Leading The Blind

A private investigator finds the man who gave him a mystery to solve has been murdered...

I could smell the bodies from well before the doorway, the living and the dead.

My ears caught the squeal of five sets of footsteps over ageing floorboards, and five breathing pairs of lungs, but only three voices. Two men, one woman. My approach into the tiny, filthy dwelling was barred by the two silent human walls standing in front of the door.

The hulk on the left thrust out his hands and batted me in the sternum. The mitts were meaty and huge enough to cover three quarters of my chest. Both of the men pulled close to me, so close I could smell their breath. The one on the left smelled as if he ate dung for dinner every day.

“Conrad,” the one on the left called back into the dank room, his tone on the edge of a razor blade. The voices inside fell silent. One of the occupants took a creaky step towards the door, and I caught the grunt of annoyance when he spotted me.

“Make 'im leave.”

I knew the grab would be coming, the only question was which one would be the man to do it. When a shoe scrape came from the right I lunged backwards and jabbed my cane into a thick layer of stomach blubber. He let out a breathless grunt as a zing of metal scraped from the left. The second man had drawn a blade.

“You.” I pointed at him. It was enough to make him hesitate. “You're on the verge of scurvy. Eat more limes. You'll thank me later.”

“Where is he supposed to get a lime down here?” the gruff voice muttered from inside the house.

“That's up to him.” I held up a hand and cracked a grim smile. “How've you been keeping, Conrad?”

“This one isn't for you.”

“My presence was personally requested by the client.”

Conrad snorted. “And who might the 'client' be?”

I raised my cane and pointed it at the corpse. “Rickard, no last name. Smith's assistant, so went by Rickard Smith. Thirty one years old. He came by earlier today because someone was trying to kill him, apparently … and actually, as it turns out.”

I cocked my head at Conrad. “Your turn. What brought you and your big friends here?”

“Never you mind, 'inspector'.”

“Did you kill him?”

Conrad paused, and his voice took on the texture of gravel and broken glass. “What if we did?”

“Then I'd be in a more precarious position, but I doubt you'd be in there with a weeping woman if you had.” The other two in the room had fallen almost completely silent, but one was still quietly weeping. Not quite quietly enough.

“Wife?” I directed the question at her.

Her crying grew a little in volume as she unmuffled her face, but she didn't answer.

“Do you know who I am?”

“You're ...” Her voice, despite her grief, took on a high pitched tone of derision. “You're Eramir?”

“Yes.” I wasn't offended by her scepticism. It was people's natural state of being when they first looked at me. No matter how many times I cleaned my clothes, they remained dishevelled. My hair and remnants of facial hair were probably an utter catastrophe, but grooming wasn't a high priority. No self-respecting investigator would be seen dead in the kind of rope sandals I was wearing. Practically all of my meagre belongings were on my person at that moment, in pouches attached to the rope that acted as a belt, and the old leather belt that acted as a sash across my chest.

All of that was almost as obvious as my most obvious flaw.

I tapped my way across the threshold and into the one-room dwelling, my cane held out in front of me. The funk of fresh blood, bedbugs and rat urine hung in the air.

“Didn't say you could come in,” Conrad growled.

“It isn't your house.” I stopped, and turned my head towards the wife. “Although … I may have left my manners at the door. May I come in?”

The wife was silent again, although I could hear her light footsteps across the boards. She stopped about a foot away from me. There was a hint of perfume on her, her musk a little more delicate than Conrad or the brutes in the doorway. The air moved as she waved her hand in front of my face.

I reached out to hold it gently and put it back at her side. “I'm here to help. I promise you, as I promised him.”

“You didn't keep that promise.” Her voice trembled with grief and anger.

“I had no time to keep it. My conversation with Rickard ended barely more than an hour ago.” I stepped past her. “More to the point, I know you didn't kill him, Conrad.”

He snorted, and I felt the spittle from it on my hand. “Ah, you know, do you?”

“You seem to be visiting his house. You're not stupid enough to linger around the scene of a murder.”

I heard Conrad's barking laugh, and smelled the cheap tobacco he liked to smoke. “Oh, is that so? Who's gonna arrest me, eh?”

I grinned at him. “Don't tempt me.”

“HA!” I heard him scratch the crackling, wiry hairs of his moustache, and paced towards Rickard's body.

I stopped short of the corpse. “Friend of yours?”

“Men like me don't have friends, Eramir.”

I sniffed the air, and tapped my cane on a floorboard or two. “You can be as cagey as you like, Con'. You didn't kill Rickard Smith, and neither did they.” I point at the pair of goons at the doorway. “I would bet everything I own on it.”

“Alright then, Eramir … how?”

“Because you can't afford a gun.”

Conrad grunted, then chuckled to himself. “We can afford guns, you need to keep up with current events.”

“Not a gun like this one. This isn't one of your powder and ball stuffed pipes you point at people.”

“'Ow d'you know that?” one of the brutes behind me said.

“Davlet, shut up!” Conrad made a grab for my sleeve, and I let him. “Eramir, stay out of it, I'm warnin' you.”

I patted his hand. “I know you are, but I can't. I gave the man my word. We may run in different circles, in different … industries … but you know what that means.”

