A Silent Death

Chapter Twenty-Eight

When Ana wakes she is fully dressed, and lying on top of the bed rather than in it. She knows it is morning from the heat of the sun falling across her bed through the shutters, and is surprised that she has slept at all.

It was late when Cleland returned the night before, and she had persuaded him to let her walk Sandro to the end of the street and back. At first he had resisted, telling her it would be unwise to step out in the dark, before she pointed out that her whole life was spent in the dark.

He had accompanied her, a hand hooked through her arm, and they had walked slowly the length of the Calle San Miguel, right down to Calle Caridad and back, stopping only to let Sandro lift his leg against flowerpots and doorsteps.

The untrained eye might have thought them to be just some couple out for a late evening stroll with their dog. They would have realized, of course, that Ana was blind, but the intimacy of Cleland’s arm through hers, and their comfortable silence, would have aroused nothing but sympathy.

In fact, their silence had been anything but comfortable. Behind it, Ana’s mind had been in turmoil, desperately seeking some way to escape. But he held her entirely in his power, and she sensed that he was enjoying it.

Back at the house he had told her that she should sleep, and taken her to the bedroom. For a long time she had stood in the silent darkness of her inner prison trying to determine whether or not he had left the room. She did not want to undress with the thought that he was standing watching her every move. So in the end she had simply lain down on the bed fully dressed.

But thoughts of Sergio had kept sleep at bay. Remembering every word of their conversation, his touch, his scent. Then his return, their interchange cut short by the deep vibration of something heavy landing at her feet. Poor, poor Sergio. What had that monster done to him?

It is the first thing on her mind when she wakes, and the cold fingers of fear close around her heart as the full recollection of the previous day’s events flood back.

She sits upright, breathing hard, trying to hold herself still. Is there anyone in the room? She cannot tell. Slowly she slips off the bed and makes her way to the small en-suite bathroom, where she sits on the pan to relieve herself, then splashes her face with cold water in the sink. She does not have the heart even to brush her teeth, and feels her way to the door, and out into the sitting room.

Immediately she smells fresh coffee and hot churros. A hand on her arm startles her, and she recognizes Cleland’s earthy scent. He guides her quickly but gently towards her computer and eases her into her seat. She feels for and finds the small vibrating disk that she pins immediately to her blouse. Almost at once she feels it vibrate against her skin.

Fingers on her screen decipher his message.

— Good morning, Ana. I hope you like churros. You’ll find a plate of them and some coffee on the table in front of you.

‘I’m not hungry,’ is her instinctive response. Even although she is.

— Well, that’s a pity. If you don’t want them I might have to eat them myself. I love churros, don’t you?

No response.

— I’ve eaten far too many of them since I’ve been in Spain. Much better than porridge! But fattening, don’t you think? So much here is fried. A bit like Scotland. I’ve put on too much weight. He paused. Angela, on the other hand, could eat anything and never put on an ounce. Oh, I’m sorry, imperial measures. What would you say? A gram?

Ana sits in silence, fingers dancing across the screen to read his rambling. None of it, she thinks, requires a response.

— Of course, there’s no danger of Angela ever putting on weight now, is there?

‘Where’s Sergio?’ She isn’t going to play his game, and can almost hear him sighing in the pause before his reply.

— He’s gone.

‘What did you do to him.’

— I didn’t do anything. Pause. Well, I did. I hit him over the head. I’m sorry. He’s going to have a bad headache this morning, but he’s probably more upset by what I told him.

‘What did you tell him?’

— That you didn’t want him to come back. Ever.

She knows he is lying. How could he possibly have explained to Sergio why he had struck him? And then just let him go. She is consumed by fear for her teenage amour. But knows she has to keep Cleland talking. About anything. The more she can build a rapport with him the less likely he is to hurt her. She hopes.

‘Why are you doing this?’

— Because your niece killed the woman I was going to marry. The woman who was carrying my child.

This is news to Ana. Did Cristina know that Cleland’s woman was pregnant? But she wants to steer him away from that. ‘No, I mean, everything you do, everything you are. After Cristina told me about you, I searched the internet for more information. There is plenty out there about you. Newspaper articles. Police bulletins. Even a page in Wikipedia.

— Really? I didn’t know that.

