Ian Watts

Ian Watts is Martin Smith’s colleague at a furniture shop and the brother of a woman whose home is watched by an intruder. His brief appearances place him between two kinds of everyday attention: noticing customers on the shop floor and responding when his sister reports that someone has been outside her house.

Identity and work

Ian works alongside Martin at the furniture shop. When a young couple have completed a purchase, Martin surveys the floor and sees a woman in her late twenties looking at dining-room furniture. Ian strolls over to offer assistance; she says she is only looking. The encounter is a routine piece of shop-floor service, but it also gives Ian a moment of observation: he later describes the woman as unusual because her eyes are different colours. Martin identifies the condition as heterochromia iridium.

His sister’s encounter with an intruder

Ian’s family connection emerges after a snooper has crept around his sister’s home. She hears someone outside, checks the back door, and calls Ian to ask him to come over. By the time he arrives, the intruder has already escaped. The narration makes the danger more than a momentary scare: the snooper has taken an interest in the house and the woman’s frightened reaction, and intends to return.

Concern and practical precautions

The next day, Ian tells Martin that his sister was shaken by someone looking in at her kitchen window, particularly because she has not lived there long. He has advised her to contact the police. He also explains the circumstances that allowed the intruder into the yard: the gate was left unbolted after she put out the bin. The house has recently had its locks changed, with longer screws fitted to the door frame around the latch and locks added to the windows. Ian relays these details as reasons she should be safer indoors, while the intruder’s escape shows that the precautions have not erased the threat.

Narrative role

Ian’s scenes set ordinary observation against an unseen danger. At work, he notices a customer’s distinctive eyes; at home, his sister’s call makes him part of a response to someone else’s scrutiny of a woman. The novel does not establish that the customer and his sister are the same person, so the two details remain separate. Together, however, they show Ian moving through the story’s everyday spaces—the furniture shop and a family home—while the possibility of surveillance begins to intrude on both.