The work had paid off, because the man flinched and shrunk in on himself. “My name is Blake. I’m…” He bit his lip and scrunched up his face. “I’m a thief.”
“Do you always rob murder victims?” I asked blandly, giving him a once over. The last thief I’d met had been the professional kind, paid to do high risk, highly skilled jobs, but Blake looked more like a petty, common thief, like someone who’d turned to the life out of desperation. The hem of his jumper was ragged, and there were holes in the knees of his trousers, his shoes apt to fall apart.
Blake turned red, and he squeezed his hands together in his lap. “No. I was casing the guy last week. And then he turned up dead. I swear I had nothing to do with it! I could never kill anyone!”
“Casing,” I repeated. He didn’t really seem smart enough to be pre-planning his thefts.
“I was trying something new,” he said. “I’m usually a smash and grab kind of guy, but that hasn’t been working out all that well for me lately.” He cursed suddenly, grabbing his hair with both hands. “Did I just admit to something? Are you going to arrest me?” His eyes went wild, on the verge of panic, and he began looking around for a way to escape again.
“We could,” I replied. “Breaking and entering, interfering with a police investigation. Does that sound right, Fletcher?”
“Assaulting a police officer,” she added, holding up her injured hand.
Blake looked ready to book it right to the moon, his legs tensed and ready to stand as I held up a hand and gave him a light shrug. “But I think I’ll let it slide today. I’m not really in the mood to do paperwork.”
“Me neither,” Fletcher agreed.
It took Blake a moment to process what we’d said, his mind already spiralling towards his own doom, but when the truth finally hit him, he looked up at us with wide eyes and an open mouth like a gaping fish. “I--what?” he croaked.
I shooed him towards the door. “We’ll let you go if you answer just one more question.”
“Anything.” He nodded eagerly.
“You’ve been casing this flat. Have you seen anyone else doing the same?”
Blake sat back to think about it, his right leg extended in front of him. “When did it happen?” he asked.
“Wednesday night.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near here Wednesday. I got spooked because I thought he spotted me Tuesday, and I didn’t want to tip him off, you know. He was acting all skittish. I was mostly watching the flat, you see, not him.” Blake scratched his ear and rubbed the back of his head. “I did see this fancy black car roll by a couple of times. I don’t know for sure that it was the same one, but how many Audis do you see in an area like this? It never stopped though. I saw that guy peek his head out the window and jerk back like he was really freaked out.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“First time was Monday, and then a couple more times on Tuesday.” Blake got ready to stand, but I held up one finger to stop him.
“Did you get the plates?”
Blake shook his head. “Why would I do that? Can I go now?”
“Fine.” Fletcher and I got out of his way, and Blake bolted for the door, favouring his right leg. He disappeared without a backwards glance, footsteps thundering down the stairs. He wasn’t particularly stealthy for a thief. “Let me see your hand,” I said to Fletcher once I heard the door to the outside slam.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Let me see it anyways,” I insisted, raising my arm.
Fletcher grumbled but placed her hand in mine, palm down. The cut ran from her wrist to the knuckle of her index finger, but it wasn’t deep, and the bleeding seemed to have stopped. “I’ve got a first aid kit in the car. I don’t think we’ll have to amputate.”
“That’s a relief.”
Neither of us had a handkerchief, so she wrapped the cut in her other hand again, and we left the flat, locking the door behind us. Farin was still waiting on the bench outside, but he’d dropped the pretence of reading the newspaper, and he shot to his feet when he spotted us, hurrying across the street to join us. “Are you okay? A man came running out just before you.” His eyes zeroed in on Fletcher’s clasped hands. “Is that blood?”
“Everything’s fine,” I assured him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Just a break-in. He gave us some information, and we let him go. Thank you again for calling us. That was the right move.”
Farin beamed at the praise, shoulders straightening, teeth pearly white against his tanned skin. “Am I good to finish cleaning up?”
“Go for it.”
He headed for the door as Fletcher and I walked back towards the car. I fished around in the glove box until I found the travel-sized first aid kit I kept there. I had Fletcher sit on the car while I soaked a square of gauze in disinfectant.
“I can do it myself,” Fletcher said, but I smacked her uninjured hand away as she reached for the supplies.
She winced when I started cleaning the wound, disinfectant stinging. I didn’t have a plaster large enough to cover the entire cut, so I taped a folded length of gauze over it, smoothing it down as gently as I could.
“Good as new,” I said.
“You missed your calling as a nurse,” Fletcher replied, pulling her arm back. She flexed her fingers, grimacing as the cut stretched, but the bandage didn’t come off.
My phone rang just as we arrived back at the station, swinging around to the back entrance to avoid the ever-growing crowd in the car park. We needed to say something to them soon before they took our silence the wrong way. I answered Martin’s call, one finger pressed to the opposite ear so I could hear him better.
“I got the email backups,” Martin said. “Where are you?”
“Walking in the door. Did you find something?”
“If I say yes, will I be your favourite person in the world?”
“Martin.” I shoved the back door open, and Fletcher and I hurried down the sparsely lit, concrete corridor.
