Night Vision

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Looking at CCTV footage,’ Parks confirmed.

  They both accepted the offer of more tea, and Alec pushed his now empty plate away. Hunger had been replaced by incipient indigestion. ‘So I’ve not been thrown off the investigation.’

  ‘It would appear not. But don’t relax, Alec. I think it’s more a case of keeping your enemies closer, than hanging on to your friends.’

  ‘And who views me as the enemy? You, Munroe or Eddison?’

  ‘I already told you. I do my job and then—’

  ‘Go home. Yeah right. What’s going on here? What am I not being told?’

  ‘That’s just it, Alec,’ David Parks told him. ‘No one’s keeping you in the dark. You’re not being told because we just don’t know.’

  They relieved the uniformed officers who had spent the last several hours looking through the feeds from the cameras closest to the motel. Alec figured that he was still in disgrace, even if he had been permitted to stay; this was a job for uniform, not for detective inspectors and their sergeants, who could reasonably be expected to be off investigating, not drinking yet more tea and looking through hours of random comings and goings.

  Eddison and Munroe were just keeping him on hold and out of the way, Alec figured, and Parks was there to make sure he didn’t have any ideas they hadn’t sanctioned.

  Initial images of Travers’ attacker had not been hard to find, and they were shown CCTV pictures of the suspect crossing the scrubby area of gravel and lawn and going into the staff car park. He got into a car that had been parked there, into the passenger side.

  ‘A light blue saloon,’ a uniform told them. ‘We don’t see the registration number at any time as they drive out, and we don’t get a look at the driver either.’

  He skimmed through the footage they had isolated so far, and Alec watched as the car, viewed from various cameras, took a circuitous route through the main car park in front of the hotel and then, instead of taking the most direct exit, snaked through the car park at the motorway services. At no time were either the registration plate or the driver and passenger fully visible.

  ‘I think it’s safe to say they know their way around,’ Parks said. ‘They’ve got to know what each of the CCTV cameras is seeing.’

  ‘Are they all fixed camera angles?’ Alec asked.

  ‘Mostly. The majority of them concentrate on the lorry parking. There’s a history of thefts. The cameras in the car park are mostly just to make the punters feel more comfortable. Half of them are dummies, the rest are fixed, and at least one was offline last night,’ the uniform explained.

  ‘So much for our surveillance society,’ Parks joked. ‘But what about when we get on to the motorway?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  The blue saloon could be seen on the slip road leading from the services, and for a brief second or two the number plate was visible, but so dirty as to be unreadable. The car then left the slip road, tucked in close behind a lorry it had followed down and effectively disappeared from the next set of cameras.

  ‘He comes off at the next junction, takes the first exit at the roundabout and then we lose him. It’s all country roads from there. No cameras.’

  ‘Search teams out looking for the car?’

  ‘Soon as it got light. Nothing yet.’

  ‘They’ll have dumped the car,’ Parks said.

  ‘And probably torched it,’ Alec predicted. ‘OK, let’s go back to where we see him crossing the grass at the back of the hotel.’

  The officer reset the system, made sure they knew what to do, and then he and the remainder of the night team took their leave. Parks and Alec were left alone.

  ‘Not much doubt about it being him,’ Parks said, nodding at the screen.

  ‘No,’ Alec agreed. He stepped through the footage frame by frame. The suspect was, he guessed, in his thirties, casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that seemed to have some kind of logo emblazoned across it – though it was rather hard to see what it was, for the shirt, the jeans, and the man’s bare arms were all heavily stained with blood. His face, though, was always kept turned away from the camera.

  He was on camera for maybe fifteen seconds, Alec counted. Long enough to walk quickly across the patchy lawn and into the car park. The car engine was already running. He got in, and they drove away.

  Alec shook his head. ‘White male. Thirties, would you say? Short cropped sandy hair. Some kind of logo on the back of his T-shirt.’

