Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  Helen had been worried when he left her that night. She’d not only been worried about Ray and how he was coping, but also about the fact the killer had seen Ray and what implications this held for her family. It didn’t take Ray long to reassure her that the man would want to avoid him at all costs and would not want to try to antagonise him and go after his family for some bizarre reason. This, after all, wasn’t a movie they were in the middle of, but real life.

  Once he’d calmed her fears he then had to calm her anger. Her muted annoyance at him turning up unannounced to talk through his bad day, turned to anger at him keeping the diagnosis a secret from the organisation. This wouldn’t have happened if they knew. Her fears wouldn’t have had to be calmed if the police knew about him and what had happened because of the crash. He had promised her he would do everything in his power to bring this killer to justice. He really didn’t want to have his one begrudging ally offside.

  He opened his laptop and leaned over his knees so he could see the screen as it sat on the rather low coffee table. The glow of the screen provided the only light in the room, other than a tall lamp he’d switched on in the corner as he’d walked in. The eerie glow emanated out across the room and cast shadows in familiar places.

  He’d heard of the dark net and knew a little about it. He knew it was the place you went if you wanted to buy drugs online. He knew it was all encrypted and that it was incredibly difficult for anyone to get traced. Now he needed to find out more, so he opened his regular web browser, keyed in some terms into the search engine, and watched a TED talk about the dark net going mainstream. This explained the origins of the dark net, how it had started life as a US Naval intelligence project and then went open source. Further research explained that this was to protect navy operatives who wanted to send information back from dangerous operations. The TED talk also explained exactly how he could access this unknown section of the internet from his home computer. He needed to download a new browser. One that would encrypt his data so he couldn’t be traced. The TED talk extolled the virtues of private browsing and of good customer care within the world of the dark net. Even for those who bought illegal drugs. All was well if customer care was up to scratch. It was unbelievable. What did surprise Ray was that mainstream websites were also in the world of the dark net: the New Yorker was there, other news outlets, and even Facebook had a dark net site.

  With all the browsing and all he read, he got what he wanted: details on how to access the dark net himself. The need for the browser that would encrypt his own data. This was how Billy’s brother and Billy himself had initially got in touch with the organisation. He wanted to find them online.

  Himself.

  To download the browser was his first step.

  He was about to cross a line. The investigation was ongoing at work. All this could be done at the office. Why should he do this himself? Put his whole career at risk?

  He knew why. He was at fault in so many ways. This wasn’t because he felt guilty. This was real, genuine fault. He hadn’t argued his case hard enough against Prabhat for Billy not to go to the meet, and the investigation was now disabled, even though no one realised it, because he was unable to recognise the killer. After he’d looked him in the eye, he was still unable to identify him. The investigation would have to rely on any forensic evidence they could gather, or evidence from other lines of inquiry that came up. And he, Ray, was going to stand in front of his team and lie to them on a daily basis. He hated himself for it.

  When the TOR browser was downloaded and live on his screen he stared at it for ten minutes. He was surprised to see how much it resembled a regular internet browser, other than the giant onion image at one side, which was why the browser was often called the onion network, because in an onion network messages are sheathed in layers of encryption comparable to the layers of an onion, and TOR stands for The Onion Router.

  It was certainly an education. A whole new world.

  Another nail in his career’s coffin, too. Because he wouldn’t disclose the prosopagnosia. Because he had been face to face with a killer and was unable to identify him. Because he was the weak link in a chain of evidence. So, if there was any other way he could bring this guy in, he would do it. And he knew damn well he should have fought harder against Prabhat in the first place in relation to Billy. No matter what Helen said. She didn’t know the job. His responsibilities. He would do this, no matter what the fallout.

  27

  It had been late by the time he’d hit the sack the previous night. Sleep had been elusive. Tantalisingly in sight, but not within his grasp. Ray had tossed and turned. Punched pillows, made tea instead of coffee, picked up a book until it blurred in front of his eyes, punched pillows some more and eventually slid into a restless, half-restful state where his mind wandered through corridors lit by strip-lights, white walls dripped with blood, and his bare feet squelched through great pools of the stuff. Too copious for anyone to have survived the loss of it. His stomach heaved as he moved further into the building. High-pitched screams pulled him forward. Screams that pierced his brain.

  His legs were leaden. They refused to run, to help whoever needed him. His progress through the horror was slow. As the blood dripped down the walls the screams started to slow. The victim was losing their fight and yet Ray couldn’t get his legs to move across the bloody floor any faster.

  A hollowed-out laugh cut through the failing screams. Ray’s legs hurt with the energy he was using to push forward. His thighs burned. His chest ached. The resistance he was up against, true.

  Then cries broke through. Soft gentle sobs.

  He was close. He knew where the sounds came from. The door at the end of the corridor. Not far now.

  The cries continued.

  Ray pushed on.

  The laughter of a soulless man echoed around the whitewashed, blood-filled corridor.

  And then he was there. The door was in front of him. The screaming was now only a whimper.

  The laughter continued to echo around him.

