Night Vision (24 page)

Patrick took it from him. ‘Have you got your penknife on you?'

‘Of course.'

Patrick took the knife and went over to the window where the light was best. He gently began to lever the sticky pad from the card and then pulled the reindeer off the other side.

‘What are you doing?'

Patrick held his breath. ‘This stuff should be flexible, shouldn't it?'

‘I think so. Patrick, what is it?'

With the tip of the knife Patrick began to probe the sticky pad, peeling back the top layer and exposing – ‘Look.'

‘What is it?' Harry peered at the blue plastic nestled in the foam.

‘It's a micro SD card. A memory card.'

‘Ah, so it is. Can you get it out?'

‘Yes, but I need something to get the gunge off.'

‘Right. Ah.' Harry opened the minibar and found a miniature of Vodka. Carefully, he soaked the corner of his handkerchief and Patrick gently cleaned the remnants of glue and foam from the tiny, flimsy plastic.

‘Can you put it in your computer? It looks smaller than the ones that go in your camera.'

‘It is. I'll need an adaptor. We can get one at any camera or computer shop.'

‘Patrick. This is evidence. Why would Jamie have sent it to Alec and Naomi if it wasn't?'

‘Sure, but evidence of what? And if it was so important, why didn't she at least tell them about it in some way? For all she knew they might have done what most people do and put the card in the recycling.'

‘She knew Naomi,' Harry said. ‘And she knew that if there was information on the card they'd probably keep it. I would have done. Even if I'd put the new address in the book, chances are I'd also have slipped the card into a drawer or something. And anyway, think what she said in the card. Hang on to this in case you need my new address. Something like that?'

‘Keep it safe,' Patrick corrected. ‘And, like Gran says, Naomi is a magpie. It's still a hell of a risk, though. I mean, that was Christmas; it's June now.'

‘I think she took a chance that Naomi would still have the same habits, or that she or Alec would realize something was unusual,' Harry said.

‘Naomi might,' Patrick thought. ‘I think it's a bit too subtle for Alec. It sounds desperate.'

‘Yes,' Harry agreed. ‘It does.'

The interrogation of Tony Marsh continued. Parks watched and listened as Eddison demanded he admit to having picked up this Gregory person from the hotel and Tony Marsh consistently rejected the idea. And Parks was pretty convinced the man was telling the truth. He had watched and re-watched the CCTV footage taken at the hotel so many times, and the man he had seen on camera was younger, taller, thicker set than this Gregory seemed to be.

‘It wasn't him,' Marsh argued again. ‘And I don't know who paid me. I just got a call – they wanted a driver, and if I wanted the job I should turn up at The Fox on the Sunday. So, like I told you already, I went to The Fox, I talked to the landlord, he said someone had dropped a letter in for me and I took the letter and did what it said.'

‘A letter. Very civilized. And the landlord didn't know who delivered it, I suppose?'

‘He reckoned it came in with the post. How the hell should I know?'

‘Accommodating of the landlord, looking after your mail like that. Spend a lot of time at The Fox, do you? People normally just phone you up with offers of money, do they?'

Marsh looked away, doing his best to ignore Eddison.

‘What did the note say?' Parks asked quietly. ‘Was it typed, handwritten?'

‘Printed, like from a computer,' Marsh said sullenly. ‘Like I already said, there was five hundred quid in tens and twenties and a note that said be at the back of the motel at half seven on the Tuesday and there's five hundred more. I thought it were easy money, so I went.'

‘And what happened?'

‘I waited. I saw him coming out of the back of the hotel, over the grass, and then I saw the blood and I . . . I thought, I'm out of here, then I saw he had a gun, pointed right at me, and I thought that was it. I'd had it. Then he got in the car and he gave me my money and he said to drive where he said to drive and we went through the car park in between the cars and then into the lorry park and that's all I know. He said to follow him out and keep in tight and I did that and then I started off home.'

‘But you abandoned your car?'

