The Hidden Eye

by Oliver Davies

  He cried out and fell, scraping his elbows across the pavement, limbs jumping every which way as he lost control. Fletcher and I closed the gap to ten feet before he’d staggered upright once more, and Fletcher yelled, “Stop!” again as I forced my legs to move faster than I thought possible.

  I jumped, flinging myself at the man’s knees. I managed to get my arms around one of them and bore both of us to the ground, his other heel clocking me in the chin just before we hit. “Police!” I growled as I clawed my way up his body to pin him fully to the ground.

  He struggled beneath me, his whole body bucking and writhing, and I gritted my teeth as I unhooked my handcuffs from my belt and slapped them around his wrists, forcing his arms behind him.

  “Get off me!” he yelled, voice strangled and angry.

  I obliged him, pushing myself upright and then hauled him to his feet by the back of his denim jacket. When I released him, he jerked sharply around to face us, a scrape on his cheek from hitting the pavement, his dark eyes flickering between furious and terrified above it.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he insisted, but he twitched as he said it, a muscle in his neck jumping.

  “Then why’d you run?” Fletcher asked. She stood with her arms folded and her chest still heaving from the chase.

  The man grumbled something but otherwise didn’t answer.

  “Let’s have this conversation off the street,” I suggested because I could see curious faces peering out from behind the curtains of houses all around us, drawn by the shouting and the sounds of a struggle. The blinds jerked shut the instant I caught them looking only to crack back open a second later.

  I grabbed the man’s arm and gave him a push back the way we came, ignoring the way he protested and demanded we release him as he had done nothing wrong. Fletcher and I marched him down the street, all the way back to the crime scene and my parked car. Eventually, he shut up and switched to glaring sourly at the ground.

  The tape had been replaced, the ends of the strip we’d run through flapping in the breeze beneath the fresh line, but it looked like the forensics team had begun to pack up. Adams came out of the building as I was pushing our suspect into the back seat of my car. She looked around until she spotted me and then hurried over, camera still strung around her neck.

  “You caught him. That’s good,” she said, bending over so she could look through the window at the man. He scowled back at her. “We’re almost finished here. Got to get everything back to the lab so we can draw up a proper report. I’m sure Martin will want to look everything over himself.”

  “We’ll meet you there. We’ve got plenty to do ourselves.” I looked at our suspect as I said this. He sat with his shoulders slumped, unable to find a comfortable position with his hands bound behind his back. He was younger than expected, maybe the same age as our John Doe, and his ears were slightly too big for his head, accentuated by his short haircut. He glared at me when he noticed me watching him, but there was no real fire behind it.

  He didn’t really strike me as the kind of person who could stab someone else ten times, but that was what we had to find out.

  Four

  Our suspect’s name was Connor Harrigan. He was twenty-seven years old, and he worked as a doorman at a nightclub in the city centre. Fletcher had taken his wallet off him when we got back to the station. Aside from an unpaid parking fine, his record was clean.

  “Why were you at the crime scene?” I asked. The three of us were seated in an interview room, the metal table a shining expanse between us. Harrigan had been silent ever since I put him in the back of my car, but now, his mouth twisted, hands flexing on top of the table.

  “Plenty of people were there,” he said finally.

  “True,” I agreed. “But they all moved back when we told them to. You were standing right by the tape, and then you ran when we approached you. Why?”

  Harrigan shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting left and right as if the correct answer to my question might reveal itself to him. “I live in the area,” he began, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He hesitated, and I motioned for him to continue. “I may have… harassed him and his partner more than once.”

  “And?” I asked because I could tell there was something more he wasn't telling us.

  It seemed like the words were going to strangle Harrigan on their way out. His face reddened, and his lips contorted, turning white as they pressed together. “I hit him once.” He spat the confession out like he was breathing fire. “When I saw he was dead, and you were coming towards me, I panicked, and I ran.”

  I didn’t need to ask why Harrigan had been harassing Jacob Greene. Shame carved craters into his face, and shadows darkened his eyes. “I know what I did was wrong. I’ve changed. I’m trying to be better.” He sounded desperate for us to believe him, and there was something in his voice that made me think he really was trying.

  “How long ago was this?” Fletcher asked. She seemed less ready to accept his change of heart.

  “About a year ago. I’ve spent the past month trying to find a way to apologize. Now I guess I never will.” His voice grew thick, almost too thick to force out his throat, and he looked ready for the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

  “Do you know what his real name is? Or where he worked?” I asked. “We weren’t able to find anything conclusive in his flat.”

  Harrigan shook his head. “I don’t. Sorry.”

  I clenched my jaw, frustrated. We couldn’t do much without a name. We’d just have to hope the lab turned something up. “Thank you for your time,” I said to Harrigan, and astonishment flashed across his face, mirrored by Fletcher by my side.

  “I can go?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Just don’t leave the city.”

  I stood and unlocked his cuffs, sliding the metal hoops into my pocket before I motioned for Fletcher to follow me out of the room. She hesitated in her seat, eyes flicking back and forth between Harrigan and myself, but her protest died in her throat, and she just shook her head and walked out, chair legs squealing against the floor.

