Page 49 of Watching You

Lively had been caught with his pants down, literally. Beth had taken his blood pressure the night before after his surveillance shift had ended and taken a look at the wound. She wasn’t happy with either.

‘Too much stress on your body, and in particular your neck,’ she’d declared. ‘The superintendent won’t mind you taking a day off, Sam. It’s not like you’re having any success at the hospital.’

‘We’re nearly there, I can feel it,’ he’d said. ‘Sometimes when you’ve been in the job long enough, you just know.’

‘So that’s your professional experience talking then?’ She smiled at him.

‘Aye, it is.’

‘Good. I’m glad you put so much store by professional opinions.

Mine is that you need rest. If anything does happen at the hospital, that wound of yours is a real weak point.

One day off, that’s all I’m asking. I’ve done too many hours this month too, so I can stay home with you.

We’ll put our feet up and I’ll cook you something that involves potato. Deal?’

She’d beaten him again, not that he minded. For the first time in … well, forever … the job wasn’t the most important thing in his life.

‘Deal,’ he said. ‘Can I have gravy with those potatoes, whatever form they come in?’

‘Even if it’s chips?’

‘Even if it’s chips.’

‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit at the same table as you eating chips and gravy, but if it keeps you home and resting, I’ll agree to almost anything.’

Just like that, he’d forgotten all about his sense that they were about to get a breakthrough in the case, gone to bed, and slept as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

True to her word, not only had Beth let him sleep in undisturbed, but lunch was already in the oven by the time he’d padded down the stairs, and it smelled like heaven.

‘Far be it from me to say I told you so, Sam, but you definitely needed the sleep. How are you feeling?’

‘Like I could eat a horse,’ he said.

‘None of that on the menu, I’m afraid, but I went to the butcher and got some nice lamb chops that I’m doing with mash and an onion gravy. Why don’t you go and shower? It’ll be ready when you come back down.’

They’d eaten in the back garden then picked raspberries together from the lane behind the house, leaving Beth’s arms covered in a web of scratches and tiny thorns.

Lively had run her a bath and lit the candles she liked, then made her a cup of tea and told her he’d do the washing-up while she relaxed for an hour.

It had been perfect. So perfect that he’d forgotten to turn on his mobile.

So perfect, in fact, that he’d even thought – without immediately touching wood, like the idiot he was – that it had been such a wonderful day that absolutely nothing could spoil it.

With Beth happily soaking, he’d gone to use the downstairs toilet.

They were still at that stage of the relationship where he couldn’t bring himself to ruin it with the less pleasant aspects of biology, so made sure he only did the necessary when she was busy elsewhere.

Almost every aspect of his new life would have reduced his squad to hysterical laughter.

He knew it and he couldn’t have cared less.

So it was that Lively found himself just starting to pull up his trousers when there was a creak on the floorboards outside the toilet.

He considered staying there quietly until Beth had gone back upstairs, but he’d just flushed and he didn’t want her thinking he was doing anything weird.

He opted for opening the door in a casual but upbeat fashion and being done with it.

The shovel he saw inbound towards his face was the one he’d turned the compost with as they’d thrown away any raspberries not fit to eat. He noticed one stray berry go flying onto the cream stair carpet. His last thought as he went down was that the stain would be an absolute bugger to get out.

He couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds, he realised, because the suspect was still hauling him into the lounge as he came round.

The spade had hit him full in the face, and Lively knew his nose was broken – not the first time that had happened, and he was long past assuming it would be the last – but he could feel shards of his front teeth crumbling onto his tongue and he was struggling to get his eyes to focus.

The spade had been thrown down in the hallway and now the man was getting something out of his pockets.

Lively knew that i f he didn’t act fast he’d be all tied up and completely unable to help Beth when she emerged from her bath.

The main thing was for Lively to stop the man from getting both his wrists in the same place.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Lively asked as the man rolled him over and tried to get him sitting up with his back against the sofa.

‘Fuck off, old man,’ he said.

‘Na, na, that’s not the way this happens,’ he made sure to slur his voice just enough to seem dazed and harmless. ‘If you’re going to be the wee bastard who actually kills me, then custom dictates that I at least get to know your name.’

