When Eyes Don't Lie

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Detective Inspector Callan Cameron stood in front of the coffee machine at the police station, debating whether he should finish his shift with a black coffee. This case of that missing woman had been mind-sucking.

Why were the damned police from the next town so keen on finding her? She’d disappeared, but there was no ransom note, nor any clue except for surveillance footage showing the woman driving into Loch Fuar using a rental car.

That led him to question: who’d inform the police she was missing?

When his phone buzzed, Callan’s gaze flickered over to it. Now what? Had Douglas’s doaty cat played mischief again? Mischief it was not, Callan deduced. Rather, it was the overwhelmed voice of the neat and tidy Ms Aileen Mackinnon.

Cottage, she muttered. Dead woman.

Based on what he knew of the landscape—owing to his morning run—Callan had chanced upon a sorely dilapidated structure on Dachaigh’s property. The rundown thing was in such a poor state that it hadn’t been used for the past six decades.

Callan could’ve enjoyed the thrill of the drive through the rocky terrain and the unyielding rain if it hadn’t been for the tremor in Aileen’s voice. Instead, he frowned, a checklist running through his mind.

He first had to make sure Aileen was fine and not under any threat. And he needed to know what she was doing out there in this vengeful weather.

That woman was a wee bit aff her heid.

The light in the cottage shone as Callan’s rugged car bumped along the rough road. He clasped his calloused hands over the sandy surface of the steering wheel.

The screech of his tyres could be heard over the beat of the rain. Shielding himself against the downpour, Callan jumped out of his vehicle and sloshed his way over to the dilapidated cottage.

Just outside the door, he made out a huddled figure with drenched hair and shivering shoulders. He caught Aileen’s arms and pulled her from her fetal position. She winced as she moved but didn’t say a word.

Was she shuddering from the cold or from the sight she’d seen inside?

Her soft coat shielded her against the rain, but her lips had turned a sickening shade of blue. Bet she couldn’t feel a thing through the numbness in her body. Despite the mucky weather, Aileen’s perfume reminded Callan of summer and melons.

He was standing too close.

Callan led Aileen to his car. The last thing he needed was for her to faint. Aileen’s usually flushed cheeks appeared peaky, and her wet brown hair was black. Her pearly skin shone like a ghost against his car’s headlights.

That she hadn’t taken shelter inside, despite the weather, meant something terrible awaited him… Or she was concerned about contaminating the crime scene.

Callan held her trembling body close to his, offering his warmth. Those brown irises showed some signs of shock.

He pushed her into the worn leather seat of his heated car. ‘Stay.’

With that, Callan marched towards the cottage again, this time for the apparent dead woman inside.

Callan, now geared up to assess the scene, scrutinised the cadaver.

A single sigh was all he allowed himself. This had to be Marley Watson, the former innkeeper at Dachaigh. The same woman he’d spent the entire day searching for.

Now, with her feet bare to the icy wind, her almost creamy ankle-length dress flapped in the wind. Its hem was muddied and the woman who wore it was a ghost. Her skin was whitish blue. After all, she was no longer breathing.

What had saved some horror for Aileen was the dead woman’s head, which had rolled onto her shoulders, hiding the face behind a curtain of long blonde hair still fluttering in the wind that gushed around the tiny cottage.

Her dress wasn’t damp. Meaning she had either died a while ago and the wind had dried her, or she’d snuck in here before the storm.

Callan analysed the rest of the tiny cottage with his keen eye that left nothing unnoticed. There wasn’t anything of significance, apart from the one lamp that illuminated the room. Its illuminance was bright enough to draw attention from afar.

So someone could find her.

The rest of the wooden interiors had heaps of scrap, some cut wires, broken alcohol bottles, and he scrunched up his nose. That’s boggin. Death fused with acidic dried urine.

This cottage must have played host to some minced bampots. If he swept this place, Callan was sure he’d find emptied alcohol bottles along with an illegal powder or two.

Tilting his neck, he stared at the slumped chair beside the body.

A potential suicide? Could it be?

Another car’s honk shattered through the drenched landscape, interrupting his thoughts. It must be the detective from Loch Heaven, their neighbouring town. He got here quick.

