Eye Snatcher
Authors: Ryan Casey
The Fourth Brian McDone Mystery
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Ryan Casey
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Eye Snatcher is the fourth book in the Brian McDone series.
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ONE
Sam Betts never liked walking the dog when it was too late at night, but Mummy told him to toughen up. Told him not to be soft.
He walked down the country lane that he lived on, his Yorkshire Terrier, Clara, tugging him along like she always did. The sun was low as it settled over the mountains in the distance. The road was quiet, just like it always was. Sam didn’t like busy roads either. Always felt funny when he was playing outside his friends’ houses and all the busy trucks were driving by.
Sam took in a deep breath of the freezing cold air and blew it out, pretending the steam was from a cigarette. He was eleven, so he didn’t smoke cigarettes. Some of the older boys Jack and Henry hung around with smoked cigarettes and told him he could smoke them too, but he never wanted to. Mummy told him cigarettes killed Grandad, and he couldn’t think why anyone would want to do anything that might kill them. He had his ear pierced anyway, so that made the older boys like him more. Made him seem cooler.
He gripped tight hold of Clara’s lead as she yanked him further down the road and towards the farm track. The sun was getting lower. Sam was hungry too—he could still taste the Dairy Milk chocolate bar from his school lunch and it just made him even hungrier.
But he just had to wait when Mummy had visitors around. He just had to be patient, she told him.
He started to cross the road when he saw a car turn out of Brabiner Lane and zoom around the corner. He stepped back. Pulled Clara back, almost fell over in the process.
The man behind the windscreen stuck his middle finger up.
Sam put his head down and crossed the road, cursing Clara under his breath.
He wasn’t sure where his fear of cars came from. Probably living in the countryside so long. But he hadn’t always lived in the countryside. When he was younger, he’d moved about a lot. His mum split up with his dad and they moved to a horrible little house with a woman next door who stank of wee. And then his mum met another man called Stan who was horrible to him, but he had a nice house so he was okay for that.
But he’d never liked cars. Never liked traffic. Never liked busy places.
“Come on, Clara.”
He yanked Clara along and stepped onto the farm track. Fields surrounded him on either side. Big massive white cows and little calves on the field to the left of him, surrounded by a tiny electric wire that no way could keep them in. The field stunk—stunk of poo and something dead. Mummy used to say she loved that smell. The smell of the countryside. A healthy smell, she said.
Sam couldn’t understand why anyone could find a smell as horrible as that healthy.
He pulled Clara along as she stopped in the middle of the farm track.
“Stupid dog,” Sam said. She always stopped here for some reason. Stopped and panted. Probably because she was old.
And although Sam said she was stupid, he loved her really. She was his best friend.
She kept him company when Mummy was with another man.
Sam walked down the farm track. Got to the bottom of it, turned left to walk down the public dirt track that nobody ever went down but him. He liked to pretend he was in the jungle down there, all overgrown and muddy.
As he looked down it, he saw the sky was darkening. He’d have to be quick. He didn’t want to get stuck out here in the dark.
Clara stopped again. He turned to her. Pulled her. “Come on.”
And then he saw the man at the top of the farm track.
He was dressed in black, from what Sam could see from here. Sam thought it was strange that someone was coming down this track because no one ever came down this track unless they were the farmer or a dog walker. But this man wasn’t a farmer and he didn’t have a dog with him.
He was on his own. Walking fast.
He tugged Clara some more. “Come
on!
Get a move on.”
Sam picked up his pace as he walked in front of the farm. Got a stronger whiff of poo as he walked past the cows, all staring out of the barn.
He kept his head down as he walked past them. Didn’t want to look them in the eyes. He’d done that once when he was younger and they’d chased him and he’d still not got over it.
He looked back over his shoulder as he reached the bottom of the farm entrance, reached the bottom of the dirt track.
The man was still walking down the farm track. About halfway down now. But he was getting harder to see. In the darkness, he was getting harder to see.
“You alright, kiddo?”
The voice to his right made him jump. He looked and saw that it was the farmer. He was balding but had a bit of short dark hair. Sam didn’t know his name, but he always had a friendly face, a friendly smile. He was wearing a red jumper, dirty black combat trousers and wellies up to his knees. He was wiping something off his hands.
Sam nodded fast. He nodded fast and pulled Clara along, cheeks going hot.
He knew he wanted to say something to the farmer about the man coming down the track, but he felt silly for it. What was he supposed to say?
“Who’s that man walking down your track?”
No. That was silly. That was stupid.
He tugged Clara along and kept on walking as the farmer disappeared into the barn.
Sam started walking faster as he moved into the overgrown dirt track. He heard birds singing loud, heard cars zooming down the nearby motorway. He usually let Clara off her lead down here, but he wanted to get back fast. He’d cut through the field opposite his house. Run across it with Clara, where it was all open.
He’d be fine.
He walked across the mud and the stones of the dirt track, his heart pounding as the sun got more orange and closer to the horizon, closer to the fields that the sheep were in. He didn’t want to be stuck out here in the dark. He didn’t want to be stuck out here in the dark with that man who was…
He looked over his shoulder.
A huge weight lifted off his shoulders.
The man who’d walked down the farm track was going in the opposite way to Sam.
