Sight Unseen

NINE

When Umber switched his mobile back on, he found a message from Sharp waiting for him. He already knew, of course, what Sharp had phoned to tell him.

'I heard the news in a pub at lunchtime. The locals were full of it. Radd's dead. Murdered by another prisoner, apparently. Details are sketchy at the moment, but I imagine all hell's broken loose at the prison. No point me staying here now. I'll head back. I don't know what to make of this, Umber, I really don't. We'll talk later. 'Bye.'

Umber went back to the Ivy House and learned a little more from the Ceefax service on the television in his room. Radd had been found bleeding from a stomach wound, probably inflicted with a knife, in a toilet cubicle at the prison at about nine o'clock that morning. He had been rushed to hospital, only to be pronounced dead on arrival. A police murder inquiry was under way.

Umber stared at the words on the screen for several long minutes, shock giving way slowly to something closer to fear. The media would regard this as a fittingly violent end for a child murderer and rapist: rough justice dispensed by a fellow prisoner. But they were unaware of the pattern it fitted into. Even Sharp did not yet know what had happened that day in Yeovil and what both events seemed to imply. Someone was on to them. Someone had decided to stop their investigation in its tracks. And they were willing to kill to do it.

The trilling of his mobile fractured Umber's thoughts. He answered, guessing it would be Sharp, calling en route from Cambridgeshire. But he had guessed wrong.

'Hello?'

'David? Percy Nevinson here.'

'What can I do for you?'

'I felt I had to call in view of the extraordinary turn of events. You've heard about Radd, I take it?'

'I've heard.'

'Another mouth's been shut, it seems. There's no chance of him withdrawing his confession now, is there? At least this time no-one's in any doubt that it was murder.'

'I can't talk about this, Percy. Not now.'

'I understand your reticence, David. Perhaps you're wondering who to trust in such a situation. I can assure you -'

Umber switched the phone off. He could take no more of Nevinson. The report of Radd's murder was still there, on the television screen. He pressed the standby button on the remote. The screen went blank. He lay back on the bed.

He was not thinking about Radd any more, or the theft of his Junius papers. It was Sally's death five years ago and the circumstances surrounding it that filled his mind.

Umber had been in Turkey when it happened, roasting in the heat of Izmir. Sally had been living in a flat in Hampstead, lent to her by her friend Alice Myers. Late June had not brought tropical conditions to London. And Sally had always felt the cold more than most. The bathroom of the flat was unheated. It was possible to believe – just – that she had trailed a fan heater into the bathroom to warm it. There was a chair close to the bath, on which the coroner theorized she might have stood the heater, then somehow tipped it into the bath as she reached for a towel. Alternatively, she might have deliberately pulled the heater into the bath with her, fully knowing what the consequences would be. That was what most of her friends believed, grateful though they were to the coroner for not concluding as much. The absence of a note and Alice's testimony that Sally had been in better spirits than for some time sufficed for him to give her the benefit of the doubt. No-one had suggested murder, of course. No-one had considered such a possibility, nor looked for evidence of it. The idea would have been dismissed as absurd, not least by Umber. He had felt certain that Sally had taken her own life.

Now, five years later, he was certain of nothing.

He headed out for dinner, the thoughts still running round in his brain. Was it possible? Could Sally have been murdered? 'She must have strayed too close to the truth,' Nevinson had said. Could he be right after all?

From the restaurant, Umber went to the Green Dragon. He had hoped to slink into a quiet corner, but the pub was staging a quiz night and there were no quiet corners. He swallowed one pint and left.

Back at the Ivy House, the receptionist told him Sharp had returned in his absence. He went straight up to Sharp's room.

He could hear a newscaster's voice through the door as he approached. In response to his knock there was a gruffly bellowed 'Come in'.

Sharp looked a weary man, slumped in front of the television with a glass of whisky, waiting for a report on Radd's murder to crop up on Sky News. He muted the sound and poured Umber a generous slug from the bottle of Bell's he had bought somewhere along the road.

'I didn't see this coming, Umber,' he said. 'It never crossed my mind.'

'Child murderers aren't top of anyone's popularity list, George.'

"That's not why he was killed and you know it.'

