‘Dope. Do something about it!’ The number for the local police station where Alec worked and Naomi once had done too was on speed dial in her phone, and she called it now. Got through to the desk sergeant and was utterly relieved to hear a voice she knew.
‘Donald!’
‘Naomi? Are you all right, love? You know he’s not here, surely?’
‘Yes, don’t fret. He didn’t go without telling me.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out shaky and unconvincing.
‘Naomi?’
‘Don, I wonder if you could get a car to swing by, just take a quick look around. Nothing urgent, but . . .?’
‘Naomi? I mean, course I will, but what is it?’
‘I’ve just had a strange phone call,’ she said, oddly relieved to have said it out loud.
‘A nuisance call?’ His turn to laugh now. ‘What was it, a heavy breather?’
‘If it had been, I wouldn’t be bothering you,’ she said. ‘I’d have got Napoleon to bark down the phone. No, Don, it was something weirder than that. You know that journalist that died?’
‘Dale. That one?’
‘Yes, well someone just called me and played a message from her down the phone. She sounded scared, Don. And whoever it was wanted me scared too.’
‘Sounds like they succeeded. Right, love, I’ll get someone to you. You spoken to Alec yet?’
‘No, I’ll talk to him later. There’s nothing he can do right now. Thanks, Don, I appreciate it.’
She rang off and sat clutching the mobile as though it was a lifeline, keeping her connected to the sane and ordinary world. Listening again, she could discern no out of the ordinary noises, nothing that should not be there, but the sense of unease grew nonetheless, prowling like some solid, feral thing along the hallway outside of the bedroom door.
As it happened, the satnav got them to their destination. A lone house set back from a long, empty road.
‘This is it?’
‘Well, there’s nothing else here,’ Alec said. They pulled into the drive and parked up outside the house. Two other cars could be seen, tucked in at the side. The house itself was largely hidden from the road by a tall, unkempt hedge.
Alec glanced at the front door, illuminated by a small porch light. A sign above the door said Police, in faded letters. A rural police station, then? Though the cracked paint on the door, the faded sign and the general untidiness of the front garden indicated it had been out of use for some time.
The front door opened as Alec and Travers got out of the car, and a tall, heavily built man stood silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Someone’s got a sense of the dramatic,’ Travers muttered.
The figure stepped out into the arched porch and his features came into view, illuminated now by the scanty light. Alec noted a flat face and a broken nose.
‘DCI Travers and DI Friedman, I presume? Nick, good to see you again. Good, come along in, apologies for all the mystery, I’ll explain why we’re meeting here if you care to step inside. Good.’
The word ‘good’ seemed to be a tick, Alec noted. The man’s tone, however, noted no such approbation.
He turned, and Alec followed him – Travers, Alec noted, pausing to glance around before bringing up the rear. The stranger’s voice was accented, a lilt that was vaguely Scottish, Alec thought, though with a touch of something more angular. Birmingham, perhaps? Alec gave up.
They were led into what looked as if it had been the front office, uncarpeted and with a scuffed desk and wooden chair filling most of the space, then back into the rear of the property, a large area with a small kitchen off to one side. Two others sat at a table, drinking tea. The walls were clad in pitted woodchip, which in turn was overlaid by maps and photographs and all the trappings of a crime-scene briefing room. Along one wall two desks had been placed, on which computers had been set, and a third desk was stacked high with box files and folders. It looked as though the trio had just moved in and not yet fully unpacked.
‘So.’ The tall man turned now and surveyed Alec and Travers. ‘Nick Travers I know already; you I know by reputation.’
Worrying, Alec thought.
‘DI Eddison,’ the man said, extending his hand.
Alec shook, murmured something about being pleased to meet him. In truth, he was annoyed. What was going on here?
Eddison pointed at the dark-haired man still seated at the table. ‘DS Munroe,’ he said and, indicating the blond, ‘DI Parks. Sit down and I’ll get the kettle on.’
