The Watcher Read Free Page A

said Carla. ‘No one shows any interest in anyone else. And the lift is always coming up to me and then no one gets out.’
    ‘What?’ Keira sounded irritated.
    Carla wished she had not said that. ‘Well, I just noticed it. That it happens quite often, I mean. Apart from me, no one else lives up here. But the lift is always coming up.’
    ‘Then someone is sending it up. Or that’s the way it’s programmed. That it automatically goes to different floors.’
    ‘But it only started in the last week or two.’
    ‘Mum . . .’
    ‘I know. I’m getting a little odd. That’s what you think. Don’t worry. I’ll get my life back on an even keel somehow.’
    ‘Of course you will. Mum, Johnny is screaming again and . . .’
    ‘I’ll leave you! It’d be nice if you and Johnny would visit. Maybe one weekend?’
    ‘I’ll have a look and see if there’s a good time,’ said Keira vaguely. Then she quickly said goodbye and hung up, leaving Carla with the feeling that she had been an annoyance and a burden.
    She is my daughter, she thought defiantly. It is normal for me to call her now and then. And for me to tell her when I am not feeling well.
    She looked at her watch. It was just after ten.
    Nevertheless, she decided to go to bed. Perhaps to read something. Certainly in the hope of falling asleep quickly.
    She was just about to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth when she heard the lift coming up again.
    She stood in her hall, her ears pricked.
    I really wish that someone else lived up here too, she thought.
    The lift stopped and the doors opened.
    Carla waited. For nothing to happen, no sound, nothing.
    But this time she heard something. This time someone left the lift. There were steps. She heard them quite clearly. Steps outside in the corridor, which was no doubt brightly lit.
    Carla swallowed. Her throat was dry. She felt a prickling sensation on her skin.
    Now don’t let it get to you. First you got worked up because there was no one in it, and now you are getting worked up because someone is.
    The steps approached.
    This way, thought Carla. Someone is coming to my door.
    She stood paralysed behind her front door.
    Someone was on the other side.
    When the doorbell rang, the spell was broken. The bell was normal life.
    Burglars don’t ring the bell, Carla thought.
    Nevertheless, she took the precaution of looking through the peephole first.
    She hesitated.
    Then she opened the door.

Wednesday, 2 December
1
    Gillian went back into the kitchen. ‘That was Diana, Darcy’s mum,’ she explained. ‘Darcy isn’t coming to school today. She has a sore throat.’
    The telephone’s ringing had not been enough to tear Becky out of her lethargy. She was hunched over her bowl of muesli, staring moodily at the flakes and bits of fruit in the milk.
    Just turned twelve, thought Gillian, and already as grumpy and listless as a teenager at the height of puberty. Weren’t we different back then?
    ‘Hmm,’ said Becky, showing no interest. Chuck, her black cat, sat on the chair next to her. The family had found him on holiday in Greece. He had been a half-starved bundle of bones on the side of the road and they had smuggled him into their hotel. The big issue for the rest of the holiday had been how to get him out of the hotel without being discovered, and then, after taking him to the vet, how to bring him back in again. Gillian and Becky had dripped liquid food into his mouth for hours with a pipette. For a while everything suggested he would not survive. Becky had cried the whole time, but although things were difficult and nerve-racking, she and her mother had been very close as they nursed Chuck together.
    In the end, Chuck’s will to live had won through. He had travelled back to England with his new family.
    Gillian sat opposite her daughter at the table. Now she had to drive Becky to school. She and Darcy’s mother shared the school run and this week was Diana’s turn. But not, of course, on a day when her own