BLIND SPOT - AND TWO OTHERS

DEATH IS FOR THE DYING - EPISODE ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The weather mirrored my mood.

  It was raining.  Water poured from the grey skies and my wipers couldn’t clear the windscreen quick enough.  I was part of the barely moving traffic along the coastal road.

  Traffic cones forced me to merge into the left lane and as I crept past an ambulance and police directing traffic around a badly mangled van, my dark thoughts were interrupted by my mobile ringing.

  “What time are we meeting?”  I heard a familiar voice say through the hands-free.

  “In about ten minutes,” I replied, “once I get through this traffic.”

  “It’s the new restaurant isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” I said.  “It specializes in fish dishes.”

  “Okay.  See you there.”

  The line went dead.

  I didn’t get to the restaurant until almost twelve-thirty, but my dinner guest still hadn’t arrived.

  I sat on a bar stool reading the signs on the walls, the good-natured reminders to bar clientele not to ask for credit, not to shoot the pianist and to be good or be gone.  The only other customers were two girls at a table frenetically pressing the buttons of their mobile phones and two boys in deep discussions about the possible outcome of the football season.  The Eagles were playing over the loudspeakers. I checked my watch again and had a wager with myself that Kimberley Ann Gere would be standing at the door in exactly ten minutes time. I felt the crackle of tension I always felt at seeing her again.  A cosy chat about the lives we were leading now.  Or to be more precise: the life she was leading now without me.  In the last six months, I didn’t know whose loss had been greater until I saw her standing by the door.  The waiter’s fell upon her like Elizabethan courtiers, removing her coat and putting her small branded shopping bag in a safe place.  She is a beautiful woman, so good service is guaranteed, but I had hoped she wouldn’t look so good.

  She walked over to me and our cheeks touched.  I made sure I let go first.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” she said, apologetically.  “I had to pick up a present for Archie. It’s his birthday tomorrow.”

  “You’re looking great,” I said, ignoring the mentioning of his name and heard that I should have cleared my throat first.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  I knew exactly what her ‘Don’t’ meant.  Don’t start, don’t be embarrassing, we’re not going there.  She had said it softly, it was practically inaudible, yet it felt like a stinging slap.

  “You’ve lost weight,” she said.

  I patted my stomach.  “I’m trying my best.”

  “What table have we got?”

  “The waiter will come and get us.”

  She sat down on the stool opposite me and ordered a prosecco.  I ordered another mineral water.

  “Not drinking?”

  “I have a meeting with a client this afternoon,” I said.  “So, how are you doing?”

  “Fine. I’m good.  Charlie misses you.”

  “Daft dog,” I exclaimed, with a weak smile.

  “He misses you.  Misses his walks.”

  I looked at her, dumbfounded.  “That’s not my fault.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said, taking her drink from the barman.

  I sipped my mineral water.  “How has Charlie taking to his new master?”

  “His name is Archie,” Kimberley said with a sigh.  “Charlie just growls at him.”

  I experienced a sweet tingle of satisfaction.

  “Doesn’t like Archie keeping bees.”

  “I hope he’s not tending to his apiary and ignoring you,” I said and regretted it the moment I had said it.  But instead of getting angry, Kimberley sighed.

  “It wasn’t that you ignored me, John.  You became obsessed with your job.  What drives you isn’t love or responsibility.  It’s not even personal ambition.  It’s anger.  And the desire for revenge.  And that’s not right, John.  It’s not healthy.  It shouldn’t be like that.  You know that’s what was happening.”

  Yes, I thought, I knew.

  “And this Archie is driven by the right things?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  She sipped her prosecco.

  “It’s his birthday today,” she said, matter-of-factly.  “I’ve just bought his present.”

   That explained the designer shopping bag.

  “Wish him a happy birthday from me,” I said without feeling

   “John?”  She said.

   Something in her inflection made me tense up.

   “Archie has asked me to marry him.”

   “So soon?”  I ran my tongue over my palate in an attempt to find moisture.  “You haven’t known each other long.”

  “Long enough.  We’re planning to get married once his divorce comes through.”