  “Do you believe him?” she demanded as soon as I had shut the door. Her fists bunched, and she stuffed them in her pockets.

  “You don’t?” I asked.

  “He’s a transphobic bully,” she reminded me, her eyes sharpening.

  “He said he wanted to apologize.”

  “He could be lying.”

  “Do you actually not believe him, or do you just not want to believe him?” I asked, and the question stopped Fletcher in her tracks. Though we stood in the flow of traffic, she turned to look at me, rooted in place, and her brow furrowed as she seriously thought about what I said.

  “I guess I don’t know,” she admitted. She blinked a couple of times and pursed her lips, confused.

  “I thought I was supposed to be the one with anger issues in this partnership,” I said in an attempt at levity.

  Fletcher managed half a smile before the expression stuttered and died, and she shrugged her shoulders.

  “Look, we can’t do anything until Martin and Adams finish their report. I’ve got something to take care of. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Do something to take your mind off it.”

  Fletcher’s eyes glittered, interest overtaking her anger. “‘Something to take care of?’” she repeated. “That’s very mysterious. Does it have anything to do with your trip to Loch Ness this morning? The one that you still haven’t told me anything about.”

  I sighed and started walking again so we would no longer be in everyone’s way. “Fine, yes. It does. I want to go through my father’s things. We met this old man who supposedly knew him back in the day. He said Alasdair was meeting with someone called the Kraken before he disappeared.” I crooked my fingers in air quotes around the stupid pseudonym and rolled my eyes.

  Fletcher's entire face lit up. “That sounds amazing. Can I come with?”

  “No.”

  “But it will help take my m
ind off things.” She clasped her hands in front of her and batted her eyelashes in my direction as we walked out the door into the bright sunshine.

  I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. I set myself up for that one. “Alright, fine. You can come.”

  Fletcher pumped her fist and grinned. “Do I get to see your childhood bedroom?”

  “Definitely not.”

  She had a look on her face that said she fully expected to anyways.

  My mother, Eleanor MacBain still lived in the same house I’d grown up in, a slightly isolated affair just outside the city limits. The house was painted white and sat right at the edge of an unnamed stretch of woods. A low wooden fence ringed the property, though many of the posts looked like they needed replacing, darkened to almost black by the rain and the constant damp. Alongside her birdwatching, Eleanor had also picked up landscaping after she retired from her position as Chief Superintendent, and so the grounds were a kaleidoscope of carefully arranged stone paths and newly budding flowers. The wood plank swing still hung from a branch of the sprawling oak tree in the front garden, though I expected it would snap in half if anyone tried to sit on it.

  The front walk was lined by small, leafy bushes, leaves still a little damp from the night before. Eleanor had recently painted the door a bright red, the knocker a shock of gold in the centre. I rapped with it a couple of times and waited until I heard Eleanor yell, “Enter!” before I pushed the door open.

  Fletcher snorted. “You knock before you enter your own house?”

  “The last time I entered unannounced, she laid an ambush for me and tried to take me out with a fire poker.”

  Fletcher choked on her laughter as we stepped into the entrance hall. There was a rack against the wall for shoes, but it was mostly empty these days. “What?”

  I just shrugged as if that were the most normal thing in the world. I left my boots on, though Eleanor would grumble about the mud, and led the way deeper into the house.

  “Your mum is wild. I love her.”

  “You haven’t met her yet.”

  Eleanor MacBain waited for us in the kitchen. Sunlight filled the room, pouring in through the many windows to glint off the marble countertops and set the wooden cupboards aflame. Magnets kept pictures in place on the fridge behind her, yesterday’s dishes soaking in the sink. She sat at the kitchen counter with a cup of tea and a half-eaten piece of shortbread in front of her. Her hair was combed neatly back, and she was dressed for gardening in a dark linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and trousers with soil forever worn into the knees.

  “Callum,” she said and rose to give me a kiss on the cheek in greeting. “I didn’t know you were stopping by today.”

  “Spur of the moment,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”

  Eleanor smiled and settled back onto her stool. “And you. Who’s your friend?”

  “Mum, this is DI Tara Fletcher, my partner at work.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Fletcher said and held out her hand.

  “Ah, the smart one in the relationship.” Eleanor winked at Fletcher, and from the glint in both their eyes, I realized they were going to gang up on me very quickly if I didn’t find a way to change the subject.

  “I wanted to look through Dad’s stuff. Is it still in the loft?”

  Eleanor’s expression grew sombre, and she tucked her hands around her mug. “Yes. You were with Sam this morning, weren’t you?”

  I nodded. “We met a man named Kane. Does that mean anything to you? He said he was one of Dad’s cryptid hunting buddies.” I felt foolish just saying the words.

  Eleanor sipped her tea as she thought about it, eyes narrowed in concentration. “What did he look like?”

  “Tall, broad, grey beard. I didn’t like him.”

  “It doesn’t ring any bells, I’m afraid. I always thought Alasdair worked on his little investigation alone.”

  “So did I. What about,” I sighed, unable to believe I was actually about to say this aloud. “What about someone called the Kraken?”

  “I’m sorry, but I actually love that,” Fletcher interrupted. “It’s so over the top and dramatic.”

