Night Vision Read online

  Munroe arrived at the farm about thirty minutes after Gregory had left, almost an hour after Eddison had taken Alec and the others away and forty minutes after the contradictory orders had started to arrive.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ DI Southam, de facto commander of operations now that Eddison had gone, was fielding queries from officers, command centres and now from the media, who seemed oddly au fait with the incident at Northbeach Farm. And taking considerable flack from the owner, Mathilda Morgan, currently confined to her kitchen but making an almighty racket about it.

  Eddison had ordered her arrest on conspiracy charges, but now Southam was not so sure.

  Munroe showed his credentials.

  ‘Counter intelligence? I’m not sure I get this.’

  ‘You’ve been ordered to stand down?’

  ‘Well, yes, but I’m sure you realize, you don’t just suddenly discontinue an operation this size, not without some proper authorization.’

  ‘Consider your arse covered,’ Munroe told him. ‘Stand your people down, and I want you and two more to come with me.’

  ‘On whose authority?’

  Munroe told him to call his boss to verify the instructions, and then he went inside to confront Tilly Morgan. She regarded him with narrowed eyes. ‘Who the ’ell are youm? You get this load o’ rakes out my kitchin.’

  ‘Go,’ Munroe instructed. ‘Now. All right if I sit down, Mrs Morgan?’

  The eyes narrowed even further, but she nodded curtly. Behind him, Southam entered the kitchen.

  ‘An ’e can bugger off too!’

  ‘Two minutes,’ Munroe told Southam, and he and his people retreated outside.

  ‘Now, Mrs Morgan, you’ve been very kind to some friends of mine, letting them stay here.’

  ‘Where have the kids gone?’ she demanded. ‘I see them bring the feyther and that woman, but not the kiddies.’

  ‘Safe, I promise you. I arranged for them to get out before the police arrived.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Boat. They were taken off the beach by boat.’

  She didn’t look convinced. ‘You going to get ’im then?’ she said. ‘Youm goin’ to take those daft buggers away?’

  ‘I’m going to leave a few of those daft buggers here,’ he told her. ‘Mrs Morgan, the newspapers and the television, they’re going to be very interested in you, so I think it’s best if there’s someone here to keep them off your land.’

  ‘Newspapers, eh?’ she said, and he could see the wheels turning in her head.

  ‘Until you’re ready to talk to them, of course.’ He stood up again, and then leaned close to the old woman. She smelt of lemon thyme and toast. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said, but you make sure the papers pay you for your story, eh? How your little farm was raided by all these daft buggers. Oh, and ask about some compensation, too, OK?’

  She smiled at him then, though the eyes were still narrow slits in the wrinkled face.

  You’re not such a daft bugger, are you, Munroe thought as he left her. Satisfied, he noted that Southam was organizing an orderly retreat and that two men in full defensive gear stood close by, waiting for Munroe to emerge.

  ‘Get a vest on,’ Southam instructed, and Munroe complied, shedding his jacket and fastening the bullet-proof garment over his shirt. Not that it would make a damn microbe of difference, he thought. Both Eddison and Gregory had been trained to go for the head shot, and he was under no illusions. Gregory might have temporarily have joined forces with him, but that was only for so long as their interest coincided. Gregory was now after Eddison, and Munroe knew full well that he would shoot anyone who got between him and his prey.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eddison demanded. The front escort car had stopped, and so had the van, forcing Eddison’s car to brake too.

  His driver shrugged. ‘Don’t know, guv. Want me to take a look?’

  The driver of the lead car was walking back towards them, speaking to someone on his radio. He looked concerned.

  Eddison got out. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

  ‘Well, we’ve just had a change of orders, sir. We’re to go back to the farm.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir, but the orders come from the Chief Constable himself, sir. We’ve got to find somewhere to turn this lot around.’

  ‘There’ll be a farm gate a half mile on,’ said Eddison’s driver, a local man who knew the lanes.

  ‘We’re not going back,’ Eddison said. ‘We’re going on.’

  ‘Sir, the orders come from the Chief Constable. With respect, guv, he’s a bit higher up the chain than any of us, including you.’

  ‘And I say we go on.’

  Looks of puzzlement became looks of shock and then of fear. Eddison was armed. Two shots, and two dead officers lay on the narrow road.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Paul said.

  ‘That was a gun,’ Clara told him coldly.

