Owen Sheers - I Saw a Man

During his working week on the Heath, Josh was able to observe his family from afar. And then again at closer quarters when he saw them on the weekends. He’d become more comfortable with the silences he shared with Rachel, and calmer, too, about the woman he was witnessing Samantha become. But hanging over it all was still the question of Michael. The question of who he was and of what he wanted; of the soil on the landing and of where he’d been during those few minutes on the Seventh of June 2008.

More than once Josh had considered telling Samantha the truth, confessing to her that he hadn’t been in the house when Lucy fell. But if he ever hoped to get her and his daughter back, then he knew this was impossible. And, he told himself, that person had been another Josh, anyway, another man, and he couldn’t let him ruin the chances of who he was now, of who he wanted to become.

But Josh couldn’t let Michael ruin his chances either. As long as he was close to Samantha and Rachel, as long as he was there, living next to them, Josh knew there’d never be space to make them his again, and him theirs. Not while there was still so much he didn’t know about Michael and what had happened that day. He’d told Slater he’d been at his fencing lesson. That’s what she’d told Josh when she’d talked him through all his neighbours’ statements. At the time he’d listened with only his own self-interest in mind. Had any of them seen him leave the house? Had any of them seen him return? But none, according to Slater, had. So Josh just felt relief when Michael’s statement had been added to those of the others on the street.

But now he felt only suspicion. How did Slater know Michael was at his lesson when Lucy fell? Had she checked with his instructor? Had he been seen walking there across the Heath? Josh had wanted to find the card she’d left him and call her and ask her. But he knew he couldn’t. The way she’d questioned him, the manner in which they’d all treated him. He knew she suspected him, sensed his lies at the edges of his story. So he couldn’t provoke her to look any closer than she already had.

No, if Josh wanted to corroborate Michael’s story, then he would have to do so himself. If it was true, then he could let go of his suspicion. But if it was not, then — then he didn’t know what he would do. But at least he would know. At least he’d be able to extinguish the agonies of his uncertainty, defuse some of the unforgiving questions that still haunted him about what had happened to his daughter.

After that evening they’d spoken over the hedge, Josh, whenever he could, began watching Michael. He wanted to understand him, to discover what he wanted. Was it Samantha? Is that why he was spending so much time with her? Was she what this was all about? Josh couldn’t be sure, not without knowing more about Michael. So he watched him. He became familiar with the times his bathroom light came on in the morning, and his study light turned off at night. He followed him, at a distance, to his favourite cafés, or to the archives of the local museum. Just the other week he’d watched from up the street as Michael had helped Samantha carry her prints from the framer’s, loading them into the back of his old Volvo. And he’d watched, too, as Michael had walked to his fencing club on a Thursday, then taken the same route across the Heath for his lessons on a Saturday. Which is when Josh had first seen the Heath’s conservation team unloading tools from a storage shed at the school.

It was a shed they shared, it seemed, with the school’s caretaker, in whose office they also took their breaks when working on the Highgate side of the Heath. On that same afternoon Josh had seen them at the school he’d also noticed the security camera angled above the entrance to its sports hall. Had Slater viewed the tape from this camera on the day Lucy fell? Had she seen, for sure, Michael enter the building? But, more important, Josh had wanted to know as he’d walked back across the Heath to his flat, how might he find a way to see the tape himself? How might he witness, with his own eyes but without raising the suspicions of Slater, the truth of Michael’s story?

Josh had told Samantha it was Nathan, the gardener at Willow Road, who’d put him forward for the job with the Hampstead Heath team. But that had been a lie. Instead, he’d applied directly, using Nathan as a reference and an old City connection on the corporation’s board to push it through. Josh began working with them the following month, but he’d known he’d have to be patient, that there were no guarantees. He was acting purely on speculation. But then wasn’t that what he’d always done, and what he’d always been so good at with Lehman’s? Speculating, betting on outcomes, playing a waiting game, then striking when the opportunity came.

In time, his patience won out. It was early in April when Josh and his team were sent to cut back the rhododendrons on the Highgate side of the Heath. The area they were working edged the grounds of the school, and as Josh had seen the year before, to save themselves the daily trip across the Heath, they borrowed one of the school caretaker’s storage sheds while they were there.

Jim, the caretaker, was a widower in his early sixties, talkative and sociable. As well as caretaking the school, he performed groundsman duties for the leisure centre. It was the Easter holidays, and the school was empty. So Jim was more than pleased to offer the team the use of his office again. To make teas and coffees, get out of the rain, or just to take the weight off their feet for a few minutes in one of his broken-down armchairs.

―

Josh was sitting in one of these armchairs, slung back in its spongy springs, when he’d first seen the videocassette. Once he had, he’d been unable to take his eyes off it. He’d assumed, having first got to know Jim, he’d then have had to find a way to steer him onto the subject of the school’s security cameras, and then again on to where their footage might be kept. Beyond that he’d had no other plan about how to get hold of the footage for himself. So to see a tape above him, written with that date, it almost seemed like a bait, as if someone was setting him a trap.

He looked around the rest of the room, on the other shelves, for other cassettes. But there were none. Just this crooked pile on the shelf above him, each spine written with a date. While Jim talked on — about his time as a semi-pro footballer, his grandkids — that top tape seemed to gather a luminescence at the edges of Josh’s vision, its black numbers burning into his mind.

As Josh and his colleagues finished up, the three of them putting their mugs in the sink, Josh nodded at the shelf. “Those tapes,” he’d asked Jim. “What are they?”

Jim looked up at the shelf, squinting, as if he hadn’t considered that part of his office for a while. Josh swallowed. He was nervous. He felt he should have given some kind of explanation for his question. The other members of his team had already left the room. “The date on that top one,” he’d said, taking off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. “Seventh of June. It’s my daughter’s birthday.”

“Oh!” Jim nodded, seeing them. “Those. Yeah, they’re old security tapes. CCTV. The police had them for a while. Can’t remember why. We’d switched the whole system by the time they came back.” He looked back at Josh. “All digital now, see? More cameras, too. Isn’t a metre of this bloody place that isn’t covered.”

Josh nodded. “Right. Well, better safe than sorry, I guess.” He went towards the door. “Thanks for the tea, Jim,” he said as he left.

“How old is she?” Jim called from inside. Josh looked back into the room. “Your daughter,” Jim said. “How old is she?”