Fletcher was typing away at her computer as I approached, but her head snapped round when she heard my still slightly squishy footsteps, and she leapt from her chair. “Where the hell have you been, Callum?” she demanded, practically yelled, really, and I motioned for her to keep her voice down.
I realized then that I hadn’t come up with a reasonable story for what I’d been up to yesterday. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out, and Fletcher bowled right over me.
“I called you three times yesterday. Why didn’t you pick up? I think I’ve found something on Townsend.” She squinted at me, eyes darting up and down my rumpled attire. “Are you wearing the same outfit as yesterday?” She even leaned in and sniffed at me. “Why do you smell weird?”
“Keep your voice down,” I hissed, pressing my hands towards the ground. “I’ll tell you everything, but later, yeah? And not here. Lot’s happened.” I dropped into my chair and began rooting around under the desk for my trainers. I was excited to find a clean pair of socks tucked into them, too. “What did you find on Townsend?”
Fletcher stayed standing a moment longer, tapping her foot as she thought about whether or not she wanted to push me on yesterday, and then she finally dropped into her chair with a huff. “Proof that he’s been corrupt for a while now. Martin got into his bank accounts. Not only is there a deposit from the day Jacob was murdered, but there was another hefty one right around when he arrested John. And I had Martin test the heroin from that case against a batch we suspect came from Arktell’s supply, and it was a match. We think that’s good enough to sink his credibility when he tries to claim he attacked Cameron Houser in self-defence.” Fletcher beamed at me, proud of her discovery, and I mustered up a smile for her in return.
“Sounds like you did great work,” I said and offered her a fist bump across the two desks. “Sorry I wasn’t around to help.”
At the mention of my disappearance, Fletcher’s face puckered, but she let it go, willing to wait until I was ready to talk about it. “We’re ready to nail him,” she said instead. “He won’t walk away from this.”
“Good. He deserves to rot in prison,” I agreed, lacing up my trainers.
“I also got us a meeting with MacPherson while you were busy gallivanting around yesterday. I had to go through his personal assistant and everything. It was all very official.” Fletcher laughed slightly. “It’s at four o’clock this afternoon.” She gave me another once over. “You should definitely change before you go. The MacPhersons are old money. I looked them up. Also, we’re going undercover as historical archivists who specialize in family histories. I thought it best if we didn’t tip him off to our investigation.”
“Right.” The thought of my own flat made my skin crawl. It was ridiculous. Nothing bad had even happened there, but I couldn’t shake the thought of unseen feet treading my halls, of eyes watching from the outside, tracking my every movement. “Weird request. Will you come with me? I’ll explain what happened yesterday if you do.”
“Sure,” Fletcher agreed, studying the look in my eyes, noting the anxiety there.
This was a pattern with me, I was starting to notice. I became paranoid far too easily. On our last big case, I’d been convinced we were being stalked then, too, constantly checking the mirrors as I drove to make sure no one was following us. I had good reason to be paranoid, but I also had a tendency to take it too far too fast.
“Did you hear about the fire outside the marina yesterday?” DC Owens appeared at Fletcher’s elbow, making me jump as my heart rate spiked at the mention of the fire. “Dunnel gave me the case. The fire service suspects arson.” Owens acted like each new case was his first one, excitement colouring his words. My stomach sickened. I hadn’t left any evidence that I’d been there, had I? I didn’t think so, but it had all happened so fast. I couldn’t be sure.
Fletcher shot daggers at me with her eyes, quickly putting two and two together, and I glared back at her, trying to tell her to knock it off before Owens picked up on our silent conversation.
He remained oblivious though. “Have you ever worked an arson case before?” he asked, and it took me way longer than it should have to realize that he was talking to me.
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
Owens’ shoulders fell just slightly. “Oh. I was hoping I could get some advice.”
“You’re a smart lad. You’re good at your job. I’ve no doubt you’ll do fine,” I promised him because he seemed like he needed some encouragement.
He perked up immediately and grinned at me. “Thanks. That means a lot. I should go since it’s only the other side of town. I just wanted to see if you had any advice.” He saluted me even though he definitely didn’t need to do that and hurried off, the starched fabric of his trousers swishing together loudly.
As soon as he was gone, Fletcher leaned all the way over both our desks to hiss, “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I shot back. “I told you I’d explain later. Also, can we get some lunch before we go see MacPherson? I’m starving.”
“You’re buying,” Fletcher said.
“Fair enough.”
We stopped for burgers and chips on our way to my flat, and as promised, I forked over the cash for it. Fletcher carried the bags as I gathered my still wet coat out of the back seat and unlocked the door. I put the fan in the bathroom on full blast and opened a window as I spread the coat out across the tiled floor. By the time I reached the kitchen, Fletcher was already eating chips right out of the bag, not bothering to grab a plate even though she knew where I kept them.
“Spill,” she said. “Or I’m holding your lunch hostage.”
I snatched the bag out of her hand, feeling very defensive about the food, and she grinned as I peeked inside to make sure she hadn’t stolen anything.
As we ate, I told her everything from receiving the email, to my talk with the Kraken, to the fire and my escape. I even mentioned how I wound up at Rayla’s flat. I threw my dead brick of a phone on the table, and Fletcher tried to get it to work herself.
