Night Vision Read online

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Picking up some tips on growing sweetcorn,’ Alec said. ‘Thanks for your time, Michelle. It’s been a pleasure.’

  She’ll be on the phone to Eddison before I’m through the gate, he thought as he drove down the rest of the gravel road. He’d gone too far, he knew that. Eddison would be as furious as the governor, if not more so, and if Alec’s hold on his position in the investigation had been stretched before, it was going to be broken, or close to, now.

  He found it hard to care. Alec had never been one for games. He’d known many officers who had played politics, jockeyed for position, taken every opportunity for advancement they could. Made their own chances. Alec had never been one of them. He took pride in his work, but more and more he’d come to realize it did not define him.

  Not sure what impulse drove him, he pulled on to the side of the road about a mile from the prison and dialled the number Griffin had dropped. No one picked up the phone; it rang out into empty space.

  TWELVE

  Clara Thompson and her family lived in an end terrace that had been extended to the side at some time in the seventies. The red-brick and picture window of the added lounge sat at odds with the Victorian formality, as did the fact that the older section of their home still celebrated its period features. So did the seventies bit, Munroe supposed, with its feature fireplace, complete with stone cladding.

  This was evidently a family space. Kids’ toys and books vied for space with a large television and two massive sofas. He had caught a glimpse of the original living room – front parlour, as his nan used to call it – on the way in. That was obviously more of an adult space: restrained furnishings and a very good hi-fi system. He hadn’t spotted the make. Clara had shut the door defensively when she’d seen him looking.

  ‘I’ve told you all I know.’ Neil Robinson’s sister had been alone when Munroe and Eddison arrived. She’d phoned her husband, and he was, apparently, on his way. She lifted her chin defiantly, back rigid and upright, not an easy posture on a sofa that was designed for lounging.

  Munroe lounged, leaning back, relaxed and putting forth the impression that he could sit there all day if he had to. Eddison sat as neatly as it was possible to do at the other end of the large settee. Munroe could see he felt ill at ease. Eddison, bulky and tall, was not made for lounging.

  ‘I don’t think you have told us all you know,’ Munroe said. Last time they had been here she had given them tea, opened biscuits. There had been no such offer this time. ‘The letter you had from Neil, telling you to contact Jamie Dale, what did you do with it?’

  ‘There was no letter.’

  ‘Well, last time we talked you couldn’t recall if it had been a letter or a phone call. I’m betting on a letter, and I’m betting you’ve still got it?’

  ‘There was no letter. He phoned and told me to get in touch with her.’

  ‘And tell her what? Oh, hi, Miss Dale, my brother, the convicted conman, he thinks he might have a story for you? Yeah, right, that’s really how it was.’

  He let the silence build. Most people, in Munroe’s experience, folded; they had to fill the silence with sound. Any sound. And usually out of the resultant waffle something useful emerged.

  Clara wasn’t going to be one of them.

  ‘What are you afraid of, Clara?’ Eddison asked her quietly.

  ‘Who said I’m afraid?’

  ‘You did.’

  A puzzled look, a swift denial. ‘Look, I’ve told you all I know, and I’d like you to leave.’

  ‘After we came all this way?’ Munroe looked hurt.

  ‘That was your choice, not mine.’

  ‘So what did he tell you to tell Jamie Dale? What hooked her in, Clara?’

  That look again. She wasn’t going to bite. Neither was she going to give him some story that could be broken or disproved.

  ‘Whatever you say, say nothing,’ Munroe said softly. ‘Is that it, Clara? You and that husband of yours, you’ve decided just say nothing and it’ll all go away?’

  A little tic at the corner of her mouth told him he was spot on.

  ‘Well, you see, you’re wrong, Clara, because we’ll just come back and ask again, and if we don’t come back then others will and they might not ask so nicely.’

  Another little tic – more of a flinch this time.

  Munroe stopped lounging and leaned forward. ‘Someone has been here already, haven’t they, Clara? Someone who wasn’t nearly as nice or as understanding as we’ve been. Someone that scared you?’

