Shooting in the Dark

spears and javelins of long-dead warriors whizzed past the car in all directions, and as the edges of the road disappeared, Sam fancied he heard drums drumming and somewhere directly above him a brass band began the introduction to a funeral dirge.
    As suddenly as the storm had arrived it passed away again, leaving behind a wonderworld composed of ecclesiastical vestments.
    The fields lay around the remains of the road like a bleached desert, the hedges absorbed and reduced by the dazzling landscape. A man alone in an ancient Montego, though he be invincible in the panorama of a city, could start to feel groundless out here in the sticks. Keep your eye on the target, Sam said to himself. Don’t think about balding tyres or a clutch beginning to slip. And who needs a heating system, anyway? It’d cost more than the old tub’s worth.
    The final rise up to Skewsby almost broke the heart of the car. Fifty metres before the top Sam got the engine racing along in first gear and sat tight while the rear wheels slewed from one side of the road to the other. His mind never entertained the idea that the thing would actually stall and slide down the hill backwards. His bowels were not so optimistic but managed to stop short of disgracing him.
    A private nurse, a woman who looked as though she spent most of her life in the shower, admitted Sam to the house. ‘I’m Rosemary,’ she said.
    And freshly picked this morning, Sam thought. Couldn’t help sniffing when she turned her back, check if she smelled like a herb. All that reached him was an aroma of starch and lemon soap. Might even be considered exotic in this neck of the woods.
    He followed her into a reception room off the main hall where she offered him a seat and closed the door. She sat pertly on a high-backed chair, her knees screaming for attention through the stuff of her black tights. ‘I don’t want him upset,’ she said.
    Thirty-seven, he thought; maybe thirty-eight. She’s got two kids at home, both in their teens, and a husband who doesn’t see her any more although he still lives in the same house. She got married and raised a family. That was all right in those days, no one sneered at you for it.
    ‘I’m not here to upset him. He rang me.’
    ‘As long as you understand that he has lost his wife and suffered a fairly disabling stroke.’
    Her blonde hair was cut short, in a style that had been briefly popular in the late eighties, but she had allowed it to dry out into a spare and frizzy mop. ‘Are you trying to prepare me for a shock?’ Sam asked.
    She shook her head. ‘Mr Reeves is considerably reduced. His friends and neighbours were surprised by his condition. Some of the village children have been unkind. He’s rather sensitive, understandably so. It’s going to take a little time to get him back to normal.’
    Sam put his cards on the table. ‘I’ve only met him once,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t like him. He was arrogant and overbearing, the kind of guy I’d walk around the block to avoid. I can’t imagine any change he’s gone through that would’ve improved him.’
    Rosemary produced her first smile. ‘I work with all kinds,’ she said. ‘But Mr Reeves is one of the nicest patients I’ve had in a long time. Only two problems: he can get frustrated, especially when his body or his mind won’t do what he wants them to.’
    ‘I’m like that myself,’ Sam confessed. ‘And the other one?’
    ‘The other what?’
    ‘You said there were two problems.’
    ‘Oh, yes, his hands.’
    ‘He can’t keep them to himself?’
    ‘No kidding,’ she said. ‘The man’s an octopus.’
     
    Quintin Reeves was almost unrecognizable. Although his facial characteristics had been left relatively unchanged by the ravages of the stroke, the inner man had undergone a metamorphosis.
    When Rosemary showed Sam into the living room Reeves was sitting in a Windsor chair by the window. He turned and recognized the detective immediately. He got to his feet and walked forward with a strange Chaplinesque motion. His right leg was paralysed but he managed to throw it out and forward and follow through with his good one. This action had the effect of unbalancing him and he used his left arm to right himself, swinging it around at shoulder height like a boom.
    Sam was impressed. The guy had been as rosy as a freshly turned bed the last time they met. Here they were again, less than a month later, and the same man could’ve given Quasimodo a run for