Conrad sighed and mumbled to himself: “Ugh … why haven't I killed you yet?”

“It's as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”

That elicited a snort from him, but the wife was less amused. “You broke your promise. My husband's dead! I don't want you anywhere near me, or this house … get out!”

I spread my hands. “Doctor?”

The only remaining silent man gave a cough. “Yes?”

“Ay … 'ang on, 'ang on ...” Davlet bellowed in deafening confusion. “'Ow d'you know e's 'ere when you can't see 'im?”

“There's a dead body. Who would you send for?”

Davlet paused for a moment. “Undertaker!”

“Fair. The undertaker doesn't carry this much medicine though. Usually just formaldehyde, and that smells a certain way.”

“Dav', watch the fuckin' door!” Conrad started pacing across the squeaky floor, his heavy steps creaking and crunching the decrepit boards. “Go on then, clever bollocks. Do your bits and bobs.”

“Thank you.” I gave him a nod and gestured to the doctor. “Gunshot wound, very precise, small bore round. Likely in the heart, I can't smell much blood.”

The doctor coughed. I knew he had nodded by the noise of irritation from Conrad.

“Probably jacketed in brass, rather than a powder and ball in paper, which makes it a pricey bullet and probably a pricey gun. I can't smell much gunpowder in the air, not like when one of your boomsticks goes off, Con'.”

Conrad stopped pacing. “A hitman?”

“They'd have to have been a decent marksman, or at least have gotten close enough to pop Rickard that accurately. Both possibilities are well within a hitman's skill set, if they're worth their salt … and this one has been making an awful lot of salt to afford the murder weapon.”

“Any other wounds on 'im, doc'?” Conrad's voice had dropped an octave. I could almost hear the gears turning in his mind: a new player had taken an interest in the game he had been playing in the slums, and had decided to knock over a piece.

The doctor coughed again. “No … you can see the discolouration around the bullet wound here … blood has pooled. The bullet's probably still inside him … meaning it wasn't powerful enough to go completely through his body and clothing.”

“Meaning it was a small bullet.” Conrad couldn't keep the begrudging growl out of his voice. He paced again. “So it was a slower bullet … a quieter bullet.”

“Fired using a silencer, unless someone heard the shot.” I turned my head towards the wife's laboured breathing.

“I didn't hear anything,” she muttered. “And I … would really rather … I don't know …” She broke into sobs immediately. I walked over to her, not needing my cane. From a pouch on my belt I gave her a handkerchief that I hoped was clean, and held her shoulders, covered by the coat she had been wearing before she came into the house. It was damp beneath my fingers, and smooth.

“Whoever did this to your husband will be found, I guarantee it.”

She continued to weep, uncontrollably.

“Bloody hell,” Conrad grunted as quietly as he could. I turned my head to him as he muttered to the doctor: “Can't you give her something to calm her down? Opium, or something like that?”

I could imagine the look of befuddled horror on the doctor's face at the question, and I tried not to grin at the absurdity of it.

“B...better she stay with family for the time being...” the doctor said loudly enough for the houses on either side and above to hear.

“You got any family near 'ere?” Conrad approached at an uncomfortable trudge across the pained floor.

“I …” she sniffed. “My sister isn't far...”

“For the moment … it's better she stay here.” I turned my head towards her. “You may know more than you think you do.”

She sniffed again. “What do you mean?”

“Rickard clearly had enemies, and powerful ones at that.”

“I … I wasn't a...around him all the time, I don't know.”

I patted her shoulders. “I know it's hard, but try to clear your mind as best you can. Do you work?”

“E...every other day.”

“Where?”

“In the m...market, I help cut and s...sell fabrics.”

“Hmm...” I traced my fingers gently down her arms to her hands, and gently squeezed the soft, smooth skin. “Anything you can tell me, even something small, can give me information that will help me.”

Conrad huffed at me. “If it was a rich hitman, she ain't gunna know anything. No offence, luv, respect for your loss and all that...”

“When did you get here?” I asked, purposefully drawing her attention away from him.

“About ten minutes ago.”

“From your stall?”

“Yes.”

I pulled away from her and tapped my cane on the floorboards as I traversed the cramped, creaky space. The end of it caught on the edges of a few loose boards, jutting up a little higher than they should be. I ran my hand across the surfaces around the periphery: the top of a cabinet, the rim of a washbasin, a wooden work surface with crumbs and sticky patches scattered across it. I wiped the grime on the hem of my tunic.

“I … don't get much time to clean,” the wife mumbled.

“I'm not judging you.” I could hear the rats scurrying in the walls and across the under-floor space of the dwelling perched above this one. The funk of bedbugs leaked from the sweaty blanket on the narrow bed that I brush my hand over, judging the size by standing against it and touching the wall it was pushed against with my cane.

The centre of the single room was taken up by a small table, made of wood slowly being consumed by termites. The single chair pushed against it was solid enough. I sat down and sighed.

“I don't even know your name.”

She paused. “I'm Serra.”

“Hmm. Serra.” I lay my cane across my lap. “Who sent you to kill him?”

