Night Vision

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Munroe,’ he said. ‘He told me you and your dad are stubborn bastards. That you were heading this way. Now listen. I have a job for you.’

  The girls had noticed him now, and so had the dog. The dog halted; sensing that this man was somehow ‘wrong’, he started to turn his mistress back.

  ‘What is it?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘There’s a man,’ Jilly said.

  ‘A man? What kind of man?’

  ‘My name is Gregory,’ he said. ‘You need to leave with me now.’

  Two children, one man, one dog all piled into a boat made for two or three, but the engine started first pull and the Zodiac powered away and Naomi talked to Patrick on the phone, shouting over the noise of the outboard. He could hear she was scared, and Kay was crying and asking for her daddy, saying she didn’t want to go away.

  The helicopter had changed direction, casting slowly back along the coast, what had once been a speck on the horizon now horribly visible. He tucked in close to the cliffs, which were rising suddenly as the landscape changed, and then headed for a small inlet he had spotted when he had first moored the Jeannie. They were now completely out of sight of the beach and the farm and the helicopter, though he could hear the sound of it as he cut the engine.

  ‘I’m scared, Naomi. I want Mummy. I want Daddy!’

  ‘Do we have to hide again?’ Jilly said.

  ‘I’m afraid so, sweetheart. I’m afraid we do.’

  Gregory took back his phone and called Munroe. Explained what he was trying to do.

  ‘The parents are still at the farm, and so is Alec Friedman. I’m going back.’ He paused to listen. ‘She can manage, don’t underestimate her.’

  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Naomi thought. She wasn’t so sure it was accurate.

  ‘Do you have a phone with you?’ Gregory asked her.

  ‘No, I left mine behind.’

  ‘OK. You can keep this one. I have a spare. Jilly, let me show you. Come on, I won’t bite. Now, see this is what you do.’

  He had her repeat the instructions, wrote Patrick’s number on a slip of paper and made sure she had stowed both in her pack. Wide eyed and scared, she was also amazingly calm. Her mother’s daughter, Gregory thought. He wondered how much she actually understood about what was going on. Figured it was probably more than her father would have believed.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Follow the stream back inland. Then follow your nose, OK?’

  ‘Follow my nose?’ Kay was distracted for a moment.

  ‘He means keep going straight,’ Jilly said importantly.

  ‘Cross the fields and you’ll reach the road. Patrick and Harry will find you.’

  ‘Have you ever seen Harry Jones read a map?’ Naomi asked tartly. ‘And what are you going to do?’

  ‘Go back,’ he said.

  ‘And what the hell good will that do?’

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Stay under cover as much as you can, close to the hedgerow, under trees. Harry will find you.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said as he began to move away.

  ‘I need to hurry.’

  ‘I know, I just have one thing to ask. Did you kill Jamie Dale?’

  He hesitated, not sure she should be talking about such things in front of the two little girls. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill her. I’d have made it clean, not like . . .’

  Naomi swallowed nervously. ‘Someone called me,’ she said. ‘Someone played a recording of—’

  ‘That was me and I’m sorry, but I had to know.’

  ‘You! Know what? I don’t understand.’

  ‘What you’d do. If you were the woman Jamie thought you were. If you and Alec could be trusted.’

  ‘I’m assuming we passed your test,’ Naomi said heavily.

  ‘Jamie said you were good people, that you believed in right and wrong.’ He laughed. ‘I always told her that was a rare commodity. I heard Alec and Travers had been brought on board the investigation, so I suppose I needed to know whose side you’d be on. How much she meant to you. What you’d do.’

  ‘But the tape. I don’t understand. Where did you get it? Why did she call me Naomi Blake?’

  ‘I have to go. This is not the time.’

  ‘And it might be the only time we have,’ she reminded him. ‘None of us knows how this will play out, not now.’

  Gregory sighed. The sound of the helicopter was louder now. Closer still. ‘Eddison likes to collect souvenirs,’ he said. ‘I know he . . . interrogated her before she died. I know he let her think she almost escaped. She got to a phone, she made a call. But it went nowhere.’