DI Declan Walsh strode in, hunched in his patent trench coat and hat.

‘Is that the innkeeper?’

Callan c****d his head. ‘Former innkeeper.’ And wasn’t he grateful for that?

He didn’t continue to scrutinise that wayward thought.

Callan had already decided: this was his case. The Loch Heaven police could definitely assist, but Callan had no interest in partnering with them on this. He was better off alone… But Aileen had been a good partner. Callan pinched himself.

While others described her as shy, she’d only subjected Callan to her feisty side. He pursed his lips to hold in the small smile. He loved bickering with that woman… Callan clenched his hands.

He best give DI Walsh some private time with the body. This ramshackle cottage was so small, the two burly officers barely had space to stand, let alone objectively study the scene.

Leaving Walsh alone, he approached the shivering woman waiting in his car.

Aileen, lips pinched, slouched over the heated air vents. Her eyes were dreamy as she stared listlessly.

On Callan’s rap at the window, she almost flew out of her seat, hands pressed over her chest. At least they’d been partly restored to a more humanlike colour.

Callan wanted to draw those small hands into his larger ones and warm them up, warm her up.

Shut up!

Aileen painted a scowl on her face and rolled down the window. Ah, here goes the feisty bomb. ‘Can’t you be gentle?’

‘It was only a knock.’ Callan smirked, knowing it would irk Aileen. Anything to get some colour back into her face and a twinkle in her eyes.

‘What do you want?’ She snapped, although a little feebly.

Callan had found great joy in annoying the heck out of Aileen from the first time they’d met. Since that fateful encounter, she’d always had her hackles up around him. He found it rather endearing.

And now it worked, getting that flush into her cheeks again. ‘Why did ye think taking a nightly walk would be a great idea in this fantastic weather?’

Tufts of white smoke wafted out of her mouth as she huffed like a child throwing a tantrum. ‘I was trying to help! I saw the light, came down here.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

‘It’s quite a distance.’ Callan squinted at his watch. ‘About fifteen minutes from the inn, considering the uneven land.’

Aileen explained her theory that it had to be young lads messing about. ‘I just wanted to caution them. It’s not the best place or weather to be… Not in your senses.’

And if the killer had been around? Callan let that thought go. It was not something he wanted to be thinking about. He glanced over his shoulder at the cottage. He’d pulled the splintered, creaky door shut behind him. But the scene was hard to forget. Suicide, this didn’t seem like.

The lonely Scottish wilderness was a rather unusual place to kill oneself. But he narrowed his eyes. Best not to draw conclusions yet.

The medic team came, drenching the dark landscape in dancing red, white, and blue lights. Their shrill sirens joined the raging weather.

Aileen’s unblinking gaze followed him as he spoke with the detective from Loch Heaven.

Callan sauntered over and sat beside her in the car, thawing his sniffing nose and rubbing his hands together. It was about to be a long night.

Aileen shivered, clearly uncomfortable in her damp clothes.

‘I’ll drive ye back. Do ye need me to call anyone? Isla?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve seen death before.’ Was she convincing herself or him?

The death she had come across had been in the bright morning light. ‘Ye didn’t discover those bodies alone.’ Callan pointed out.

The car bumped down the Highland roads, its headlights barely a match for the heavy darkness.

Revenge, that’s what nature was after. As if in a desperate attempt to seek vengeance against the atrocities inflicted by humankind, thunder struck, rain pelted with rage, and the wind spared not even the verdant trees.

Under the hateful dark clouds, the former gleeful highland landscape in the North-Western region of Scotland stretched around a lonesome century-old stone inn.

The white stone bricks and pastel blue window frames could remind a passerby of better, drier times. A warm glow from within the house reminded one of home. And Dachaigh was home to Ms Aileen Mackinnon.

Callan helped Aileen inside the inn, his hands placed onto the back of her damp coat. He didn’t know what to say. Emotions had never been his forte. Especially around Aileen.

Based on her slouched figure, the innkeeper was ready to bawl her eyes out. That calm demeanour he had come across vanished, replaced by a vulnerable woman.

She ferociously bit into her tender lips. ‘Who… Who was she?’

‘I don’t officially know.’ Callan replied softly.

