Shooting in the Dark

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