Secrets (30 page)

She found her mobile and searched, sound turned down so she could only just hear the electronic voice telling her the names in her phonebook. She found the number she wanted. Gregory answered on the second ring.

‘I want him dead,' Naomi told him. ‘I don't care how you do it and I don't care who you take down with him but I want him gone.'

‘What happened?' Gregory asked.

She managed to tell him, choking on the words. ‘It wasn't an accident. I know it wasn't an accident.'

‘It's OK,' Gregory told her softly. ‘Naomi, it's OK. Leave it with me. It's all in hand.'

‘I just want him dead.'

She realized that Gregory had gone. That he'd hung up on her and for a moment the rage turned against him too.

And then she understood. Gregory had heard what she had to say and there was need for nothing more.

G
regory had kept on the move these last weeks, surfacing only to make contact with Alec, Naomi and a few others. He knew he was far from safe; a wanted man and not just by the authorities. Fortunately, he didn't believe he was top of anyone's list just now. More people assumed he was dead than knew he was alive and after a lifetime of being ‘
not there'
, Gregory was comfortable with anonymity.

Now things were shifting and he wasn't sure he liked it.

He believed Naomi; the coincidence of the ‘accident' was just too great. Clay was accelerating, pushing the game on and from what Gregory knew about the man, that was unusual. The one thing Clay was truly comfortable with was time. He played the long con, not the quick return.

So what had changed, or was changing? He'd make a bet that whatever it was, it had to do with Molly's file.

Gregory hadn't quite figured out Molly's motivation in putting this back into Clay's hands – and she must have known that's where it would end up. Molly was neither stupid, nor naive so she must have had reason for doing this. Reason that seemed good at the time. Maybe she was hoping if Clay acquired this bit of information, he would leave her alone, assume he had it all. Gregory thought about it, putting himself in Clay's position. Would he believe that? No, not a bit of it.

He sent a text to Nathan on the safe number –
safer
number, Gregory corrected himself – that Nathan had given him. The call came back a few moments later.

‘How bad?' Nathan asked.

‘Molly Chambers is still unconscious. Alec Friedman is still in surgery. That's all I know. But she's convinced Clay is behind this and I wouldn't be at all surprised.'

‘I'll call you,' Nathan said. ‘Be ready.'

Always, Gregory thought. I was born that way.

Barnes had returned and taken up his station beside her. ‘They can't tell me much more,' he said. ‘But they've stopped the bleeding. That has to be a good start, doesn't it?'

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

‘Is there someone I can contact for you? A friend, family?'

‘No, they're all miles away. My sister … she's got the kids and her husband works shift, I don't know if—'

‘She'd come to you. They'd arrange something.'

‘I know. Look, I know this sounds stupid, paranoid, even, but I don't want anyone else here. Not anyone I love. I'm scared, for them. Scared someone else might get hurt.'

‘I think you may be overreacting, just a little, don't you?'

‘Maybe. I don't know.' She drew in a deep, quavering breath and thought of all the friends and the family who would come running to be with her. She only had to call them. She was lucky, Naomi thought and Gregory was right. She should be back there, just a phone call and a few minutes' drive away from those she loved and who loved her. What the hell were they doing, chasing around the country like a couple of sixties hippies, trying to find themselves?

‘In the morning,' she said. ‘I'll call Sam in the morning. Like you said before, it's a filthy wet night and it's a long drive. I don't want anyone rushing down here and risking an accident.'

‘OK, if that's what you want.' Barnes's phone rang. He listened and then hung up. ‘Naomi—'

‘You have to go.'

‘No, I don't have to. I can stay if you need me. The CSIs at the crash site have found something. They want me out there, but—'

‘Go. Please. See what they've found. I'll be fine.'

‘I'll get someone to come out to you. You'll be on your own for maybe an hour, I promise no more than that.'

‘I'm fine. Wish I had Napoleon here though.'

‘You want me to fetch him? They allow guide dogs here.'