  The remainder of the dinner turned out to be an ordeal.  I had watched Kimberley’s mouth speaking, drinking prosecco, chewing fish and devouring me as she told me her plans for the future.  She asked whether I had met anyone.  I had answered no, even though the pathologist Dr Kira Reed had been very supportive, and we were going out for dinner that night.

  I had seen the waiter pouring wine into the glasses on the adjacent table and for one crazy moment I had been near tearing the bottle out of his hands and putting it to my mouth.  Instead, we had agreed to go halves on the bill and I said I would look after Charlie, while they went away on their honeymoon.

  We parted amicably outside the restaurant and I watched her walk away in the opposite direction, noticing once more the small bag containing Archie’s birthday present.

CHAPTER TWO

Linda Andrews was waiting outside my office in the centre of Oxmarket when I got there later that afternoon. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining. She had been on time for our appointment, but I had not.  I quickly parked in my allocated parking space and jumped out to greet her.  She didn’t seem upset with me.  She seemed to take it in her stride.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said genuinely.

  “That’s okay,” she responded.  “I was enjoying watching the fishing boats in the harbour.”

  She followed me up the narrow staircase and I used my key to open the door of the outer office.  When I pushed it open it wedged against some of the mail that was on the floor inside.  I had to bend down and reach around the door to pull the envelope free and get the door open.

  Standing and turning back to Linda, I extended my hand, into the outer office. She passed by me and entered.  I didn’t smile under the circumstances.  The last time I had seen her was three weeks ago when she had hired me.  She looked only marginally better, this time, the anguish and concern still holding in her eyes and at the corner of her mouth.

  As she moved past me into the confined space of the outer office I smelled her sweet fragrance that went well with the flowery summer dress she was wearing.  I pointed her in the direction of the main office and told her to have a seat in the chair opposite me desk.  I asked if she wanted something to drink, even though I knew I had nothing in the office to respond with except black coffee or water from the tap of the shared kitchen along the corridor.

  “I’m fine, Mr Handful.  No, thank you.”

  “Please call me, John.  Nobody calls me Mr Handful.”

  Now I tried to smile, but it didn’t work on her.  And I don’t know why I expected it would.  She cleared her throat before speaking.

  “You told me that you had something to show me.”

  “Yes,” I said with a tinge of regret.  “I’m afraid I do.”

  I opened the top drawer of my desk and removed a plain unmarked folder.  I placed the folder squarely in front of me and opened it slowly.  It contained photographs.

  Even in their imperfect state they pulsated off the top of my desk.  The first one showed the top half of a woman as far down as the waist, and also the head and shoulders of a man. They were facing each other, the woman’s head was higher than the man’s.  Neither of them wore clothes.  The man had his hands under the woman’s breasts, lifting them up, with his mouth against the n****e the furthest away from the camera.

  “Good heavens,” Linda said faintly.

  “Mm,” I said.  “Do you want to see the others?”

  I showed her the second photograph, which was much the same pose, except the camera had been at a different angle, showing less of the woman’s front and nearly all then’s face.

  “This is almost pornography,” she gasped.

  I said nothing and showed her the third and final picture, which was different entirely.  Events had moved on.  The woman, whose own face this time was clearly visible, seemed to be lying on her back.  The picture now stretched down to her knees, which were apart.  Over her lay the man, his head turned to one side, showing his profile.  His hand cupped the one visible breast, and there wasn’t much doubt about the activity they were engaged in.

  I had made sure there was nothing to indicate where the pictures had been taken.  No distinguishable background.  Linda Andrews had suffered enough.  She stood up and moved restlessly round the room in angular uncoordinated jerks.

  “To think he was divorcing me for unreasonable behaviour,” she said angrily.

  Her movements grew even more disturbed, her elbows bending and flapping as if she were imitating a bird.  Agitation in her mind, I thought, real agitation, not camouflage or hurt pride.

  She handed the photographs back to me, and even though I knew what the next question was going to be a deep tremor rolled through me when she actually asked the question.  She went to the window and looked down onto the high street and out across the North Sea.

  “Has this woman a name?”

  I stood up and joined her at the window.  I opened it to let out some staleness and I realized I should have opened it as soon as we got inside.  The place smelled sour.  The previous night had been warm and humid.

