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  Once the family had passed out of view, he took the opportunity to check his phone, logging in to the various web-based mailboxes he used, and he froze. His first thought was that Eddison had sent the message. Jeannie1948, that was the email Jamie had chosen – though to his knowledge she had never used it.

  Noting there were attachments, he opened the message:

  I don’t know what these are, and I don’t know who I’m sending them to, but Jamie Dale left this email address and she hid these pictures so we think they might be important.

  Yours sincerely, Patrick Jones

  For a moment or two Gregory just stared at the message, overcome by the absurdity of it.

  Well, you’re polite, Patrick Jones, he thought. And very, very foolish. Then he opened the attachments and he understood. When had Jamie taken these pictures? The boy said she had hidden them. Where and how, and how had they been found? The boy might not have known the importance of these pictures, but Gregory understood it the moment he saw Eddison in the photographs and recognized who he was talking to. He understood just what a threat Jamie must have become to them. And why she had died.

  The armed guard was still at the hospital, the family liaison officer there too, and Travers’ wife, Maureen, sitting by the bed. Ironic, Munroe thought, that he was at most risk from someone supposed to be on the same side.

  ‘I need to talk to your husband alone,’ he told Maureen. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to leave for a few minutes.’

  ‘Whatever you have to say, I want to hear it.’ Maureen lifted her chin defiantly.

  ‘It’s all right, Maureen. Please, go, just for a little while.’

  She looked daggers at her husband, but she went, along with Susan, the liaison.

  Munroe took Susan’s seat beside the bed. ‘Tell me about Eddison,’ he said, ‘and about Gregory. And tell me fast, I don’t have much time.’

  Travers looked puzzled and then confused. He eased his position on the bed. ‘There’s not much I know,’ he said.

  ‘But a lot you suspect. So . . .?’

  Travers closed his eyes. He still looked exhausted. ‘It wasn’t Gregory,’ he said.

  ‘Eddison is insisting that it was.’

  Travers nodded. ‘That would suit him,’ he said.

  ‘Why? Nick, I don’t have much time. Eddison is way ahead of me.’

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  ‘Parks reckons he’s headed for Wales. Neil Robinson’s sister and her family are there. Maybe he thinks this Gregory is too.’

  ‘We all served together. There were five of us. Flynn was killed, and I was sent back home wounded. I went back, briefly. Then, well, let’s just say I found a way out.’

  ‘That much I know,’ Munroe said. ‘You were considered unfit to serve, got discharge on medical grounds, spent some time in a psychiatric unit.’

  Travers nodded. He smiled wryly. ‘It’s not the kind of record you want known. It’s in my file, of course, but not many are aware either at work or at home.’

  ‘Maureen doesn’t know?’

  Travers shook his head.

  ‘But, of course, Eddison did.’

  ‘Eddison makes sure he knows something about everyone. It’s what he does.’

  ‘It’s what he’s paid to do,’ Munroe said flatly.

  ‘Bit like you then. Does Eddison know who you are?’

  ‘Of course he does. It flatters him.’

  Munroe could see Maureen hovering outside the door. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘my guess is that whoever attacked you, Eddison arranged it.’

  ‘Eddison? Why?’

  ‘You don’t sound all that shocked.’

  Travers hesitated. ‘If Gregory had wanted me dead, then that’s what I’d be – and, believe me, I wouldn’t have seen it coming. Charlie told me Greg had died – killed in action, he said – but I was always doubtful. Greg worked deep cover for years, I knew that. Eddison was the public face, always was. Greg was the executive –’ he smiled – ‘and I don’t mean he wore a suit.’

  Munroe nodded. He could see Maureen arguing with Susan.

  ‘Charlie Eddison was ambitious. I suppose Greg was too, but in a different way. Charlie wanted, needed, to be seen, and Greg was a shadows man. All you ever saw of Gregory’s work was the body on the floor. Gregory is a dangerous man.’

