Night Vision Page 17

  Alec and Harry returned with drinks. ‘I’ve booked you in for the night,’ Alec told Matthew. ‘You’ve just got to fill in the register. I thought it might be best.’

  ‘Thanks, Alec,’ Matthew said.

  ‘You said, back at the funeral, that she didn’t really have friends.’

  ‘No, she didn’t, not now. It started a couple of years ago. She was seeing this guy called Dan Toon. He was a cameraman she’d worked with – well, we’d both worked with on occasions. We all thought there’d be wedding bells, or at least a bit of cohabitation. She’d always liked to go out, enjoyed a drink, a club, you know Jamie – or rather you knew Jamie. Suddenly, out of the blue, she dumps him, moves out of her flat and changes her phone number. She even threatened to get an injunction out if he tried to see her. And it wasn’t just Dan – she dropped out of sight except for work, and even that was hit and miss. I’m afraid Jamie started to get a reputation for unreliability. After a time, the list of people that wouldn’t work with her – well, let’s just say it was a long one.’

  ‘But what happened? Surely it couldn’t have happened just like that. There must have been signs. Did this Dan hurt her in some way?’

  ‘No, you see, that’s what was so strange. There were no signs. It was that sudden. There was this Friday night, November, two years last November. She and Dan and a whole group of us were out celebrating a birthday. Jamie was happy, laughing, as much fun to be with as she always was. Dan was happy, talking about a flat they’d just been to look at. We all went our separate ways about two in the morning, then I got a phone call from Dan on the Sunday saying Jamie had dumped him.’

  ‘So what happened between early Saturday morning and the Sunday?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Did they spend that night together?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Well, yes, sort of. Jamie apparently went back to Dan’s place. When he woke up late Saturday morning she’d gone. He didn’t think anything of it, then when he tried to call her later that day her phone was off. He tried her home phone, but no joy there either. He went round that night, let himself in, but no Jamie. Then she called him the next morning and just said she didn’t want to see him again.’

  Their meals arrived, and conversation paused.

  ‘So what happened after that?’ Alec wanted to know.

  ‘She broke contact with just about everyone. Stopped seeing friends, stopped calling, stopped taking calls.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I think at first we all made it easy for her. You know how people try not to take sides with mutual friends but inevitably do? Well, I think a lot of us were shocked and took Dan’s part. The rest of us just thought we’d wait her out, see if they could reconcile or if she started to make contact again. I think we took the easy option. I’m afraid that’s what happened.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Left for the Middle East the week after the split, came back five months later and Jamie was no longer part of the scene. Dan said he’d gone to the flat, her flat, tried to let himself in, but she’d changed the locks. He kept trying to call her, but she changed her phone, only gave her number to people who absolutely had to have it. Then when he kept on trying to make contact she threatened to get an injunction. So he stopped. That was that.’

  Naomi thought about it, trying to make sense of the sequence. Jamie had kept in sporadic contact with herself and Alec, had even called when they sent the wedding invitation. Had she sounded like her old self ? No, Naomi decided, she’d said she was tired and in the middle of projects that were taking all her time and energy, and Naomi had assumed this was why she hadn’t been her bubbly self. The card and photo frame had arrived and, Naomi realized, she had given Jamie little further thought.

  ‘You stayed in touch though,’ she said.

  ‘Not at first,’ Matthew admitted. ‘I was home in London for a couple of weeks and then back in the field. It was the best part of ten, eleven months before I actually saw Jamie again, and that was only because I bumped into her one day. She’d been in to see one of the commissioning editors, and we ran into one another in the lobby. We chatted, had coffee, and I made a point of keeping in touch.’

  ‘How did she seem?’

  ‘Quieter,’ he said, so quickly that Naomi realized he’d given this a lot of thought. ‘Older. Sadder, somehow.’

  ‘Did she say anything? I mean, about what happened.’

  ‘Naomi, I soon learnt to keep the conversation neutral. I could discuss work or the weather, even what was in the news, but the moment the conversation even looked like turning personal it was like I’d pressed the off switch. I heard she was having trouble getting work, and I did what I could to help, but she wasn’t the same. She was as efficient as ever, sometimes, then she’d suddenly not turn up for work or she’d be so snippy with everyone that the atmosphere was terrible. I’m afraid to say I’d reached the point where – well, we had an almighty row. Later, I heard about the crash and that she was dead.’

  Silence for a few beats. Munroe broke it this time. ‘What did you fight about?’

  Matthew laughed bitterly. ‘Her behaviour towards the rest of the crew. She was constantly picking fault, utterly impatient, and yet she didn’t seem to know what she did want. We’d been editing a sequence, some filming we’d done in Manchester, picking up threads from the earlier documentaries. It was going well, but suddenly Jamie was ranting, and I mean out of control ranting, just because someone put sugar in her tea. So, later on that day, I gave her an ultimatum. She either told me what was eating her, or she was finished so far as I was concerned. I couldn’t go on covering up for her, smoothing things over—’

  ‘And how long before the crash was that?’