'I do, yes. You could say I've had… independent confirmation of that.'

Umber described his experiences in Yeovil, keen to have the anticipated outburst of scorn from Sharp over and done with. Drained of much of his pepperiness by his own experiences, however, Sharp merely grunted and growled and rolled his eyes during Umber's account. Then he topped up both their whiskies and switched off the television altogether.

'Shall I tell you where we are, Umber? Out of our bloody depth. That's where.'

'You ought to know I'm beginning to think Sally may have been murdered.'

'Yes. I suppose you were bound to. Which means you won't be prepared to drop it now, will you?'

'I can't.'

'Thought so.' Sharp rasped his hand round his unshaven chin. 'Only you should bear in mind Radd may have been taken out in order to warn us off.'

'I can't let that stop me, George. Not if they killed Sally.'

'All right, then. We go on.'

'You're not going to allow yourself to be… warned off?'

'Good God, no. What do you take me for? My professional pride's been dented. I need to hammer it back into shape. Starting with the question of who – deliberately or not – tipped off these people we're dealing with. Hardly anyone knew I was even thinking of going to see Radd.'

'Your friend Rawlings knew.'

'He promised to keep it under his hat. He wouldn't break a promise to an old mate.'

'Are you sure about that, George?'

'A lot surer than I am about Jane Questred. She knew.'

'Not until yesterday morning.'

'No. But she said emphatically she was going to do whatever she could to stop us. So, let's find out what she did. And who she contacted.'

'If anyone.'

'Like you say. If anyone. But everything we try is a long shot. It's bound to be. Take Donald Collingwood for example. I stopped in Swindon on the way back and checked his old address.'

'Dead and gone?'

Sharp nodded. 'More than ten years.' He mulled over that for a moment, then said, 'A drop in the bucket compared with two hundred and fifty odd, though. What was in your Junius box that made it worth stealing?'

'I don't know. My Ph.D research notes aren't exactly state secrets.'

'No? Well, somebody wanted them, Umber. Badly. And since they were your notes, you're the only one likely to know why.'

'There's no reason that makes any sense.'

'What were they about?'

'Well…' Umber shrugged. 'Junius.'

'Can't you be a bit more specific?'

'All right.' Umber rubbed his face. 'Let's see. I'd started going through the list of candidates – all the people who'd ever been accused, even semi-seriously, of being Junius. There were fifty or sixty of them all told. My idea was to disprove each one conclusively before proceeding to the next. That involved checking their whereabouts at times when we could be sure where Junius was, based on the content of his letters, comparing their known political opinions with Junius's expressed views, examining examples of their handwriting and prose style for similarities to -'

'Hold on. What about that War Office clerk you mentioned as odds-on favourite? Did his handwriting match Junius's?'

'No. But then it's generally assumed Junius wrote in a disguised hand. There's also the possibility he employed an amanuensis.'

'A what?'

'Someone to copy the letters for him before they were sent. There's a separate list of candidates for that role.'

'Can you remember all the names on these lists?'

'Not after more than twenty years, no. But I could reassemble the lists. If I had to.'

'And your notes too, I suppose.'

'That would take months. I'd have to reapply for membership of several libraries for a start. You're not serious, are you?'

'No. But I was just thinking. Maybe the thief stole them to stop you looking at them rather than to look at them himself.'

'Does it make any difference?'

'Not sure. But we should be grateful to him in one way.'

'What way's that?'

'Well, Radd could have been killed because of a straightforward grudge between him and another prisoner. It's possible. Or it would be, but for your run-in with a double-glazing salesman impersonator the same day. We're on to something, Umber. We're definitely on to something.' Sharp grinned ruefully. 'It's just a pity we don't have the first bloody idea what.'

It was agreed they would set off for Swanpool Cottage at nine o'clock the following morning. It was also agreed they would both benefit from an early night, though Umber for one did not anticipate a restful one. He watched the Ten O'Clock News report on Radd's murder. It told him nothing he did not already know. Then he switched his mobile on and checked for messages. There was one. And it was not from Percy Nevinson.

