Night Vision

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘So –’ Parks sat with his pen poised – ‘where should we start? You’d arranged to meet DCI Travers?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alec hesitated. ‘Travers hadn’t been very happy about being here, about any of it. For that matter neither am I. It doesn’t make sense.’ He looked at Parks, waiting for the man to rise to the challenge.

  Parks shrugged. ‘I just go where I’m told, do my job, go home.’

  ‘And who assigned you to this particular job? And why are you operating like a completely separate unit? Why is there no liaison with the locals?’

  ‘I’m local,’ Parks objected. He regarded Alec thoughtfully for a moment and then said, ‘Yes, it’s all a bit weird, and yes, we’re not exactly keeping to the usual procedure, but Eddison says there’s cause, and Eddison is the boss. Eddison, in turn, has been authorized by fuck knows who from who the hell knows where. Alec, sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions – not when you know no bugger’s going to give you a straight response anyway.’

  ‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Ah, now, I never said that.’ Parks glanced back towards the hotel reception, as though talking about his boss might be enough to make him appear.

  ‘We both know that Eddison is just a front man here,’ Alec pressed. ‘It’s Munroe who’s calling the shots.’

  Parks tapped his pen on the sheaf of paper in front of him. ‘I just do my job and keep my mouth shut,’ he said firmly. ‘Alec, truthfully, I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know I’m glad my wife and kids are away just now. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

  Alec scowled, shook his head. ‘What are you afraid of ?’ he asked.

  Parks hesitated but did not give a direct response to Alec’s question. Instead, he said, ‘Eddison told me Robinson was an informant. He’d got wind of something . . . political, and he’d negotiated an early release on the strength of it and provided he agreed to disappear quietly afterwards and keep his mouth shut. But it looked like he was going to renege on that part of the deal as soon as he got out; that he’d suddenly realized he could get more out of it than a few months off his sentence. Munroe thinks this Jamie Dale was going to buy his story, that whatever it was he was going to tell her, well, someone got wind of it and didn’t want it getting out.’

  Alec frowned. Parks was obviously not comfortable with the explanation, but didn’t know Alec well enough to express those doubts. From Alec’s point of view, it didn’t make sense. What early release? Robinson would have just about done his time anyway by now. ‘Didn’t want what getting out?’

  ‘Ah, well, if we all knew that . . . Look, Alec, I’m working in the dark too, and I’ve come to the considered conclusion that I’d probably like to keep it that way. Whatever it is Neil Robinson knew, it cost him. Whatever he told, or was going to tell, this Dale woman, it cost her. And now Travers.’

  ‘Travers didn’t know anything.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  Alec shook his head. ‘Travers was away on secondment when we broke the Robinson case. He came back at the very end of things, sat in on one of the interviews, but that was all. Robinson, so far as we were concerned, was a con artist. He ran insurance and investment scams. We got him on what we could, handed the case files over to the fraud squad.’

  ‘And why exactly did you do that?’

  ‘We didn’t have the resources, or the skills, for the paperchase. God, he had fingers in more pies than he had fingers. It was like – like he got bored; if something was too easy, Robinson lost interest and shifted to the next big thing. We reckoned if he’d actually had the staying power to see any one thing through he’d have been a multimillionaire, but he just seemed to . . . fizzle out.’

  ‘Well, maybe he didn’t fizzle out on whatever he was going to sell to Jamie Dale,’ Parks said. ‘Maybe this was one move too big and too far. Someone wanted to shut him up, and shut him up they did. Your reporter friend too, and now this.’

  Alec nodded. He took a deep breath and did what he knew he and Travers should have done hours before. ‘Naomi got a phone call last night,’ he said. ‘It was a recording of Jamie Dale’s voice.’

  Parks stared at him. ‘Last night,’ he said.

  ‘I know, I know. I thought we should tell you about it, but Travers said to wait. I don’t know why. It was like he was trying to work something out first.’ Alec shook his head, no longer sure what Travers had been trying to do. ‘Look, he’s my boss, and I suppose—’

  ‘You thought you’d keep your mouth shut, do your job and go home,’ Parks said. He sighed, shaking his head. ‘Look, Alec, Eddison isn’t going to be a happy chappie, and neither is Munroe, so how about we backtrack to last night and get this all on paper now?’

  Alec nodded, still far from sure about Parks and the others but also relieved to be sharing the burden with someone. For the next hour they catalogued events as Alec knew them, starting with the call Naomi had got and then moving on to this present evening. There was not, Alec thought, very much to tell.

  Munroe appeared in the midst of this. ‘It seems the person Travers tried to call was Michelle Sanders,’ he said. ‘He got through to her voicemail but only left a message for her to call him.’

  ‘Why would he call her?’ Parks wondered.

  Alec hesitated. ‘They were involved, once upon a time,’ he said. ‘Maybe . . . I don’t know.’

  ‘Right.’ Munroe frowned but did not pursue the line of conversation. ‘How’s the statement coming?’

  ‘Longer than we thought it’d be,’ Parks said heavily.

  ‘How so?’

