Shooting in the Dark

torture of at least twelve young women. The Wests were evil people. I fail to see how anyone can compare the acts that they committed with what happens between me and Miriam. OK, so the new studded belt is a tad more savage (let’s not mince words) than the hairbrush was, but this is something that happens between consenting adults in the privacy of their own home.
    What we do could be identified as one of the paraphilias, because it involves a degree of physical suffering. And it is certainly sexually exciting. But it doesn’t involve necrophilia or zoophilia or paedophilia.
    And, this just for the record, I have never buggered Miriam. I don’t have an anal fixation or incestuous desires.
     

21
     
    Sam arrived at the house minutes before the police or the ambulance. Janet was standing by a table in the garden, hugging Echo to her chest. There was a broken syringe on the path outside the patio.
    ‘Where?’ he asked, and Janet nodded towards the patio door.
    JD was kneeling by the body of Angeles, which he had placed in the recovery position. The front of her blouse had been torn away in the struggle and one of the buttons had rolled under a chair. Sam moved quickly to her side.
    ‘I think she’ll be OK,’ JD said. ‘She’s breathing now and she’s got a strong pulse.’
    Sam looked at him, saw the sweat streaking his face and neck. ‘Has she said anything?’
    JD shook his head. ‘She’s been out of it all the time. Could be drugged.’
    Angeles had the imprint of the attacker’s hands around her neck. The bruising was extensive, beginning under her chin and spreading out in dark waves over her shoulders and down the front of her chest. The fingers of her right hand bore traces of blood, and Sam wished beyond hope that she’d marked the bastard for life.
    At least she won’t be able to see what he’s done to her, Sam thought, conscious that he was seeking a palliative. The drone of an approaching ambulance whirled into the spaces of the room. He remembered, as a boy, looking at his distorted reflection in the back of a spoon. And the pane of glass in his bedroom window which had carried a flaw. Angeles had never experienced these things. Never played games with the visual world. And she would not have seen her attacker.
    When she recovered she would describe to them the way he felt, how he smelt. Maybe, with some luck, the sound of his voice. But no, he wouldn’t have given that away. She’d have some sense of what his breathing sounded like, maybe even the taste of the man.
    We live in different worlds, he thought. She is confined to a feminine universe of sound, while I am equally trapped in a masculine world of vision. Seeing is like having a gun with a powerful scope. You look down the barrel and focus on the part of the world that you want to isolate. But hearing is the opposite of that. The ear doesn’t go out into the world like the eye, it is more fluid and responsive. It can take its time; doesn’t mind waiting.
    Sam and JD stood back while the paramedics took over. As they watched, the police arrived in the form of Superintendent Rossiter and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Hardwicke.
    ‘What happened?’ Rossiter asked.
    ‘Looks like somebody tried to strangle her,’ said the chief paramedic. He helped his colleague lift Angeles on to a stretcher, leaning over to arrange the blanket around her.
    Rossiter looked at Sam. ‘You’re never far away when there’s trouble in this town,’ he said.
    Sam looked at JD, but he didn’t say anything.
    Rossiter raised his voice. ‘I’m talking to you, Turner. I think you’ve got some explaining to do. What happened here?’
    The paramedics pushed the stretcher out through the patio door, and Sam followed them.
    ‘Hey, where the fuck do you think you’re going?’ said Rossiter, grabbing Sam by the shoulder.
    Sam shook him off. He looked back for a moment, flexing the fingers of both hands.
    ‘He wasn’t here,’ said JD. ‘He’s only just arrived.’ Janet appeared in the empty doorway after Sam had followed the paramedics down the side path. ‘I found her,’ she said. ‘Then I rang Sam and called for the ambulance. He can’t tell you any more than we can.’
    But Rossiter wasn’t listening. He turned towards Hardwicke. ‘Go after them,’ he said. ‘If Turner tries to get in that ambulance, arrest him.’
    ‘Yes, gov,’ she said, a smile on her face as if something funny had happened.
    Sam, sitting in the ambulance,