Ross Armstrong - The Watcher - A dark addictive thriller with the ultimate psychological twist

‘Lily. How are you this evening?’

‘Hey, I’m good. You? Up to no good I assume?’

‘Oh yeah, you know how it is. This is Sarah…’

‘Hello,’ she says, perfunctory but warm.

She smiles. Weather girl teeth. I hope she sticks around. Maybe he’s unlucky in love. Or just has exacting standards. Who knows? He’s dependable more than exciting. Maybe that’s it.

‘Well, we’ll love you and leave you. As they say,’ he quips.

‘Do they say that?’

‘Yeah. Yes, I think they do. They do to me anyway.’

‘I don’t believe that for a second. ’Night.’

The funny thing is I do believe that. He has the extraordinary skill of looking just a touch downtrodden even with a perfectly nice woman next to him. Maybe he never makes it to the second date. Maybe once they see the inside of the flat they run a mile. Maybe there’s terrifying taxidermy everywhere. I wonder what it’s like in there. Inside his flat. And inside his head. For that matter.

I was thinking of all these things as I slid into bed. Trying not to let on I’m thinking about another man. I wonder what exactly he’s doing to her next door. I wonder if Aiden would be jealous If he knew that’s what I was thinking about. He’s dead to the world anyway. As I lie there considering Lowell’s possibly poor sexual technique.

These walls are well insulated. But not that well. But still, you never hear anyone cry out in passion. No banging from his side of the wall. Poor Lowell. And poor Suzanne? Sandra? Simone? Cecily? Sally? Samantha? Sophie? Sarah!

That’s the one.

I don’t want to boast, but I’m sure we’ve made our bedposts bang against the partition wall a few times. I’m sure he’s heard us. But you never hear a peep out of him. Not to be crude. But I assume you know how it all works. You know we were trying for a baby after all. Up until recently.

Midnight is long gone.

One a.m. comes along and goes. I think of Janet and Tippi’s orchid. I think of Cary’s bloody lips. I think of Phil’s lava lamp face. I breathe in for fifteen. And out for ten. Like I used to tell Mum to. But it doesn’t work.

Two o’clock arrives. And I am still in the land of the living.

I think of how many others in this building are staring at their ceilings as I do now. How many are dead asleep? I wonder how many of these rooms are even occupied. It’s tough to keep track of your neighbours in a place like this. No matter how hard you try. It’s hard to make connections. That’s not what everyone wants. Hardly anyone wants that these days. They mostly just want an Internet connection and a funny video of some cats or a horse.

People come and go here. No sooner are they set up than they’re looking to get out. The prices are going up all the time, which somehow translates into impermanence. People are renting for now, but looking to buy. People are buying, but looking to get something better soon. I overhear people talking about Flipping the Place On and Making a Tidy Profit in a Year or Two. I hear them say I Might Buy Another One Off Plan and By the Time That’s Built I’ll Have Flipped That One On Too. People are here for the week but jump in the car to get away for the weekends. People looking for a chance to leave the city for good. Everyone seems to be trying to escape this place, in one way or another. But me. I’m here to stay.

Then there’s the people in far away countries who buy places for their kids to move into some day. Or just have them as an investment. Never bothering with the hassle of renting the place out. So they sit there like empty shells. As if haunted. Sometimes I wonder if they are haunted.

It’s difficult to see back into a building you’re already in. To see what’s going on above. Or below or to the sides. Binoculars don’t work like that. You’d hear the sounds if the rooms weren’t pretty well soundproofed. Sometimes I think I hear crying through the walls. From above or below. Then I think it’s just my imagination. But even crying would at least be something.

So I never know who lives here. I never hear them or feel them. Suddenly around a corner will appear a guy in flip-flops with a trendy full beard and an Antipodean accent. I’ll have never seen him in my life before. I may never do again. Does he really live here? Is he an intruder? Is he a ghost?

Maybe ghosts haunt spaces, rather than rooms. I often think this. What I mean is, even though the four walls around me have only existed for a little over two years, and we’re led to believe your home must be at least twenty years old, preferably fifty, to qualify for a haunting, someone did once live here. In this space. In the old block. The one they tore down so they could build this one instead.

The other one was built in the early fifties. Plenty of time for anything to occur here. What were their lives like? What did they do in here? In this space where I’m lying. Were there births? Deaths? Sex and arguments? In this space. Are these things the ghosts?

This morning, on the way to work, I stopped and watched the wrecking ball bash open a building, like paper. Brutal, efficient. You could see the insides of two or three homes in a row next to each other. One was painted dark blue, its walls now facing the open, its chest to the wind. Their flat became one big balcony.

The people inside never considered it would turn out this way. No ceiling or exterior wall. Only a tiny ledge of floor left at the back.

The next one was wallpapered. Probably in the seventies by the looks of it. Browns and beiges. The light switches were still there. I noticed. But I knew by the next hit they wouldn’t be. They fell forty-five feet to the ground and were swept efficiently into a skip.

The third flat was a garish pink. Like the inside of a body. Light colours, to make the most of the meagre space.

The three homes sat there. Blown open. For me to see the remnants and adornments of the lives that used to live inside. Like a cross-section or a doll’s house. It’s a ten-minute glance, just for any lucky bystander that happens to be there at the time. By the eleventh minute, the three will be completely destroyed in two firm swings of the forged steel ball.

On the wall of the pink flat was a crucifix. It glinted in the light. Visible to the naked eye. I watched the metal sphere hit it. I watched it drop, along with the concrete, dust and wires. And, without stopping for a second to consider what they had destroyed, the machines swept past and gathered everything up. Next, it went into the skip. Then into a lorry. Then the landfill.

Yes. Without a thought. The little cross. The residents prayed to. Would be buried beneath tons of nameless rubble and debris.

As I lie here, thinking these night-time thoughts, I wonder how many people are thinking the same things, at this very same time. Awake. Somewhere in another part of London. What if we could find each other and connect. Just as I’m thinking these things I notice something in the top right corner of my window. A single light still on. In a flat in Canada House. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s number forty-one. Jean’s flat.

I pull on an old jumper and some trainers. Carefully, so I don’t rouse him from wherever he is. From his slumber and dreams. I can’t tell him where I’m going. He’d say I was ‘mental’ again and it’d just make me angry. Really angry. Then I really won’t be able to sleep. I grab my keys. My phone, just in case. And leave.

I’ve never been through the estate before. Just before I close the door I grab a handmade flick knife. Aiden bought it for me on our honeymoon, in Buenos Aires. I shove it in my black washbag. Just in case.

I’m walking through the estate at night. It’s warm out here tonight. One of those warm restless nights. But I’m surprised to see no other lights on in any of the apartments. Or the estate. No other night owls in Canada House. Just number forty-one.