The Hidden Eye

by Oliver Davies

  The ice cream compounded the night’s chill, settling into my bones, and walking beside me, Rayla shivered, tucking herself deeper into her jacket. I tossed my napkin away the next time we passed a bin, and she handed me the last third of her cone, unable or unwilling to finish it. I was happy enough to oblige her, still hungry despite my large dinner.

  We turned around at the end of the long street, both of us silently deciding it was time to head for the train station. Strains of music blossomed into the street each time a door swung open, drifting away just as soon as the pub shut, and in that way, we listened to a concert of snippets all the way back to my car. Rayla, hesitating slightly, looped her arm through mine, and stepped in a bit closer. It was nice to have someone near as the rain coated the sky and glistened off the pavement and the wind blew gently up and down the alleyways.

  I shook out my hair after I climbed into my car, spraying water droplets across the steering wheel. Rayla shivered, blowing on her hands, so I turned the heater up as high as it would go, blasting warm air all around us.

  Traffic was quiet as I drove towards the train station, my phone’s screen a bright white glow in the cupholder. Rayla had gone quiet again, staring out her window at the rain-softened city. Water dripped down my neck, and my trousers were damp against my thighs, sticking uncomfortably each time I shifted gears. I swung through the final roundabout and cruised up in front of the train station, parking in the fifteen-minute zone right outside the main entrance.

  I got out and walked her inside. Only a few other people roamed the station, several of them in line by the electronic ticket machine. Rayla had printed both of hers that morning, and so she had nothing to do but wait for Alana to arrive.

  “Do you want me to wait with you?” I asked.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly.

  “I don’t mind,” I promised, so we sat down on one of the benches to wait, and before long, she tipped her head onto my shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Alana jogged through the doors with five minutes to spare, dropped off by one of the Greenes, and I nudged Rayla awake as she approached. Rayla blinked blearily, struggling out of sleep’s grasp, and squinted until she caught sight of Alana coming towards us. The two of us stood to meet her. Alana looked almost shattered, completely drained by the day.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her. I felt bad that we’d left her with the Greenes, but she’d been the one who wanted to stay by herself.

  She nodded but turned it into a shrug halfway through. “No, but I will be. Sometime.”

  “You should get going,” I said. “You don’t want to miss your train.”

  Rayla hugged me first, rising up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around my neck. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered in my ear.

  I squeezed gently back. “Of course.”

  Alana embraced me, too, though it was shorter and a smidge looser, and I watched as the two of them hurried onto the platform and onto their train, glancing out the window one last time before it began to pull away. I raised a hand in goodbye, and they waved back, faces blurry behind the wet glass.

  And then they were gone.

  Though the hour was getting late, I went back to one of the city centre pubs, hunting around until I found one with a good-sized session going. It didn’t take long since it was the weekend. I settled onto a stool at the corner of the bar and ordered a whisky, swivelling in my seat until I was facing the circle of musicians.

  They were mid-tune, a strathspey if the odd syncopation was anything to go by, jouncing along merrily to the rhythm of the guitar. There was a bodhran player among them, and I searched their face, as I always did, but this one was a teen, his cheeks still pocked with acne. I let the music wash over me, foot bouncing in time against the leg of the stool. There was calm to be found within the notes, even as they raced along the strings of the fiddle and puffed out the end of the flute. There was stability to these age-old tunes. They would be passed on to each new generation of musicians and would survive long after everyone in this room was dead and gone, even the baby-faced bodhran player.

  Sometimes, I thought I’d like a legacy like that, even though it was the one in a millionth person who actually achieved that, but other times, I thought so long as I could make a difference in one person’s life, then I’d done okay. I’d rescued a child from a band of criminals, returning him to his mother, and that had felt pretty damn good, but it also made me want to do more, as much as I could.

  That was why murder cases always saddened me. I couldn’t help the victim. They were already dead. Justice was small comfort to the loved ones left behind. It would never replace the hole those losses created.

  I sighed, trying to shake the melancholy thoughts away by draining the rest of my glass. It didn’t work. Best not to fall down the rabbit hole of covering my sorrows with alcohol. So I paid the barman and flicked the collar of my coat up as I left the pub, rain settling around my shoulders once more.

  I drove to the hotel I’d booked with the station’s money and checked both Fletcher and me in. The receptionist told me she hadn’t come in yet. Still out with her friends no doubt. Good. These past few days had hit her hard. Let her blow off a little steam.

  I found my way up to room 204. My boots sank into the plush, vibrantly patterned carpet. It looked like someone had dropped a bunch of paint cans from a great height, letting them splatter willy-nilly across the hallway. A painting that might have been a flower and might have been something else entirely hung from the wall beside my door, several more of the fuzzy, abstract pictures dotting the length of the corridor.

  I swiped my key and let myself in. We’d booked two rooms, we weren’t paying, after all, so mine was rather small, a double bed in the centre of the floor, the bathroom right beside the door. I threw my overnight bag onto the tiled floor and went to shower, gratefully shucking my wet clothes off and dumping them in a heap. The water pressure could have been better, but it was at least hot, steam wafting through the small room. Before long, I was dressed in joggers and an old t-shirt, struggling to figure out how the television remote worked. Hotels always picked the most complicated ones.

