Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  Ray looked into her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Celeste.’ He stood. Celeste stumbled from him, all arms and legs. ‘I’ve got a shit-load of work to do tonight. I was in the middle of it when you came in.’ He looked to the floor, hated how he felt, how he was behaving, but he couldn’t stop himself. Then he looked back to her face where she was now curled up in the chair Ray had a second ago leapt from. Her mouth ajar, no words, a shocked expression on her face. Ray’s stomach twisted. A knife sliced through his insides. He felt like a heel. He had felt the old connection he’d had with her, but the minute he looked at her the disconnect threw him, even though he had tried to prepare for it.

  He hated this. He had been managing while he had been off work, but since the Billy op, since his problem helped a killer walk away, the self-loathing was creating a barrier that he just couldn’t break through, and Celeste was taking the brunt of it. They always say those closest.

  ‘What am I missing, Ray?’ Her eyes were damp.

  ‘You’re not –’

  ‘You’ve been a little off since the hospital.’ She stood in front of him. ‘Since the accident.’ Her eyes bore into him. ‘Did they say something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No, Celeste.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can believe you. The timing of it fits. I can work that much out for myself. And it got so much worse when you went back to work, as though work is aggravating it. So if it’s not that, what is it?’

  ‘It’s work.’ He stared at her. ‘In the normal sense. That’s all. I told you about the kid that was killed in the middle of an op. It’s a big deal.’

  ‘Don’t give me that.’ Her voice was hard. ‘This started way before that. I need to know. We’re a couple. If there’s a problem with you, then I need to know to be able to help. That’s what couples do, Ray. So. What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘There’s nothing.’ He desperately wanted to tell her now but the fear of her leaving was worse than the immediate anger they were dealing with.

  ‘You know what I can’t deal with?’ Her back was rigid, her arms crossed.

  He knew what she was going to say but was helpless to stop it. ‘What?’

  ‘Lies, Ray. Lies.’

  He looked at the floor.

  ‘I can deal with the problem you aren’t telling me about. We can work it out together. I’m with you. I won’t walk away. But what I can’t deal with is lies. No matter how bad you think it is. I’m in it with you.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Even if that means we have to switch to client confidentiality.’ Her voice was low.

  ‘Jesus, Celeste. What do you think I’ve done?’

  Her voice lifted now. ‘I don’t know, Ray, that’s the point, you won’t tell me!’

  Ray turned his back on her. His shoulders slumped. ‘Because there’s nothing to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me.’ She walked back towards the door. Leaned to put her shoes back on. ‘You know where I am.’

  Heels clicked against the floor and the door opened and closed as she left.

  The laptop screen light shone bright as Ray leaned over it, determined to find answers. This time it wasn’t the dark net he searched, but the everyday internet. There had to be something he could actively do to help himself. Like physiotherapy for the mind. He wasn’t one to sit back and accept a problem. He would assess it and search for the best answer, and that was what he would do now.

  With the slammed door still ringing in his ears he planned to find a way to make his brain rewire itself. He’d heard of neuroplasticity, that the brain could repair itself, that it could relearn, that it was an amazing part of the human body that was more uncharted than the depths of the world’s oceans, the last human frontier. If scientists still knew so little, then he wouldn’t sit back and simply believe that there was no treatment for his condition. He would find an answer and retrain himself.

  Sitting and waiting wasn’t a part of his DNA.

  In the bar of his search engine he typed: Memory exercises for prosopagnosia.

  The first result was the NHS website. It cited no treatment.

  Psychology Today cited no treatment.

  Further listed sites offered no hint of treatment options. No random or quirky try-at-home ways to retrain your brain.

  Ray picked up the laptop, anger ran through his veins. Frustration. Hopelessness. Then all the feelings that coursed through him exploded and the laptop flew up in the air towards the wall. It missed the television by a few inches. Metal and glass crashed through the silence in the living room as it dropped to the floor. The lidded screen-hinges parted from the keyboard and Ray could see a huge crack appear on the dark and empty screen. A crack that resembled his life.

  He returned to his seat and picked up his beer.

  34

  They were running out of time on the custody clock and needed to pull all the strands of work together. The conversation with Sandford had been eye-opening, but Ray still wasn’t sure how well it could be used within the investigation. Though there were plenty of leads they could follow.

  The morning briefing was due to start. Through his door Ray could see the incident room. Staff were milling about, checking computers, making notes, carrying mugs of drinks to desks. He looked at the seating plan he’d drawn, frustrated.

  It was easy to figure out who was who when they were seated where they were supposed to be as per the written plan, but when they were out of their seats it screwed with his brain as he had to rely much more on quick thinking. He had to check hairstyles, listen to language, search for rings, gender, all manner of characteristics that identified all the individuals in the office and in his life. It was hard work, and work he could do without today.

  What he could do with was a coffee.

  Ray headed to the staff kitchen, filled the kettle with water and his mug with coffee granules, and stared out of the window as he waited for the kettle to boil.

  ‘It’s that bad this morning, is it?’

  Ray recognised the voice behind him as that of his friend and guvnor, Prabhat Jain.

