The Hidden Eye

by Oliver Davies

  I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose as Fletcher poorly hid her laughter by coughing into her hand. “Yes, okay, very funny.” After my last partner retired, I’d convinced Dunnel to let me work alone for a while until Fletcher transferred up from Glasgow, and he assigned us as partners. Neither one of them would let me forget my, as they called it, “lone wolf phase.”

  “We’re leaving,” I said and spun on my heel.

  “We are, really?” Fletcher asked, snickering as she followed me.

  “You can walk,” I threatened, but that just made her laugh harder.

  Fletcher followed me out to my car, and I handed her the address to plug into her phone as I got myself situated and revved the engine. It was a fifteen-minute drive to the crime scene, and when we arrived, constable’s Owens and Barnes had already cordoned off the street with blue and white tape, SOCO buzzing around inside as they began their preliminary investigation. A crowd had gathered on the other side of the line, watching what was going on as they whispered behind their hands.

  I parked just outside the perimeter and attempted to comb my hair into some semblance of order with my fingers. I was in desperate need of a trim as my fringe had become nigh on untameable.

  Fletcher waved to Owens as we climbed from the car, and he hurried to meet us by the tape, lifting the line so we could duck under it. “MacBain, Fletcher,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Owens,” I replied. “Can you clear these people away? We don’t need an audience.”

  Owens’ face fell with shame, and his eyes cut away from mine. “I tried. They wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.” I clapped him on the shoulder to make sure he knew that it wasn’t his fault, and he gave me a grateful nod.

  “Can I do it?” Fletcher asked eagerly. “I love yelling at people.”

  “Be my guest.” I motioned for her to go ahead, and Fletcher puffed up her chest as she turned to step right in front of the crowd, holding her warrant card up high.

  “Listen up,” she barked. “This is an active crime scene. That means you all need to move back. Now!” She added the last word as the crowd hemmed and hawed and basically ignored her, and her furious tone combined with her glare and the way I stood behind her with my arms crossed was enough to break through the mob mentality and get them to disperse, shuffling shamefaced back to their homes or cars.

  Fletcher grinned as she faced me again. “That was fun.”

  “Show us what we’ve got,” I said to Owens, and he motioned for us to follow him down the street.

  We were in a quiet, residential suburb far outside the hustle and bustle of the city centre. Most of the townhouses were made of brick and white stone, and there was a three-story flat conversion at the end of the street. The forensic team seemed to be centred around that building, trampling the freshly manicured lawn outside as they went about their business.

  “Angela Jones found the body as she was coming back from her run,” Owens explained as we walked. He pointed towards a young woman seated on the kerb with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “She spotted it in the alley just around the corner from her building. She thinks she recognizes him from down the hall, but forensics is still trying to get an ID. It’s… pretty brutal.” Owens went pale for a second but shook himself out of it.

  “We’ll talk to the witness first and then take a look, give our guys a little more time with the body,” I decided, and Fletcher nodded with agreement. “Thanks, Owens.”

  Owens saluted me unnecessarily and then went to consult with Lindsey Adams, the head scene of the crime officer. She specialized in investigating the physical crime scene while Martin took care of the laboratory analysis side of things. Her back was to us at the moment as she crouched down beside something in the alley Owens had pointed out, alongside Dr O’Neil, the forensic pathologist.

  Fletcher and I would speak with her later. For the moment, we turned our attention to Angela Jones, still seated on the kerb, looking utterly shell-shocked. We approached her slowly, carefully, trying to make sure she saw us well in advance so we wouldn’t spook her when we said hello. She watched us eyes still glossy with tears, her bottom lip chewed to shreds.

  “Angela Jones?” I asked in my calmest voice.

  She nodded.

  “My name is DI MacBain, and this is DI Fletcher. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  “Okay,” Angela said quietly. She wrapped her arms around her bare knees, still tucked within the blanket, and several red curls fell in front of her face as they escaped from her ponytail.

