Night Vision (20 page)

So she still cared for him, he thought. Paul, not just the children, figured in her fears. He wondered how the husband now felt. If he blamed his wife for having such an errant brother.

The third room had been converted to a home office. He spent a little time examining the paperwork, but it seemed to be a mix of household bills and items relating to the car dealership.

He took the laptop anyway and a stick drive he found in a drawer.

Downstairs, in the hall, a space where the larger photograph had hung. He checked the two rooms, noticing that there were several pictures taken on a long sweeping beach. A closer look revealed a ruined cottage on the headland. He took that picture with him back to the kitchen and laid it on the table. Clara hadn't moved.

‘Where is this?' he asked quietly.

‘I won't tell you.'

Carefully, he took the back off the frame and slipped the picture out. There was nothing written on the reverse, and he saw her relief and little triumph and then her shock as he put the picture in his pocket with the first one.

‘Neil sent something to you,' he said.

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘He sent you something not long before he died.'

He saw her eyes flick towards the doorway and the big room. ‘I'd like it, Clara.' Until that moment he had been guessing. It was good to have confirmation. ‘And I'd like to know where this picture was taken.'

No response.

‘Clara, I can look, but that would just involve a mess and would take some time. Do you really want me in your house longer than is strictly necessary?'

She tensed, and he saw she had some of her fight back. He could admire that, he thought, but her timing really wasn't all that good. He didn't have the time or the patience today.

He gave her one last chance. ‘What did he send you?' Then he took her hand. She tried to pull away, then tried harder as he placed a thumb on the pressure point on her wrist and twisted the hand. He felt the joint give way, the wrist bend beyond what nature had intended for it. He released the pressure slowly. He could see in her face that she was close to passing out, and he didn't want to have to wait for her to recover.

But it was enough. He brought the envelope through to the kitchen and laid the contents on the kitchen table. Three postcards, one of a vessel he recognized.

‘What are these?'

‘You should frigging know. You sent them to him.'

She was cradling the injured wrist, glaring at him, trying not to let the tears come. Clara, he thought, was a tough woman.

‘Why do you think I sent them, Clara?'

She swallowed nervously. ‘I don't know. He said I had to keep them but he didn't say why. I was supposed to keep them and give them to Jamie Dale, he said they were something to do with this Gregory.' Her eyes widened as a thought struck her. ‘Are you Gregory?' she said.

He didn't reply. Instead, he turned the postcards over and looked at the brief messages. ‘They are signed with an F,' he said.

She nodded. ‘Neil thought they were from Freddie. Freddie Gains, they were friends. Then he realized – realized they were something else.'

‘Something else? What did he tell you about them?'

‘Nothing. Really nothing. He just got someone out on day release to post them for him and asked me to give them to Jamie Dale. But then he died, and then she was in that car crash and—'

‘Who else did you tell? About the cards. Or about Gregory?'

‘No one. I wouldn't lie to you. No one. I told no one.'

He believed her. She'd gone beyond the will to lie; now all she wanted was him to be satisfied and then to go.

He left the house a few minutes later with the laptop and the pictures and the postcards, satisfied that he had learnt all he could.

He had placed a knife on the table, close enough for her to reach, and advised her how to look after the damaged wrist. She could free herself now, though he knew it would take her a while to gather enough momentum to do that, when the nausea had passed.

Leave here, he had told her. Pack a bag and go. But he didn't think she would.

And he had gained one other thing. She had given him a description of those who had come to beat her husband. From the way she had described them and what they had done, Gregory was almost sure they would turn out to be just local thugs, paid by the job and knowing nothing about why they were commissioned to do it. His local contacts would soon come up with a name or two, he was pretty sure of that. And he would not be as gentle with them as he had been with Clara Thompson.

TWENTY-ONE

S
uddenly, the tension had seemed to diminish. Nothing happened – no phone calls, no threats, nothing to fear – and it was odd the way this only seemed to add to the sense of menace. It was as though someone or something was drawing deep breath before returning to the attack.