  ‘Something on the front too, but, well, it’s hard to see what. With all the blood. Maybe it can be enhanced?’

  ‘The original image is pretty poor.’ Alec wasn’t hopeful.

  Slowly, they tracked back through the rest of the footage. Then began the slow trawl through camera angles that hadn’t yet been examined.

  ‘We can hope someone in the main car park got a better look. Put out an appeal.’ Parks sounded discouraged.

  ‘Who’s handling the press call? I thought Munroe said the media had started to arrive last night.’

  ‘Get with the programme, Alec. Eddison did his bit to camera first thing ready for the breakfast news. The motel will be officially closed today, hence the excellent service at breakfast.’

  He hadn’t noticed, Alec thought, only belatedly recognizing that the dining room had been practically empty, the space inhabited only by the odd remaining guest and breakfasting police personnel.

  ‘Eddison’s promised the scene will be released by tomorrow – all except Travers’ room and the corridor it’s on.’

  ‘Are they expecting anyone to want to stay?’

  ‘Well, I expect the first few days it’ll be media types, but it’ll get back to normal after that. It’s the only half-decent place for thirty miles. The next services are a long way up or a long way back.’

  Alec nodded. In his experience people were oddly pragmatic about such things. Once the shock had worn off, a spot of notoriety could be good for business. Especially if the news was soon released of an arrest. He wondered how Munroe was going to stage-manage that. He could imagine the story courtesy of the sergeant – or whatever he actually was. Police find a burnt out car linked to the hotel attack. Body inside, possible murder-suicide scenario. A suspect with known history of mental health problems, who, coincidentally, none of the local hospitals would admit to having had as a patient, never mind having released.

  He pushed the idea aside. Conspiracy theories, he thought, but he could not shake the idea that his appraisal of the situation might turn out to be close to the truth.

  ‘Have you met the sister?’ Alec asked, returning to what he thought might be safer ground.

  ‘Once. I was there when Eddison told her about her brother being dead.’

  ‘Eddison told her? Not the local police?’

  Parks shrugged, as if to emphasize that he’d stopped asking questions.

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Not much to tell. She’s a bit older than Neil Robinson. Big sister trying to keep little brother on the straight and narrow and not quite managing it. Married to a guy called Paul who is a used-car salesman, runs a little showroom and garage. He said he’d offered Neil a job. Like that’s an appropriate career move for a conman like Robinson. They’ve got two kids, eight and ten, both girls. I didn’t see them; they were at school.’

  ‘And she was shocked?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I mean—’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Parks stared at the computer screen, watching cars and pedestrians as they crossed the car park in front of the motorway services. ‘She was shocked that police of any sort had come knocking at her door.’

  ‘Occupational hazard, I’d have thought, with a brother like Neil Robinson.’

  ‘No, that was the thing. It’s like he kept family separate. His sister, anyway. I think the rest of them had long since written him off, so it was kind of academic, but the impression I got was that he tried hard to keep her out of that part of his life.�
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  ‘And yet he asked her to contact Jamie on his behalf.’

  ‘True, but there’s a world of difference between passing on a phone message and getting yourself involved in your brother’s life of criminality.’

  ‘Is there?’ Alec thought about it. He supposed it was like everything else in life, just a matter of degree. Ordinarily, he didn’t involve his non police friends in police business, but there were times, like now, when he asked favours of those whose connections dragged them part way into his sphere of influence. Like asking Harry to look after Naomi.

  ‘You said she was shocked. What shocked her most?’

  Parks frowned, running events through his mind. ‘Not that he was dead. It was as though she’d almost resigned herself to the fact he would come to a bad end. We told her that Neil had been found dead, and she asked how. At that time we still weren’t sure how, so we said it had been a heart attack. Which, technically, it was.’

  ‘As in technically we all die of heart failure,’ Alec said. ‘Look, what’s that?’

  ‘Back up a few frames. Yes, that’s our car. What’s it doing going through the lorry park?’

