Eye Snatcher

by Ryan Casey

  It wasn’t that he felt sympathy for Patrick. Nothing of the sort. If anything, he felt gutted that he hadn’t been able to bring him in and charge him for all the sick crimes he had committed.

  No, it wasn’t sympathy. It was frustration. Patrick Selter knew something more about the Sam Betts and the Beth Turner case. He’d said something about trying to help Beth. Something about it “being an accident,” and that he’d “panicked” about the coat they’d found down the dirt track. Sure, Patrick Selter was involved. Fuck—he was at the scene of Beth Turner’s murder, after all. He hadn’t opened up to Brian out of spite more than anything. One little victory, even if it was his last.

  But there was something inside Brian. Some niggling little fragment of his body nipping away, telling him that there was more to this case than just Patrick Selter. While all the other officers drank beer and got pissed thinking the case had reached a premature climax, Brian couldn’t help but wonder what Patrick Selter was hiding.

  He leaned back. Stepped away from the table. Went to the fridge—Ready Meal lasagnas, pizzas, things like that.

  He closed it. He wasn’t hungry.

  He’d looked over the edge of the motorway bridge a few minutes after Patrick had fallen. He’d seen the cars, the way the silver Ford Mondeo had crashed into the central reservation, the pile up further back. Four more people injured. Four more people, all because of Patrick Selter, all because of what was in his mind.

  He’d stared down at the bloody mess on the motorway where Patrick’s head had once been and he’d squinted into the fragments of broken-up brain. What is inside there? he’d thought. What answers are inside that fleshy mess?

  Brian sighed and stepped out of the kitchen, flicking off the light on his exit. He walked down the corridor, turned and looked upstairs, dread filling his stomach at the thought of lying next to Hannah and discussing the elephant in the room—or the elephant in the bloody womb—of another kid. This was how their arguments tended to go—one of them would go silent for a day or two, and eventually one of them would just break and lay into the other one completely.

  Brian’s head pounded where Patrick Selter had hit him. He felt sick, right to the pit of his stomach.

  He stepped away from the staircase and opened up the lounge door. Leaned onto the cream leather sofa that was an absolute ballache to sleep on.

  He wasn’t in the mood for laying into anyone tonight.

  He wasn’t in the mood for anyone.

  When he closed his eyes and rested against the under-stuffed wool cushion, he couldn’t get the image of Patrick Selter out of his mind.

  Not his body on the motorway. Not the room where he did unthinkable things.

  But his eyes. His eyes when he’d told Brian he hadn’t killed Sam Betts or Beth Turner.

  The honesty in them.

  “You should stop being such a baby, Harri.”

  Harri Johnson stared down the dark Walton Road that led back towards her house. Eleven twenty-five p.m. She knew she shouldn’t have stayed out this late. She’d told her dad that she wouldn’t stay out too long after dark.

  But then Stacey and her friends had showed up. They always wanted to do things that went against what their mums and dads said, like ride bikes around the abandoned building site and throw stones into the pond where people fished.

  “Even Mike walks home on his own,” Stacey said.

  Harri looked up the darkened road and wished she didn’t have to go alone. She was twelve, so it wasn’t like she was a baby or anything. She could look after herself. But what annoyed her was how Stacey and the others didn’t want to just come along with her. It was easy for them. Stacey, Alice and Laura all had their bikes.

  But they wanted Harri to walk it alone. To them, it was just another dare. Another game.

  Harri rubbed the button of her coat around her fingers and looked up the streetlamp-lit road. The sound of cars rumbled from the main road nearby, but Walton Road was relatively empty. Just the occasional car driving slowly down. A few cars parked up the road with their headlights on. In the far distance, a man walking a bulky black dog, breath frosting out of his mouth.

