Watch Over You Read online

  WATCH OVER YOU

  M.J. Ford

  Copyright

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Copyright © M.J. Ford 2020

  Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey/Trevillion Images

  M.J. Ford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008329853

  Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008329860

  Version: 2020-06-01

  Praise for M.J. Ford

  ‘Superb, gritty and realistic.’

  Mel Sherratt

  ‘Well written and sizzling with tension.’

  James Nally

  ‘A fabulous, page-turning thriller.’

  Jacqui Rose

  ‘A unique plot and storyline – I enjoyed the book immensely. It really makes you think.’

  Reader review

  ‘Spectacularly assured.’

  Reader review

  ‘Excellent, and incredibly compelling. I didn’t want to put it down!’

  Reader review

  ‘A belter of a crime novel!’

  Reader review

  ‘Very atmospheric, with acute observations, and full of twists and turns. Great characterisation.’

  Reader review

  Well written with an involving plot, a number of possible suspects, twists and turns and an unbelievably thrilling cliff-hanging conclusion’

  Reader review

  ‘Five stars for a brilliant read which both kept me guessing right to the end and whet my appetite for more.’

  Reader review

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Praise for M.J. Ford

  James

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  James

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  James

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  James

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  James

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  James

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  James

  Chapter 31

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  About the Publisher

  JAMES

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

  ‘We’re just the same, you and me,’ said Grady.

  James looked at the shrivelled man sitting beside him, with his toothless gurn and beaten-up trainers that smelled of piss. He was eating a pasty one of the street pastors had bought him, and he didn’t seem to care that there were baked beans dripping down the front of his coat.

  No, we’re not, James thought. I’m nothing like you.

  ‘Resourceful, you know?’ Grady went on. Beside him, his dog Biggles, wearing a set of fluffy reindeer antlers, lifted an eyebrow hopefully, as flakes of pastry fell on to Grady’s legs. He brushed them off. ‘Survivors, right?’

  Just because you’re still alive, doesn’t mean you’re not dying. James had no idea of Grady’s age. He looked seventy, but he might have been thirty years younger. That’s what decades on smack and dashed hopes would do to you.

  A cold December wind whipped along the street where they sat, and James pushed his hands into his armpits, hugging the green field combat coat more tightly around him.

  ‘Fuck, it’s cold.’

  Grady didn’t seem bothered as he chewed. ‘This is nothing, lad,’ he said. ‘When we was on the boats we had a warrant officer would get us out on deck in our undies on Christmas Day. Not a word of a lie.’

  James didn’t doubt it. For all his repulsive traits and crippling addiction, Grady was pretty honest. They’d met at a soup kitchen run by ex-servicemen a few weeks ago, and since that day he’d bumped into the old navy boy several times and couldn’t shake him off. He quite liked Biggles, who attracted more than his fair share of kindness from the public – especially with the antlers – but Grady’s endless tales of life on the high seas made James’ blood boil.

  ‘One fella got frostbite on his bloody cock!’ Grady chuckled to himself at the memory, then offered the remains of the food to James. ‘You want this?’

  ‘No,’ he said, taking in Grady’s tattooed fingers and yellow nails. He stood and stamped his feet, trying to get the blood to flow into his freezing toes.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ asked Grady, handing the scraps to Biggles.

  James spat on the ground. ‘None of your fucking business.’

  ‘Only asking,’ said the old man. He looked afraid, his eyes watery under his woollen hat.

  ‘I need to get warm.’

  ‘If I were you, I’d head to the library then. They keep the heating on.’

  ‘And if I were you, I’d do the world a favour and kill myself,’ said James.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Go to the top of the multi-storey and throw yourself off.’

  ‘What’s got into you, lad?’

  ‘You,’ said James. He nodded. ‘Give me that hat.’

  ‘No,’ said Grady.

  ‘Give me the hat or I’ll stamp your fucking dog’s head in.’

  Biggles, sensing the sudden animus, whined, the very tip of his tail wagging timidly.

  Grady reached up slowly, and pulled the hat from his head. James realised he’d never seen him without it. Beneath, his hair was wispy and grey over a scalp scabby with eczema. He looked every day of seventy now. He offered the hat to James, who snatched it away.

  ‘I thought we were mates, lad.’

  James left the old man mashing his gums and wandered out into St Anne’s Square, where the tourists milled about under the festive lights. He put on the hat, feeling instantly better. He’d never been good with the cold, and it was worse since he’d returned from abroad. The library wasn’t a bad idea, but there were cameras everywhere, and he needed some cash urgently. So he went instead to one of the chain coffee shops. As usual in the middle of the day, it was filled with mums and their pushchairs, queuing for their skinny caps or whatever. It smelled of mulled
spice. No one paid any attention to James, and after a show of looking at the menu board, he lifted the purse from a bag hanging over the handlebars of one of the buggies crammed in by a table of gossiping women. He was in and out in less than a minute.

