Shooting in the Dark

can see that real clear. It’d be like a fairy story.’
     

35
     
    Watch therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
    I was standing by the window watching the street. Sexy Sadie walked by the house three times, dressed to kill, hobbling on a pair of stilettos. She was wearing black-and-white striped tights and a lace-trimmed skirt no bigger than a handkerchief.
    I found myself thinking about the original architectural model of this estate, which I have never seen. But I imagined it with its varnished blocks of houses, and the roads with a few trees scattered around. No people or cars or the dirt that populates the finished project.
    There are groups of cells in the body called phagocytes which work together as part of the immune system. Their function is to watch. They just sit there watching. They are policemen, of a kind; they help maintain law and order in a semi-closed environment. If something happens to disturb the balance of the organism, sickness occurs and chaos ensues which could result in death or dissolution. The phagocytes act to ward off disease or corruption entering the organism. They sit and watch, but if necessary they cease watching and go into action as an army. They form the first line of defence against that which would overcome the body.
    Watching is my profession, my life and my destiny.
    For watching to be successful, the watcher has to be hidden, in the shadows, out of sight or disguised in some way.
    It follows, therefore, that the good watcher has to feel at home there.
    The phagocyte doesn’t have much choice; it only knows the environment in which it exists. But the owl, sitting on the branch of a tree at midnight, has chosen the branch for a number of reasons. It might have decided to watch from the gable of a barn instead. It is limited only by its lack of imagination.
    I watch the blind woman. I watch myself watching her. When she is not around or out of my sight I conjure her up.
    And God watches all of us, all of the time. We are never out of His sight. He cannot do other than behold us.
     
    Though I say it myself, my research is impeccable. It is a skill one acquires, not a talent with which one is born. As a young student I learned my lessons well. There were only two of us with a first in my year. The other one was a female and a swot and a professional virgin. I lived then, as now, a more rounded existence. I was a member of the Union, the University Ornithological and Ecumenical societies. Rather dry tastes for a young man, but I was still! finding my way in the world. My interests now have matured into something a little more hedonistic.
    Research. Yes. Sam Turner calls himself a private detective but he is little more than a local rogue. Many low achievers I have encountered professionally would not want to associate with him. He has a criminal conviction and has served time in prison. He is known as a drinker and there are numerous counts of drunk and disorderly against him, disturbing the peace, and several of vagrancy, though none in recent years.
    He was once known as something of a rake but by the look of him, those days are now long past.
    The blind woman has moved into his house. But, even taking into account her inability to see, I find it difficult to imagine her forming a romantic attachment to him. Their relationship, therefore, is professional. Ergo, she has hired the man to protect her against me.
    Incredible. He’s nothing. A nobody.
    In the mornings she is picked up from his house by a chauffeur in a black Daimler. He leads her to the car and takes her to her office on the Haxby Road. In the middle of the afternoon he brings her back.
    I’m dialling the number of her secretary at Falco’s soft-drinks factory. This will be the third time we have spoken. I listen to the phone ringing at the other end.
    ‘Mr Packard? Good morning, Hayes here, ringing in reply to your letter.’
    ‘Oh, yes, Mr Hayes. Ms Falco’s back at her desk now. You wanted to see her about your application to the Falco Trust. Let’s see, I don’t have it in front of me at the moment. Children, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Yes, partially sighted.’
    ‘And did we suggest a time?’
    ‘Yes, four-thirty on Thursday. I’m ringing to confirm it.’
    ‘We’ll expect to see you then. Thanks for ringing.’
    I’m putting the phone back into the receiver. For the first time in my life I feel like dancing.
     
    I have several photographs of my father, but only one in his