The man got Lively sitting up then sat on his legs as he cable-tied his ankles together. Lively wasn’t able to move or think fast enough to stop that from happening, but his eyes were focusing well enough by then that he’d got a look at the man’s face.

‘My name’s Karl,’ the man muttered. ‘Not that it’ll help you. You’re going to die, you and the doctor bitch, but I want her to watch you die first.’

Karl, Lively thought, was without a doubt the man he’d waited outside the geriatric rehabilitation unit for. What a waste of time that had been, when he could simply have stayed at home.

‘That’ll take a while,’ Lively said. ‘She’s out at the shops.’

‘And yet her car is on the driveway and there’s only one shop within walking distance, so even if you’re telling the truth, which I doubt, she won’t be long.’ He climbed off Lively’s legs who tested the restraints to see what movement he still had. The answer was little to none.

‘Lean forward,’ Karl said, ‘and put your hands together behind your back.’

‘I’m not sure I can,’ Lively replied. ‘I’ve a problem with my shoulders.’

‘Then it’s your problem, not mine. Hands behind your back.

And don’t try any stupid policeman tricks.

I know who you are. I’ve read all about you.

All that tough guy shit with the Scottish mafia.

I don’t care about that. I’ve got a knife and if I have to I’ll just cut your throat.

Won’t take much given that you’ve already got a hole in it. ’

So he really had done his homework, and the knife hadn’t been a bluff. Lively could see the handle poking out of his pocket, and it was one of those big American hunting knives by the look of it.

The options were (a) grab the knife and hope to get the advantage from his position on the floor, (b) grab Karl by the neck when he was leaning down to cable-tie his hands, or (c) shout a warning to Beth, hope she’d locked the bathroom door, and that she had her mobile phone with her to call for help.

Given that his head was swimming and that Karl knew his neck was a weak point, he didn’t like any of the options much.

Karl kicked him hard in the upper thigh as he was considering what to do.

‘Hands … behind … your fucking … back!’ he hissed, punctuated by additional kicks.

Lively sighed but began moving his arms slowly backwards. Karl took the hunting knife from his pocket and deposited it on the bookshelves before returning with a cable tie in his hand.

‘If you stay still, I won’t pull it so tight,’ he said, kneeling next to Lively and reaching round.

You got one chance, Lively knew. It had taken him a few years of policing to really understand the importance of that, but once learned, it was never forgotten.

Lively braced his neck as best he could then reached out to grab Karl’s collar and smashed his forehead into Karl’s. It was a stupid move given the spade injury, but his head had never failed him yet and he’d given out his share of Glasgow kisses in the previous decades.

Karl, though, was less chaotic than he seemed, reacting by reaching out and digging his fingers into Lively’s neck until he hit the injury.

Lively let go of Karl’s collar, screaming, as Karl scrabbled for the bookshelves, standing to grab the knife and pulling the blade open at the exact moment Beth ran into the room, wrapped in just a white towel, though her face was even paler.

‘Get out!’ Lively yelled, but Karl was already reaching for her, catching her by the hair and shoving her to the floor on her knees, the long knife edge at her throat. ‘Don’t hurt her!’

‘It’s you,’ Beth said.

‘Jesus, Beth,’ Lively groaned. ‘You know him?’

‘Does she fucking know me?’ Karl screeched. ‘Do you, Dr Waterfall? You want to tell him how you know me?’

Beth’s voice was calm. ‘This is Karl Smith, Sam. He thinks I killed his mother.’

‘I don’t think so, you did! You put her on that operating table and she died. She was still alive when they put her in the ambulance, and ever since then she’s … she’s—’

‘Your mother’s right behind you,’ Connie said, walking in from the kitchen. ‘I can see her too, Karl. You’re not going mad although it probably feels like it.’

‘How did you—’ he started.

‘I broke a pane of glass in the back door while you were all shouting, which is why you didn’t hear. You should know, though, that I’m not alone. There are other police cars beyond the driveway and officers in the back garden.’

‘I don’t give a shit.’

‘I believe you. I think that when you killed your father, you made a decision about how things were going to work out. I think you mean what you say about wanting to kill Beth, too.’

‘He’s always wanted to kill me,’ Beth said. ‘And he just keeps coming back to try again.’

‘If you don’t want to die with them, you should stay back,’ Karl told Connie, his face twisted into a snarl.