Night Vision Page 14

  The services were perhaps a couple of hours away down the motorway. The now closed motorway. Eddison gave him directions to the incident centre they were establishing half a mile from the scene. There was no argument, no suggestion that Alec should stay away. Now, it was all hands to the pump.

  ‘Do you think I’m making the wrong choice?’ Alec asked, suddenly anxious lest Naomi felt he was abandoning her.

  ‘Alec, in your shoes I’d feel the same. You have to go. I’ll be fine . . . but, Alec? Watch your back.’

  So less than a day after deserting the investigation, Alec made his way south again.

  The radio news was filled with speculation. Extended bulletins talked about the many injured and the rumoured deaths of two CSIs. Witnesses on scene had seen one of them open the cab door. The witnesses had driven away, terrified by the explosion and the fire ripping through the truck. But shortly after, distressed and confused, they had pulled on to the hard shoulder and looked back at the smoke billowing out. The second explosion, they said, had shaken the ground beneath their feet.

  Listening to them, Alec could hear the shock and distress and the beginnings of outrage. The reporter, first near the scene and now with an unexpected exclusive as the media were being kept back behind police cordons, had been travelling from a routine job, covering a factory opening. He now had the scoop of his life, he, too, having pulled up on the hard shoulder when he spotted first the smoke and then the distressed family by the side of the road.

  Shaky images filmed on a mobile phone displayed the pall of smoke still hanging above the buildings, and the report had been phoned through, the sound crackly and uneven, but that in itself somehow adding to the fearful atmosphere.

  Terrorists. That was the watchword. Who else could cause such catastrophe?

  Alec didn’t think so. They were terrorists only in the sense that terror had been caused, he thought. But this was all part of the same pattern as Jamie’s death and Neil Robinson’s murder and the attack on Travers and whatever else it was that was going on here.

  He called Naomi an hour into the drive. In the background he could hear the television. A rolling news channel repeating what he had heard on the radio.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine. Harry phoned Megan and told her you’d had to get back. She’s promised to keep an eye on us.’

  ‘I should be there.’

  ‘You should be doing your job.’

  He drove on, suddenly lonely, suddenly bereft, and he knew that whatever Naomi had said, a choice had been offered and he had made the wrong one.

  Gregory watched the news on the television in his hotel room with interest and building irritation. It was all wrong. He was not responsible for this, any more than he had been responsible for the death of Jamie Dale or the murder of Neil Robinson. And yet, someone was attempting to tie him into this mess, using his vehicle, linking his name and his business to this situation.

  Gregory had no problem acknowledging those acts for which he had been responsible; that was part of the deal, the risk that one day he might be called to task for them. He accepted that, much as he accepted the sad fact that no one seemed to want to let him retire in peace. It was, however, an annoyance. It had taken time and effort to set up Madigor and reinvent his past, and Gregory resented the fact that he would now have to engineer that all over again.

  So, he thought, who might be behind all of this? There was only one name in the frame so far as Gregory could see, and he wondered now what he should do about it and what exactly this man who had once claimed to be his friend, but who was now acting like his nemesis, was hoping to achieve.

  We old guard are dying, Christopher had said, and he was right. Those that weren’t dying were getting old, or were at least getting tired and wanting to fade back into the background. And, as Christopher said, that left a vacuum.

  Gregory lay back on the bed and let the sound of the television news wash over him as he thought about it. There was a chain here that linked Neil Robinson, Jamie Dale, Nick Travers and himself. He just didn’t have the full picture.

  A change in the television sound attracted his attention. For the past hour the reporter had been filling in, repeating largely the same information over and over again, speculating meaninglessly about causes and guilt. Now he heard something new.

  Gregory sat up and listened. A statement was about to be issued, apparently, with a phone line for any relative worried about their loved ones. It was the name of the officer about to give the statement that had caught his attention.

