“And the Queen is my aunt,” Niall muttered under his breath.
PART
FOUR
‘I have a right to be blind sometimes...’
Horatio Nelson
EIGHTEEN
“I’m angry,” Roderick Leman said.
“Of course you are,” John Holthouse acknowledged sympathetically.
“I’m just not quite sure who to sue.”
“I would strongly advise you against suing anyone. You might find yourself on decidedly dodgy ground.”
Leman had surprised and shocked Holthouse by turning up unannounced at his office. He disliked anything that connected him to the transplant now.
“You must see, though,” John went on, “that choosing the medical professionals was not a part of BAB’s remit.”
“He who pays the piper calls the tune,” Leman said.
“Proverbs,” Holthouse groaned. “Life reduced to its most simplistic.
“Don’t insult me,” Roderick Leman said. “You bank-rolled this operation with my money, and my daughter was the guinea pig.”
“Roderick,” Holthouse said, “I understand how you feel. I do. Believe me. But the situation has resolved itself. Clarke is out of the way. The operation seems to have been a success. Assuming everything goes OK from now on you will have got what you paid for. A daughter who can see. Nobody seems to think there will be any lasting damage from anything Damian Clarke did. As I see it, our business association is at an end. We can go back to just being friends who thrash a rubber ball at each other twice a week.
Acknowledging what Holthouse said to be true, Roderick Leman still felt somehow cheated and deceived. Damian Clarke’s suicide was an entirely unsatisfactory end to the business.
“Murder,” Niall said.
“Oh, Niall, really,” Faith protested.
“Duncan Clarke agrees with me.”
“How do you know?”
“I could hear it in his voice.”
They were sitting over coffee and raspberry tea in Faith’s kitchen. In the wake of their discoveries relating to Number 17, Niall had told Miranda that he was “going to officially take Faith off the list of suspects.” To which Miranda had retorted, “Which some of us did a long time ago.”
“Number One,” Niall went on, developing his theory before his sceptical audience, “this press conference was his fatal mistake. He provided us with the missing piece of the puzzle. Sabotaging the eye transplant.”
“Why?” Faith asked.
“Yes, why?” Miranda echoed.
“Maybe he panicked and saw an end to all blindness and so the end of his job.”
“Don’t be silly, Niall,” Faith said. “Even if transplanting eyes became as common as removing cataracts there would still be blind people. If there ever is a universal cure for blindness it will come about long after Daniel Sullivan has retired.”
“And,” Miranda added, “my father would never’ve gone along with it. He’s absolutely furious. And it was after you went to see him that Hugo was knocked down.”
“Maybe that really was just an accident,” Niall offered.
“Oh Niall I could hit you!” Miranda said.
“Why,” Niall ploughed on, undaunted, “did they hold that press conference? It wasn’t necessary. You’re old news already because you won’t go on Big Brother. Damian Clarke was hardly news at all. Duncan Clark was the one person who knew and he is hardly the kind of person to go courting the press. It would’ve just died a death. But Sullivan was afraid that somebody might go on digging and might find out something. He was forcing a card on us. That’s what it felt like. The master conjuror performing a trick and we were all obediently taken in by it. Now Matthew Idiot Long and his other cronies will go away and write a sad piece about the tragedy of Damian Clarke and how lucky it was that he was caught.”
“Wasn’t it only the other day that you wanted to pool resources with Matthew Idiot Long?” Miranda asked.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Niall said. “I think that Damian Clarke told Sullivan that Duncan had found them out. And then Sullivan wasted no opportunity in contriving Clarke’s ‘suicide’, at the same time using it to deflect all suspicion away from BAB. This all began at BAB. I know it. If I wasn’t a bloody marked man I’d go back there.”
“Isn’t it possible,” Faith ventured, “that you’re letting your obsession with Daniel Sullivan run away with you? Isn’t it possible that his ‘secret’ that he is so anxious to hide is these sordid evenings at Vivien Loosemore’s house? Because his job certainly wouldn’t survive that being revealed. And that Damian Clarke’s actions were indeed his own?”
“Damian Clarke went to one of those sordid evenings,” Niall replied. “He was there. We have first hand proof of that. There is a link between the two men.”
“And that may have been forged when they met quite naturally in the run up to Miranda’s operation.”
“The voice of reason,” Niall said, with a degree of bitterness in his tone. He wanted to go on arguing, but suddenly he couldn’t be bothered. If Faith and Miranda decided it was time to start living happily ever after he would go it alone. Or find another accomplice. He owed it to Hugo. He wished Hugo was well enough to start working again. He felt so helpless without him. So dependent. And Miranda had positioned herself as his sighted guide cum sidekick in such a way that it was virtually impossible to do anything without her.
