Page 36 of Watching You

The Watcher

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 stretched credibility 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.

‘There it is, that’s what a lie sounds like. You know it and I know it, son. I was there. I saw the look on your face. You wanted to look it up, too, to figure out if they’d do one of them post-mmm …’ she couldn’t quite get the word.

‘Postmortems,’ he filled in for her, hating himself for the tacit admission. ‘I didn’t want to do it! I thought it might be kinder. I love my dad. You know I do.’ He was crying now and rubbing his head against a pending migraine.

‘Oh, does it still hurt, baby?’ she mocked. ‘Were you not strong enough to defend yourself?’

‘I did what you told me!’ he yelled.

‘And yet you’re still here, sitting outside her house, crying, and she’s still at her important job, cutting people open, being paid a fortune, then coming home to fuck that no-good, nosy-parker policeman of hers. What are you going to do about that, boy?’

It was all he could do not to vomit onto his own lap, her mouth up against his cheek, able to smell her dead-animal breath.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Someone’ll see me.’

He turned the engine over and raced away, his mother flying backwards in the rear seat as he fled the road where Beth Waterfall lived.

Twenty-five minutes later he was home, shouting a half-hello to the carer who wasn’t due to leave for another hour and racing up the stairs to the bathroom then bolting the door behind him and running a bath.

He hadn’t had a bath in years, and it wasn’t clear to him why he so desperately needed one now, but all he could think of was immersing himself in water as hot as he could get it. Karl dropped to his knees and scrabbled through the cupboard beneath the sink.

‘There’s some in here. I know there is,’ he muttered. ‘Yes. Here.’ He pulled a yellowing plastic bottle from the back. Top off, he poured bubble bath into the flowing water, holding his head in the steam and breathing in. ‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘That’s better.’

He ripped off his clothes and stepped in, hopping from one foot to the other until he got the balance of the taps right and the cold water stopped the scalding of his ankles. As he sat down and sank into the tub, he felt better. He needed to wash off the stink of his mother.

Ducking his head beneath the surface, he relaxed. The lavender bubbles worked their magic. He was clean again. His skull had stopped aching. He was at home and safe, and his mother was dead. He sat up and took a deep breath.

‘Dead as a dodo,’ he said, giggling. ‘Dead and gone. All in my head. Got to get a grip.’ He slapped his forehead with the base of his palm enough times to see bright lights in his peripheral vision.

‘Got to dead a grip. Dot to dead a dip.’ He carried on hitting his head, lost in the rhythm of it, happy for the pain then the numbness to take over.

The fingers that grabbed his ankle had not been made slick by the water or the bubble bath. They were as dry as topsoil in a drought, and just as crumbly.

Under the water he went, splashing, reaching for the sides, gasping for air and drawing in soapy lavender.

Karl thrashed, his feet meeting his mother’s flesh where she sat opposite him at the far end of the bath.

He shrank backwards, drawing his knees up to his chest to cover his own nakedness as he turned his head to one side to avoid looking directly at his mother.

‘You never minded bathing with me when you were a wee thing. You’d climb all over and tickle me until we were both laughing ourselves senseless. Until you’d pee, of course, then we’d both have to get out and shower together instead.’

Karl gagged and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, inadvertently glancing at his mother as he tried to control his cramping stomach.

‘Ach come on, you’ve seen titties before, haven’t you?

Not very often maybe, and not the ones you wanted to.

You had a thing for her, didn’t you, that Molly Waterfall girl?

’ Karl felt his face flush. ‘But you still did right by me in spite of wanting her, and I won’t forget it, son.

Just a little more. Beth Waterfall can be pushed over the edge, too.

You just have to find a way to do it, and for that you’ll need to make sure she’s alone. ’

‘But that policeman … he’s there all the time now.’

‘You can deal with him. He’s not a young man. You’re fitter and stronger, and he’s had an injury. I bet if you pressed on that, your fingers would just sink right in where the glass got him.’

Karl sighed.

‘Then when he’s disposed of you can take your time with her. Imagine the look on her face when she sees it’s you. You should do it in the middle of the night, when they’re at their most vulnerable. You want them confused and sleepy.’ She peeled her lips back from brown, sharp-edged teeth.

‘It’s too risky going to their place, Ma. The best way to kill is always outside. Less forensic evidence, easier to get away, no chance of any hidden cameras or silent alarms.’

He was picturing it already. In spite of what his mother thought, in his opinion a death was best carried out swiftly. A fast kill was cleaner, more professional. It rang with nothingness and disdain. Kill and go. Now that was power.

His excitement rose, unbidden, and his mother began to cackle.

‘There’s my boy!’ she said, waving her loose-skinned arms in the air – a ghoulish version of jazz hands – and Karl stood up, past embarrassment at his arousal and past the fear of consequences for what he intended to do to Beth Waterfall.

Because killing the doctor was an ending.

If Karl only did as his dead, disintegrating mother wanted, she would disappear from his life forever. And this time, there would be no coming back.