Page 18 of Watching You
The Watcher
Hospitals were about as secure as supermarkets, only with less CCTV for patient privacy.
He liked them for that reason, but also because there were endless options for foolproof disguises that ensured he wasn’t noticed going there too regularly.
He could buy the same scrubs from the internet that matched the ones worn by various medical staff, and the ID tags were so easy to replicate – at least on a superficial level – that it was a joke.
Not only that, but there was a non-stop stream of public transport to a hospital so he didn’t have to risk parking his car where the number plate could be recorded.
The icing on the cake was the numerous entrances and exits, and he was careful to use a different one every time.
Pretty much the only places he’d never been able to access were the surgical area and the maternity and paediatric wards.
They’d actually thought about the need for cameras where there were babies and children, terrified of the prospect of someone deviant making off with a child.
The greatest threats, though, were always those presented in plain sight.
The protest in York Place had been a blast. It was always fun seeing people whipped up into a frenzy, and a bit of light relief away from both home and following Beth.
He’d attended with fake tattoos on his arms and neck, tinted glasses, a cap that covered his upper face and disguised his hair, and clothes that positioned him squarely within the far-right brigade.
He’d foreseen much of what came to pass but not the arrival of Detective Sergeant Lively, who’d been getting far too friendly with Beth Waterfall.
They’d had dinner together at least twice, and that was just when he’d been free to follow them.
He’d been planning on doing something about that even before the protest, but then fate had intervened.
Hidden deep within the crowd, he’d been able to help the violence along a little, starting some chants that inflamed the perceived injustice of a single group being given a moment of necessary priority.
The glassing of Lively’s neck by some random protestor with an impressive throwing arm, however, he couldn’t have set up no matter hard he’d focused on manifesting it.
That had caused him some internal conflict initially.
He’d been unable to resist going to the hospital, but didn’t have enough time to be sufficiently cautious about his approach.
He couldn’t risk being recognised by Beth, but how could he resist seeing her man, pale and fading, in a hospital bed?
That’s if he hadn’t already died. There was enough blood flowing from the wound at the protest to have police and paramedics yelling at one another to move.
Who knew how Beth would react if she lost another soul? Imagining her pain made him salivate.
The tattoos, he figured, would be disguise enough to get him through the hospital without being recognised from his previous multitude of visits, but there would be police in situ too and he didn’t want to draw their attention.
To reduce the impact, he’d pulled on an old denim jacket from his boot, left his car on a side road, walked in using the x-ray department entrance then took the convoluted back corridors to get to where he figured Lively would be.
There was security to get through into accident and emergency, but attaching himself to a group of other visitors being allowed in had never been hard.
Experience had taught him that if he simply looked terribly upset, no one wanted to ask him hard questions about his purpose.
As luck would have it, a man and a woman were walking ahead of him in exactly the right direction.
There were two entrances to A&E. Using the normal route required you to go past reception, electronic check-in machines, and a waiting area full of the coughing, sleepy, groaning sick.
The rear entrance, used by staff coming and going from the surgical wards and pharmacy, was only accessed by members of the public allowed to accompany their loved ones who were being taken elsewhere.
It was rare to approach A&E that way, but not unheard of.
He followed the couple up the corridor, the man hanging back slightly, staring intently at the woman.
If they hadn’t been exchanging the odd sentence, he’d have thought the man was stalking her.
The woman was striking and well aware of the fact, tossing her ponytail around and taking long strides to highlight her perfect legs.
He felt sorry for the man who was in her thrall.
She was teasing him as she walked, preening and peacocking, even slowing down to make physical contact with him, threading her arm through his.
Women wanted all the attention they could get from a man, until they actually got it.
The poor bastard even held the door open for her, standing back to give her plenty of space. She just breezed through without a thought.
He might have made a comment, if it hadn’t given him the perfect opportunity to enter directly behind them as if part of their group.
They were ahead of him now by only a few metres, looking between curtains for whoever they were visiting.
And it seemed the universe wasn’t done with him for the day. The man and woman stepped between curtains to greet a patient. It was only when he got close that he could hear Beth Waterfall’s voice providing them with the details of Lively’s injury.
He raised his hand to his face instinctively, covering the move with a rub of his eyes and turning his face away.
Not before he’d seen Beth perched on the edge of Lively’s bed though. Not before he’d seen her holding one of his hands. Not before he’d realised that the man and woman who’d been walking in front of him were not normal visitors at all, but investigators involved in Lively’s cases.
The sole upside had been Lively’s face, as pale as the white plastic curtains either side of his bed, and his neck wrapped tightly in dressings.
His eyes were barely open, and there was more than one bag attached to the drip stand at his side.
One for saline, another for painkillers, was his non-medical guess.
Lively’s former larger-than-life presence had been diminished to a mere whisper.
That was good. That made him happy. He walked on through A&E not stopping, not speeding up, aware only that he should keep his head down to avoid any cameras and make his way home as soon as possible.
His old-style digital watch was beeping at him, and that meant his father needed him. He had responsibilities to discharge. Playtime was over.