‘No. I went home, then I took another look at it. There was blood all over the seat. I tried scrubbing it off, but it wouldn't go. There were, like, smears of it in the fabric. I knew the wife would see, she'd want to know what went on. So I dumped the car and fired it, and I walked home across the fields, made like it had been stolen.'

‘And this man.' Eddison tapped the photograph. ‘This was the man you picked up.'

Marsh shook his head emphatically. ‘I never saw that man.'

‘DI Eddison, you are harassing my client. He says that was not the man.'

Eddison leaned across the table, face close to Marsh's. ‘And I don't believe him,' he said.

Adaptor bought, they went back to the hotel and plugged the little card into Patrick's computer. Photos shot with a long lens, Harry thought. People meeting, talking, parting, meeting with other people. It meant nothing to either of them. Harry studied the people carefully, sure he had seen one man before.

‘I know him,' he said. ‘I've seen him on the television.'

‘Really? When?'

‘The day of the motorway explosion. I'm sure of it. Patrick, can we get the iPlayer here?'

‘Sure. There's a Wi-Fi link.'

They spent the next hour trawling through the news reports and then found what they had been looking for. The first press conference on the day of the explosion at the motorway services.

‘That's definitely him,' Patrick said. ‘DI Eddison. That's one of the police officers Alec's been working with.'

Harry nodded. ‘I think we should let Alec know,' he said. ‘Patrick, can we send him these pictures?'

‘Not to the mobile he's using, no. It's just dead simple. Text and phone, it can't send or receive images. What do you think we should do?'

Harry thought hard. ‘Talk to Alec,' he said. ‘Tell him what we've found and see if we can make any sense of it. Then I think we should contact this DS Munroe. I've got his card in my pocket.'

‘Why him?'

‘I don't know,' Harry said. ‘We had a bit of a chat at the funeral, and he seems to be – well, gut instinct, you might say, tells me he's all right.'

‘OK,' Patrick said. ‘Well, seeing as we're acting on instinct, I think there's something else we should do.'

‘I'm not going to like this, am I?'

‘Um, don't know. But I think we should send the pictures to that email Jamie put in the card.'

‘And your reason?'

Patrick shrugged. ‘No better than yours,' he said.

TWENTY-SIX

C
lara was not so keen on opening the door this time. Her wrist hurt abominably, but stubbornness and shame had prevented her from doing anything about it in terms of seeing a doctor or asking for help. Resentfully, she had done as the man had said, applying cold compresses, bandaging it to give support and, when the pain grew too much, managing to tie a sling. She'd got through her own supply of painkillers and had eventually walked to the corner shop for more, but all the time she was out she'd felt exposed and scared.

But that was nothing compared to the fear for her children that had built and built since Gregory had left and now felt ready to explode.

She had tried to call Paul again, but he still wasn't answering his phone. She had tried to find the number for Tilly's farm, but either it was ex-directory or it didn't have a phone and her search was not helped by the fact that she didn't know the actual address. To them it had always been Tilly's farm, at the end of an unadopted road, up a long cart track. She wasn't even sure it had a proper name.

Peering out this time when the doorbell rang, Clara was met with a strange sight. A man, a woman and a dog. A dog wearing a harness. A guide dog?

Her first thought was to wonder what religion they were selling, and she glanced up and down the road in search of their inevitable companions. Jehovah's Witnesses tended to go about in small gangs, in Clara's experience. As did chapel types and Seventh Day Adventists, whereas Mormons generally only went about in pairs. On bicycles.

The man saw her watching and waved encouragingly. She retreated from the window. He must have bent down and opened the letter box next, because she heard him calling, ‘Clara, we need to speak with you. Clara, I'm—' Whatever he was, she thought, he obviously thought better of it, but his next words shocked her.

‘Clara, we were friends of Jamie Dale.'

‘Jesus!' That was all she needed.

‘Clara, we just want to help you.'

She stood uncertainly in the hallway, cradling her injured hand across her body, and wondered what she had to lose. What could they do to her that hadn't already been done?