  I heard a thump in the hallway just as I’d picked a film (I told myself I was going to watch it, but I actually planned to fall asleep to it somewhere along the way), and I rolled off the bed to go and check it out.

  I found Fletcher leaning rather heavily against the wall, staring at the door to her room as if she expected it to come to her. She looked up as I stepped out, and a grin broke across her face like the skin of a tomato as it split.

  “Callum, hey!” she drawled and immediately shushed herself as she remembered that she was in a public place and people were trying to sleep all around her. “Hey, how are you? How was your night?”

  I leaned up against my door frame and folded my hands, grinning. “My night was fine. How was your night? Looks like it was fun?”

  “Yeah!” Fletcher cheered, forgetting to keep her voice down again.

  “Let’s get you into your room, okay?” I suggested, and Fletcher nodded a couple of times, the movement almost pitching her to the ground. I propped my door open so I wouldn’t get locked out and then offered Fletcher my hand because she seemed uncertain of how to move on her own. “Do you have your key?”

  Her brow furrowed in deep concentration, and she patted each pocket in turn until she found the card in its paper folder. I took it from her and checked the room number, finding it right beside mine.

  “Time to walk,” I instructed, and Fletcher looked down at her feet like she’d forgotten they were there. “With me, yeah? Left, right, left…” Together, like some kind of freakish bug, we stumbled a couple of steps up the hall and over to the door to 206. I swiped the key over the reader and pushed it open, flicking the light before I herded Fletcher inside.

  We made it to the bed, and she sat down, flapping her arms as she struggled to get her jacket off. I bent to unlace her shoes. She definite
ly didn’t seem dextrous enough to manage that this drunk. She placed her hand on top of my head. “Callum.”

  “Yes, Fletcher?”

  “My friends seemed different.”

  “Maybe you’re the one who’s changed.” I pulled the first trainer off and set it beside the heat vent on the wall. The canvas was damp from the rain. They’d probably be unpleasant to put on in the morning.

  Fletcher thought about my words. “I guess so.” She smacked her lips a couple of times and then flopped down on the bed, almost kicking me in the chin as her leg bounced up. I steadied it, still trying to get the other shoe untied. “Do you think I’ve changed enough for my parents to like me again?”

  She spoke in a sleepy whisper, and I barely heard her. I paused with my fingers on the laces. I couldn’t see her face from this angle. “I’m sure your parents like you.”

  “They don’t. They never did. Meeting Jacob’s parents got me thinking about it. I thought if I drank enough, I could forget again, but it just made it all more… there. At the front. It’s funny, you know.” One hand rose into the air and then fell back to the mattress. “People say alcohol makes everything foggy, but it really just makes things more clear.”

  I put the second shoe by the vent and sat on the edge of the bed. Fletcher turned her head to give me a goofy smile, strands of escaped hair tumbled across her face.

  “Do you ever get lonely, Callum?” she asked before I could respond to her last idea.

  “Sure. Everybody does.”

  “But do you feel it in your bones?” she insisted, placing a hand on her chest. “Do you feel it like a hole inside of you? Like it’s going to gobble you up?”

  “Not really,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about it like that before. “I’ve got all I need.”

  “Must be nice,” Fletcher mumbled, swinging her head back to stare up at the ceiling. Her voice brightened suddenly. “If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Go.”

  “I’m going to get you a glass of water,” I said instead and stood up to go fill a cup up in the bathroom sink.

  “I’ve never been able to decide,” I heard Fletcher say from the other room. “They all sound so cool. Except maybe super strength. That’s lame.”

  I set the glass of water on her bedside table and pointed at it when she looked at me next so I made sure she knew it was there. “Water, yeah?”

  Fletcher nodded.

  “Get some sleep.”

  “I will not.”

  “Okay, then I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Fletcher agreed. “Callum?” she added when I had my hand on the doorknob. I poked my head around the corner again.

  “Yeah?”

  Fletcher had burrowed her head under the pillows but hadn’t figured out how to get under the duvet yet. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  She hesitated. “I forget.”

  “Well, you’re welcome. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I let myself out of the room and padded silently back to my own still open door. An advert was playing on the television, and I switched it off, plunging the room into darkness.

  Nine

  I knocked on Fletcher’s door the next morning at what I thought was a reasonable, accommodating hour, but she cussed me out from inside, thumping across the floor to yank the door open a couple of inches, squinting into the harsh light of the hall as she glared at me. Only half her hair remained in any semblance of a bun. The rest of it puffed around her red face in a series of scraggly tufts.

  “What?” she grumbled.

  I grinned. “Looks like someone had fun last night.”

  “Voice, hush.” She slapped a finger to her lips but missed by an inch. “So mean.”

  My grin widened as she scowled at me. “We should be heading back soon. I’ll meet you down at breakfast when you’re ready.”

  “I’m going back to bed.”

  “I stole your extra key last night,” I told her, holding up the white card. “So I will come in and start opening curtains if I have to.”