  ‘I don’t know. You were saying that you told her he’d had a heart attack.’

  ‘Yes, and she seemed almost relieved and, I’d say, surprised. Then when Eddison said we suspected foul play she just went kind of quiet, like that was what she’d been thinking all along. Like it hadn’t ever occurred to her that Neil would die of natural causes. Look, back up again. How slow can we replay?’

  Alec fiddled with controls he only half understood. ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘He changed vehicles!’ Parks leaned forward excitedly. It was so easy to miss, a shadow where there should not have been a shadow, the hint of an opening door as the car moved around the back of the lorry, one scant glimpse of a booted foot as someone climbed into the cab.

  ‘Any chance of a better angle?’

  Alec flicked through the camera positions, was not surprised to find that the answer was no. They returned to the original footage. The lorry moved off about a minute later, the car now looping back into the main car park and taking the snaking route on to the slip road they had previously observed.

  ‘There’s the lorry.’ Parks pointed. The HGV, having taken a much more direct route, was also on the slip road, ahead of the light-blue saloon that had interested them before. The lorry pulled out, and the car tucked in behind, as they had previously observed, but when it swung out past the final camera – now they were looking for it – it was just possible to see that there was only one person aboard.

  ‘Fuck,’ Parks said softly. He fumbled for his mobile phone and called Eddison. ‘Can you get a reg number for the lorry?’ he demanded of Alec.

  Alec was already on to it. Minutes later he handed the number, make and model to Parks, who relayed them to Eddison. When the car turned off, the lorry did not.

  ‘He made a frigging mistake!’ Parks was exultant. ‘Got you, you bastard.’

  Not yet, Alec thought. The footage was, he glanced at his watch, more than fifteen hours old; that was a massive head start. But he allowed himself a moment of pleasure. It was something. More than they’d had overnight. More than they’d had an hour ago, and in this desert any kind of something was an oasis.

  TEN

  Naomi had originally only packed an overnight bag. If she was to remain at Harry’s for long she would need clothes. Harry drove her back to her home late in the morning, leaving Patrick in charge of cooking Sunday lunch under his grandmother Mari’s supervision. Even though Patrick’d be living at home when he went to university, Mari had decided that he should at least in principle be able to fend for himself.

  ‘He’s growing up so fast,’ Naomi said. ‘You should be very proud, Harry. You’ve done a great job.’

  ‘I am proud,’ Harry said. ‘But I do think that the shoe is on the other foot. I think Patrick has done a good job with me. I’m a bit of an old stick in the mud, Naomi, I know that. Having Patrick around has at least kept me from taking root.’

  ‘Are you looking forward to Florida?’

  ‘In a perverse way I suppose I am. I get on far better with my ex-wife now she’s an ex than I ever did even when we were supposed to be happily married, and I do like the two boys a lot. I’ve even sort of forgiven the affair. Anyway, I think I owe it to Patrick to be grown up, don’t you?’

  Naomi laughed out loud. ‘You’re actually looking forward to this, aren’t you? What’s the angle, Harry? Showing her you can manage just fine without her?’

  ‘Well, there might be a touch of that,’ he admitted. ‘But the rest is true, and I really am looking forward to going to New York with Patrick. It feels like a farewell to his childhood. This is the last summer of school, the last summer of my son being . . . well. You know.’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘So I want to enjoy it. I want us to have really special memories.’ He pulled into the short drive and cut the engine. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Naomi, it’s OK to be human. It’s understandable that this business has unsettled you. It’s fine not to be all right.’

  ‘Then, I’ll admit it. I’m not all right.’

  He took her hand and squeezed it tight. ‘I could go in and get what you need.’

  ‘And have a strange man rummaging through my knicker drawer?’ She giggled, happy to be able to break the tension. ‘I’ll be fine, Harry. But I’m glad you’re here.’

