Dead Blind

by Rebecca Bradley

  ‘You think you can beat me?’ asked Rusnac, heaving with the effort of getting his breath back. ‘You stupid?’

  ‘Obviously.’ Ray spat again. ‘But c’mon, I don’t recognise you. There’s no need to do this. I think I take you seriously now.’ This was his one chance. To persuade Rusnac of the truth of the matter. Walk away with his life and maybe figure out how the team could take him down another way.

  ‘Now. Now is too late. You cause trouble. I don’t need trouble.’ Rusnac used one hand to push himself to a standing position. He stepped back from Ray.

  Ray lifted his chin to see him. To see the barrel of the gun looking down at him. Boy, he never imagined it would be like this.

  ‘You have to go. You cause too much trouble for me. I gave you chance. You screw it up.’ Rusnac’s decision was made. Ray could hear it in his voice. Flat and determined. His arm shifted to point the Glock at his head.

  Then it exploded.

  83

  It was as though the world had exploded in slow motion. So much so that at first Ray didn’t know what had happened.

  There was a loud crack that tore through the surrounding woodland, rupturing the quiet part of Ray’s brain that was succumbing to his imminent demise and scattering the brass band that had taken up residence.

  Rusnac’s eyes widened in shock as the sound echoed around and through them both as if it was part of them. Invading the space they had carved out in the world for this moment to themselves.

  Another piercing crack. And another.

  The sound shattered the silence of the woods.

  Then Rusnac’s mouth dropped. His hand quivered in mid-air before he split open and blood sprayed out. His arm dropped, and all at once he was falling. Down onto the mulchy ground. It was sudden. Ungainly. Ugly. Bloody.

  Ray felt damp.

  Shocked.

  He’d been about to die at the hands of Rusnac in the woods without talking to his family, his friends.

  And now – now the world had turned upside down.

  He coughed, his throat felt clogged and irritated. He spat and bloody mucus with slices of hell knew what in it were expelled from his mouth. He spat again and cleared some more. He pushed his hands against the ground to heave himself upwards; they were red, speckled with the palest white he had ever seen. That was his hand. The rest was red. Bloody. Rusnac.

  He looked across at the man who had been about to kill him, who was now in a heap on the floor, unmoving.

  Never to move again.

  Ray looked around him, confused.

  He was being approached by men in black combats tucked into black boots, with black jackets and black helmets, carrying guns still aimed at the prone figure on the ground. They reached him and kicked the Glock away. Checked him, and nodded.

  Two came up to Ray and he was hoisted up from under his arms.

  ‘Sir? You okay?’

  ‘I’m good. Thank you,’ he said as he regained his balance, standing in a puddle of dark fluid. He stepped away, moved around the mess that was once Vova Rusnac and made his way towards the waiting group behind the black-clad officers. He recognised a bundle of curls. Next to the curls was a male, wide but short, and a female wagging a finger at him, and another, who stood, one arm across her chest, the other hand up to her mouth, biting her nails. And striding out to meet him was a slim, smartly dressed Asian male. Ray took a deep breath.

  Things were about to change.

  84

  Watching from a distance was painful for Elaine. Being held back by the armed guys when all she wanted to do was run to him and punch him in his stupid unrecognising face was unbearable. Hearing the shots ring out and not being able to see what had happened nearly broke her in two. Her nails were taking the brunt of the stress. How could he not have said anything to her? He had the perfect opportunity at the hospital. Did he think she would have ratted him out? After what they’d been through together? The guy had a block for a head.

  And he’d well and truly gone and proved it now.

  Telling Jain had been one of the most difficult things she had ever had to do. She felt as though she was letting him down, but she had needed to do it and needed to do it with speed.

  Jain had remained dispassionate. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. She imagined what Ray must feel like on a daily basis. Once she finished her quick run-through of what Ray had told her, he picked up his phone and barked commands and requests through to the relevant departments and told them all to get their gear and get moving.

  They hadn’t needed to be told twice.

  And now she stood here.

  Ray half walked, half stumbled out of the woods. He was covered in blood and Elaine’s stomach jumped into her throat. But he was walking, and walking unaided.

  As he got closer, she could see that his cheek was swollen and bruised under the blood. He’d been in a battle. The punch she owed him would have to wait.

  Jain walked towards him. She wanted to turn away, but couldn’t stop watching.

  85

  ‘Ray.’ Jain reached out a hand. Ray clasped it. It kept him steady.

  Upright.

  Jain pulled him towards him and threw an arm around his shoulders, patting him hard on his back. Three solid slaps. ‘I’m glad you’re okay.’ There was a rasp to his voice that wasn’t usually there. If Ray had been trying to identify Prabhat by voice it would have made him hard to identify. But Ray knew it was him. The scent of his cinnamon-undertoned aftershave wafted up his nose.

  ‘I’m damn glad you turned up.’ Ray returned the hug. Grateful for the contact, the warm human contact, the life-saving.

  ‘I’m glad we turned up in time too. It looked like it was a close call. We nearly lost you, mate.’

  ‘I’m acutely aware of that.’ A strangled laugh that turned into a cough. He bent over, hands on knees, and spat onto the ground. Still blood and bits of solid matter evacuating his mouth. Bits he didn’t want to think about. ‘There was a nurse here. Lisa Adams?’

  ‘Yeah, we got her. Uniform have taken her back to the station.’

  ‘Great, I was worried she might have already left.’

  Jain stepped back and studied Ray. ‘You know we need to talk about how it got to this point, don’t you?’

  Ray nodded. Too exhausted to do much else. His head was killing. His mouth – well, he didn’t want to think about that too much. And his ribs were sore as well. His old injuries didn’t take much of a knock to flare up and cause him pain.

  ‘We need to talk about it, me and you. As friends.’