  He replied without turning, ‘It is, this morning. Days like today I can understand why people turn into functioning alcoholics.’

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  The kettle clicked off as it reached boiling point. Ray turned. The face before him failed to register, as he knew it would. ‘This case. Billy. Responsibility.’

  ‘Ah, want to add world peace to that list?’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘I know you are. So are the Independent Police Complaints Commission. You don’t get to have the monopoly on responsibility, Ray. When the investigation is over into Billy’s death someone will lose their job, I can guarantee you that. Heads are rolling upstairs. I’m shielding you from most of that because you’re fresh back after six months’ sick leave. I’ve figured you’re finding it hard. I think you’re still in some pain. So I’ve kept all the flak that’s flying around away from you. And in turn I don’t want the responsibility word thrown back in my face, no matter what you may think you mean by it.’ Jain paused for breath, and then said, ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yeah, I should have realised an incident like this has major repercussions. I must have been so wrapped up in my own guilt that I didn’t pick up on it. Will you let me get you a whisky one night?’

  ‘A whisky? You’ll be buying a bloody barrelful, the amount of trouble I’m keeping away from your shoulders.’ And with that he walked out of the kitchen.

  Ray looked back out of the window at the awful, dull, flat, eight-storey grey building behind them, then poured the hot water over his coffee and walked to the incident room, full of faces he didn’t recognise, to do a briefing that frustrated the hell out of him.

  The plan was to put a file in to the CPS for a charging decision on the two held offenders. They should have enough for conspiracy to commit murder, but not the trading in human organs offences yet. They would have to
continue to investigate while they were on remand.

  Ray told the team about the meeting with Sandford, and set actions for inquiries into medical professionals who had been struck off in the last five years; he also wanted to consider the finances of all transplant surgeons, although he wasn’t sure if he could get the authority to do that. It was a fishing expedition. They also needed to pay attention to the transplant lists and see who no longer needed a transplant, who no longer turned up for dialysis. The list of actions on the case was endless and Ray’s head swam as he kept up with it all. Everyone had notebooks out, pens scribbling away.

  Ray scrubbed at his face with his palms.

  ‘Okay, guys, we’ve got a lot of work to get through so I hope you’ve had a decent night’s sleep or have a strong cup of coffee with you, because you’ll need it.’ A couple of days into the inquiry, they still looked alert. Give it a couple more days and they’d start to turn a shade of grey as fatigue and the lack of a decent meal took its toll on their bodies, and stress at home from lack of interaction with loved ones created ripples of conflict. Ripples that everyone knew would level out again once the first wave of the investigation was over, but that had to be ridden out in the meantime.

  Ray continued to run through all they had and all they needed to do.

  ‘We also have the BMW in the CSI garage and they’ll go over it with a fine-toothed comb,’ he went on, ‘as well as a full examination of the garage it was housed in. I don’t hold out much hope that we’ll get anything actionable back because whoever torched it did a pretty good job of it and we all know how destructive fire is.’ A sea of faces watched him. All disconnected from any previous interactions. Yet all people he trusted and knew.

  ‘We do have one light that shines in the darkness of this case though: I picked up an email from yesterday’s CSI this morning – a cigarette butt was found in front of the garage. It was a Doina, which is not a common brand, in fact you can’t buy it in the UK, not over the counter anyway, and it’s possible it could be from our arsonist. It’ll be tested for DNA and I’ve put an urgent rush on it so we should know soon if we get a match …’ He paused then, rubbed his face with both hands. ‘A match within the UK. If not –’ he rubbed some more ‘– then we wait again while we send it to Interpol to search their systems, which I expect to have to do if we bear in mind the ethnicity of our killer and the home location of one of his goons.’

  ‘Elaine.’ He looked to Elaine’s desk. ‘Keep up with the inquiries for the VRM I gave you so we can confirm it’s the same vehicle that left the scene.’

  There was no response.

  He waited.

  ‘Elaine?’

  ‘Guv? Sorry, I was in late so I dropped into the nearest desk there was.’ The voice came from nearer the back of the room. The woman in Elaine’s chair wasn’t Elaine, which was why she hadn’t known how to respond to him.

  Damn.

  How to recover?

  ‘Shit. Will you look at that? Only a couple of days in and already my brain is fried so much that I didn’t notice it wasn’t you in your own chair. I think I need another coffee!’

  Laughter echoed around the room.

  He’d done it. But really? These were intelligent people. They would never guess what was actually wrong, but some of them would be suspicious of the fact that he’d spoke to a colleague and thought it was Elaine when it wasn’t. They’d be concerned. Maybe think it was drink. Drugs. He might get away with stress and lack of sleep if it didn’t happen again.

  He had to be more careful. He hadn’t checked for the scar before he directed the question at her because her seat was occupied. But now he had to push himself more. He had to double check. He had to check the seating plan and he had to check the person’s physical descriptors and characteristics. He couldn’t slip up again.

  ‘So,’ he said as he looked at the correct version of Elaine, ‘the BMW inquiries?’ He smiled, making light of it.