  Ray looked down at himself. Blood had splashed up his legs. It had rubbed onto his shoulders and arms from the walls. He looked like he had butchered someone.

  His legs burned. But, he was here.

  He reached out to the door handle, touched the cool metal, pushed down, felt it give beneath his bloody hand, heard it creak as it moved under pressure …

  And then he woke.

  Again.

  The clock read five a.m. He’d had maybe an hour and a half’s rest, if you could call it that.

  Now he stood in the silent incident room, soaking in the quiet time. Before the team came in. Before he had to do it all again. Keep up with the difficult task of identifying his staff and keep up with the investigation that he’d already screwed up.

  His head still whirred with thoughts, jumbled and incoherent, when the sound of the incident-room door swinging open broke through.

  ‘Guv, how long have you been in?’

  Ray fought to bring his mind back to the room and away from the incident.

  ‘I didn’t sleep well.’ His answer for the early start. He couldn’t place the shirt and tie. He was tired. Damn, it would be one hell of day.

  The suit and tie slung his jacket over a chair and started to go through the motions of waking his computer. ‘My youngest is teething. I know how a bad night feels.’

  Ray ran a hand through his hair. Ah, new baby, one of the HOLMES team. ‘I remember those days. They feel like they won’t end, but they do. Hang in there.’

  His phone beeped as a text message arrived. Ray looked at the screen. Celeste. This was her first contact since he’d walked out on her last night. It should really have been him making this move but he had felt too guilty and had put it off and now it was too late, she’d done it. With a deep sigh he unlocked the phone and read the message.

  I’m sorry you had a bad day. It doesn’t seem to be going well. This worries me. Don’t push me away like that though. There
was no need, Ray. Just talk to me. Xx

  He ran a hand through his hair. She was worried. What did this make him? Last night had all been his fault. His doing, and she had been the bigger person and had texted him, had reached out with that olive branch and told him she cared. He didn’t deserve it. She deserved better. He knew that. But for all that she cared now, Ray didn’t know if she still could if she knew the truth, and it scared him. He didn’t want to lose anyone because of what was wrong with him. Because he was broken. He didn’t want to lose Celeste.

  Dammit. He would have to try harder. He typed out his own response and sent it.

  You’re right, work has been hard. Sorry to push you away last night. x

  It wasn’t long before more people filed in.

  Curly hair – Tamsin. Always in before the rest of the team. Without fail. Or she had been before his accident. He wasn’t aware if this had changed or not in the time he had been away. It didn’t feel like it.

  A Scottish good morning – Paula.

  More people. The larger team. His head started to hurt again. He was too tired to try and figure people out as they moved about the office towards their respective seats. He needed to wait until they were seated. He at least had a chance, then, to know who they were and not screw up and get kicked out of his job. He moved to his office. He needed to quieten his brain before briefing. Bring the static levels down. Quell the clamouring fear that had caused the dull roar behind his eyes.

  Celeste would have had some painkillers, but he was royally screwing around with that relationship.

  He just needed to relax when he saw her. Lean in to the relationship they had. Enjoy the feeling of being with her and accept the disconnect with her face as he had to with everyone.

  Ray kept an eye on the incident room, watched as staff trailed in while he updated his policy documents. The IPCC had been informed and brought in to examine the incident. Prabhat had sent him at least half a dozen emails through the evening; obviously he’d worked from home, his brain refusing to switch off from such a massive investigation as much as Ray’s had.

  The two men in custody still had eight hours on the clock, so Ray needed to get the paperwork in order for a superintendent’s authority for an extension. And the authorising officer couldn’t be Prabhat. He was too close, too involved. It had to be a superintendent unconnected to the case.

  Ray checked the duty register to see who was on and saw Greg Moss. He was pedantic and had been known for most of his career as the station cat, but Ray believed in the grounds for the extension, so he wasn’t worried.

  The morning passed in a haze of too much paperwork, requests for extra staff and ludicrous amounts of red tape.

  The custody clock extension had been signed off. The two guys would stay with them for a while longer yet.

  Ray was frustrated. He couldn’t sit behind his desk and wait for results to come to him. He needed to be active. Involved. He needed to move forward rather than be at a standstill like this.

  He walked to the doorway of his office. The incident room, busy, filled with people in suits. Filled with people needed to run a major investigation. He had the urge to step back into his office and close the door; instead, he looked for the desks of the people he wanted. Found them.

  She was standing. Papers in her hand. Coffee mug in her other. Ready to go.

  ‘Tamsin?’

  She turned. ‘Guv?’

  ‘I’m going in to interview with Paula for this one.’

  ‘Guv?’ She didn’t move. Ray could hear the confusion in her voice. He stepped out of his office. Closer.

  ‘This isn’t a reflection on you, Tamsin. It’s me. I want to get in there.’

  Deliberately she placed her mug on her desk. Paula, who hadn’t yet risen, looked at them both. Waiting.

  ‘But, guv, I’ve done all his earlier interviews. I’ve built up a rapport with him. He’s more likely to talk to me.’

  She didn’t want to let this go.

  ‘I want to mix it up. Throw him a little. Let’s not allow him to get comfortable.’

