Eye Snatcher

by Ryan Casey

  He could be strong. He could be.

  He just wasn’t ready to be yet.

  Brian’s head wasn’t much clearer during the following morning’s briefing, but he had to pretend it was after yesterday’s flipping.

  He stood opposite a whiteboard. Little pieces of the case were all drawn up onto it, several police officers including Arif, Finch, Carter and Richards were his audience, all in for a nice Sunday at work. Gotta love shifts.

  “So Sam Betts goes for a walk on Wednesday night. Someone takes him. And then something happens between Wednesday evening and Friday morning that ends up taking Sam from the Westhaven Road dirt track to the old Whittingham hospital.”

  Brian wrote up a few little notes on the wall, savouring the solventy smell of the whiteboard marker while officers shuffled about behind him.

  “Meanwhile, Beth Turner goes to stay at her friend’s place on Friday. Called her parents to tell them her bus had broken down Friday morning. But there’s no record of a 22 breaking down. Besides, we saw her on CCTV entering the Booths toilets at nine p.m. Friday night. Half an hour later, our pal Adrian West pops in and leaves with blood on his hands.”

  “His alibi’s tight,” DI Carter mumbled as she crunched on some salt and vinegar crisps. “He’s a patient at New Blue Brook. His social worker, Jed Green, he was in a scheduled meeting with him at the time of Sam’s disappearance.”

  “And what was he doing wandering around Booths at nine on a Friday night?”

  “Slipped the radar,” Samantha said. “Took a bus down to Booths near where he used to live or something. Didn’t show up again ‘til you came across him at that bus stop.”

  Brian squinted at the whiteboard. Squinted at the note about the “weird man with the funny socks” who always sat around that bus stop watching the school kids. “Does Adrian slip the radar a lot?”

  Carter shrugged. “His alibi’s tight. He’s a schizo perv but if you ask me, I don’t think he killed Sam or Beth.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t see anything,” Brian said.

  Carter shook her head. “Good luck getting anything out of him. Like draining water from a stone.”

  Brian nodded. Looked back at the whiteboard. Tried to figure out the missing link, the missing pieces. There had to be something.

  “The coat at the dirt track. Beth Turner’s coat.” He pointed at a photograph of it on the whiteboard. “Something’s not right there. We searched the kidnap scene on Friday, after finding Sam Betts’ body. We found Beth’s coat. But Beth Turner was still walking around when we found her coat.”

  Brad rubbed the sides of his face, trying to add things up. “So what? You’re saying Beth fled the killer, or something?”

  Brian squinted at the coat. The stab mark in it. The blood. And then he looked at the photographic still of Beth Turner entering the Booths toilet. She wasn’t limping or wounded, anything like that. She wasn’t wearing the coat, either.

  And then he looked at the stills from the following day. Beth’s butchered, raped, eye-scooped body propped up on the toilet, earring missing.

  “I’m saying she knew who the killer was. And she was going to those toilets to meet him.”

  A few mumbles, of discontent or agreement, Brian couldn’t tell.

  “What about the earring?” Brad asked.

  Brian looked at the photograph of the earring they’d found in the subway opposite where Adrian had been watching. Sam Betts’ silver piercing. That was the biggest mystery at the moment, aside from the identity of the bloody killer. Why had Sam Betts’ earring been ditched in that subway opposite where Adrian frequented, of all places? Why had it been ditched at all?

  What was the killer trying to tell them? Because this went beyond mere complacency. It was a trail.

  “I’d like to speak to Adrian myself,” Brian said.

  Carter shook his head. “Not possible. He’s back at New Blue—”

  “I don’t care where he is. I want to speak to him. The toilet, nobody leaves that toilet, right?”

  “Nobody other than Adrian.”

  “And the CCTV. Nobody’s seen leaving those toilets after Adrian?”

  Finch flicked through a few of the pages. “Nope.”

  Brian looked at the picture of Adrian leaving the toilets, blood on his hands. Tried to squint through the little gap in the door.

