The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 plus 3 letter word PRIVATE EYE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Guardian
P
R
I
V
A
T
E
E
Y
E
More clues leading to the result PRIVATE EYE
- Soldier at attention; Marlowe, for example
- He’s investigating every tape I edited
- Tommy and I caught by investigator
- Detective in midst of storm pursuing soldier
- Detective type I’ve associated with era mistakenly
- Investigator playing every tape first for impact
- See preamble
- Person investigating needing to put watch on soldier
- Squaddie to see detective
- Sherlock‘s personal view?
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Detective" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case detective = private eye.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.