  ‘So is Charlie Eddison,’ Munroe said. ‘Nick, what does the name Christopher Rains mean to you?’

  ‘Christopher.’ Travers seemed to grow paler. ‘I told you I went back. Charlie, Greg and Ben they were still part of the same unit, but in the three months I’d been away they’d changed. Everything had changed. They’d moved on, and I was still the – well, I should never have been there in the first place. Two days after I got back to base a group of insurgents were captured and brought in. An interrogation team arrived. Christopher Rains was in charge. At that time, I didn’t know his name, and I never did know his rank, or even if he had one. Talking to Charlie a long time later, he took great pride in showing me an article in some glossy magazine or other. There was Chris Rains, head of some government think tank on counter intelligence, and Charlie was named as one of the advisers. All jobs for the boys.’

  Adviser could mean a lot of things, Munroe thought. In Eddison’s case it had come to mean taking a more active role. Clearing the way for a number of very lucrative contracts as the war on terror spelt big profits for many of those Eddison had been ‘advising’. The suspicion was that Charlie Eddison had been effective in removing the opposition or the alternate tender from those parties he did not advise, either with good intelligence gathering, by dealing in the inevitable dirt that adhered to the powerful, or by more direct means. Some very well-placed government contractors and some more shadily-placed dealers in arms and information had benefited from Charlie Eddison’s skills.

  As had Charlie Eddison. Soon to retire, and with some very discreet investments that would cushion his later years nicely.

  ‘Tell me about Ben.’

  Travers took a deep breath. ‘Ben died in a police operation almost six years ago.’

  ‘An operation you were in charge of.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The official line is he was the victim of friendly fire. You had an armed suspect fleeing the scene and—’

  ‘And I gave the order to fire. Yes. None of us saw Ben. He’d been ordered to stay low, not to engage the suspect. If he’d stayed where he was meant to be, or even reported his new position, he’d still be alive.’

  ‘Which doesn’t stop you from feeling responsible.’

  ‘I’m not to blame.’

  ‘But that doesn’t always matter, does it? Alec tells me you and Michelle Sanders were more than friends.’

  ‘We had an affair. It ended just before her brother died.’

  ‘And your relationship since?’

  ‘There wasn’t one.’

  Maureen was positively mutinous now. She flung open the door and stood looking pointedly at Munroe.

  ‘I watched Christopher Rains work on one of the insurgents,’ Travers said, and Munroe was surprised that Nick no longer seemed to care if Maureen heard.

  ‘Gregory and Charlie, they were there, not all of the time, but for a lot of it. Charlie enjoyed it. Greg, he was just intrigued. Cold.’

  ‘And you?’

  Travers didn’t respond.

  Maureen returned to his bedside, eyes blazing. Defensive now. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘I want you to go.’

  Munroe left.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Harry and Patrick arrived for their meeting with Munroe a little early.

  ‘You think he’s here?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘I doubt it. Can you check your messages now?’

  ‘I can try.’ He had sent the email via his laptop, but now he dug his mobile out of his messenger bag. Harry glimpsed the sketchbook his son was rarely without and the tin of pencils and specialist fibre pens he had bought from some Japanese site online. Since leaving home he’
d not switched his own mobile on, relying purely on the disposable one, but now he needed to get online.

  Harry watched as he logged into his email.

  ‘There’s a reply.’

  ‘Open it.’ Harry found he could hardly breathe.

  Patrick read, and then read out loud. ‘It just says “call me”, and there’s a phone number. What do we do?’

  Harry thought about it. Had Alec or Naomi been available, he would have relied on their advice. This was way beyond his experience or understanding.

  Munroe’s car pulled into the car park and eased in beside them.

  ‘We talk to DS Munroe,’ he said. Then, observing the mutinous look on his son’s face: ‘And then we ring this man.’

  Harry found that all this excitement bred an appetite. He wasn’t sure if to be ashamed of that, or just get on and order a larger lunch.

