Shooting in the Dark

by Baker, John

  ‘I’d love some,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean...’

  ‘People think we’ll burn ourselves in the kitchen. Either that, or we’ll make the coffee with salt or scouring powder.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This’s new ground to me.’ He turned his head away from her, touched the desk. ‘Is this a Braille keyboard?’

  ‘Yes, I was working.’ She poured a little milk into his coffee and carried it over to him. ‘I’m involved with an organization, a pressure group. We campaign against discrimination, work on rights issues.’

  ‘You produce a magazine?’

  ‘Not me. I write for it, but I’m not the editor.’ 'People who work for pressure groups sometimes make enemies,’ he said. His voice was deep with a barely discernible vibrato which set up a wandering echo within her, caused a momentary constriction in her throat.

  'We have disagreements,’ she told him. ‘Some blind People don’t want to rock the boat, they accept whatever crumbs the sighted world deems fit to leave at the table. We discuss such things, we argue about attitudes.’

  ‘But you’re not militant?’

  ‘Militant.’ She thought about the word. It was not one she would normally associate with herself. It conjured up an image of a woman with a Kalashnikov. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We aren’t militarists.’

  ‘But not pacifists, either?’ he said.

  ‘We’re reformers, Mr Turner. We’re not violent. The blind have made certain gains in the last few years. If you’re very determined, it’s possible to be blind and independent. The organization I belong to defends the' rights we have won and does what it can to improve our lot. Not long ago, the destiny of a blind person was to sell matches on a street corner. We are not prepared to go back to that. We are not Uncle Toms, but neither are we terrorists. If we leave out armed combat, I suppose you I could describe us as a militant reformist organization. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Have you heard anything from Isabel?’

  ‘No. It’s not like her to go away without telling me.’

  ‘Are you worried?’

  ‘Yes, but I think she’ll get in touch today.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Sam. ‘Listen, you tell me that someone is watching you. I need to know if anyone has a motive to harm you. If you’ve upset someone. From what I hear, you belong to a bunch who don’t believe in keeping their light hidden under a bushel.’

  ‘You think I’m being followed by a blind man?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I’m looking for motives.’

  ‘Because it may’ve escaped your attention, Mr Turner, but it wouldn’t be easy for someone without sight to follow me around. Unless, of course, this is one of the fabled blind men who, when he went blind, immediately found his other senses gained superhuman proportions. His hearing is so sensitive he can hear the fleas on his dog, and he can sniff out a drop of Rochas Tocade behind a girl’s ear from the other side of the street.

  ‘OK, I might well have upset someone in the blind community. It’s just possible that I could have upset someone with a psychopathic personality. A dormant, sleepy blind man, who has now been roused into murderous insanity by my militant reformism. But I don’t see how he’s going to have much luck stalking me.’

  Sam Turner was quiet. He walked over to the nest of tables where she kept the liquor bottles. There was the rustle of cloth as he bent to inspect them: whisky, vodka, Spanish brandy. Then he said, ‘Do you ever listen, lady?’

  Usually she would have asked him to leave at that point, but she held back. The man was uncouth and insensitive. A typical sighted male, the kind of man who grabbed you and pushed you across the road whether you wanted to go or not. Someone who suddenly discovered he could do a good deed and leave you stranded and disoriented in the middle of town. ‘I’m listening, Mr Turner,’ she said, and caught the after-taste of that superior tone that had lurked around her vocal cords most of her life, returning time after time, no matter how often she thought she had banished it for good.

  ‘That’s the first thing,’ he said. ‘Nobody calls me Mr Turner. The name’s Sam, take it or leave it. And seeing we’re hitting it off so good, I don’t suppose you’ll mind me calling you Angeles, though I might be tempted to shorten it from time to time.