  Harri looked at Janine. Looked at her dark hair, the way her eyes wandered whenever Harri looked right at her. She was twelve, just like Harri, and she’d been her best friend since they’d both gone to Penwortham Girls High School last year. She could tell that Janine was doing her best to avoid getting involved. She was prettier than Harri, with her dark chocolate hair and her green eyes, as opposed to Harri’s red-tinted hair and grey eyes. Janine liked the popularity of Stacey and her gang. She didn’t like upsetting them, or letting them down, so she always went against what Harri wanted.

  They were best friends. It was just a part of being best friends.

  Harri turned around. Started to wander through the puddles of the street, dragging her scuffed old brand-less trainers along.

  Whispers behind her. Giggles. Chuckles.

  “You’ll be okay, Harri.”

  Harri looked back. Saw Janine glancing at her, slightly reassuring smile on her face.

  Harri nodded back at her. Smiled.

  She understood. It was just how girls worked. Mum said the world was a cruel place, and she was right. Harri had learned to deal with that a long time ago.

  Harri picked up her pace as she got further and further down the empty road, further away from the laughs of her “friends” and the dinging of their bicycle bells. She tried not to look left or right, just at the end of her road at the left, where her terraced house at number 80 was. She wasn’t worried that much about the boy and the girl who’d gone missing then were found dead—the ones that everyone was talking about at school. Dad said he was worried about anything happening to Harri, and even though Harri knew she’d be okay she felt kind of bad for going against her dad’s word and staying out so late. She’d broken her mobile earlier this week too, so it wasn’t like he could get in touch with her easily.

  The wind picked up as Harri walked down the street. She could taste the remnants of the KFC she’d eaten earlier that night. She knew it was way too late for her to be out. Dad and Mum would go mad. They’d go mad especially with it being school tomorrow.

  They’d go mad if they weren’t too busy going mad at each other.

  Harri looked up. No cars were coming down her road. Her house was close, just about a minute’s walk away. She could hear an engine rumbling somewhere up ahead—the bright lights of the car wedged in between the other cars on the constantly car-packed pavement. They were so bright that she couldn’t see if anyone was in the driver’s seat or not.

  She looked over her shoulder. Squinted into the darkness at the end of the road. Stacey and a few of the others were still looping around, cycling around, laughing and joking to one another. Bitches. They could’ve just cycled Harri home. She’d have done the same for them. But maybe that was her problem—she was always doing too much for other people. That’s what her bigger sister, Terri, said anyway.

  A louder noise at the other end of the street made her jump. She jolted around. A bus was driving down, completely lit up. There were about five people on it, all looking glum and miserable like bus people always did. It drove past her, the wind from its speed making her hair flick up.

  And then it was gone and the road was quiet again.

  The car with the bright lights on was still there. In fact, it was right near her house. Just outside the weird old woman’s, Josie Grant’s. Four doors down from Harri’s.

  She checked both sides of the road and crossed over. She diverted her walk so she didn’t have to walk right between the car with the lights and her house. She tried her best not to look as the engine rumbled on, but she couldn’t help but turn. The bright lights completely guarded whoever was in the car.

  But Harri felt it now. Felt the shivers up her arm. The shivers that told her someone was in there.

  Someone was watching her.

  She lowered her head. Climbed up o
nto the pavement, and almost tripped on her snakelike laces. Her heart pounded as she stepped closer to her house, her legs stiff. She just wanted to get home. Wanted to get back to Mum and Dad. Wanted them to tell her off for being out so late more than being stuck out here.

  She held her breath as she walked past the front of the car with the lights. As she stepped past the passenger window. She didn’t look. She didn’t want to look. She just held her breath. Stayed focused on the white painted front door of her house just on the left. Listened to the sound of her heart thumping.

  She stepped past the car, kept on holding her breath, and then she turned around her gate and walked up the pavement.

  She looked back at the car. Through the back window, she could see someone in there now. A bald man. That’s all she could tell from his dark silhouette.

  Until she saw his eyes staring at her through the rear-view mirror.

