Watching You: A Novel

Freddie heard the tantalising echo of high-heeled shoes against the paving stones outside and quickly pushed his chair across his bedroom floor to investigate. It was late afternoon on Saturday. The sky was growing dark, grey veins threading through the pale evening sky, a smudge of moon just visible on the other side of the river. It was her. Red Boots. And she was wearing her red boots. Red boots, skinny jeans, leather jacket, big scarf, blond hair all puffed up on top of her head, lipstick. She looked as pretty as he remembered her looking the first time he’d seen her at the Melville. He grabbed his camera and went back to the window.

Red Boots was already halfway down the hill. She turned left into the village at the bottom of the hill and he followed her with his lens across the road to the bus stop. He checked his bus app and saw that the next 218 was not due for eight minutes. She pulled out her phone and played with it for a while. Every now and then she would look upwards – directly, it seemed, towards the painted houses. He zoomed in on her and saw her bottom lip pinched between her teeth. What was she waiting for? What was looking at? Then suddenly, when the 218 was only two minutes away, she stood up abruptly and walked towards the village. A moment later he saw her walking across the other side of the road. The bus had been and gone and she had a bottle of something in a blue carrier bag which she took back up the hill.

She reached the blue house and bypassed it, coming to a stop outside his. What was she doing? Had she clocked him watching her? She couldn’t have. He was brilliant at watching people without them realising. But then he thought of Jenna’s mum last week, the pointing finger, the word you. Maybe he wasn’t as stealthy as he thought he was. He pulled back into the shadows of his room waiting for her either to knock on his front door or to turn around and head back to her own house. But she did neither of these things. She stood there for exactly three minutes and eighteen seconds until there was the sound of footsteps up the hill and a man appeared, cast in the shadow of the street lights that had just been switched on. Freddie pushed open his window and put his ear to the gap.

‘What are you up to, sexy?’ asked the man. It was him. The husband.

‘I don’t really know,’ Red Boots replied. ‘I was going to get the bus into town and meet you somewhere but you didn’t answer your phone. So I bought a bottle of wine and came home instead.’

‘Sorry, baby,’ said the guy. ‘I ran out of juice and didn’t have my charger with me.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she replied. ‘It was a pretty half-hearted attempt at going out; I’m not sure I really wanted to anyway. And now you’re here so looks like it was too late anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ said the guy, ‘I’m knackered. Guess what?’

‘What?’

‘I finished it.’

‘Your mum’s kitchen?’

‘Yeah. All done. Just need to go back and do a second coat on the skirting. But apart from that, I’m done.’

‘God, finally.’

‘I’ll show you pictures once I’ve got some charge in my phone. It looks really good.’

‘So after all those weeks of farting about, it ended up taking you one day.’

‘Yeah. I know. I just thought … after what we talked about the other day … it’s about time I got serious about things.’

There was a short silence. Freddie couldn’t see what they were doing. Then Red Boots said, ‘Well, you’re a very, very good husband, Alfie Butter. I’m very impressed.’

‘And you’re a very good wife, Joey Mullen, and I think we should go inside and drink that wine and do the things that good husbands and wives get to do on Saturday nights.’

‘Netflix?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Come on then.’

Then Freddie heard the sound of a key in the lock of number 14 and the bang of the door behind them. He exhaled his held breath and thought two things; firstly that he now knew Red Boots’s name. The second was that although he now had an explanation for her sitting at the bus stop for six minutes and then coming home again, he did not have an explanation for why she had stood outside his house for three minutes and eighteen seconds pretending that she wasn’t.

RECORDED INTERVIEW

Date: 25/03/2017

Location: Trinity Road Police Station, Bristol BS2 0NW

Conducted by: Officers from Somerset & Avon Police

POLICE: Ms Mullen. Could you tell us what you were wearing last night?

JM: Yes. I was wearing a blue jersey dress from Primark.

POLICE: And what sort of shoes?

JM: Boots. Red suede boots.

POLICE: Did they have a tassel?

JM: Yes. I think so. Yes. They do have tassels.

POLICE: Thank you. And were you wearing these clothes when Tom Fitzwilliam met you at the hotel?

JM: Yes.

POLICE: So, can you give us the approximate timings of this liaison at the Bristol Harbour Hotel?

JM: Yes. I got there at about seven o’clock, just after, and checked in using my own card. Then Tom arrived about half an hour later.

POLICE: And what happened then?

JM: Nothing. We just talked.

POLICE: In a £180-a-night hotel room?

JM: Yes.

POLICE: And then what?

JM: Tom left.

POLICE: And this was at what time?

JM: I suppose it was about seven forty-five.

POLICE: And after Tom Fitzwilliam left?

JM: I stayed in the room.

POLICE: And why did you stay in the room?

JM: Because … I don’t know. Just to get my head together. I stayed for another ten minutes or so and then I left. I got a taxi home.

POLICE: And then what did you do?

JM: Nothing. Just watched TV with my husband. Went to bed.

POLICE: So you didn’t knock at Tom’s door at eight fifteen?

JM: [Silence.]

POLICE: Well, did you or didn’t you?

JM: No. I didn’t. I nearly did. I thought about it. But I changed my mind. I went home.

POLICE: Thank you, Ms Mullen. That will do for now.