The Hidden Eye Read online

  The Hidden Eye

  A DCI Macbain Scottish Thriller

  Oliver Davies

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The Gellions was as bustling as ever. The session musicians crowded around two coffee tables pushed together, the line of their circle stilted and uneven as they’d crammed as many chairs into the small space as conceivably possible. All the booths had been full when I arrived, so I snagged a stool by the bar, watching the way people chattered amongst themselves as I sipped a glass of whisky. The fire in the corner spilled heat and light into the room, and that, combined with the press of bodies, made the pub almost unbearably warm. I shed my coat and scarf as I listened to the music, allowing it to cart me away.

  It had been three weeks since I’d been corralled into telling the tale of the Finn Wair case, and though I’d come to their sessions in the intervening weeks, still hoping Lena Taggert would suddenly show up, I’d declined their requests for another story. Not that I wouldn’t even open up, but those first weeks, I’d been focused on other business.

  When the session paused for a break, the old man with the wart on his nose, who’d dragged me into speaking the first time, joined me at the bar, leaning back on his elbows as he convinced the barman to give him another free drink. I’d learned that his name was Mark Henry, and he’d actually been the landlord of The Gellions up until he retired. He’d been the one to start this session almost twenty years ago, and he was quite proud that it was still going strong today.

  “The lads are itching, wondering if you’ll grace us with another one of your tales tonight,” he said just as the barman plunked a glass down beside his elbow.

  “I reckon I could be convinced,” I said, and Mark lifted two fingers to signal to the barman that I needed a fresh drink.

  I picked it up and followed Mark back to the circle of musicians who had been trying and failing to hide the fact that they were watching our conversation. Every head whipped back around when they realized we were headed their way, the guitar player pretending to tune his guitar while one of the fiddlers reapplied rosin to her bow. I’d watched her do the same thing before the session began, so I knew the hair didn’t need it.

  My knee ached, and I leaned heavily on my cane as I crossed the short expanse to the circle. It was a cold night, and the chill had settled deep into my bones, exacerbating the old injury.

  The musicians cleared a spot for me, shuffling closer together to make space, and I sat on the narrow, well-worn bench pressed up against the wall. Twelve pairs of eyes latched onto me, the expectancy within them making me twitch. I found I didn’t know where to start, or which case to even talk about.

  “Can you tell us about the New Wave Industries case?” the guitar player asked. He was the one who said his parents followed all my cases when he was younger, and I was grateful to him for the idea. His eyes were wide, an eager grin on his lips, and many of the other musicians shifted in their seats as they recognized the name of the now-defunct technology developer. Though it had faded with the years, at the time, everyone knew about the scandal New Wave Industries had been involved in, the one I’d helped bring out into the open.

  I nodded a couple of times. “That was a good one,” I said. “Very exciting.”

  “What about your dad?” a fiddle player piped up.

  “Yeah, what happened to him?” her friend agreed.

  “And where did Lena go?” a woman with a bodhran drum in her lap asked. I stared at the instrument for a moment, eyes flicking to her face even though I already knew it wasn’t her. This woman was the same age as Lena had been when we met, but her hair was black, and she’d painted her lips to match.

  I held up my hands to forestall any more questions. “All in good time,” I promised. “You wouldn’t want me to just give everything away, would you?”

  My audience grumbled that they would not, and the guitar player, Sean, even ran his thumb and finger across his lips like a zip.

  “The New Wave Industries case,” I began as I cast my mind backwards, searching for the best place to begin. “It kicked off only a few months after the Wair case wrapped up…”

  One

  Jacob Greene was in trouble. He’d gotten himself in far too deep, and he didn’t think he’d be able to find his way out again. His only choice was to run as far and as fast as he could. He didn’t have enough time.

  He rushed around his small flat, throwing clothes into a duffel bag, struggling to think of everything a person on the run needed to survive. He had his driver's license, the rainy day fund, his T, and a picture of his partner, but he’d abandoned his credit cards and mobile phone. They could track him through those. He tore apart his cupboards looking for nonperishable food, but the best he could find was a half-empty box of granola bars and a couple packets of crisps. He accidentally smacked the jam jar he used for sugar and knocked it to the ground, the glass shattering, the tiny granules exploding across the floor. He stared at the spill for a long time, unable to comprehend what had happened.

  Tears welled in his eyes. What was he doing? He was a coder. He knew computers and a lot of useless facts about science fiction films. He didn’t know how to flee the country or disappear or survive whatever was coming for him. What had he been thinking? He should have just left well enough alone because now, there was sugar on his floor, and nobody to clean it up, and his flat would get ants, and he would lose his deposit, and there would be people pawing through all of the stuff he left behind, and he couldn’t even say goodbye, and--

  Jacob heard a light thump on the little balcony outside the living room window. He froze, the sugar forgotten as his heart leapt into his throat and strangled him. He struggled to hear anything else over the riot of his pulse. An open doorway led out of the kitchen and curved down a short hall into the dining room, but a wall blocked his view of whatever might be coming in through that window. It also hid him from the intruder, but that thought wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped it would be. He would have to pass through the living room to either retrieve his bag from his bedroom or to make a run for the front door.

