Watching You Chapters Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Black had seized his chance. Reilly had been careless; the hand in which he held the Smith and Wesson was extended invitingly for him at head height. His reaction was instinctive and swift. The moment Reilly’s right forefinger had pressed on the trigger, Black had responded. The radio drawn from his left pocket drew a brief flash of sunlight through the partially opened doors before making contact with the revolver, but the impact didn’t release the weapon from Reilly’s grasp. Instead, the man’s wrist was forced backward against his cheek, the bullet exploding from the gun, splitting his cheekbone from ear to ear. As his two cronies baulked at the scarlet fountain gushing from the wound, Black turned and made his break, sprinting across the gritty warehouse floor towards the rear, into the cavernous darkness that for the next few seconds would be his ally.

As he reached the back of the building, space narrowed, skylights in the roof helping his vision as he forced open a rusting metal door leading out to the wharf. Reilly’s mates had managed to overcome their shock; he heard the sound of urgent, angry voices and quick feet behind him. A shot rang out; in a split second, he’d feel the hot metal in his back, but that split second seemed like a decade until he heard a resounding echo as the bullet hit metal somewhere inside.

He was running along the wharf, beside the canal, the derelict wasteland of abandoned warehouses and factories incongruous with the clear blue sky and heat of the day. He needed a haven, a place to hole up and plan his next move, but to do so now might place him at the mercy of his pursuers. The concrete was oily and filthy, one slip and he’d be done for; somewhere not far behind, he could hear their steps ringing across the surface. He expected another bullet at any moment, but no shot pierced the air. Black realised why – the opposite side of the wharf hadn’t been scheduled for demolition; there were occupied premises. A quick glance revealed a van loading up, its driver and several others distracted by the scene opposite. A gunshot now would set alarm bells ringing. Black realised he needed to reach the south bank, so different a scene from the desolate north.

But he ran a risk there, too.

Because of the secrecy of his operation, he didn’t carry ID. To turn up amidst the workforce anything less than covertly would be risky. How would the onlookers know who the guilty party was, him or the thugs behind? That would be anybody’s guess, one word against another.

Ahead he could see steps leading down to a disused mooring, but he didn’t head for them.

Black turned abruptly to his right and took the plunge.

The water was cold despite the heat of the day, and a pungent mixture of oil and sewage slapped around his face in pulsing waves. He took a deep breath, and then holding it, dived under. Above and to his left, the running seemed to have stopped; he thought he could hear muffled voices. What were they doing, and what were they thinking?

Black suddenly realised their activities weren’t a priority right now. Something else had taken precedence.

The water was becoming turbulent, not now merely a brown fog, but a swirling, frothing, coffee-like brew forcing him to surface. He fought against the current and saw the reason for the turbulence. Above he faced an iron pedestrian bridge, but that wasn’t what bothered him; it was the water gushing through the sluice gates and tumbling to engulf him in its vortex. His lungs filling more with water than oxygen, he fought for the less stormy water of the south bank. It felt like someone was sucking air out of him through a giant straw.

But still, he mustn’t forget his purpose, though that purpose lay eighty miles away. How to achieve it now was beyond his imagination, but the thought fuelled him with the strength he needed. The last of the onrushing whirlpools of water caught him head-on, flinging him sideways, submerging him beneath the waves, but he twisted away, single-handed strokes bringing him back to the surface. Calmer waters now, the torrent was directed down the northern side of the canal. Breath came to him in gasps as he reached an iron girder supporting the footbridge over the sluice. It provided him with the leverage he needed to swing himself up, hands grasping the bridge’s railings. Black’s last strands of energy saw him onto the deserted bridge; he turned, leaned on the railings for a second, and through glassy eyes saw his pursuers on the north bank perhaps fifty metres back. Winter had a mobile phone raised to his mouth, and their gesticulations showed them to be frantic and confused. They hadn’t spotted him, but they might at any second.

He ducked low, moved to the other side of the narrow bridge, and saw a lock, its chamber empty. Crouching, he raced to the end, down a dozen or so steps to the lock chamber, then backing up against the docking walkway, he slumped down. He needed time to regain his energy; if his luck held, they wouldn’t think of looking here, and he’d have time to plan his strategy. But the downfall of Main Man took secondary importance right now. He’d lost the radio he’d intended so much to use, but its usefulness would be zero anyway. The murky waters of the canal had seen to that.

He could duck out now, return to his superiors with enough information to allow intelligence to bust Main Man’s enterprise wide open.

Except that something else held sway.

Black lapsed into a doze, even his highly tuned senses relenting to tiredness. Once or twice voices made him start, but the purr of engines told him they were bargees. They never bothered him, and he napped into the evening.

Then a strange sensation came over him, a sudden warmth, not as intense as he was accustomed to, but it was there just the same.

She was there, the woman with the corn-coloured hair.

It was time to go.