  She laughed. ‘Yes, guv.’

  35

  It had been a long day but the team had managed to put a file together for the CPS to get a charging decision for the two men in custody. It was thin, but charges had been agreed on: conspiracy to commit murder. It was decided that they knew the guy carried a gun and that he was willing to use it should it turn out that the person they were meeting was not all he said he was.

  As expected, there were no charges on the trading in human organs, even though they had talked about it a little. There was no evidence of any description, other than the brief comments made by both men that what they did was for the good of all people concerned. This was not considered enough.

  ‘I understand this,’ Ray told the team in front of him, ‘but it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, because this was the entire reason Billy came to us in the first place. We now have to keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll get there. These two idiots are not the end of the line.’

  There was grumbling around the room.

  ‘Hey, we can do it. We’ll have less of that,’ he chided them. ‘That’s two locked up, it’s a good job. Pat yourselves on the back and then get your head down and keep at it. You all have a lot to get on with.’

  ‘So, beers tonight then, guv, as we’ve locked two up?’ piped up Will.

  Shit. He did usually take them all out for a beer if they closed a job or CPS authorised a charge on a good job, but it wasn’t something he’d done since he’d come out of the hospital. Going into a scenario like that, a busy pub, people all over the place, moving about, changing places, going out of view and then coming back into view. Damn.

  ‘I can’t tonight. But I promise we’ll make it a good one when we close this job properly, what do you say?’

  ‘I say we’ll keep you to it, guv.’ Paula, Scottish accent.

  ‘You’d better. I think we’ll have earned it,’ he replied.

  With that, he walked into his office. They were a good team. He hated to deceive them. They’d be so much further ahead if he’d been able to identify the killer from the get go. And now he’d made an excuse to not take them out for a drink. He was going to go to hell.

  There was a quick knock at the office door and a female walked in. Ray scanned her for markers and eventually went to her face and found the scar. It was Elaine.

  ‘Hey, everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘You got a minute?’

  ‘Of course, what is it?’

  She sat on the chair in front of his desk, looked him in the eye. A move that now made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Are you okay, guv?’

  ‘Am I okay? Why do you ask?’ He shut the lid on his laptop. Sensing where this was headed.

  ‘Well, this morning you were so tired and distracted you failed to notice I wasn’t in my seat, and now you don’t want to go out for a drink. It’s …’ she shifted in her seat, ‘not like you.’

  Ray forced a smile onto his face. ‘Don’t worry. I’m fine. Honestly, it’s fatigue. I think I tire easier since the accident. I think it aged me ten years. I don’t know about you but I feel like an old man with these broken bones that ache when it’s cold and remind me I’m not invincible.’

  Elaine pushed a few strands of hair behind an ear. ‘I know what you mean. But I thought I’d check.’ She stood and went to walk out of the office, but stopped and turned before she left. ‘I hope you don’t think I’ve overstepped, but … well, we’ve kind of been through a lot and …’

  ‘It’s fine. But I’m good. Thanks, Elaine.’

  Then she was gone and he felt like a complete heel, playing on their injuries from the accident. It was from the accident all right, but it wasn’t the physical side.

  He needed to up his game.

  36

  Elaine grabbed the lime and soda from the bar and walked to where the rest of the team were sitting. Voices loud and raucous, happy with the result they’d had that day.

  ‘Don’t forget we’ve got more work to do when we get back in tomorrow,’ she said as
she sat beside Tamsin.

  Will groaned at her. ‘Can’t we just take this small win?’ he asked. ‘We’re one step closer. Two charged. It’s not a bad result.’

  ‘It’s not bad, but we haven’t got justice for …’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind. Just make sure you’re fit for the job tomorrow.’

  Will lifted his pint glass in the air. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Then slugged it back.

  Elaine shook her head again.

  Tamsin smiled. ‘You seem tense, you okay?’

  ‘Did the guv give you any clearer a reason for his not coming this evening?’ She watched as a group of three women entered the pub. They were laughing at something that had been said before they had entered.

  Will turned and watched as they approached the bar.

  ‘Will, put your eyes back,’ Tamsin advised, then turned back to Elaine. ‘No, I only heard what he said to the team, that he couldn’t make it. Why, did you want to talk to him?’

  Elaine took a sip of her drink, thought about how much she could say to Tamsin. They were friends. She trusted her. She placed her drink back on the table. ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘The guv?’

  ‘Yes.’ Elaine looked at the team; they were making fun of Will, who had an eye for the ladies and was giving them plenty of ammunition now that he had his eye on the women at the bar. Will was taking it all in his stride. Elaine suspected that at some point in the evening he would probably go and talk to them. She was glad she wasn’t in the dating scene anymore. Not that Will was supposed to be. He had a girlfriend, but chose to forget that fact when opportunity arose.

  ‘Why?’ asked Tamsin, leaning towards her, voice lowered. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Elaine pushed herself back in the seat, away from the table, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the rest of the team, even if it was only a matter of inches. She dipped her head. ‘Haven’t you noticed anything odd since he came back to work?’