  He thought he heard something rattle the window as if seeking entry, and he hoped against hope that it was just his imagination even as he reached behind him and slowly drew a knife from the block by the stove. Jacob gripped the handle in his sweaty fingers, took a deep breath, and crept from the kitchen.

  He poked his head around the corner, trying to peek into the living room without exposing himself too much. All the lights were still on from his desperate rampage through his flat, and he cursed himself. Way to announce that he was home. Way to blind himself to the darkness outside the window while allowing the intruder a perfect view of the inside. Way to be terrible at espionage or whatever you wanted to call it.

  Jacob thought he could see a shadowy form through the glass, but he took several deep breaths and convinced himself it was just a trick of the mind. It was time to bolt. His nerves were going to shake him to pieces if he stayed here much longer. He needed to be out of Inverness before morning.

  Jacob stepped into the living room. His plan was to dash to his bedroom, snag the duffel bag, and then run right out the front door, but he barely made it fi
ve steps before the window shattered, and a figure in black tumbled into the room.

  Jacob froze in his tracks. Every muscle in his body locked up, and his breath caught in his lungs. He could only watch as the figure rose out of a crouch, body reaching up, up, up to crest six feet. The man wore a black jumper beneath a leather jacket, army-style trousers tucked into his heavy boots. His blonde hair was slicked back across his head, and a thick scar ran from the middle of his left cheek, over his jawbone, and a couple of inches down his neck.

  He kept his face uncovered, and that was how Jacob knew he was doomed. The man’s ice blue eyes locked onto him, and his grin sent shivers down Jacob’s spine, pooling in his trainers and welding him to the ground.

  “Who are you?” he squeaked. He didn’t like the high-pitched tenor of his voice or the way his words wobbled all over the place.

  The man’s grin widened, revealing pearly white teeth. Jacob thought his canines should have been long and sharp, but they were perfectly normal, and that was somehow more disturbing.

  “You really stuck your nose in somewhere you shouldn’t have,” the man said. His voice was smooth and bland. It almost reminded Jacob of the voice that came out of his car’s GPS.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You need to leave, now, before I call the police.” Jacob had the vague idea of trying to bluff his way out of this, but he knew the instant the words were out of his mouth that it wasn’t going to work.

  The man knew it, too. He drew a knife from the sheath at his hip. It was a pretty thing, the handle red and glossy while the three-inch blade glittered in the overhead light. Jacob gulped. The knife caught his attention and held it, and he imagined it carving into his flesh, biting deep enough to hit bone.

  “Who else knows?” the man demanded.

  Jacob tore his eyes away from the silver blade. “N-nobody.”

  “Liar,” the man snarled and began to stalk towards him.

  Jacob’s paralysis finally broke. Control washed back over him like water over rocks, and he seized the chair nearest him and heaved it at the man, swinging it up and over the dining table tucked into one corner of the living room. The chair flew awkwardly through the air. The man sidestepped it easily, but Jacob was already moving, running for the front door.

  He slipped on the corner of the rug that was always curling up and out of place. He crashed to the ground in a wild tangle of limbs, smacking his head on the wall as he went down, kitchen knife flying from his hand. Sparks flashed across his eyes, blotting out the world so that he might have been tumbling through space. He lay on the ground, dazed, unable to regain control of his legs as his head continued to spin, but he could hear footsteps coming towards him, slow and ponderous and utterly assured of their own success.

  He needed to move. He wasn’t ready to die. Jacob pushed himself to his knees with trembling arms and raised his head, struggling to focus on the spinning room. The man in black was almost upon him, blue eyes alight like gems glowing within a grinning skull. The knife seemed to stretch and grow as he raised it, and Jacob flung his arm up in a feeble sort of defence, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the man fell on him.

  A searing pain ripped through his arm. He felt the knife part skin, tear muscle and tendon, even scrape bone, and he opened his mouth to scream, desperate to release the agony from his body, but a leather-clad hand clamped tightly around his mouth, grinding his lips into his teeth so that they cut into the soft flesh there, and he tasted blood, rich and coppery and hot enough to burn.

  The man tore his knife from Jacob’s arm with a sickening squelch that sent fresh waves of pain racing through his body. Jacob’s eyes flew open as blood splattered his face, scorching his skin. He would not face this blind and hoping that the darkness behind his eyelids meant none of this was happening. It turned out that death was not black at all but the pale blue of light trapped under ice.