She somehow detects pleasure in this response and decides to play on his ego. ‘I suppose you’re a little bit famous in your own way.’

— Just a little bit?

Which only confirms for Ana that Cleland is more than just a little bit self-obsessed. Image is a skin people wear to hide their real selves. And Cleland is clearly concerned with his. Even to the point of lying to himself about who was actually responsible for Angela’s death. Because, after all, how could he live with himself if he were to admit responsibility for killing the mother of his child, along with the child itself? It wouldn’t fit with his own carefully cultivated self-image. Invincible dealer in drugs, respected and feared in his own circles, always one step ahead of the police. Living the life of a wealthy retiree on the Costa del Sol, right under the noses of the authorities. She says, ‘Quite a lot, I suppose.’ Then hesitates. ‘What I don’t understand is why.’

— Why?

‘Your parents were wealthy.’

— So?

‘They sent you to the best schools, paid your way through Oxford. You never wanted for anything.’

— Nothing material, no.

‘So what possible reason could you have for turning to crime?’

There is a very long pause.

— That’s a good question, Ana. And I don’t pretend there’s any easy answer.

His subsequent response is peppered with long pauses as he reflects, perhaps for the first time, on why he has taken this particular route through life.

— It all sounds very grand, doesn’t it? Wealthy parents, private schools, an Oxford education. The reality was something else. Parents who never wanted me in the first place. A mother and father who couldn’t wait to shuffle off responsibility to nannies and schoolmasters. I was just an inconvenience. We lived in Edinburgh, for God’s sake, and yet they had me board at Fettes, less than a mile from the family home. Lavished with everything money could buy. Except for love. Which, of course, you can’t buy, as The Beatles so eloquently pointed out to my parents in their youth.

A very long pause now. So long that Ana begins to wonder if he is still there.

— I have no doubt you could regale me with tales of growing up in impoverished southern Spain. But you could never understand how hard it was for a boy abandoned by his parents to spend all his young years in a series of soulless dormitories. Where if you weren’t bullied to tears by the big boys, you were punished for crying by the masters. On my 17th birthday my father had a car delivered to my door. A red Porsche 911. The envy of every other boy in the school.

Again he pauses.

— I’d have given all the Porsche 911s in the world for just a little of his time. But, oh no, my father never had time. At least not for me. Packed me off to Oxford with a generous allowance and the keys to my own apartment. God, how lucky was I?

Although she could neither see nor hear him, she could feel the bitterness in his words.

— It became clear to me, Ana, that if no one else was going to have time for me, then I would just have to make the time for myself. Amazing how quickly the calluses grow and the hurt goes away. Extraordinary how you can segue from being the receiver of pain, to being the giver of it. And what pleasure there is in that.

She can visualize the cursor blinking on his screen as he composes his thoughts for what is to come next.

— Those bullies... the ones who made my life so bloody miserable... I came across a few of them in later years. Well, actually, I sought them out. And they found out pretty fucking fast that dealing with the adult Jack was a whole other experience from beating up on some pathetic kid. That’s what you call taking back power, Ana. And there are very few feelings in this world quite that good.

She does not know now if he has finished, if he has spent his ire. Or whether there is more to come. So she prompts him.

‘I read that you were one of the top traders in the biggest commercial bank in London.’

— Best trader on the floor.

‘You couldn’t have been short of money, then.’

— If there’s one thing I learned from my folks, Ana, it’s that money isn’t everything. But there I was, Mr Dealmaker, buying and selling just seconds before stocks soared or plummeted. Making fortunes — for someone else. So it was back to the old axiom. Look after Number One. Along came a different kind of deal. One in which I controlled everything, including the profits.

‘Drugs.’

— A street commodity, he corrects her. Following the basic precepts of Capitalism. Supply and demand. There was a demand, I supplied it. But it’s a very different environment from the trading floor. Get it wrong and people want to kill you. So you get tough. You learn that there’s no place for sentiment. If someone wants to kill you, you kill them first. Law of the jungle. And I was good at that. Mad Jock, they called me. Still do, for all I know. We Scots have a certain reputation to maintain.

She doubts very much if it is a reputation that John Mackenzie would approve of. And almost as though he has heard the thought echoing in her darkness, she detects vitriol in his next words.