  Gregory watched the screen as the familiar face came into view and the rest of the chain began to form. The links between himself and Jamie Dale and Neil Robinson and—

  ‘Right,’ Gregory breathed. ‘So that might be it. That might be the way of things.’

  He switched off the television and packed his bag. Back to see the old man, he thought, and just hope he hadn’t decided to die in the meantime.

  NINETEEN

  Alec was almost at his destination when he got a call from Eddison. He was to divert to St Albans and join the team searching the offices registered to Madigor that had been the postal drop Jamie had been using. He was then to join the team currently searching the house of Joshua Penbury, Madigor’s director.

  He pulled off the road, reprogrammed his satnav and took the opportunity to phone Naomi again.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. ‘It’s all going to be all right.’

  Then he drove on, still heading south, listening to the news of the aftermath of the explosion and the voice in his head that kept nagging at him, telling him that nothing was ever going to be the same.

  Despite the satnav, he managed to get lost in the one way system, and by the time he got to the office in a small side street he was feeling flustered and annoyed. He was expected, sent to join the team going through the top office.

  Downstairs was a flower shop, the owner very put out that her shop had been closed and hoping she’d be compensated for business lost. She had the radio on in her shop and the commentary continued: ‘—speculation that this is the first of a possible spate of terrorist acts. The national threat level has been raised to—’

  He went upstairs, noting that although the two businesses shared a front door, Madigor had a second entrance that cut it off from the florists below. Customers to the florist came in, did an immediate dogleg left into the shop, while the entrance to the Madigor office was straight on and up a flight of stairs.

  ‘What do we have?’ he asked the officer in charge. SOCO had finished their fingerprinting and photographing, and the scene was now in the charge of DS Frobisher.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Frobisher said. ‘According to the florist downstairs, Madigor was moving and the office hadn’t been used much for the past six months or so. She says Joshua Penbury just used it for storage.’

  ‘Much post?’

  ‘Not that we found. The usual junk mail, and a few letters addressed to Madigor. There’s half a dozen shipping receipts and an electric bill.’ He pointed Alec in the direction of a storage box part filled with plastic wallets containing the said letters.

  ‘Nothing for anyone else?’

  ‘Not that we could find.’

  ‘No computer equipment, files, nothing else?’ Alec looked around the bare room. A desk in front of the window, and filing cabinet which, as Frobisher observed, was empty. An electric kettle, but no mugs; a calendar from the previous year.

  ‘She said it had been used for storage?’

  ‘She said. I don’t see much evidence. This Penbury had his own keys, came and went as he wanted. She said up until last year he’d used this office pretty regularly, but this is a final electric bill, so it looks as though he was definitely moving out.’

  ‘So, where to?’ Alec wondered.

  Off the office were a small bathroom and a large storage cupboard. A green hand-towel had been left on the side of the sink, together with a bottle of bleach. Every
where was very clean, Alec noted.

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  Frobisher laughed. ‘So far, one partial under the window catch. We doubt we’ll get a match from it.’

  Alec was thoughtful. ‘To find Penbury’s prints here would have been normal. Absence of prints is distinctly not. So, does that mean someone else was here that Penbury didn’t want anyone to know about? Or do we have his prints on file?’ Alec frowned. That didn’t make sense either. This place was registered to Madigor. It was official and above board. And they had this Joshua Penbury’s home address, which, no doubt would, or should, be covered with his prints.

  It was like the address book; almost as if someone was trying that bit too hard to make things look strange, to deflect investigation. But what, exactly, from?

  He looked around the room again. Something was missing. ‘Where have you put the telephone?’

  Frobisher looked puzzled. ‘There was no phone.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘We’d have seen a phone.’

  Of course they would, and yet, Alec thought, a phone had certainly been there until a couple of days – no, until the day before. He had called the number Griffin had given to him. The number registered to this office. It had rung out. There had been a phone here.

  He used his mobile to take pictures of the shipping receipts and the one solitary bill, did one more swift sweep of the room, and then got into his car and headed for the home of the mysterious Mr Penbury, Madigor’s ersatz owner.