‘Why are we meeting here?’ Travers asked.
‘Because it’s private,’ Munroe said. ‘Because it’s about midway between where Neil Robinson was in prison and where that journalist died, and because there are bigger concerns that don’t need to be the subject of canteen gossip.’
Alec raised an eyebrow and glanced at his boss. Travers’ face was expressionless, or at least would seem so to the casual observer. The slight tic at the corner of his mouth told Alec that Travers was as unamused as Alec.
Parks laughed softly, and Alec reviewed the man more carefully. Pale eyes set in a round face that, with the slightly waving blond hair, should almost have been cherubic but was in fact anything but. He was the sort of man, Alec found himself observing, who would have looked right with a crew cut and an earring. He corrected himself almost at once. That wasn’t right either; there was something more behind the eyes than mere thug. Something feral.
Alec sat at the table and, reluctantly, Travers drew out a chair and plonked himself down close by. ‘I’m told you want me to review the Robinson case. From my angle, I mean?’ Alec let the question hang.
Munroe nodded; Parks sipped his tea. ‘We’ve read your report, scanned the files. There were some loose ends when you signed off on it?’
‘True, there were. It was decided that I’d taken things as far as I could, that we needed to bring in an expert eye. My then boss decided that as we’d got enough for a conviction for the con Robinson was running – that and a GBH – we should cut our losses and let someone else tie up anything left hanging.’
‘A decision you didn’t like,’ Parks commented.
Alec smiled. ‘I don’t like unfinished business,’ he said. ‘It feels odd not to wrap everything up properly. Though,’ he added, ‘on this occasion I couldn’t argue with the logic.’ He glanced at Travers. His boss was watching Eddison as he moved about the small kitchen. Watching as though the presence of the man upset him, made him uneasy. Alec, puzzled, wondered just what had happened when they’d last met at whatever conference it had been and if more had been delivered than a conference paper. Somehow, it was difficult to equate this big, rather slow-moving man, who looked like a long-retired rugby player or punch drunk heavyweight boxer, with an erudite presentation on some obscure element of cyber crime.
‘I’m told Jamie Dale was murdered,’ Alec said.
He felt, rather than saw, Travers flinch, and wondered if Travers was even meant to know that, never mind impart the information. And if not, why not?
‘She was,’ Munroe agreed. ‘Nasty way to die. She tried to make a phone call, got through to emergency services but she was unable to tell them where she was.’ He sniffed. ‘Not that it would have helped. Operator stayed on the line till he lost the signal. He’s still having counselling, apparently. They reckon he can’t go to sleep, not without hearing her screaming over the phone as she died.’ He met Alec’s gaze squarely, and Alec felt he was being tested, his reaction assessed. ‘Thankfully, the smoke got to her and she passed out before the flames took a real hold.’ Munroe’s voice was oddly soft. That softness somehow added emphasis to the horror of his words.
‘It is a terrible way to die,’ Alec said. ‘I’ve always thought it must be one of the worst.’
Parks emitted a soft grunt. Alec realized it was a stifled laugh. He let it go, not sure what to make of all this. Was it some test of machismo? Alec had little time for such displays and little patience with their practitioners.
; ‘Is there a point to all this?’
Eddison came through with mugs of tea clasped awkwardly in one ham fist and a handful of sugar packs in the other. Alec noted that they bore the name of a motorway service station.
‘The point is,’ Eddison said, ‘that you worked the Robinson case and you also knew the dead woman. That makes you potentially very useful.’
‘Knew,’ Alec emphasized. ‘I’d not spoken to Jamie in years, not properly. We exchanged Christmas and birthday cards, the odd email, but that was about the extent of it.’
‘Which in Miss Dale’s world qualifies you and your wife as bosom buddies,’ Parks said. ‘She wasn’t what you’d call one for making friends.’
‘My wife? What does—?’ He frowned. And that didn’t ring true about Jamie Dale either. The one thing she had always been was gregarious. He said so.