  “I think someone was in there. When Adrian left that bathroom. I think there was still somebody in there. Do we have the stills from outside Booths?”

  Finch scuttled around with his nervous hands. Opened a few more pages, dropped a few on the floor, got a few sniggers directed at him.

  Brian went over. Snatched them away from Finch. Flicked through them all, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second.

  “Gotcha,” he said.

  The other officers gathered round. Brian’s heart pounded.

  “Three-thirty a.m. See that?”

  He pointed at the darkness of the photograph. Pointed outside Booths.

  “I don’t see—”

  “Compare it to the last photograph. Look. There’s light there, and then… a blur. Right outside that window. And what window’s that?”

  Finch’s jaw dropped. The others looked on in awe.

  “The bathroom window,” Brian answered for them.

  They flicked through more photographs. Flicked until they got a shot of a car leaving a few minutes later. Registration blurry on this copy, but nothing they couldn’t get expanded.

  “Get that blown up,” Brian said, throwing the photographs onto the table and tapping at the car.

  “Where are you going?” Brad asked.

  “I’m off to get some answers from Adrian.”

  SEVENTEEN

  New Blue Brook Hospital was just outside of town in a nice little rural area called Goosnargh. Thick evergreen trees guarded the massive compound from the eyes of the public, which especially helped the owners of the rows of terraced houses just outside the hospital. Gave them the illusion that they lived somewhere safe, even though they did actually live opposite a bunch of psychopathic wackjobs.

  Brian drove down the long, winding driveway that led to the entrance of New Blue Brook. He passed patients, most of them pretty normal looking, pretty happy and chatty. He wondered what happened to the days where mental patients used to dance—when they really were crazy.

  That said, the ones that were completely crazy were probably locked away, never allowed out into the public.

  Shit. And somehow Adrian West was allowed out.

  Brian pulled up in one of the free spaces by the doorway and stepped out of his car. The cool air brushed against him, a glimmer of warm autumn sun touching his skin. He could hear people chatting and shouting to one another from inside the place, and could smell the fumes from the hospital’s canteen.

  He took a few deep breaths and headed towards the big glass opening area, where sliding doors let everyone inside.

  He smiled at a few people on his way in. They smiled back at him. There was a weird friendliness about the place. A falseness, even. He wondered if all these smiles were just a show, a fallacy, and behind closed doors, things were just as bad in a looney bin as they always had been.

  He stepped into the reception area and looked around. Adrian West was in the Bridgewater section apparently, which was for those they were reintegrating with society gradually. He took a look at the signs above the doorways as people brushed past him, scanning themselves in through the doors. Alderbank. Plymouth. Bridgewater. There on the right.

  Brian held his breath and walked towards the door. There was someone ahead of him—a man with an eighties ‘tache and thinning hair—heading in that direction. He followed this guy, who smelled of piss. Kept close behind him. Tried not to look around. He was getting in here—he was finding information out about what Adrian had really seen in the Booths toilets that night—without his social worker or lawyer poking their nose in.

  He stayed close behind t
he guy in front, so close that he got a whiff of his wee-smelling hair, and he stopped when he pulled out his keycard. Pressed it up against the scanner.

  The door opened up. Brian held his breath.

  “Just hold that for me,” he said, smiling at the guy in front as he scooted through.

  The guy looked at him. Looked at him like he recognised him but he couldn’t tell from where.

  And then he nodded and held the door.

  “Sir, you need your pass to go through there.”

  The voice made Brian’s shoulders slump right on the spot. He didn’t turn around. Pretended he hadn’t heard anything. Stepped through the door.

  “Sir, you—”

  He slammed the door shut, pulled up the hood of his coat and ran.

  He waited until he’d turned a few corners before he stopped running. The people in Bridgewater, they weren’t giving him funny looks, not like he expected. He was in a canteen area. Some people were playing chess. Others sat on comfy sofas and played Xbox. By the doorways to the bedroom corridors, guards in blue shirts stood and looked on, oblivious to Brian’s presence.

