“Oh,” Faith had said. She had sounded genuinely lost for words and Niall had felt sorry for her. He realised that Faith’s house, without them in it, would be large and dark and mostly empty. She would actually miss them a good deal more than they would miss her.
Niall had suggested seeing if Geoff Jefferies was free.
“It’ll be bloody expensive,” he had said, “but I promise it’ll be the last cab I ever take and you don’t really know your way round the trains.”
“OK,” Miranda agreed. “And I need to call my mum.”
Which she had done and, yes, Karin Leman was home and was delighted that Miranda was coming back. She had accepted the addition of Niall with a surprisingly good grace.
“Although,” she had added, “I’m not at all sure what your father will say about it.”
“No, well, we’ll deal with that between us,” Miranda had said confidently.
Now they pulled up in the drive of the Leman house, Geoff’s SatNav having delivered them flawlessly to the door.
“It’s just weird that I’ve lived here so long but I hardly know the place,” Miranda said. “To look at,” she added. “I’m sure if I close my eyes it will feel far more like home.”
Hugo got out and sniffed the air.
Niall heard Karin Leman coming out of the house and decided to let mother and daughter have their reunion while he paid the taxi driver.
“Thanks for everything,” he said to Geoff. “The gods were watching when they had you arrive on the scene after Hugo was knocked down.”
“Don’t know about that,” the driver said, “but it was certainly lucky for you. And for me too. I’ve felt a better person since I’ve met you and your dog.”
“Look after yourself,” Niall said.
“You too,” Geoff replied. “And take good care of that dog, or you’ll have me to answer to.”
“I will,” Niall said.
“And if ever you’re in town –”
“Of course.”
They made their farewells and Niall stood on the drive, waiting for directions.
Faith sat with Duncan Clark in his consulting room.
“And it’s been going on for how long?” he asked.
“Nearly ten years, from what Juliette Warwick told me. This is just the latest in a string of schemes, each more outrageous than the last.”
“And she was their piratical maid of all work,” Clark reflected. “Why?”
“She never really explained,” Faith admitted. “It was a case of ‘Here are the facts, don’t ask me any questions.’”
“Was she besotted with Sullivan, or something?”
“I may be very wrong,” Faith said, “but I don’t think Juliette Warwick could ever be besotted with a man.”
“And they held that over her?” Clark scoffed. “In this day and age?”
“I don’t know. BAB is a rather conservative organisation.”
“I have to confess I know very little about it,” Clark said. “The more I’m learning the happier I am that that’s the case.”
After a pause he added, “And now she’s had enough. Jumped ship. But instead of going to the police she’s gone to you.”
“I’m guessing,” Faith said, “that she has done things in the course of her ‘work’ that might not play too well in a police station.”
“God it makes you sick,” Clark said suddenly. “I mean, we all accept that bankers and businessmen have no ethics but we naively imagine that people who work for charities have some kind of altruistic guiding principle that attracted them to the work in the first place.”
“Which, I suppose, makes it a good career for the unscrupulous,” Faith said.
“I don’t see what you can do,” Clark said. “I don’t know what she hoped you would do.”
“No,” Faith agreed. “She must’ve known I was hardly likely to start gossiping about it.”
“Other than to me,” Clark said, smiling.
“Being another person who knows how to keep his own counsel.”
“Something must have precipitated her attack of conscience.”
“Money, maybe.”
“Yes,” Clark agreed, “it usually is money. She wanted more, they said no, and she said ‘Enough.’”
“In which case,” Faith reflected, “she may have wanted to tell someone in the event of something happening to her.”
“That’s a little melodramatic, surely?”
“She implied that they were behind Damian Clarke’s death.”
“If you ask me, Damian killed himself because he allowed himself to be sucked in somehow to this odious conspiracy.” Clark seethed. “Damn it, the man was a good physician, why didn’t he come to me or to anyone when they exerted whatever influence they had over him? It certainly stuck in my craw letting Sullivan tell the world Damian was a dangerous lunatic.”