  Round the corner, he checked the contents beside the back door of a Chinese restaurant kitchen, air thick with rich, savoury smells of garlic and ginger. Sixty-five quid, bank cards and the like. There was a picture of a bloke and a baby, their noses touching. He kept the cash and dropped the rest in one of the restaurant’s dumper bins. A guy in chef’s whites stuck his head out of the door and shouted at him to clear off.

  On exiting the alleyway at speed, tucking the money away, he almost collided with a couple walking arm in arm.

  ‘Woah!’ said one. ‘Easy does it!’

  James looked up. ‘Go fuck your …’ The words dried up in his mouth. The two strangers were both men, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. ‘I know you,’ he said to the man on the right, tall and square-jawed, tanned, with short greying hair, maybe fifty. He wore a long navy coat that looked pricey.

  The man’s partner – smaller, boyish, with tight trousers and a tweed jacket – gave an amused smirk and glanced at his companion. ‘I hope not, Chris.’

  James swallowed thickly, unable to move. He couldn’t place the face, but it was right there, like a word on the tip of his tongue.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the older man. ‘Sorry we bumped into you.’

  They walked off and James stared after them. It was as they disappeared around a corner that his mind dug out the memory he was looking for. He remembered where he’d met the man before. Before he even stopped to think why, he followed.

  The cold of the January evening suddenly meant nothing at all. Every inch of James’ skin was hot, the atoms of his body vibrating on a higher frequency. New possibilities opened up ahead. If the man was who he thought, this changed everything. And even as the hope fired him, doubts set it. It couldn’t be him, could it? What were the chances, after all these years? He walked around twenty paces behind them, and James’ eyes bored into the back of the man’s head. The face had been familiar, but as he tailed them, he became more certain. The ages would be about right, too. Even the man’s gait, the way his upper body remained perfectly erect while his feet moved in small steps, aroused a deep-seated discomfort.

  The men entered a restaurant on Deansgate, and James drifted past the front window, stationing himself beside a taxi rank. He watched as the men were shown to a table, took off their winter coats, and handed them to a maître d’. Then they sat opposite one another, reaching across the table to clutch hands. James felt a bit sick. Bracken, another private in his barracks, had once suggested he was a poof, solely on the basis that he didn’t spend his free time poring over pornography like the rest of them. James had pinned him down and got a thumb into the soft flesh beside the top of his nose, threatening to scoop out his eye if he cared to make the insinuation again. Neither Bracken, nor any of the others, ever did.

  James watched now, confident that the harsh light of the restaurant’s interior and the relative darkness outside would keep him hidden. It was the guy all right – every mannerism rang true.

  Falling right into my lap …

  But there was still work to be done. He stood in place for a half-hour, observing the ebb and flow of customers from the restaurant, the waiting staff drifting from kitchen to table to bar. He saw their patterns of movement and the opportunities these allowed. The maître d’ did the same for each new arrival, checking a computer, then leading the diners into the restaurant, before returning to the wall beyond the front desk to hang the coats. There was a twenty- or thirty-second window he could exploit.

  So, as the next diners arrived – a party of five men and two women in business clothing – James timed his approach. If he was spotted, he could always run. But no one clocked him as he went to the coat-pegs and fished in the pockets of the navy longcoat, locating a card wallet inside. After a quick upward glance, he opened it, and found the driving licence. Christopher Putman. 311 Victoria Tower, Salford. He slipped the wallet back where he’d found it – best not to raise suspicion – and walked out feeling breathless.

  The dark city seemed a different place entirely now, the packed streets full of opportunity. He tried to maintain his composure, but it worked only for a few seconds at a time before his mind spiralled off into fantasies about what this could mean. A door into the past had opened just a fraction, and it could change everything.

  Christopher Putman had claimed not to remember him, and fair enough. It had been over ten years, and their encounter had been brief. Probably just a few hours in the day of that bastard before he went back to his comfortable life. But for James it had turned his world upside down.

  Soon the past would come back to Putman though. And when it did, he would be very sorry indeed.

  Chapter 1

  THURSDAY, 17TH APRIL

  Jo Masters had attended dozens of dead bodies over the years and the majority of deaths – by far – weren’t suspicious at all. Road traffic collisions, freakish workplace accidents, squalid drug overdoses, elderly people who died alone and weren’t discovered until putrefaction set in and the neighbours raised the alarm. Death struck randomly, oblivious to notions of justice or moral standing, ready to snuff the lives of the living, and cast those left behind in darkness and misery. It was only when she became a mother that Jo realised quite how many threats lurked under her own roof.

