Page 6 of Watching You
Salter was at her desk contemplating her decision to leave her beautiful, adopted baby girl with a child-minder, to facilitate her return to work. No matter how many times she told herself it was good for her daughter to be with other people and doing everything from swimming lessons to baby ballet, those long afternoons on the sofa with a sleeping child on her chest still felt like the best dream she’d ever had. Now she was stuck with pictures of insect larvae, a soil report and a list of hiking boot retail outlets to work through. She yawned for the hundredth time that morning and stretched as Lively, dressed in joggers, a formerly-white T-shirt and running shoes, all but fell through the doorway of Edinburgh’s Major Incident Team briefing room.
‘Medic,’ one of the squad cried, earning a round of applause.
‘Defibrillator!’ came the reply. ‘Clear!’
Lively managed to get himself fully upright, wiped the sweat from his eyes and growled at the team. ‘You all know that every one of your girlfriends comes to me for sex advice, right?’
The women in the room grimaced and tried not to gag while the men laughed.
‘All right, that’s enough,’ Salter shouted. ‘Back to work. You need a shower, sarge, or do I have to talk to you through your body’s natural defence mechanism?’
Lively sniffed one of his armpits and reeled. ‘Give me five minutes.’ He returned a quarter of an hour later sipping black coffee and wrinkling his nose at every sip.
‘No milk and sugar today! I’m impressed. Made a few life-changing decisions then?’ Salter smiled.
‘Just choosing to be a bit healthier,’ he said. ‘We never know when we’re going to be put to the test, physically speaking. My resting pulse wasn’t as low as I like it to be.’
‘Good for you. Any particular reason for the timing?’ She tried to contain her grin but lost the battle. ‘Only, now that you’re fresh from the shower, it also appears that your hair is a few shades darker than it was yesterday.’
Lively huffed. ‘Is that the extent of the detective work you figure on doing today, or are we here to solve at least one of the two bloody murders on our patch before the superintendent has another tantrum?’
‘Fair enough!’ Salter raised her hands in mock surrender. ‘I’m just sayin’, if you should find yourself needing any advice, you know, about women or dating or the like, you can ask. I won’t even take the piss.’
Lively folded his arms and sat back in his chair, mouth firmly shut.
‘All right, you win. Just remember that grooming expectations are considerably more evolved than they were in the 1980s.’ She picked up her own mug of coffee. ‘Your homeless stabbing victim’s been identified, by the way. His name’s Archie Bass, well known in the community as a chronic alcoholic but apparentlyhe’d been off the drugs of late. Been on the streets for years but he uses the shelters in winter. A soup kitchen volunteer recognised the image we gave the uniforms to pass around. So I’m thinking, either he got in a beef with someone or we’ve got another sick fuck out there who’s taking his psychosis out on what he regards as disposable humans. Want to hit the streets with me? I’ve got some info about the places he used to hang out and identities of a few of his regular drinking buddies.’
‘I’m actually meeting his, um, surgeon, the doctor, at the, um, mortuary. She offered to help talk us through the surgical process, you know, just to cover bases and whatnot.’
Salter took a deep breath and folded her hands into her lap. ‘You’re stumbling over your words more than you usually would. And now that I think about it, I can’t recall seeing you in a shirt for a very long time, and that one, if I’m not mistaken, has actually been ironed. That surgeon wouldn’t happen to be female by any chance?’
‘That’s it. I’m late. And when we meet here later to debrief, I’d better not hear any more of this crap. If it were me asking you those questions, I’d be up in front of a disciplinary panel for sexual harassment in a heartbeat.’ He stood up and brushed down his trousers.
Salter’s smile was genuine. ‘For what it’s worth, you look very nice. And I’m not sexually harassing you. They sure as hell don’t pay me enough for that.’
‘Fuck you very much,’ Lively said. ‘And ask about Archie’s knife. Get the best description you can.’
‘Archie’s knife?’
‘Aye. Anyone who’s lived on the streets for any period of time carries something to defend themselves. It’s too dangerous out there not to.’
Chapter 6
The Watcher
12 May
Sitting in the car he’d hired using a fake driving licence ordered off the internet, he watched the entrance to the doctors’ car park at St Columba hospital. He couldn’t get distracted or look away. Gone were the days when cars had to pull up at the barrier. The new hospital was all mod cons. Number plate recognition meant that the woman he was there to see would breeze straight through into the multi-storey then enter the hospital from an internal corridor he couldn’t access. A couple of years ago, things were simpler. Now everywhere you looked it was two-factor verification for social media and emails, thumbprint access to laptops and facial recognition security systems. Technology was sucking all the fun out of stalking.
His target drove a Tesla. It was such a quiet car that he’d been inspired to hire only electric cars himself whenever possible. You could, he’d found, follow someone at no more than a few metres behind, and as long as they had their mind on other things, they really didn’t notice you until they happened to turn around.
There she was now, driving slowly, presumably out ofrespect for the elderly attending their endless attempts to prolong their useless lives, mindful of the hard-of-hearing or the blind, or whoever else the hospital klaxon-called to its tax-funded doors.
He slipped a little lower in his seat, in spite of the baseball cap on his head and the fact that he’d recently shaved his hair and learned how to use make-up to disguise his face. He’d been able to sit at the table next to her in the hospital café just a week earlier when she’d been chatting with a man he’d quickly realised was a police officer. In the circumstances, that wasn’t just bold, it was outrageous. He hadn’t liked how friendly they were getting. It had been hard to hear much of the conversation with other people clattering cups and shouting sandwich orders across him, but Dr Waterfall had appeared to be flirting by the end, and the policeman was practically panting at her. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
A police officer involved in Beth’s life would make it infinitely more difficult for him to get near her, and proximity was everything. Being familiar with her routine, her preferences, her pleasures and irritants was useful for making plans, because sooner or later he was going to have to really do something about her, but also the act of spying on her, passing her unnoticed in a corridor or stealing a tiny trinket from her handbag in the supermarket helped with his rage. Breaking into her house and climbing between her cool, cotton sheets was even better.
Rage, he knew now, was so much more than just anger. True rage was cold at its centre. It was a complex structure that resembled Escher’sRelativityto a much greater degree than Dante’sInferno. It was impossible to climb out of because its gravitational pull was irresistible. He had to get rid of that fury somewhere, and he’d found the perfect escape.
