The Watcher by Charlotte Link Page B

unemployed too, which would hardly improve his chances.
    They left the beach, crossed the big car park, which was jam-packed in summer and was now completely empty, turned inland and reached Gunners Park, a large open space. In spite of all the paths that criss-crossed it, it had not been developed. It was still meadows, fields, copses and expanses of scrubland, where the wind coming in off the North Sea flattened the grass. Part of the area was a nature reserve, closed to the public but a paradise where innumerable kinds of birds nested. The locals loved to come on outings to the rest of the park. Samson remembered school walks that had ended in a sausage sizzle. Everyone whittled a stick to a point, spiked a sausage on the end and held it over the flames. The Tupperware containers full of carrot sticks and dips were opened, and the cartons of apple juice. And everyone had fun and enjoyed the day. Samson was the only one wishing for it to end soon, because he felt isolated among all the happy people. He would sit there on his own with the rucksack that his mother had packed for him. From the way she equipped him for school outings, Samson had seen how much his mother loved him and how much she wanted him to enjoy himself. But her power had shrunk over time. When he was still a small child, she had been able to force the other children to look after him. But by the time he was in secondary school, that no longer worked. Certainly not by the time he was a spotty teenager. And she could not help him at all when it came to girls.
    He sat down on a bench. Jazz crouched down at his feet. The fog enveloped them from all sides, leaving them as good as blind. The sea had disappeared somewhere in these thick, wet veils.
    Samson thought about Gillian Ward.
    In fact, for a while he had only been thinking about Gillian Ward, and, what was more, in a way that was quite inappropriate considering that she was a married woman. The previous day, he had crept around her house. He had seen her friend come and then leave, managing to catch a glimpse of Gillian herself too. He spent almost all his time on Gillian.
    ‘I’d never try anything with her,’ he said to Jazz. ‘She’s married and has a child. The Wards are an ideal family. A family like that shouldn’t be destroyed.’
    Jazz cocked his head to one side in an effort to understand what Samson was telling him.
    An ideal family . . .
    Samson had had the shock of his life when he saw Gillian enter the Halfway House on Friday night. Why was she there? Without her husband? And who was the man accompanying her? Samson did not know him, had never seen him with the Ward family. He took an immediate dislike to the man, although he tried to analyse his feelings objectively. Was he just jealous? It was obvious that this was a man who only had to snap his fingers and any woman he wanted would jump into bed with him. Or was there something about him that justified Samson’s suspicion? Something dishonest, shady, insincere? That was how Samson would have described him, but perhaps he was being unfair. The man had taken to a pub the woman Samson would have loved to take out – at least in his dreams. In reality, he died a thousand deaths just at the thought of it. For it would be impossible for him to sit down at a table with her and chat over a glass of wine without her realising how pathetic he was, that he was neither entertaining nor witty nor exciting. And that he often stumbled over his words, stuttering and messing up every punch line, should he even get close to delivering one. He had noticed how women sitting with him would try to look at their watches inconspicuously and, with greater or less success, suppress a yawn. It made him come out in a sweat and filled him with despair. He could not let that happen with Gillian. He had the feeling that a similar reaction from her would make him suicidal.
    So he had to focus on Jazz’s owner. Perhaps something would come of this plan. If only it