The Dying Light (24 page)
An ordinary message but one with a secret, she was sure. At the end of a list of options she was invited by the automated voice to key eight for message details. There was no record of a telephone number, but the message had been left at five thirty-eight p.m., Saturday, January 19th - not January 12th, the date of the explosion. So when Eyam called she wasn’t in the office working on a deal, but staying with Sam Calvert and his wife. She went into the phone’s calendar to make sure. January 18th-20th was marked off with the words
Calverts - country
. It was the same weekend she’d told old Sam Calvert she wanted to leave and he had shown her into his den on that Saturday afternoon and persuaded her to take a few months off, then join the London office. He didn’t want to lose her but he reckoned it was time for her to get her bearings in her personal life, by which he meant that she should get a personal life. Hell, he’d even pay for a cruise or finance a pro bono section in the London office if it meant she’d stay. She could have a baby on the firm, if she wanted. Whatever it took, she only had to say.
Calverts - country
. It was the same weekend she’d told old Sam Calvert she wanted to leave and he had shown her into his den on that Saturday afternoon and persuaded her to take a few months off, then join the London office. He didn’t want to lose her but he reckoned it was time for her to get her bearings in her personal life, by which he meant that she should get a personal life. Hell, he’d even pay for a cruise or finance a pro bono section in the London office if it meant she’d stay. She could have a baby on the firm, if she wanted. Whatever it took, she only had to say.
She checked the GPS facility, which rather unnecessarily in her view kept a record of the phone’s precise location for every minute it was switched on. She entered January 12 and an approximate time, and a map of Manhattan came up with the address on Sixth Avenue in a panel below. Right, she was in the conference room and the phone would have been on the table beside her and switched on; she would have answered. She did the same for the following weekend. There was no record of the phone’s location in the afternoon because it had been switched off, but for that morning it gave an address in Connecticut.
There was no mistaking it - the call had come a week after he had died, and yet Eyam had taken care to locate and time the message by mentioning the policeman and the wedding party passing in front of him. She turned towards the lights of the cottage with a profound sense of bafflement. There could only be two explanations. Either the automated message service had made a mistake on the date of the call, which seemed highly improbable, or Eyam was alive and moreover meant to convey that astonishing fact by obliquely alerting her to these discrepancies. That of course was absurd - impossible. But just pretend it’s possible, she said to herself. What would the phone message mean? He was saying, yes, I am in the film that was shot outside the cafe but I wasn’t killed by the explosion. The presence of
The Story of the Shipwrecked
Sailor was an internal clue, planted there by Eyam, who could be sure that she would search the cottage high and low after his letter. Her mind reeled. She stood shivering in the cold, staring vacantly at her breath clouds, which were lit blue by her mobile. If Eyam had faked his own death there must be others involved - Detective Bautista for one. And Darsh for another: she remembered that odd look he gave her when he talked about the red admiral butterfly, the butterfly that hibernates then comes to life in the spring, or flies north from France. Was he saying Eyam was still in France? Did Darsh know and if so was he dropping a hint to see if she had any suspicions of her own? His theatrical display of grief at the funeral might also contain its own message - the prayer he quoted about the inward man being renewed and the things that are not seen being eternal.
The Story of the Shipwrecked
Sailor was an internal clue, planted there by Eyam, who could be sure that she would search the cottage high and low after his letter. Her mind reeled. She stood shivering in the cold, staring vacantly at her breath clouds, which were lit blue by her mobile. If Eyam had faked his own death there must be others involved - Detective Bautista for one. And Darsh for another: she remembered that odd look he gave her when he talked about the red admiral butterfly, the butterfly that hibernates then comes to life in the spring, or flies north from France. Was he saying Eyam was still in France? Did Darsh know and if so was he dropping a hint to see if she had any suspicions of her own? His theatrical display of grief at the funeral might also contain its own message - the prayer he quoted about the inward man being renewed and the things that are not seen being eternal.
And it wasn’t just Darsh who was dropping hints during the service. She went inside, found her bag in the kitchen and drew out the order of service for the funeral that Eyam had planned with such care and prescience. On the back was the poem entitled The Death of Me. She read the second verse: ‘
I may be gone for now, sister, For others say I’ve
died. But I’ll wait for you here, sister, ’Til we take the waters wide.’