  ‘The second thing is, I never met anybody who was blind before, and I’m lost on the protocol. I’m gonna say the wrong thing every so often, and you’re just gonna have to swallow it. I try to take people at face value, and give them as much rope as I can. Don’t like it when people stereotype me, and so I try not to do it back. If I fall for the blind stereotypes, you can pick me up on it, and I’ll learn where I can go and where I can’t. And if you read me wrongly, I’ll sure as hell come down on you like a ton of I bricks.

  ‘You know more about blind people than me, you know what it feels like to be blind, and I can only guess at it. But I know more about my own game than you do. I know that if someone is following someone else around, II then they usually have a good motive for it, and it’s my job' to discover what that motive is.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that a blind man was stalking you. But you might have upset a blind man and his friend who; has perfectly good eyesight. Whatever. I don’t have answers at the moment. At this stage we have to take all possibilities into consideration. Then we start eliminating them until there’s only one left. You wanna play or not?’

  While he had been talking Angeles had moved back to the table and poured herself more coffee. Now she held the thermos out to him, and he came to her and took it. She listened as he trickled coffee into his cup. ‘Is there * enough?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you know exactly how much there is.’

  ‘I was being polite.’

  ‘You wanna play or not?’

  ‘What if I call you Mr T?’

  ‘That kind of thing makes me militant.’

  ‘Sam, then. But my name is Angeles. If you shorten it, I’ll spit.’

  ‘Deal.’

  She didn’t answer. She felt him move away from her, back to the desk where the computer was still humming away to itself. He was fascinated and frightened by Braille. He knew it was saying something, but he’d never know what it was.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘A couple of other things. You drink spirits during the day, you’re gonna end up in trouble.

  And don’t feel like you have to apologize. I’m used to people insulting me.’

  Nice house. Everything neat in there. Nothing out of place. Sam made a pot of tea in the kitchen. Checked to see he’d put everything back exactly where he found it. Went outside to have a look at the swimming pool, wondered if it was heated. You kidding? This is England. Remembered to lock the back door again when he came inside.

  Upstairs was the same. Everything in its place. There was nothing thrown on the floor. Not one single object.

  The carpets didn’t show it, but it felt as though there should have been tracks worn into them, along the regular routes she took. If she hadn’t been blind and lived in that place, you would have thought she was obsessive. But maybe she was obsessive, could be that was what blindness did to you.

  He stopped himself there.

  OK, leave aside the stereotyping. Blind people are just people who’re blind. Some of them’ll be obsessives, but there’ll be scatterbrains among them as well. Some blind people probably live in houses where they can’t find anything, their clothes are all over the floor, every time they get out of the chair they fall over and break a bone. When they go outside they get lamp-posts running into them, post-boxes; and dogs and cats and street kids get tangled in their legs.

  And some of them’ll drink.

  This is a woman who looks good. She makes no secret °f the fact that she finds him attractive. Ignore the deep irony there; just let it go past. She’s into some kind of militant wing of freedom and independence for the World’s unsighted, tinged with feminism. She is completely blind at night, and during the day she can see shadows in a blinding snowstorm. She’
s capable of losing her cool and spitting like a snake. She wears high-fashion gear, expensive threads, which would suggest taste as well as money, except this afternoon she is wearing a bra with false 1 nipples. How is he supposed to read that?

  There is someone following her, watching her. Someone unknown. And now her sister has gone missing.

  Could be a madman, someone burning with passion. The flames of his rage fed by a storehouse of frustrated love.

  She was trying to figure out how to program her new mobile when he came back from his tour of the house and garden. He looked over her shoulder, listening to the digital voice that explained which buttons to push for redial, how to store numbers. ‘This specially designed for the blind?’

  ‘Yes. It’s new. I think my other one must’ve been stolen.’

  ‘From the house?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was jostled in the street,’ she said. ‘The day before yesterday. The man must’ve taken it out of my bag. Anyway, it’s gone.’

  ‘Is this an occupational hazard?’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ she said. ‘Most people are over-solicitous.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘You work out?’ he asked. ‘I keep fit,’ she told him. ‘I don’t use a gym.’