  The clock read 10.04, which meant her visitor was late. However, the extra minutes did give her the opportunity to do a final sweep of the house and make sure that it was, to all intents and purposes, completely death-proof for a six-month-old baby.

  The magnetic strip that held the kitchen knives was way out of reach, so there was no danger there. The safety catches on the cupboards would keep any poisons safely stowed. All plug sockets had protective covers to prevent the insertion of conductive metals by curious fingers. Curtain cords were looped and fastened a metre above the floor, so there could be no accidental self-garrotting. Stairgates were braced so tightly against their wall-mountings that even a rugby prop forward running at velocity would fail to dislodge them. Never mind that Theo could not yet crawl. Jo had vacuumed, swept, dusted, and anti-bac-sprayed to standards that would have impressed Vera Coyne, Thames Valley’s forensic pathology supremo. Theo watched her with a mixture of smiles, squirms and frowning curiosity as she dashed about like a dervish trying to create the impression of parenting competence. He was probably wondering why all his stuffed animals were lined up on a shelf, as if awaiting a drill sergeant’s inspection, and why his mother had suddenly deemed to disinfect his favourite teething ring when she’d never bothered before. He, thankfully, didn’t understand the day’s significance.

  It was a little stuffy, so Jo pulled up a sash window. Would that look like a hazard, though? Maybe. She closed it again.

  Passing the phone, she noticed for the first time that the message light was flashing. There was only one person who used the landline these days, apart from the ambulance chasers and the other cold-callers. She played the recording as she brushed a few specks of dust off the windowsill.

  The message was two days old.

  ‘Hello, Jo. It’s been a while. Listen, there’s something I need to talk with you about. I know you’ve got a lot on, but … it’s delicate. Maybe you could give me a call back when you’ve got a minute. Oh, it’s Harry, by the way.’

  Harry Ferman. Former inspector with Thames Valley Police and her drinking buddy before life changed completely and she’d switched to gin-less tonics and early bedtimes. He hadn’t cared, of course – it was her company he valued. But she hadn’t seen him for, what, three months? Too long. She doubted he was busy that evening, and began to search for his number.

  Before she could hit call, the doorbell rang. Jo pocketed the phone, and went to check her appearance in the hallway mirror. As so often the
se days, there was a moment of cognitive dissonance as she regarded the tired expression looking back at her. No amount of concealer could disguise the dark circles beneath her eyes, and she hadn’t even bothered to dye the grey streaks multiplying around her temples. What was the point, really?

  ‘Get a grip,’ she muttered to herself. This wasn’t a date, or an interview. It didn’t, or shouldn’t, matter how she looked. It was her house. Her turf. I’m in control.

  She opened the door with the sincerest smile she could manage. Liz Merriman, the normal health visitor, was a diminutive five-foot-nothing, maybe thirty years old, with dreadlocks pulled back in a knot, and an easy, authentic expression that suggested she really did enjoy her job. She wore a blue nurse’s tunic, sensible flats, and carried a satchel. But she wasn’t alone today. The woman accompanying her was about ten years Jo’s senior, dressed in a tailored navy skirt and a pale blouse buttoned up to her throat, with short-cropped grey hair. She reminded Jo of a Victorian governess, and the contrast between the two women on her doorstep couldn’t have been more extreme.

  ‘Hello, Jo,’ said Merriman. ‘Sorry we’re late.’

  Jo tore her gaze from Merriman’s companion and waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, you’re not, are you? Time doesn’t mean much to me these days!’

  ‘I’m Annabelle Pritchard,’ said the older woman, holding out a bony hand.

  Jo took it. The woman’s skin was cold, despite the heat of the day.

  ‘Jo Masters,’ she said.

  ‘May we come in?’ asked Pritchard.

  ‘Have you got a warrant?’ said Jo. Annabelle frowned. ‘Just kidding. Occupational humour.’ Jo tried to form a disarming grin.

  ‘Of course,’ said Annabelle, looking troubled rather than amused. ‘I heard you were a police officer.’ She said it with about the same level of distaste as if Jo had said she worked in a slaughterhouse.

  Jo moved aside, and let her guests pass. Merriman slid off her shoes before Jo could tell her not to bother.

  ‘How’s the little man doing?’ she asked.

  I’ve managed to keep him alive, if that’s what you mean.

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Jo, leading the way through to the living room. ‘He’s just through here. Can I get you a tea or coffee?’