  The home of Joshua Penbury was in a modern cul-de-sac. It was technically detached, which meant about five feet of space between the garage of one house and the wall of the next. Red-brick, UPVC windows and a patch of front lawn bordered by flowers, it was supremely ordinary. To the rear was a small but beautifully manicured walled garden. Climbers supported on vine wires clothed the walls, flowering shrubs and bright flowers filled the beds leaving space for another postage stamp lawn and a compact deck just outside of the French windows. A solitary cast-iron chair set next to a small cast-iron table, protected by a white linen parasol that almost filled the deck space. This was not a place for entertaining, Alec thought, but for enjoying a sort of solitary splendour at the end of a day spent clipping the lawn with a pair of nail scissors. He truly had never seen such an exact and pristine creation.

  The house had three bedrooms, one clearly occupied, the second set up with a futon and a single wardrobe, as though to give some semblance of it being a guest room. The third had a desk, computer and small filing cabinet.

  Downstairs was a through lounge with a seating area and television at one end and a dining table – small, with just a couple of chairs – at the end with the French windows. The kitchen was, as he would have expected, pristine. Black counters, white cupboards, concealed fridge and freezer. A small utility room off the kitchen afforded room for the washing machine and dryer and a bright-red cat bed. Bright-red bowls for food and water had been set out beside it, and the rear door, which gave on to the side of the house, just to the rear of the garage, had a cat flap inserted into the UPVC panel.

  ‘Where’s the cat?’ he asked a passing CSI.

  ‘Fergie is next door with the neighbour.’

  ‘Fergie? What kind of a cat name is that?’

  She laughed. ‘I’ve got two cats,’ she said. ‘Chintz and Amygdala.’ She laughed again. ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘I think I’d better not.’ He wandered back into the main room, wondering vaguely what he’d call a cat should he ever have one. He’d always viewed the name Napoleon as an odd one for a dog, but it sort of suited the big black animal. He stood in the lounge and looked around. Evidence boxes had been stacked on the small dining table, but Alec could see it was solid, well made and of very nice timber. He thought some kind of oak, but he’d never been good with wood recognition. The chairs matched. Chunky and solid and not very comfortable looking. The curtains were heavy. Damask fabric, lined, and with a darker border. They matched the cushions on the dark-grey sofa and light-grey chair. And the rug, set in the middle of the cream carpet, seemed to be from the same range. A tall bookshelf standing against the wall at the dining end matched the table and also the small unit on which the television had been placed.

  No music, Alec thought, or the means for playing it. There had been a radio in the kitchen, one of the few objects left out on the counter, though the cupboards had been full of kitchen gadgetry and the fridge was well stocked. Oddly, Alec thought, the choice of food was the most human, normal and comprehensible thing about this place. He’d been in show homes or hotel rooms with more individuality. It was almost as though whoever had chosen the furnishings had looked at what other people had and figured out that to look normal they’d need a sofa and a chair and . . .

  He wandered over to the bookshelves. Unsurprisingly, given that Madigor was supposed to be an importer of things oriental, there were books about Japan and Thailand and China. There were also books on antiques and glass and silver, but there were no objects in the room that spoke of any interest in collecting. Nothing from the business seemed to have made its way home.

  He began to look earnestly for what might be deemed personal objects. Beside the chair was what he remembered was called a Canterbury. Harry had one he’d picked up at an antiques fair, and he used it for papers and magazines. He’d told Alec that originally they had been for music.

  Unlike the other furniture, this one was in dark wood and heavily carved, at odds with everything else in the room. Alec squatted down and admired the intricate detail of the turning and the wealthy polish; the old wood glowed in the afternoon sun. Unlike Harry’s version, which was usually overflowing with remnants of Sunday paper or magazines on art or boats or whatever Patrick’s latest passion might be, this was distinctly empty.