She said nothing, but her breath caught. Conrad's frown came through his voice. “Eh?”

I pointed my cane at the 'wife'. “Not a hitman, a hitwoman.”

The pause drew out longer, before the act began in full force.

“How dare you!” she screeched.

Her steps screeched just as loudly, and the rush of air was swift, but not quite swift enough. I grabbed her wrist before the slap could connect, and twisted to prevent the other hand moving. She cried out in pain … and frustration.

“Easy, Eramir … you'll break her wrist.” The smell of stale tobacco grew in intensity as Conrad approached us, and the woman's body twisted.

Her voice cracked. “Please … I didn't do anything … I don't know what he's on about!”

“Really, this is quite too much,” the doctor scoffed. “The woman just lost her husband.”

“Please...!” she sobs.

Conrad said nothing for a moment as she continued to struggle. “You sure, Eramir?”

I nodded. “Rickard never mentioned a wife. If he was afraid for his own life, he would be terrified beyond reason for hers.”

“You haven't met my wife,” one of the brutes grunted.

“You can see this house far better than I can, Con'. One chair. Single bed. Dirt on every surface. One man living here simply wouldn't have time to work all day, every day for the smith and keep up with home maintenance, but a couple? Where one works every other day? No. This place would be cleaner, for both their sakes. She's wearing perfume that no-one in this house could afford to wear. Her hands are far too soft to be working with even fabric cutters tools. They work us hard down here.”

“Alright, fine!” 'Serra' shouted. “I'm not his wife, I'm a whore! I picked him up at the depot between here and the dockyard smith, he wanted to come back here! But I swear, I didn't kill him!”

“Yeah?” Conrad shifted his weight towards me. “Let go of her.”

I shook my head. “I had you pegged the moment you approached me and waved your hand in my face. You have black powder residue on your sleeve, it's a smell you don't miss in my line of work.”

I heard the curse, so far under her breath that it would have been missed by anyone else.

“Residue?” Conrad's voice was loud and clipped. Practised as he was, he had noticed the change in her too.

“From the blowback. You're containing an explosion in those boomsticks of yours, but it doesn't all go forwards. Even in a small gun, like the fancy one she used, burned powder comes back and coats your sleeve.”

'Serra' cried out in sudden pain, and I flinched, letting go of her wrist.

“Who sent you for 'im, eh?” Conrad's voice was as dangerous as the growl of a bear. “You gonna tell me, or do I get it out of you in a nasty way?”

She whimpered in pain, but didn't talk.

“Lads.”

The floorboards screamed as the two brutes closed in. Conrad patted me on the shoulder. “Let's take a walk, inspector.”

I knew he wasn't giving me another option. “Don't make me come back in here, Conrad.”

He stopped walking. My hand tightened around the cane. “She might be a killer, but … don't do anything that makes me angry.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You know it's a threat.”

Conrad snorted and his weight shifted as he turned back. “Be gentle.”

Immediately he shoved me out of the door. The killer gave a muffled yelp as the doctor and the heavies made their move. Then they were out of even my earshot, drowned out by the booted thuds and yells of sellers, prostitutes, the enraged and the mad. Broken cart wheels ratted across cobbles just as broken, and gravel as sharp as razors. Rain spattered down on my head, the petrichor smell drowning the smoke of heavy industry for now.

Then a match was struck, and a tendril of more smoke drifted with the rest, but the smoke from a tobacco wrap. Conrad puffed on it. “Alright, alright … I suppose I should thank you.”

“What makes you think I did it for you?”

“Oh, you didn't mean to … but you did. Here's a question for you: that nose of yours … you smell anything in there besides black powder?”

Beneath the floorboards under the table was a considerable amount of opium, covered in wax to conceal the sharp odour. The wax, however … that had its own unique smell that might as well have been a pan full of frying bacon rashers to my nose.

“Such as?”

“Such as …. something out of the ordinary in a little house like that.”

I grinned at him with an air of cold, dry stone. “Now that you've seen me at work, maybe you can follow my example.”

How Conrad and his goons got to the house so quickly ceased to be a mystery. Rickard had been hiding a package for him, and he probably had been for a while. A little extra coin, a chance to improve his lot, maybe leave the slums … just enough to get himself killed.

The gangster grunted at me. “Fine, have it your way. 'Til we meet again, Eramir.”

“I sincerely hope we don't.”

Conrad chuckled as he shook my hand, then he disappeared into the chaos all around us, heading back towards the house.

“Conrad! Remember what I said!”

His voice drifted back to me. “I remember.”

I walked the opposite way after a little while, my cane tapping against the uneven cobbles. Feelings of compassion, even remorse, for someone who murdered for a living … perhaps they were misplaced, but perhaps they weren't. I had probably investigated murders 'Serra' had committed before. In Conrad's hands, goodness only knew what would become of her. A corpse, most likely, though not a defiled one. Con' was a criminal, but not of that stripe.

We had no law in the slums, laws were for those who hadn't been forgotten, or carefully swept into this refuse pile by the rest of the capital. The same thought drifted through my head as my walk became a trudge: had justice been done? I doubted it … but down here in this hellish place, it was the closest we could get.