Munroe shrugged. ‘People change,’ he said. ‘She dumped her last boyfriend two years ago. He says he still doesn’t know why. It was one of those “it’s not you, it’s me” conversations women seem to be good at and men don’t understand.’
Parks grunted again; Alec assumed he was amused, in agreement or possibly both.
‘He tried to get in touch a time or two, but she changed her number, moved away, let all her old friends know she wasn’t available. Finally, they stopped calling.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Alec said. ‘That doesn’t sound anything like the Jamie we knew.’
‘When did you last hear from her? Get the usual Christmas card, did you?’
Alec thought about it and nodded. ‘Yes, she’d changed her address. We couldn’t remember when we’d sent her card, so we sent another one just to be sure she got it.’
‘Say much, did she?’
‘I don’t think so. Just the new address and some comment about getting together some time. I think that was about it.’
‘And that was the usual sort of message?’ Eddison asked.
Alec took a swallow of tea. It was too hot and went down hard, burning his throat. He tried to remember what that last card had said. And the ones before. Truth be told, he had taken very little notice. Naomi would know; he read the cards out to her, and she told him what to put by way of reply. Left to his own devices, Alec would probably not even have got around to buying Christmas cards, never mind writing them.
‘I think she said that most years,’ he ventured. ‘You know, the sort of casual remark people make about getting together when they know it won’t happen.’
‘And would you have minded if it had?’ This from Travers. The first contribution he had made to the conversation since they had arrived.
Alec turned to look at his boss, wondering at the question. Would he have minded? ‘No,’ he said, ‘why should I mind? Naomi probably knew Jamie better than I did. Before Jamie left for London they used to meet up a couple of times a month for a coffee or a drink. Not just them; they belonged to the same group of friends.’
‘Unusual friendship,’ Parks remarked. ‘A copper and a journo. The two tribes don’t generally mix it, do they?’
‘I don’t think their choice of profession impacted on their friendship,’ Alec said coldly.
Parks laughed. Not just a grunt this time, but a recognizable sound. Alec didn’t like it any better.
‘Leave off,’ Munroe said, and Parks shut up.
Alec sipped his tea more cautiously this time and surveyed the trio. It seemed to him that Eddison might be the senior officer, but it was this Munroe who was in control.
‘It’s late,’ Munroe said, underlining Alec’s assessment. ‘What say we give you directions to your digs and then continue this in the morning? Say nine?’
Travers was already on his feet.
‘Right,’ Alec said. ‘See you all in the morning then.’
Following his boss out, he took a moment to scan the images pinned to the walls. Split into two frames, one for Jamie Dale and one for Neil Robinson, they showed both in death. Alec didn’t look too hard; morning would be soon enough for that. A single image of each as they had been in life topped the collages. Neil Robinson in what Alec saw was a prison photo, and a picture of Jamie Dale, older than he remembered her. Still pretty, still smiling, though something behind the eyes was new. This Jamie was more worldly wise, less trusting, less exuberant – and, Alec would have sworn, scared. Or was that just projection on his part?
Travers did not speak until they were both in the car, and even then it was simply to direct him to program the satnav.
‘What’s going on?’ Alec demanded as they drove away.
Travers shrugged.
‘What is it with you and Eddison?’
Travers shrugged again. ‘I barely know the man.’
‘You know him well enough to hate his guts.’
‘I barely know the man,’ Travers repeated.
Alec gave up. He let the silence hang for a while and then asked, ‘What about the other two? You know about them?’
‘Parks I’ve heard about. Munroe is new to me.’
‘DS Munroe,’ Alec mused. ‘Come off it, Trav, he’s no more a DS than you are. So what the hell—?’
‘Alec, drop it,’ Travers flared. ‘We’re here to brief the team then get ourselves back home. That’s it.’
‘So why all the secrecy? Why did they want you tagging along? Why bring two senior officers all the way over here when I could have handled the whole thing with a phone call? Look, we’ve known one another, what, close to twenty years? In all that time I’ve never seen you this rattled.’