  Paul looked to Alec for verification.

  ‘Two shots,’ Alec said. This is it then, he thought. He got up and banged on the partition between them and the cab. ‘What’s going on out there?’

  A third shot told him he wasn’t going to find out that way. He looked desperately for a means of escape, knowing there was none. They sat on benches in an inner cage.

  ‘OK,’ Clara said. ‘We get one chance at this. When he opens the door, we charge him.’

  ‘I like your spirit,’ Alec said, ‘But Clara, he’ll just shoot us through the wire, he won’t bother to even open the inner door.’

  He heard a shout outside and another shot, something heavy stumbled against the van, and then the sound of running feet. Desperately, Alec tried to interpret the sounds. Three shots, he thought – three men down. Dead, or at the very least out of the equation. There would have been two officers in the lead car, maybe two in the van? And they would be armed on a detail like this. Had the second man in the lead car had time to get to his weapon?

  Alec prayed that had been the case and that backup would arrive before Eddison got another shot at him.

  Buy some time, he thought fervently. Just buy us some time. That, he figured, was the best they could hope for; the smart money, he knew, would be on Eddison.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Gregory took the bends at speed; the police cordon meant he had no worries about anything coming the other way. The little hatchback roared and then screamed as he over-revved the engine. He slammed it into fifth and then retreated back to fourth as the road began to rise; old and tired, the engine couldn’t make the hill. He changed down again, cursing the car and Eddison’s head start, taking comfort only in the knowledge that the convoy up ahead would not be driving at such reckless speed. Even so, they still had half an hour on him, and anything could have happened in that time. It was a shock, then, when he veered round a particularly nasty bend in the road and came upon them.

  The doors to the rear car were open, and Gregory could see the bodies of two officers, lying in the road. The van doors were closed. He swore as he caught sight of the bullet holes shot straight through the back panels.

  Cautiously, he got out of the car and moved forward, not certain if, as his first instinct suggested, Eddison had already gone, or whether he should at any second expect it all to be over. Not that he’d know, Gregory thought. Eddison was too good a shot for that.

  Another body slumped in the front of the van. The second car was gone. A fourth beside the front vehicle opened his eyes as Gregory approached. Gregory assessed his wounds with a professional eye. Bullet wound to the shoulder, and one to the gut. He gave him a small chance, if help got there fast.

  So, Eddison had run.

  ‘I shot him. Leg.’

  Gregory crouched down beside the fallen man. ‘You hit him?’

  ‘Yes. In the leg. Upper thigh.’

  ‘Good on you,’ Gregory told him. ‘Lie still. Don’t talk any more, OK?’

  Gregory’s first insti
nct was to get back in his car in pursuit. There was nothing he could do for the three dead officers, and hanging round would not improve the chances of the fourth. What about those inside the van? Irritated with himself for even pausing for that long, he went back round to the rear of the van and shot off the lock, then opened the doors.

  Three slumped figures on the vehicle floor. Gregory watched as one slowly raised his head.

  ‘You’re still alive, then,’ Gregory said to Alec.

  ‘Just about. Paul is hit, in the calf, but it’s a through and through. He’ll live.’

  He flinched back as Gregory dealt with the inner door and then began to walk away.

  ‘You can’t leave us!’ Clara shouted after him.

  ‘Watch me.’ He gestured at the remaining police car. ‘First-aid kit in there I imagine, and here—’ He picked up a mobile phone from where it had fallen beside one of the bodies. Checked it was still working. ‘Best call for an ambulance. There’s a man round the front of the van, gut shot. Don’t move him.’

  Alec scrambled down. ‘You’re going after Eddison?’

  Gregory nodded. ‘It’s what we do,’ he said. ‘It’s all I’ve ever been good at.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Oh, I should watch the news over the next week or two, if I were you,’ he said. ‘Jamie’s story, it’ll get out there by then. I’ve kind of made sure of that.’

  Alec nodded. Clara had already picked up the phone. Behind them, Paul was groaning softly. Alec fetched the first-aid kit and went first to the fallen officer. This was way beyond plasters and bandages, he thought as he opened the green pack and assessed what was inside. He could hear Clara talking on the phone.

  Sitting down in the middle of the road and deciding that Clara could patch her husband up without his help, he took the hand of the fallen man and held on tight.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The news that Eddison had been wounded was the best he’d had in a long time. How bad, he wondered. How far would he be able to drive?