  “Yes,” I said heavily, wishing I had a glass of water nearby.  “The woman’s name is Kimberley Ashlyn Gere.”

CHAPTER THREE

I felt nervous.  I had arranged to meet Kira Reed at the Oxmarket Harbour Hotel, but I needed to go home first and grab a shower.  This was a date, wasn’t it?  Our first real date.  We’d worked together for a few years now, as work colleagues, but since asking her out, I felt as giddy as a teenager

  I arrived dead on time, my hair still wet, uncomfortable in a new shirt which had a starchy feel to it, faint creases down the front where it had been folded in the packet.  What do you wear on a date with someone who you’ve known for such a long time, who now haunts your dreams and distracts your days?  When you hoped that night, to take her to bed.

 She was waiting for me in the hotel foyer.  She was wearing sexier clothes than normal – a mid-thigh dress and boots that made her almost as tall as I was. She looked so sophisticated that I couldn’t believe I’d have a chance with her.  Then she gave me that quirky grin that always flipped my stomach.  I squeezed her hand.  I wanted to tell her how stunning she looked, but because I couldn’t think how without seeming crass or patronizing we walked through to the restaurant in silence.

  The restaurant had tea lights in red globes on every table.  It’s perfect to hide a myriad of flaws and blemishes – mine not hers.

  “How are you?”  I asked.

  “Good thanks,” she replied.  “What about yourself?”

  “I had lunch with Kimberley today,” I said truthfully.

  “Oh,” she said uncomfortably.  “How was it?”

  “Painful,” I replied.  “She’s getting married to that Archie fellow.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  I shrugged.  “I’m glad she’s happy.”

  Kira raised her glass in a mini-celebration, pushing her hair behind her ears.  “Here’s to happiness.”  She smiled.  She has the kind of dimples that leave a mark on a man’s mind.

  We made small talk and eye contact.  Kira was an only child, which meant she was rather spoiled and bookish.  She grew up in Cambridge, went to boarding school and was head girls.  Her father made corporate videos.  Her mother was a speech therapist.  They are now both retired.

  I listen and tell myself to remember this – how it feels to talk to an attractive woman and flirt a little.

  “I’m sorry I seem to be doing all the talking,” Kira said.  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Liar!”

  “It’s true.”

  She carried on, telling me about performing the lead in her school drama and flirting with the idea of becoming an actress.  The conversation blossomed, and we grew comfortable together, discussing the edited highlight of our lives.  Then, out of the blue, she asked, “Do you remember when we first met?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was though three severed limbs.  A foot, an arm and a hand. All encased in a concrete block.”

  “How could I ever forget it,” I commented?

  The evening continued amicably, and we left the restaurant just before closing time.  This is the bit that terrifies.  There have been only one other woman since Zoë had died.  Kimberley and that had lasted four years and look how that had ended up.

  Why am I thinking about that now?  I rationalize things too much.  I should just act.

  Kira Reed took the decision for me, pulling me into a shop doorway, kissing me like a teenager.  Then she took me by the hand, and we continued walking.

  “Before you invite me back to your house,” she said, “I better warn you that I’m to say no.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m just warning you – but you should still ask.”

  “The point being?”

  “I’ll be flattered.”

  “You like me then.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She laughed and kissed me again.  As she stepped away, I grabbed her and pulled her close, hearing her exhale softly.  Her mouth opens.  There is nothing left to say.

  We walked together back to the house.  It was only five minutes away from the restaurant.  We stopped once to look across the harbour to a huge container ship.  The vessel was lit up but there was no sign of anyone working.  The narrow streets were empty.  In the warm summer night air I felt sober and clear-headed.

  I now lived on the waterfront in a tiny house crammed between two bigger ones.  There was a tidemark on the external stone wall and in rough weather the salt spray whipped against even the upstairs window.  The house was cramped, damp and impractical.  There was no parking.  I’d bought it on a romantic whim after Kimberley and I had split up, and I didn’t regret it one bit.  It was like having a home on a boat.  Inside it was much like a boat too.  Very tidy. Everything in its place.  I cared how the house looked.  The walls of the living room were lined with horizontal wood panels, neatly fitted carvel-fashion and painted grey.  An attempt, I realized now, to hide the effect of the damp.  Wallpaper would be impossible.  The only window at the front of the house looked out over the water, while the one at the back was larger, and you could see across the marshes.  I could stand in the middle of the galley kitchen at the back of the house and touch each wall.