  ‘It was the day before. The next day she didn’t turn up for work. I think we all breathed a secret sigh of relief and got on with editing the Manchester sequences. I got home that night and watched the news. She was dead.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  They left the Black Horse just after six with the intention of going to the house to collect clothes for Alec, check the post and pick up a few bits and pieces that Naomi wanted. Harry took Naomi and Alec, while Munroe followed on behind. Harry and Naomi would then go back Harry’s, and Alec would return to the investigation with Munroe.

  Matthew had, inevitably, asked them about that. Were they involved in the investigation, did they know anything? He probed for a while, but Munroe deflected him and Alec just watched with some amusement. By the time they left, Matthew Broughton knew no more than he had a couple of hours before. Alec found himself wondering if any of them did.

  It was a bright, clear evening, though a slight chill to the stiffening breeze suggested that rain might be on the way. No one said much, the events of the afternoon had been unsettling and sad and an air of melancholy had descended that seemed resistant to conversation.

  It was the first time Naomi had returned home since she had come with Harry, and she did not feel exactly comfortable doing so now. Megan had said she’d been getting a patrol car to do the odd extra run, but as Naomi wasn’t there, focus had shifted to Harry’s place back in the town.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car unless you need me,’ Harry said.

  ‘Just as you like,’ Alec told him.

  Munroe got out of his car and leaned against the wing. He looked as though he was enjoying the evening air, eyes half closed and his jacket off. Alec led the way inside.

  They halted in the doorway, knowing at once that something was wrong.

  ‘What is that smell?’

  ‘You didn’t leave anything out of the fridge?’ Alec suggested.

  ‘Alec, that isn’t something left out of the fridge.’

  ‘No, you’re right, it’s not. I think you should wait outside. Or wait here.’

  ‘Alec!’

  ‘OK.’ He took her hand, and together they walked cautiously down the hall and into the kitchen. The kitchen door stood wide. The smell was overpowering now. Dead thing. Very dead thing. The buzzing of flies astonishingly
loud in the enclosed space. Alec let go of Naomi’s hand and moved to where he could see.

  ‘What is it?’ Naomi demanded. Then, suddenly understanding, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Whoever it had once been, their face was now a bloody pulp. Something, Alec guessed close to a week’s worth of decomposition, had done the rest. It could have been someone he knew and he’d not have recognized them. ‘We should go.’

  He led Naomi back out of the house and called to Munroe. Harry, realizing something was wrong, got out of his car. The smell was now following them though the house and outside, or was it just, Naomi wondered, that it had attacked the inside of her nose and fixed itself there?

  ‘We were here only four days ago!’ she said.

  ‘He’s been dead longer than four days. Harry, go home, please, I’ll come to you there. Pack a bag and get ready to leave. Get Patrick and Mari to do the same. Munroe, get on to Eddison and tell him to get his backside over here.’

  ‘Who are you calling?’ Munroe wanted to know.

  ‘People I can trust,’ Alec said.

  It was two hours before Alec arrived at Harry’s place. He had called Megan Allison, and she had arrived with PC Watkins in tow and what looked to Alec like half the Pinsent force. SOCOs had been in evidence only minutes later, and Alec and Naomi’s home, now a crime scene, was cordoned and isolated.

  Alec waited until all had been set in motion, and then he got someone to give him a lift across town, leaving Munroe to explain to Eddison once he arrived.

  ‘Do we know who it was?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘His name was Freddie Gains. He was a friend of Neil Robinson. They served time together. Munroe recognized the tattoo on his arm.’

  ‘So what now?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘I leave it to them. Eddison’s been in touch, offered us a safe house. I’ve declined. I think I’m happier if we fend for ourselves. Harry—?’

  ‘Taken care of,’ Harry said. ‘We’re going to take Mum up to her sisters, and Patrick has been on the Internet and we’ve managed to bring our flights forward. We think Florida might be far enough away from trouble. What about the two of you?’

  ‘Here,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ve charged these, so you can use yours right away. Then get another when you can. I’ve put the number of the other one in your phone.’

  ‘What—?’ Alec looked at the tiny phone Patrick had placed in his hand.

  ‘We’ve got two. I take that one with me if I go out for the night. If I lose it, it’s just a tenner gone and that includes top-up calls, and Dad takes the other one if we’re out walking. I think it might be safer if, you know, we don’t use our own.’

  ‘I think you could be right. You’ve not registered either of these phones?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘Gran’s old car is in the garage,’ he said. ‘I’ve started it up and checked the oil and water. We thought it might be best if you use that.’

  ‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Patrick said. ‘But I think we’ve got the obvious stuff.’

  ‘Right, I think we should leave. Be careful, Harry.’

  ‘You too.’

  Minutes later and they were gone, headed in opposite directions, Alec setting out through Pinsent and then across country, watching in his mirror for any sign that they were being followed.

  ‘You think they’ll be all right?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so. Eddison is convinced this all has to do with the original investigation. He thinks that’s why Travers was targeted and why we have been.’

  ‘But they tried to kill Trav. They seem to be just trying to put the frighteners on us.’

  ‘And succeeding at that. Naomi, I don’t pretend to know, but I think Eddison might be on to something. Neil Robinson said or did something that no one saw the significance of at the time. I don’t think even Robinson knew he’d done it. Then, my guess is, he saw or was told something that made him realize he knew something important. So he tried to tell Jamie.’