Watery brown orbs met his. ‘Unofficially?’

Callan sighed. ‘Marley Watson.’

Aileen gasped and gaped at him. ‘The former innkeeper?’

Without permission, his hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed gently.

Aileen faced him, her bottom lip quivering. Instead of giving in to the tears fast pooling in her eyes, she nodded. ‘Thank you for getting there so quickly.’

Clearing his throat, Callan tugged at his coat. ‘It’s my job.’

The back of his neck prickled. It was his job to protect people. He had sworn by it. But with Aileen? It was different.

He better get out of here before he made an utter fool of himself.

Briskly, he bid farewell.

What had he been thinking, touching her? Eejit!

Callan returned to the police station, a little weary of his behaviour with Aileen. Why had he reacted to Aileen’s vulnerability in such a manner?

Bah! He wasn’t the sort who thought about emotions. He’d prefer not to have any.

Shaking himself out of his vicious thoughts, he stalked over to the coffee machine. Guess he would be working overtime today.

The door to the office swung open to reveal the hunched figure of DI Walsh. It was funny how this man dressed: a trench coat and a hat that covered most of his dark cocoa skin. A clichéd detective.

Callan pointed at the mug. ‘Coffee?’

Walsh shook his head and sighed. ‘I hoped we’d find her alive.’

Callan took a long sip and leant his hip on the desk. ‘What do ye think?’

His fellow officer shrugged. ‘It’s got to be a suicide. Perhaps she was running away from her life.’

This was not a suicide, of that he was certain. Callan stared out into the damp night questions running through his mind. Where were the woman’s shoes? But he didn’t want to cloud his colleague’s thought process. He’d get there, eventually.

Callan finished his dark brew, enjoying its bitterness, and stalked towards his office.

Walsh followed behind. ‘I need to call my superior.’

‘I’d like to work on this case.’ Callan told him.

Walsh’s gaze was wary as he walked out, busy dialling.

Callan had encountered Walsh’s superior officer once. The man had sat behind his desk and sent the other detectives scurrying, making him coffee and getting him his lunch. The man’s job had been so sloppy that the perpetrator had almost got away.

Callan pulled out his whiteboard. It was time to start his murder board.

Marley Watson, he scrawled in his less than legible hand. Why had she run away? Had she run away? Why to Loch Fuar?

Callan scratched his chin. So many questions he couldn’t answer yet.

He had to consider the possibility of suicide. In that case, where was the suicide note? He scribbled that question down.

Footsteps strode towards his office. Callan tilted his head to face the door, waiting for DI Declan Walsh to enter.

The man’s face was emotionless. ‘I’m sorry, but my superior officer thinks we should head this investigation since Ms Watson was a resident of Loch Heaven.’

Callan’s jaw hardened. They couldn’t leave out of solving this case! It was his. ‘She was found dead in Loch Fuar.’

Gingerly, Walsh nodded. ‘Someone reported her to missing in Loch Heaven, Detective. And we want to get to the bottom of this.’

Callan took a breath to calm his boiling blood. ‘Detective Walsh-’

The infernal ringing of the phone cut Callan short. He stared at the handset. ‘s**t!’ Callan picked up the receiver.

‘Callan.’ It was Rory Macdonald, Callan’s superior officer.

He bobbed his head, even though his boss couldn't see him. Callan’s voice was clipped as he spoke, ‘Rory.’ Luckily Rory valued formality as an errant pupil his teacher.

When usually his boss would crack a joke, he sighed. ‘I got a call from the Loch Heaven police.’ He began.

Callan shut his eyes, frustration like salt on an open wound. This was going to be a long call, and Callan knew he couldn’t refuse his boss.

Precisely fifteen minutes later, Callan’s head throbbed. Rory in his own way had asked Callan to hand this case over. They hadn’t the resources or the expertise Loch Heaven had. Callan had bristled at the last excuse.

But Rory was merely repeating what he and his colleague at Loch Heaven had discussed. His boss thought their town was still recovering from the murders that had shaken it a month or so ago and handing this case over was a good idea.

Damn it! Callan wanted to solve this case. And he knew he’d do a better job than any other detective.