Later, he called Simon.
“Oh no,” Simon said on answering his phone.
“That’s nice,” Niall responded. “There was me just phoning for a chat.”
“And when has that ever happened?” Simon said.
“I’m just getting claustrophobia stuck here with two women,” Niall went on. “I’m in need of some guy time. I was hoping I could trail round with you for a day.”
“Because either you want to pick my brains about something or you think I’m going somewhere that might help your investigation.”
“No,” Niall insisted. “Hugo’s not allowed to work at the minute and I feel kind of trapped. Or you could just cover for me. Pick me up in the morning and then drop me somewhere and just say I spent the day with you.”
“You must be desperate.”
“I am.”
“OK. Tomorrow I’m going to a school in Finchley. I’ll get my driver to stop off at your place and you can climb aboard. After that you can decide. Just remember I’m actually working.”
“Fantastic.”
“I’m supposed to be there for nine, so be ready by eight thirty. Not that I’ve got a clue how near you are to Finchley.”
“No, nor me.”
“Well, if the worst comes to the worst, I’m late. It won’t be the first time. Nobody’s complained yet.”
The next day Niall did not trail round Finchley with Simon. Leaving Hugo at home and brandishing the cane he loathed using he got into Simon’s car only to get dropped off at the first underground station they passed.
“Thanks, mate,” Niall said. “Sorry, and all that. Got a better offer.”
“From a woman, no doubt,” Simon said.
“I’m too transparent,” Niall said, as he got out of the car. “Just remember, if Miranda calls I’m with you.”
It was only when he was safely in the confines of the station that he called Rebecca Blackford.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” she said, surprised.
“Are you busy?”
“I’m in bed,” Rebecca said. “I work nights in a restaurant.”
“Sorry,” Niall said. “I forgot. Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he added.
“Certainly not,” Rebecca said. “Do you think I’d’ve answered?”
“Fair point,” Niall conceded. “Any chance of meeting up? I want to talk over some stuff.”
“Of course,” Rebecca said. “I promise to try not to cry. Where are you?”
“Where are you is probably more to the point,” Niall said. “It’
s just me and a white stick so I thought I’d just jump in a cab and turn up on your doorstep.”
“This place is a tip,” Rebecca said.
“I can’t see it, remember.”
“Good point.” Rebecca gave him the address. “I’d better get up then,” she said.
“Your choice entirely,” Niall replied.
Miranda had been disappointed when Niall had announced his intention of spending the day with Simon. She knew that in some way it was a punishment for her having not taken his latest theories seriously. He did like an admiring audience. But once she had accepted that he would not be persuaded, she had decided that his absence would give her the freedom to follow up any avenue without interference. And the avenue that she could only follow up when Niall’s back was turned was Daniel Sullivan. She decided to call him on the British Association for the Blind number, so that some receptionist might recall putting her through should anything untoward happen, only to be thwarted when the message came back that he wasn’t in the office. Then she tried his mobile, which he answered on the fifth ring. How lovely to hear from her, he said. He hoped everything was fine. She said it was, but she wondered if they could have lunch. He prevaricated a little – he was in Essex – but she could tell he was tempted. At last he agreed to pick her up for a late lunch around two o’clock.
“I’m curious to know what’s brought this on,” he said.
“Maybe I’ve just had time to think about things,” Miranda said enigmatically.
“So this is south of the river,” Niall reflected. “Don’t think I’ve ever been to this side of London before.”
“It’s the wild frontier,” Rebecca said.
“I can tell.”
They were sitting at Rebecca’s kitchen table, the rigmarole of her offer of coffee or tea, Niall’s tentatively optimistic request for raspberry and her apologetic negative response safely behind them. An experimental rosehip and ginger was not hitting the spot. “If I’d had any advance warning I could have got some in,” Rebecca had said. “You barely gave me time for a shower.”
“So,” she said now, “what do you want to talk over?”
“I’m just not satisfied,” Niall said.
“You’re direct, I’ll give you that,” Rebecca said. “You’d like Penny.”
“Penny?”
“My housemate, remember.”
“Yes. Sorry. No. I mean the case.”
“I know. I was joking. Is it a ‘case’ now?” Niall gave her what was meant to be a hard stare.
“Everybody’s just accepting that Daniel “Is that my arse or is it the sun? I can’t see because my head’s inside it” Sullivan’s version of events is sad but true, and it doesn’t add up.” Niall punctuated the last three words by pounding the table. Rebecca absorbed the frustration and the drama before she replied.
“When you say everyone, you mean Miranda, right?”