  ‘You go walking? Jogging?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’m interested,’ he said. ‘Your calf muscles are hard, well developed, and your neck is strong. Most of the time you’re working in an office, you sit in front of a computer, s0 I wonder how you keep yourself trim.’

  ‘Trim,’ she said, feeling the word’s contours, letting it spill from the tip of her tongue. She gave it back to him. ‘Trim?’

  ‘Something wrong with that?’

  ‘Am I under observation?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ he said. ‘I was just looking, I didn’t mean...’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I’m not offended. Suddenly we’re talking about my body. I was... surprised.’

  He blew a long stream of breath between his teeth. ‘Really,’ she said. ‘I’m not offended. I’ve got the pool. I use a public baths to swim lengths; I ride a horse and a bicycle. I’ve got an aerobics step and a small trampoline upstairs. I do all those things, and I’ve got a sauna.’

  He didn’t respond immediately. She listened to the silence between them, his shallow breathing.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That explains it, why you’re so trim.’ There it was again.

  ‘And you?’ she said. ‘When did you stop smoking?’

  ‘Some years back,’ he said. He didn’t ask her how she knew he’d been a smoker, if she’d heard it in his breathing, the damage to his vocal cords. ‘I would’ve thought riding a bike was dangerous if you can’t see where you’re going.’

  ‘I don’t ride in traffic,’ she said. ‘And I need a sighted guide. But it’s good fun, one of my favourite things.’

  ‘You mean like a tandem?’ he asked.

  No, I’ve got my own bike. I need to put my hand on a S1ghted rider’s shoulder. It’s like walking, only faster, and there’s more of a thrill to it.’

  ‘I’ve got a bike,’ he said.

  She waited, but he didn’t take it further.

  Is that an offer?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, some time. Whenever you want.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ‘Is there anything you don’t do? You don’t drive a fast car, anything like that?’

  There was humour in his voice. Restrained, but it was there. ‘Roller skating,’ she said. ‘I like that, but it’s not really a fast car.’

  ‘Skiing?’

  ‘I’ve tried it,’ she said. ‘In Italy, but I never got off the beginners’ slopes.’

  ‘Sounds better than me,’ he said. ‘I never got off my ass.’

  She laughed with him.

  ‘What else is there?’ he said. ‘Ice skating?’

  A tremor went through her.

  ‘I’ve done it again,’ he said. ‘What’d I say?’

  She fought to control her breathing, mastered it quickly, but could only speak in short sentences. ‘Nothing. It’s all right.’

  ‘C’mon. What’d I say?’

  ‘Ice skating,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s the one thing I can’t face.’

  ‘No big deal,’ he said. ‘You do the things you like, the rest you leave to the other guys.’

  She went inside herself. She didn’t tell him about the couple of times she’d been on the ice. How she’d sat there 3 and screamed until they’d carried her back to dry land.

  7

  Sam had never been to Skewsby, so he drove out to Malton first. Put a few extra miles on the clock, but the Montego had already done 50,000, so it was past complaining. There were still leaves on some trees, but most of them were skeletal now. The sun had been strong enough to chase the early morning frost away, but had spent itself and was pale, hanging low in the sky.

  He stopped briefly in Malton, parked by the railway station, took ten minutes to walk around the market place. He’d done it before, three or four times, fascinated by the lack of identifiable life forms. A red-nosed toff dressed from head to foot in checks came out of the Green Man. Sam shot him dead, but the guy didn’t notice, went on to his next drink with a neat hole between his eyes, tiny trickle of blood running into his eyebrows. Next time Sam felt like dying, it wouldn’t be a problem: he’d come here. Wouldn’t take long.

  But compared to the tiny village of Skewsby, Malton was like Belgrade on a Saturday night.

  There was a sharp hill for a couple of miles before the declamatory landscape flattened out for long enough to build a main street and a few houses. If there was a shop there, it wasn’t drawing attention to itself. The place looked as though it had never recovered from Dutch elm disease.