  ‘She tried to call me?’

  ‘She thought she was calling you. Eddison laughed about it. He sent the recordings to me – that phone call that never was and the one made when Jamie died. And I don’t know why she called you by your maiden name. Maybe she was so scared she just forgot. Maybe she was in such a state she thought it would throw Eddison off the scent. I just don’t know. I just know she died and when she was at her most desperate she reached out to you. So I had to know.’

  ‘To know?’

  ‘If you were worthy of that,’ Gregory said.

  He left them then. She heard him walk away across the shingle and the outboard motor start and for a moment or two was utterly overcome by fear. She didn’t know where she was, she didn’t know how to get to the road. She was supposed to be the adult here, looking after the little girls. And she didn’t know what was happening to Alec back at the farm. And she was terribly afraid for all of them.

  ‘Helicopter,’ Kay said. ‘I can hear a helicopter.’

  ‘We’d better go,’ Jilly said. She took Naomi’s hand. ‘Follow your nose,’ she said.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘Alec, get yourself out of there. Now!’

  ‘Munroe? What the hell?’

  ‘Naomi and the kids are safe, now you get yourselves away.’

  ‘What do you mean? They’re on the beach. They—’

  ‘No, they’re not. Look, trust me, Alec. I’ll give you a phone number you can reach her on, but you need to move, now. Eddison’s on the way, and he’s bringing armed police with him.’

  ‘What? What are you saying?’

  ‘Alec, he’s saying you’re all in on it with Gregory. That you played a part in the attack on Travers and the motorway explosion. He’s got helicopter surveillance and armed officers moving in. Alec, it might already be too late, but try and get out now.’

  ‘I can talk to him,’ Alec said. ‘Munroe, this is ridiculous.’

  ‘Forget talking, Alec. He’s not about to listen, he doesn’t want to know. And, Alec, I’m worried he’s not going to want to leave live witnesses.’

  Alec felt himself grow cold. He could hear the sound of the helicopter rotors overhead.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Clara looked up as though she could see through the roof of the caravan.

  ‘This is not good,’ Paul whispered. ‘This is not good. I’m going to get the kids.’

  Alec grabbed his arm.

  The sound of the rotors was joined by another. ‘Armed police! Come out slowly and with your hands raised!’

  ‘I think it’s a bit too late,’ Alec told Munroe.

  Munroe swore roundly. ‘Hang in there, Alec. I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Clara demanded.

  ‘What about the kids?’

  ‘We do as the man says,’ Alec told them. ‘Move slowly, keep your hands where they can be seen, and don’t do anything that might provoke anyone.’

  ‘The kids,’ Paul said again.

  ‘They’re with Naomi. Munroe promises me they’re safe. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Come out with your hands up! No one will get hurt, come out with your hands up!’

  Alec took a deep breath and hoped Munroe knew what he was doing. Then he opened the caravan door and slowly, carefully, stepped outside.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The sun was hot, the ground rough beneath thei
r feet. Napoleon panted and whined, not understanding why they were in this strange place and why there was so much tension in the way Naomi held on to him. They had been climbing steadily since they left the shore, but now the ground had levelled out and the grass felt thicker.

  ‘What can you see?’ she asked Jilly.

  ‘There’s, like, this big field with grass in it and some cows and there’s a big hedge all round it. That’s all.’

  ‘Look for a gate. Can you see a gate?’

  She could feel the effort the child was putting into this. Naomi clasped her hand tightly. ‘It will be all right,’ she said.

  ‘What about Mum and Dad?’

  ‘They will be all right. I promise.’

  ‘You can’t make it all right. You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.’

  Fair point, Naomi thought.

  ‘I’m tired,’ Kay said.

  ‘I know,’ Naomi sympathized. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I can see a gate!’ Jilly said.

  ‘Good, then let’s get over to it, but Jilly, if we stay close to the hedge, then it will be easier to walk.’

  ‘You mean it will be harder for the helicopter to see us.’

