Fletcher by David Horscroft Read Free Book Online Page B

curling out from under his hood. He must have been eighteen at the time, and despite his age I’ve only ever known or referred to him as ‘the boy’.
    There was something about him that didn’t quite fit in, as if he had been photoshopped onto the train scene. As I looked at him, the sullen eyes rose and met mine. We had silently stared at each other until the train ground to a halt, and he stood and left just as quietly. Two days later, he was dead. Car crash; gone on impact.
    Despite the interest he had sparked, I thought little of it. People make eye contact with me. People die. There had to be some intersection. It’s also not an unnatural occurrence; that is, people seem more likely to die after coming into contact with me. I’m just the Typhoid Mary of Bad Karma.
    I had completely put it out of my mind when I met his gaze again, one month later, across a crowded airport terminal.
    My first reaction was disbelief. But it was definitely him: the same ice-blue eyes, the same tanned face and the same peroxide hair. He maintained eye contact unblinkingly as my mind went through the next stages: suspicion, self-doubt and finally confusion, and he was gone again before my mind finished whirring.
    Twelve sightings and twelve deaths later, but I finally had a lead to follow up. Alexander Sturrock.
     
    ***
     
    The view from Sturrock’s bedroom was expansive. In a better time, it would have bordered on breathtaking, but the lush greenery of the city park had long since withered to neglect.
    I spent a long time standing in the moonlight before he spoke to me. I’d heard the change in breathing a while ago, as he woke, but remained at the window.
    “Who sent you?” he asked.
    “Interesting way to start. Don’t bother pressing your emergency button again, I’ve disabled it.”
    I didn’t tell him that I disabled it by re-routing the wires into his doorman’s eyes. Some things are best left for the morning.
    “Were you expecting someone? You’re...calm?”
    “I’ve been waiting for this for a few weeks now. A little surprised it took you guys so long.”
    You guys?
    I nonchalantly put a hand on the knife in my belt, trying not to betray my puzzlement.
    “What you’re looking for is in my bedside drawer. I don’t want trouble.” He sounded genuine; not defeated, but resigned to whatever fate he thought I had in store for him.
    I stepped out of the moonbeam, but didn’t reach the bedside. I’d seen no guns in Sturrock’s record, but his strange behaviour worried me. The drawer could be trapped, or it could hold a weapon. I drew the knife and pointed it towards him, while getting a better look. His grey hair was thinning beyond his years.
    “Open it. Just open it. If you reach inside, I—”
    “It’s not primed to explode. And I’m not armed. Like I say, I don’t want trouble.”
    He leaned over and slid the drawer out. I stepped closer—knife still trained on my target—and reached inside. I found a large envelope, and drew it out.
    “What’s this?”
    “It’s my report, of course. Why else would you be here?”
    I tore off the top and pulled out a paper booklet, then jumped across the room to read by moonlight. Sturrock waited patiently.
    The cover was pretty simple. “Autopsy Report,” it read, “Decedent: James F Crawford”. I rolled the name around my head, trying to get a feel for it. It wasn’t nearly as exotic as I’d expected, and I realised it was more familiar than it should be. I skipped ahead on the text and glared at the photos.
    It was Sturrock’s turn to be surprised. I flung the paper across the room and hissed at him, knife rising like an angry cobra.
    “What the hell is this?”
    “It’s—it’s exactly what you want!”
    “Some stupid report about some stupid police commissioner?” I was hurling my vowels like darts. Alex’s calm demeanour broke upon the tirade and he shrank back into his bed.
    “You have a daughter, she lives on the east side and I will send you