  ‘I’d like you to go now. Please.’ She stood and pointed theatrically at the door.

  Neither man moved.

  Slowly, her hand dropped back to her side, and she lowered herself back on to the seat. ‘Please, just go.’

  ‘This husband of yours is taking a long time to get here, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’ll be here.’

  Eddison glanced at his watch. ‘What time do you pick the kids up from school?’

  A flash of anger this time. ‘Leave my kids out of it.’

  ‘Oh, we will,’ Munroe told her. ‘But others might not be so willing to. You know that, don’t you, Clara? My guess is you’ve already found that out.’

  She looked away, no longer able to meet his gaze. Her lips trembled, and she moistened them with a quick, nervous flick of her tongue.

  ‘Who’s been to see you, Clara? We can protect you. Look after you and that husband of yours and those pretty kids.’

  Eddison glanced again at his watch. ‘How long did you say he’d be, Clara? It isn’t nice, is it, him leaving all this to you. A man should be here with his wife at a time like this.’

  ‘I don’t need him here.’ Vehement, furious.

  ‘Just as well,’ Munroe said, ‘Because my guess is you didn’t get through to anyone when you made that “phone call” just now. He’s long gone, isn’t he, Clara? He’s been frightened off, hasn’t he? Left you here with the kids to deal with whatever storm is coming.’

  ‘It isn’t like that.’

  ‘No?’ Munroe let the question hang, and then again allowed the silence to build. She was breaking, he could see that. One more push.

  ‘It must be hard to feel you can’t protect your kids,’ Eddison said. He sounded so sad, so sympathetic that Munroe almost wondered if he meant it.

  ‘I can protect them. My kids are safe!’

  ‘Gone with their dad, have they? They’ve left you too, have they? Well, I think you’re right to get them out of the way, but I mean, can you really trust their dad to look after them? I mean, not exactly hero material, is he?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, running out on you when the first sign of trouble comes along. Leaving you to fend for yourself here.’

  ‘Maybe she thinks if she stays they’ll leave her family alone,’ Eddison proposed. ‘Maybe she thinks they’ll stop looking.’

  Clara was shrinking into herself now, diminishing. Munroe knew she was on the point of total collapse. She stood up again, facing them down though he could see her entire body was trembling.

  ‘What did they do to him, Clara? What did they threaten to do to your kids? Are you sure they’re safe? We know you’re a good mother, we know you’d do anything to protect them, and they are beautiful kids, Clara, it would be such a tragedy if anything were to—’

  ‘Get the fuck out of here. Just get the fuck out!’ She flew at Eddison, grabbing at his hair, scratching at his face, kicking out at him as he stood up and captured her hands, holding them both easily in one of his own. ‘Just get the fuck away from here.’

  ‘Or what, Clara?’ Munroe, sitting back now, observed the scene. ‘Besides, you’ve told us nothing. You can always try and convince whoever’s threatening you that you told us nothing. Of course, they may not believe you.’

  He paused. She had ceased to struggle now, but Eddison still held on to her wrists. A slow trickle of blood from beside
his eye showed that Clara had scored one point against him.

  ‘How convincing do you think you can be? I mean to say, we’re constrained by the law, I suppose, but other people might not have those checks and balances.’ He paused again. ‘But I think you already know that, don’t you?’

  Again, the silence. Few people, Munroe thought, really appreciate the power of silence.

  Clara had begun to cry.

  Munroe nodded at Eddison, who released her hands.

  ‘We’ll be off then, Clara,’ Munroe said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, seeing as how you don’t want to tell us anything.’ He took a business card from his pocket and laid it on the arm of the sofa. ‘Just in case you change your mind,’ he said and followed Eddison out of the door.

  They had parked the car just down the road. Eddison slipped into the passenger seat and withdrew a little black box from the glove compartment, then inserted what looked like a Bluetooth device into his ear.

  ‘Where did you position them?’

