Watching The Bodies
Graham Smith
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.