Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  66

  The night was still, but Rusnac’s mind whirled. What the hell had happened? How had it happened? His meetings never went this way. He was a meticulous planner. And if something was to go off-piste, then the person was usually scared of him. But this guy, this cop, he was different. How had he read the situation so badly?

  He had failed to identify him in the video line-up. That, he hadn’t got wrong. He’d been arrested on suspicion of murder. He had thought his days were numbered. They had the garage, the car, his DNA, and they had a cop who was there, right in front of him when he put the bullet in the kid. And yet … yet he had walked out of the police station. A free man. Technically on bail, but if he’d been identified he would never have walked away, he would have been locked in that tiny stinking cell until court and then moved to another cell and he’d never have seen the light of day for many, many years.

  But he had walked.

  What explanation was he supposed to come up with other than that the cop was bent and wanted something from him?

  Traffic was light. London was still alive, but it wasn’t the excessively clogged-up system that churned through the day. He preferred the night. You could move. London could breathe now.

  Rusnac rubbed at the back of his head, realising he’d hit it on the ground as they’d gone down together at the house. It stung. He rubbed more gently. One hand still controlling the car. There was a small bump.

  The cop had tried to arrest him. That’s how they had ended up on the ground. It appeared there was a point when the cop realised who he was. Which was weird. He’d already been locked up in his cells. He’d already known who he was. He presumed the cop had done the video ID thing.

  He slowed for the lights on Lea Bridge Road and stopped. Watched a cyclist with his head down to the chill night air ride hard across in front of him. Picked up his phone and quick-dialled Popa, who answered on the first ring.

  ‘That cop, the one you followed. Can’t remember the name you gave me. I want you to find out all you can about him and call me straight back.’

  The lights started to change in his favour.

  ‘Yes, tonight. Right now.’ He dropped the phone onto the passenger seat and moved off. It wasn’t even ten minutes until his phone started to ring. A loud and obnoxious ringtone blaring into the silent car. He answered it. Listened. Dropped the phone again without acknowledging the caller.

  So the cop had been in an accident, had he. Good old Google. What this had to do with events tonight, though, Rusnac couldn’t quite decide. The guy had sustained some pretty serious injuries and was lucky to return to the job. He’d been the driver of the vehicle and had a colleague in the car with him. A detective sergeant who had also been injured. They had been in pursuit of a man in a car who had killed several women and had run from them. The crash had kept him off work for about six months.

  Still didn’t tell him why he let him walk.

  The injuries: leg, arm, ribs. A knock on the head. Concussion.

  Maybe that was it. Something to do with the knock to his head, the concussion.

  But still. Why? What? How?

  Concussion, he thought, that was supposed to be a temporary problem that went away with time. Gave you a headache. Not much else.

  Rusnac still couldn’t fit the piece into the jigsaw he was trying to put together. He let his mind drift back to the doorstep. When he confronted the cop, when he answered the door. He’d looked cheerful. Happy. Even when he’d first looked at Rusnac his face didn’t change. That had made Rusnac believe with greater certainty that he was right about his assumption. But then things changed. It was as if … as if the cop suddenly … what? Recognised him …

  As he drove through the shops on the A112, past Drapers Field, Leyton, an old woman crossed the road. Bent over as though her spine were crooked. Like the top of a question mark. Wrapped in a large coat, with a woollen hat pulled low over her head. Oblivious to traffic on the road. Rusnac slammed on his brakes. His head snapped forward. In normal circumstances he’d have yelled and shouted through the window at the stupidity of the woman, but his mind was elsewhere. He couldn’t afford to lose his train of thought.

  The woman made it to the other side of the road. Heaved herself up onto the pavement and continued, unconcerned, on her way.

  Could he really have only just considered that? The cop, he recognised him long after he first saw him? But what took so long? It wasn’t normal. You see someone and you know who they are. What made the cop change from not knowing to suddenly knowing?

  Damn it. He’d told the cop who he was in the course of what he’d said. About him being a bent cop and Rusnac owing him.

  The cop hadn’t recognised him. The cop’s banged-up head had something wrong with it.

  And no one else knew.

  67

  It was late but Ray didn’t care.

  He couldn’t not go around to Helen’s and make sure she and the children were okay. Safe. He needed to see them, but he had no idea what he would tell her.

  Her voice through the glass as she asked who was there sounded fearful. Shaky. Then angry as he told her who it was.

  ‘What the hell, Ray?’ she asked as she swung the door open, allowing the freezing night air to sweep into the house. ‘Do you have any concept of time or did that bang on the head damage that as well?’

  The dark of the night shrouded him from her view as Ray ignored her irritation and pushed past her into the house. He turned, took the door from her hand, slammed it shut, locked it, and pushed the bolt into place.

  ‘Ray?’ She stepped back. Her face changed from where it had been when she was using her irritated voice to something else. A hint of worry was there now.

  ‘You know what time it is?’

