Читать книгу The Watcher - Grace Monroe - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Girls’ Changing Rooms, The Meadows’ Pavilion, Edinburgh Saturday 22 December, 2 p.m.

It was hard to remain silent and he held his breath as he crouched low on the lid of the toilet seat. The girl in the next cubicle was called Rosie. He had heard another girl call for her and now he held the name to him. She sang a well-worn Christmas song under her breath and The Watcher smiled, imagining the song was for him. Certainly, this was shaping up to be his best Christmas so far.

For three weeks he’d staked out the changing rooms, and now he’d won a prize. Not that his previous visits were wasted – no, he’d put his time to good use. As he stared out through the peephole he’d prepared earlier, he reflected on just how good. Rosie continued singing as she washed her hands. The Watcher was pleased. Hygiene was important to him – too important, some people thought; but, as his mother always said, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.’

Standing on her tiptoes, in a pink padded Playboy bra with matching knickers, Rosie leaned over the basin and applied a thick layer of lip gloss. She opened her mouth wide and ran her pink pointy tongue over her teeth. The Watcher shivered. Rosie hurried through to the main changing area. She was running late, so discarded her underwear as she went, throwing it over a railing. She removed her bra and put on a sports version. Bending over, she balanced on one leg, and pushed her foot into her football shorts. They had built-in underwear, so she had not put on her knickers, but he felt an irrational sense of disappointment in the girl. Perhaps her morals were not all they should be. And The Watcher didn’t like that; he didn’t like that at all.

‘For God’s sake, get a move on – do you want to miss the kick-off?’ A disembodied voice chivvied them all along, but Rosie was the only one he looked at. The voice was likely to be that of a chaperone, given that the whole of Edinburgh was on red alert with all the terrible things that were going on. If truth be told, it was making things difficult – but not impossible – for him.

Rosie refused to leave yet. She stood in the messy, deserted changing room, swivelling around looking for something, for someone. Looking for him perhaps? A smile cracked his face. He was the last person she’d want to find. Holding his breath, he then exhaled as the sound of her boot studs disappeared into the distance. The Watcher noted with regret that she had stopped singing.

Turning, he stared out of the hole he had cut in the thick frosted glass. Rabbit wire on the outside of the pane obscured his vision but he could see well enough. Well enough to note that Rosie kept glancing back at the changing pavilion. A cold chill of fear ran down his spine as she started to run full pelt to the man.

The Watcher knew who he was by reputation, and he knew that he should be afraid of him – but the path he had chosen did not allow for changes simply because there were obstacles. The big man in a kilt had his arms around Rosie, giving her a pep talk, dispelling her fears. Maybe the big man wasn’t that tough – it was good to know that he wasn’t infallible.

He had come to see someone else, he’d hidden overnight in the changing rooms and it had finally paid off. He’d waited three weeks to see her. The first week she’d had a knee injury, the second was an away game, but the third time was a trick. The girl was skinny; some people might say she looked undernourished. The Watcher didn’t fancy her chances of survival – she would be kicked off the pitch when the game started.

Actually, that could be a problem. The Watcher didn’t want her marked. That wasn’t part of his plan and his plan had been very carefully constructed. He was proud of the attention he paid to detail. A feeling of instant calm came over him as he watched her win the toss. This was going to be her lucky day. The girl was skinny and leggy – she might be ungainly but she was fast. Too fast? Would it be a problem? What if she got away from him? That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

He’d have to recheck his calculations; she couldn’t weigh more than five and a half stones. Too much anaesthetic could kill her, too little and she could escape. His plan did not allow for a runaway.

The big bastard was talking to Brodie McLennan. The Watcher knew who she was – in fact, if he was ever caught, he’d call for her to represent him. He shrugged off that thought – he wasn’t going to get caught. He was too clever for that. Patience ran in his blood and his genetic code told him: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But he needed to move now – the girls had gone, the game was starting. The Watcher wanted to run but there was no crowd to lose himself in. Take a deep breath, relax.

That was why he had waited for her – she was worth waiting for.

He forced himself to walk slowly out of the changing pavilion unseen. A mother stood on guard fifty feet away, leaning against a tree having a sly fag – she smiled at him as he passed.

In these godless times, who takes any notice of a priest?