Night Vision

by Jane A. Adams

  Recent Titles by Jane A. Adams from Severn House

  The Naomi Blake Mysteries

  MOURNING THE LITTLE DEAD

  TOUCHING THE DARK

  HEATWAVE

  KILLING A STRANGER

  LEGACY OF LIES

  BLOOD TIES

  NIGHT VISION

  The Rina Martin Mysteries

  A REASON TO KILL

  FRAGILE LIVES

  THE POWER OF ONE

  RESOLUTIONS

  THE DEAD OF WINTER

  NIGHT VISION

  A Naomi Blake Novel

  Jane A. Adams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2012

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2012 by Jane A. Adams.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Adams, Jane, 1960-

  Night vision. – (A Naomi Blake mystery)

  1. Blake, Naomi (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Ex-police officers–Fiction. 3. Blind women–Fiction.

  4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9´2-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-197-2 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8113-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-405-9 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being

  described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this

  publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons

  is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Do it now, don’t hesitate. If you don’t then someone else will and they will not be so kind.’

  ‘Kind?’ He laughed. ‘I could never be accused of that.’ He sat back in his seat and looked at the old man lying on the bed. ‘Christopher, we’ve known one another for a long time.’

  ‘And now everything is changing, Gregory.’

  Gregory. Christopher was the only person to use that name now. And then only when they were alone. Gregory was, what, three identities and many years ago.

  ‘The old guard are almost gone.’

  ‘And no bad thing. Except for you and I of course.’

  Christopher smiled, and Gregory noticed how skeletal he had become. How thin and drawn. ‘And our days are numbered,’ he said. ‘Gregory, I’ve done all I can for you and for them. We kept them both safe for as long as we were able, kept them from judgement.’

  ‘She isn’t a threat.’

  ‘You may not think so, but there are others who do. Make it clean. Make it simple. Make it soon.’

  But he hadn’t, had he? Gregory, a man known for decisiveness, had hesitated, and it had ended badly. For all of them.

  Neil Robinson should have been a happy man. Release date a week away, family that had stood by him, a home to go to and even the vague promise of a job, working with his brother-in-law – though he had mixed feelings about that. Neil and Paul had never really got along, and the idea of selling second-hand cars really wasn’t Neil’s idea of a proper job.

  As it stood, though, happiness was a long way distant from how he felt. Scared was more like it.

  The first postcard had arrived the week before, and he had presumed it had come from Freddie Gains, released the previous month and promising to keep in touch. The powers that be seemed to have reached the same conclusion; Neil had been handed it along with a birthday card from his sister. Counting down the days, she had said inside.

  Too right, Neil had thought.

  Wish you were here, the postcard told him. A photograph of some seaside pier or other on the picture side. It had been signed only with an F. ‘F’ for Freddie, he had assumed, though the rather neat print hadn’t looked like Freddie’s scrawl.

  Then another card a couple of days after, bearing only the words see you soon. Also signed with an F. The picture this time looked familiar, and Neil looked for the little printed legend postcards normally bore which would tell him where this view of a marina was situated. He was puzzled to find that there was none.

  He had gone back to look at the photograph of the pier; no clue there either, and it occurred to Neil, rather belatedly, that these might not be commercially produced, shop bought postcards after all, but something someone had printed off themselves. On a rather good printer and on some pretty fancy cardstock.

  Definitely not the sort of thing Freddy Gains would have had the nous to do.

  It got Neil Robinson to thinking, and that thinking finally coalesced into an answer that woke him in the night in a cold sweat.

  He did know where the little marina was; in fact, he knew the owner of the boat tied up alongside the dock. And he could make a further guess as to the seaside resort that was home to that particular pier.

  And then that morning a third postcard had turned up. Not long now was all it said, not even a signature of any sort this time. He turned it over and looked at the picture on the front. A woodland scene, with a family picnicking in the shade of summer trees. They had their backs to him, but Neil didn’t need to see their faces to recognize his sister and her kids.

  And Neil was suddenly sure he understood who the messages were from and what they meant.

  ONE

  Patrick had been fifteen when he and Naomi had first met. Son of a childhood friend, he had come into Naomi’s life when she and Patrick’s father, Harry, had renewed their acquaintance.

  Patrick had then seemed young for his age; slow to grow, uncertain, and naturally sensitive and gentle. The past few years had conspired to turn sensitivity first into introspection and then into quiet confidence, and the young man, not quite eighteen, who sat in her kitchen discussing plans for university seemed unbelievably far removed from the shy boy she had first come to know.

  He was telling her about the portfolio he had produced for his end of year show at college. His exam portfolio – more restrained and constrained by the brief he had been given – had been sent off, and he could do no more about it. His efforts now focused on this, the first public exposure of his work and the first real opportunity to show something of his personal interests.

