The Watcher by Charlotte Link

that?’
    Jazz listened carefully and wagged his tail. Samson found it nice to talk to a dog. The dog looked at him with such concentration that it was as if he could really understand what it was all about. You could be sure that he would not tease you or laugh at you, whatever you confided in him. And nor would he tell the secret to anyone else.
    ‘I also wanted to have a dog,’ said Samson. ‘But first my parents were against it. And now Millie is.’
    When he said her name, he could feel the hatred like a small, hot flame in his stomach. Millie, who was so dissatisfied and so cold. Who showed him every step of the way what she thought of him: that he was a loser, a burden, unnecessary. Someone who had done nothing with his life.
    ‘Millie decides everything in our house,’ he told Jazz. ‘Although the house belongs to my brother and me. But unfortunately he’s completely under her thumb. I just can’t work out how he could marry such a poisonous piece of work. Well, she used to be pretty attractive . . .’
    Gavin had never had difficulty with women. He was not a man that all the women flew to, but nor was he someone they all avoided. Everything had always been pretty normal with him. Nothing to attract attention. Gavin was average, in every way. Samson knew that most people would be annoyed to be considered average. But they had no idea what it felt like to be someone who did not get anything right and was constantly used as a doormat. Someone, in other words, who was below average.
    ‘I think your owner is pretty,’ he said to Jazz. ‘I don’t like her as much as Gillian, but unfortunately Gillian is married.’
    Jazz gave a little wuff .
    He stroked the dog’s shaggy head. ‘Your owner has not even noticed me yet. But that might change today. You needn’t be afraid at all. You’ll see her again tonight.’
    They had reached the golf clubhouse. There was only one car in the car park. Apart from that, the place was deserted this cold early morning. Since it was, Samson dared to walk around the building. There were no lights on in the windows. No one was inside. A large poster at the front door announced a black-tie Christmas ball. It was to be held that coming Saturday in the clubhouse. As the poster said in particularly large and bright red letters, the famous London lawyer Logan Stanford had organised it. The climax of the evening would be a prize draw whose proceeds would go to help street children in Russia.
    Samson knew Logan Stanford. Not personally, of course, but from the gossip rags that Millie liked to read so much and left strewn around the house. Stanford was an extremely successful lawyer with first-class connections to the rich and powerful of the land – even to Downing Street, it was whispered. He had oodles of money and influence. And he was known for constantly organising charity events up and down the country. His nickname was ‘Charity Stanford’ and he did his best to live up to it. He collected huge donations and made sure they reached the neediest people. Nevertheless, Samson could not help but have reservations about him whenever he saw him on the colourful pages of Hello! yet again. He thought that Stanford looked rather smug. And his guests too . . . All those lifted faces rigid with Botox; lavish evening dresses, sparkling jewellery. Champagne by the bucketload. High society was celebrating itself in the first instance, but the end result was money for people who were much less well off than the British upper class.
    ‘So what?’ Millie had once said when he expressed his unease. ‘What’s the problem? At least they’re doing something. If they have fun at the same time – who does that hurt?’
    He himself could not really say what it was about it that annoyed him. Perhaps it was the feeling that these people were less concerned about the misery in the world than their own self-aggrandisement. Perhaps he had trouble reconciling the issues faced by Russian street