Before Her Eyes

by Jack Jordan

  She snatched her hand away, covered in something warm and sticky, and cradled it against her heaving chest, smearing the stranger’s blood on the breast of her coat. She tried to breathe through the sobs, but the air barely filled her lungs.

  A breath caressed the back of her neck and she froze. Rain ran down her face and dripped off her jaw. She could smell excitement on the person’s breath, feel their warmth against her back. Hands grabbed at her wrists and dragged her forwards.

  ‘No, please!’

  The stranger’s gloved fingers laced between hers and pushed her hands down onto the body. Tears ran down her cheeks as pain shot up her arms. Long wet hair tangled around her fingers. She felt breasts beneath the fabric and a stab wound in the stomach. She retched as her fingers slipped into the wound, which felt like a small, toothless mouth in the torso. Tears and snot dripped from her face.

  ‘Enough!’ she screamed.

  The hands paused, just enough for her to feel the stranger’s pulse beating through latex gloves, and released her. Naomi snatched her own hands from the body and instinctively wiped her nose with the back of her hand, smearing blood across the base of her nostrils and the flesh of her top lip. The gloved hand wiped a tear from her cheek.

  ‘Kill me,’ she whispered.

  She felt one final breath warm her lips. Footsteps splashed through puddles and dissipated down the lane, until it was just her, the body and the rain.

  TEN

  Marcus followed Lisa down the corridor, focusing purely on keeping his steps in a straight line. He had just finished his third beer when the call came in about the second body. He was still trying to forget the first.

  Tension had filled the station in the few short hours that he had been away. Even the usual punters in the cells had been subdued. The latest lead changed everything: they had their first witness.

  ‘I want to talk to her first, while it’s still fresh,’ Lisa said, her stride hurried. If she could smell the beer on him, she hadn’t said. ‘I’m not leaving it up to a uniform. We’ll go straight from here to the scene. Forensics will have it ready for us by then.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me in on this.’

  ‘Only because Blake didn’t pick up his damn phone.’ She stopped in the hallway and took a good look at him. He immediately stood straighter. ‘You can’t freak out on me again, understand?’

  He nodded quickly.

  If he closed his eyes, he could still see Cassie peering out at him from that musky white skin, her body drained of life and any memory of who she was before.

  From the people he had spoken to so far, he had learned that Cassie had been well liked in the town, known as someone who was going places, her name once clawing a smile at the corners of their lips when they talked of her working for one of the big national newspapers one day. But when they heard her name now, the first thing they would remember would be her gruesome end.

  ‘The officers who attended the 999 call said she was pretty shaken up,’ he said, conscious of pronouncing every syllable.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  Lisa’s hair was tied up in a scraggly ponytail, with stray hairs dangling down the nape of her neck. She wore the same clothes from earlier in the day. Marcus wondered if she had been at the station the whole time, or if she had gone home only to step back into her uniform. It was the first time he had seen her ruffled.

  ‘The officers who brought her in said she had bandaged hands,’ he said. ‘She said someone threw a brick through a window where she works earlier today; she cut her hands on glass or something. It didn’t happen at the scene.’

  ‘Sounds like a pretty shit day,’ Lisa said.

  They stopped outside the interview room door, just as Lisa’s phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She looked at the screen and cut the call. It began buzzing again before she had even put it back in her pocket. She sighed and turned it off.

  ‘I’ll lead, you chip in if I forget anything.’

  Marcus nodded and gulped down his resentment, hoping it hadn’t shown in his face.

  Lisa opened the door.

  ‘Hello, Naomi, my name is Detective Inspector Lisa Elliott, and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Marcus Campbell.’

  The woman stared ahead as if she was lost in a memory. As Marcus looked closer, he saw that her whole body was shaking, sending tremors through the blanket draped over her shoulders.

  They sat down on the opposite side of the table. Naomi’s eyes didn’t move. Her hands were wrapped around a cup of milky tea. She had full lips, deep brown eyes that, on closer inspection, seemed to flicker minutely, and jet-black hair that surrounded her face in a wavy mass, still damp from the rain. Marcus could see the absolute fear in her gaze, but there was something else there too. It took him a moment to realise that their witness was blind.

  Lisa noticed too. They shared a look.

  ‘Naomi, are you blind?’

  The woman nodded.

  Lisa leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyelids, her jaw clenching beneath the skin.

  The uniformed officers should have told them about this. Marcus thought they probably would have if Lisa had been more agreeable with her colleagues, and wondered if she would make the same connection.

  ‘We have a few questions for you about what happened earlier this evening,’ Marcus said. ‘I’ll be writing down what’s said in our chat, and you’ll have a copy to take home with you.’

  Give the blind woman some light reading. Good thinking.

  ‘Or we can get you a copy of the recording,’ he said, his cheeks burning. ‘If that’s easier.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said quietly.

  Marcus pressed play on the recorder and introduced everyone in the room for the tape. Most stations had moved on and integrated the recording equipment within the room like a fly on the wall, but Balkerne Heights was stuck in the past, with such a small budget that even the coffee supply was rationed to three cups per head, per day. They got through their allowance before noon.