  I crouched down in front of her as Fletcher sat beside her on the kerb. My knees instantly protested, and my thighs ached from our workout. I shifted, trying to ignore my discomfort. “Can you walk us through what happened?” I asked.

  Angela took a deep breath to steady herself and wiped her eyes. “I was coming back from my run when I happened to glance down the alley, and I saw him just lying there, all crumpled up and not moving.” Her voice hitched, and Fletcher gave her a hand to squeeze. “I don’t know his name. I think he lives in 1A, right at the top of the stairs. He didn’t move at all when I approached him, and there was…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “There was so much blood. All over him and the ground and the wall.” Her hand flew to her mouth, and she choked back her nausea, lips pressed shut so tightly they turned white.

  “It’s okay,” Fletcher said and gave Angela’s hand a squeeze. “You did well. Thank you for telling us.”

  “When can I go back to my flat?” Angela asked.

  “I’ll have Barnes take you up there,” I said, and I motioned for the other constable at the scene to join us. “Check with SOCO to make sure the route is cleared for usage, and take a look around inside for me, will you?” I asked him. “But don’t go inside 1A yet.”

  Barnes nodded and offered Angela her his hand, helping her climb to her feet, her other hand clutching the blanket. I watched them go for a moment before Fletcher and I started towards the alley.

  Adams was still crouched in the same place, camera poised in front of her face as she photographed the scene. The space was narrow and dark; the buildings on either side seemed to lean over at the top, casting shadows onto the cobblestones. There was a large wheelie bin tucked about a third of the way down, and Adams squatted not far from it with an ease that I couldn’t replicate. O’Neil squatted by the body, slowly packing his equipment away.

  As Fletcher and I drew closer, the bundled form on the ground resolved into a body, limbs splayed in every direction with careless abandon. He was a young man, short and slender, his face pale in death, made paler by the sweep of dark hair across his forehead. I couldn’t tell what colour his shirt had originally been because it was drenched in blood and bunched up around his chest, revealing the bottom of a black undershirt that dug into his skin. More blood coated both hands and turned his arms a dark red, the fingers limp and trapped in the congealed tar pit all around him.

  He couldn’t have been much older than Sam, I realized with a start. His eyelashes were long and dark. One of them was caught in a single drop of blood. He was too young to die like this, alone and frightened in the dark with his eyes wide and filled with the image of his killer. Too young to die in any way.

  “Talk to me,” I said to them.

  Adams didn’t pause in her meticulous photo taking. There were a couple of yellow triangles scattered across the alley, marking drops of blood and a huge scuff mark near my foot. “I think the suspect is trans, if the binder is anything to go by.” She indicated the black undershirt.

  “Looks like he’s about twenty-five,’ O’Neil took over, “probably died between two and three a.m. He’s got eight stab wounds on the chest, one on the right forearm, and another in the middle of his back.”

  I crouched so I could get a closer look as he spoke. The knife wounds gaped out of his flesh like mouths drawn by a child. Their spacing was erratic, and bruises
bloomed around the edges for the force of the blows.

  “Any theories?” I asked.

  “Crime of passion. Or a hate crime maybe. It seems like our John Doe tried to flee but didn’t get very far. Whoever killed him was certainly angry if the bruising and number of wounds are anything to go by.”

  Adams crab-walked to the side so she could take a picture of his back, and I wondered how her knees didn’t break.

  “No ID?” I asked.

  “Not on him.”

  “Our witness thinks he lives in one of those flats,” I said. “We’ll take a look around.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Adams ordered, and I sketched an X over my heart.

  When I rose, Fletcher was standing a few steps back from the body, fists clenched and shaking by her sides as she struggled to rein in her emotions. Fury rippled across her face despite her best efforts, and she looked ready to punch something.

  “What is it?” I said reaching out a hand for hers, though I stopped halfway there and let my arm fall again, since she seemed like she would snap if I touched her.