  Alec reprised his account. Munroe said nothing, but Alec was acutely aware of his disapproval, the dark-grey eyes fixed on Alec’s face. Parks’ already tight little cherub mouth seemed to have grown ever tighter as he wrote down Alec’s account, and Alec could feel a sense of unease, coupled with increasing guilt at having kept so much from his colleagues, weighing down upon him.

  Did he trust them? No, not at all. They were unproven strangers, behaving in ways that Alec neither understood nor wanted any part in. Did he feel bad about not entrusting them with this information before? Yes, because perhaps that secrecy had led to this attack on Travers; perhaps, too, Parks was right and Alec would be happier if his wife, too, were well out of the picture.

  ‘Anything else you’ve not been sharing?’ Munroe said at last.

  Alec hesitated, and then nodded. ‘It might be nothing,’ he said, taking the small strip of card in its evidence bag from his pocket. ‘One of the inmates dropped this when we were at the prison today. I got the feeling he wanted me to pick this up, but—’

  ‘And it didn’t seem obvious that you should mention it. Preferably when we were still there and could have talked to him?’

  Alec hesitated. ‘I think that was precisely why I held back,’ he said. ‘If this was meant for me, then it was dropped in a way so no one else would see. I think the man who dropped this was scared of being seen communicating with any of us. I said nothing because I didn’t want to expose someone else to the same trouble Neil Robinson got himself into.’

  ‘You’ve had the rest of the day to say something,’ Munroe pointed out drily.

  ‘I have, yes. Look, it might not even be relevant.’

  Munroe eyed him coldly. ‘Can’t have it both ways, Alec.’

  Parks picked up the evidence bag. ‘Looks like a phone number.’

  ‘It is,’ Alec said.

  ‘You rang it?’ Munroe said heavily.

  ‘Yes,’ Alec admitted. Munroe and the others had a right to be angry, he admitted to himself. In their shoes, he’d have been furious. ‘I got no reply. The phone just rang out. It’s got to be a local number,’ he added. ‘No code.’

  ‘Nice deduction.’ Munroe’s sarcasm stung, for all that it was probably deserved. ‘You should be a detective.’ He got up, taking the piece of card with him. ‘Looks like you’ll get your wish, anyway.’

  ‘My wish?’

&nb
sp; ‘Your wish not to be here. Eddison hears about all this, you’ll be gone.’

  A few hours ago, that would almost have been good news. Now it was anything but. ‘I’m involved,’ Alec said, ‘whether Eddison likes this or not. Travers—’

  ‘Is irrelevant.’ Munroe said coldly.

  Not quite midnight, and Alec stood in the waiting area of the local hospital watching a doctor talking to Travers’ wife. Another woman – a neighbour, apparently – stood beside her with an arm wrapped tightly around Maureen’s slender shoulders. From time to time the neighbour glanced at Alec, her look cold and empty, as though she, too, blamed him for what had happened. Finally, the doctor left and the women returned, sitting down on adjoining plastic seats.

  ‘What did he say?’ Alec asked quietly.

  Maureen buried her face in her hands and wept.

  ‘He’s still in surgery,’ the neighbour said. ‘It isn’t looking good. The doctor says he’d have been dead within another few minutes if you hadn’t found him,’ she added, and Alec could feel the implication behind the bland words. If you’d gone to talk to him earlier, she meant. If you’d not chosen to eat alone, but instead gone to find him, none of this would have happened, would it?

  Would it?

  Another thought had occurred to Alec as he’d driven here in Travers’ car. What if Trav had opened the door to his attacker, thinking it was Alec come to fetch him?

  Maureen continued to cry.

  Alec got up and walked back down the long corridor, out into the car park. He stood where the lights from the hospital windows still illuminated his phone, and he called Naomi. She answered on the second ring. She sounded happy, he thought, maybe even a little drunk. No doubt they had all been celebrating.

  ‘You know I love you,’ he said. Suddenly, that seemed like the only thing that mattered. ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Alec? Alec, what is it?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at Harry’s. I asked if I could stay the night.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad. Naomi, stay there until I get back. Please. Promise me?’

  ‘Alec, what the hell is wrong?’

  ‘It’s Trav,’ he said. ‘I’m at the hospital. God, Naomi, I thought he was dead. He was just lying there, and there was so much blood.’ That phrase again; suddenly, he was merely a witness, not a policeman, used to dealing with such terrors.

  ‘Blood? Alec, are you hurt?’ She sounded frightened. He realized he was telling this all wrong.

  ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Someone got into Trav’s room, stabbed him half a dozen times and left him for dead. He’s in surgery now, but Naomi, it’s not looking good.’

  ‘Oh, God, Alec. Maureen—’

  ‘She’s here. A neighbour brought her over. Look, I’ve got to get back to . . . back to the crime scene, so—’

  ‘You’re not stopping at the hospital?’

  ‘Only till a family liaison officer arrives. Maureen, well, she blames me, Naomi. Doesn’t want me around.’

  ‘It isn’t your fault, Alec!’

  ‘Isn’t it? How do you know?’ Somehow the guilt was comforting now, a rapidly familiar blanket, settling on his senses, insulating him against the need to make decisions, to respond, to think what might have to happen next.

