Shooting in the Dark

nerves on one side of his body.
    It was a stroke which was to leave his right arm and leg paralysed and force him into a premature retirement from the world of high finance.
     

15
     
    Marie had been at Russell Harvey’s house for a few minutes when the police arrived. She’d got past Emperor, the old dog, and settled herself in a high-backed chair in front of the solid-fuel stove. Isabel Reeves’ boyfriend was much the same as the last time they’d met, except his eyes were red and puffy from a constant stream of tears.
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ he’d said. ‘I can’t take it in. I know she’s dead, that I’m never gonna see her again. I tell myself, “It’s just you, Russell, you and the dog. That’s all there is from here on.” And then I hear her coming through the front door. I hear her voice when I’m lying in bed, when I wake up in the morning. It’s like she’s haunting me. I get a whiff of her perfume. There’s no reason for it. I’m sitting here thinking, wondering if I should kill myself, and suddenly I’ll smell it, sweet and real strong, like she’s sitting there next to me.’
    ‘You’re not allowed to kill yourself,’ Marie told him. ‘It seems like there’s nothing to live for at the moment, but there will be later. When you’ve passed the grieving stage. Isabel would’ve wanted you to carry on. She’d have wanted you to live out your life.’ Her words sounded hollow, even to herself. Looking at Russell Harvey and his dog, at the poverty of his life in this greasy hell-hole of a house, she could understand that suicide was a real option for him. Still, you had to try. Attempt to bring some comfort even when you could see that there was no place the comfort could get lodged.
    That was when the knock on the door happened. It was a policeman’s knock. It would have been recognized all over the world. Elsewhere it might have been the KGB, the Stasi or the Securitate. But whatever it was called, it meant the same thing. It meant that your life was going to take a turn for the worse. That whatever control you thought you had was going to need a radical reassessment.
    Russell Harvey looked at Marie for a moment. His eyes searched the room as if there might be a way out.
    ‘Shall I answer it?’ she asked.
    When she opened the door, it was to two plain-clothes officers (there was a uniform standing by the car on the road), Detective Superintendent Rossiter and his female assistant, Detective Sergeant Hardwicke. Rossiter was the youngest detective superintendent in the country, and probably the most conceited. Marie had come across him on previous cases, but he never showed an inkling of recognition, merely flared his nostrils and steamed on to the object of his quest.
    The WDS, Hardwicke, was fresh out of uniform, intent on impressing her governor, and had her eyes set, ultimately, on the Police Staff College in Bramshill.
    ‘You been thinking of taking a holiday in the Mediterranean?’ Rossiter asked Russell Harvey as soon as he entered the kitchen.
    Harvey looked past the policeman, at Marie. He was shaking from head to foot. Marie didn’t know if he’d heard Rossiter, but he couldn’t answer.
    WDS Hardwicke waved a piece of paper in Russell’s direction. ‘We have a warrant to search the premises,’ she said. ‘There’s a squad of officers on their way, be here in a couple of minutes.’
    ‘Why?’ was the only syllable that Russell Harvey had. ‘I want you to come down to the station with us,’ Rossiter told him. ‘We’ve got a car outside.’
    Russell opened his mouth, but nothing more came out. ‘Go with them,’ Marie said. ‘I’ll get you a solicitor.’ Hardwicke took Russell by the arm and led him out of the house. The uniform opened the rear door of the car for them.
    Rossiter looked quickly around the room. ‘Absolutely stinks in here,’ he said. As he left the house a police van with a group of six men in coveralls arrived.
     
    ‘She’s wearing this dress, I’ve never seen anything like it, and the guy who picks her up in the taxi is blind.’
    ‘The taxi driver?’ asked Celia.
    ‘No, not the taxi driver, the escort, the guy she’s going to the opera with.’
    Marie let them carry on talking. Once Sam and Celia got going it was usually worth listening to. She sat at her desk and doodled with a 4B pencil, watched as a caricature of Russell Harvey appeared. A guy with hopelessness stamped all the way through him.
    Celia laughed.