— They’ve sent another Jock to catch me. But he’s no match for me, Ana. I smelled his breath, and his hair gel and his aftershave. I heard his Glasgow brogue. Some knucklehead cop looking to make a reputation at my expense. I’m going to kill him, too.

For the first time, Ana feels despair wash over her. The skin of Cleland’s self-image fits him so tightly there is no room for reason. The calluses so thick he has no sense of other people’s pain, never mind his own. She says, ‘I grew up in a religious family, and though I’ve never had any time for God I would never knowingly hurt another human being, or take from him or her what is not mine. I’ve heard that abused children often become abusers themselves. I have never understood that. Surely no one better knows the pain of abuse? I find it hard to have sympathy for you.’

— I’m not asking for any!

‘I’ve had none of your advantages in life, señor, but would never have projected my own misfortune on to others as you have done.’

Again the long pause. Is he analysing her words or simply controlling his anger? When it comes, his reply surprises.

— You are right. Fate has dealt you a hand much worse than mine. I can’t imagine how it would be to have my sight and hearing taken away. That is unimaginable, Ana.

She feels no compulsion to reply.

— Tell me about you and Sergio.

She feels a constriction of the muscles all around her heart, but says nothing.

— Tell me.

‘No.’

— Tell me, Ana.

Although they are only raised dots on her screen, she can feel his frustration in them and realizes that she cannot afford to excite his anger. ‘Why?’

— I’d like to know.

She draws a deep breath. And tells him. Everything. Meeting Sergio at the centre. Her parents’ disapproval. The diagnosis of Usher Syndrome and Sergio’s offer to share the learning of touch-signing with her. Their blossoming romance, the meals at Santa Ana, and then her father’s physical attack on the young man.

‘I learned only yesterday that my father had gone to Sergio’s parents, and that they had threatened to withdraw support and patronage if he didn’t stop seeing me.’

— And he agreed?

‘I never saw or heard anything of him again until yesterday. I thought...’ She chokes on the thought and feels tears welling.

— You thought what?’

‘I thought that finally I might have someone to spend my life with. Someone to share the darkness, and the silence.’

Cleland’s silence lasted so long she really did believe that this time he had gone.

‘Hello...?’

Nothing.

‘Señor?’

Finally a vibration at her breast.

— What was worse? Losing your sight or your hearing?

No reaction to her story. Nothing. Just a change of subject as if, in spite of his asking, her story was not the one he wanted to hear. She realized she would have to respond.

‘I was always prepared for the fact that one day I would lose my hearing completely. But nothing prepares you for blindness.’ She pauses and runs the rule of recollection back over the years. ‘Though perhaps, strange as it seems, the thing I miss most is music. I loved my music as a kid. Everyone else has a soundtrack to their lives. Mine is silence.’ And she can almost hear the silence in the room that follows. Finally, her buzzer vibrates once more against her chest.

— One day, Ana, if we both survive this, I’ll see that you never want for anything again. That’s a promise.

She has not the least idea how to respond.

— I have to go out for a while.

And she finds herself suffused with relief. Space to think. Time to try and find a way out of this.

— Just don’t even think of trying to alert anyone. People can die too easily. Especially little children.

Cleland sat looking at the sightless woman perched on the chair opposite. Two screens between them. Conduits of communication. Her way of reaching the world beyond silence and darkness. His way of reaching into hers.

He recalled slapping her yesterday. Twice. And felt immediate regret. Like striking a helpless animal. No way for her to hit back. Which made him no better than those bullies who had so relentlessly tormented him through all his miserable childhood. He wanted to reach out and take her hand and tell her he was sorry. Such an alien impulse that he was completely unable to act upon it, and sat just staring at her face. And thought about Sergio.

He had not meant to hit Sergio so hard. If he had known then just how much he meant to Ana... It was just one more thing taken from her. God had robbed her of her sight and her hearing. Cleland had stolen her freedom. And her love.

And Angela. He had taken her life. He screwed his eyes tight shut and felt hot tears squeezing out between the lids to track their way down a tanned face starting to show the ravages of stress. If it hadn’t been for that stupid bloody policewoman...

He reached over to grab the untouched plate of churros in front of Ana, and the mug of cooling coffee, and hurled both at the wall with a force only matched by the strength of the roar of pure frustration that rose from his throat and resonated in the still morning air.