“You’re no fun. Yes, I found something. Come down to my lab. I’d give a mad scientist laugh, but it would be wasted on you.”
“See you in a minute, Martin.”
“Do we have a lead?” Fletcher asked as I hung up.
“Sounds like it,” I answered, and she grinned, clapping her hands together. She winced as the impact jostled her cut, and her smile quickly dropped away.
I pushed open the door into the station proper, and we hurried towards the lift, eager to hear what Martin had to say. Dunnel stepped out of his office as we passed, holding up a hand to catch our attention, and I paused mid-step, spinning to face him.
“Fletcher, I need you to make a statement to the crowd outside,” he said. “Before they decide we’re trying to protect Townsend.” He scowled as he said the sergeant’s name, mouth twisting as if it tasted rotting lemon.
“Sure,” Fletcher said, but anxiety flashed behind her eyes. “Martin wants to see us, and then I’ll do that.”
“Good,” Dunnel said and left it at that, sealing himself back into his office without a word of advice or encouragement. Fletcher looked a little ill, as if her hangover had reared its ugly head once again.
“You’ll do fine,” I told her. “One thing at a time, yeah?”
Fletcher nodded and took a deep breath, and we continued on towards the lift. Martin and Adams were both waiting for us when we walked into the lab. Martin jumped up from his stool when he spotted me, beckoning for us to meet him at the table.
“Well?” I asked once we were close enough.
“I found this.” Martin handed me a printout of an email from Jacob to someone named Skye Arnott. It was dated the Friday before he was killed. It read,
“Dear Skye,
My name is Jacob Greene. I work for New Wave Industries as a coder. I’ve been working on the Active Eye project, and I’ve found something, well, worrisome. I was hoping I could get a second opinion. I don’t want to say too much over email. Could I come to your of
fice this afternoon? Say 3?”
“Okay, and?” I said when I finished reading. “Who’s Skye Arnott?”
Adams handed me a driver’s licence in a plastic evidence bag, and I looked down to see a pretty blonde girl smiling back at me. “Skye Arnott is the suicide I just got back from.”
Ten
I sat down on a nearby stool. Fletcher’s mouth dropped open, and she plucked the driver’s licence from my hand to look at it herself as if she would somehow see something different than I did.
“Say that again,” I said slowly, looking up at Adams.
“I just got back from looking over the suicide that was called in earlier this afternoon, and I happened to glance over Martin’s shoulder at the email he was reading,” Adams explained. “My eye caught on Skye’s name. I thought, ‘Oh shit, what are the odds?’ and we called you down here.”
“What are the odds?” I repeated, pulling the printed email closer. “What did Skye reply?”
“She just said sure,” Martin said.
“Where did Skye work?” Fletcher asked.
“Far Reach Industries,” Adams replied, and I choked on my own spit. The other three turned to stare at me, wondering if I’d just gone mad, and Fletcher pounded on my back until I could breathe again.
“That’s where my father worked,” I said. “It’s a cybersecurity company.”
“Oh shit,” Adams said, and that about summed it up.
“Why did Jacob want the opinion of an outside security service? Wouldn’t New Wave Industries have in-house people for that?” Fletcher asked.
“Unless he didn’t trust them,” I pointed out.
We all sat on that for a while, chewing on all its implications.
“Tell me about the crime scene,” I said to Adams.
“Oh, I’ll have to get it marked off as a crime scene,” Adams said and wrote a note for herself on the back of her hand in permanent marker. “The body is already on its way to the mortuary with O’Neil, but it really did look like a run of the mill suicide. We found Skye in the bathtub with her wrists slit. The roommate found her this morning when she got back from her boyfriend’s. We think Skye probably died at about midnight last night. O’Neil will have a report done quickly, though he might need to do a toxicology report, I’ll remind him of that.” She wrote another note on her hand, though the writing was so cramped I doubted she’d actually be able to read it later.
“You two are lifesavers, honestly,” I said as I folded the email print-out up and put it in my pocket. “Thank you.”
“We do most of your job for you, don’t we?” Martin replied, and Adams grinned, holding up her hand for a fist bump.
“I’ll buy you chocolates,” I said dryly. “Alright, we should go. Email me when you get the toxicology report.”
Adams saluted with two fingers and laughed, the sound following Fletcher and me as we once again rode the lift back up to the ground floor. We gathered our things, getting ready to head back out, but Fletcher put her hand on my arm as I finished putting my coat on.
“What do I say?” she asked. Her eyes flicked towards the front door and the crowd outside.
“The truth is always best,” I answered. “Keep it short and sweet. Don’t answer any questions.”
“You got anything more specific for me?” Fletcher wrung her hands together, thumb sweeping over the crisp white bandage again and again. Her brow crinkled though she kept fighting to smooth it out again, losing the battle against her nerves each time.
“Tell them who you are and what you know. Tell them you’re sorry and you’re doing everything you can to get justice. Make sure you say Cameron Houser’s name. You’ll do fine.” I didn’t actually know if that was true. Fletcher looked like she was about to be sick, but it was what she needed to hear.
