The Watchful Eye Read Free Page A

stupid little yappy dog. She sometimes stood and watched him.
    He looked around again.
    She wasn’t here today. There really was no one. Absolutely no one.
    Even when he looked away he could see the fluttering out of the corner of his eyes.
    Oh, he groaned. If he could only
touch
those garments,
stroke
the lace, put his
own skin
against the point where… He groaned again in excitement.
    The next thing he knew he was walking across the lawn, ducking under the apple tree, moving towards that line of waving, dancing, teasing washing, stretching his hand out and carefully – almost reverently unpegging four pairs of knickers, one of the bras and,
Oh Heaven
, the suspender belt. It was as though it was a person in a dream who did this. Someone else. Not him.
    As he ran he whispered to himself, ‘Who in the world wears suspender belts in these days of tights and nasty little pop socks? I’m sure she doesn’t wear those nasty little things. Who exposes just an inch or two of thigh-flesh except to tease – you?
    ‘She must know how you feel. She has picked up on your secret message and understood it. And this is her message back to you. She knew the garments would please you and so put them here, on show, for you. It is as simple and obvious as that.’
    He liked the thought.
    He selected the right pieces, the Shell Pink knickers and bra and the black suspender belt, replacing the pegs neatly on the line, taking care that they were evenly spaced, just as she had put them, except that now they had no exciting scraps of material to anchor to the line because they were in his hands.
    The chill spring air hadn’t quite dried them; they were still slightly damp. He slipped the knickers, bra and suspender belt into his trouser pocket, taking pleasure in the cool feeling which spread against his leg. Then he stood, only for a moment, his eyes almost closed in sheer, erotic ecstasy.
    The next second he bolted back to the safety of the other side of the fence and the public footpath.
    He had dreamt of doing this for a long time, ever sincehe had been walking – quite innocently – along the public footpath that led from the back of the Holy Trinity Church to the row of cottages and watched her, pegs in her mouth, humming, straining to reach the clothes line, which was a little too high for her.
    He’d gone home that evening, lain on his bed, closed his eyes and imagined.
    But now he had
actually
done it and it was a hundred, no a thousand times better than anything he could have thought of.
    He swaggered up the footpath, back into Eccleston, his secrets in his pocket.
3.25 p.m.
    Police Constable Brian Anderton sighed, pulled his shoes off and collapsed onto the sofa. He was knackered. These long shifts were a kill. Six-thirty in the morning until three in the afternoon upset his body clock. It was worse than doing nights. Too tired to lift his head, he raised his arm to glance at his watch. Almost three-thirty. Bethan would be home from school soon. In the meantime he could stretch out and take forty winks. With luck Claudine would stop off at the Co-op and he would have fifty winks. He gave a cavernous, hippopotamus-sized yawn and closed his eyes. Claudine would be picking her up around about now.
    He closed his eyes and for a few precious minutes he slept, his fingers curled around the yellow Bic cigarette lighter he always kept in his pocket as a talisman.
    He was slow surfacing to consciousness, struggling to swim through the screaming, burning demons of Hell that prevented him from absorbing the familiar sounds of the car door slamming, the high-pitched, excitable voice of his wonderful, adored and noisy seven-year-old daughter, footsteps tripping up the path, the rattle of a key in the door, a cold draught as it was thrown open and…
    ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ He sat up to the gleeful hug of Bethan, stroked her bouncing curls and kissed her cheek, smelling plasticine, oil paint and baby soap.
    Claudine was standing behind her.