Night Vision

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘I’ll try Alec again,’ she said.

  ‘Do that. I’m surprised he’s not phoned. He must have noticed your missed calls.’

  She was rummaging in her bag for her mobile when Harry’s home phone began to ring.

  ‘That might be him now,’ Harry called through from the kitchen. ‘Do you want me to get it?’

  He bustled through, heading for the hall. The call cut on to answerphone before he could get there. Naomi froze, heard Harry’s strangled gasp of shock.

  ‘Naomi? Naomi Blake? If you’re there please pick up. It’s me. It’s Jamie.’

  ‘Pick it up, Harry. Pick up the phone and give it to me.’

  She heard him begin to object and then think better of it. The message cut as he plucked the receiver from its cradle. She fumbled it from his hand.

  ‘Who is this? ‘Naomi demanded. ‘Who the fucking hell is this, and what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

  She was met with only silence and a faint click as though someone had flicked a switch.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Parks demanded. ‘Eddison is mad as hell over something, and your wife’s been trying to reach you. She says your phone is off.’

  It was. Alec hadn’t wanted to be reached. He’d figured Eddison would catch up with him soon enough, and before that he needed some thinking time. Now, if Naomi had been trying to reach him he regretted that.

  Ignoring Parks, he turned his phone back on and rang Naomi. Listened, aware that Parks was watching him closely.

  ‘I’m coming home,’ he said. ‘Stay where you are, and I’ll be there as fast as I can.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Parks demanded as Alec headed back towards his car.

  Alec paused briefly to tell him. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Oh, and tell Eddison to go spin on it.’ He drove back out of the staff car park where the police vehicles had been congregated, grateful that the press cordon kept the media to the far side of the public car park and he could come and go with very little attention. Soon he got on to the motorway and was heading for home.

  Nick Travers opened his eyes. The ceiling bore a grey stain as though something had leaked and left a mark behind. Their bedroom ceiling had a mark like that. A water pipe, not broken but just seeping moisture. He’d kept promising to fix it until Maureen had given up and just got somebody in. He’d been promising to paint the ceiling too, She’d probably get someone in to do that as well.

  ‘Nick?’ Maureen said. ‘Nick, can you hear me?’

  With what felt like a profound effort he turned his head and looked at his wife. ‘Not much good at DIY,’ he said.

  Travers drifted, and some small part of his mind was grateful that the dream loop seemed to have been broken and the sequence ending with the pain of the stab wounds now felt distant and muzzy, as though someone had decided to film it in soft focus. The face, though. That was just as clear. The man who should have been dead, but patently was not, now appeared in sharper focus. Older, yes, but then they were all older. But it was him.

  Travers opened his eyes and this time turned his head towards his wife. ‘Gregory,’ he told her. ‘Gregory was there. Alive.’

  ‘He’s gone, boss. Headed home.’ Parks expected an explosion. None was forthcoming.

  ‘Why?’ Munroe asked.

  Parks told him. ‘The local police called here when she couldn’t reach him on his mobile. The last call from “Ms Dale” came through to the house of a friend she’s staying with.’

  Munroe nodded, exchanged a glance with Eddison. ‘Then he’s made the right choice,’ Eddison said, and that was that. Eddison strode off towards his room. Munroe shrugged.

  Parks regrouped. Do the job, go home. ‘Anything more from the sister?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet. But she’ll be in touch.’

  ‘You sound very certain.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you, if someone threatened your family?’

  Parks, truthfully, wasn’t sure. Would he want either Munroe or Eddison anywhere near his family?

  ‘Yours safe, are they?’ Munroe asked.

  ‘They’d better bloody be.’

  Munroe smiled. ‘Anything on the lorry?’

  ‘Yes, it’s registered to a company called Madigor. They run an import export business. Far Eastern arts or something. The lorry was reported stolen a week ago. We’ve been trying to reach the owner, but neighbours say he’s away on business. One of them is feeding his cat.’

  ‘Owner’s name?’

  ‘Penbury. Joshua Penbury. No form. Nothing irregular as yet.’