  “A hate crime?” she ground out.

  Of course. This would hit close to home for her. This was her community being violated.

  “We’ll get justice for him,” I promised.

  “He shouldn’t have died in the first place.”

  “No, he shouldn’t have,” I agreed. “Are you okay to continue, or do you want to wait out here while I look around his flat?”

  Fletcher took a deep breath and steeled herself, brushing the anger away from her face. It left her cheeks but remained in her eyes, leaving them bright and sharp. She nodded. “I want to come with.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  We stopped just long enough to pull blue latex gloves on and then headed for the flat building Barnes had led Angela Jones to. I opened the door, and we stepped inside. A staircase led straight up from the doorway, though there was another corridor right beside it, leading deeper into the ground floor. I couldn’t see any sign of forced entry or a struggle. We headed upstairs. Angela thought our John Doe had lived in 1A, so I gently pushed on that door.

  It was unlocked.

  I glanced at Fletcher, and she motioned for me to open it all the way. “Hello?” I called. There was no answer, though all the lights were on.

  “Look,” Fletcher said and pointed.

  There was blood on the inside doorknob and a handprint smeared halfway down the wall. Red drops, mostly dry now, splattered the floor, leading us deeper into the flat. The living room was a mess. The window had been shattered from the outside, glass sprayed across the carpet, and one chair was upended, far from its matching set by the little table. There was a pool of blood at the mouth of the hall leading to the front door, a discarded kitchen knife just behind it. Whatever had happened, it had started here.

  I frowned as I looked around. Most hate crimes were attacks of opportunity. It took planning to break in through a window this high off the ground.

  I made my way over there, picking my way carefully through the glass so I wouldn’t disturb any of it, and poked my head out the gaping hole. There was a small balcony outside, just large enough for a single person to step out onto, but when I peered over it, there didn’t seem to be an easy way up from the ground.

  Fletcher was looking at the pictures on the wall when I pulled my head back inside, wary of the jagged shards still sticking out of the windowsill. I joined her in front of them. Most were of our John Doe with a second person easily a foot taller than he was, their hair dyed blue and styled so it swept messily towards the back of their head. A tall black woman featured in many of the pictures as well, her arms slung around the two others as she grinned widely at the camera, a gap between her two front teeth.

  I put my hand on Fletcher’s shoulder to nudge her away so we could continue our investigation. We were right beside the kitchen, so I peeked in there next. There was more glass on the floor, twinkling amongst a pile of sugar, and many of the cupboards stood open, looking like someone had rifled through them in a hurry. I opened the fridge, curious, but it didn’t seem like anything in there had been disturbed. There was an empty slot in the knife block by the stove--no doubt the home for the one discarded on the floor.

  Our victim had known someone had broken into his flat with enough time to grab a weapon to try and defend himself. He’d been chased out of the flat and into that alley. We needed to get Adams up here to photograph everything as soon as we were done looking around.

  The flat was small, so it wasn’t that hard to find our way to John Doe’s bedroom. Clothes were scattered across the floor, cascading out of the open wardrobe and leading to the bed. A black duffel bag sat on top of the mattress, unzipped and stuffed just about as full as it could get. I walked closer so I could look inside. A wallet sat on top of a pile of clothes beside a zipped pouch, and a small, framed photo. I lifted the wallet out, making sure I didn’t disturb anything else, and Fletcher crowded close as I opened it up.

  I found the driver’s license right away. The name was listed as Julia Greene, but the picture was of our John Doe in the alley. I dug a little deeper, hoping there might be another ID with his real name on it. The credit cards were missing, and there didn’t seem to be any kind of work identification either.

  “Does it look like he was running to you?” Fletcher asked. She picked up the zipped pouch and opened it up. There was a small glass bottle and capped syringe inside.

  “It does,” I said as I put everything back. “Maybe someone had been threatening him, and he wanted to get away for a while. Let’s get Adams. There’s a lot in here that she’ll want to bag and tag.”