  Without hesitating we went upstairs and took it in turns to undress in the small bathroom.

  Initially, I was fearful and wary, but my fears were unfounded.  We slipped delightedly into each other’s arms between the sheets and for the first time in months all the loneliness of my break-up with Kimberley were forgotten.  It was a voyage of discovery that was jointly satisfying and later she was lying next to me, her head resting on my shoulder and her right arm across her chest.

  “I thought you were going to say no,” I said, tracing my fingers over her breasts.

  “I have no self-control.”

  “Maybe I should apologize.”

  “It’s a bit late now.”  She kissed the tips of my fingers.  “It was certainly different.”

  “In a good way?”

  “Definitely worth repeating.”  She rolled out of bed.  “Not tonight, sadly, I have an early start.”

  “So you’re loving and leaving me?”

  She was already in the bathroom, getting dressed.  “It’s not like that.”

  “What is it like?”

  “Complicated.”

  “You’re seeing someone else?”

  “No,” she said firmly.  “I want to see you again.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”  She studied herself in the mirror, adjusting her hair.  There is something very sensual about a woman preparing herself.

  She pulled on her overcoat and kissed my cheek.  Then she was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

A few hours later I woke up and lay on my back staring at the ceiling.  I had no idea how long I had been asleep.  I turned and looked at the clock on my bedside table.  A quarter to six.

  I threw off the duvet and went downstairs to the kitchen and let the water from the tap run cold, cupped my hands and drank.  I had always thought water tasted better off my skin.

  I turned on the radio and left the news blaring while I went into the bathroom.  While I urinated I looked at my face in the mirror.

  As usual my eyes were bloodshot and the bags under my eyes with their light blue, alcohol-washed irises would disappear after my face had been ministered to with hot water, a towel and breakfast.  I assumed they would, that is.  I was not sure exactly how my face would fare during the day now that I was nearing forty.  Whether the wrinkles would be ironed out and peace would fall over my hunted expression I woke with after another disturbed night of sleep.

  I went back downstairs to the galley kitchen and peered through the comparatively large window.  Sometimes I still felt that I had fetched up near the world.  The early morning summer light that slanted on to the flat, colourless landscape; the moan of the wind, the shriek of the sea-birds and the melancholy boom of that container ship on the periphery of the harbour at the front of the house sent a shiver right through me.

  For thirty-five years, I had lived in North London where I could go all day without seeing the horizon.  Here, in Oxmarket, it was all horizon:  the level land, the mudflats, the miles of marshes, the grey, wrinkled water of the estuary.  Now, from where I stood, I could see only glistening mudflats, with their narrow, oozing ditches of water where waders were walking with high-stepping delicate legs and giving mournful cries, as if they’d lost something.  It was low tide.  Little boats tethered to their unnecessary buoys tipped at a steep angle to show their blistered, slimy hulls; their halliards clinked and chimed in the summer breeze.  From this vantage point, I still wondered after five years, how on earth I’d ended up here.

  It was Zoë who had wanted to come. For years of our marriage had dreamed of leaving London, of giving up her general practice in North London, and setting one up on the Suffolk coast.  At first, it was a daydream, an if-only that initially I didn’t share, but bit by bit it had taken on the harder edge of an obsession, until at last the opportunity arose in Oxmarket, and she dragged me up to Suffolk to begin a new life.  It was only seventy miles from London and I commuted at first, but that became tiring, so I resigned and began the process of setting up my detective agency.

  Oxmarket had the feel of a different world, rimmed by a tidal estuary and facing out to open sea.  Gripped by weather and seasons; full of wild spaces, loneliness the strange-call of sea-birds and sighing wind.  It was even cut off from the mainland every so often, when the highest of high tides covered the causeway.  From my bedroom window, I could hear the waters lapping on the shingle shore, the foghorns booming out at sea.  Sometimes at night, when Oxmarket was wrapped in the darkness of the sky and of the rising, fall waters, I could scarcely bear the sense of solitude that engulfed me.