‘Who says I’m rattled? Alec, you’re imagining things.’ Travers laughed, but it was a hollow sound. ‘Looks like we’re here,’ he added as they reached a traffic island and saw the signs for services. The satnav announced that they had reached their destination.
‘I’m not letting this go,’ Alec warned him.
Travers did not respond. He parked the car, and they retrieved their luggage from the boot. In the distance Alec could hear the roar of traffic. A motorway, he assumed. He could see the lights of the services just across the car park from the motel, noting with little enthusiasm that it was one of the large chains providing overnight accommodation to the weary motorist, then – with slightly more enthusiasm – that at least there appeared to be a restaurant. His stomach reminded him that the sandwich Naomi had made for him was a distant memory. He must call her.
Their rooms had been booked and paid for, for three nights. Breakfast was included, but any extras would have to be settled up by them, the receptionist said. Travers nodded and took off in the direction of his room. Alec paused to ask about the restaurant, was told that it would be open for another hour. After that, food was available twenty-four-hours a day at the main complex across at the services.
Alec thanked her. ‘Who made the reservations?’ he asked. ‘I need to know so the paperwork gets to the right place.’
She smiled and checked the records. ‘A Mr Munroe,’ she said. ‘He said it would be for three nights initially and he’d let us know after that.’
Munroe again. ‘Thank you,’ Alec said and made his way to his room.
FOUR
The sound of a car pulling into the drive, wheels crunching on the gravel, brought Naomi to the window. It was as if, at moments of crisis, her sighted self took control, body memory from that time still dominant, so she behaved as though she could still see.
The knock at the front door startled her, and she unlocked the bedroom door slowly and stood uncertain at the top of the stairs, Napoleon pressed close to her side.
‘Naomi.’ A familiar voice calling through the letterbox. ‘Naomi, it’s Megan Allison. You going to let me in or what?’
‘Are you all right, love?’ Megan demanded when Naomi opened the door. ‘Constable Watkins is trampling through your flower beds, by the way. He’s a probationer. Nice lad, big feet yet though.’
Naomi laughed. Big feet was a Meganism for someone still learning about the diplomatic side of the job. Some
people, according to Megan, had feet that just kept on growing no matter how long they were in the force.
‘I’m all right, just a bit shaken. Did Don tell you what happened?’
‘He did. What’s all that about then? Would have freaked me out, I can tell you. Any chance of a cuppa?’
‘Of course. Come on through to the kitchen, we can let your constable in the back way.’
Having something to do with her hands always calmed her, and the simple actions of filling the kettle and getting mugs from the cupboard made it easier to talk. Naomi told Megan what had happened, giving as much detail as she could and grateful that the other woman knew her well enough not to fuss around with unnecessary offers of help. She needed to be doing.
Constable Watkins joined them, and Megan made Naomi tell the story again for his benefit and also, Naomi understood, for her own. Megan was astute enough to pick up on any small shifts in the second telling. Any little changes of emphasis. Naomi would have done the same; stories become fixed with retelling, mistakes and misconceptions more firmly embedded, and that first recollection needed to be recorded and then checked. She could hear them both taking notes and Constable Watkins’ nervous cough before he dared to ask her the odd question.
No doubt he knew about Megan’s theory regarding feet.
‘Um, you’re sure it was her?’ Watkins asked. ‘I mean, excuse me asking, but if you’ve not spoken to her in a while, it could be someone, well, pretending.’
‘Good question,’ Megan approved, ‘but go easy on the doubt. People don’t like to feel you’re doubting them.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said.
Naomi tried not to smile. ‘I’m as sure as I can be,’ she responded. ‘True, I’ve not talked to Jamie in years, but we were good friends at one time. I recognized her voice at once, but,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘why did she call me by my maiden name? She knew Alec and I are married now. We invited her to the wedding.’
Night Vision Page 3