Watching You: A Novel

As the 218 had pulled into Melville Village the previous evening, Jenna’s heart had begun to pump at the sight of blue lights flashing. She’d burst through the doors of the bus as they slid open and peered upwards towards Melville Heights: there was a ribbon across the lane and a policewoman standing guard. ‘You can’t go through, I’m afraid. There’s been a major incident.’

‘What sort of incident?’

‘I can’t tell you. Do you live up there?’

‘No,’ she’d said. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘In that case could I ask you to leave the vicinity. We need full access for our vehicles.’

She’d dashed back down the lane and towards her house. Her mum sat in the living room, her e-cigarette in one hand, a mug of tea in the other.

‘Mum!’ Jenna had said, dropping her bag on the floor and going to her side. ‘What the hell’s going on up there? In Melville Heights.’

‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘There’s blue lights! And a police cordon.’

‘Well,’ her mum had said, ‘I was up there earlier. Got back about half an hour ago. There was nothing happening when I left.’

‘What were you doing up there?’

‘Watching him.’

‘Who?’

‘Tom Fitzwilliam. He was supposed to be hosting a big meeting. All of them.’

‘All of—?’ She’d stopped. ‘You didn’t do anything, did you, Mum? Tell me you haven’t done anything?’

‘What? Of course not. What on earth do you think I might have done?’

‘Nothing.’ She’d sighed. ‘Nothing. Of course not.’

The next morning it’s all over the news. A murder in Melville Heights. Tom Fitzwilliam’s wife. Stabbed in her kitchen, more than thirty times. The husband held for questioning. An employee of the Bristol Harbour Hotel in the city coming forward to say that Mr Fitzwilliam had checked into a hotel room the night before, just after a blonde woman called Josephine Mullen, who was also now being held for questioning. The local neighbourhood in a state of shock.

Jenna sits cross-legged in her pyjamas watching the news. Her mum sits at the dining table watching too.

‘There,’ says Mum. ‘You see! It’s all going to come out now. All of it. He’s killed his wife. Probably because she knew too much. If only they’d listened to me earlier. If only.’

Jenna’s head spins. Mr Fitzwilliam. Genevieve Hart. The woman two doors down. Mr Fitzwilliam. Genevieve Hart. The woman two doors down. There’s something linking them all together: she knows there is. ‘Mum,’ she says, ‘tell me again exactly what you were doing up there last night?’

‘I told you. Watching.’

‘But you didn’t see anything?’

‘No. I didn’t see anything. Just the blonde woman coming home. And then a few minutes later I saw her round the back of the houses on the secret path.’

‘The blonde woman?’

‘Yes. Look, I took a photo …’ Her mother takes her camera from her handbag and switches it on. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘it’s the last one I took before I gave up and came home.’

She turns the back of the camera towards Jenna. Jenna takes the camera from her and presses the zoom button into the tangled blotchy mass of grey and green and brown and black. There at the back is a figure, shadowy and vague, eyes reddened to pinprick rubies by the distant flash. It’s impossible to see what colour hair the person has, even what gender the person is. But the flash has picked up something else on the figure: a splash of white light just at the centre. Jenna zooms up close on it and then pans out again. It’s a button, a single oversized button. She’s seen a coat with a button like that somewhere recently; someone she knew had been wearing it. And then she remembers, in a flash. The woman in the photo Freddie had shown her, the one talking to her mum. She’d been wearing a big, black coat, held together just above her pregnant bump with one large button. Ice plunges through Jenna’s heart.

‘Mum,’ she says, ‘you know this might be the person who killed Mr Fitzwilliam’s wife.’

Her mum takes the camera back from Jenna and gazes at the screen. ‘But – Mr Fitzwilliam killed his wife.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because – who else?’

‘Mum,’ says Jenna. ‘We need to go to the police station. You need to tell them what you saw. And you have to show them this photograph. Right now.’