Sam couldn’t help but smile. Couldn’t help but smile and laugh. He was being silly all along. Silly to think that man was following him. He probably just lived at one of the big houses in the middle of nowhere. Or he was probably just out for a walk like people did, even though Sam found just walking boring.
He reached down, unclipped Clara from her lead, and let her zoom off down the dirt track.
Because it was getting dark, Sam ran after her. He felt the stones kicking up under his feet, felt mud splash up on his legs. He felt the breeze brush against his face, imagined he was smoking and cool but without the nasty things that real cigarettes did. He imagined Sally from school laughing at his jokes, holding his hand, kissing him.
And then he bumped into something and he heard Clara growling.
He stopped. Looked down. Realised that the thing he’d bumped into was in fact Clara.
She was staring straight ahead. Straight ahead into the darkened, overgrown pathway. Staring into where the path dipped.
“What’s up, girl?”
She kept on growling. Teeth poked out.
As the breeze brushed against the grass verge at the side of the dirt track and the birds sang loud, Sam got a horrible feeling like he was being watched or followed. He looked back over his shoulder. Couldn’t see the man. The man was gone. And then he looked ahead into the darkened dip and he kind of wished the man was there after all.
He thought about turning back. About going back down the dirt track. But then he realised he was being silly. He was so close to the field. So close to home.
Hopefully, Mummy was done with the man now. Hopefully, he’d be able to get home and have some tea.
He took a deep breath to get rid of the butterflies and started walking.
Clara stayed put. Kept growling.
“What is it, girl? Come on, you stupid thing.”
She barked with her little yap. Kicked her hind leg back.
Sam sighed. Stomped over to her, reached down and clipped her on her lead.
“If you’re gonna be like that I’ll drag you along. Stupid…”
When he looked up at the hedges, he saw what Clara was barking at.
Who she was barking at.
The lead dropped from Sam’s hand and Clara fled back down the dirt track, back towards the farm, back up the farm track as darkness fell.
No one heard Sam’s cry.
Seventeen years on the job and a phone call about a dead kid still made Detective Inspector Brian McDone’s stomach turn.
He pulled up outside the abandoned grounds of the old Whittingham Hospital. Rain blasted down on the windscreen, which was just bloody typical of Preston and just bloody typical of a crime scene. Brian had gulped down a coffee before heading out to investigate the scene, but he was regretting it already.
The kids stood by the overgrown entrance to the abandoned old hospital. Teenagers with long hair and black hoodies with heavy metal band names on. They looked pale. Sick to the bone.
“Can’t sit around here all day,” Detective Sergeant Brad Richards said.
“Well, feel free to take the lead,” Brian said. “Crime scene to investigate. Hardly see you raring to get out of your seat.”
Brad had that puffed look to his face. A redness to his cheeks, like he could never quite tell when Brian was being serious or joking. He was a serious guy, really, with an odd sense of humour. Wore a black leather jacket no matter the weather. Jet black hair and glassy grey eyes. He’d worked a few cases with Brian over the last few years, and he was one of the few cops Brian didn’t actually mind.
Which said a lot. A hell of a lot.
Brian grabbed the handle. Heard the rain get heavier, smelled the earthiness outside as he opened the door and hovered a foot over the squelchy muddy ground.
“Could at least have brought some wellies,” Brian said.
“Least you don’t spend much money on your shoes. Might just take my Doc Martens off and go barefoot.”
“I’d pay to see that,” Brian said.
He climbed out of Brad’s black Honda, pulled up his thin hood and stepped out into the rain.
Brian looked over at the abandoned old hospital as it was pelted with rain. Out of control ivy clawed up the sides of the crumbled red brick walls. He’d been here before loads of times. Scrotes like the kids standing outside were always in here at night, sneaking around and camping. Place was a shithole. Fallen to pieces. So there was always somebody getting drunk in here, tripping over and breaking an ankle.
It didn’t even have a proper roof over it, not since it’d closed thirty years ago on the grounds of ill-treatment of its residents. One of the pioneering hospitals in its day.
Which meant it was akin to a torture chamber in today’s modern terms.
Brian and Brad stepped through the thick, sloppy mud towards the three teenagers outside the hospital. One of them had hair longer than any woman Brian had ever seen, wearing geeky thin glasses. He was puking onto the ground while a skinhead with his hood up patted his back. Another guy—muscular and with one of those massive circular earrings that Brian would grill his son Davey if he ever got—was standing by the side and half-smiling at Brian.
“Don’t you just love dealing with kids,” Brian said.
“Thought you were tuned in with the younger generation?” Brad said.
“I’m not sure I’m tuned in with any bloody generation, not anymore. Not with some of the shite they listen to. Can always judge a person’s IQ by how much death metal they listen to.”
“Always struck me as a bit of a rocker yourself.”
“There’s a difference between a rocker and a moron. Now come on. Let’s get this over with.”
The guy throwing up lifted his head when he saw Brian and Brad approaching. He looked at them, opened his spotty mouth to speak, then puked up all over again in the grass.
“Sorry,” the guy above him said. “Just—in there it’s… it’s—”
“Which one of you gents called us?” Brian asked.
The muscular guy lifted a shaky arm. Nodded his head. “I did.”
Brian and Brad walked right past the puker and his friend, the smell of sick mixing with the earthy smell of the early October rain.