I Am Watching You

Henry feels sick as he has had to relive the trauma of losing Anna all over again. The woman with Karl was revealed to be his girlfriend. They’d staged the hostage situation in panic so they could request a getaway car and flee in it. Karl has nothing to do with Anna’s disappearance. He has a solid alibi for what he did after leaving the club, as does Antony. The young men fled the country after the news of the disappearance broke out because they were scared their prior history made them easy suspects. With the Karl-Antony thread closed, it finally hits Henry and his family that Anna is never coming home.

Barbara asks Henry to leave the house. For now, Henry takes his dog, Sammy, and relocates to a vacant holiday house. Henry feels bothered by the heat wave that has struck Cornwall. A few days later, Jenny drops in, notices the squalor in which Henry is living, and makes him dinner. Henry feels touched. Jenny tells him that Sarah has reported that Bob, her father, may be a person of interest in Anna’s disappearance. Henry remembers he never liked the handsome, shifty Bob and his habit of taking endless pictures of the girls. Jenny tells Henry there is something else she wants to tell him.

The watcher’s head is getting muddled, but he must force himself to think clearly. He does not like the heat, and neither does she, the one he watches. He must now do something about the people interfering in his business. They should have left him and her alone.

Now that the Karl-Antony thread is closed, Ella thinks there should be some respite from the anonymous postcards. As she works in her flower shop, she worries about her arms looking too big in the short-sleeved top she wore to survive the heat. This is Ella’s problem: She worries about too many things at the same time, her mind racing from point to point. When Ella returns home in the evening, she finds the day’s mail on her doorstep. Much to her horror, the mail contains another black postcard. This time the crude cut-and-paste letters say, “I am watching you” (250). Ella calls Matthew.

After Sarah reports her father’s text, the police send teams to the house to interrogate her and Lily separately. Sarah feels bad for subjecting Lily to the inquiry, but she now feels telling the whole truth is the best policy. The police promise to find the father of the girls and leave. Caroline, the owner of the house, tells Sarah that the police have referred her to social services since Sarah is a minor. Sarah’s mother wants her back, which means she might have to return. However, Caroline will consider letting Sarah stay with her if Sarah agrees to follow house rules carefully. Sarah realizes Caroline is not a bad person. Lily wears bracelets because they give her something to fiddle with and calm herself down. They also hide the scars from the self-harm Lily used to inflict on herself when she lived at home. Caroline suggests a new name for Sarah as well—Dawn—signifying a fresh start.

Ella is in Cornwall to meet Barbara Ballard at Matthew’s request. Meanwhile Luke is in Exeter, holding the fort at the shop. He is supposed to interview two people for the store manager’s job, both of whom did the Ten Tors hike at the same time as him. Matthew tells Ella that Bob, Sarah’s father, has been cleared in Anna’s case. Security footage from his hotel makes it clear he was inside his room until Sarah’s mother phoned in to come to Sarah’s hotel that night.

Matthew tells Ella that Barbara wants to engage his services to investigate Anna’s disappearance since she has lost faith in the police. He wants the women to meet so he can take a call on Barbara’s request. At the Ballard house, Barbara apologizes to Ella for visiting her shop last year. Barbara was unduly angry with Ella because she wanted a scapegoat for her grief and rage. Ella says she understands. Just then, Ella notices a framed picture on the piano. The picture is of Anna and Jenny with Tim, whom Ella realizes was one of the passengers on the train that fateful day last year.

In a flashback to July 2015, Anna is furious with Sarah for refusing to come back to the hotel with her. She is also woozy from too many drinks. She wonders if she should call her dad, but she is angry with him because of what she has discovered about him. Calling Sarah’s dad is also out of the question after Sarah’s warning. Anna feels she has no other choice but to take a cab back to the hotel herself. Outside the club, she runs into Tim and feels a rush of relief. It is revealed that Tim’s trip to Scotland got canceled. Tim tells Anna they won’t get a cab here and takes her to the flat that his father has left him. Tim plans to call a cab to his flat and leave to get Sarah by himself.