  ‘Please tell us what happened this evening, in your own words.’

  Naomi took a sip of tea. Drops of beige liquid ran down the side of the cup and dribbled over her fingers.

  ‘I … I was walking home from work, and—’

  ‘Where do you work?’ Lisa interjected.

  ‘The Orchard Café. My bosses are Mitchell and Peggy Delaware.’

  Marcus knew the name Mitchell Delaware. He thought back to the files he had read that day, the crimes that had been committed in the neighbouring streets, and remembered.

  Mitchell had been found in a local brothel during a raid in 1999, a small terraced house on the worst street in town, filled with young foreign women who had been promised a better life, only to be forced to share a bed with dozens of men each day to pay back their debts. He had only been given a slap on the wrist the first time. Marcus wondered if the man’s wife knew about the secrets that lay between them in bed each night.

  ‘Continue,’ Lisa said.

  ‘I was walking down the high street and took a different route; I wanted to avoid some teenagers sitting at the bus stop. I’ve memorised most of the town’s roads, but not all. I wasn’t sure where I was and took another right, hoping to loop back round onto the high street. That was when I heard someone in the alley with me. She … she was begging for her life. And then I heard her scream.’

  ‘The victim?’

  Naomi nodded and knocked a tear from her eye. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her bandaged hand. Her eyes were restless, twitching from side to side.

  ‘I called out, but nothing happened. I turned to leave the way I came, but someone blocked the path.’

  ‘Who?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘I think it was the …’ She couldn’t seem to form her lips around the word. ‘The … killer. Whoever it was followed me down the alley until I found …’

  She took a sip of tea and closed her eyes as steam rose from the cup.

  ‘The body,’ Lisa
said.

  Naomi nodded.

  ‘For the purposes of the tape, Naomi nodded her head in agreement.’ Marcus wondered if she could smell the beer on his breath.

  ‘What happened next?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘The person who killed her came up behind me.’

  ‘You think it was the killer, or you know?’

  ‘Well, whoever it was came up behind me and took my hands and …’

  Another tear fell, but this time she didn’t wipe it away. She wasn’t in the room any more; she was back in the alley.

  ‘The stranger’s hands dragged mine up and down the body, made me feel it. It was still warm. I felt a stab wound in her torso and a cut on her neck.’

  The uniformed officers who had responded to her 999 call and brought her to the station had cleaned Naomi up pretty well: the blood had been washed from her face, and she wore a plain grey tracksuit given to civilians in custody; her hands had been scrubbed clean and wrapped in fresh bandages, though crimson stains still lurked under her fingernails, the blood that had once flowed through a living body now stuck within the crevices of another. The officer who had called it in said Naomi had been found with the dead woman’s hair tangled around the base of her fingers.

  ‘Were the hands small? Large?’

  ‘Medium. Gloved.’

  ‘In what? Wool, leather, latex?’

  ‘Latex, I think, or something similar.’

  ‘You think.’

  Lisa was struggling. Usually she would stare into a person’s eyes until they told her everything she wanted to hear, but Naomi was immune to her penetrative glare.

  ‘I begged for them to stop. And then I felt a hand stroke my face.’

  ‘Stroke?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘Yes. It wiped a tear off my cheek.’

  ‘Why didn’t he kill you too?’

  Marcus shot a look at Lisa; she was leaning in as though she wanted Naomi to feel the heat of her words.

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Why would this person kill a woman and then give you a tender stroke? What makes you so special?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pity?’

  ‘Because you’re blind?’

  ‘Maybe I wasn’t a threat because I couldn’t see their face.’

  ‘Can you describe the person to me?’

  ‘Medium build, I think. Like I said, average-size hands.’

  ‘A man or a woman? Cologne or perfume?’

  ‘I don’t know. The rain, it throws me off.’

  ‘Aren’t your other senses supposed to be heightened or something?’

  Marcus bit down on his bottom lip.

  ‘All I could smell was blood.’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘Well, thank you for coming in, Ms Hannah, you’ve been very helpful. DS Campbell will show you out.’ She pushed her chair back, the legs screeching against the floor, and headed for the door.

  ‘One moment, please,’ Marcus said to Naomi, and followed Lisa out of the room.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he called after her as she headed down the corridor. She stopped and turned back.

  ‘Are you kidding? The woman’s blind. She couldn’t tell us anything of value.’

  ‘You haven’t even given her a chance.’

  ‘Out of all those questions we asked her, the only answers we got were that she gets lost easily and the killer was wearing gloves. A dog could have told us more. We haven’t got time for this.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re forgetting she’s a victim herself. She found a body today.’

  Lisa approached him, only stopping when her face was inches from his. ‘Perhaps you’re forgetting who you’re talking to.’

  He held his breath and clenched his teeth until his jaw clicked.

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  Both of them noticed the insincerity in his voice.

  ‘Get a uniform to drop her home. Meet me at the car in ten.’

  Lisa turned and headed back down the hallway, her ponytail swishing left and right.

  Marcus sighed and returned to the room.