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

Rain had begun to fall on the control room roof, and to Kelly’s frayed nerves, it seemed someone was trying to hammer in a thousand tacks.

It was nine in the evening. She’d been on duty for an hour, seven more of solitary confinement lay ahead; more than half of that time would be spent watching drunks stumble out of the watering holes and night-dives of the city centre. Still, she’d become impervious to their stupid gesticulations, and the verbals were thankfully inaudible. If all she had to contend with was the rain and occasional distant rumble of thunder, then perhaps it might be a blessing.

She’d been free of Joe since he’d left that morning, presumably for the club. Not a word had passed between them since their confrontation, but she’d expected him back later that afternoon, fuelled with alcohol and spoiling for a fight.

Well, it hadn’t happened. She’d left for work around seven-thirty, and still there had been no sign of him. Oddly, she felt anxious. Perhaps it was natural considering the years they’d been together, but it was surprising, just the same. She just hoped there would be no problems when she got back around four-thirty the following day.

An hour into her shift, she’d expected to spot Carl Black out there somewhere, eyes all dark menace, but the increasingly heavy rain had driven most of the louts from the streets, him included, it seemed. That definitely was a blessing. Despite her problems with Joe and her affection for McCain, Black had continued to lay at the back of her mind, the original dark tormentor.

She wondered what McCain was up to now; tracking him as he’d promised was what she hoped. Could that be the reason she hadn’t picked him up on the camera?

But thinking about McCain even had its downside right now; the abrupt confrontation with Joe, inevitable as it had been, was another burden on her emotions. Her resolve for her own space, if even for a few days, hadn’t diminished. She’d pick herself up, drag herself to a reputable guest house for a few days. It might be difficult to sleep in a strange place, particularly in the daytime, but she was hardly sleeping a lot anyway. Tomorrow, once up, she’d check the internet.

The phone rang; it startled her. The place was deathly quiet, apart from rain drumming on the roof. Her hand practically jumped of its own accord to the receiver.

‘Kel …’

‘McCain …’ She felt that zip, the thrill she’d become accustomed to at the sound of his voice.

‘Listen, have you spotted Black any place since you’ve been on?’

She frowned, ‘No, I thought you were supposed to be …’

‘Kel, I’ve been searching all day – my tracking skills cannot be what they used to be, that’s to be sure. I haven’t got so much as a peek …’

Kelly shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’s moved on.’ She felt a ray of optimism, despite McCain’s unusually ruffled air; could it just be possible?

‘No listen, Kel …’ McCain’s voice raised a notch, ‘it might not be a good sign. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while I’ve tried to trace him today. I think maybe you’re right and that it was he who waylaid you. If he is intent on causing you problems, he might be waiting up somewhere.’

Kelly’s frown deepened – this wasn’t the relaxed, assuring McCain that she knew. He’d finally come to terms that Black wasn’t a product of her imagination, that his threat to her was real, as she’d felt all along. Suddenly the windowless walls of the dimly lit room she sat in seemed to be closing in on her, even the monitors becoming a threat.

‘What are you suggesting, McCain?’ She shivered; the room seemed to be becoming cooler.

‘Check the log – has anyone reported anything at all?’

She sighed. ‘No.’ She habitually checked the log for reports on Carl Black. That was the effect the man was having on her.

‘Keep a good eye out, then, that’s what I’m thinking. Don’t be losing concentration, you hear? If you get so much as a sighting, be sure to let me know.’

‘On your mobile?’

‘Of course. I’ll be out and about. I promised you I’d keep watch.’

‘Okay.’ But the line was already dead. Thunder crackled ominously across the unseen sky somewhere above. The streets were darkening rapidly. Generally, she wouldn’t regard thunder as a threat, but right now, it seemed to be Black’s accomplice, just like everything else. How did she know, or McCain for that matter, that it wasn’t the other way round, that Black wasn’t tracking him. Aware of his every movement, as streetwise as Black was …

McCain had sounded unusually tense, frustrated, of course, but he was trying. When she’d first told him about Black, he’d been sceptical if not derisive, now his failure to track the lout had perturbed him, and in so doing, set her ragged nerves on edge.

She pictured Black’s face, leering through the monitor screen focused on Broadway, looming up at her in the dead of night. That picture conjured up her nightmare, the one she couldn’t forget … where he’d ravaged her outside the control room …

Her radio crackled into life; it might have been miles distant, though it sat on the desk in front of her. She grabbed it absently.

The call was from a security guard at the supermarket nearby, recently opening around the clock. In so doing, it had gathered not only nightclub rabble but also winos. There had been a lot of pressure on staff, the manager having recently suffered a breakdown.

She placed her headset on, connected to headquarters. If the guard were lucky, assistance would be quick, but experience told her otherwise.

A monitor showed somebody entering a lift on the ground floor. She switched nervously to it. A pang of fear struck her like a bolt of lightning. From the rear, it looked the image of Carl Black.