Deathwatch (11 page)

Fifteen minutes later, as she turned into her street and approached her house, she could not help thinking of the spider on her laptop. She shuddered. The idea of someone, Danny, paying for a computer virus, just to frighten her with a spider, knowing she hated them, that was seriously sinister.

She stopped dead. How could she not have thought of this before? The flowers – the dead spider! Could
Danny
have sent the flowers? And put the spider in? If he could pay for a virus, he could pay for flowers. OK, he’d never bought her flowers when they’d been going out, but then he wasn’t a flowers kind of guy and to be honest she wasn’t a flowers kind of girl. But he was a spider kind of guy.

If Danny was responsible for Phiz and the flowers, then… Wasn’t that stalking or something? But how could she be sure it was him?

Because it couldn’t be anyone else, could it?

THERE
is a nasty acid feeling in his brain. He tries to stay calm, but the feeling will not go away. He looks out of the window, between the trees, into the darkness of early evening. He can see the street, the house, the black door.

Why can he not just get on with his project? It was supposed to make him feel better. He has got past the note-reading stage now and is well into the difficult part: finding the words for his memories. Expressing them.

But he had not expected that emotion would get in the way so much, that he would feel unable to control it. He had thought that he would simply be able to do what he set out to do. He had known that writing it all down would bring the past to the surface again but he had thought that it would feel cleansing. It was his ex-wife who had suggested it in the first place, that he should write down everything that had happened all those years ago.

And what did she know? Silly, misguided cow. Soft, sad and wrecked. Probably she should write her own memories down – she had enough of them to deal with. And yes, he still felt guilty about that. He was not a monster, after all. Which was why he still saw her sometimes. Because he did care about her. And they had loved each other once, until life – or death – had got in the way.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be writing his memoirs. He could have just carried on as before. He had been doing OK. No mortgage, his comfortable apartment and some money left to him by his parents; his war pension; a small income from his delivery job. No children to drain his finances.

Of course, the memories. And when Sheila had said he should write them down, it had seemed like a good idea. And then living within sight of the McPherson house, that was the constant reminder. The inspiration, almost. The memory trigger.

Seeing them every day, while dredging his mind for memories, that was hard to take. It was hard to stay focused, balanced. And now he also had Sheila to worry about. Her recent behaviour was … concerning. Ever since August.
Obsessed
would not be too strong a word. And now he was worried what she might do. She was unpredictable, at the very least. Though he had to confess she probably had more reason than many to behave unpredictably.

Worrying about her is not what he needs. He has his own worries, his own past to deal with. But he does care about her, can’t help it.

And then he’d come across Diana McPherson’s article while researching Gulf War syndrome, so that he would at least have the science at his fingertips. He’d phoned her, pretending to be a journalist. He shouldn’t have done that.

But she’d said nothing. “No comment.” In that stuck-up, clinical voice. And he’d come from the phone with buttoned fury.

His mind is blankening rapidly, like chalk words being washed away by rain. He needs something to drink. He goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. Perhaps the caffeine hit will wake him up. The angry shriek of the coffee grinder gets under his skin. He keeps the button pressed for as long as it needs. Now he inhales the rich bitter smell. Goes through the coffee-making process carefully. For he is always careful in things like this, routine things that keep his mind on track.

Perhaps he needs to go for a walk. Or to cycle?

He feels a chemical rush, a need to act, a grating desire to lash out: the caffeine only strengthening it. He feels his thoughts scatter.

There is only one thing to do to calm himself down. He takes a key to the specially crafted cupboard. The lock turns with a soft, satisfying clunk, and the double doors reveal the shallow drawers with their elegant labels. He pulls open the drawer with his favourite dragonflies. He takes the lids from a few boxes and pauses to choose. Which will he look at? Which will be his pleasure this evening? Will it be the stunning blue and green patterns of
Aeshna cyanea
or the vivid red of
Crocothemis erythraea
?

He cannot choose. He knows them all too well. He needs a new insect for his collection. He will go on the internet to decide which one he will search for.

Topping up his mug of coffee, he sits down in front of his computer, leaving the drawers of his insect cupboard open. But as the internet page spreads across his screen, the doorbell rings. It jangles his head unpleasantly. Who could this be?

He goes to the intercom and snaps, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

Damn. He’d forgotten that his nephew was coming round this evening. He’d forgotten to get his favourite biscuits in. Never mind, he must have something suitable in his kitchen for a nearly fifteen-year-old boy, and his nephew could help him choose his next insect. He liked that.

“Come up, Danny.”

He smiles. His insect collection would soon have a new addition.

SATURDAY
morning. Almost the end of September and an autumn chill in the air. Athletics club – training, not a competition this week. Thursday and Friday were best forgotten, thought Cat. On the other hand, Marcus seemed to have got rid of the virus. Without her parents discovering that she’d been on Phiz. She’d found the disks that Ailsa had mentioned and had put them back without problem.

What Marcus did to her laptop had involved her losing all the documents. He had taken it back to this thing he and Ailsa had called “factory settings”. Bit like having a new machine, they said. Except that I lose everything on it, she had replied, grimly.

Not that she wasn’t grateful. She was extremely grateful, and told them so. With the virus gone, she could make a fresh start. And yes, she’d lost a few bits of work, but she could do them again. All her photos were on Phiz and her music on her iPod, so that hadn’t been a problem. And she had her older files on the one back-up disk she’d done after that warning at the start of the year.

So a couple of rows and mild punishments for mislaid work. She’d live. Punishments were nothing more than an irritation. No one died.

She’d been back on Phiz and found her pages. Everything was fine. No spiders. No one watching her. And she wasn’t worried about that any more; because she wouldn’t be so stupid next time.

