherwise. He disappeared into the back room, leaving them alone at the desk. On the far side of the room, another agent eyed them for a few moments before disappearing into the room too. Subtlety was obviously not a strong point around the office.

‘What do you think they’re talking about?’ Charlie whispered.

‘They’re probably trying to work out how many bodies we could’ve buried under the patio in three weeks.’

‘We don’t have a patio.’

‘I know – imagine how that’s going to throw them.’

Esther’s hand gripped Charlie’s tighter and she rested her head on his shoulder.

The agent soon returned, all smiles as if nothing had happened. A minute later, the second agent emerged and returned to her desk, hiding behind a brochure and trying to pretend she wasn’t watching them from across the room.

Regardless of whatever they’d gossiped about in the other room, the agent went through the rest of the questions without any other awkward pauses. Afterwards, he plucked a thick hardback planner from a drawer under the desk, hefting it onto the table with a booming thump. After thumbing through the pages, he cracked into a smile. ‘It’s a ridiculously quiet day and we’ve already had a cancellation. Depending on what your feelings are, we could get someone to you later to do a valuation, plus have someone drop around to take some photographs and measurements. All being well, we could have a board up this evening and something on our website at some point tomorrow. It’s up to you.’

Esther’s fingers wriggled deeper around Charlie’s and he felt her take a breath. It wasn’t just an idea any longer, they were actually doing it.

‘Can you give us a moment?’ Charlie asked.

The estate agent picked up his mug and waggled it in front of them. ‘Another while you wait?’

Two headshakes later and he’d crossed to the other side of the room to gossip about the pair of serial killers they were selling a house for.

Esther brushed a strand of hair away from her face. There was a little more colour in her skin now she was out of the house but she looked so tired. There were dark rings around her eyes and her cheeks had an inward curve to them – but it wasn’t even just that. There was an emptiness to her eyes, a complete lack of spark or fire. He wanted to ask the last time she’d had a proper meal but it wasn’t as if it would change anything.

‘It’s pretty fast, isn’t it?’ Charlie said.

‘The quicker it’s on the market, the quicker it can sell.’

They gazed into each other’s eyes – it wasn’t that many months ago they’d had a conversation similar to this about moving in the first place.

‘How are we going to do all of this?’

‘A lot depends on whether you want to carry on working at the hotel.’

Charlie shrugged. It wasn’t really a fair decision for him to make by himself – if he left the job, he’d be choosing that both of them had to leave the area. Regardless of what had happened with the house, they’d opted to move for a better future.

‘If you’d asked on Friday, I’d have said I wanted to quit but I’ll live with it. If anyone gets out of line, I’ll sack ’em. Alan says he’ll give me his full backing over disciplinary issues. Give it a few months and people will forget. It’s still a good job.’

Esther brushed his face with the backs of her fingers, making him shiver. ‘In that case, we’ll put all of our things into storage – it’s not that expensive, plus we already have the boxes.’ Esther smiled sadly, knowing it wasn’t funny. ‘While we’re waiting for the house to sell, we can rent a flat somewhere on the other side of town, closer to your hotel. We can use our credit card for now but I’ll find some sort of work – even if it’s for an agency. It won’t pay much but it’ll be enough to cover rent and your salary will pay the mortgage. We won’t have much left but we’ll get by. We’ve lived off less.’

She’d clearly thought it through, even though this was the first time she’d said it out loud.

‘Does that mean more noodles?’ Charlie asked.

‘At least we won’t be living with my parents.’

‘True.’

‘While we’re renting, we can start looking for houses either on the other side of town, or in one of the villages. We’ll have to be a little less picky but I’m sure we’ll find something. We’ve only just bought, so if we sell at the price we paid, we’ll be okay. It has to be worth a bit more because of everything we’ve done – all we’ve lost is a few weeks of effort—’

‘—
Your
effort.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll live.’

Esther gulped, swallowing hard and blinking rapidly, though she was unable to stop the single tear running along her cheek. Charlie reached out and wiped it away.

‘Okay?’ she added.

‘Okay.’

THIRTY-FOUR: ESTHER

Charlie dropped Esther off at the house and then drove to work. She couldn’t think of it in any way other than ‘the house’ – it certainly wasn’t their home. Esther left the curtains closed at the front but opened them at the back. Within minutes, Patch appeared, trotting along the line of the hedge, apparently aware that Charlie had gone and that he could have her to himself.