  ‘Alec.’ Naomi’s voice was surprisingly sharp. It cut into him, slicing through the fug of self-doubt. ‘Not your fault, Alec,’ she said again. ‘Look, can you come home, at least for tonight? Get some distance, talk about it?’

  He was tempted. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘If I come home, I won’t come back.’

  ‘Is that such a bad thing?’

  He didn’t quite know how to respond to that one. Earlier in the year he had talked seriously about leaving the force, moving down south somewhere, starting something completely new. He felt the tug of that now, the temptation.

  ‘I have to stay here,’ he said. ‘See this through. I owe him that.’

  Silence on Naomi’s end of the conversation.

  ‘You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I understand, of course I do. Alec, have you told anyone about my phone calls? I spoke to Megan this morning, they’re taking it very seriously this end, but Megan says the feeling is they only have half of the story. They could do with some liaison.’

  ‘I’ll call the office tomorrow morning,’ he promised. He managed a rather bitter laugh. ‘Of course, I might not be given an option in the end. Eddison is threatening to throw me off the case.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, the phone call among other things. Withholding information, he calls it, and he’s right.’

  ‘And you did that, why?’

  He could hear she felt aggrieved. The thought that he hadn’t taken things seriously enough to pass the incident on occurring, and then wounding.

  ‘I spoke to Travers first thing, but he wanted to hold back. I don’t know why.’ He paused. ‘Travers and Eddison have history; he’s been behaving oddly ever since we got here.’

  ‘Oddly? How?’

  Alec glanced back towards the hospital entrance as a slight movement caught his eye. Maureen’s friend stood there, beckoning to him. ‘I’ve got to go, love, I’ll call you later. I love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  Alec walked back towards the entrance. The feeling of dread cramping his guts must have shown on his face because the woman almost smiled. ‘He’s out of surgery,’ she said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s been taken to the high dependency unit. Maureen’s gone with him. I said I’d come and find you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Alec said. ‘Look, can I get you a cup of tea or something?’

  That half smile again, and then a look of distaste. ‘I think I’ve had enough vending machine tea. Or it might have been coffee, it was hard to tell.’

  Alec nodded sympathetically.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind some company, though,’ she added. ‘I think it’s going to be a long wait before I know what’s going on and if I’m driving home alone or taking Maureen. I’m Sally, by the way. I don’t think we got properly introduced.’

  ‘No,’ Alec said. They walked slowly back towards the waiting room. ‘Have you known Maureen long?’

  Sally shrugged. ‘We’ve been neighbours for years. Our children are friends, and we have the occasional barbecue, that sort of thing. I can’t say we’re close friends.’

  ‘It’s good of you to do this for her then.’

  A withering look greeted that comment. ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? She needed help, I was there.’

  Not everyone reacts like that, Alec thought. ‘It’s still good of you,’ he said. His phone chimed, telling him he had a text. Excusing himself, he took it out. It was from Naomi. Hang in there, it said. We’re all thinking about you, and Harry says I can stay at his as long as I need.

  A pang of jealousy that Harry was with her and not him.

  He was putting his phone away when a second text arrived. This one was from Eddison, summoning him back. Now. Alec sighed. ‘I’m going to have to go.’

  ‘Duty calls, and all that?’ Sally smiled at him.

  ‘Yes. Look, the family liaison should be here soon. Whoever it is, they’ll stay with Maureen, so if you need to get home, she’ll not be on her own.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘See you again, Alec.’

  He was acutely aware that she was watching him as he walked away.

  Alec arrived to find that Munroe had called a briefing for all the hotel staff still on the premises and any guest that cared to come along to the restaurant and listen. Eddison stood off on the sidelines watching. On the face of it all it was very informal, with police officers helping staff to serve hot drinks to guests in pyjamas and dressing gowns, who were looking both bleary eyed and fascinated. It was, Alec realized, looking at his watch, a little after two in the morning. Somehow he had expected it to be later.

  ‘What prompted this?’ Alec asked.

  Eddison shrugged.
‘We’ve had some calls from the media. A film crew showed up about a half hour ago. Parks has promised them a statement in an hour or so. We just want to make sure everyone is singing from the same page of the hymn book.’

  ‘Including me?’

  ‘Especially you.’

  ‘You didn’t ask how he is. Travers, I mean.’

  ‘I know who you mean.’

  Alec glanced at the battered, rugby player’s face, but Eddison gave nothing away. The grey-blue eyes glanced at everyone, failing to settle, seeing and appraising.

  ‘I know how he is. I’ve had someone calling the hospital every half hour. He dies and I want to be the first to know.’

  Alec wasn’t sure what to say. He started to speak, but Eddison motioned for silence. Munroe had taken up position next to the serving area and was about to begin.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this must have been a very traumatic and difficult time for everyone. As most of you now understand, a man was attacked in his room, we think about seven p.m. yesterday evening. The man was a guest here and happened to be a serving police officer, here on secondment to an unrelated investigation. He is presently in surgery, and I believe the prognosis is better than we first feared, so that’s the good news. I must stress, here and now, that we have absolutely no reason to believe he was targeted in particular, or that the fact of him being a serving officer had any bearing on this happening to him.’