Things were looking up. She hadn’t particularly wanted to come to training today, but she had. Too difficult to get out of, and since Ailsa was playing in a hockey match and Bethan was baby-sitting for her sister, her friends weren’t going to be doing anything without her so she wasn’t so bothered.

She decided to run well, please her coach. Here he was now, coming towards her. She finished tightening the laces of her running shoes. Stood up and smiled at him.

Ex-army, he was. And you could kind of tell: something about the bullet-head, the steel eyes, the muscles like iron. A voice that could fire across the stadium with ease. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of him.

“Catriona, hope you’re ready to put major effort in today? Get those personal bests upped, eh? We need some times to qualify for the next competition.”

“Yes, Mr T.” she replied.

“Now, I have a whole new training plan to get you started on. You were rubbish the other week. Not even trying, young lady. You need to be pushed to the next level. So I want to work on some specific muscle groups, get you in the gym for an extra hour maybe, and also get some nutritional changes. Your swimming coach wants to up the ante too: build some more muscle…”

“But I don’t have
time
for more training.” Her heart sank. And she had quite enough muscle already, as far as she was concerned. She didn’t want to be some hulking giantess, and that was the trouble with too much swimming.

“Hold on – I’m not talking about more time, not yet. Don’t want to overdo it at your age. No, I mean an hour in the gym
instead
of part of your Saturday training. It’ll be worth it, I promise.
You’re
worth it, Catriona McPherson. You could be the best, you know – and I’ve said that before but maybe it needs to be said again. You could be one of Scotland’s stars. If you tried.
Really
tried.”

She used to like it when her coach talked like this. Dreams of distant glory had tasted good. In some ways they still did, but they were definitely losing their sweetness.

On the track, she joined the others in their warm-up activities. She didn’t chat to them much. It wasn’t easy to. There was an atmosphere. She was the club star, and there was a tinge of jealousy in their attitudes to her. When the coach singled her out, as he so often did, she could feel the others closing in and shutting her out. She hadn’t minded much before: these weren’t her friends.

Not being friends with them had made her perform better. It gave her an edge. If they had been friends she might have sometimes held herself back to let them feel better. Probably her coach knew this. She wouldn’t be surprised if he even cultivated the edginess between them.

The next half hour passed with Cat focusing on doing exactly what she was told. Praise came often. “Good stuff, Catriona!” he said at the end of each task he chose to set her. Whatever her doubts, as soon as she actually started running, and winning, she revelled in the power and strength it gave her.

Then something happened to throw her concentration away. She was halfway round the track, practising a race strategy for the 1500 metres. She was trying to follow the coach’s instructions to the letter, despite the fact that she really wanted to run flat out and lead the field the whole way round.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure watching. From the stand, about halfway up. A man, in a heavy coat against the cold. For one strange small moment she was reminded of a film she’d once seen about some Russian spy: he’d stood just like that, in this heavy black coat, collar turned up, binoculars in his hands. People weren’t meant to be able to watch training sessions, not without permission, though if someone was using the squash court or something then they could pretty easily find their way to the trackside without being questioned.

Then the man took the binoculars down and pulled a notebook from his pocket. At that point, she realized she’d seen him before. He was the man who’d been watching her at the biathlon competition. She was sure, even at a distance. There was something about his coat and the way he stood.

He lifted the binoculars back to his face.

The coach was striding towards him.

SHE
ran faster round the track, ignoring the intended strategy. If he was a rival coach watching her, she would make sure she ran as impressively as possible. Not that she wanted to move to another club, of course, but if she was being watched, she wanted to shine. Purely for the feeling. She passed all the other runners. She was not supposed to be passing them yet, but since the coach wasn’t watching it hardly mattered. As long as she looked like a winner to whoever was watching.

The coach was running up the steps. In a few moments, she would have gone round the bend in the track and would no longer be able to see them well. Cat ran faster, now leaving everyone behind. But the man had slipped away.

She ran towards the finishing line, easily beating everyone else. But her coach had barely noticed. He came hurrying towards her now, down the steps. The man had disappeared.

“Who was that?” she asked as her coach came up to her.

“Well run, everyone,” he said, tersely. “Catriona, good, good.” He obviously hadn’t been looking because she knew she hadn’t followed instructions.

“But who was it? I think I’ve seen him before. Maybe.”

“Where?”

“At the competition the other week. There was a man watching then. I think it was the same one – same kind of coat anyway.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

The others looked at her, at each other, at their coach. What was going on?

“I don’t know. I forgot. I didn’t think it was important. Who is he?”

“If you see him again, let me know.”

One of the girls spoke. “Is he a pervert or something?”

“Don’t be silly, Tessa!”

“How do you know he’s not?” asked one of the boys.

“He’s probably working for a rival club.” He looked at Cat. As though he was about to say something else. But he turned away.

“Right, you lot, round the track again. Connor, Liam, Max, Tessa, get to the blocks and practise sprint starts. Catriona, Rory – to the gym with me. The rest of you, carry on with your programme.”

Cat looked back at the stands as she walked towards the gym. The man was still nowhere to be seen.

For the rest of the session, Cat could do nothing wrong. Mr Turner seemed to lavish praise upon her, stayed close to her, gave her all the attention any potential star might need. Well, that was fine. No complaints. And the nutritional stuff – she didn’t much like the sound of extra egg white, and she would certainly ignore anything about wholemeal pasta because everyone knew that wholemeal pasta was disgusting, but otherwise it was mostly about eating more of certain things rather than less, and she liked vegetables and fruit anyway, so that was OK. And he didn’t
say
anything about not eating chocolate.