This wasn’t an anonymous American folk song, but verses Eyam had knocked up himself and with some gall placed on the back of his own funeral service. She stared at the words and whispered, ‘Eyam, you fucking bastard.’ Gripping the booklet, she sat down heavily and struggled to get a hold on her thoughts. Until this moment, disbelief, hope and joy had competed to overwhelm her but now the hardening conviction that Eyam was alive sparked a sense of what? Betrayal seemed the best word. He had deceived her, used her unscrupulously without thought for the grief and remorse she would experience, jeopardised her life and caused the death of an innocent man. Faking a death was somehow the ultimate lie and Eyam had done it in order to pass all his troubles to her and escape the responsibilities of the cause he seemed to have created. Cowardice was the other word that came to mind, but she had no time to refine her thoughts further because Sean Nock was hailing her from the open front door.
I may be gone for now, sister, For others say I’ve
died. But I’ll wait for you here, sister, ’Til we take the waters wide.’
This wasn’t an anonymous American folk song, but verses Eyam had knocked up himself and with some gall placed on the back of his own funeral service. She stared at the words and whispered, ‘Eyam, you fucking bastard.’ Gripping the booklet, she sat down heavily and struggled to get a hold on her thoughts. Until this moment, disbelief, hope and joy had competed to overwhelm her but now the hardening conviction that Eyam was alive sparked a sense of what? Betrayal seemed the best word. He had deceived her, used her unscrupulously without thought for the grief and remorse she would experience, jeopardised her life and caused the death of an innocent man. Faking a death was somehow the ultimate lie and Eyam had done it in order to pass all his troubles to her and escape the responsibilities of the cause he seemed to have created. Cowardice was the other word that came to mind, but she had no time to refine her thoughts further because Sean Nock was hailing her from the open front door.
‘Come in,’ she said, getting up.
Nock was in a loose lumberjack shirt and steamed in the cold. He had run all the way. ‘You sounded worried on the phone.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m going to ask you a question and I want a straight answer.’ She picked up
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
and handed it to him. ‘This book was placed facing outwards from the middle of the bookshelves. Did you put it there?’
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
and handed it to him. ‘This book was placed facing outwards from the middle of the bookshelves. Did you put it there?’
‘Maybe it was moved during cleaning,’ he said innocently.
‘I don’t have a cleaner.’
‘Yes, you do - it’s me.’
‘You’re an engineer, Sean, not a cleaner.’
‘I was paid to look after the place and that included doing a bit of dusting and vacuuming.’
‘Sean, did you put that book there so that I would see it? Were you told by anyone to do that?’
‘I don’t think so - no.’
‘Don’t fuck with me, Sean. Did you put it there?’
Nock gave her a look of bewilderment. ‘Really, I don’t remember moving it.’
‘You stay here. I’m going to make a call outside. When I come back I want some answers.’ She snatched up her bag and left for the end of the garden where she took out Kilmartin’s phone and dialled his number. He answered after the first ring. ‘We need to talk as soon as possible,’ she said.
‘Yes, I agree; we have much to discuss,’ said Kilmartin, ‘but I can’t speak now. We should meet tomorrow. Town or country, which suits you?’
‘Country. Near here.’ As she said it she saw several headlights slashing through the trees at the top of the track.
‘Good. I’ll call first thing,’ said Kilmartin and hung up.
Now she saw a flashing blue light. A few seconds later three police cars plunged into Eyam’s drive, pulled up and disgorged several uniformed police officers. Then came two unmarked cars and three men in civilian clothes got out. One of them was Newsome. The uniformed police ran to the front door and opened it without ringing. Then through the sitting room windows she saw them seize hold of Sean Nock. There was some shouting and a tussle in which Nock threw two of the officers across the room. Without thinking, she switched off the Kilmartin phone and placed it into one of the flower pots stacked at the corner of Eyam’s vegetable patch and placed another pot on top. Then she summoned the call register on her own phone, worked her finger across the screen until she picked ‘Received Calls’ from the menu and kept pressing the screen until the number of the last call received was ringing.
‘It’s me,’ she said when her mother answered. ‘I need some help. Can you call Sam Calvert at Calvert-Mayne in New York, and explain that I need the best defence lawyer in England. He’ll know who that is. I think I’m about to be taken to High Castle police station. Got that?’
‘Yes, I’m writing it down, darling. High Castle . . . police station.’ For once Kate was grateful for her mother’s composure. ‘Will Mr Calvert be readily available?’
‘He has an assistant called Amy Stovall. Tell her who you are and explain it’s urgent. Look, I must go now. Thanks, Ma.’
‘Got it. Good luck. Call me if you can.’
She waited in the dark watching the police race through the house, searching for her. She dialled her message service and went back to delete the voicemail from Eyam, then turned off the phone, dropped it in her pocket and walked towards the front door. Newsome turned at the sound of her crossing the gravel. ‘Kate Lockhart, I am arresting you in connection with the murder of Hugh Arthur Russell on March 13th. You will come with us.’ A woman officer took hold of her and led her to the unmarked car. Sean Nock, by now bound with blue wrist ties and sporting a gash to his eyebrow, was taken to the back of a police van.