“So you spent the night at Rayla’s?” she asked suggestively, waggling both eyebrows.
I threw a chip at her, but she picked it up and ate it with a self-satisfied grin. “Yes, I did. I don’t want to hear any judgement from you.”
Fletcher drew her fingers across her lips and locked them, throwing away the key, but there was mirth in her eyes, and I didn’t believe her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, and some of the amusement fell off her face, replaced by the tiniest smidge of hurt. “We’re a team.”
“It did say come alone,” I said, but I knew it was a feeble excuse. She deserved a proper answer. “I sort of stopped thinking as soon as I got that email. I guess I didn’t want to ruin my chance to learn about my father. At the moment, I thought the best way to do that was to follow the instructions. You could have gotten hurt.”
“You could have gotten hurt!” Fletcher shot back. She threw down her half-empty chip packet and crossed her arms. “I’m not looking for someone to protect me. We’re partners, Callum. We’re supposed to run headlong into stupid situations together or not at all.”
I laughed at that. “Alright, you win. Next time I receive a cryptic email, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.”
“Good,” Fletcher said and nodded firmly. She could only maintain the serious expression for a couple of seconds before she broke into a grin and attacked her food once more.
“So long as we agree here and now that if one of us dies, it’s not the other’s fault,” I added.
“No chance,” Fletcher said, shaking her head. “I fully plan on haunting your arse if I bite it first.”
“Fair, but only if I can haunt you, too.”
“Deal.” Fletcher and I shook on it, grinning at each other, and then focused on finishing our lunch. I wadded everything up and threw it in the bin and went to get ready for our meeting while Fletcher lounged on the sofa with her boots up on the coffee ta
ble, reading something on her phone.
I took a quick shower, just to make extra sure I’d gotten all of the ocean smell off me, and got dressed, running a comb through my hair to force it into some semblance of order before I found a clean, dry pair of boots. I had to settle for a black pea coat rather than my coat, and my legs felt very exposed without the usual flap of fabric all around them.There was a very old phone in my sock drawer, left over after my last upgrade, so I swapped my SIM card into it and waited as the thing booted up, plugged in to get a bit of a charge.
“Ready to go?” I asked, poking my head into the living room.
“You look like a different person. It’s weird,” Fletcher informed me, referring to my missing coat.
“Thank you because I wasn’t sensitive enough about it already,” I said blandly.
Fletcher threw her feet to the ground with a loud thump, and we went out to the car, leaving for our meeting with the illustrious Mr MacPherson with time to spare. I stuck my phone’s cord into the console so it could finish charging.
“Let’s talk about this undercover thing,” I said while I drove. “Why?”
“I mean, the guy reacted really aggressively the last time he thought someone was investigating him, so I thought it would be better not to show our hand right away,” Fletcher explained. She picked at something in her teeth and then popped the lid on the armrest between our seats so she could dig out the pack of gum she knew I kept there. “MacPherson is absolutely obsessed with his family history, so maybe if we butter him up a bit, he’ll let something slip. Besides, I’ve always wanted to go undercover.”
I honked at a car as it cut me off changing lanes, but the other driver completely ignored me and sped away. “What names did you give us?”
“Mara Dourne,” she said, pointing to herself. “And you’re Jax Fleming. We work for the historical society in Edinburgh, and we’re travelling Scotland to gather stories from living members of ancient families.”
“You can handle all that,” I said. Without more time to prepare, it was usually better if one person did most of the talking about your fake backgrounds, that way the story didn’t get warped. Fletcher clapped her hands together excitedly and popped her gum, the sound rather like a shot in the confines of the car.
The MacPherson estate was just outside the city centre, set up almost like how a castle would have been when Inverness was first established. MacPherson claimed his family had been there since the 13th century, and that was certainly possible. There were some old, old families in Scotland.
A gate separated the estate from the rest of the city. Its bars were thick and dark with heavy-looking spikes topping each one, the fence running all around the property. The MacPherson crest, a sitting wildcat, was emblazoned on the centre of the gate in gold, one paw raised as if in greeting. A little white gatehouse sat beside the road, and I came to a smooth stop in front of it, unrolling my window as a man in a maroon uniform tunic with golden buttons approached, stooping to look into the car.
“Can I help you, sir?” he asked pleasantly, his face the carefully cultivated mask of someone who’d worked in retail for a long time. A square-edged cap sat on his head, nestled on top of his perfectly coiffed hair.
Fletcher leaned around me to offer him a grin. “Hi. Fleming and Dourne here. We’ve an appointment with Mr MacPherson?”
The guard nodded as if he recognized our names. “May I see your IDs please?” My heart jumped in my throat, but Fletcher produced two membership cards for the Edinburgh Historical Society and passed them over. I caught a glimpse of them as they went past my face, and they looked remarkably realistic. She’d used our work ID photos, and mine even looked like it was used, rather than recently printed. “One moment please.”