  Brian kept his head down and scanned the area for Adrian West.

  He heard footsteps behind him. Heard mumbling, something about someone sneaking in here. When he did, he quickly scooted around another white-walled corner, into another recreational area.

  It was there that he saw Adrian West sitting by the large window and staring out at the autumn leaves as they blew through the communal garden.

  Brian had a quick look around—nobody watching—and he walked over to Adrian. He lowered his hood. Grabbed a wooden chair at the table and perched himself down opposite Adrian.

  Adrian didn’t even look up at him. He was just smiling. Staring out at the garden and smiling that weird grin of his as he looked at the garden, at the birds.

  “Adrian, I… I need you to tell me if—”

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

  Brian looked out at the garden. Looked at the forlorn trees, the unkempt grass. “The garden?”

  He looked back at Adrian.

  Adrian was looking right at him, twitchy smile and all. “I remember you. You were there yesterday. You were there after the beautiful red.”

  Brian heard footsteps scraping across the squeaky tiles just around the corner. Voices, concerned voices, as security searched for him. “I need to know what you saw in Booths, Adrian.”

  “The girl. The beautiful girl. I just wanted to speak with her. I just wanted—”

  “There was someone else there. Wasn’t there?”

  Adrian’s eyes narrowed. He looked out into the garden again, but he seemed in a world of his own.

  Movement just outside this recreational area. Voices and footsteps getting closer.

  “Adrian, there was someone else there, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think there was someone else there. You’re right. Someone who wasn’t me or Mark or Joseph. Someone who wasn’t the beautiful.”

  Brian leaned in closer to Adrian. “This person. What did they look like? Please. You could help me a lot here, mate. You could help me a lot.”

  More staring into space from Adrian. A slight humming from the bottom of his throat.

  Footsteps getting nearer.

  “Adrian, what did they—”

  “They told me to put it there,” Adrian snapped, swinging around to glare at Brian. “The earring, they told me to put it somewhere safe. Somewhere they wouldn’t find it. They weren’t supposed to find it.” He hit the side of his head. “You weren’t supposed to find it. I did bad. I did a bad, bad thing.”

  “There he is.” The voice from the side of the recreational room. Three security guards, all coming in Brian’s direction.

  Brian leaned further forward. Grabbed Adrian’s hand before he could hit himself again. “You did nothing wrong. I promise you did nothing wrong. Just the man, Adrian. The—”

  Hands on Brian’s biceps. “Time to go now, sir.”

  “The man, Adrian,” Brian shouted, struggling as best he could. “What did they look like? Tell me, Adrian. You could help me. You could help yourself.”

  Adrian stared out of the glass, distant, lost in a world of his own.

  Brian kicked out at the guards. “I’m a fucking police officer. Get your hands off me.” But still, they kept hold. Still, they dragged him away. “Talk to me, Adrian. What did you see?”

  Adrian looked at Brian and Brian saw something. Clarity. Not glassy-eyed, but complete clarity. “The friendly man,” he said.

  “That’s enough now, Adrian,” one of the nurses accompanying him said. “You just relax now.”

  Brian struggled some more as he was dragged around the corner. “Which man? Which friendly man?”

  Adrian’s smile widened as he kept on staring at Brian with complete lucidity. “The one with the farm animals.”

  Brian didn’t put up a fight anymore. He didn’t protest.

  He just thought back to Jack Selter’s farm right by the dirt track and he knew he had something.

  EIGHTEEN

  Brian stepped out of his car and headed to farmer Jack Setler’s front door.

  As he knocked, he saw movement behind the frosted glass right away. Someone appeared at the other side of the glass, then stopped, walked a few steps back, then walked towards the door again.

  Brian stood. Waited for Jack to open the door. Thought about what Adrian had told him. What he’d told him about the person present in the Booths toilet that night.

  The friendly man with the farm animals.

  The front door creaked open. The smell of sizzling bacon cut through the countryside smells of cow shit, a refreshing change for Brian.