  “Alasdair was always on those online forums,” Eleanor said. “Maybe it’s a username.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Surely, some of those boards were still active. Maybe the Kraken was a well-known figure in the Loch Ness Monster community.

  “We’ll go look around upstairs,” I said. Eleanor and I had gone through Alasdair’s things time and time again when we were first looking into his disappearance, and we’d found absolutely nothing of note, but maybe now that we had these two names, Fletcher and I might be able to turn something up.

  “May I have some shortbread?” Fletcher asked, and Eleanor pushed the plate of golden slices towards us. Fletcher grinned as her hand snaked out to grab one, and I took another. My mother made the best shortbread after all. It was an indisputable fact.

  “This way,” I said and led the way towards the stairs to the next floor.

  Sam and I both had our bedrooms up here, though mine had long since been turned into an office Eleanor didn’t use, and Sam’s room was filled with old art projects that she didn’t have the heart to throw out. At the end of the hall, was the door that covered the hole to the loft. When Sam and I were younger, our parents had declared the loft off-limits and always tried to keep the stepladder out of our reach, but we’d always found a way. The loft had been a mysterious and magical place, a cave or a dungeon or a dust-filled crypt.

  It seemed much smaller now when I set up a stepladder, climbed up, and poked my head through the hatch. Specks of dust floated lazily through the air, glowing faintly beneath the bare lightbulb when I turned it on, and cardboard boxes were crammed in just about every inch of available space, leaving only a narrow track for Fletcher and me to squeeze into.

  “Is this all your dad’s stuff?” Fletcher asked as she looked around. She sneezed and the dust spun through the air in an uncontrollable dance.

  “Most of it. There’s a few other odds and ends somewhere.”

  A lot of the boxes were filled with Alasdair’s old clothes and random knick-knacks, so it took some digging to uncover the ones that held his cryptid hunting supplies. Luckily, Sam had labelled them, and Fletcher and I were able to haul three boxes down into the hall where it would be easier to sort through them. I’d have skipped the morning’s workout if I’d known I would also be getting my weightlifting in this way.

  “Can we take these into your old room?” Fletcher asked, wiggling her eyebrows eagerly.

  “My mum turned it into an office. It’s not all that exciting.”

  She folded her bottom lip down into a pout. “Bugger. Well then, I expect at least one baby picture.”

  “Not going to happen.” I would actually burn the entire house down rather than try to crack that nut.

  “You’re no fun.”

  “You keep telling me this, but it’s never going to make a difference.”

  I did move our search into my old room simply because there would be better places to sit than on the floor beneath the open loft. Fletcher spent five minutes poking around, searching for remnants of my childhood, but there wasn’t much to find since a lot of my stuff I’d either donated or taken with me, and the rest Eleanor moved up to the loft. Fletcher finally gave up and dropped to the sofa with a disappointed sigh.

  I stacked two of the boxes on the low coffee table and a third on top of the desk that Eleanor mostly uses to stack old papers she doesn’t need anymore but doesn’t want to get rid of quite yet. I sat in the swivel chair and flipped the box’s lid open, revealing its contents.

  I wasn’t ready for the wave of emotion that slammed into me as I looked over my father’s possessions, hidden in darkness for so long. The items were nothing special--a leather-bound notebook, a stack of folded papers tied together with string, a jar of pencil and pens, most of which were tumbled across the bottom of the box, and a decorative wo
oden clock, vines and leaves curling up its side.

  Aside from the photograph Sam found, I hadn’t looked at any of Alasdair’s things in at least five years, probably more. I’d been avoiding it ever since I gave up on my investigation, but now, as they stared up at me, I was thrown back in time. That clock had always sat on the mantle in the office he’d made in the shed outside, tick-tick-ticking away every time I opened the door. The shed was gone now, torn down to make room for Eleanor’s second garden. Alasdair had that leather-bound notebook with him no matter where he went. The kitchen table, the armchair in front of the television, his work briefcase, even our family holidays. That notebook had seemed like some kind of grand wizard’s grimoire, full of secrets and spells.

  “Are you okay?” Fletcher asked when she realized I’d gone quiet, staring into the cardboard box.

  I lifted the notebook out delicately as if it were a scroll found in an ancient tomb that might fall apart at the slightest touch. “I’d moved on from all this. I guess it just feels strange to be right back in it.”

  Fletcher opened the boxes by her knees as I peeled back the leather cover of the notebook. The pages were yellowed and crinkly beneath my fingers. There was a calendar from the year he disappeared, and I flipped over to March, hoping to find something listed in that last week. There was a star over a Friday two days after he left, and I wondered if that might be the meeting with the mysterious Kraken. But there was no address, no name, no note. The back half of the leather notebook was more journal-esque, filled with my father’s cramped handwriting that would take more time and focus to decipher than I had right then. I’d read it before, of course, but it hadn’t made much sense to me at the time.

  I untied the string around the stack of paper while Fletcher started rifling through her boxes. A lot of the pieces were photographs, both ones he’d taken himself and all the famous, classic images, and then he’d paperclipped pages and pages of his own notes to each one.

  “What do you have?” I asked Fletcher.