She nodded a couple of times and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. I can do this.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Fletcher straightened her jacket and made sure her shirt was properly tucked in, checking her hair in the little mirror she kept in the top drawer of her desk. “How do I look?”
“Like you’re still a little hungover from a night out.”
“Not helping,” she growled, and I laughed as she punched me in the shoulder, a bit of force behind it to show that she meant it.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I promised. I didn’t envy her this task. This was more than speaking with a bereaved family or questioning a suspect. This was trying to comfort an entire group of people that had been harmed irreparably by our institution. This was making promises that she didn’t know she could keep, promises that she didn’t really have any power over. This was vulnerability at its highest point, both for her and those people outside.
I walked close behind Fletcher as she squared her shoulders and led the way to the front doors, pushing them both open at the same time. The sunlight blinded me as I stepped outside, and I shielded my eyes with one hand, the crowd of protestors a dark blob before me. Fletcher set her sunglasses on her nose once more, both to block the sun and to hide the way her eyes still looked rather red.
We had the crowd’s full attention the moment we walked out the door, and the weight of all those eyes was like a mile of chain lashing us to the front of the building, the metal links cold upon our skin. Fletcher took another deep breath, squared her shoulders, and approached the leader of the protesters, a young black man with a megaphone. He was tall and confident though his eyes held too great a sadness for someone of his age. Fletcher spoke with him quietly for a moment and then held out her hand for the megaphone. He stared at her, sizing her up, and then passed it over, stepping back so that he became one with the crowd.
Fletcher cleared her throat and lifted the device to her mouth, the speaker squalling when she pressed the button. She cringed, confidence wavering. I gave her a nod of encouragement when she glanced over her shoulder at me, and then she looked back at the crowd and tried again.
“Hello. Could I have a moment of your time, please?”
When the protestors realized what was going on, they immediately started shouting at her, demanding to know what was going on, crying for justice and Townsend’s arrest. Fletcher waved her hands, trying to get them to quiet so that she could speak, but that only increased the intensity of their demands, and her spine began to fold under the onslaught.
The leader jumped up onto the kerb, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Oi!” he yelled, and his voice carried over the din, bringing the crowd to silence like he’d put a kink in a hose reel.
“Thank you,” Fletcher said into the megaphone as the man rejoined his people. “My name is Detective Inspector Tara Fletcher, and I am in charge of the investigation into Sergeant Alan Townsend and the fatal stabbing that occurred a few days ago. First of all, I would like to say that I, along with the rest of the Inverness Police force, am terribly sorry for what has happened. It is entirely inexcusable, and we are all working as hard as we can to ensure we get justice for Cameron Houser. We believe DS Townsend has also been accepting bribes for quite some time now, and we are looking into the rest of his conduct throughout his years on the force. We are moving as quickly as we can, but we ask that you remain patient with us as we want to make sure things are done properly. Thank you.”
Fletcher handed the megaphone back to the young man, and as she did, the crowd began to shout questions her way. Fletcher froze under the barrage, and I couldn’t make out a single individual inquiry amongst the jumbled cacophony of so many voices trying to talk over each other. I pulled Fletcher back and placed myself between her and the protestors, shielding her as we started for the car. A few people tried to hem us in, demanding answers, but the young man began to bark orders into his megaphone, ordering them to let us through. We burst free at the edge of the crowd like fish escaping from the surface tension of the ocean.
We jogged the rest of the way to the car and threw ourselves in, slamming the doors shut and sealing ourselves into a nice littl
e bubble of quiet. Fletcher’s hands shook in her lap, and she closed her eyes as she slowed her breathing, trying to bring her heart rate down.
“I think you did well,” I said, sticking the key in the ignition. “You were clear and concise, and you got out after you said what you needed to say.”
“Remind me never to do a press conference,” she groaned.
“That’s Dunnel’s job.”
I put the car in gear and pulled away from the station, headed for the Inverness office of Far Reach Industries, located at the city centre. Fletcher took a bottle of water from her bag and took several deep drinks to finish settling down her nerves.
“So, your dad’s old workplace,” she said. “When was the last time you were there?”
I spun the wheel, slipping smoothly around a bend in the road. “A couple of years ago, when I was taking my turn investigating his disappearance.”
“Are you going to be okay going back?”
I glanced at her sideways, raising an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well,” Fletcher hesitated, a little hesitant or uncertain of how to broach the subject, “finding that photograph and going through your dad’s old stuff, hearing from those people on the message board, his obviously dredged some stuff up for you. Is that going to be a problem?” She cringed as she voiced her question, obviously expecting me to lash out.
A part of me wanted to. A part of me wanted to demand why the hell she thought it was any of her business, but that was a knee-jerk reaction, not one I really meant. “We’re investigating a totally different case,” I said instead. “This has nothing to do with my father.”
“Okay, good. I just wanted to check.”
We flashed past the other cars as I wove in and out of the two lanes, the city green and flowering all around us. The spring had woken the city up, the rain washing the grey damp of the winter off the stone, replacing it with something crisper, more welcoming, and the early days of summer had brought colour back to the streets, the flowers like little pops of paint amidst the grey-brown buildings and green grass.
The Hidden Eye Page 13