“I did wonder why you let that happen,” Faith admitted.
Clark paused, and straightened items on his desk.
“Whatever the root cause, it was my confronting Damian that led directly to his death,” he said at last. “I have to live with that. I didn’t know him well. When Sullivan came up with his story I allowed myself to believe it momentarily because it mitigated my own guilt to some extent. If the man was on a mission to do harm, then conceivably the world could be better off without him. Shameful, I know. If I’d taken Boy Wonder a bit more seriously maybe I wouldn’t have allowed any of it to happen.”
“Yes. Niall,” Faith said. “You didn’t allow it to happen, Duncan. You discovered a serious breach of medical ethics and you confronted the perpetrator. You acted entirely properly.”
“I know what I’m like, Faith,” Clark sad. “I’m acerbic, sarcastic, a bully. I don’t always mean to be, but it always comes out that way. If it had been you confronting him, you’d’ve been trying to find out why, trying to support him at the very moment you were threatening him. I can’t do that. I’m a blunt instrument. He wouldn’t have gone away from a meeting with you and killed himself.”
“That’s idle speculation. And it smacks of self-pity, which I wouldn’t expect from you, Duncan,” Faith said. “There’s a coldness at the heart of our business. There has to be. It’s how we protect ourselves. It’s even part of the training. I would have been just as clinical as you, in my own way. And the result, I am absolutely sure, would have been the same. It’s the ones who got to him first and put him up to it that we should go after now.”
“Yes,” Clark said thoughtfully. “Just because a disease kills a patient doesn’t mean you stop searching for a cure to the disease.”
“Very medically put,” Faith said.
“And how do you propose to ‘go after’ them?” Duncan Clark asked.
Well,” Faith said smiling, “I do have one other piece of information that might come in useful.”
It was when Niall was comfortably ensconced on the Leman’s sofa forcing himself politely to drink a cup of coffee that Rebecca called him.
“It’s Rebecca,” he said before answering, glad that Miranda’s mother was in the room to prevent a potential outburst. Blind, he had no difficulty fielding Miranda’s look and sigh.
“Hey,” he said to the phone.
“Hi, it’s Rebecca.”
“So my phone told me.”
“Yes of course,” Rebecca said, a little flustered. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” Niall said. “I’m in Surrey. I’m staying with Miranda at her parents’.”
“Things have moved on, then,” Rebecca said mischievously.
“You could say so,” Niall replied.
“I’m glad,” Rebecca said. “But I’m calling about Penny, if you haven’t lost interest in Daniel Sullivan. I can see that you might’ve.”
“Of course I haven’t lost interest,” Niall said. “What about Penny?”
“She’s on nights this week. I figured mid-afternoon might be a good time to bump into her. She’s usually getting up around then
.”
“Superb,” Niall said. “What about tomorrow?”
“No time like tomorrow,” Rebecca replied.
“Can I bring Miranda?”
“Of course. We’ll have a party.”
“Where is it you live?”
“Tooting.”
“Oh, well. We’ll find it.”
“Of course you will. You’re you,” Rebecca said. Niall suspected irony, but he liked the implication all the same.
“Friend of a friend,” he said to Karin Leman by way of explanation as the call ended.
“You have a lot of friends, don’t you?” Karin said.
“Not really.”
“I found it so hard,” Karin went on, unburdening herself, “when S- Miranda was young – trying to find the children who would want to play or be friends with her.”
“I bet,” Niall said.
The day spent with Miranda and her mother passed remarkably pleasantly, Niall thought, but as evening drew on, the imminent return of her father seemed to cast something of a shadow over them all. It was a “squash” night, so the moment had been delayed. There had been a discussion about whether to let him know Niall was in his house before he returned home, but Karin Leman hadn’t had the stomach for the call, and Miranda had promised to meet him herself at the front door and tell him. Conversation became sporadic as the tension mounted, and it was almost with relief that they finally greeted the sound of the garage door opening automatically. Without a word, Miranda got up and went out.