  She spun around. Lowered her head. Stepped up to the front door and banged her knuckles against it.

  The car engine kept on rumbling. The lights kept on beaming.

  The sound of the locks turning behind the front door made Harri’s stomach lift with relief. The door opened up. Dad stood there wearing his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his hair flat on his forehead missing the gel he usually wore. His eyes were red, like he’d been tired or worried or both.

  “What time do you call this?” Dad asked.

  Harri looked back at the car. Looked beyond the car, and saw her friends still cycling around in the distance, saw the glare of the streetlamps, saw the late bus pull around the corner and disappear into the night.

  She felt so relieved that she was home safely, so relieved that she was willing to say all the sorries in the world to Dad, to Mum, for going against their word.

  She took one last look down the street. Saw her best friend Janine standing in the middle of the cycling crowd, looking down the road in Harri’s direction to see she’d got home safe.

  Harri looked away. Stepped inside her house. Gave her dad a hug.

  When Janine was found brutally murdered the following day, it would be that final glance that Harri remembered for the rest of her life.

  TWENTY-THREE

  When Brian went into the kitchen for breakfast the following morning, Hannah was already in there.

  He smiled at her as he entered. She looked back at him over the top of her MacBook Pro, thick-rimmed glasses perched atop her nose. She half-smiled back at him. Didn’t say much, as she sipped on her coffee.

  But a smile. A smile was progress. A smile was something.

  Brian opened up the cupboard and made himself some Weetabix. He was feeling a little hungrier today. Probably something to do with the death of Patrick Selter. He was coming around to the idea that he was the killer after all. But then the hunger wasn’t such a surprise. He hadn’t been eating properly lately. At least Hannah hadn’t been around much to notice that. At least she hadn’t— “Jesus, Brian. What’s up with your head?”

  Her voice took Brian by surprise. He looked at her and saw her wide, concerned eyes.

  “Oh, this?” Brian asked. He touched his head. There was a bit of a bump there, but it wasn’t as bad as yesterday, and it wasn’t stinging much anymore either. “Nothing. It’s no big deal.”

  “Should get some Savlon on it,” Hannah said. “Don’t want it hurting you while you’re at work.”

  Brian nodded. Smiled again. “I’ll do that.”

  Hannah smiled back at him.

  Brian dipped into his soggy Weetabix. The more he ate, the hungrier he realised he was, as he wolfed down the sugar coated wheat biscuits. Brian felt the sunlight creeping through the rain-specked kitchen window, touching and warming up his skin. He peeked over at Hannah again—tapping away on her MacBook, her coffee mug with “Writer at Work” on the table beside her.

  There was something nice about the silence. It made a change to the way their arguments usually ended. Typically, one of them would end up speaking out, and then the whole thing would just blow up and settle down again with some make up sex later that day.

  But right now, there was something quiet. Something peaceful.

  Brian and Hannah.

  Brian, Hannah, and their kid.

  “What do you think?” Brian asked.

  Hannah looked up. Met Brian’s eyes for a few seconds. “What do I think about what?”

  Brian stared closely at Hannah. “Boy or girl?”

  Hannah sighed. She lowered the lid of her laptop. “Brian, we don’t have to talk about—”

  “No, we do,” Brian said. “We… We really do. I’m sorry about how I reacted the other day. Going quiet like that and… and walking out. I’m sorry. It’s just work and—”

  “It’s always work,” Hannah said.

  “I’ve seen the therapist,” Brian said. “I’ve… I’ve seen him a few times.”

  Hannah’s eyebrows raised. “And how’s that going?”

  Brian couldn’t hold her gaze. “Yeah. He’s alright. Helping me out with—with my issues. Helping me confront my past. Things like that.”

  Hannah nodded once, unconvinced.

  Brian reached across the table. Grabbed her hands, held them in his. “Hannah, I… We should do it. A kid. We should… Okay, I know I’m not exactly dad of the year, but it’d be good for us. It’d be a second chance for…”

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “A second chance for who? For you?”