  Within twelve months, however, Zoë’s dream had turned into a nightmare.  She was thirty-two, three years younger than me when she was diagnosed with leukaemia.  Four months later, she collapsed in the local village shop.  I was right in the middle of setting up the business, but after it happened a second time on the platform of the Oxmarket railway station, I put all my preparations on hold.

  On that day, Zoë took me to a plot she’d chosen for herself in the cemetery at the local church.  She looked at her grave, up at me, and then smiled.  I remember that clearly.  A smile shot through with so much pain and fear I wanted to break something, I wanted to hit out until all I felt was numb.  Instead, I took her hand, brought her hand, brought her into me, and tried to treasure every second of whatever time we had left.

  When it became clear the treatment wasn’t working, she decided to stop.  I cried that day, really cried, probably for the first time since I was a kid.  But – looking back – she made the right decision.  She had some dignity.  Without hospital visits and the time it took her to recover from them, our lives became more spontaneous, and that was an exciting way to live for a while.  She read a lot, and she sewed, and I did some work on the house, painting walls and fixing rooms.

  Then one day a letter came for me in the post it was from one of Zoë’s friends, Sabrina.  She was desperate. She had been married to her husband, Chris, for about five years, but it clearly wasn't a happy marriage. Her husband had been having an affair, and she needed to find proof.  The offer she made was huge – more than I’d deserve – but the whole idea left me with a strange feeling.  I needed more money, and had sources that could help me, but I wasn't hugely interested, and took the letter through to the back garden, where Zoë was gently rocking in her chair with the tiniest hint of a smile on her face.

  “What’s so funny?”  I asked.

  “You’re not certain if you should do it.”

  “I’m certain,” I told her.  “I’m sure I shouldn’t do it.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you think I should do it?”

  “It’s perfect for you.”

  “It’s perfect for you.”

  “What chasing after adulterous husbands?”

  “It’s perfect for you,” she said.  “Take this chance, John.”

  And that was how it began.

  I pushed the doubt down with the sadness and the anger and took the case.  Sabrina visited us at our house and my initial reluctance turned to enthusiasm.  I decided there and then that I'd find the proof she needed so she could divorce Chris. Naturally, Zoe assumed it was because of the sadness that lay ahead, and I just wanted to make someone happy. That night, I broke into Chris's office searching for signs of an affair. Which I found. Only what I found were signs that Sabrina herself had been having the affair. Chris had hired his detective to keep tracks on her. And she was having an affair with a woman. I wasn’t surprised by this. It had been obvious from the moment she came to our house and sat with Zoë. Sabrina had unconsciously shown signs of attraction towards her. And, as arrogant as it sounds they're signs I was used to seeing in women. That was the reason I took on the case, wasn't because he was feeling romantic but because I wanted to know the truth behind their marriage. I confronted Sabrina with the evidence, and she broke down in front of me. She told me that her family were well-off and would never have approved of her being gay. Chris, a friend of hers from university, had discovered this and blackmailed her. If she married him, he wouldn't tell her family the truth. He would then get to live off her family's money.

  Recently, she'd met and fallen in love with another woman. She was desperate to end her marriage without the truth coming out. I handed over an envelope. In it were the photos that showed Sabrina had been having an affair. Chris now had no hold over her except for the one she allowed him to have. I told her to tell her family everything. What's the worst that could happen? They'd disown her? Unlikely if they put up with someone as obnoxious as a son-in-law because they thought she loved him. And even if they did, wouldn't it be worth it to be with the woman she loved? And sure enough, that's what she did. There was a divorce, and it was expensive and messy, but her family stuck by her, and she ended up with the woman she loved.

  After this minor success, Zoë persuaded me to rent some office space down the road from our home, that she had seen available on the internet.  It was to get me out of the house, but also more than that, I think – to convince me I could make a career out of being a private detective.  She called it a long-term plan.

  Two months later she died.