  Naomi hesitated. ‘That too,’ she agreed.

  ‘We take the next left,’ Patrick said. They had abandoned the satnav. To use a satnav you really need to know where you were going, and this was three-quarters guesswork. Gregory had given them a map reference and told them that Naomi and the kids would be heading towards the little side road a couple of miles from the inlet where he had set them down. Or so he hoped. That did rather depend on one person who couldn’t see being guided in the right direction by a dog who didn’t know the way and two young children.

  ‘Next left and then a right. Then we should be close to where they’ll come out. There’s the turn.’

  Harry turned and almost immediately slowed. A police car was parked across the road, two uniformed officers standing close by.

  Harry wound his window down.

  ‘Sorry, sir, there’s been an accident. You can’t come this way.’ He noticed the map in Patrick’s hands. ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘Um, here.’ Patrick jabbed at the map, indicating a little village a few miles down the road.

  ‘Right you are. Well, you’ll have to go back the way you came and take the first left and . . .’

  Patrick seemed to listen, then thanked them, and Harry reversed back into a farm gate and drove slowly away.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Be glad there’s a bend and they can’t see we’re going right instead of left,’ Patrick said.

  It was obvious to Gregory that it was all too late. Thankful that the noise of the helicopter rotors drowned out the noise of the boat, he cut the engine and drifted into shore at the far end of the beach. He slipped back into the dunes and made his way carefully back inland.

  Did they have dogs? That was a complication he didn’t want.

  Keeping low, he circled the back field and watched from the cover of the trees as men moved back and forth from caravan to cars and scientific support moved up, the small van disgorging three figures in white coveralls. He moved on, towards the road, straining for a glimpse of Alec and the others, finally seeing them, handcuffed and between armed officers, being led towards a van. And then he saw Eddison, standing beside a car behind the van, watching as though detached from the process.

  Gregory saw Alec try and turn to speak to him and Eddison look away. Then the van doors were closed and the van was driven away, a car in front and Eddison in the car behind.

  What now, he thought. Now what should I do? He had given Naomi his main phone and now used the backup to call Munroe. He needed to get a car, Gregory thought. Follow the van, see what Eddison planned to do.

  On the radio, breaking news that: ‘—suspects from the motorway bombing have been identified in a remote part of Wales. Armed police are believed to be surrounding the farm—’

  ‘What now?’ Patrick said.

  ‘We find Naomi and the children, and we put as much distance between here and us as we possibly can. Then we stop and think what to do after that.’

  ‘Right,’ Patrick said. ‘I suppose that’s almost a plan. Look, pull in there, on to that verge, and tuck in under the trees. We can walk from there across the fields.’ He peered closely at the map, running his finger down the road they should have taken. ‘Look, there’s a footpath. If we take that, we should get somewhere near where we ought to be.’

  Harry cut the engine and studied the map. ‘Let’s just hope they don’t go wrong and come out behind enemy lines,’ he said. He tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow. He wished he knew what was happening to Alec and that he knew for sure which way Naomi and the little girls were likely to go.

  Through the cow field, open the gate, into another field, cross that, then where? Still no sign of the road. No sound of the helicopter now either. Was that a good thing or bad?

  Naomi had rarely felt so disorientated. The ground felt different now. ‘What’s this place like, Jilly?’

  Jilly sighed. She was tired and scared and finding it hard to be Naomi’s eyes. ‘There’s, like, a little path bit that we’re on now, and there’s a . . . a stile? Is that right?’

  Naomi breathed a sigh of relief. ‘A stile, yes. That means we’re on a proper footpath. Keep an eye open for a sign; sometimes the footpaths have little signs. Jilly, is there a gap by the stile that Napoleon can get through?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Oh.’ She sounded suddenly anxious. ‘There’s a man there.’

  Who, Naomi thought, and then she heard someone calling her name. A moment later Patrick had thundered down the path and was hugging her. She could have cried, she was so relieved and so overwhelmed. Harry arrived, breathless but exuberant.

  ‘We found you!’ he said.