“She’s so fearless,” Karin said admiringly. “Where has this person come from?”
“It’s who she is,” Niall said. “It was always there, just obliterated by circumstances.”
“By us, you mean.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. You needed help. You didn’t get it. My dad ran away faster than a speeding bullet when I lost my sight. People genuinely don’t know how to deal with it. At least you guys stuck by her.”
“We turned her into a second-class citizen, though,” Karin said.
“You did what you thought was right.”
“You’re trying to be kind, but I don’t think you really mean it.”
“You should know enough about me by now to know that I always say what I mean.”
They fell silent, and in the silence they could hear voices in the garage, but the tone wasn’t angry or aggressive.
“Roderick should be thanking you, really,” Karin said. “You’ve given him the kind of child he always wanted. Feisty, fearless, determined. Like him.”
“It’s not me, it’s the eyes,” Niall said.
“It’s you, and the way she feels about you.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Niall said. “I’m not going to let her down.”
“I believe that,” Karin said. “I hope she doesn’t end up hurting you. This is all so new to her.”
“Occupational hazard,” Niall said.
At that moment the door opened and Miranda and her father walked in. Niall got to his feet.
“Don’t get up,” Roderick Leman said. “Good evening. Welcome to our home.”
“Thank you,” Niall said.
“Look at you all,” Roderick went on. “The three conspirators looking desperately guilty.” But his tone was light.
“Sorry,” Niall said.
“My daughter has been a passionate and persuasive advocate,” Roderick said.
“She certainly has a mind of her own,” Niall said.
“Hang on,” Miranda interrupted. “I’m not blind any more. You don’t have to talk about me as though I’m not in the room.”
They passed a relaxed and convivial evening. Roderick Leman made a number of jokes at Niall’s expense, which annoyed Miranda but which Niall seemed almost to enjoy, and for his part Niall kept off inflammatory topics such as squash, money and the eye transplant. By unspoken mutual consent nobody broached the subject of Damian Clarke and sabotage either.
Later, lying in bed in “the guest room”, Niall contemplated his situation. That he was sleeping under the same roof and eating at the same table as Roderick Leman was bizarre. However, seeing how much the man was enjoying his newly sighted daughter did reveal another side of him. While he remained convinced that Leman had made a significant donation to BAB to secure the operation for Miranda, a bribe brokered by the squash partner and probably now mostly in his pocket, he no longer believed that the father’s involvement went any further. You didn’t pay a lot of money for something and then help it to fail.
The next afternoon saw Niall, Hugo and Miranda walking down Upper Tooting Road while Rebecca, on Niall’s mobile, tried to pilot them in. A lift from Karin Leman to the end of the Northern line and a train to Tooting Broadway had done the rest. Aside from a biting wind that seemed to be in their faces whether they turned left, right, or went straight on, Niall was glad to be out of the inevitable taxis, and irrationally proud of himself for using public transport.
“OK, I can see you,” Rebecca said finally. “I’m coming down to let you in.”
“We’re here,” Niall said to Miranda, ending the phone call. Miranda gathered Niall into a proprietary arm and saw his smile.
“She needs to know you’re off limits,” Miranda said.
“She knows,” Niall said. “She knew before you did. You’re safe with me. Girls just aren’t that interested.”
“Rubbish,” Miranda scoffed.
“Hi.” Rebecca came out to the pavement and welcomed them. “Penny’s in the shower but I told her you wanted to meet her. She’s fine about it. Didn’t even ask why. That’s just what she’s like.”
They went inside.
“Be impressed,” Rebecca said to Niall. “I went out this morning and got some raspberry tea.”
“I’m impressed,” Niall said.
