Page 50 of Watching You
‘More importantly, how do you find them before another of our patients or a member of staff gets killed?’ Beth asked. ‘We can’t shut down, and we can’t make patients too scared to come here for the treatment they need. So I’m begging you, do your jobs fast, because there are no good options for us.’
‘I’ll get uniformed officers posted downstairs in the public areas,’ Connie said. ‘We’ll call it a community outreach scheme. And we’ll brief your security team and the hospital board in the meantime. But I agree. Panic is likely to make our job harder. If every visitor or staff member starts acting skittish, it’ll be even harder to spot someone acting out of the ordinary.’
‘We can divert some undercover officers on a roving basis too,’ Lively said. ‘The more eyes the better.’
Beth’s eyes were suddenly full of tears. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go back to work,’ she said. ‘I’ll be worried about you.’
‘It’s not me who’s working at a hospital that seems to be attracting a serial killer,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you could take some time off?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘We’re short-staffed. And wouldn’t that be awful, me running away because I know something other people don’t? I don’t think so.’
He reached out his arms and she walked into his embrace. ‘Then you’d best be careful,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just found you, and we’ve already nearly lost each other once.’
Connie smiled and looked at the floor.
‘You’ll stay living with me though, even now you’re back at work?’ Beth asked.
‘You try getting rid of me,’ he said. ‘I’m going nowhere.’
Karl Smith, at that precise moment gazing into the fridge at Beth’s house and wondering what he could do to the contents, had a different idea.
Chapter 34
The Watcher
15 June
That morning, Beth Waterfall had left home mid-morning and taken the obviously malingering Detective Sergeant Lively with her, which meant that Karl finally had the opportunity to do some mischief at the doctor’s house. Not that he had the guts to do anything when push came to shove. He’d made it as far as the kitchen, appraising the contents of her fridge, before deciding that he was testing his luck and retreating to his car. Now that he had a key, copied from the spare that Beth kept in her utility room drawer after breaking in through an unsecured window, getting in and out was easy. What he hadn’t banked on was the bastard copper moving in for so long.
Lively might be injured, but he was a police officer with a reputation. The more Karl had looked into him, the less he liked what he found out. Lively was old-style, not afraid to take on Scotland’s gangsters, not afraid of getting hurt, and – reading between the lines – not afraid of getting a bit dirty when it was needed. The newspapers told hyperbolic stories of his heroics in apprehending several serious criminals, most of which stretchedcredibility a little far, but still Karl couldn’t be sure Lively hadn’t decided to increase the building’s security now that it appeared he was getting settled there.
‘Spoiling my fucking fun, is what he’s doing,’ Karl muttered.
‘Fun?!’ his mother screeched from the back seat, slapping Karl hard around the back of his head and catching the scar that was barely concealed beneath hair that had failed to grow back properly.
Karl screamed and clutched his chest.
‘Ma!’ he half-shouted, half-whined, not so stupid that even in moments of shock he would dare shout back at her. ‘What are you doing here, out of the house?’
He slid his eyes over the rearview mirror, not quite letting them stop for his sanity’s sake. His mother had rarely been out of her bedroom, only venturing down the stairs on a handful of occasions. Now she’d figured out a way to get into his car, too. Was he to have no peace?
‘There’s no one in, so why are you still sitting here? Coward. Lazy fool. No better than your father in that bed all day.’
‘Ma, he’s had a stroke! You know he can’t get up.’
‘I know he’s better when you’re not there, and when that silly wee bitch who comes to watch him is out the back sneaking a fag. He grabs the TV remote, changes the channel, fluffs his pillow. Oh aye, quite the mover, he is, when he wants something.’
‘That’s not true,’ Karl griped, although hadn’t he noticed things moving around now that he thought about it? And surely the whisky in the bottle at his father’s bedside was evaporating faster than was scientifically possible. No, his father wouldn’t be duping him. Not when he changed the man’s adult nappies and gave him a bed bath every evening. ‘You’re lying,’ Karl dared to say, flinching as soon as the words dribbled from his downturned mouth.
He expected another slap but what came was worse: silence at first, then the creak of the faux-leather rear seats, the smell of mints wafting across, just barely covering something rancid and ancient on her breath.
‘Am I now?’ she growled at him.
Karl could feel her bottom jaw hitting his shoulder with each word and imagined her drooling something viscous and foul but couldn’t bring himself to check. Better that he kept his eyes tight shut. Better to pretend she wasn’t real at all.
‘Here you are, telling me I’m lying, when just last night you found yourself wi’ a cushion in your hand, wondering if anyone would investigate your father’s death given the mess he’s in.’ Her voice was gravel and razor blades.
‘Didn’t,’ Karl squeaked, fourteen years old again and fighting the shame of a disobedient voice box.
