Mad Green Eyes

Chapter 1 - The Detective, the Dentist and the Thief

‘So far, there have been five. I really am surprised that you haven’t heard...’

‘Five, and they left it this late to contact me?’ She muttered, not meeting his gaze but instead spitting out the pip of the cherry directly into a mug on the edge of the table, ‘the police around here really are getting quite sloppy, don’t you think?’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Koslovski nodded, ‘unfortunately I can’t give you the details of the murders right now as I left the files at headquarters.’

‘So why did you come?’

‘I wanted to see you, Ada. I haven’t talked to you for about two years now.’

Ada hesitated and then looked away.

‘Why don’t we go on a walk?’

Her gaze snapped back to him, suspicion evident on her face.

‘A walk? What do you mean?’

‘Don’t look so worried!’ Koslovski chuckled, rising to his feet, ‘if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I just wanted to talk, that’s all. A walk and a talk.’

Ada paused, and then slowly heaved herself up from the chair.

‘Alright – let me just get my coat.’

As they walked around St. James Park, Koslovski found himself wondering why he had never felt attracted to Ada before. She was very beautiful, in a strange, cold sort of way. Her boy-short blonde hair was so pale it was almost white, and it was slanted asymmetrically so as to hide the right side of her face. Her large left eye was a very pale shade of blue. Like the rest of her revealed face, the one staring eye never betrayed emotion, and rarely blinked. Her face was always scrubbed clean of makeup, and she looked very young for her age, often mistaken for a teenager – she stood quite a bit shorter than Koslovski, she at five foot six and he at six foot two.

‘Why are you staring at me like that?’ She asked, not in an angry way but out of sheer curiosity.

‘You stare at people all the time. Why can’t I?’

‘I stare at people purely for the purpose of trying to understand their thoughts,’ she said simply, her unblinking eye still trained unnervingly on him, ‘you were staring at me a moment ago in what I like to call the perverted-old-man way.’

‘Was I? Oh. Sorry,’ Koslovski grimaced, ‘so, changing the subject, how are things going?

‘That’s a vague question. Try being more specific.’

Koslovski gritted his teeth and turned to face her.

‘I don’t know, Ada, are you eating enough? Where are you living? Do you have friends? Are you seeing anyone? I worry about you – I’m your closest friend and you didn’t contact me for two years.’

Ada gave him a cold look. Her pale skin, eye and hair contrasted strikingly with her dark clothes. She was wearing a long, torn white trench coat over a black tank top and white skinny jeans. On her feet she was wearing a pair of knee-length, black boots with rounded tips and white laces.

‘As you can see from the kitchen in my hotel room, I eat plenty,’ she began slowly, ‘I am currently living with a friend and her husband, but they’re renovating so I am staying in the hotel for approximately two weeks. As for... friends, as you mentioned, you and my roommate are the only ones that I am currently in contact with. And no, as you should have gathered after our long friendship by now, I am never seeing anyone.’

For some reason, Koslovski detected a note of strain in the last part of her answer. It sounded as if it should be true, but she had said it so quickly it seemed as though she were hiding something. They started walking again, and Koslovski watched his breath steam in the cool January air.