Page 13 of Watching You

Three Years Earlier

Molly Waterfall, Mol to her friends – and that accounted for almost everyone she met because life was fun and people were generally lovely – had started an online account selling her oil paintings.

It had taken her a long time to overcome impostor syndrome but when she finally figured out that if no one wanted her art then no one had to buy it, nothing could stop her.

She found an app, designed her sales page, settled on a price point that made her feel valued while remaining affordable, and went live.

She’d been a happy child. There had been a brief blip when her father had left, but the truth was that at ten years old, she’d been more worried about the effect it would have on her mother, Beth, than on his absence in her own life.

He’d always been absent in the ways that mattered – at work, project managing large builds, or watching Aussie Rules football because that was where he was born and had lived until he’d moved to study at Edinburgh University and just never gone back.

He’d played golf obsessively because that was his ‘me’ time, and at home he’d just been sleepwalking until the day he left.

It was a Saturday. Mol and her mother had gone food shopping which they did every weekend if her mum wasn’t on call at the hospital.

They’d left the house for an hour and a half, during which time her father had packed all the clothes he wanted, his passport and important documentation, his vinyl records, a few of the trinkets he’d collected over the years, then left.

One hour and thirty minutes.

No note.

No forwarding address.

Mol remembered her mother assuming he’d gone to play golf before noticing that the record collection had gone.

She’d started looking around more closely and spotting objects missing from shelves, notable only for the dust rings around the spaces they’d filled.

The wardrobe had been what had really brought it home to her.

Her poor mother, trying to make everything all right for Molly.

Telling her she was sure he’d be back. Saying that people quite often went through a period when they felt the need to run away from the banality of their lives, but that sooner or later they returned home.

Mol didn’t care, as long as her mother was okay.

She worked so hard, and not just in medicine.

Dr Beth Waterfall was a parenting wonder.

Every single day was about putting Mol first – uniform, homework, school trips, sleepovers, baking together, doing arts and crafts, admiring the endless (often terrible) paintings that Mol did as she found her path to a style that really suited her.

Her mother was a ball of endless, calm energy and the sun, moon and stars in Mol’s life.

Her father had only ever been a silent, watchful spacecraft passing through their atmosphere.

Over the years, they’d not only recovered from his exit, but thrived.

They were happier, closer and more grateful for one another than they’d ever been.

It had been Mol’s idea to go back to using her mother’s surname.

The day it had been made official – her father having been in touch through his parents briefly to consent to both that and the divorce – they’d travelled to London to go to the theatre, shop, have afternoon tea at the Four Seasons and stay for two nights at The Savoy.

Life was not just sweet – it was a whole rainbow of flavours, each more surprising and exciting than the one before.

Her mother’s career had blossomed without a man to make herself smaller for, and Mol was proud of the work her mother did in a way that filled her stomach, heart and head every time she thought about it.

In return, her mother’s eyes would fill with tears on seeing each new painting or sketch, and it was a rare week when her mother didn’t deliver more art supplies, get a piece framed, or bang another hook into a wall to display Mol’s work.

Theirs was a relationship built on mutual respect, admiration and absolute adoration.

Which was perhaps why the website and all its necessary social media and publicity had been such a shock.

Orders were slow to begin with. The ratio of time spent engaging in publicity exercises versus visitors to Molly’s sales page was pitifully low.

But then she’d joined a Facebook group resulting in a frenzy of amazing feedback.

Some members of that group had shared her work elsewhere, and like bamboo roots, once word had started to spread, the coverage was unstoppable.

She was invited to show her work at a local abandoned factory that had been converted into an uber-cool gallery with a DJ and a fire pit.

From there, she’d joined an Edinburgh artists’ group that met once a month by invitation only, a fact she was a little unhappy about because her friends were excluded from accompanying her, but better not to bite the hand that was feeding her.

Then she was long-listed for an international prize, and suddenly she wasn’t worried about her webpage getting hits any more.

The problem was how few hours there were in a day and how much new work she could produce in line with demand.

She wasn’t making a fortune, but for once the thing she loved as much as her mother loved saving lives was putting enough money in her pocket to pay a little towards the bills at the home she still shared with her mum, to put half aside into her savings account, and to allow for the prospect of a holiday.

She’d always wanted to visit Byron Bay in Australia, to swim, breathe deep and watch the sunset spill all her favourite colours onto the sea.

It was one of the few places her father had talked about with real passion.

At twenty-four years of age, Mol Waterfall was an artist. A professional artist, to her never-ending surprise, with a growing reputation, a studio, and a body of work that was well-regarded by people who knew a thing or two about brushstrokes.

The Sunday Mail did a photoshoot in her studio.

She tied her wayward, curly blonde hair up and stuck a paintbrush behind her ear, which was how she could be found most hours of the day, and the journalist called her work unique, timeless and deeply moving.

A radio station invited her for an interview.

A podcast called For Artists Only dubbed her Scotland’s Turner-in-Waiting.

And that was when things started getting weird.

It began with a message from a stranger telling her how amazing her paintings were.

It was always nice to get feedback, especially when someone took the time to write a personal message with details about her work.

She’d answered briefly but gratefully. There was another message the next day, which she answered again equally respectfully.

The third time, she kept her response short and polite but final in tone.

He replied asking for her mobile number as texting was easier than social media, and at that point she’d stopped communicating but took a moment to look up the sender.

Karl Smith was a common enough name for her to be unsure if it was really his or just an assumed identity.

He hadn’t specified his age or job, and the photos he’d posted were generic and probably copied from elsewhere.

His profile was a dead end. For a week, he’d left her alone and she’d thought that was the end of it.

Then there were more messages, demanding then flattering, bordering on childish then lofty and literary, a bizarre musical e-card sent to her business email address featuring a singing guinea pig. Mol ignored them all.

Then came the barrage.

‘Dear Mol, You got bored fast. I put in so much time looking at your so-called art and giving you the confidence you need. You accepted that, then cut me out. You used me. The least you owe me is a conversation and an explanation. Please send me your personal email address and I’ll let you have my number so you can call. Karl.’

She’d blocked him then deleted the message before anyone else could see it, feeling irritated and unsettled for an hour, before forgetting about it, because the following week was her mother’s birthday and the present she’d ordered had arrived by courier.

That evening, on a different platform, another message arrived. It took her a moment to piece it together, because here the profile picture was different, and now he was spelling his name with a C, but there was no doubt as to the sender.

‘Mol, really? You fucking blocked me? It’s fine. If that’s how you want to play this, then game on you arrogant, ungrateful bitch.’

She was crying before she reached the next sentence, and only the fact that some iota of self-preservation told her she needed to know just how bad it was getting kept her reading at all.

‘Don’t try blocking me again. You don’t need to give me your number. I’ve got it. And a lot more besides. Soon. Carl.’

From the second she finished reading that message, nothing in Mol Waterfall’s life was ever quite the same again.