  ‘You think that’s the right play?’

  Paula looked down at her notes. Kept her eyes down.

  ‘Tamsin.’ Ray kept his voice level and calm. He understood her desire for advancement, and this job was a big one for her CV. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Okay, sir.’ She dropped the papers on the desk and walked out of the office, head held high, her back straight.

  28

  Ray peered through the cell door at the detainee they were about to interview. He was stretched out on a thin black mattress between him and the solid concrete painted slab of a bench, and looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Arms up and tucked underneath his head, cushioning it from the hard surface it would otherwise have to rest on.

  He was too comfortable. Ray pushed the key in the lock, turned it and pulled open the heavy cell door, which groaned in complaint. He was immediately assaulted by the stench of sweaty feet, body odour and microwaved breakfast. His hand tightened on the door handle.

  ‘Up you get. Back into interview,’ Ray bellowed.

  In the interview, the discs were switched on and introductions and other formalities were given. Kieran Wade was the solicitor, a slender male with a hooked nose and an expensive brown leather briefcase bearing the initials KMW propped at his feet. Ray made a mental note of his nose and the briefcase. Everything else about the solicitor was pretty nondescript. He’d have trouble if he needed to pick him out of all the other solicitors who milled around the custody area, so his best bet would be to use this guy’s initialled briefcase to identify him.

  Ray looked at Paula and nodded. She started to talk. Reminded Ion Borta of what had been said in the previous interview. Borta looked bored. Ray needed him to pay attention. He needed him to be alert, to take this seriously. That was why he’d swapped the interview up. He looked at the man who was here, arrested for trafficking in human organs and conspiracy to commit murder, even though, with Billy’s death, they had no evidence. From his attitude, you wouldn’t believe he was here for such serious crimes.

  ‘We’ll find him eventually, you know,’ Ray said, cutting across Paula as she finished up. He shot her an apologetic look. Borta raised his eyebrows. Thick, dark, over equally dark and brooding eyes. He had his attention now at least.

  ‘We’ll find him eventually. So what surprises me is why you’re protecting him. The only reason I can think of is that you’re afraid of him.’

  Borta stiffened.

  ‘Is that it? You’re afraid of him?’

  ‘I’m not afraid.’

  Ray stayed quiet a moment. The guy had bristled, and he hadn’t qualified what he wasn’t afraid of. That was interesting.

  Silence stifled the room and Ray had to fill it. It was one tactic to try to get the offender to speak with an uncomfortable silence to fill, but this guy was good. He’d kept his mouth shut. If Ray continued the silence much longer it would be seen as oppressive.

  ‘What aren’t you afraid of, Ion?’

  The man opposite him laughed. ‘You, for one. You think your small prison here make me afraid. You know nothing.’

  Ray leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs out. Made himself comfortable. Appraised the male in front of him. ‘You’ve nothing to fear from us other than a long prison sentence. The more helpful you are, the more the judge will take that into account at any sentencing if this goes to trial. I’m here to ask you questions, nothing else, and to be honest, Ion, it’s not you that we’re interested in, so why don’t you do yourself a favour and tell us about your boss?’

  Borta sat back and appraised Ray and Paula, who made notes as Ray spoke. Ray took it, gave him the time, waited to see what would come.

  ‘You consider yourself the boss man?’

  ‘I am of a higher rank than some of my colleagues.’

  ‘But above you there is a whole machine turning, yes?’

  ‘The police service is an
organisation that is structured so that it runs well, yes.’ Where was he taking this?

  The solicitor looked confused and was furiously making notes as his client and the officer spoke.

  ‘All organisations need structure. Need a boss to front sections. You think you want me to tell you who my boss is. You have no idea what you ask. You want me to be disloyal to an organisation and give up one of our –’ he put his fingers in the air and used air quotes ‘– “rank”. Because that’s all he is, one of the rank.’

  29

  Ray took Will’s hanging mouth to be shock at what he and Paula had disclosed in the interview’s debriefing. Elaine on the other hand said, with a deep stare Ray couldn’t hold, ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Paula confirmed, at the existence of a whole other shadowy organisation behind the one they were investigating. One that was a whole lot darker and supposedly scarier, and one that was run by Russian mobsters.

  Will’s jaw still hung from the hinges of his skull, threatening to drop off if he didn’t pick it up soon.

  ‘So what we’re really investigating is a Russian mob?’ Elaine again.

  ‘No,’ said Ray.

  They all turned to look at him. Even if he could read every expression on each face, which he couldn’t, he understood what they would be feeling now. Confusion.

  ‘We’re not set up to run over to Russia to dismantle a Russian mob who send guys over here to do nefarious deals with our citizens. Jesus, even our governments can’t deal with Russian mobs, what the hell makes you think we can deal with a criminal ring of this scale?’ The shock and outrage lessened. Understanding slid into place. ‘No, our job is to deal with what we have here and now. What we’ve already been dealing with, and that’s to identify and locate the male who killed Billy. It’s the best we can do.’ There were nods around him. He looked at Tamsin. She was unreadable.