Not wanting to be disrespectful, Callan rubbed his forehead and conceded. Walsh nodded and left him alone in that all too quiet office in the Town of Saints.

But, Callan mused, he’d promised no one he wouldn’t work this case alone, out of office hours. He’d bring Marley Watson the justice she deserved because she’d died here, all alone. And even a rookie could figure out it wasn’t a suicide.

No, as a detective, it was his duty to get to the bottom of this. It was his oath and he better live up to it, office politics be damned.

Callan set to work, meticulously pinning up pictures and jotting down notes on his murder board. He was good at this, solving a murder. How an addict craved a hit of caffeine; he craved a good crime he could solve. He would not give up until he investigated this and figured out the answer.

Aileen could’ve been a corpse. She hadn’t slept a wink. Why had last night’s scene affected her this much?

As she had told Callan, her eyes were no stranger to a dead body, even a brutally murdered one.

But this one, this one, had been like a ghost. She’d been so lonely, swinging in the blowing wind, stuck in a crumbling structure surrounded by inky darkness and the solitary Highlands.

Aileen rubbed warm palms over her spiky arms, hugging herself tightly. It felt like unfinished business.

Brewing herself a coffee, she sat by the kitchen counter, lost in thought. Just then, the back door flew open. A flustered, yet energetic, middle-aged woman with green eyes and wild hair gushed in like the wind.

‘Oh, it’s a storm out there! I was worried you’d face issues…’ She broke off.

‘Isla!’ Aileen remarked. ‘It’s pouring out, what are you doing here?’

‘Oh, oh.’ She jogged around the counter and pulled Aileen in a hug. ‘I heard you saw the body. Are you okay?’

Aileen patted Isla’s back. ‘’Twas unexpected, to say the least. And it made me wonder who Marley really was. She seemed rude and disinterested when I first got here. So I fired her. But I didn’t know her at all.’

Isla swatted a hand in the air. ‘She worked at Dachaigh for about two months, from when Siobhan had to leave, and you came along. And I don’t have to tell you, she made a mess. And despite being here for those two months, she never once showed her face in town. Andrew would cycle down to Dachaigh and deliver the bread.’

‘Why did you stop delivering bread?’ Aileen took a sip of her tepid coffee.

Bobbing her head, Isla said, ‘Andrew told me she was being rude. She refused to pay full price and shouted awful words at that poor boy.’

Yes, the dead Marley had been a nasty woman indeed.

Aileen sighed, and a small smile broke on her face. She’d needed her best friend and here Isla was. She confessed. ‘It was a bad day, yesterday. The police are investigating the murder. Everything will be alright.’

Isla walked towards the refrigerator and pulled out a tub of ice cream. Shaking it, she said, ‘Coffee won’t help. This, my dearie, is the best medicine.’ Two spoons in hand, Isla sank into the chair beside Aileen. ‘Don’t remind me about yesterday.’ She muttered.

Aileen’s eyebrows scrunched up in a frown. ‘Why?’

A loud silence followed. When Isla didn’t speak but continued to stare at the ice cream tub, Aileen twiddled her spoon, waiting.

‘Daniel and I fought.’ Isla’s green eyes were watery pools.

Aileen laid a hand over hers. ‘Oh, Isla!’

She didn’t have to nudge her much, Isla picked up from there. ‘He’s a man! So typical! He told me I’m eating too much candy. He thinks I’m putting on weight and… He said I’ve been stress eating.’

Isla stuffed a big scoop of ice cream in her mouth and swirled it around before continuing. ‘Me, stress eating? I’m never stressed! Besides, who is he calling me fat?’ Isla sniffed, raising her chin in mock defiance.

Aileen tried to think about Daniel, the handyman who’d helped her restore the dilapidated inn she’d walked in on a few months before.

He was a delightful, polite man who made decent conversation. He would never badmouth his wife. They had genuine affection for the other and if Daniel thought his wife was stress eating, then she was.

‘Did he comment upon your physique?’ Aileen ventured.

Isla shook her head. ‘But he told me I’m eating too much sweet stuff. What am I supposed to do? An evil eye is the worst thing to happen.’

‘Eye? What’s wrong with your eyes?’