15
The Edit Point
Kilmartin arrived at the Isambard Hotel on Edgware Road at nine thirty p.m. and went to a room reserved by a New Zealand national named Owen Kennedy, having paid for it with a credit card and shown a passport in the same name. Murray Link followed him a few minutes later, having received a text with the room number. He set up a laptop on the desk while Kilmartin withdrew a couple of miniatures from the fridge and sat down on a chair beside Link.
‘Christ, what’s that you’re wearing, Murray?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The aftershave.’
‘My wife gave it to me. I’m trying it out.’
‘God, I’ve met yak herders who smell better,’ said Kilmartin and tipped the whisky and vodka miniatures into two glasses.
‘Do you want to see this, or not?’ said Link testily.
‘Yes, please go ahead.’
‘OK, so this is a right dog’s dinner,’ he said gleefully as his fingers scurried across the keyboard. ‘What do you know about camcorders, Peter?’
‘Very little.’
‘Right, well, the camcorder that made this film was a pretty sophisticated model that records not onto discs but straight onto a hard drive that can store about five hours of footage. It contains a number of interesting features that are rarely appreciated by the average punter. It stamps the film with metadata known as EXIF - Exchange Image File Format, to give its full name - hidden information which allows you to know the make and model number of the camera, the time and date the film was made, even the camera settings. This particular model is also fitted with a GPS device that tells you where the camera was when the film was made.’
‘Good Lord! You mean you can tell all that from a DVD that is maybe a third-generation copy?’
‘Absolutely, but you have got to know what you are doing.’ He clicked on an icon. ‘Now this is the part of the footage that wasn’t played at the inquest. It shows the party of tourists in the port area of Cartagena and also visiting some kind of memorial by the sea. You can see the city in the background and by the way the GPS code indicates that they were in that spot when the images were shot.’
They watched the trio of tourists walking in the port, then standing in front of a large stone slab carved in the shape of a book. On the cover were written the words
‘Gabriel García Márquez - Relato de un Náufrago.’
The camera focused on the rest of the inscription. Kilmartin translated the whole with little difficulty. ‘
Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor. Who was stranded for ten days in a raft without food or water. Who was proclaimed a national hero. Kissed by beauty queens and made rich by publicity and later hated by the government and forgotten for ever.’
‘Gabriel García Márquez - Relato de un Náufrago.’
The camera focused on the rest of the inscription. Kilmartin translated the whole with little difficulty. ‘
Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor. Who was stranded for ten days in a raft without food or water. Who was proclaimed a national hero. Kissed by beauty queens and made rich by publicity and later hated by the government and forgotten for ever.’
‘How can he be forgotten for ever if they set up a bloody memorial to him?’ asked Link.
Kilmartin smiled absently and made a note in a small red book. ‘I wonder why this wasn’t shown at the inquest.’
‘I’m coming to that,’ said Link. ‘OK, so now we get to the main action,’ said Link. ‘I want you to notice a couple of things. The tourists are all wearing the same clothes, but there are one or two minor differences. The blonde woman with the red spotted shirt has a large plaster on her knee which does not appear in the first part of the film.’
‘So what? She probably hurt herself sometime later that day, before they got to the cafe where Eyam was killed.’
Link shook his head and brought up a still of the group by the memorial and magnified a section around the woman’s left knee. Instead of a plaster, a graze could be seen, surrounded by an area of untanned skin. ‘So this sequence in the port, which was thought to have come from the morning of the bomb, was in fact shot much later - maybe two or three days later. Notice that the man is wearing different-coloured running socks with his trainers - blue not white - and the group as a whole is much more tanned than in the bomb footage.’
‘You’re right. What about the hidden data in the film of the cafe and the bomb going off?’
‘That’s the odd part. The EXIF metadata is kosher in the port and the memorial scenes - it says the filming took place on the morning of January 12th in Cartagena in conditions of extremely bright sunlight. When we come to the scene at the cafe the data has been tampered with, which is possible with a special programme, although you’ve got to know your onions. In some parts there’s no data and in others another date pops up - January 19th.’
‘So what’s that mean?’
‘Someone was screwing around, trying to remove the information about date, time and location in the film, but did a crap job. For instance, parts of the film are geo-coded for a position that is outside the city of Cartagena, by about twenty miles. I’ve checked. But that’s not everything. There’s a jump in the film, a bloody great chasm, which is obvious when you play it through. I can’t understand why no one noticed. You’ll see what I mean.’
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