  The man in black reared back, bloody knife raised high over his head, and some kind of ancient instinct took over Jacob’s body. The man knelt over him, legs braced wide for balance, and Jacob had just enough leverage to jerk his knee into the man’s crotch. The man’s face contorted with pain and anger, the knife slipping from his fingers as he clutched the injured area, rocking back and away from Jacob. The blade speared the floor an inch from Jacob’s thigh.

  One-handed, Jacob scrambled backwards, his right arm screaming at him, overloading his senses. His back struck the wall, and he used it to shove himself to his feet, clutching his wound as it pumped red blood in between his fingers. Blood wasn’t actually that colour, he thought wildly. It looked like golden syrup mixed with red food colouring like the kind they used in low budget horror films.

  Jacob pushed off the wall and ran for the front door as the man snatched his knife up and shot to his feet. Jacob stumbled, catching himself on the opposite wall and leaving a smeared handprint in his wake as he steadied himself. There were black spots dancing around the edges of his vision, threatening to coalesce together and sending him pitching into darkness.

  He ran straight into the door and bounced off it, stunned. His hand fumbled for the knob, but it refused to turn, and his fingers slipped round and round in their bloody glove. He sobbed. He had locked it on his way in.

  Half-blind and shaking with pain, Jacob struggled to find the lock and turn it. The man was only seconds behind him and gaining fast. Each footstep was a roll of thunder over the ocean, a pressure on his shoulders rushing ever closer. The spot between his shoulder blades itched, expecting a blade at any second.

  But then the door finally opened and he spilled out onto the landing just above the stairs. The bitter air of the hall hit him like a slap, and he paused, blinking, for just a second before he raced down the steps.

  Jacob began to think that he could make it. If he could get down the stairs and out the door, he could yell for help or make it to his car, do something to attract so many people that this man would have to call off his attack.

  He was halfway to the door when something slammed into his back and knocked him right off his feet. He fell the rest of the way in a confusing tangle of limbs and blood, knocking elbows and knees on the carpeted stairs, banging his head on the wall as he failed to protect it, something hot and heavy radiating out of his back the entire time.

  Jacob crashed into the door and rocked to a halt. It felt as if he’d lost his body and was simply a blob of pain floating in the air. There was something wet coursing down his back, and that dragged him back into his reality of leaden limbs and sticky blood. From where he lay on his side, he could see the man in black descending the stairs with a too blank expression on his face. There was no longer a knife in his hand.

  Ah, Jacob thought rather dimly. That must be the pressure in my back.

  If the knife was in him, then the man in black couldn’t use it to stab him anymore. It was a ludicrous thought, and Jacob began to giggle as he tried and failed, tried, and failed to force himself to his feet once more. The laughter ran away from him, consuming him, the madness of panic overtaking him.

  Jacob managed to get to his knees. He wasn’t sure how. He got his hand around the doorknob, turned it, and pushed, falling outside into the cold night air. He caught himself before he could face plant into the doormat, but his right arm gave way, and he wound up with his cheek ground into the rough bristles anyways.

  He began to crawl like an awkward, three-legged dog or a snail with a crushed shell. The knife in his back was an anvil pushing him towards the ground. He tried to call out, but he couldn’t muster up the strength, his throat sealed from fear and pain.

  “You just couldn’t make it easy,” a voice growled behind him, and a hand seized his hair, dragging him upright as everything inside him screamed in protest.

  The man in black frog-marched Jacob forward a couple of steps and then flung him into the alley just beside the block of flats, ripping the knife from his back in the same motion. Jacob couldn’t even scream. He hit the ground and rolled, c
racking his skull against stone, and the whole world went white.

  By the time his vision cleared, the man in black was on top of him, his knees pinning Jacob’s arms to the ground, his weight heavy on Jacob’s chest. “Please,” Jacob whimpered.

  The man in black just grinned his polished skull grin. His knife came down once, twice, three times, and soon, there was just the pale blue of light beneath the ice, and then Jacob was the light, pounding invisible fists against his prison, seeking to be free, and then even that slipped away into darkness.

  Two

  “How is this supposed to help?” I asked, arms folded across my chest.

  “Stop being a grump. You promised,” Sam said as she studied my father’s photograph of ‘the Loch Ness Monster.’ She’d found it in a hidden pocket within Alasdair MacBain’s briefcase months ago and sent it to me so Martin the lab tech could examine it. He’d found a reflection in the water--some kind of blurry, indistinct form standing behind my father with a stick raised in the air.

  It had taken us four whole months to find a time in our equally busy schedules when we could meet, but we were finally together, down at Loch Ness, looking for something that didn’t exist.

  At least it was a nice day. The seasons were finally starting to turn towards summer, the sun bright in the blue sky among the thick, white clouds. The wind off the loch still had a bit of a bite, and the ends of my overcoat flapped around my knees as Sam grabbed my arms and pushed me into the spot she thought matched where our father stood in the photograph. She hoped we might learn something if we recreated that day.