Isla glanced heavenward. ‘Not my eyes! A lady came into the shop yesterday. She wanted shortbread. I said I have a pack of ten, but she wanted twenty. I asked her to wait because I had to bake them. We ran out as we always do. And I want to increase capacity, but there’s never enough time or space!

‘But that lady made me feel all shivery. She got angry. Muttered something under her breath, but it sounded like a curse. And then she looked at me, like, like I was a rat and she was the cat. No, no, that’s not right…’ Isla shuddered. ‘She gave me the evil eye. Oh, Aileen, it was a sign indicating something terrible! Oh, oh… Her eyes: one was blue and the other, a sinister bright green!’

Aileen blinked. Was Isla right? Did the evil eye indicate murder?

Of course not! She was being silly, overreacting. But something continued to nag.

Marley Watson.

Aileen had turned her out just months before, hadn’t she? Without a thought to whether the woman had somewhere to go. Had Marley lost her life just because Aileen wanted to keep the inn pristine?

What if Marley hadn’t been able to pay a debt and had killed herself because of that? Or was she living on the streets because she had nowhere to go?

When Aileen didn’t speak for a while, Isla squeezed Aileen’s shoulder. ‘Oh, Aileen! Don’t worry. I didn’t mean to spook you. I assumed you don’t believe in the supernatural. And they say if you focus on someone else’s troubles, you forget your own.’

Aileen shrugged. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Tell me, what’s wrong?’

Aileen took a shaky breath. ‘It’s just, these murders. I mean… Seeing her shook me, I guess. It didn’t when I saw the other body, you know, at Dachaigh back in May. But yesterday, it was so unexpected, so eerie.’

Isla reached for Aileen’s hand and squeezed tenderly.

Gazing at her kind green eyes, Aileen let the last bit flow. ‘I can’t help but feel she died because of me. I fired her, without a single thought about her safety.’

Isla watched the rain patter against the windowsill. When it had been storming the previous evening, it was just grey and damp today. Facing Aileen again, Isla said, ‘Oh, Aileen! You think too much, dearie. Work is work, and we all know what a terrible job Marley had done with the inn. You couldn’t let her stay on and destroy Siobhan’s hard work.’

But Aileen’s conscience didn’t agree with Isla. She had played a hand in the death of a person. Another wrong decision. When would she learn to think?

‘What should I do?’ She groaned.

Isla sat up, energetically clicking her fingers. ‘I know! You should solve this case with Callan.’

Aileen snorted. The last thing the broody detective wanted was to join forces with her. He had made it crystal clear what he thought about partners.

But Isla had got it into her head that Aileen and Callan were a perfect match. She began, a fiend for gossip. ‘It would be perfect, Aileen! You need to solve this case. For some people, it helps to bury what they’ve witnessed, but for you? The only way you can put this demon to rest is by actively fighting it.’

Aileen shut her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do.’

Pursing her lips, Isla said, ‘Siobhan always follows her heart. It was something she taught me when I came here from Stirling, lost and in search of a new life. She was the one who encouraged me to follow my heart’s desire. Your heart will lead you north. Listen to it and follow it. Nothing wrong will come from it.’

Narrowing her eyes at Isla, Aileen tried to figure out what her friend meant. It was not entirely to do with the case that much was clear.

But what Isla said made sense. The only way Aileen could find any closure was if she knew why Marley had died this way. Perhaps it would give Marley some conclusion in death. If it did nothing, at least it would correct Aileen’s colossal mistake in some measure.

A bigger smile burst across Isla’s face. ‘Can I help?’

Aileen grinned back, her resolve made. ‘Isla, no one can bring me juice on Marley Watson like you.’

Isla’s nod was so rigorous, Aileen thought her head would fall off. ‘Don’t you worry. I don’t have just my ears to the ground, I have a set of binoculars and high-tech gossip wizards at my beck and call.’

As one, both women cracked up. For another person, that statement would have been an exaggeration but with Isla’s connections, her gossipmonger ways, and her strong nose for scandal, it was no anomaly she had the resources.

And with Isla’s help, Aileen would find Marley’s killer, whatever the stakes may be. Even if that meant browbeating Detective Callan Cameron for information.