Watching The Bodies

Graham Smith

Watching The Bodies _1.jpg

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

A Note from Bloodhound Books:

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire

Confucius

Copyright © 2017 Graham Smith

The right of Graham Smith to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2017 by Bloodhound Books

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.bloodhoundbooks.com

PRINT: 978-1-912175-15-4

1

When the woman gets within twenty yards of the body he’s dumped, the Watcher presses his body into the earth and raises his binoculars to his eyes.

She’s in her mid-fifties and accompanied by a Labrador puppy on a retractable leash. She’s relaxed, enjoying the walk and the time away from the stresses of work and family life.

Her face is familiar. After a moment’s thought he places her. The woman approaching the body is Mrs Halliburton, his former history teacher.

As she nears the body, his thoughts float back twenty years to a classroom full of bored children feigning interest in the Civil War. Details about the Confederates, the Union, and various characters like Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant are sketchy at best, yet he has total recall about the looks he shared with Jennifer Braidwood.

He brings his mind back to the present as he sees the puppy straining at its leash, tail between its legs. Its nose points at the body as clumsy paws scrabble for purchase on the pine needles littering the trail.

He sees the look on Mrs Halliburton’s face change. She’s spied the bare leg poking out of the bushes, just like he’d planned someone would when he laid the body there. He didn’t plan for her to be the one to find the body, but he did plan for it to be found.

The Watcher sees her cross herself and rein in the puppy. With it stationed at her heel, she takes short, tentative steps forward until she is at the bush. She lifts one foot and nudges the exposed calf with the toe of her hiking boots.

He waits for her to realise there won’t be a reaction. Every detail of her face is observed as she travels from concerned to afraid via a short detour to curious. He sees curiosity return.

A shaking hand reaches out and parts the thin branches of the cottonwood bush. He watches her eyes widen as she sees the damage wrought by his knife.

He imagines he can hear her gasp as she looks at the body. The mumbled words as she pats her pockets looking for her cell phone.

Leaving her to her discovery, he rises and slinks through the undergrowth, his ghillie suit casting debris with every step. Five minutes later he is at a new vantage point, deep in the depths of another cottonwood.

Mrs Halliburton comes down the trail, her feet moving with urgency. He watches as she unlocks a car and removes a cell from a bag.

With his notes made, he leaves before either the cops or dusk arrive.

2

The guy in the check shirt makes two mistakes in quick succession. First, he throws a punch at me. Second, he misses.

I coil forward from my ducking weave and introduce my forehead to his nose. The crunching thunk is more than a little satisfying.

Before he has time to gather his wits, I grab him by the wrist, bend his arm up his back and use his already shattered nose to open the door. Giving him just enough of a shove to propel him down the three steps without capsizing him, I turn, ready to deal with anyone else who wants to be a ten-beer hero.

Walking back into The Joshua Tree, I see three guys holding the one who’d picked the fight. They are having limited success in their efforts to calm him down.

I have to shout in his ear to make myself heard over the strains of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. ‘I’ve tossed him out because he took a swing at me. You gonna make the same mistake?’

A shake of the head is all the answer I get. I don’t expect anything more. Tom Kerslake is a local man with an image to keep. Getting his ass handed to him in a public place won’t be high on his wish list.

I’d been expecting the fight to happen from the moment he’d walked in. A serial cheat himself, he’d been overly aggrieved when his wife indulged in a spot of revenge sex with the oil worker I’ve just ejected.

Seeing the fight drain out of him, I give a curt nod and retake my position by the bar. From here I can see the whole room and observe everything that’s going on.

As its name suggests, The Joshua Tree is a rock bar, where even the music has to be twenty-one or older to get in. Frequented by bikers, rockers, and horny women hoping for a bad boy to take home, it is the most profitable bar in Casperton.

Serving homemade pastrami burgers with a chilli-based fry sauce as a speciality means the Tree, as it is known locally, also turns a steady dime throughout the days.


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