Quite a lot, she supposed, but somehow this man and woman and dog didn't seem so much of a threat. Reluctantly, but resignedly, Clara Thompson opened the door.

Patrick had been unable to get through to Alec's phone. He had sent a text telling Alec to call as soon as he could. ‘Signal isn't always great with these phones,' he said. ‘It could be that, or he might just be keeping it switched off. It just says the phone is unavailable.'

Harry had similar problems getting through to Munroe but had left a message on his voicemail. It was all, he thought, a little anticlimactic, just when they'd tried to be decisive. Patrick had sent the email and uploaded photographs to the ‘Jeannie' email.

Now all they could do was wait.

The next decision was where they should do their waiting. They decided to head back south towards home.

‘We fly out in two days,' Harry said.

‘Do we?'

‘That's what we arranged. Rearranged, rather.'

‘I know, but—'

‘Patrick, I think we'll have to take it as it comes, don't you?'

Clara sat on one of the overlarge sofas and stared at the people she had let in. She had taken in only part of what they had to say, but she gathered that he was a policeman and his wife had also been one. That they had known Jamie, and that the man had once arrested her brother.

‘What happened to your arm?' Alec asked.

Clara shrugged. Then wished she hadn't. Every movement hurt.

‘Where are your children, Clara? Your husband?' Naomi asked.

‘They're not here. I sent them away.' Trouble was,
he
knew where they were, and Clara was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Would the man called Gregory do them harm? He seemed to be saying to her that they were under much greater threat from elsewhere.

Clara could no longer think clearly about any of this. She hurt. Physically, mentally, the pain consumed her.

‘I want to see my kids,' she said. ‘I want to know they're safe.' She made up her mind. ‘You can take me to them.'

Alec began to argue, to ask if that was really a good idea.

Naomi laid a hand on his arm. ‘Tell us where to take you,' she said.

Gregory had made better time than he had hoped. His boat now lay at anchor some way from the shore, but within the broad bay. The ruin on the headland matched the one in the picture he had taken from Clara's home, and he had seen the kids and their father playing on the beach.

He made lunch and thought some more about what he was going to do. Gregory was by nature a man who planned, but no action seemed ideally suited to the moment. He still wasn't sure what he intended to do.

He thought some more about Jamie too, about the time it had all come to a head. She had dug too deep, rattled the bars of too many gilded cages, and uncovered the fact of exactly which palms the Night Vision project had greased to get its contracts through the government hoops. And she had uncovered the name of the director of operations . . . and it was a name Gregory knew well.

Even now, Gregory was unconvinced that Jamie understood what a dangerous game she had been playing until—

He had warned her to back off, warned her that this was not just business, it was life or death, but she hadn't believed him until the night he had told her that if she kept pushing he could no longer protect her. And had tried to convince her to what lengths certain people would go in the protection of their interests.

‘People have died for less, Jamie.'

‘You're just trying to scare me.'

‘So, be scared. Make your film, just leave out the accusations. This isn't political, Jamie, this is criminal. This is corruption on a level you can't even begin to comprehend.'

‘I won't be put off.'

‘Then if you aren't scared for yourself, be afraid for those you love.'

He saw doubt in her eyes for the first time. ‘They'll take it all from you. Everything you love, all you hold dear, and in the end you won't care if you die because you'll have nothing left that's worth living for.'

She had considered his words. ‘You're serious,' she said at last.

‘I'm serious. I've been told, Jamie, to keep you in check or stop you dead, and frankly I know which they would prefer.'

She stared at him, disbelieving. ‘You wouldn't hurt me.'

‘Yes, I would. I have obligations that go back a lot further than knowing you.'

In the end, she had been right. She had, in consequence, died a terrible death, and that was something Gregory regretted more than he could say.

TWENTY-SEVEN

M
ichelle Sanders had been furious when he arrived but had eventually accepted that Munroe was going to talk to Trevor Griffin and that he had the clout to insist. An hour in and he knew no more than when he had first arrived. Except that Michelle was even more annoyed. She had tried to call Eddison and been told that he was unavailable.