  ‘It’s still sort of graphic heavy,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been playing around with all these Japanese influences – I mean, not just the manga stuff. I started looking at all these old Japanese prints. You can kind of see how Japanese artists got from those to the manga—’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Kind of, anyway. It’s like both styles pare everything down so you can represent complex ideas with just simple outlines and a few colours and the minimum of shading. Did you know that in the nineteenth century Japanese prints were used as packing in crates? You know, like bubble wrap? That’s how a lot of them made it over to Europe. I mean, what a waste.’

  Naomi hadn’t known that. ‘So, you’ll be learning to make woodcuts next?’ she joked, was met with a beat of silence.

  ‘I’d kind of like to give it a go,�
� Patrick admitted. ‘I like the discipline of it. It’s like the discipline in graphic novels. Nothing goes to waste. If it’s there, it’s there for a reason, and you have to notice it because you’re going to need it later, if you know what I mean.’

  Naomi nodded. ‘I really wish I could see it,’ she said wistfully. There were few occasions now when Naomi allowed herself to feel any kind of self-pity for her loss of sight, but there were definitely times when this regret was unexpectedly overwhelming.

  ‘So do I,’ Patrick told her. ‘But I’m really glad you’re coming to the exhibition. Dad listens to you, even if he doesn’t get what I’m trying to achieve. If you say it’s OK, then—’

  Naomi reached across the table and fumbled for Patrick’s hand. ‘He’s trying really hard to “get it”,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Patrick laughed suddenly. ‘I think the only way Dad would really appreciate my work is if I copied The Hay Wain or something.’

  Naomi smiled. There was no bitterness in this statement, simply acknowledgement that Harry Jones was, well, Harry Jones.

  The big black dog, lying beneath the table, beat his tail against Naomi’s leg and then sat up and laid his muzzle in her lap. She stroked him absently. Napoleon had been her guide dog for just a few months longer than she had known Patrick, and she always saw them as being part of the same package, somehow. Good friends converging on her life in very close order.

  ‘Sue is expecting again,’ she said, changing the subject.

  ‘Really? Think she’ll have a girl this time?’

  ‘I think she’s hoping so, but I don’t think they really mind either way. A baby is a baby to Sue. Some people are just born to be parents.’

  ‘You think you ever will?’ The question was slightly tentative. ‘I mean, you and Alec would make great parents.’

  ‘Alec would,’ Naomi agreed. ‘I’m not so sure. I think you’ve really got to want children, and right now I’m happy sharing my sister’s.’ She paused, thinking of a conversation she and Alec had had some months before, but not reprised, when Alec had been keen to start a family. At the time he’d also been mad keen on moving to rural Somerset and starting a smallholding, or, alternatively, going back to university, none of which options he had pursued since.

  ‘We have talked about it,’ she said.

  ‘You have?’

  Naomi smiled, amused at how shocked Patrick sounded, as though he just couldn’t imagine the reality of it: Alec and Naomi and babies. ‘Yes, before Christmas, when we stayed in Somerset. Alec was really in the doldrums. It was a difficult time with the job, and for while I really didn’t think he’d want to go back to work.’

  It had been a difficult time since too. Disciplinary hearings and major inquiries into cases Alec had been involved in the year before. Alec had been largely cleared of blame; he’d been reprimanded and suspended for a couple of weeks, then eased quietly back into work. The biggest changes had been at the top ­– a new Superintendent and DCI – but there was also the unspoken, general feeling that Alec was still under a cloud. Big investigations had come and gone, and Alec had largely been sidelined. He had said little about it, but Naomi knew it rankled.

  The sound of the front door opening and a voice calling from the hallway brought Naomi out of her reverie. When Patrick came round after college, his father often dropped by to collect him on his way from work. Naomi always left the door unlocked so he could come straight in.

  ‘In here,’ Naomi called. The kitchen door opened, and the presence of Harry Jones seemed to fill the small space. The dog nuzzled Naomi’s hand, as though asking her permission, then left her to go and greet Harry. Patrick got up to put the kettle on, and Harry bent to kiss Naomi on the cheek.

  ‘You’re soaking.’

  ‘That’s just running from the car. June rain. At least it isn’t cold, I suppose. How are you? How did the hang go, Patrick?’

  ‘Took ages. No one could decide where they wanted their work to go, so I just picked a wall in the end and put my pictures up. It looks OK, I think.’

  ‘It will look more than OK,’ Harry reassured him. He eased down into one of the wooden chairs with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Long day?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Oh, far too long. Too many figures.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you get for being an accountant.’

  ‘It is indeed.’