  Harry unlocked the front door, and Naomi unset the alarm. They stood in the hallway, listening to the silence and feeling the difference in the house. The sense of absence was somehow tangible, and Naomi felt almost like a stranger, an invader in this usually familiar space. She knew she would never forgive whoever it was that had made her feel this way.

  Harry bent to pick up the mail.

  ‘What have we got? I expect the bill man’s been.’

  ‘A lot of junk mail, and what looks like a gas bill,’ Harry confirmed. ‘And . . . and there are messages on the machine.’

  ‘Right.’ Listen now or later? Should she get it over with, or should she gather her stuff together first so they could get away quickly after the messages had been played? She shook herself. Oh, for goodness’ sake, Naomi, she told herself. Don’t be such a wimp. ‘Harry. Do you think you could come up and lift a case down for me?’

  ‘Of course I can.’ He touched her arm gently. ‘Right, let’s raid that knicker drawer and then get off home for lunch.’

  She laughed. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  Naomi packed quickly. When she had first been blinded, her sister had taken over management of the day-to-day practicalities. She had helped Naomi learn to do her make-up, had sorted her clothes into outfits that she could assemble quickly, and later, when her confidence had grown, had taken her shopping and then rearranged her wardrobe and drawers into a logical sequence that Naomi could continue for herself.

  Naomi could tell by touch that this was her favourite pink blouse and knew that her old jeans, washed until they were peach soft, lived in the second drawer down. Harry paced as she sorted through what she needed and then carried her case downstairs. She stood reluctantly in the hall while he checked over the rest of the house, returning quickly to deliver a verdict of security. Then she pressed the button on the phone.

  The first message was from a friend hoping they could meet for coffee. The second from the centre Naomi volunteered at, wondering if she could do an extra session to cover sickness. Then two more, and Naomi knew at once that they were calls from Jamie even before a sound was made.

  ‘Naomi, Naomi Blake. Naomi, are you there? Oh God, Naomi, please pick up.’

  ‘Harry!’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m here.’ He took her hand and held it tight as the second message played.

  This time just the sound of a woman screaming. It filled the hallway, seemed to fill the mind. Someone in pain, someone so very s
cared they could no longer shape the words to express that fear.

  ‘We need to report this,’ Harry said quietly. She could hear his voice tremble, for all his outward calm. ‘Naomi, how do I get the tape out?’

  ‘You don’t, it’s digital. Um, just unplug it from the wall. We’ll drop it into the police station on our way.’

  She drew in a deep breath, or tried to. Her chest felt so tight it was as though her body no longer remembered how to process air. ‘Oh God, Harry. What did they do to her?’

  She knew what had been done to her. That was the trouble. Hearing the screams, she could imagine Jamie locked in that car, the flames taking hold and Jamie unable to get out.

  ‘Naomi.’ Harry’s voice, stern now, teacher-like. He took her arm and led her from the house, locking the door.

  ‘I didn’t set the alarm.’

  ‘Does that matter at the moment?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t. No. Just take me away from here.’

  He helped her into the car and deposited the phone on the back seat. She was horribly conscious of it, as if her fear and horror now sat behind her. A physical presence she could not just drive away from.

  Jamie, her friend Jamie, was dead, and Naomi was now convinced that whoever had killed her had recorded her dying screams.

  ELEVEN

  Nick Travers drifted. Sometimes he heard voices; once there was a voice he thought he recognized. Mostly, he just dreamed. Sometimes he dreamed of being in a hotel room and hearing a noise outside the door. He opened the door and someone came in. Someone who looked so familiar that Nick was sure he knew the man’s name, and yet also knew that it was impossible. That man was dead, wasn’t he? It was a dream that looped round and back in his consciousness, round and back and always ended the same way, in excruciating pain. After the third or fourth or fifth loop – he found he was unable to keep track of it – he concentrated on trying to break out of the cycle to focus on it not happening, and for a brief while he would think he had succeeded. Other dreams would float randomly into the space he had temporarily created, and he would allow himself to relax for a brief while. Then it would be back again and the pain would start over.