  Brian pulled his hands away. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I won’t have my child being used as some kind of practice pad for good parenting. I wouldn’t want you looking at everything that’s gone wrong with Davey and using our kid as something that can make you feel better about yourself. Show everyone how much you’ve changed.”

  Brian’s cheeks heated up. He scraped the chair back. “Fuck’s sake, Hannah. I don’t—”

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’ve made the decision. I’m not having this kid.”

  Brian’s stomach sank. “You… you aren’t?”

  Hannah took in a deep breath. “No. It’s not right. Not right for me at this stage of my life and my career. And it’s not right for you either, Brian. You know that.”

  “And you didn’t think to ask me what my thoughts on this matter might be?”

  “You made your thoughts perfectly clear with your reaction the other night.”

  Brian knocked the empty cereal bowl to the kitchen floor. Sent the pottery crumbling all over the place. His cheeks were hot. His neck was itching. He leaned against the kitchen worktop and stared at the black granite surface. “How many weeks are you?”

  Hannah paused for a moment, then said: “Six weeks.”

  “Six weeks? Is that when we last screwed?”

  “Oh don’t be such a dick about this Brian. This is exactly why I didn’t want to talk about it. Anyway, it’s done now. The decision’s been made. I’m not having this baby.”

  Brian turned back and looked at Hannah. Saw the way she was typing on the computer, not really typing but just tapping for show. “You’ve started the abortion process?”

  She kept her eyes on the screen. “Yes.”

  Nausea filled Brian’s body. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Hannah’s decision. Logistically, having a kid was a bad idea considering how distant they’d both been lately. But then again, that could be exactly the reason why they should have one. It could bring them together again. Take things back to how they were.

  He took in a deep breath. Steadied himself, like the therapist told him to. Cleared his thoughts, emptied his mind of all noise. “I respect your decision. Have a good day.”

  He smiled at Hannah and walked out of the kitchen.

  He stopped when he got to the kitchen door. Stopped, wanted to turn around and tell Hannah how much he loved her, how much she meant to him. How much he’d always love her.

  But his phone vibrated in his pocket like it always bloody did, dammit.

  He lifted
it out. Put it to his ear. “Yeah?”

  “Brian,” Brad said. “You want to get down to work right now. It’s about the Eye Snatcher.”

  “The—”

  “It’s what the papers are calling him. You on your way?”

  Brian turned around and looked at Hannah while she tapped away on her laptop. He wanted to stay. Stay and talk things through with her. Talk things through, like adults. “I’ll be there in… in an hour or so. Any word on Patrick’s DNA at the scenes? Conclusive evidence?”

  “We’ve got another body,” Brad said. “Another girl. And she went missing last night. After Patrick Selter died.”

  A wave of sickliness battered against Brian. He felt the sides of his mouth dropping, felt the heat draining from his face. “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  Baby talk would have to wait.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Brian pushed open the rickety, rotting door to the apartment block where the third body had been found and immediately wished he hadn’t eaten his Weetabix that morning.

  The block was just outside of town in a quiet little suburban area. A lot of kids hung around here—cycled around at night, went in abandoned old flats to smoke pot.

  Abandoned old flats like this one.

  Brian stepped in through the door. He felt glass cracking underneath his shoes. Behind him, he could hear the chatter of fellow officers, of concerned members of the public all gathering around to see what was going on. The snap of journalists’ cameras and people’s phones lit up the darkened hallway.

  “Who found her?” Brian asked.

  Brad followed him into the cramped little hall area. “Few kids were cycling around here this morning. Saw an open door and one of them goes in to hide from his friends. Finds her like this. The puke you just stepped in is his.”

  Brian lifted his foot. Stickiness on his favourite Timberland shoes, and the sour smell of sick. “Fuck.”

  He looked to the left, where the lounge door was ajar. He didn’t have to look far to see the Janie Doe.