  ‘Then we shall have to keep digging. Anything more from the hospital?’

  ‘He’s been waking up and then drifting off again. He’s still in the high dependency unit, but the signs are good. The hospital want to know if the armed guard is really necessary.’

  ‘Tell them yes it bloody is.’

  ‘Oh and Susan Moran, the family liaison, says he’s been talking in his sleep. Two names. One is our friend Michelle Sanders.’

  Munroe laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t envy him when he’s well enough to take the flak on that one. Who else?’

  ‘Someone called Gregory. He woke and told his wife that Gregory was alive. Mean anything?’

  Munroe shrugged. ‘Not to me.’ Not yet. ‘Keep me posted,’ he said.

  FIFTEEN

  The call came through late that evening. The lorry had been found. It was still on the motorway at services some fifty miles distant. No one had given it much thought until the warden checking for patrons staying more than their permitted free hours had noticed that the reg number was still on his list. He’d assumed the driver was on a stopover and merely noted the fact. Then, at shift change, a routine glance at the police list – checking for stolen vehicles – and the number had been there.

  ‘So he parked up and changed vehicles again,’ Munroe said. ‘The lorry hadn’t been reported missing,’ he confirmed, kicking irritably at the lorry wheels.

  Parks shook his head. ‘The owner, this Joshua Penbury, he’s out of the country on a buying trip, apparently. Passport control has him on a flight to Paris en route to God knows where three days ago. The usual driver is visiting family in Bournemouth, part of his annual leave. He drives for this Penbury and for an agency. He’s clean, so far as we can tell, and well alibied for the night DI Travers was attacked.’

  ‘Which suggests someone knew the vehicle would be available and not missed. So we wait and see if SOCO turn anything up.’ Munroe scowled in frustration. ‘Where the hell are they, anyway?’

  ‘En route. You’ll just have to be patient,’ Parks told him. But it did piss him off too, standing there next to a suspect vehicle and unable even to take a look in the cab.

  ‘When’s this Penbury due back?’

  ‘The neighbour feeding the cat has enough cat food for a week and cash for more if she needs it, so—’

  ‘Regular arrangement, is it?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Parks told him. The local officer he’d talked to had said she had three cats of her own and thought Joshua was a ‘lovely man’ so was glad to help.

  ‘Nothing more on the car?’

  Parks shook his head. ‘It could be anywhere.’

  ‘So we’re back to trawling through CCTV.’ Munroe wasn’t impressed. ‘See what new vehicle our would-be killer and our lorry driver moved on to.’

  ‘Or vehicles,’ Parks suggested. ‘I doubt they’d stay together.’

  ‘True. Anything from our errant DI?’

  ‘What, Alec? No. Eddison says to let him cool off and then pull him back.’

  ‘You think he’ll come back?’

  ‘Wouldn’t bet on it. I don’t think I would. I’d rather be with my wife and kids at a time like this.’

  Munroe nodded what might have been agreement. ‘What I can’t figure out,’ he said, ‘is why the hell Eddison wants him involved anyway. I mean, what more can he tell us? So far as Alec Friedman was concerned, he’d don
e his bit, put a conman away, end of story.’

  Parks looked speculatively at Munroe, as though wondering if Munroe actually wanted his opinion or was simply trying to trip him up in some way. Would Munroe really question Eddison’s judgement so openly, or was he playing mind games again? Munroe, Parks had observed, seemed to enjoy mind games. ‘I suppose he has his reasons,’ he said cautiously.

  Munroe looked amused. ‘DS Parks. Keeps his head down, does the job, goes home.’

  ‘There are worse things.’ He could tell Munroe was expecting more. ‘Maybe the boss wants a different perspective.’

  ‘Well, it must be obvious by now he won’t be getting one. Come on, let’s get ourselves a coffee and start looking at the CCTV.’ He nodded to the uniformed officer keeping watch on the vehicle, and Parks followed him inside.

  ‘You think he knows more than he’s telling?’