  ‘I know.’ He nodded again.

  ‘But also, I need to talk to you as your supervisor. I’m going to have to refer you to occupational health for an assessment, Ray.’

  He nodded again. Words wouldn’t come right now. They walked towards his colleagues. Prabhat’s arm hanging around Ray’s shoulder.

  86

  Ray looked up from his desk. Studied the woman in the doorway. No curls. No ring. He went to her face. It was Elaine. ‘Come on in, Elaine.’

  ‘How do you do that?’ she asked as she walked into his office and closed the door behind her.

  It had been a week since she’d found out about his prosopagnosia, since that awful day, and this was the first time she had come to speak to him. He hadn’t wanted to force the issue with her. He’d left the ball in her court.

  ‘They’re called identifiers,’ he told her as dread crept over him. ‘Every person I know has something about them that I store in my memory to identify them by. It might take me a while, as I have to cycle through the identifier box, but it’s quite effective.’

  Elaine dropped into the seat in front of his desk and Ray closed down the computer.

  ‘You knew I would come and see you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So – why didn’t you tell me? I get that you didn’t want to tell everyone, that you were trying to deal with it and not tell the job, but after what we went through together once already
…’

  There was a heavy silence. It expanded in the small office. Filling the space. Suffocating.

  Ray broke through it, his voice quiet. ‘That was why I couldn’t tell you, Elaine.’

  She looked at him. Cocked her head to one side. Drew her eyes together. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your identifier …’

  She looked puzzled for a moment, then said, ‘My scar.’

  Ray felt as though someone had punched him in the guts. ‘Yes.’

  And then she smiled at him and he could see the smile travel right up to her eyes. ‘I don’t mind my scar, guv, I’m confident in my own body. This scar doesn’t detract from who I am, it simply shows where I’ve been. My husband doesn’t love me any less, I don’t love me any less, and my friends don’t love me any less. And I certainly don’t blame you.’

  Ray’s face had paled.

  Elaine continued, ‘There was not one single action you could have taken differently that would have changed the outcome of that day. How could I blame you? You need to stop blaming yourself. And if that’s the way you identify me, then that’s the way you identify me.’ Her smile widened.

  Ray couldn’t speak. It wasn’t that he was choked. He admired the strength of this woman in front of him.

  ‘Anyway,’ she carried on, ‘how’s life desk-surfing?’ She was positively relaxed now she had her answers.

  ‘Ah.’ He was on firmer ground now too. ‘I love it.’ He grumbled, ‘The occ health appointment isn’t for another month so I’ll be stuck inside, unable to interact with real people for all that time, and then longer while they decide what to do with me.’

  ‘You brought down the whole trading in human organs ring though.’ Elaine leaned forward in her chair. ‘Adams provided the names of those she knew, and those in turn gave any extra names of those they knew. None of them were scared once they heard Rusnac was dead. Providing helpful information was in their best interest.’ She paused. ‘That has to count for something, right?’

  ‘It counts as policing, Elaine. I can’t see faces.’ He scrubbed his own face with his hands. ‘Who knows if they’ll let me stay on as a copper.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘First I’ll wait and see what happens. If the job decides I have to be medically retired, I’ll have to go. I’ve had a good run.’

  Elaine looked aghast. ‘But you’ve done so well, none of us knew.’

  ‘But I did put the investigation at risk.’

  She leaned back in her chair again. Deflated.

  ‘I’ve figured out so many things this past couple of months, Elaine. Priorities. Life. When I was in the woods with Rusnac, well, let’s just say I saw a lot more then than I’ve been able to see for a while.’

  If you enjoyed Dead Blind but haven’t yet received your FREE copy of Three Weeks Dead which is the prequel to the DI Hannah Robbins series, then you can claim it HERE.

  Acknowledgements

  This book means a lot to me and I couldn’t have written without the help of some very generous people who gave their time to help me.

  My thanks go to Sharon Bolton for her help and support in researching the transplant process. To Marina Sofia for spending time talking to me about Moldova. Lisa Cutts for homicide team supervisor cover procedure. (Yes, I still have to check some things myself.) Rosie Claverton for advice on Ray’s injuries after his accident.

  Elaine Aldred for being early reader. Jane Isaac and David Jackson for their encouragement from the start, before I had even written a word of this book. I told them the idea and they pushed me on and read an early draft.

  Huge thanks go to Sarah Manning for bashing it into shape and being an ongoing supporter. Even if it at times felt like an uphill battle.

  Thank you to Anne O’Hara for checking my continuity

  Thank you to Martin Ouvry and Julia Gibbs for their editing expertise.

  To all my early readers and book bloggers, I thank you, for your time and your continued enthusiasm. Readers make the book world go around.

  To my family, without whom I can never create any book, because they give me the space and time and love to do this. I love you.

  And finally I have to thank Dr Brad Duchaine, Jo Livingston and Bob Cockshott for their invaluable time, help and experience with prosopagnosia. I really could not have created this book without them.

  Books in the DI Hannah Robbins series;

  Three Weeks Dead (Prequel novella)

  Shallow Waters

  Made to be Broken

  Fighting Monsters

  About the Author

  Rebecca Bradley is a retired police detective who lives in the UK with her family and two Cockapoo’s Alfie and Lola, who both keep her company while she writes. She needs to drink copious amounts of tea to function throughout the day and if she could, she would survive on a diet of tea and cake.

  If you enjoyed Dead Blind and would be happy to leave a review online that would be much appreciated, as word of mouth is often how other readers find new books. You can leave a review HERE.

  Have you claimed your FREE prequel novella, Three Weeks Dead, yet? A young DC, Sally Poynter, has to get through to a desperate husband before he commits a crime that will have far-reaching consequences. You can view that HERE.

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