  Fletcher nodded and rubbed her arms as if she were cold. I’d only worked a few other murder cases, but I’d always found that the victims’ homes felt almost haunted, as if their spirits had been trapped there after death. I half thought that if I looked in the mirror, I’d see our bloody John Doe staring back at me, but there was only my own dishevelled reflection.

  We let ourselves out of the flat and made our way outside. Adams was finished photographing John Doe’s body, and the ambulance had arrived, Barnes and Owens helping O’Neil load him into a body bag and hoist him onto a stretcher. The pathologist peeled off his white protective gear, ready to follow the body to the mortuary. I jogged up to Adams once she was done, stripping her latex gloves off to find a fresh pair.

  “You’ll want to check out the flat,” I told her. “Definite signs of a struggle, more blood, maybe some fingerprints by the window.”

  “Thanks,” Adams said and snapped a glove around her wrist. “I’ll get right on it.” Her dark eyes suddenly became very serious, narrowing as her eyebrows furrowed. “We’ve got a stalker,” she said, hardly moving her mouth.

  “Where?” I didn’t look around just yet. Better not to alert the watcher that we’d spotted them.

  Adams looked over my shoulder without moving her head. “Behind you. Near where you parked. Adult male, maybe six foot, looking shifty as hell.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Adams nodded and busied herself with her equipment as if the conversation had never happened.

  “Fletcher!” I waved my partner over, bending down as if there was something on the ground I wanted her to see.

  “What is it?” She hurried over to me, eyes drawn to the bloodstained cobblestones just beyond me. She shook her head and focused on me, looking at the empty patch of ground I was pointing at. “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  “Watcher. Six o’clock,” I answered.

  “So? There were a lot of people watching when we arrived.”

  “Adams called him shifty.”

  Fletcher causally spun in a circle, trying to get a good look at the man. “Adams would be right. Killers sometimes return to the scene of the crime. Do you think it might have been him?”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  I stood, knees popping, and we started walking towards my c
ar. I wanted to make it seem like we weren’t headed in the man’s direction. It didn’t work. His eyes widened when he saw us coming, mouth opening in surprise, and he ran a hand over his buzzed head before he suddenly cut and ran, dodging towards the side street just behind my vehicle.

  “Go!” I said, and Fletcher and I took off running.

  We sprinted right through the police tape, snapping it in a second, and Fletcher dodged around my car as I slid over the bonnet, the ends of my overcoat flapping. We chased the fleeing man down the street, a puddle splashing beneath my foot.

  “Stop! Police!” Fletcher yelled.

  The man ignored her, as they all did, and he cut sharply to the left at the next street. I wished I was still wearing my trainers, but I had changed into my boots after our workout this morning, and they were like heavy weights on my feet.

  The man skidded around a corner, leaping a waist-high chain link fence that led to a long strip of lawns broken by similar barriers. I slapped my hands onto the top of the fence, the wire biting into my palms, and flung myself over while Fletcher simply hurdled it with her long legs. The man tripped jumping over the third fence, and he fell, rolling across the ground as he struggled to regain his feet, allowing Fletcher and I to shorten the gap between us.

  He staggered upright and glanced over his shoulder with fear in his eyes before he started running again. When Fletcher jumped the next fence, her foot hit the top of a children’s plastic slide, but she somehow kept her balance as she skidded down it, stumbling only slightly as she hit the ground. My breath rasped in my chest as I landed beside her, and I glanced around as the man began to pick up speed. I spotted a yellow tipper lorry in my path and bent over as I raced past it, scooping it up without missing a beat.

  I used one hand to brace myself as we went over the final fence, shooting out into a wide street through the quiet suburb, and the man’s long legs opened up, pouring on the speed. I threw the tipper lorry as hard as I could. The throw was awkward and off-balance, the toy too light to get any real oomph behind it, but it still flew through the air and struck the man right in the back.