  Sam found the house where Angeles’ sister, Isabel, lived with her husband. A reconstituted building, parts of it looking like authentic Elizabethan, but the bulk of it composed of twentieth-century materials. It wasn’t a big place; Sam guessed three or four bedrooms, a couple of baths. The front door was stained oak, and there was a fake bell-pull, which chimed electronically.

  Quintin Reeves looked like a young cabinet minister. He was soft and overweight, and came with a prepacked: facial kit of twinkling eyes, pink complexion and silky hair gone silver grey at the temples. He smiled broadly and extended his hand, stood aside so that Sam could come inside the house, get out of the cold morning air.

  Sam sighed. He’d been here before, with this kind of guy, really difficult to pin down. Quintin Reeves was the type, he’d ask you to give him a tenner for two fives; and you’d give him the tenner and look at the two fives, examine them minutely. They’d have the little strip of metal in them, and there’d be the watermark. They’d look and smell and feel like genuine fives. You’d bet your life on them being kosher. But at the same time you’d never shake the feeling that the guy was ripping you off. You wouldn’t know how he’d done it, but you’d have lost something in the transaction and he’d have made a killing.

  He was wearing a white shirt with those expandable bracelets that keep the sleeves from falling down, midnight-blue trousers with creases to cut bread with and a silver-grey tie with a knot that looked like a machine had tied it. It was time for an epiphany and something akin to bells ringing occurred in Sam’s consciousness. He knew suddenly and certainly that the guy never appeared anywhere without a tie. You wanted to catch this man without a necktie, you’d have to sleep with him. Quintin and his ilk were one of the main reasons Sam Turner believed in bloody revolution.

  In the living room the carpet was white and the pile came up to Sam’s armpits. Could’ve drowned in it if he wasn’t a survivor.

  ‘Sam Turner, isn’t it?’ the man said. ‘Quintin Reeves. I spoke to you on the phone.’

  ‘Yeah. Good of you to see me.’

  ‘How could I refuse when you’re retained not only by my wife, but by my sister-in-law as well?’ A thin and
begrudging smile creased his features. The smile wasn’t frequently resorted to by this man. Sam guessed he allowed himself one a month, sometimes two.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ Reeves said. ‘I promised I’d answer your questions, and I will. I’m a man of my word. But I wanted to meet you face to face because I’m worried about Angeles.’

  ‘But not about Isabel, your wife?’

  ‘Isabel too, but in a different way.’

  ‘Yeah, Angeles’s under some pressure.’

  ‘Precisely, Mr Turner. You must be aware that she’s letting her imagination run away with her?’

  Sam shook his head. He hadn’t got that impression. He’d talked to a woman who was facing up to it. She was looking for help along the way, but she wasn’t cracking.

  Reeves folded his hands and leaned forward in his chair conspiratorially. ‘You haven’t known her long, Mr Turner. Angeles isn’t as strong as she’d have you believe. Oh, I don’t think she’s going to crack up. I certainly hope not. She’s had delusions before, and I’m sure she’ll have them again. What I’m concerned about is that she isn’t taken advantage of. What are your fees, Mr Turner?’

  ‘You think I’m charging her over the odds?’

  ‘Not intentionally, no. But anything my sister-in-law Pays for an investigation into something she’s imagined Would be over the top.’

  ‘If I’d’ve thought that was true, I wouldn’t have taken the case.’

  Reeves clapped his hands together, but not with enough enthusiasm to make a sound. ‘You’re a moral man, Mr Turner. I don’t want to take this any further. I only needed to tell you what was on my mind, to share it with you. I’ve got one more thing to say on the subject. After a| few days, a week maybe, you will no longer be so sceptical about my comments. When that time comes, I hope you’ll|| see that to prolong your investigation will not be to Angeles’ benefit. That her general health will be improved. if her fantasies are not given free rein.’