“I mean everyone,” Niall said. “Including Miranda. And Faith, who has always been on my side my entire life.”
“Even when you suspected her of being involved.”
“I never told her that.”
“No.”
“But it’s like she’s adopted Miranda,” Niall went on, unable to stop himself. “And Miranda laps it up and loves it. I should move out and leave them.”
Niall heard Rebecca get out of her seat. He heard her come round the table and stand behind his chair. Then he felt her arms round him.
“What are you doing?”
“Just giving back some of what you gave to me in Caffe Nero,” she said. “I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I couldn’t.”
“Are we friends?”
“Aren’t we?”
“I suppose.”
“Miranda is besotted with you,” Rebecca said. “If you can’t see that you’re more than just blind. You haven’t lost her to Faith.”
“I didn’t say I had. That isn’t what this is about.”
“Isn’t it? You feel let down by her because you want her to agree with everything you think and say. But just because she doesn’t doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. She’s probably just as upset as you are. More, in fact.”
“And you know this because – ” Niall said.
“I’m a girl,” Rebecca said. “And an exceptionally clever and intuitive one at that,” she added.
What Niall felt at that moment was the warmth of her arms around his chest, the warmth of her breath on his neck, and the consequent stirrings in his loins which he hoped were not visible to the naked eye.
“Now then,” Rebecca said. “Let’s review your doubts about the case.”
“OK,” Niall said, trying to focus. “It means talking about Damian Clarke though.”
“It’s fine,” Rebecca said. “Since I off-loaded it all to you I’ve felt much better.”
“You said he was like a fish out of water, nervous, apologetic.”
“Yes.”
“Does that fit the profile of a man who thinks he’s doing God’s work by sabotaging an eye operation?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said. “Advanced profiling isn’t really part of your average primary teacher training course. But he could’ve been nervous because he thought God was watching him. He said he was under a lot of pressure at work.”
“That was what I remembered you telling me,” Niall said. “Between the sobs. But all that pressure was self-inflicted, if he was really working alone. Whereas, if Sullivan was leaning on him – that was another matter. And if Sullivan had influence over him, then that could explain why he was there at all. Because from what you’ve told me it sounds like he really didn’t want to be.”
“So what you think,” Rebecca said, still holding him, which Niall was finding increasingly distracting, “is that Daniel Sullivan corrupted Damian Clarke and got him to sabotage Miranda’s medication. If so, he wanted the operation to fail. He wanted the operation to fail badly enough to go to extraordinary lengths. Because from everything I’ve heard or read it sounds like there was every chance it could’ve failed anyway.”
“Yes,” Niall said. “I’ve thought about that. From Sullivan’s perspective it was vital – essential – that the operation wasn’t a success. Miranda needed to stay blind. And I’m wondering whether it’s to do with Miranda, rather than the operation itself. In which case we still don’t know enough about why she was the lucky chosen one. But what I do know is that it was on the day that I pushed her dad as far as I could for information about it that Hugo was knocked down.”
“Yes,” Rebecca reflected. She got up and went back to her seat across the table. “I see what you mean. It’s either the operation itself, or it’s Miranda.”
“I’ve thought maybe something happened that night they went to the ballet.”
“You’ve lost me,” Rebecca said.
“Sorry. He took her to the ballet one night around Christmas time.”
“And you think it was only then that he decided she had to lose her sight?”
“I don’t know,” Niall admitted. “It’s possible. It would mean I’d been wrong about a lot of other stuff, but I’ve got used to being wrong now. What if she saw something she wasn’t meant to that night?”
“It would have been easier to do away with her altogether.”
“No because he wants to shag her.”
“But he needs her to be unable to see him.”
“Because after he’s finished he wants all his mates to have her but for her to think that it’s him.”
“Niall, I’m not blind, or very broadly sexually experienced, but there are ways you can tell the difference between men without looking at them.”
“Yeah,” Niall conceded. “You’re right. It can’t be that.”
“It obviously bothers you that he wants to have sex with Miranda.”
“Because he’s a gobbet of phlegm humanity spat out.”
Niall couldn’t see Rebecca’s smile.
“But back to the plot,” she said.
/> “Why Miranda?” Niall said. “I’m sure it all comes back to that.”
Miranda waited in Faith’s front room, watching for Daniel Sullivan’s car. It still amazed her that she could; that she could look through a window, comprehend the transparency of glass, see the mixture of colours that resolved themselves into the solid objects she had known for years by touch alone; that the sound of a car passing on a road carried a matching image; that she – Miranda Leman – could experience both simultaneously, let one complement the other.
Eyes of the Blind Page 27