Shooting in the Dark

disbelief since he’d first seen the note. ‘In a horror movie it’d be written in blood,’ he said. ‘What I don’t understand is why someone would go to this much trouble, when he could’ve contacted her by phone.’
    ‘She might know him,’ said Celia. ‘Recognize his voice.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘Maybe. It’s fairly easy to disguise a voice on the phone.’
    ‘You use a hanky,’ JD said with a wink. ‘Bogie always did anyway. Muffles the voice. Wasn’t there a film where the bad guy used a tape recorder and slowed it down, then played it through the telephone?’
    ‘What we’re saying,’ Sam said, ‘if we’d been trying this on, we’d all have done it better?’
    ‘Anyone’d do it better,’ said Marie. ‘If it has to be a note, it’d be better to write it on plain paper in capitals. Pen and paper from Woolies, virtually untraceable. But this -’ she indicated the note on Sam’s desk - ‘imagine what a forensic scientist is going to make of it.’
    ‘The name of the magazine for a start,’ said Sam. ‘That’ll narrow it down.’
    ‘And the Sellotape’ll have all kinds of bits and pieces attached,’ said JD. ‘They’ll probably be able to describe his front room.’
    ‘Fingerprints?’ said Celia.
    Sam nodded. ‘That might be too much to hope for. But the guy seems stupid enough to’ve left some.’
    ‘Even DNA,’ JD pointed out. ‘He hasn’t used scissors on the tape, probably bitten it off the roll.’
    ‘Are you going to give it to the police, Sam?’ Celia asked.
    ‘Yes, see what they make of it. I’ve got a few good photocopies. Marie, how d’you feel about finding the source of the letters? The magazine they came from?’
    ‘I’ll go down to Smith’s,’ she said. ‘Been meaning to catch up on some reading.’
    ‘Have a word with Sly Beaumont at the Evening Press. We don’t want anything published yet, but show him the letters, he’s a bit of an expert on typography. Probably won’t know where they’re from, but at least he’ll point you in the right direction.’
    ‘I’m on the case,’ she said, reaching for her coat. ‘I’ll ring you at home later.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘One other thing. There’s a connection between Angeles and ice skating. It’s probably nothing, but keep it in mind.’
    ‘How d’you mean?’
    ‘We were talking about sport. She was telling me how she does horse riding and skiing, all these physical activities, and I happened to mention ice skating. She reacted strangely. The words stopped her.’
    Marie shrugged and left and JD excused himself and followed her down the stairs, said he’d be back in a minute.
    Celia sighed deeply, connected with Sam’s eyes and shook her head.
    ‘He’s still got it bad?’ said Sam.
    ‘And it’s going to lead absolutely nowhere. Marie’s quite certain they’re not going to be anything but friends.’
    ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Sam. ‘Sometimes takes a while.’
    ‘It’s been more than a year already.’
    ‘Yeah, about the same time Dora died, wasn’t it? Seems like yesterday.’
    ‘Do you miss her, Sam?’
    He shook his head, his body wanting to deny any dependence or vulnerability. He said, ‘I miss her at night. That’s the worst time, when I wake up in the middle of the night and she’s not there.’
    Celia reached down and patted his good hand.
    The truth was he missed her during the day as well. He missed her when he was hungry and when he wanted a drink. He missed her when there was a gap between cases and when he woke up in the morning and made coffee for one.
    It would pass, he knew that, just as JD’s infatuation with Marie would pass. And he wanted it to pass, to go away and leave him free. Not that he’d ever forget her. But he wanted to remember her on his own terms, not as someone else who had been wrenched away from him. He wanted to remember someone he’d shared a life with, someone who had been so close that they’d dared to make plans.
    And it would come in time, an anaesthetized memory, something like those wedding photographs you see in studio windows: soft-focus jobs, the couple fading into the background on the very day they’ve made their vows. The couple, the background, the day itself being dimmed down to make room for the future.
    The telephone rang and Celia went to her desk to answer it. JD came back up the stairs, his mouth set but his eyes alive and twinkling behind his thick spectacles. ‘How are we going to make sure