  ‘It must have been something she was involved in for him to make that connection. But what?’

  ‘I’m guessing he must have confided in Freddie Gains, and maybe in his sister, Clara, too.’

  ‘So why just scare us? Why kill him and Jamie and now this Freddie Gains and not us? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It does if they think we have information. If they think we actually know what all this is about and can pass on whatever it is. Maybe they thought Jamie and Freddie Gains knew; maybe they tried to force that information out of them, but Jamie and Freddie simply didn’t have it.’

  ‘Neither do we,’ Naomi pointed out, ‘and ignorance didn’t keep Jamie safe, did it?’

  ‘Which is why we need to find whatever it is out,’ Alec said.

  ‘And how are we going to do that? And where are we going, anyway?’

  ‘Wales,’ Alec said.

  ‘What’s in Wales?’

  ‘Oh, rain, sheep, hills, the odd mountain. And Clara, Neil Robinson’s sister.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  If Jamie had simply kept to the brief she had been given, none of this would have happened, Gregory thought. She was a talented film maker and had a way with people; five minutes in her company and they were telling her their life story.

  He paused, standing on the jetty and listening as he always did for sounds that might signal something not so ordinary. Gregory had been a little shaken when he’d recognized the image on the picture. His boat. She had never been registered as part of Madigor property. He had always filtered her ownership via other companies he had shares in. In fact, it had been with Neil’s help that he had tightened this security, Neil’s understanding of such things being broad and deep.

  The Jeannie was not a new or an attractive vessel – a converted collier, she had been little more than a transporter with a cabin until Gregory had purchased and converted her. From the outside she was still unprepossessing; inside, she was home, far more home than his current house was, than anywhere else he had ever lived had been.

  He had bought supplies, and he took them aboard now, started the engines and cast off before bothering to stow them. A sense of urgency affected him, and the feeling that he should put distance between himself and land. Between himself and those he now knew would be in pursuit.

  Gregory was not afraid. It was simply that he didn’t wish to be caught.

  He chugged out into the gathering dusk, enjoying the last of the light, rounded the buoy that marked the harbour entrance and then followed the coastline around the headland before heading out into deeper water. The first stars emerged from a still pale sky. He loved this time of year with its long dusks.

  Checking his charts again before dropping anchor, reassuring himself that he was in quiet waters here and hoping that no call had been put out to watch for the Jeannie, he went below and put away the provisions he had bought.

  Gregory ate and then settled in front of his computer, searching through the files on Jamie Dale.

  If she’d just stuck to the brief . . .

  He recalled their first meeting: coffee, with a colleague of his, of Joshua Penbury’s. Funny, he had now shed that persona so completely that it felt as though he was thinking of someone else. He had been employed as a technical adviser – not the first time he had taken such a role. Ex-military and with some experience in intelligence, according to his CV, Joshua Penbury was just one of a list of ‘experts’ brought on board from time to time as advisers to film-makers.

  Christopher had arranged it, of course, the original setting-up of that list. The careful selection of its members. He knew that if there was ever a vacuum, someone or something would move to fill it, and that someone might not be so easily controlled.

  Of course, things had moved on since then, but some of the old guard still remained. Some dinosaurs to pick off the mammals. And he had liked Jamie. Loved her spirit and her idealism and her energy.

  She should
have kept to the brief.

  The film she had been making, the issues raised, Gregory could have given his wholehearted support to that – and he had. Getting her the introductions she required, even going with her to the homeless shelters in the UK and in the states and even in Moscow, where his fluency in the language had saved them a great deal of time and trouble.

  Then, in Seattle, she had been introduced to a young soldier, a young marine who had told her about the game, and that had been that.

  Gregory wasn’t sure how he felt about the use of drones to carry bombs.

  ‘But it saves lives, doesn’t it?’ Jamie had asked him.

  ‘Does it? Or does it kill those who might not have died?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  At the time he would not be drawn, but when Jamie came back she had filled in the gaps for herself.

  ‘They call it Bugsplat,’ she said. ‘They treat it like a video game. I mean, not all of them, but some – and that’s bad enough. They seem separate from it, like they’re bombing little video people, not real live human beings.’

  ‘That’s always been the way of things,’ Gregory had told her. ‘You shut yourself off, keep it separate. Bomber pilots couldn’t think of all the deaths they would cause. If you fire a missile, you don’t know what it will take out. Even if you shoot a gun you can’t be sure.’

  ‘I know.’ She had shrugged and smiled at him. ‘But it seems like – I don’t know, maybe every generation has its own version of night vision.’

  ‘Night vision?’ A little bell had rung in Gregory’s brain. Something he had read about? Heard about?

  ‘The new generation of drones. That’s what the software is going to be called. It’s deliberately been set up so it looks like game play, and that’s what it will be called. The official line is that’s so it’s easier for kids who’ve grown up with computer games to assimilate the information in the training programmes, but . . . I don’t know, it all feels like it’s designed to separate them even more from the real blood and guts of it all.’