Shooting in the Dark

We’ll stop your pension and make you take in washing. It’ll be hard at first but you’ll get used to it.’
    ‘Similar to the present government?’ she said.
    Sam often thought that Celia was the sharpest tool in the box. Nothing much went past her. Maybe that’s how you got if you spent your life reading books?
    ‘It must feel good, though,’ she said. ‘To have Angeles living in the same house.’
    Tell them anything, he thought, remembering a maxim from his misspent youth. ‘Celia,’ he said, ‘it’s bloody marvellous.’
     
    In the night Sam peered up through the darkness towards the ceiling of his room. Through the wall he listened to the occasional creak as Angeles Falco adjusted herself to the vagaries of a new bed. Somewhere around them, perhaps close at hand, was the man who had killed Isabel Reeves, Angeles’ sister. The man who had attacked Angeles and who wanted her dead. He eased himself out of the bed and walked over to the window, looked down at the garden in the moonlight, the spreading branches of the ancient pear tree almost touching the glass in front of his face.
    Something moved over by the hedge. Not a maniac killer, nothing as human as that. Something small and quick, a rat or stoat. There’d been reports in the press about escaped mink in the area.
    If death was close by tonight, he was wearing different shoes. An Italian moccasin, maybe, fashioned from soft leather, whereas at their last encounter he’d worn hobnailed boots.
    He checked the windows and doors downstairs, beginning at the front of the house and working his way towards the back. Everything was secure; nothing had been tampered with. If the killer were still intent on Angeles’ life, he’d have to come here for her. He’d have to get past Sam Turner.
    There was a good possibility that the man didn’t know she was here. Unless he was able to spend all his time watching the hospital, he wouldn’t know she’d been discharged.
    Assume he doesn’t know she’s here, Sam thought, because he wanted life to get back to normal. But then he felt his face crinkle into a smile. Assume nothing, he said to himself. You’re dealing with someone who is in the grip of an obsession.
    He unlocked the back door and stepped out into the night. Half a dozen steps took him under the shelter of the pear tree. The combination of moonlight and branches put a dappled pattern on his forearms, a natural camouflage, giving him a degree of invisibility.
    He watched the house and let his mind go back to the time he’d seen the shadowy figure in Angeles’ garden. The guy, whoever he was, was also blind in a way. He couldn’t see the obvious: that the death of Angeles wouldn’t actually solve his problems.
    Over to the west, high in the sky, a surveillance satellite blinked as it photographed suspect installations and beamed them back down to its controllers. The collective sum of military paranoia was increased minute by minute with each click of the shutter of its high-powered camera. In the old days men used to stand on the earth and watch the stars, perhaps wonder if the stars were watching us. Now there is no doubt about it. We are under observation.
    This was a tough case. One of the most complicated Sam had undertaken. Why would anyone want to kill a couple of sisters, one of them blind? Neither of them had any links to organized crime, they weren’t running drugs or girls. As far as he knew, they didn’t have reason to fear anyone. Yet there was a man out there who had already killed one of them and had a good attempt on the life of the other.
    Why?
    For some reason Sam’s mind kept wandering towards a symbolic or mythological solution. Maybe it was connected to Angeles’ blindness? The only figure he could think of who was blind was Samson, after Delilah had cut his hair. And thinking about Samson and Delilah didn’t get him anywhere. Maybe there were other mythological figures who would throw up a connection. He’d talk to Celia about it, and JD. JD would be better.
    Except mythological solutions only happened in detective books and American movies. In the real world no one got killed because of a mythological story. People got killed because of money or power or jealousy or revenge.
     
    Angeles was jerked awake from another dream in which the blood from the man’s thumb had congealed in her mouth. She listened to the night. He was there, somewhere. Not in the house but somewhere close by. He was not going to leave