  Munroe listened as Patrick explained how he had found the memory card and what they had done next. The remaining images were still on Patrick’s laptop. Sitting in the cosy little dining room of the Radcliffe Arms, Munroe looked at pictures that not only implicated Eddison but also had the potential to crash some very major reputations. The CEO of a major telecommunications company in rather close proximity to a very high-up fixer. A government minister drinking with a man who was currently under investigation for seeking to bribe another minister.

  ‘Do you recognize any of these people?’ he asked.

  Harry shrugged. ‘Eddison, of course, and I think that bald man there is something in the government. I’ve seen him on Newsnight.’

  Patrick was thinking. He touched the screen, as though that helped him focus. ‘Him and him,’ he said. ‘And the woman. I mean, I don’t know who they are, just the faces. I’m pretty good with faces.’

  ‘I hear you’re an artist.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘Trying to be. Who are they?’

  Munroe hesitated. ‘Where do you think you’ve seen them?’

  Patrick thought about it, touching the screen again.

  Harry looked uncomfortable. ‘Patrick?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look, what do we do about the phone call? Do we call him?’ He was still staring at the computer screen, as though something puzzled him.

  ‘We make the call,’ Munroe said. ‘And we talk to Alec too, warn him that Eddison is heading his way.’

  Patrick seemed to make up his mind about something. ‘That man there.’ He pointed to a figure tucked away in the background. Medium height, not heavily built, short sandy hair. Insignificant. ‘I’ve see him,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure where.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  Patrick nodded. ‘Like I said, I’m good with faces. I just don’t remember where. You know, I think it was when you brought Naomi back to stay with us. Maybe he was in a car or something. Who is he, anyway?’

  ‘It’s very possible he was watching you,’ Munroe agreed. ‘Patrick, that’s Gregory.’

  To Patrick’s annoyance, it was Munroe who made contact with Gregory, and they talked at length, Munroe standing in the car park and out of earshot. They talked about Clara and her children, about Eddison, about the images Patrick had emailed to Gregory. I’ve set him and Eddison on a collision course, Munroe thought. Clash of the Titans. Problem is, who is going to get caught up in the collateral damage?

  ‘We need to get the kids away,’ Gregory said. ‘Eddison won’t care, you know that.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘And I do.’

  ‘Look,’ Munroe said. ‘You’re on the ground there, do what you can. I’ll see who I can convince this end, but Gregory, things are moving at a rate of knots here. Eddison will reach you before I can.’

  After Munroe hung up, he turned to Harry and Patrick. So, what now? he thought.

  ‘Alec and Naomi have gone to see Clara,’ Harry said. ‘They may already have seen her, I don’t know.’

  Munroe could not hide his consternation. ‘Go home, Harry. You’ve done enough now.’

  ‘No,’ Harry told him. ‘We’re going to where our friends are. If they’re in trouble, we want to help.’

  ‘And when you run into trouble, who’s going to pull you out? Think of your son.’

  ‘I always think of him. His opinion matters a great deal and I need to be able to look him in the eye and say I behaved as I’d expect him to behave. We’ll hold back – I promise you we won’t rush in, as it were – but we will be on hand.’ He asked, as Munroe said his goodbyes, ‘Where will you be going?’

  Munroe shrugged. ‘Same place as you,’ he said. ‘Just by a slightly different route.’

  Gregory had long since known that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, all your apples in the same barrel, or all of your insurance policies in the same folder.

  It had been Jamie who taught him about cloud computing, and from Eddison he had learnt the value of hiding in plain sight. He named his folders after books and, taking note of what Jamie had told him about people skimming initial paragraphs before deciding what to read, had added innocuous, even boring notes on the texts involved. She had been deeply amused, but that had been before she had learnt to be afraid. Now, he removed those excess notes. He wanted the recipients to read on.