  Naomi was still sitting at the table with the cup of tea in her hands, with her head tilted to the right to listen as he entered. He couldn’t imagine living her life, trapped in the darkness with the taunts of a busy, vibrant world right before her eyes. He wondered if she got lonely in the dark.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘My boss, she’s …’

  ‘She doesn’t think I’m a credible witness because I’m blind.’

  Marcus hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  Naomi rested her hands in her lap and sucked on her bottom lip.

  ‘Can I do anything?’

  ‘Can someone take me home?’

  ‘Of course, and here,’ Marcus took a card from his wallet and put it on the table before realising how thoughtless the act was. He tried to prise it from the tabletop, picking at the edge with his fingernails, before placing it in her bandaged palm. ‘My card, in case you need anything.’

  When she didn’t say anything, it dawned on him that she wouldn’t be able to read it.

  ‘Is there someone who could read the number to you, perhaps?’ He hadn’t wanted to sound condescending, but he could hear it in his tone. He cleared his throat. ‘Or I could put it in your phone for you.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  She picked up her cane and stood, leaving the blanket on the back of the chair. The cane looked bent, and he spotted the crack in the middle, like a break in a bone.

  ‘Detective …’

  ‘Call me Marcus.’

  ‘Marcus, am I in danger?’

  The truth was, he had no idea. Lisa had just walked off and abandoned their one and only witness. Could they protect her? Did they need to?

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Way to instil confidence in a witness, you dick.

  He cleared his throat again. ‘I’m confident there won’t be any repercussions, but if you’re ever worried about your safety, call me.’

  Naomi nodded languidly. It was clear she didn’t believe him.

  Marcus led her through the station and arranged for PC Kate Finch to take her home. He handed Naomi a flyer for a counselling service and guided her to the car park, at a loss what to say to a woman who had felt death with her own hands. They stood in the cold waiting for Kate to bring the car around.

  When the car pulled up, Marcus opened the door, then shut it behind her. Naomi stared ahead, clutching the flyer in shaking hands, and he wondered how long it would take for her to trust the world again. He nodded at Kate in the driver’s seat and watched the car draw away.

  ‘Marcus.’

  He turned. Lisa stood in the doorway with her face drained of colour and a fist curled tightly around her phone.

  ‘The murdered woman the witness found …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  She hesitated, swallowed so hard he saw her throat move. ‘It was Amber.’

  ELEVEN

  The crime scene was different this time. It wasn’t just the additional personnel, it was the grim silence that hung over them, pressing down on every pair of shoulders. This victim was one of their own.

  Officer Amber O’Neill was lying on her back in a dark pool of blood and rain. Her head had fallen to the right. Her eyes peered down the alley and watched every officer arrive, giving everyone a good look at the open wound in her neck. Her coat had been yanked from her body and discarded further down the alley, and the white shirt on her torso was askew, with the collar resting on the middle of her back, and half of the buttons pulled clean off, exposing her bra and the tender white flesh on her chest. Someone had stolen her life and taken her dignity with it. Marcus remembered the touch of her hand on his arm just hours before, how warm and alive it had been. Now the girl was dead at his feet.

  Lisa was staring down at the body. Her jaw clenched until the bones moved beneath the skin.

  Marcus was quiet too, but not just because the only member of the team he had actually liked had
died. Superintendent Matthew Cunningham stood between them, taking in the sight. The superintendent was another member of staff who Marcus had only met the once, on his second day on the job. Cunningham was often out of the office, working from different locations. But since the first murder, he had been working from the station and going in and out without being seen by anyone but Lisa. Until now.

  Dr Ling was examining the body to the flash of the camera blasting white light over the rain, the blood, the flesh. The flash filled Marcus’s eyes until all he saw was white blots in his vision, which followed him every time he tried to look away. The tarpaulin tent protecting the body flapped and whined with the wind.

  ‘Explain this fucking mess.’

  The superintendent was a man of few words, but each of them hit Marcus in his chest like a finger jabbing at his ribcage.

  ‘I believe—’

  ‘Not you,’ he said to Dr Ling. ‘Her.’

  For a mere second, Marcus saw fear in Lisa’s eyes. He would have to relish it later.

  ‘It appears to be the same killer. The body—’

  ‘Amber O’Neill’s body,’ Cunningham spat. ‘An officer’s body.’

  ‘Amber is similar in age to the first victim, same ethnicity and build; her throat was cut in the same fashion, and her body was found in an alley, a place in which the killer likes to attack. Whether consciously or not, the killer is following a pattern.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ he said.

  Marcus tried to appear unfazed by the superintendent’s intimidating presence, and hid his shaking hands in his pockets. Cunningham reminded him of his father, a man who was prone to shouting and always ready to use his fists. Marcus felt every punch his father had thrown as if the bruises were rising back up to the surface.

  ‘We are looking for a link between the victims to see if they are meaningful attacks or random selection within the killer’s preference.’

  ‘A police officer is dead, Elliott. This isn’t just some random girl; it’s bigger than that now. We don’t have time to stroll our way through this.’