  Harry freelanced for half the week now, keeping his old job on part time. He seemed happier, Naomi thought, though the workload was sometimes much heavier. He was eight years older than Naomi, but Alec always reckoned he looked ten more than that, with his once sandy hair now faded grey and a face creased by too many wrinkles. A lived-in face, as Patrick always said. To Naomi, who had lost her sight before Harry had returned to Pinsent, he was still the older brother to her then best friend. A freckled teen, with a friendly smile, pale-blue eyes and a slight tendency to carry weight around his middle even then.

  ‘Your mother phoned to finalize Florida,’ Harry said to Patrick. ‘We’ll be flying out on the first of August.’

  ‘Good, we’ll be in time for Rick’s birthday.’

  ‘That was the idea.’ Harry sounded a little uncertain about it. Not surprising, Naomi thought, as Harry and Patrick’s mother had been divorced for several years now and it must feel a bit odd to be going along when Patrick went to visit. Rick was one of Patrick’s stepbrothers. Patrick got on really well with both of them, as the need for both families to buy a Skype phone attested. He even liked his stepfather now he didn’t actually have to live with him, and relations between Harry and his ex and her new husband – once Harry’s old boss – had thawed, largely because of the way both sets of children had clicked.

  ‘It’ll be fine, Dad,’ Patrick told him. ‘I want you to be there, and I’m really looking forward to New York.’

  ‘Ah,’ Harry said mischievously. ‘Now we’re getting to the crux of the matter. You want me along just so you can get to New York.’

  ‘Parents have their uses you know.’

  The sound of the front door opening again surprised them all. Harry looked at his watch. ‘Early for Alec.’

  The front door slammed.

  ‘Not in a good mood,’ Naomi said.

  ‘You want us to leave?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Too late by then, anyway. Alec had opened the kitchen door and stood in the threshold.

  ‘I’ve got to go away,’ he said, sounding utterly aggrieved. ‘They’ve bloody seconded me.’

  ‘Who has? Away where? And don’t I get a kiss?’

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ He bent and kissed her. Harry had been more enthusiastic, Naomi thought, amused. She heard Alec pull out a chair and sit down and Patrick set a mug on the table in front of him and then Naomi.

  ‘So tell,’ she said. ‘What’s going on? Where are they sending you and when?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Alec told her, and she understood why he felt so put out. ‘No notice, no time to even think about it. I’ve got to collect Travers in an hour and will be gone for God knows how long.’

  Naomi, who had been a serving officer herself, was familiar with that problem. She’d once gone on what she’d been told was a three-day cover for an industrial dispute and ended up being away for a full month. ‘So—’

  ‘Fraud case,’ Alec said.

  ‘Fraud? But you’re not—’

  ‘It impacts on a case I was involved in a year or so ago. Apparently, there have been developments, so I’ve got to reprise the investigation from my point of view and bring the current team up to speed and then . . . Well, then who knows?’

  Naomi tried to work out what case it might have been. Had they been alone, he would have told her, but Alec was discreet, even with very close friends.

  ‘We’ll get off,’ Harry said. ‘Let you pack. You know we’ll be around for Naomi while you’re gone.’

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate that. Naomi, any chance of a sandwich while I throw some clothes in a bag?’

>   Naomi saw Harry and Patrick out, settling on a time for Harry to collect her for Patrick’s exhibition and assuring them that Alec would be fine when he’d got over his fit of pique.

  ‘So,’ she asked, when he came back down and settled to wolf his sandwich, ‘what’s going on?’

  Alec swallowed and took another gulp of tea. ‘You remember Neil Robinson and that insurance scam he had going?’

  ‘Um, vaguely.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is I’m being seconded to do is related to that. There, now you know as much as me. I’m not even sure where I’m going. Travers is coming with me, so we’re taking his car. I dropped him and then drove it here. More reliable than our heap is at the moment. Look, if you get the time, can you ask Harry to take you car shopping? Three times this week the damn thing refused to start. I had to leave it at work this time.’

  ‘It’s probably just the battery.’

  ‘I changed the battery.’

  ‘Two years ago. But yes, I’ll ask Harry. And you don’t know how long—?’

  ‘Don’t know a damned thing. I’m sorry, Naomi. We had plans for this weekend.’

  ‘Which will keep. Don’t worry about it. Patrick will be disappointed you’re missing his show, though; we’ll send pictures to your mobile.’

  ‘Do that. I’m sorry, too – this is a big thing for him, isn’t it?’

  ‘First of many, I hope. Seriously, though, how long do you think you’ll be gone?’

  She felt him shake his head. ‘I’ve packed for three or four days. Hopefully, that will be it. And I’ll make a point of getting back as often as I can, you know that. Just now I’m not even sure where I’ll be going. Someone’s supposed to be sending a route through to Travers so he can program the satnav.’

  ‘It all sounds a bit mysterious.’

  ‘Doesn’t it, though. But that would fit. Apparently, Robinson was ripping off some big names, government bods, and there was a hint at foreign government deals.’

  ‘I thought it was just an insurance scam?’