Anna settles down and asks Tim why he sent her the terrible intimate picture of her father and his mother, April, that morning. It made her row with her father when he was dropping her off at the station. Tim says he wanted the graphic picture to tell Anna the truth. Anna wonders how Tim managed to get the picture, which shows her father and his mother making love. Tim says he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and goes off to make Anna coffee. Anna looks around the apartment and finds photos of their friend group. At first, the pictures make her happy, but she begins to feel uncomfortable when she spots solo photos of her taken from a distance, without her knowledge. Meanwhile, Tim brings her coffee. As she drinks the coffee, Anna begins to feel woozy. She asks Tim why the cab is taking this long. Tim seems agitated. Anna decides something is very wrong with Tim and tells him she is stepping out. Just as she gets close to the door, Tim strikes her on the head from behind. Anna falls and tries to scream, but Tim muffles her mouth. Telling her he will always watch out for her; Tim strangles a struggling Anna with his belt. Thinking of her family and friends, Anna dies.

Matthew calls up Melanie to track Tim Blackhouse, a new possible suspect in Anna’s disappearance. Barbara is in shock, refusing to believe that Tim, Anna and Jenny’s close friend, could have anything to do with the crime. Melanie calls Matthew and says that Tim is not at his house. Matthew wonders if Jenny would know Tim’s whereabouts. Jenny says Tim mentioned something about going to Devon for a job interview with someone he knew from Ten Tors.

Ella’s blood runs cold as she realizes Tim might be one of the people Luke is interviewing. Matthew calls Melanie to immediately head to Ella’s flower shop, where Tim might be. Ella is in a panic, unable to understand why Tim would target her and Luke.

Luke had put out a job ad on the Ten Tors Facebook group. Out of the two applicants who responded, he has already interviewed the girl, whom he liked. Tim is running late, a bad sign, since Ella likes punctuality. When Tim does come in, Luke is concerned about Tim’s pallid, unwashed appearance. The concern intensifies when Tim tells Luke that both he and Luke did Ten Tors the same year as Anna Ballard. Tim asks Luke if he remembers Anna and shows him a group picture in which both Luke and Anna feature. Luke tells Tim he does not remember Anna from the hike and asks him to leave.

Instead of leaving, Tim bolts the door to the shop and turns the closed sign to the door. He pulls out a knife and asks Luke to move to the back of the shop. He tells Luke to confess that he liked Anna, since Tim watched Luke smile and chat with her several times. When Luke says no, Tim stabs his arm and then his thigh. Luke crumples to the floor but can see his mother’s secateurs on the workbench. He reaches for them and swings at Tim before fainting.

It is autumn. The trend for flowers this year is brides wanting more white. Ella does not mind white flowers, since there are so many variations to the classic color. As she arranges the white roses, lilies, and irises, Ella’s mind flashes to the terrible events of a few months ago. Luke managed to strike Tim with the secateurs before he fainted. Tim fell into a temporary coma. Melanie Sanders rescued Luke. Police investigating Tim found Anna’s body in the freezer in a flat in London. Tim had been watching Anna for years. He would use his father’s flat in London to store secret pictures of her, as well as his rant-filled notebooks. Tim would also often hide in a shepherd’s cottage in the Ballard estate to watch Anna. Before Anna’s trip to London, Tim had checked into a remote outdoor-activities center in Scotland, which he knew only logged its guests on day one. Then he’d returned to Cornwall to follow Anna on the train.

Tim’s trial is to begin soon, with him pleading diminished capacity because of his mental health condition. Luke is to testify in the trial. Luke is in physical therapy and now walks with a limp. Ella often thinks of offering her condolences to Barbara but does not know what to say to the grieving mother. Today, Barbara surprises her with a visit to the shop. Barbara tells Ella that she wants Henry back, since she realizes she misses her husband. The family is coping the best they can with the news of Anna’s death, though Barbara blames herself for letting Tim in the family. Barbara pitied Tim for his troubled childhood and took him under her wing.

Meanwhile, Jenny has told her parents that it was she who sent the first few black postcards to Ella, angry with her for not making the call. Later, she confided her misdemeanor to Tim. That is when Tim became more interested in Ella, deciding to watch her, and sending her postcards himself. In the process of stalking Ella, he discovered Luke’s Ten Tors connection with Anna and decides to show up for the interview to punish Luke. Barbara tells Ella that she will understand if Ella decides to report Jenny to the police. Ella says there is nothing to be gained by doing that. Barbara thanks Ella and tells her Anna’s body is being released for the funeral. Barbara does not want wreaths for the funeral as Anna was young and full of joy. Instead, she wants Anna to be covered with flowers and greenery, like an arrangement she had spotted in Ella’s shop the first time she visited. Ella says it would be a privilege to make the arrangement for Anna’s funeral and begins to plan it in her head—a gown filled with primroses and wildflowers for “a beautiful girl. Gone too soon” (286).