  Kay did begin to cry again. ‘I’m hungry and I’m tired and I want my mum.’

  ‘We all want our mums,’ Jilly said. ‘But we’ve just got to be brave, now, don’t we Naomi?’

  Naomi clasped her hand. ‘You are being very brave,’ she said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Travers watched the news. Munroe had called and given him an update – it was not looking good. Alec had been implicated, and Eddison was triumphant.

  ‘What can I do?’ Travers wanted to know. ‘He can’t get away with this! It’s all a nonsense, Munroe.’

  ‘I’m doing all I can. Nick, you’ll be getting a visit from my boss. My actual boss. Tell him all you can. What I’m hoping is that Eddison is just causing chaos so he can get clean away.’

  ‘And what you’re not hoping?’

  ‘Is that he’s just lost it big time and doesn’t care who or what he takes down with him.’

  In the back of the car Naomi sat between the sleeping children. In the rear of the hatchback Napoleon snored contentedly. The adults listened to the news.

  ‘There are reports coming through that arrests have been made, but conflicting reports that the armed units have now been stood down and withdrawn from the scene.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Patrick wondered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s really unusual for the news to have broken so quickly, anyway. It isn’t the norm. I mean, yes, if something happens in the centre of town, then you expect the media to be all over it in no time, but out here? Eddison has to have tipped them off.’

  ‘What’s he hoping to gain from that?’ Harry mused. ‘Just the glory, do you think?’

  Naomi shook her head, nagging worry almost overwhelming. She wanted to go to Alec, but knew that was impossible, and anyway they had to make sure Jilly and Kay were safe. If safe was a possibility now.

  So what did Eddison want? What effect were his actions having? ‘Confusion,’ she said. ‘I think he wants to create as much chaos as he can. My guess is he’ll then cut and run. I’ve no doubt he has plans in place. I think maybe he didn’t want them to be implemented quite as s
oon as they have.’

  ‘So what triggered all this?’

  ‘My guess is Jamie Dale. What she knew, what she was about to tell. Those photographs, perhaps, if Eddison knew they existed, and the implications of them – that might have been enough for him to turn on her, and what better cover than to use someone like Gregory as the fall guy? Who would care?’

  ‘Why didn’t Jamie try and expose him before?’ Harry questioned. ‘Why send the pictures to you at Christmas and then do nothing about them?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Naomi admitted. ‘Maybe she viewed them as an insurance policy. Maybe he didn’t know about them until recently. Maybe she told him just before she died.’

  They came to a junction. ‘Left or right?’

  Patrick looked at the map. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘and then left, then second left.’

  ‘You’re making this up as you go along,’ Harry grumbled.

  ‘Well, yes. Actually, I’m trying to get us back to Bristol.’

  ‘Why Bristol?’

  ‘Big city, easier to disappear. Things to do to amuse the kids. I don’t know. I just think that we’re a pretty distinctive group, and it might be best if Uncle Harry and Auntie Naomi and Cousin Patrick find a place to go where there are other uncles and cousins and kids and we don’t stick out like quite such a major sore thumb.’

  He had a point, Naomi thought.

  ‘And we’ve got to go somewhere,’ Patrick added. ‘We can’t just go on driving forever.’

  Gregory had obtained a car. He had gone beyond the area of investigation, crossing the road and cutting back across the fields to where uniformed and white-clad and plain-clothes personnel milled and roiled and tried to look purposeful. Something had changed in the minutes since he had lost sight of the farm, he thought. He could see two men gesticulating, a woman listening to her phone; another woman, standing close by, paused uncertainly mid action.

  Something was not right.

  He did not have time to consider what it was that had effected the change of mood; instead he moved on, looking for a vehicle. Finally, at the back of the farm, he found what he was looking for. An old hatchback, faded red and mud splattered. He guessed it must belong to one of the workers on Tilly’s Farm or the one next door. It wasn’t clear now, just where the boundaries were. Moments later he was off in pursuit of Eddison, knowing the police vehicles had a massive head start.