  ‘What, Alec? No. No, I don’t, but I don’t think he’s telling all he knows, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t see what you mean.’

  ‘I mean, Alec interviewed Robinson at length, and he knew this journalist woman well at one time. He’s bound to know more than he thinks he does. You get to pick things up, to log things in the brain, and it’s only a matter of time before something jogs the memory out. I think that’s what Eddison’s hoping for. Why he’s keeping Alec around.’

  Parks had to laugh. ‘Then he’s clutching at bloody straws,’ he said.

  Munroe was looking at him intently. Parks felt uncomfortable, as he often did around Phil Munroe.

  ‘He often clutch at straws, does he?’ Munroe asked.

  ‘No. No, he does not.’ Agreed, sometimes he’d seem to pull a theory out of nowhere and you’d wonder where the hell he got it from, and then it would fit with something else and the whole damn pattern would fall into place. But that was what a good copper did, wasn’t it? You put the bits together slowly and carefully until you saw the whole story. But sometimes, with Eddison, it could be hard to see the logic of the thing, where he got that initial impetus from, and sometimes, Parks admitted to himself in very private moments, that really bothered him.

  He could feel Munroe’s gaze on him.

  ‘You don’t like him very much, do you?’ Munroe said.

  Parks didn’t see the sense in denying it. Munroe wouldn’t have believed him, anyway. ‘I’m not paid to like him.’ He glanced across the car park at the white van heading towards the lorry. ‘Looks like the SOCOs have arrived. Maybe we should head back.’

  ‘Let’s have a coffee first. They’ve got to set up, get their kit out – it’ll be ages before they’re ready for us.’

  Parks agreed, and they turned back towards the services and the CCTV control room.

  Alec was in agreement with Patrick. It was possible there had been something Jamie had sent to them that had not seemed relevant at the time. He had taken Megan Allison and Constable Watkins with him back to the house, Naomi insisting he did not go alone.

  ‘So, how’s she holding up?’ Megan asked. ‘We heard that recording. Christ, I don’t think I’m ever going to forget it. Never.’

  PC Watkins looked uncomfortable, but nodded sagely. Alec decided Watkins was more concerned with saying the wrong thing right now than with worrying about remembering the sound of Jamie Dale’s screams. Megan was having quite a profound effect on the young man.

  ‘Naomi’s OK,’ Alec said. ‘I’m just glad Harry was with her. Wish I had been. I’m grateful, Megan. She says you’ve been a great help, both of you.’

  Watkins blushed, and Megan smiled proudly at him, which just turned the blush from carmine to crimson.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘So what are we looking for?’

  Alec knew approximately where he’d stored unopened boxes from Naomi’s flat, and also approximately where they kept old correspondence and cards. Naomi insisted on hanging on to a couple of years’ worth, so they knew who they needed to send the damn things to. He knew she was right, but he still regarded it as something of an imposition on his time.

  Together they went through the boxes, sorting out cards from Jamie, old letters and pictures, a photo album Alec had almost forgotten existed. He flicked through the pages, gazing in amazement at the collection of images. Young Alec, young Naomi, younger Jamie.

  ‘There’s an address on this one,’ Watkins said. ‘And another on this.’

  Alec took the cards and glanced at what Jamie had written. These were from when she had first moved down to London. She’d moved three or four times in quick succession and written lengthy correspondence about the good time she was having.

  Took the night off and went to the theatre. You’d have loved it, Naomi, I saw Cats. The actual musical at the actual theatre in that there actual London. You’ve got to come down and stay – soon as I’ve got my own place and somewhere to sleep, you’ve just got to come down.

  ‘I remember her,’ Megan said. ‘I was a probationer the year before she left. Naomi introduced us. She said I should watch my mouth around the rest, but that Jamie was all right. I even went out with them a time or two.’

  ‘She was pretty,’ Watkins said.

  ‘She was,’ Megan agreed. ‘But we were none of us bad looking once upon a time, isn’t that right, Alec?’

  Alec smiled. In his opinion Naomi was even more beautiful than she had been back then.