  Jack smiled. He was wearing a white jumper with a Nike tick on it and blue trackie bottoms. Slippers on his feet. “Detective McDone, right? How can I ‘elp you? Anything more on the lad?”

  Brian gulped. He’d thought about how he was going to approach this right from driving away from New Blue Brook Hospital. He had to be subtle but open. Honest without being too direct. “I wanted to ask you about New Blue Brook patients. Whether you’ve ever seen any around here.”

  Jack stared at him a few seconds. Bacon sizzled in the background. A kettle whistled. “Tell you what. Why don’t you get yerself inside? Get a bacon buttie down yer neck—”

  “I don’t eat bacon anymore. Heart issues.”

  Jack looked mortified. “My God. A man who doesn’t eat bacon. Our own pigs too. Feel for you, I do. Well, ‘ow about a coffee?”

  “Not a lover of coffee either.”

  “A glass of water?”

  Jack looked around. Looked at his car, pulled up in the middle of nowhere. Looked down the dirt track, the place where Sam Betts had first gone missing. Listened to the leaves dancing in the wind. He knew he shouldn’t go inside. Not when bad things happened whenever he was alone. He knew he couldn’t take another solo fuck up. Not just his career—his health. Hannah. Nobody could take it.

  But being human, he smiled, nodded, and followed Jack Selter through to the kitchen.

  “So, ‘ow long’s the bacon-free lifestyle been a thing?” Jack asked, as Brian followed him through the darkened hallway, lined with little pot animals. The carpet underneath was hard, like it hadn’t been relaid for years.

  “Heart attack a year ago,” Brian said. He stepped through into the brighter kitchen area. Nice view from the patio windows—looked out over a little garden, then beyond at some cow-filled fields. The kitchen itself was tidy. Show home tidy.

  “Awful tidy for a family home,” Brian said, stepping around the side of the circular wooden table, a bowl of over-ripe fruit sat in the middle of it.

  Jack winced as he leaned down into the grill and flipped the fat-spitting bacon over. “Yeah, well. Wife’s a clean freak. Amy takes after ‘er too. Handy for me, y’know. Been told I’m a bit of a slob by a few people.”

  Brian noted the muddy wellingtons piled by the pati
o doorway. “Never got that impression.”

  Jack moved away from the grill. Wiped his dry, soily hands. “Water, was it?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Brian said.

  Jack got a glass of water and handed it to Brian. Brian tried not to watch him too closely. Tried not to rub him up the wrong way as he took a sip of the slightly tepid tap water.

  Tried to find out as much as he could about the “friendly man with the farm animals” and his relationship with Adrian West without outright asking him the question.

  “What was it yer wanted anyway?” Jack asked, slipping some thick bacon between a gorgeous, doughy bap and stuffing half of it in his mouth right away. “Blue Brooks?”

  Brian took a sip of the tepid water for show. “Yeah. You… it’s not far off here, is it?”

  Jack chewed on the bacon, which Brian wanted more and more to take a bite out of by the second. “See a few of ‘um walkin’ around ‘ere sometimes.”

  Another sip on the water. “You see patients coming down here?”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah. They come down ‘ere to clear their heads, whatever. Get umselves out of the confines of that shithole. Never cause any ‘arm though. Think they might ‘ave summat to do with Sam Betts?”

  Brian took another sip of the water. Vowed to himself never to sip it again with how lukewarm it was. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but another girl turned up.”

  Jack frowned. “Like the lad?”

  “We found her in Booths toilets yesterday morning. She’d been raped so hard that there were signs of internal bruising as far up as her bowels. Her intestines were torn out of her body, as was her stomach. And her eyes were scooped out. An eleven-year-old girl. Your daughter is how old? Thirteen?”

  Jack stopped chewing on the bacon bap right there. His eyes twitched. “Jesus Christ. That’s just… that’s…”

  “We have suspicions that a New Blue Brook patient might be involved in these murders. Adrian West. Dark hair. Wears a weird red shirt and tie and trousers too small for himself. Funny socks.” He revealed a photograph. “Seen him before?”