Shooting in the Dark

computer the Toreador’s song was in her mind, and she’d find herself humming it stridently, moving her shoulders with the rhythm. She wrote an e-mail to Felix, her escort of last night, thanking him for taking her to the opera. Felix was a piano tuner, gay with a permanent partner, and an old comrade in the arena of blind rights. He was also a musical connoisseur, and one who loved to share his knowledge and experience with Angeles. An arrangement which benefited them both.
    After an hour’s work she went to the kitchen and found some peanuts for the birds. She opened the french window and took down the wire bird-feeder that hung from the guttering of the patio. It was almost empty. She placed it on the garden table and filled it to the brim.
    There could be another freeze soon. She should empty the pool and put the covers on.
    There was a strong wind blowing, whistling through the trees and around the eaves of the house, but it was not loud enough to obscure the movement of a loose brick. Angeles’ first thought was that the prowler from last night had returned, but she remembered that it was midmorning now, daylight. A man would not risk climbing over her wall at this time of day. A cat, then?
    There was a neighbour with a neglected Persian, Tilly, who came looking for titbits from time to time. Angeles knelt on the tiles and extended a hand, rubbing finger and thumb in the direction from which the sound had come. ‘Here, Tilly,’ she said. ‘Here, girl.’ She pursed her lips and made a series of small kisses at the air.
    She strained to hear. No cat approached. Slowly, Angeles got up from her kneeling position. Cats had very well-developed sense organs: ears, eyes, whiskers and noses. They would sit and watch their prey in utter stillness and silence, and pounce without mercy. They could leap a great distance, their mouths open, their claws extended. The victim stood little chance of escape.
    ‘Here, Tilly, Tilly.’ But there was no cat there. No sound.
    She returned to the garden table, suddenly self-conscious, wondering what kind of figure she cut. A blind woman with the dust of the tiles on her knees. When she had been younger men had wanted to be close to her, she had felt their breath in trains and buses, and she had sensed how they turned to look at her on the street. People still turned to look at her on the street now, but it was because she was blind. Before it had been because she was a young woman.
    She shook her head, moved the thoughts away from her. Why the self-consciousness? Because she may or may not have been observed by a cat?
    There was an intake of breath from the direction of the nearest tree. Angeles turned her head towards the sound. It was not a cat, it was head-high. Animals don’t hold their breath, suddenly have to refill their lungs.
    But all was quiet again. Her heart was pounding; her chest like a drum. Angeles tried not to make any swift or jerky movements. She took the wire bird-feeder and hung it on its peg. She turned again towards the sound and called quietly: ‘Tilly, is that you? Here, girl; here, Tilly.’
    But there was no further sound. No maniac running across the garden to send her sprawling to the ground. And there was no Tilly.
    She found herself hurrying towards the french window, stumbling in her haste. She stepped inside the house and closed the door behind her, reaching to turn the key in the lock. Her heart was beating thunderously now, her breathing was short, staccato, and a thin line of sweat had appeared at her hairline.
    Panic signs, she thought. The whole idea of the prowler, the thought that she was being watched, what had happened to her sister, Isabel. All of these events had conspired to undermine her confidence. Even her laugh, when she saw herself panicking over a cat in the garden, was tinged with hysteria.
    The french window opened by itself while she still had her hand on the key.
    Angeles parted her lips to scream but two strong hands drove into her chest, pushing her over backwards, knocking the breath from her lungs. Her head struck the leg of the table and when she tried to claw her way upright a sense of nausea and a series of convulsions overcame her.
    For a short period she may have lapsed into unconsciousness, but her will was reactivated by the sense of the man’s hands at her throat. She squirmed away from his touch and he grabbed the front of her blouse. She heard and felt it rip and wondered briefly if there was a