A Silent Death by Peter May (book recommendations website txt) 📕

her own body. Whoever Ana might be, she was trapped inside it with no way out, and no way of letting anyone else in.

Except that here she was in animated conversation with her niece. Thanks to an extraordinary piece of technology that brought the world to her in dots raised on a screen.

He moved around to Ana’s side of the table to watch her fingers scan the braille, and was surprised as her head turned to follow him. Her smile seemed to register his surprise.

She said, ‘When fate robs you of your two primary senses, Señor Mackenzie, by way of compensation your remaining senses – taste, smell, touch – become much more highly developed. I can feel the air move as you walk. I can follow your scent, just like Sandro over there. She nodded towards her dog as Sandro raised his head at the mention of his name.

Mackenzie said to Cristina, ‘Tell her I’d like to know how her braille works.’

Cristina stood up. ‘Tell her yourself.’ And she moved aside to let Mackenzie sit in her place. His fingers rattled across the keyboard and he looked up to register Ana’s surprise.

‘Do you know?’ she said. ‘You are the first person ever to ask me that.’

He typed. – I’m interested.

‘Why?’

– Everything interests me.

She said, ‘Each braille character is made up of six dot positions. These positions are arranged in a rectangle comprising two columns of three dots each. A dot can be raised at any one of six positions, or in any combination. If you count the space in which no dots are raised, there are sixty-four combinations altogether. The alphabet plus contractions.’

Mackenzie sat for a moment absorbing this, visualizing how that would work. He turned back to the keyboard.

– That’s ingenious! Was it difficult to learn?

‘Nothing is difficult when you are motivated, señor. But it requires use of the brain’s spatial processors, as opposed to the auditory processors most people use in conversation.’

– So it helps to be deaf.

She laughed out loud. ‘Señor, there is nothing helpful about being deaf. But, actually, it was my lack of vision that aided me in the learning of braille.’

It was Mackenzie who laughed this time. And text conversations with his daughter enabled him to convey that with an LOL. He typed:

– All temptation to take a peek being removed.

‘Exactly. It was so much easier once I had actually gone blind.’ Then she tipped her head in admonition. ‘Señor, your Spanish is excellent. But if you want to be strictly correct, you should know that LOL is jejeje.

– Correction noted. He paused, then typed again – Jejeje.

Ana raised her head and turned it towards Cristina, a wide grin creasing her cheeks. ‘Cristina you can bring your Scottish friend any time.’

Cristina had stood watching with growing astonishment as the conversation between Ana and Mackenzie developed. How was it possible that this misfit foreigner had managed to strike such an instant rapport with her aunt?

Ana eased herself out of her chair. ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’ Something she never did, always allowing her nieces to do the honours when they visited. But it seemed that today she was determined to demonstrate her independence to the Scottish visitor.

Mackenzie watched her move about the room and into the kitchen area with complete confidence. She reached up to open a wall cabinet and took out coffee and sugar before searching out an open bottle of milk from the fridge. She raised her voice above what she knew would be the noise of the kettle.

‘Cristina, tell me how Nuri was today, And Paco. I’ll catch up on it later.’

Cristina resumed her seat at the computer and typed up an account of her visit to the hospital with Nuri, and her meeting with Paco, while her aunt moved about the tiny kitchen preparing the coffees. When they were ready she placed them side by side on the breakfast bar. She said, ‘It makes it easier, señor, that I could see before I went blind. I don’t have to imagine the world around me. I can picture it. Recall images from my memories. What’s hard about that is that I know just how much I have lost.’

Mackenzie admired that there was no trace of self-pity in this, just a simple statement of fact. He felt unaccountably drawn to her. In the silent darkness of her world, a vibrant intelligence was fighting to get out.

He sat and drank his coffee, watching as Ana resumed her seat and she and Cristina chatted. About family, about the practicalities of daily life – deliveries of groceries, a housekeeper who came once a week but was, in Ana’s opinion, taking advantage of her client’s disability and skimping on her cleaning duties. Cristina promised to see that she was replaced.

But then he witnessed a certain agitation creeping into the serenity with which Ana had initially greeted them, her fingers straying with increasing frequency to flick nervously over the face of her braille watch. He was not to know that she was expecting Sergio, and worried that this man from her past might arrive before Cristina and Mackenzie left. But he sensed that she wanted them to go.

He placed his empty mug on the breakfast bar and leaned over Cristina’s shoulder to interrupt her typing. He brushed her fingers aside and typed himself.

– Ana, it has been my great pleasure to meet you. Something he rarely meant, even if social convention demanded he say it. But this time he did. However, I must drag your niece away. We have a meeting soon at Marviña, and she is yet to take me for something to eat. Cristina glared at him.

Ana seemed almost relieved. ‘Go, children, go. But come again, Señor Mackenzie. Please.’

He leaned once more over Cristina’s shoulder.

– I will.

Cristina stood up. ‘What’s the hurry?’ she said to him. ‘The meeting’s not for ages yet. And you two seem to be getting on so well.’ He did not miss the sarcasm in her tone.

He inclined his head towards her