Naomi had been surprised to be invited to Jamie's funeral and very surprised to find that her body had come home to Pinsent for burial. Somehow she had expected Jamie to be buried down south, where she had worked and lived for the past decade. To Naomi's knowledge only her sister now lived close to their old home; her father had died while the girls were still young, and the mother – a woman Naomi had met only a couple of times – had moved back to Wales, where she had spent her girlhood.

The invitation had come from Jamie's sister, Belinda, delivered via a mutual friend.

Jamie Dale had been dead for almost three weeks. It was five days since the attack on Travers, and four since the last phone call: Jamie's voice calling Naomi's name. Three since the explosion they now knew had killed five and injured many more.

She had barely slept in the intervening time, even though there had been no more calls, no more drama. The lack of contact, absence of continuity, getting to her almost as much as the calls had done. Anticipation frayed her nerves.

As Munroe had observed: never underestimate the value of silence.

Although the rolling news regarding the explosion had now ceased, every news bulletin still led with it, though as far as Naomi could tell, there had been no new developments. In the absence of facts, folklore manifested, and the number of terrorist organizations either claiming responsibility or denying involvement, dizzying as it was, only added to the sense of ongoing drama. Among the wild theories were that it was Al Qaeda, Irish terrorists, animal rights activists, anarchists . . .

The police denied each claim, each conspiracy, but replaced it with nothing concrete. Alec could tell her little more; alternating between being stuck in the office, following the Madigor paper trail and interviewing witnesses, he felt peripheral.

And now there was Jamie's funeral.

‘Should I go?' she asked Alec when he phoned.

‘Any reason why not?'

‘I suppose not. Will you be there? I just feel so . . .'

‘I think we all feel like that. Yes, I'll be there. Munroe too.'

He didn't sound very happy about that, she thought. ‘I'll ask Harry to take me then.'

‘Do that. I'll see you there.'

And so she had. Harry drove her to the service at St Anne's church and then to the graveside at the local cemetery out on the main coast road. The day was warm, but a harsh wind blew off the sea as it always did and Naomi was glad she'd worn a jacket over her summer dress, a grey print she hoped was suitable for such an occasion. Black seemed too sombre for the Jamie she had known, but she didn't quite have the courage to wear the bright colours her one-time friend had so loved.

Alec and Munroe had not come into the church. They had arrived late, he explained briefly as everyone filed out and he met her by the door.

‘If you want to go with your wife to the cemetery, I'll follow on,' Munroe said.

He had an interesting voice, Naomi thought. Such an odd mix of accents, as if he had lived in a great many paces and assimilated just a smidgen of local colour in each one.

‘Thanks,' Alec said briefly. He took her arm tightly, and they walked with Harry to his car. ‘Napoleon not with you?'

‘He's stayed home with Patrick. They're at Mari's house helping paint the back bedroom.'

‘Ah. So what colour dog are we likely to get back?' He helped Naomi into the rear seat and then collapsed beside her with a deep sigh.

‘Tough time?' Harry said softly.

‘It has been, yes. I have to say it would have been tougher if I hadn't known you'd all been there for Naomi. I'm grateful, Harry.'

‘No need to be, you know that. We're all family, Alec.'

She felt him nod. She wanted to ask about the case, about Munroe, about so many things, and, for once, she didn't think he'd be reticent about Harry listening in. Harry already knew so much. Naomi sensed, though, that he didn't want to talk right now. That all Alec wanted was to sit quietly in the car and forget for a few minutes. Instead she said, ‘There didn't seem to be many in the church. I'd have expected it to be full.'

‘A dozen or so people,' Harry confirmed. ‘Maybe there'll be more at the cemetery.'

‘A lot of the old crowd have moved away,' Alec said. ‘And I suppose we're a long way from London. Will there be a wake?'

‘No one said anything.'

‘The mother wasn't there,' Alec said. ‘What was her name . . .?'

‘Gwenda,' Naomi said. ‘I didn't get to speak to Belinda.'