‘No,' she shook her head. ‘Please, I'll be fine. Go and do your job.' She managed a smile. ‘I know how this feels, remember. I hated the hospital shifts, the sitting around knowing there was nothing you could do or say that made it better and that feeling you could do so much more if you could just get out there.'

He leaned over and clasped her hands, ‘I'll get someone out to you as soon as I can,' he said. She heard him talking, presumably to the woman at reception, and then his footsteps receding.

I know what it's like, she thought. Just sitting, just being there, feeling you are no damn use at all and it occurred to her, as she heard the door swing closed and she was left alone, that perhaps just being there had been the most valuable thing of all.

The rain hadn't eased since the accident. The ambulance crew and paramedics, the police officers, even the CSI themselves had churned up the sodden ground and reduced the grass on the steep bank to a mudslide. Barnes followed the designated path down, picking his way as carefully as he could, nearly ending up on his backside more than once. They'd had to stretcher the injured up this slope, he thought, the narrow valley into which the car had tumbled being far too narrow for the air ambulance to have landed, even if the weather had been clear enough to allow an approach.

It was fully dark now, the scene lit by powerful lamps that seemed only to illuminate the rain. A shelter had been thrown up over the car; it clung on to the slope, skewed at a precarious angle and the rain poured down from the road above and turned even the semi-protected scene to bog. One white clad figure knelt in the quagmire, another took photographs, a third had set up some kind of makeshift table and was attempting to protect its finds from the worst of the rain by rigging a plastic sheet over a box turned on its side.

‘What do you have?' Barnes asked.

‘We're trying to make sense of things in situ. Every time we move we're destroying evidence and if we try and move the car we'll just be mangling even more. But I've managed to get this off.'

‘What is it?'

‘Servo unit from the ABS. It's a vacuum pump. Essentially it's what makes the solenoid work that makes the ABS system apply the brakes in little pulses, rather than slamming them on, you know?'

Barnes nodded. He had a rough idea of how ABS brakes worked.

‘OK, I'm not going to get too technical, but this one's been tampered with. A small hole has been made, weakening the servo unit, preventing the vacuum from operating properly.'

‘Which means?'

‘Well, I'm guessing here until we can test things properly, but he'd have still had brakes when he set out. Slowly, over the course of the journey, they'd have become less effective until eventually all he'd have had was the little bit of residual you get via the fluid left in the pipes. He seems to have tried to save the situation by using engine braking. Taking it out of gear and cutting the engine. And he applied the handbrake, but all that was probably too late. He hit the barrier right at the end, spun and tumbled down the slope, so far as we can tell.'

‘Any idea how fast he was going?'

The CSI shook her head. ‘No skid marks that we can make out. We'll see what's left after the rain. On a straight bit of road, he might have got away with it. The witness in the car behind says he was already into the bend—'

‘But, from what you've said, there was no way of ensuring this was where the accident would happen.'

‘No, but have you driven this road?'

‘Not until tonight.' Barnes thought about the route he had taken. The road transected two valleys, taking the high ground. There were speed limits and cameras all along it, sweeping bends and tight, unexpected zig zags like this. He nodded, taking the point.

‘No possibility that the hole was made during the crash?'

She shook her head. ‘I'm pretty certain not. Someone made this happen. It's clever and simple and not foolproof. He might have pulled over earlier and called a mechanic when he felt something was not right, but most wouldn't, most people don't. They hang on, hoping it'll be OK. Human nature, I suppose. I'm guessing the brakes would just have felt a bit off, at first, and on a wet road he might have just thought it was, well, weather and stuff.'

Barnes nodded, knowing he would probably have done the same. Alec would have wanted to get back to Naomi. He would have taken a chance. Barnes hoped fervently he'd not taken too much of one.

Naomi listened to the ticking of the clock. It was just a quartz movement, she decided, the sound made by the hands shifting across its face. She held her third cup of unwanted coffee, sipping it at least gave her something to do and holding the cup at least stopped her hands from shaking.