  She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, trying to assess how serious my threat was. “You’re so mean,” she reiterated. “Fine. Give me thirty minutes.”

  “Don’t forget to drink some water,” I suggested helpfully and only half mockingly as she began to close the door, and she swung it open again to give me one last glare before finally slamming it shut in my face.

  I grinned and left her to scrape herself into some semblance of a functioning human being. I was packed up and ready to go, and I took my overnight bag down to the breakfast nook just off the reception on the ground floor. The spread was mostly picked over since breakfast time was almost over, but I filled up a plate and took it to an empty table. There was a discarded newspaper by the saltshaker, and I flipped through it while I ate and waited for Fletcher to come down.

  She arrived just over half an hour later and chucked her bag at me before she went to find the coffee. She’d showered and thrown her hair into a ponytail while it was still wet. Her sunglasses were planted firmly on her nose, her shoulders hunched in on themselves. She set her mug down and eased carefully into the chair.

  “Don’t say anything,” she ordered, holding up a hand to forestall any comment I might make.

  I drew a zip across my lips and threw away the key even as I grinned at her.

  Fletcher sipped at her coffee but didn’t eat anything, and when she was done, we dumped our dishes in the washing bin and went to check out at the front desk. Yesterday’s rain still clung to the grass and glistened in the trees as we stepped outside. We threw our bags into the back of my car and then we were off, on our way back to Inverness.

  It was almost noon when we arrived back at the station. Fletcher kept her eyes closed the entire drive, though I couldn’t quite tell if she was asleep or just trying not to throw up. Either way, she groaned when I nudged her to let her know we were there.

  The protest had grown since we’d left. It filled most of the car park, eating up half the spots, and there were more signs churning the air as a man spoke into a megaphone. Someone had spray-painted Cameron Houser’s name on the front doors. Fletcher and I skirted around the building to go in the back door as Fletcher cringed and held her head against the barrage of sound. We passed Adams and O’Neil on their way out, bags of gear bundled in their arms.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked.

  “New body,” Adams answered. “Sounds like a suicide.”

  I winced and clapped her on the shoulder, wishing them well.

  “Do you have paracetamol?” Fletcher asked when we reached our desks. I dug into the top drawer and tossed her a half-empty packet. “Thanks.” She swallowed them dry, grimacing as they went down.

  “MacBain!” Dunnel bellowed from his office.

  The station went dead quiet, and every head swivelled to look at me, a mixture of fear and sympathy running across every face. Dunnel pointed his finger at me and crooked it towards him.

  “Oh shit,” I sighed. I shrugged my coat off and prepared for my imminent death.

  “What did you do?” Fletcher asked, eyebrows raised behind her sunglasses.

  “Sanctioned Townsend to the press without Dunnel’s permission,” I said.

  Fletcher’s mouth made an ‘O,’ and then she began to cackle, throwing her head back before she remembered her hangover and groaned, placing a cool hand to her cheek. “Mate, you’re so dead.”

  “Thanks for your support.”

  “I’ll be here if you make it out.” Fletcher gave me a cheeky wave as I started towards Dunnel’s office, and I wished I’d given her more shit for getting so drunk last night.

  “Close the door,” Dunnel said as I entered, and I turned and pushed it shut. The entire station was staring at me, and I closed the blinds, too, hoping to be eviscerated in private.

  I stood at attention before Dunnel’s desk. He sat in his tall-backed chair and stared at me, his face dark, the
corners of his mouth turned down. I looked back at him, expression as neutral as I could make it. I wouldn’t speak first.

  Finally, Dunnel tossed the day’s newspaper at me. It spun across the smooth wood of his desk and came to a half just before it tipped off the edge. I leaned forward so I could read the article title. It didn’t take me long to find the quote I’d given the Courier. I hadn’t even told the journalist to leave my name out of it. Good. Let the world know what I thought. I raised an eyebrow at Dunnel. He would have to have the first word.

  “Well?” he demanded, and I shrugged, forcing him to expand on what he meant. “What were you thinking? Saying that to the paper?”

  I placed my hand right over the newspaper and leaned on Dunnel’s desk. “I was thinking we needed to get ahead of the story before the city eats us alive. You don’t condone what Townsend did, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Dunnel snapped. He stood up sharply so we were on the same level. “But you should have left it to me.”

  “You seemed frozen when I spoke with you yesterday, no offence. I went to the Courier for another reason, and when the editor in chief asked me about the killing, I thought it would be better to give a statement then say no comment. You know how readers always twist no comment to their own end.”

  Dunnel nodded in agreement to that, but he still looked furious with me. Rightly so, if I was honest.

  “I’m sorry, okay? I mean it,” I continued. “This is a bad situation for all of us. I was just trying to help.”

  Dunnel sighed and fell back into his chair, and I finally took a seat across from him. The anger drained from his face, and overwhelming exhaustion descended over him as he rested his head in one hand. “This is a shit show, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. That was putting it lightly.

  Dunnel ducked under his desk and came up with a covered cardboard box. “These are Townsend’s case files from the past year. Give them to Fletcher. Maybe she can find something in them.”

  “Will do. Thanks.”

  “And do it quickly, will you?”