They settled in the living room, Niall and Miranda on the sofa this time, and Rebecca in the armchair that Niall had previously occupied. She found that she couldn’t help being drawn to Miranda’s eyes. They were striking, whether they were Joe’s or not, but also so like his that she felt it was almost impossible for them to have belonged to anyone else. It was more disturbing than upsetting. Disturbing because Miranda looked nothing like Joe. His eyes didn’t make her face his face, and somehow she had expected that they would.
“I’m sorry for staring,” she said.
“It’s OK,” Miranda said. “I understand.”
“I’m so pleased for you guys,” Rebecca went on. “You make a great couple.”
Niall felt Miranda’s body relax a little beside him.
Penny burst into the room in a dressing gown, with her hair in a towel.
“Hello,” she said. “Anybody make me a drink?”
Two minutes later she was back with a large mug of instant coffee.
“Well now,” she said, sitting down. “One of you’s a journalist apparently, and so I’m assuming you want to interview me about the NHS.”
“Not exactly,” Niall said. Penny winked at Miranda. It annoyed her.
“Cute dog,” Penny commented.
“Hugo,” Niall said. “He’s still recovering from being knocked down.”
“By DS,” Rebecca added.
“No!” Penny said. “Prosecute the bastard.”
“It might not’ve been him,” Niall said.
“He’s the sort who’d think someone should go ahead of him to clear the road,” Penny said. “A self-important twat, in short.”
“Couldn’t’ve put it better myself,” Niall said smugly. “And he’s trying to get Miranda into bed.”
“Let’s take it back to the beginning,” Miranda suggested, trying to get control of a conversation that was starting to annoy her.
“Right,” Niall said.
Penny listened wide-eyed as the story unfolded, soaking up the facts and the suspicions.
“So now you want to sting him,” she said when they had finished.
“Bearing in mind he may not be afraid of sti
nging us,” Niall said.
“You know,” Penny said, “I can’t see him as a murderer. I mean, yes, I can well believe he’d knock over a dog and not stop short of much to get his own way, but he’s really not very dynamic. He just thinks he is.”
“What about a Roman evening?” Miranda said suddenly.
“What do you mean?” Penny said, at the same time that Niall was saying “No!”
“Hear me out,” Miranda said. “You said we wanted to sting him. Penny could arrange it so that we were the three girls for the evening. The chances are that whoever else is in this thing with Daniel also goes to these parties, because poor Dr. Clarke went to one. It was probably meant to be his reward for going along with their plans. We can threaten to reveal the whole story about the sex nights if they don’t tell us the truth about the transplant.”
“And none of you might ever be seen again,” Niall said.
“You could be outside the door with your friend Matt, the great reporter,” Miranda said. “I could ring you before we went in and just leave the phone line open. You could hear everything that went on. If I scream you know it’s time to call the police and knock the door down.”
“I don’t like it,” Niall said. “You keep suggesting it and you know I don’t like it,” he added, turning to Miranda.
“I think it’s brilliant,” Penny said. “But,” she went on, “there is one problem which is that there hasn’t been a Roman soiree for months.”
“If he knew that Miranda was an option...” Rebecca started.
“No,” Penny interrupted before Niall could. “He’d suspect something then. You might have to leave this with me and trust in our ‘special relationship’. I’ll see what I can do.”
“If we expose the sordid sex nights, we’ll never get to the bottom of the transplant,” Niall said. “They’ll get fired but they won’t go to prison and then they’ll be after us for ruining them.”
“Whatever they are up to would end, though,” Miranda said. “Because they wouldn’t be in those positions.”
“We owe it to Dr. Clarke to nail them for what they did to him.”
“So what’s your plan?” Penny asked Niall.
“I don’t have one,” he admitted. “I hate to say it but I am reluctantly starting to think we’ve got as far as we can and it’s time to hand everything we know over to Matthew Long and the might of the Mirror.”
Eyes of the Blind Page 30