  He hadn’t said a word yet; his mind was still reeling. He hadn’t slowed down for any traffic lights or junctions, that was for sure. It was the fastest he’d made it here. Ever. It was a good job it was late, otherwise he might have been involved in an accident and not made it at all, and who knew what danger that would have left his family in.

  Ray looked at his watch to confirm.

  Eleven-twenty p.m.

  ‘I’m sorry, Helen.’ He ran his hands through his hair. What did he tell her? How did he keep her safe without scaring the living crap out of her? Should he go with the truth, that Rusnac had threatened her and their children, or some version of the truth, that he’d threatened Ray and this had driven a need to see his family, or a lie of some description and do his best to resolve the entire problem before anything went wrong? After all, Rusnac said he would only resort to coming here if Ray himself went after him. But how could he trust a cold-blooded killer?

  And of course he was going after Rusnac. He wasn’t going to walk away and leave him on the streets; besides, he didn’t have the command to close the investigation anyway, it would continue regardless, and Rusnac would see that as him going after them. Better he do a proper job of it and get him locked up sooner rather than later.

  But what to tell Helen? This wasn’t something he’d thought about as he’d raced out of the city to get to them. He’d quickly washed his face and changed his top. But his mind had been consumed with the single thought of getting here, not with what he’d say when he did.

  Now he was stumped.

  ‘Ray?’ She looked at him. Sighed, and walked towards the kitchen. ‘I’m putting the kettle on. Get your act together.’ She wore pastel pink and blue striped pyjama bottoms that showed her long legs off, with a long-sleeved fitted ribbed blue top. Wrapped over it was a cream Argyle knitted cardigan that she liked to relax around the house in. As she moved away from him, Ray caught the citrusy scent of her shower gel, and noticed, as she moved, that the underside of her hair was still damp.

  He followed her.

  What the hell was he going to tell her? Which way would he jump?

  The kettle whistled to a boil as Helen brought mugs out of the cupboard, poured milk and spooned coffee. A
ll without a word being spoken. She poured the steaming water into both mugs as Ray watched from his chair at the breakfast bar. His nerves making him feel as though he had an army of ants crawling all over his body.

  She stirred each mug slowly. Carefully.

  Placed the spoon on the drainer.

  Waited a beat.

  Walked over to Ray. Placed his mug down in front of him. Collected her own. Then sat with it on the chair adjacent, on the corner. Then she looked at him. Really looked.

  ‘Ray, is that a black eye forming under your right eye? What the hell is going on?’

  Decision time.

  ‘I’m sorry, Helen.’

  ‘That’s not an answer, Ray.’ She pinned him to his seat with her deep brown eyes. He wanted to squirm like a five-year-old boy, but he didn’t move.

  Okay, this was it.

  ‘There’s a problem at work and it boiled over and came to the house.’

  The dark brown eyes surveyed him a minute. Digesting. ‘What do you mean, came to the house?’

  As he spoke, Ray still didn’t know what he was going with. The truth or partial truth. It was obvious he was not going with a lie. Helen’s hands were wrapped around her mug as though she were cold, and it was now that Ray noticed that there was a chill in the room. The heating had clicked off: she would have been in bed. ‘A guy turned up at my door. He made some threats …’

  Her mouth opened. She started to speak, but Ray put his hand up. She closed her mouth.

  ‘Nothing I’m worried about.’ He knew he couldn’t mention the gun now. Or the threats towards her or the children. ‘I got a bit agitated with him and we got into it.’ He bent his head. Hoped she would think this was the problem.

  ‘Oh, Ray.’ She’d taken it. He hadn’t realised where he was going until it happened, but then he realised: a fight with anyone involved with the investigation wouldn’t be good for him.

  She reached out a hand and rested it on his arm. Her touch gentle. Any anger or irritation she had felt had abated.

  ‘Why did he threaten you in the first place, why was he at your place?’ She moved her hand, and a look he couldn’t decipher crossed her face. He felt a cool spot where her hand had been.

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Yes, Ray.’ Sharp. Blunt.

  Could he be that honest with her? He’d been honest about everything else.

  ‘It was someone we arrested due to some evidence that meant he could potentially have been our victim’s killer –’

  A sharp intake of breath.

  ‘But Prabhat needed me to do the ID for him, as you know. And I failed.’ He looked her square in the eye. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The guy thinks I must be bent because I should have picked him out, and wants to talk about how we work together –’

  ‘That means …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘The man who threatened you, who you got into it with, is a killer?’

  He could read her face now. It was wide-open horror.

  68

  It was one a.m. by the time he closed the door on the world again back in his own home. Helen had taken some calming down once he had told her about Rusnac – though not by name, obviously. And not the whole story. She had become afraid for him and wanted him to come and stay with her, which had led nicely to him saying that he was afraid for her. She wasn’t a stupid woman though. She could read him a hell of a lot better than he could read her – particularly since the accident. She had known he was keeping something back from her at that point, and he’d been forced to tell her that Rusnac knew her address; but he held off the information about the specific threats there. Helen inferred the threat from the knowledge of him having her address, and shouted at Ray for a good ten minutes in a hushed, blunt voice so as not to wake Alice and Matthew, but he could see she was furious with him for even contemplating not telling her.

