The apartment had obviously come pre-furnished as the coffee table had deep scratches in it, and the end tables didn’t match. There were a few framed photos scattered around the space as well as a bunch of books stacked all along the large set of windows. Again, I figured if someone had come in that way, they would have knocked everything over, but I still ran my fingers along the latches, searching for any sign of a break.
“No, of course not!” Haruto seemed surprised that Fletcher would even suggest it. He perched awkwardly on the arm of a worn chair, unsure of what to do with himself as we searched his apartment. “I mean, my parents were a little upset that I decided to study and restore European manuscripts rather than Japanese ones, but not enough to send someone to what? Frighten me into coming home?” He laughed. “My father doesn’t even like killing spiders.”
“Has the Archives Centre received any weird messages or attention?” Fletcher perused the books as I finished going over the window. “Is book restoration a, I don’t know, contentious field or something?”
Haruto laughed. “Definitely not. Most people don’t even understand what we do or know that we do it.”
“Nothing here,” I said.
Relief began to creep into Haruto’s eyes.
There wasn’t a window in the small bathroom, so that left just the front door. I went over everything as carefully as I could. A good lock picker would be able to get in and out without damaging anything, but if they were careless enough to leave the door unlocked so Haruto would notice, I was willing to bet they wouldn’t be much good at breaking and entering. As far as I could tell, the entire mechanism looked fine.
I stood, knees creaking slightly, and turned to face Haruto and Fletcher, both of whom had crowded in close behind me, curious. “I don’t see any sign of forced entry,” I told Haruto
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, does it?” He looked like he wanted to believe it was all in his head but was unable to accept it fully.
“True, but more than likely, it means that there’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “Why don’t you point out where you saw the woman and the van?”
It wouldn’t teach us anything, but it would hopefully help put Haruto’s mind at ease. He pointed to a couple of different spots up and down the street, but as I suspected, there was nothing helpful in sight. I was becoming more and more sure this was nothing more than a case of an overactive imagination.
“This is my card,” I said as I dug a slip of paper out of my pocket. “I want you to call me the second you feel like you’re being followed, okay?”
He nodded, slowly taking the card from my hand and looking it over. There was still something worried in his eyes, and the feeling travelled down to his fingers as he turned the paper over and over again.
“Promise me you’ll actually call,” I continued, staring him right in the eyes. “Even if you feel stupid or like you’re imagining things. You won’t be wasting my time.”
Haruto took a deep breath, and his nerves steadied, fingers stilling as he put my business card in his pocket. “I will. Thank you again for coming out today. I feel a lot better.”
“I’m glad. Best of luck with your book-thing.”
I struggled to get my boots on quickly while standing up. Usually, I had to sit to get them properly laced. Then Fletcher and I waved goodbye to Haruto and returned to our car, driving through the dusk-filled streets back to the station. Thankfully, rush hour was over. My road rage probably wouldn’t have been able to handle another minute in it. As soon as we arrived, we turned over Richard Smith’s phone number and Finn’s scarf to the lab for analysis.
Then Fletcher left to grab some dinner, but I waved off her offer to join her to eat at my desk instead and look over a few things, answer some emails. Martin the lab tech had received my sister’s photo and was eager to get to work on it. The man was obsessed with cryptids for some reason, as my father was, though his interest stretched to encompass any and all weird monsters, whereas my father had been deeply entrenched in his Loch Ness Monster research. I also had another email from Sam, already desperate to know if the lab had found anything out about the photo.
I sighed but decided to phone her. I owed her a call anyway since we hadn’t seen each other since the beginning of the month. She picked up after the third ring.
“Callum! Did you learn anything?”
“No, Sam,” I said, trying to keep the exasperation from my voice. I wasn’t terribly successful. “These things take time, and Martin has his real job to take care of, too.”
“Right. Duh. Isn’t it exciting, though?” I could hear traffic in the background of the call, and Sam’s voice sounded a little far away as if she were using the speaker in her car. “I was looking through Dad’s briefcase because I was thinking about stealing it for my portfolio, and the photo was hidden in this secret pocket on the bottom. I found it totally by accident. Crazy, right?” Sam always talked like a racecar zipping around a track, and half the time, her mouth couldn’t keep up with her brain.
“Sure, crazy,” I agreed to appease her. “Sam, it doesn’t mean anything. You know that, right? It’s just a photograph.”
“It’s an undiscovered picture of Nessie!” She honked her horn twice and cursed at the driver in front of her, and I was very glad I was not currently in the car with her. “Maybe Dad found something he shouldn’t have, or maybe someone wanted to steal his discovery for themselves, so they nabbed him.”
“Just because your mum and brother work for the police doesn’t mean life is a spy
