The Overlooker by Fay Sampson

about to demonstrate the wheel.’
    â€˜Your family would have been OK, then,’ Millie said to Nick. ‘All those Methodists and Baptists.’
    â€˜They’re your family too, remember.’
    In the next room, there were giant pivoting wooden hammers.
    â€˜The fulling stocks,’ Suzie whispered. ‘To beat the cloth with, instead of using your feet.’
    A small crowd had followed them in response to the guide’s invitation. Nick felt a sense of unease as they were herded together into this smaller space. He looked behind him. The boy and girl he had seen before wriggled to the front. Their oddly matched parents stood next to Nick. The plump-faced man with his pale, angular wife. Surely nothing to be concerned about there. A Japanese couple, or were they Korean? Their cameras were busy. It was stretching credulity to think that they could have anything to do with it. Yet how did he know? The women in Hugh Street had roots far afield.
    His eyes passed over another couple who were probably in their seventies. The woman had permed grey hair, not unlike Thelma’s. Her husband was a taller man, leaning on a stick. They spoke together in a comfortable Lancashire accent. No stretch of Nick’s imagination could associate them with a criminal gang.
    He twisted his head to the other side for a last look, and stiffened. The last man in the group was alone. He was of middle age, with a military bearing. He stood a little behind the others. Nick glimpsed a yellowish moustache in a ruddy face. He carried none of the obvious signs of a sightseer. No camera. No leaflet about the exhibition in his hand. Nick met his eye. A shiver ran through him. What was this man doing here?
    There was no reason why a man like that should not indulge an interest in industrial history.
    Nevertheless, Nick felt unsettled as he turned back to listen to their guide.
    At the end of the room, the old waterwheel loomed blackly in its housing. Even as they watched, it began to turn. Water spilled from its buckets, powering the endless cycle. As it lumbered into motion, the great fulling hammers began to lift and fall. With each strike, they pounded the cloth in its troughs.
    â€˜It’s the original wheel,’ their guide explained. ‘And still going strong. Though it does sometimes slip from its bearings, and we have a devil of job hoisting it back.’
    The turning of the wheel and the pounding of the hammers beat a rhythm in Nick’s head. He longed to turn and see if the man behind was still watching him.
    â€˜Of course,’ explained the guide, ‘Health and safety means we can’t let you experience the original smell. This place would have been reeking of stale piss.’
    This time Millie joined the children in a delighted cry of ‘Yuck!’
    Suzie caught Nick’s eye and smiled. He felt some of the tension ease out of him.
    He risked another look behind him. The man with the moustache was staring straight in front of him. It was impossible to tell whether he had been watching Nick or the wheel.
    Nick found himself moving closer to Suzie and Millie.
    The water wheel slowed to a halt. Water dripped from the buckets. The demonstration was over.
    The phone in his inside pocket buzzed. Nick started. Slowly, he drew the mobile out. He held it in his palm for a while. He had a strong reluctance to read the text message.
    With a sudden decision he clicked on it.
    It was message from his architect partner, Jeremy, wanting Nick to answer a question from one of his clients.
    He breathed a deep sigh of relief and slipped the phone back inside his leather jacket.
    The guide had left them. The little party dispersed. As they walked away to another part of the mill, Nick looked behind him again. The man was standing at the doorway of the fulling room. His eyes seemed to be following them.
    The Asian couple and the elderly pair took a different exit. The family with the two young children followed