Shooting in the Dark

the best kind.
    This last month the trickle of work had turned into a stream. They were working two missing-persons cases and an insurance scam involving the arson of a country estate. Last week they had wrapped up a political corruption scandal that everyone in town had known about for years. Everyone in town, that is, apart from the local boys in blue, who were either blind or involved in some of the pay-offs.
    And that wasn’t the end of it. Sam was sitting at his desk waiting for another couple of paying customers to appear. Ms Angeles Falco had made an appointment for herself and her sister, Isabel Reeves, at 9.15 this morning. The old firm was starting to earn again. Big time. Looked like they’d have to invest in a couple of barrows to get all the money over to the bank. Maybe buy some new socks as well, on his way home tonight.
    The political case had ended with Sam getting his right hand smashed in a police car door. A careless moment for Sam; and for the police inspector involved, one of those instances when revenge is sweetened by the public ambiguity of the act. On the emergency ward, later, Sam
    reported the injury as a physical assault, but the police did not pursue it. The deputy chief constable wrote him a short note which described the event, after an initial inquiry, as an unfortunate accident.
    Tap-tap. On the outer office door. Sam checked his watch - 9.27. He heard Celia walk to the outer door and open it. There was an exchange of words and then Celia’s footsteps bringing someone towards his office.
    Celia’s head appeared around the door. She had dyed her hair red again, which took years off her. She was trim and could use make-up and wear threads and jewellery like a professional. If you didn’t know she was older, you’d think she was on the rosy side of sixty. Never guess she’d spent forty years of her life as an English teacher.
    ‘Ms Angeles Falco,’ she said. She opened the door wide to allow the visitor access. The woman was twenty-seven going on thirty-five. From where Sam was sitting there was no sure way of dating her. With a tree or a horse you can be fairly specific. We know the age of the earth and the solar system, the stars and the universe. With most things we can say how long they’ve been around. But this one belonged to that breed of women who are adept at hiding all the clues. And when they’re good at it, they’re really good.
    Dark curls lightly gelled. Tanned skin with a hint of the Mediterranean, or perhaps it was South America. The suit was simple, modern, out-of-reach expensive. MaxMara or Escada. Sam had never been a fashion expert, but his nasal system reacted to the kind of dust activated by money.
    She was wearing designer shades with a price-tag that would feed a private detective for a month.
    It was only after you’d swallowed all that that you noticed the other thing, the thing that had caused the tapping. The long white stick with the silver handle. And suddenly a whole host of preconceptions winged their way around your consciousness, and you found yourself up and out of your seat and going to help the woman into a chair.
    Celia gave him a look and left the room, closing the door behind her. Sam shook his visitor’s hand and apologized for not using his right. He went back to his chair and looked across the desk at her, realizing that he hadn’t a clue why she was here. She’d made an appointment, but she hadn’t said what it was about. Sam waited for her to tell him, but she didn’t speak. Maybe she was mute as well?
    ‘I’m in the dark, here,’ he said, trying to grab the words as they came out, stuff them back in his mouth.
    Ms Angeles Falco smiled. She raised a hand to stifle any apology that Sam might be contemplating. She held her head at an angle and looked towards him, perhaps slightly to his left. When she spoke it was without a hint of an accent. ‘Yes,’ she said, a mischievous tone to her voice. ‘We’re two of a kind, Mr Turner.’
    Sam sat back in his chair and watched her, tried to make out if she could see or not. She moved her head once, twice, as if listening for something. But she was reading his mind. ‘I have some residual sight,’ she said. ‘If the light is good I can see outlines. At the moment, because there is a window behind you - is it a window or a light? - you appear to me like a dark smudge. Shoulders and head. I would guess your hair is cut short, but I’m not entirely sure.’
    Sam laughed.