  He remembered that night so long ago when Travers had been shot, high up on the thigh, so close to the femoral artery that Gregory had been sure he would bleed out before help could arrive. Travers had been lucky, a finger’s width away from not being here any more, and even then it was only that they had kept him immobile, kept the pressure on. Known what to do. On his own and he would have had, what ten minutes? Fifteen? And now, from the sound of it, he’d cheated death again.

  Good luck to you, Gregory thought. Make the most of it, Nick.

  Another bend, another rise and—

  A police vehicle slewed across the road, the driver’s door half open.

  Gregory stopped the car and watched for signs of life.

  No movement from the car. Had Eddison got out? Was he lying wait in the fields next to the road? He cut the engine and freewheeled down to the back of the other car, listening for any sound that might betray Eddison’s presence.

  There was none.

  Slowly, cautiously, Gregory got out of the car and walked round to the passenger side of Eddison’s vehicle. The man lay slumped in the driver’s seat, and it was obvious to Gregory that he was dead. He had lost his kill.

  For a while Gregory squatted beside the car, looking, just looking at Charlie Eddison. They had history, he thought, and once upon a time that history had been a good one. But that was far too long ago to matter now.

  He rose, glanced back in the direction of where he had left Alec with the wounded man. He wished him well. Ironically, Gregory thought, he could have no idea just what kudos he had won in certain circles. Then Gregory got into the battered little car and drove away.

  EPILOGUE

  Patrick had called them from the airport. They would make their flight, he said. See them when he and Harry got back.

  ‘Good,’ Alec said.

  They had taken up residence in Harry’s home for the time being, and Naomi doubted she would ever want to set foot in their own house again. She wasn’t really sure what she wanted now.

  Napoleon harrumphed, as though that was his opinion of all this broken routine.

  ‘Totally agree, old man,’ Alec said.

  Alec had spent twelve hours being debriefed – or interrogated, as he continued to think of it. Harry, Patrick and Naomi had also spent a good few hours trying to explain what they had done, though Naomi knew that Munroe had protected them from the worst of it. Jilly and Kay were with their mother, and Paul would be fine, as would the policeman who had shot Eddison. He had come through surgery, and all was cautiously optimistic. Naomi didn’t think Paul and Clara’s marriage had such a good prognosis though.

  ‘Where do you think he went to?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. So long as it’s far away from me and thee I don’t think I care.’

  Naomi agreed. ‘I’ve been scared,’ she said.

  Alec laughed. ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean because of this. I mean, because of what happened last year. I’ve lived scared. For no good reason. I mean, it’s not as if . . . I mean, the reason for me being scared had gone away, but the fear was still there, you know.’

  ‘I think it’s called post-traumatic stress,’ Alec said. ‘I think it’s fairly normal.’

  ‘Oh, I know. I’m not going to be all uptight about it. It’s just that I’m not now, not scared any more.’

  ‘OK. And what changed?’

  ‘It was when Gregory dumped us on the beach. Me, dog, and two little kids and told me and Munroe that I’d be OK. Alec, I was terrified. I was just so out of my depth. But it was OK. I managed. And somewhere along the line I forgot to be afraid. Not afraid for me, anyway. I realized he was right, I’d be OK.’

  She waited, expecting some glib response or some Alec platitude, the sort he resorted to when he didn’t know what to say, but knew he had to try. Instead, he took her by surprise.

  ‘I handed in my resignation today,’ he said. ‘And no, I’m not going to withdraw it. I’m going to go in tomorrow and clean out my desk, as you do, and then I’m coming back here and we’re going to decide what we both want to happen next.’

  It was clear from his tone that he expected an argument. She could hear the defensiveness in his voice. He had said this sort of thing before, when life had grown too complicated or the job too much. But she could hear that he meant it now.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I think that’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yeah. Time to let go. Time for change. We’ve got options, we’ve got money – we’re in a really good place, as they say. Let’s just take it a day at a time for a while. I’ll come with you tomorrow, help you pack your box.’

  She settled close to him on the settee, Napoleon’s head resting on her knees and let the peace and contentment of the moment wash over her.

  Miles away, aboard the Jeannie, Gregory stood quietly. Thinking of Jamie Dale and looking at the stars.