‘I said hello as they all came out. I'm not sure she knew who I was. Clive McAllister was there, with Josie and Terry Livingstone. Gaynor Hedges, and a man I didn't recognize. Others that seemed to be family.'

She reached for his hand and held it tight, feeling the weariness that suffused him. Weariness and something, she sensed, close to despair. ‘Don't go back,' she said. ‘Alec, you can always just walk away, you know that. No one will think any the less of you.'

‘I will,' he said. ‘I'll think less of me.' He squeezed her hand. ‘Afterwards, we'll talk about it.'

The car turned into the cemetery gates, and the wheels crunched on the gravel surface. Harry stopped the car. ‘We're here,' he said unnecessarily. ‘Um, seeing as Alec's here and I didn't really know the deceased . . . I'm happy to stay in the car if—'

‘Harry, please come with us,' Naomi said.

‘Besides,' Alec added, ‘I'm sort of on duty. I'd better get back to Munroe. Look, if any of the family ask, I just managed to call in on the way to somewhere else and Munroe is simply a work colleague who got dragged along. Naomi, not even Belinda knows exactly what happened to Jamie in that car.'

‘You mean it's still not an official murder enquiry?' Harry was startled. ‘Alec, how can you all keep that from the family?'

‘It's a murder enquiry, yes, but no one is saying that officially. Harry, this is not like any situation I've ever been involved in, and I'll admit I'm far from happy, but . . .'

‘No, but it's so . . . What will happen when the family have to be told? They will be told eventually, won't they?'

‘Eventually, yes. I expect the official line will be that new evidence has emerged. Fortunately, that isn't my call, Harry, and I'm hoping I won't be the one to break it to them. All this came from well above my rank and pay grade.'

‘And must have been decided practically on the spot,' Naomi said wonderingly. ‘Alec, that's so irregular.'

‘What isn't about this? You aren't supposed to know either, never mind Harry, so—'

‘Secret is safe,' Harry said. He sighed. ‘I suppose in a way it's better for the family to believe this was just an accident. That's bad enough, but to know your loved one was deliberately murdered, that's something else again.'

And Harry knew the truth of that, Naomi thought. His sister Helen, her closest childhood friend, had been taken from her family in exactly that way, and it had been years before the family knew the full truth of the matter.

‘Who else is here?' she asked as they walked to the graveside.

‘Only those who came to the church, by the look of things.' Alec laughed, but there was a sadness in the sound. ‘I can remember the time when if Jamie called and suggested a night out there'd be—'

‘Usually about twenty of us, even at short notice.' Naomi smiled. ‘What happened, Alec? This is so not right.'

They stood beside the grave, Alec to her left and Harry on her right. Someone read a poem; the vicar, or so she assumed, repeated almost word for word the eulogy he had given in the church. Perhaps he, too, had expected there to be a new audience at the cemetery, or perhaps he hadn't been able to think of anything new to say. Belinda said a sad farewell to her sister. ‘There's only me left now, sis. Dad gone and then mum and now you.'

Ah, the mother was dead too, Naomi thought.

‘I'll miss you so much, and I'm so sorry that we drifted so far apart.'

Naomi felt the tension in Alec's body as he heard that. So Belinda had lost touch with her too? That sounded so wrong as well. The sisters were only a couple of years' difference in age and had always been very close. What had gone so wrong that she'd cut herself off from those she loved, and what had driven her to appeal to Naomi for help? An appeal that had reached out only after Jamie's death, and then with such a different intent.

The little party broke up. Naomi and Alec managed to speak to Belinda at last, offering condolences, though it was clear she barely remembered them. Gaynor Hedges, the friend who had invited Naomi on Belinda's behalf, sidled up to them as they moved off. ‘Hi, Naomi, hi, Alec, glad you could make it.'

‘There's hardly anyone here.'

‘No, that's what we were afraid of. Bel asked me if I could round up as many old friends as possible, but so many of us live somewhere else, and I don't know any of Jamie's London friends. I thought some of them would be here though.'