He stepped back into his little hut to look over our IDs, and I watched as he picked up the corded phone at his station, presumably dialling up to the house. I couldn’t hear what was said, but he nodded a couple of times before hanging up. He came back to the car and returned our IDs to us, giving us another pleasant if slightly bland smile. “Everything looks to be in order. Make your way straight up the drive and the right lane around to the parking at the back. Mr MacPherson’s assistant, Emily, will meet you there.”
“Thank you,” I said as I accepted our fake IDs.
The guard pressed a button inside the hut, and the gate cracked along the ceiling, carefully keeping the wildcat whole, and swung open silently but for the whirr of the motor. I waved goodbye to the man and urged the car up the slightly steep gravel drive.
The long drive took us through a patch of soft, freshly green forest. The ground was covered in red and green moss and bracken, looking ready to swallow your foot if you took even a single step into its midst, and more lichen grew up the trunks of the trees so that they looked like giants’ arms wrapped in blankets.
We broke out of the little patch of woods thirty seconds later, and the MacPherson estate rose up before us. My breath caught, and I eased off the accelerator for a moment as I stared at it. The building was three storeys tall, built of the most magnificent red brick I’d ever seen, some kind of white stone creating accents around the windows and massive double doors. There were little round towers on the front corners of the building, and the Scottish flag flew off one of them, the parapets marching along like they belonged on an actual castle. I could see part of an ornate garden off to the left, splashed with bright colours as the flowers had begun to bloom. The lawn was perfectly landscaped, swelling in gentle hills between the cultivated forest and the house itself. There was even a babbling brook churning its way happily into the trees, the rocks in its bed slick and smooth and perfect.
Fletcher whistled, taking it all in through her window as I turned to the right and followed the smaller strip of gravel towards the back of the estate. “Wow,” she said.
Wow was right.
There were a few other cars in the little round car park, but none of them screamed uber-wealthy, so presumably, they belonged to the staff. I turned off the engine, and when I climbed from the car, the scent of fresh mown grass and pollen filled my nose. It was particularly pleasant after the sour stench of smoke and ocean brine that I sometimes caught a whiff of at the back of my throat when I took a breath.
The back door had swung open at the sound of our approaching car, and a woman in red heels and a dark grey tailored suit came out, waiting for us at the bottom of the steps. Her glasses darkened in the sun, her hair pulled back into the tightest ponytail I had ever seen. “Mr Fleming? Ms Dourne?” she asked as we stopped before her.
Fletcher nodded and stuck out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
The woman, Emily, shook Fletcher’s hand once, her wrist dainty and pale within the cuff of her blazer. “Mr MacPherson is finishing up another call, but if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to his office.”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed back up the stairs, heels clacking on the stone. Fletcher and I glanced at each other before we followed her, walking side by side into the massive house.
“Holy shit,” I whispered before I could stop myself. If this was the back entrance, then what did the main hall look like? The floor was white and marbled with thin threads of black and dark blue, and matching columns rose to support the high ceiling. The walls were made of dark, sumptuous wood to contrast the cold white, swapping to a sumptuous blue and gold wallpaper halfway up.
“Follow me please,” Emily repeated when she realized that Fletcher and I had stopped to gaze around the room with open mouths.
“Sorry,” I said, and we hurried after her.
There was a set of stairs hidden behind a bookcase, which I thought was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen, and the gleam in Fletcher’s eye said she felt the same. The staircase was plain compared to the rest of it, made of simple wood and single handrail leading upwards. We followed it up to the top floor, and the door spat us out into a long hallway with a thick, purple and blue carpet underfoot. Th
ere were oil landscape portraits spaced evenly down the corridor, shining in the lamplight coloured to look like actual candles. The wood panels on the wall had a nice glow to them as we walked down the hall.
The estate didn’t scream ‘lair of an evil mastermind’ to me. It said more ‘incredibly rich man who liked to show off how obscenely rich he is.’
Emily took us to the far end of the corridor and the final door. All the other ones we passed were tightly closed, giving no clue as to what lay beyond. Emily knocked lightly on the door, waited until she heard a deep, bass voice call for her to enter, and then she opened the door, and we followed her inside.
MacPherson’s office looked almost exactly like Thomas Holden’s office, the rich, old, American collector who’d ordered the kidnapping of Finn Wair. Almost every piece of furniture was made out of rich mahogany which reflected the light of his desk lamp and the electric candelabra on the armoire. The bookshelves lining the walls were half-filled with leather tomes, the other half filled with odd curios in glass jars, the largest of which was an impressive model ship.
MacPherson sat behind the desk in a tall, leather-backed chair. His strong-boned face was lit up by the glow of his laptop. He had broad, bushy eyebrows that were perfectly plucked, his eyes blue and sharp beneath them. His hair was blonde going grey in the regal way that only the very rich could manage. His dark mauve tie looked like it was cinched tight enough to choke, held to his white shirt with a gold clip. His dark suit probably cost more than I made in a year, cufflinks glinting at the ends of his sleeves.
He offered us a smile as we entered. There was something slick and oily about the expression despite its intended pleasantness.
“Your four o’clock,” Emily explained. “Mara Dourne and Jax Fleming from the Edinburgh Historical Society.” She nodded once and then left us alone with the patriarch of the MacPherson family.
The Hidden Eye Page 21