  On the wall above the fireplace was a very beautiful mirror. Heavy and clearly old and with what Alec recognized as a pewter repoussé frame, Alec felt it was oddly familiar. He stared at it for a moment, taking in the flowers and bees, and then it hit him. The photo frame Jamie had sent them was a miniature version of this.

  Had she been trying to tell them something? Was there, after all, something hidden in the frame? Alec would have sworn not. Like all repoussé pieces, the back was hollow, showing the pattern of indentations that made up the external pattern in relief. There had been no space in which to hide anything. He frowned, remembering that it was now at Harry’s place. He would have to ask them to take another look.

  He beckoned to one of the SOCO team. ‘Give me a hand to take this down?’

  The mirror was heavy. They laid it face down on the floor, and Alec examined the back. Old paper sealed it, covering both mirror and the inside edge of the frame. There didn’t seem to be any disturbance to the original manufacture.

  A stained label bore the name of a gallery in Paris and also what he took to be a maker’s name. Phillipe Gerard. It meant nothing to Alec. He ran his hands around the edges of the paper seal. It lifted easily from one edge, but he soon realized this was only where the glue had hardened and fragmented. He peeled it away and looked at the back of the mirror beneath. Some of the silvering had begun to chip and crack and peel away, but other than that there was nothing to see.

  He propped the mirror against the sofa and went back upstairs.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked hopefully.

  A uniform and a CSI both looked up and shook heads. ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Hopefully, there’ll be something on the computer.’

  ‘Nope. He uses a removable hard drive.’ She indicated an empty space in the front of the machine. ‘He’s taken it with him. Tell you what, though, he can come and clean for me anytime. There’s barely a cat hair or a fingerprint.’

  He was wasting his time here, Alec thought. He went next door to where a young female officer was interviewing the cat-loving neighbour.

  ‘This is Fergie,’ he was told. A rather handsome tortoiseshell sat on the woman’s lap in pride of place. Thre
e other rather put-out-looking felines piled beside her on the settee. They looked pointedly at Alec, as though it was all his fault.

  ‘Tell me about your neighbour,’ Alec said. ‘How did you get along with him?’

  She looked surprised. ‘Oh, he’s a lovely man. No trouble at all. No noise, and he does his garden. I wasn’t sure about him when he moved in, you know –’ she leaned forward confidentially, her tight permed grey hair bouncing slightly as she did so – ‘him being a single man and all, but he’s been fine. I said he ought to have a cat, you know, some company for him, and he said all right, if I could advise him on that, and so I asked around and I got Fergie for him. Poor thing, his lady died, you know, and he was looking for someone new to be with and Mr Penbury was just perfect. And of course he comes over here and plays with my lovelies, don’t you, Fergie?’

  Alec left. So that accounted for the oddly named cat and the outrageously red accoutrements of cat ownership.

  What more could he do here?

  Nothing, he decided.

  He called Eddison and told him he was making his way to the incident room. Called Harry and asked if he and Patrick would take another look at the photo frame and the rest of Jamie’s stuff. Gave his love again to Naomi and got back in his car. Reset his satnav. Drove north and west this time, listening to the news.

  TWENTY

  Clara Thompson opened her front door and wished she hadn’t. The man outside was not particularly tall, neither was he especially muscular, but once he had taken hold of her there was nothing she could do to escape, no matter how hard she struggled or how she spit and fought.

  She screamed and cursed at him, hoping the neighbours would hear, but knowing almost for certain that there was no one in next door. They’d all be at work on a Wednesday. The man must have known that too; he held on to her very tightly, fastened her hands behind her back with something she vaguely recognized as a cable tie and then fastened that to another looped through the back of a kitchen chair. She kicked out as he grabbed her feet, but he caught them then tied them securely to the legs of the chair, but he didn’t bother to try and shut her up. His movements were neat and efficient, almost casual. Clara had been afraid before. Afraid when those thugs had beaten Paul for information he didn’t have. Afraid when the police had come. Afraid every day for her children. But that was nothing to what she felt now.