  ‘One in the living room, one in the hall near the phone.’ He flipped the box open, revealing a small screen. ‘She’s dialling out.’

  ‘Put it on speaker.’

  Clara’s voice, the distress evident, filled the car.

  ‘The police were here . . . No, of course I didn’t, but Paul, what am I supposed to do? I can’t . . . Yes, I know, but . . . Paul, I can’t cope with this, I can’t. Please, I need help with this. Please, Paul!’

  ‘He’s rung off,’ Eddison said.

  ‘Think he’s got the kids with him?’

  ‘I bloody hope so.’ He took the earpiece out and replaced it with his mobile phone. Dialled. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I need you to run a number for me, get me an address. Ready?’

  He relayed the phone number Clara had called, reading it from the screen of the little black PDA. ‘Quick as you can. Any news on that other number?’ He listened and then hung up.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The office is still unoccupied, no one near or by for the past week, though the landlord says the rent is paid up for the next three months. It’s listed as an import-export business, dealing in fine arts. The phone’s rung a couple of times, but no action otherwise.’

  ‘So why would anyone give the number to Alec?’

  ‘Why not? Given the choice of him or you, I’d have gone for Alec.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. But why give it to anyone? What’s the link?’

  Eddison’s phone rang. It was Michelle Sanders, trying for the third time to get hold of him. Eddison listened. ‘I’ll deal with him,’ he said. ‘Michelle, listen to me, I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘What?’ Munroe asked when Eddison slid the phone back into his pocket.

  ‘Our friend Alec Friedman,’ Eddison said. ‘That is a man who just doesn’t know what’s good for his health.’

  THIRTEEN

  It was mid afternoon by the time Naomi and Harry had finished at the police station and returned to an anxious Mari and Patrick. Mari, by some miracle, had slowed the progress of lunch, and only the carrots had been overcooked. Mari fussed over Naomi, and Napoleon, sensing that all was not well, pressed his big head against her leg and snuffled till she took adequate notice of him.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said for the umpteenth time. ‘Harry, I’m really sorry to have put you through that.’

  ‘That poor, poor woman,’ Harry said softly.

  ‘Sit,’ Mari told him. ‘Eat. We’ll all feel better with some food inside us.’

  They made a deliberate effort to turn the conversation to other things. The exhibition, the trip to America, university, but the memory of the phone call draped like a pall across the room. She had tried to get hold of Alec, but he wasn’t answering his phone and she felt very much alone despite the wonderful company.

  As the meal drew to a close and Mari served the apple pie, Naomi said what had been on her mind for the past hours. ‘I’m worried,’ she said. ‘Scared I’ve brought this all down on your heads. Whoever is doing this, they had a hand in killing Jamie, and probably Neil Robinson too. I don’t want any of you involved in this.’

  ‘Naomi, you know we wouldn’t leave you.’

  ‘I know that, but I think you should. Harry, I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened, not to any of you. I’m serious about this. I really am.’

  ‘Gran should go away, anyway,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Oh, should I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry told her quietly. ‘We are, at least, all together, but you’re on your own in that house. Go and visit Martha for a bit. I can take you up there. Go and have a break somewhere, just for a few days.’

  ‘You’re all really scared, aren’t you?’ Mari said.

  ‘I think we should be,’ Harry said. ‘Patrick, I’m going to see if I can get you on an earlier flight. I’ll give your mother a ring.’

  ‘Not without you,’ Patrick said. ‘And Dad, don’t think of arguing, you can’t force me to get on a plane.’

  ‘Any chance of you both going?’ Naomi said.

  ‘And leave you alone? No, we won’t do that.’

  ‘Look,’ Mari said. ‘We need contingency plans, don’t we? Yes, I’ll go and visit Martha or something if it makes you feel better. I’ve been threatening it for months, anyway. But you lot need to talk to Alec and see what he advises. That policewoman friend of yours, Naomi.’

  ‘Megan?’

  ‘Yes, Megan. What did she think?’

  ‘She’s going to make sure we get regular checks, and if necessary Alec can arrange a safe house.’