  ‘This the lot, do you think?’

  ‘I’m really not the one to ask. Naomi will know if there’s anything missing. Oh, there’s a picture frame in the other room, I’ll just grab that.’ He went through to the front room, glancing around to check there was nothing else. The address book in the hallway, which had her latest address in it. Alec thought he should take that too, just in case he hadn’t found the relevant card.

  The little green book always sat on the hall table beside the phone. He went through and looked. No book. A quick glance under the table in case it had been knocked down, on the stairs in case it had been moved.

  ‘Megan?’

  ‘What’s wrong, Alec?’ She and Watkins, laden with boxes, came into the hall.

  ‘Someone’s been here since Naomi left.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘There’s a little green address book I keep by the phone. It isn’t here.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean – Naomi might have moved it.’

  ‘No, it always stays there. She hardly uses the home phone, anyway. She’s got her mobile, and she doesn’t use the book, obviously. I’ve kept it there since before we were married. It’s never moved.’

  ‘It had Jamie’s latest address in it?’

  ‘Yes. It did.’

  ‘Right,’ Megan said. ‘We get these things into your car, and I’ll arrange to get the CSIs out here. It might take a while. Obviously, it’s not an emergency, but—’

  Of course it would take a while, Alec thought. His suspicion that someone might have been in his home and might have taken just a little green address book would hardly be given high priority. But Alec knew it had gone.

  Carefully, he packed the boxes into the car, grabbed some clean clothes and thanked Megan and Watkins for their help, his sense of unease acute.

  Nick Travers was dreaming again. A proper dream this time, not the heavy fragmentary action sequences that had thus far dominated his slow return to consciousness. He was dreaming of a time long ago, when he had been a very young man. A very young squaddie, to be exact, conscious of his uniform and his gun and his responsibility and the prickle at the back of his neck that told him he should be afraid.

  He was on point, up ahead of the others and dodging from shadow to shadow in some small, night dark village that must have had a name, but in his dream he could no longer recall it. It wasn’t, Nick realized slowly, an actual location, rather a blurring of many places half remembered, feelings and fears conflated. The sense of dislocation, though . . . He could remember that with such intensity. The ‘this isn’t me, I am not really here’ mantra t
hat had seen him through one of the most miserable episodes in his life.

  Travers had known, from the moment he joined up, that he was not cut out to be a soldier. That he was there because he couldn’t think what else to do and knew it would get his dad off his back. And at least he would be with his friends.

  That night, Charlie Eddison was close by, second man. Ben Sanders was rear guard. Gregory and Flynn were somewhere between. Nick Travers knew he should have been more aware of them – Charlie would have sensed exactly where each man was, Gregory could have told him to the millimetre, and even Ben would have been better than him. Nick Travers, dreaming, felt the mix of hard-packed rock, baked earth and loose cobbles beneath his feet and the rough texture of the house wall as he tucked in close and it scraped against his hand.

  He signalled the others to halt. Still not certain he had actually seen anything at all, if he had imagined that flicker of movement across the narrow street.

  And then, all hell broke loose – Flynn was down, lost in a hail of gunfire; Charlie and Greg were beside him. Charlie had his hand pressed tight on Nick’s thigh, and it dawned on him that he’d been hit and was bleeding ferociously.

  It’s the femoral artery, he thought. I’m gone . . .

  Nick remembered waiting to die and being astonished that he had not. Recalled Charlie Eddison and Gregory dragging him into a house, and then Ben was there too, shouting something that Nick tried hard to recall but found made no sense. He was told that it took no more than minutes for backup to arrive and no more than an hour before they were out of there and headed back to base. Nick, heading home. Lucky. The dream receded, memory back where memory should be.

  He opened his eyes and saw Maureen’s face. She smiled, but he could see the tension at the corners of her mouth that told him she was angry about something. What had he done this time?

  ‘I’m not very good at this,’ he said. He could tell she didn’t understand.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, but he knew it wasn’t.

  ‘Who is Gregory?’ Another voice was asking him something he didn’t want to remember.