Night Vision by Jane A. Adams Page A

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?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜Travers didn’t know anything.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜And why exactly did you do that?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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—’
    â€˜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.