  ‘Good. Now, I know I’m not an expert in these things, but it occurs to me that if whoever it was that’s making these phone calls actually wanted to do any of us harm, Naomi especially, then they could have done so very easily before now.’

  ‘It’s a good point,’ Harry conceded.

  ‘It is,’ Naomi agreed. ‘Which leaves us with the questions: what do they want? What are they hoping I will do?’

  ‘Or what do they think you know?’ Patrick suggested. ‘They obviously think these phone calls will make you do something. Maybe they think you know what it all means.’

  Naomi nodded slowly. ‘You have a point,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know anything. I don’t know what they want me to do. They’ve got that wrong.’

  ‘Or you don’t realize you know,’ Patrick pressed. ‘When did you last see your friend? Did she ever send you anything for safekeeping? Did she ever ring you out of the blue and say something that seemed a bit odd?’

  ‘I’ve already asked myself those questions, and I can’t think of anything. We got the occasional phone call, but even those stopped a while back. We exchanged Christmas and Birthday cards, but they only ever said the obvious stuff. You know – how are you, what are you doing now? The truth was we’d all but lost touch with her.’

  ‘The last time you spoke on the phone?’ Patrick insisted. ‘Or what did she say in her last Christmas card?’

  Naomi thought about it. ‘We got a card from her this past year with a new address. We’d already sent her a card, but we sent another to the new address, just in case she hadn’t got the first.’

  ‘Did you put anything different in the second one?’

  Naomi laughed. ‘Patrick, I just don’t remember. I dictated our cards, Alec wrote, and when he got fed up I took them over to Sue and she helped me with the rest.’

  ‘Had Jamie been moved for long? Did she give you a new phone number?’ Mari asked.

  ‘And was there anything unusual about the new address?’ Harry added.

  That set something off in Naomi’s brain. Some casual comment from Alec. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a strange one. She said in her card that this was a temporary address because she was between moves; there was some work being done at her new place, I think. It was an office; she said it belonged to a friend. And it wasn’t in London.’

  ‘Do you remember where it was?’

&nbs
p; ‘Offhand, no. It will be in the book in the hall, near the phone. That’s where Alec puts all the family and friends’ numbers and stuff. St Albans, I think, but that was the thing. Alec wondered why she didn’t just tell us to contact her at work. We’d done that before when she was moving about a lot, especially in the early days when she didn’t seem to have a place of her own half the time. She was always sleeping on some friend’s couch or whatever. Then she got a flat.’ Naomi frowned. ‘I’d not given it any more thought.’

  ‘And the last time you actually spoke to her?’

  ‘Was when we invited her to the wedding. She called us and said she’d be working and couldn’t make it. She sent a card and . . . something else.’ Think, Naomi. Was it a gift token? Both of them having well-established homes and therefore not needing the usual wedding list, quite a lot of people had given them tokens. But that wasn’t Jamie’s style, was it?

  ‘She sent a photo frame,’ Naomi said. ‘Alec told me it had been handmade, that it looked kind of arts and crafts. It had bees and flowers on it.’

  ‘You’re sure there was nothing inside it? Nothing hidden? Dad, Naomi, we should go and get it.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘Sorry, Patrick, I don’t think there was anything mysterious about it. I think Alec put a picture of Sue and family in it. I think he might have noticed any secret messages.’

  ‘Maybe we should look anyway?’

  ‘Maybe we should, but not today. I think we should go through all of the stuff Jamie sent over the years, just to be sure, but I it might be better if we get Alec to help do that. You don’t know what to look for, and I’m not sure where in the attic or wherever it might be.’

  ‘You’ll have kept it all though?’ Patrick persisted.

  ‘Of course she will,’ Mari said. ‘Our Naomi is a magpie, always was.’

  ‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘We’ll clear away and see to the dishes, and then I suggest we all find something pointless on the television.’

  No one argued. Something ordinary and Sunday-afternoonish was, Naomi thought, exactly the right recipe after the tension and trauma.