People passed her. Voices regularly asked if she was OK, if she wanted anything. No one could tell her anything, no one wanted to commit. She'd been asked about Molly's next of kin; she'd not thought about it before, but assumed that Alec was probably it.

Someone had said that Molly and Alec would need things from home. Nightclothes, toiletries. Naomi knew this was just an attempt to make things sound normal and hopeful, but she clung to the idea. Tried to work out who she could send to Molly's house. Wondered who might have a spare key.

She should call Alec's parents again. They'd promised to come as quickly as possible, his mother distraught and horrified, but still concerned and even more horrified that Naomi was alone. But they were miles away. Maybe a four-hour drive. She wondered if she was putting them in danger by bringing them here but knew they would never forgive her if she'd not told them what had happened and then Alec—

She refused even to think about it; truth was she could think about nothing else.

Footsteps again, this time two pairs. One slow and measured and the other swift and light.

‘Naomi! Oh my God, this is terrible.'

Someone sat down in the chair next to her and Naomi found herself swept into the woman's arms. It took a moment for her to realize that it was Liz.

‘Gregory called me, said you were alone, said you might need a friend. So he brought me over.'

Gregory? ‘Gregory's here?'

‘I'm here. Don't worry, everything's under control. I just wanted to make sure Liz found you and see if there was anything you needed.'

‘Thank you,' she said. Suddenly overwhelmed by it all. Mostly by relief that she was not alone. But maybe Liz shouldn't be here, either. Maybe …

Gregory seemed to sense her anxiety. ‘It's all right,' he said. ‘Nothing more is going to happen, it's going to stop, right here and now.'

She could feel Liz's curiosity, sense the frisson of excitement.

‘Where's the inspector?' Gregory asked.

‘Had to go. He's gone to the crash site. I told him I'd be all right. Someone's supposed to be coming, but—'

‘Well you don't need them, now. I'm here,' Liz told her. ‘I'm going nowhere.'

‘Any news?'

Naomi shook her head. ‘Not really. They've stopped the bleeding but Alec's still in surgery. Molly's showed signs of waking up, but that's all.'

‘And that's all good,' Liz told her. Naomi nodded and tried to believe it was.

‘The nurses said they'll need stuff. They'll be in here for a while. I know it's not immediate, but, I'm not sure what to do.'

‘Let me,' Gregory said unexpectedly. ‘I can go to Molly's place, bring back what she needs.'

Naomi frowned. ‘I'm not sure I'd feel right—' she began.

‘No, I mean, I don't think I'd want a strange man going through my underwear drawers,' Liz agreed, though Naomi got the distinct impression she might make an exception for Gregory.

‘Naomi.' Gregory's voice was gently insistent. ‘There may be other things that Molly needs taken care of, other than just fetching her toothbrush and dressing gown. I think we should make sure, don't you?'

Taken aback, Naomi found herself nodding. What other things? What did Molly have there that shouldn't be? Naomi wasn't sure she wanted to know. But Gregory was right, probably.

‘I don't know if the house is alarmed and I don't know about keys or anything.'

‘Don't worry. I think I can manage all of that,' he said. ‘Now, what sort of things is Molly going to need?'

Liz took over, making him a list and Naomi was oddly relieved to be able to focus momentarily on the purely practical. Gregory left, taking Liz's list.

‘Man of mystery,' Liz said. ‘Where did you meet him, anyway?'

Naomi thought about it for a moment and managed a slight laugh. ‘On a beach in Wales,' she said. ‘But believe me, it wasn't nearly as romantic as it sounds.'

Word had spread. Soon everyone that mattered was in the loop. Nathan had sent a message to Adam, hoping he would respond; figuring he probably would. And to Annie, telling her that the time to act was now. Annie had been in touch with Tariq, only to find that he'd set his own wheels in motion. Clay, it seemed was already ahead of the game. Annie just hoped he'd be assured enough not to notice as they trailed behind.

She was about to leave when Bob came down the stairs. It was just after midnight.