  The contacts he now selected as recipients for these little bomblets of information were from Jamie’s contact book. He saw it as a tribute to her.

  Newspaper editors, media groups, politicians . . . He spread the net wide. And to the intel he already had on Eddison and his cohort, he added the photographs that Patrick Jones had sent to him. Much of this might be ignored at first, he knew, but it would take only one person to run with it, to ask the questions, to make a challenge and the rest would follow. He just hoped it would all happen fast enough.

  THIRTY

  Alec, Naomi and Clara had arrived at the farm and driven down the narrow track to where the caravan was parked. Paul and the children were just returning from their walk when they arrived, coming over the bank that separated the farm from the beach.

  Paul halted part way down the slope and stared at them in horror. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Who the hell are they?’

  The girls had seen their mother and begun to run towards her. ‘Mummy, Mummy, we saw a jellyfish and a—’ Jilly fell silent, her father’s anger cutting the greeting short.

  ‘I’m sorry, Paul. I had to come! Alec here is a policeman. This is his wife. They’ve come to help us.’

  ‘Help us! Help us! Are you insane, woman? You could have helped us by keeping the hell away. You saw what they did to me. You saw! You brought this down on our heads, you and Neil. I’ve been keeping our kids safe, and now you bring them here? Who else knows you’ve come? Who else?’

  Alec stepped forward. ‘She was scared, Paul. Just scared. This place isn’t safe now, you’ve got to leave.’

  ‘Leave? No, no, I don’t think so. We’ve been fine here, me and the kids. You’re the ones that have to go.’

  This could go on for some time, Naomi thought. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘How about the three of you work it out and the girls take Napoleon and I for a walk on the beach?’

  ‘Is that your dog?’ Jilly asked.

  ‘Can’t you see?’ Kay wanted to know.

  ‘Can we, Daddy, please?’

  ‘What harm can I possibly do them? I can’t exactly run off with them, can I?’ Naomi said quietly. ‘It would be better than watching you and Clara, er, talk this over, wouldn’t it?’

  Paul gave in. She heard him sigh, could almost visualize him deflating. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Girls, make sure you’ve got your drinks and snacks and take—’

  ‘Naomi,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Take Naomi to the beach. You’d better come inside,’ he said to Clara and Alec. ‘And what you’ve got to say, it had better be good.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’ Alec sounded concerned. ‘Napoleon doesn’t know this place. He’s not going to be a lot of use to you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. He’ll sto
p me heading out to sea, and Jilly and Kay know all about the beach, don’t you?’

  A few moments while the girls got drinks and stowed them in their packs, and then Jilly, suddenly very grown up, took Naomi by the hand. ‘I’ll look after you,’ she said. ‘Can I pet your dog? What’s he called?’

  ‘Napoleon, and yes, you can stroke him, but while he’s got his harness on he knows he’s working, so just give him a little stroke, OK?’

  ‘Napolinon,’ Kay tried. ‘That’s a funny name.’ Not to be outdone by her sister, she slipped her hand beside Naomi’s on Napoleon’s harness. And the four of them, woman, children and dog, chattering and laughing, slowly walked away.

  Gregory had planned to approach Paul and the children and either convince or force them to leave with him, aboard the inflatable in which he’d come ashore, an old Zodiac with a powerful outboard. What he had not expected was to see Naomi Friedman, a large black dog and the two little girls coming towards him, but he had no time to change or modify his plan. Already there were signs that he had made his move almost too late. Twice now, in the distance, he had glimpsed a helicopter casting along the shoreline, buzzing back inland and then turning back out to sea. It was still distant, and for the moment seemed to be moving away, but it would only be a matter of time before the pilot found his bearings and identified their position. Eddison would have instigated a search for the Jeannie, and there she was, moored out in open water.

  He left his place in the dunes and began to walk towards the little group, Taking out his phone, he called Patrick. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Um, is this Gregory? I mean, how did you get my phone number?’