  How could he consider putting his children’s lives at risk this way? She could choose to take whatever risk she wanted, but they – they needed their parents’ protection, and she was livid.

  When she calmed down she told him that he needed to get the bastard. That no one was going to threaten their family and stay on the streets.

  They’d decided that the children would go to their grandparents’ and Helen would go to her sister’s. It wasn’t unusual for Helen’s parents to take care of the children for a couple of days if Ray was working and Helen also had something on. Although if Helen went to stay with them along with the children, her parents would get suspicious and concerned. So she’d go to her sister’s. Give her a little information, but not enough to scare the shit out of her.

  Ray woke his laptop up. He didn’t have a plan formulated yet. Rusnac knew who he was. He was way too tired to figure it out. But he sent a message back on the Dedit site that said he was desperate to do this. His finances were burying him. What did he need to do?

  69

  The corridor this time was different. Ray was gripped by fear the minute he set foot inside it. He was aware it was a dream and knew there was a word for knowing this while he was in it, but it wouldn’t come to him at the time.

  He had other things on his mind.

  Like the blood that ran down the walls.

  That was the same.

  So what was it that was different?

  There was screaming. A screaming from a distant door that he felt he would never be able to get to in time. A screaming that ripped through your gut and tore you open, it was so afraid.

  That was all the same.

  But it was different. Something had changed.

  Ray tried the first door on his right and to his surprise the handle turned with ease.

  It was open.

  The door was open.

  Again, this had happened before.

  Should he look or move forward to the screaming at the end of the corridor?

  He pushed on the door. Last time the door had opened, someone had stood there, shook their head at him; but this time there was no one here. He peered into the space beyond. It was dark. Difficult to see. Difficult to make out the objects in the room – because there were objects. Something was moving. Moving towards him.

  His stomach tightened. His fist balled at his side. He moved his left foot and stood square on to the door frame. Readied himself for whatever it was that was moving in his direction.

  It moved closer. The darkness, a cloak.

  The screaming tore through the corridor and ripped up the air. The pain and suffering shredding his nerve endings. Rattling his resolve. He willed the moving figure to go faster, but it was in no hurry.

  How long could he stand here and wait while the screams rang out?

  A string of blood dripped from the door casing. The figure was close to breaking through the darkness that enveloped it.

  And then it was there.

  In front of him.

  A human form. Faceless but with a weird wide mouth that practically split the face in half. It started to laugh. At first slow and deep, and then louder and faster until it was hysterically laughing at a pitch that competed with the screams.

  Ray turned and ran towards the screams. Away from the laughing figure.

  He ran and ran and ran.

  Sleep was a bodily state in the past tense that Ray had nearly forgotten the recuperative powers of. And when he did slip into some kind of unconscious sleep state, he was plagued by the corridor dream.

  He escaped the frustration of feeling unsettled by being in his office at an early hour he rarely saw. His mind was wired from the previous night’s visit from Rusnac. He was still spinning, reeling, furious. Lack of sleep was to be expected. Today they had to follow Helen’s advice and find a way to identify Rusnac with good old-fashioned coppering, evidence. They would work their way through everything again, chase up information and documentation they were waiting on, and work on leads they hadn’t yet managed to get to.

  He’d push the team, b
ut he knew they could cope. They’d had big jobs before. Jobs that had a lot riding on them. Jobs that had pressures from different places pushing down on them. Press and public pushing for quick answers. Higher-ups needing results for political reasons. Or simply because a connection had been made with a family member and the job had taken a particularly personal turn.

  Tamsin – curls – was the first through the door.

  ‘We need the results from Rusnac’s phone,’ Ray said as soon as she entered.

  ‘Morning to you too, guv.’ She slipped out of her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair.

  ‘Morning, Tamsin. Can you get on to the phone today please? See where they are with it and if it hasn’t been done yet, find out why not and kick some arses. I want it doing. I want it prioritising. I want it done. Now.’

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, guv.’ She looked at him. He couldn’t decipher it. ‘Is everything okay? It’s only seven-thirty. They’ll be no one in yet.’ She walked towards the door. ‘But I’ll be straight on it as soon as.’ She hadn’t mentioned his black eye. It had become more pronounced overnight.

  Ray stalked out of the incident room into his office. Damn working hours. Damn the snail’s pace of the investigation. He slammed his door.

  By eight-thirty everyone was in and Ray was standing in front of them wanting results.

  ‘We’re not getting very far with this investigation,’ he started. ‘It’s been running too long and we need to start to pull it together.’

  The room was quiet. All eyes were on him. It was clear they’d seen his eye. The thought passed through his mind: who would be the person to ask him about it? But it was fleeting. He was less worried about his looks and more interested in finding Rusnac.

  ‘I’ve asked Tamsin to chase up the phone we seized from Rusnac, see what we can retrieve from that. Where are we on locating patients who have stopped turning up for dialysis?’ he asked.