The Watcher: A dark addictive thriller with the ultimate psychological twist. Ross Armstrong

one,’ a passer-by drops, a touch macabre. And anyway, who was ‘the one’ before this one? The student from the poster? I make a mental note to look into that. I wonder what her story is. I guess I’m developing a far keener sense of civic duty than I’ve ever had before. I’ve grown a conscience. I’ve grown curious.

      There’s not so much care on display on the estate this morning. As if her death held a lower price for everyone else than it did for me. An old lady dies. So what? After the interest of it, everyone just goes home and sticks the TV on.

      ‘I’ve seen blood shed in front of me,’ she said the night before last.

      ‘But no one cares about the things I see,’ she said. And that’s how it feels this morning. Like this is just going to be it. Her relatives in Portugal will be informed, appropriate tears will be shed for Grandma, as her bones hit the trough a thousand miles away, her insurance barely covering an empty ceremony, as in a distant room the relevant form is signed, and only I will care that someone may well have bumped her off. My only question is, why anyone would want to do that?

      I walk away, slotting my black bag into my rucksack as I go. Relieved no one has got the chance to see inside it and catch me for the fraud I am. I’m going to have to stop doing that. Or invest in a stethoscope. I take out my phone to see if Aiden is worried about me. But there’s nothing from him. I see one missed call from a number I don’t recognise. I don’t usually answer calls from numbers I don’t recognise. But then I don’t usually call them back either. Which is what I’m doing now. I’m doing a lot of things that don’t make me feel myself lately. I turn as I call because it’s ringing. I don’t hear it through my phone, it seems to be coming from the direction of the crowd.

      Christ. It’s coming from inside number forty-one and now the assembled mass hear it too. Late drama shoots through them and a man in shorts is heading back into her flat. He picks up the phone from her sideboard, shrugs and puts it back where he found it, as I make my way out of there. I put up my hood and head quickly back to my place, undetected.

      I look at my missed calls and find she had tried to call me at five-thirty this morning. And, all of a sudden, I’m thinking a lot more seriously about that missing poker and figurine.

16 days till it comes. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

      Unknown – Unknown – The Neighbourhood – Unknown – Unknown – Killer – 15 degrees, clement – Unknown.

      ‘Caroo! Caroo!’ I call, as I stand on the balcony with my binoculars.

      ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Aid shouts from the other room.

      He’s perked up a bit recently. I had a good chat with him last night. Finally. But not about him. About me. And my things. My supposed issues. Don’t you find that sometimes happens? You mean to talk about the problem with them and it somehow ends up coming around to some problem with you. It was like that.

      It was mainly about what happened the night I went to Jean’s flat. Yep. I came clean. About Jean, about the face that watched me, and everything after, including the phone call. He was pretty good about it really. Once I’d looked him in the eye, stroked his face and promised never to do anything that dangerous again. I told him of my best intentions and played the episode down.

      I told him everything I saw over there. Then we discussed what we should do next – which, we concluded mutually, was pretty much nothing. Because behind his stories of adventure, which people seem to lap up, Aid is really a pretty straight guy. I cringed at his fears. His lack of adventure. He’s such a theorist. The most daring he got was to discuss calling the police, telling them all I know and leaving it at that.

      I didn’t tell him I’ve already done that. I didn’t tell him I went to the police station straight away, to call it in, to tell them what I knew. I didn’t tell him they stared at me, like he does sometimes. I didn’t tell him they exchanged glances that clearly said, This one’s a bit odd.

      I thought I heard a snigger after I mentioned the porcelain monkey. I had to repeat it. ‘Porcelain monkey,’ I said. And the main one in the brown suit smiled gently and asked how I knew all this. I said I’d been there and seen it. A while ago. And the poker.

      I didn’t tell them it was the night before the night she died. I didn’t tell them about playing doctor. Of course I didn’t. But I said I’d been there. I put myself at risk by doing that. But I thought it should be said. I thought they’d want to know. But the one in the brown suit just stared at me and asked me about ‘when I was here before’. I said I’d never been here before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a police station before. Never, in my life. I said he must be thinking of someone else.

      I’m sure I saw one of them mouth, She’s fucking mental. Can you believe that? I’m sure I saw him do that. Hardly professional, is it? So I stared at him. I stared him down.

      I know my porcelain monkey isn’t exactly a pile of bloody clothes or a smoking gun. But it is something, to me. They don’t know their arse from their elbow over there. It was a disgrace.

      But I didn’t tell Aiden any of this. None of it. I didn’t tell him they virtually told me to sod off.

      So having sat there, listening to Aid’s sensible words and telling him I’d put all this behind me and think nothing more of it, we hugged each other close and I felt properly loved for the first time in a long time. Then I got down to business and started planning what I was actually going to do.

      ‘I’m pishing!’ I shout back. Which you already know, of course.

      ‘You’re pishing off the neighbours, that’s for sure.’

      ‘Aiden, have you any idea how often that joke is made in birding circles?’ I don’t, we never moved in birding circles, but the answer’s ‘a lot’ I’d imagine.

      ‘It’s quite annoying,’ he said. Delicately so as not to crack the porcelain of our glued-together relationship.