'This is Edmund Questred, Mr Umber.' He had spoken very softly, almost whispering into the receiver. 'We need to speak. Don't phone me. Come to the back door of the shop at eight thirty tomorrow morning. Please don't contact Jane in the meantime.'

Umber thought about phoning Sharp, then thought better of it. He might already be asleep. If so, it was a kindness to let him sleep on.

There was to be little sleep for Umber himself. He tossed and turned, counting Junius suspects like sheep, but to no avail. He made it to twenty or so, a long way short of the total. And then he thought about Sally. He had schooled himself for so long not to think about her death and the manner of it that it almost felt as if he was doing so for the first time. It was difficult to remember how weary he had been of her inability to put the past behind her; and how relieved he had felt in the months following their separation. The guilt that had swept over him the minute he heard she was dead – that was clear in his mind, however. He pictured her, lying lifeless in the bath, as Alice had found her. He had loved her. He had abandoned her. There had been no excuse. But maybe now there could be the next best thing to reconciliation – reparation.

There was no sign of Sharp in the breakfast room when Umber left the hotel next morning. He walked up past Marlborough Library and followed the lane round to the rear of the High Street shops. There was a small delivery yard at the back of the Kennet Valley Wine Company. The double doors leading to the storeroom behind the shop were ajar. He stepped through.

Questred was waiting for him inside. He was sitting on a wine box, smoking a cigarette and staring listlessly at a newspaper, folded open at an inside page. CHILD MURDERER SLAIN IN PRISON KNIFING ran the headline above the article he appeared to be reading. He did not rise at Umber's approach, merely looked up and nodded to him.

'You got my message, then.'

'As you see.'

'Jane reckons you and Sharp will be in touch with her today.'

'Very likely.'

'She reckons you'll have taken it into your heads that something she did led to this.' Questred held up the newspaper.

'Well, it's quite some coincidence, isn't it?'

'The only person she told about your visit was Oliver. She phoned him straight after you left the cottage. But he wasn't at home. She left a message, asking him to phone back as soon as possible. She didn't say why. And he didn't call until last night, so…'

'It really was a coincidence.'

'You obviously don't think so.'

'Do you?'

'No.' Questred smiled grimly. 'Does that surprise you?'

'Yes.' Umber sat down on the nearest box. 'It does.'

'There's something I have to tell you. In confidence. I don't want it to reach Jane's ears. I'd deny saying it if it did, anyway, and she'd believe me over you every time. It's, er, about… your wife.'

'Sally?'

'Yes. I… This Radd business has shaken me, I don't mind admitting. I don't know what to make of it. I -'

'What about Sally?'

'Yes. OK. Sally. Well, the day she died…' Questred rubbed his forehead. 'That is, I realized later it was the day she died.'

'What happened?'

'She phoned here… that afternoon.'

'She phoned here?'

'Yes. She, er, wanted to speak to Jane, but she didn't have the number for the cottage and, er, well… I wasn't about to give it to her.' Questred dropped the butt of his cigarette onto the concrete floor and ground it out with the toe of his shoe. 'Anyway, she asked me to get Jane to phone her. She didn't give a reason. I didn't ask for one. To be honest, I, er, thought she sounded… overwrought. I told her I'd pass the message on. But, er…'

'You didn't.'

'No. I didn't want her upsetting Jane. So, I said nothing about it when I got home. And I said nothing about it when we heard she was dead either. In fact, this is the first time… I've mentioned it to anyone. I, er, didn't think it mattered. Well, I persuaded myself it didn't. And maybe I was right.'

'Or maybe not.'

Questred looked cautiously at Umber. 'I didn't expect you to take this so calmly.'

'I've already done a lot of thinking about Sally's death. What you've just said only reinforces my suspicion she was murdered.'

'Oh God. Do you really believe mat's possible?'

'Yes. I really do.'

'But that would mean…' Questred shook his head. 'Christ knows what it would mean.'

'I intend to find out.'

Questred rose and moved to the door, where he stared out at the wedge of sunlight advancing slowly across the yard. 'I'm frightened, Umber. That's the truth.'

'So am I.'

'Do you have to see Jane?'

'That's up to Sharp.'

'How would it be if I arranged for Oliver to speak to you? He's got state-of-the-art security at his place in Jersey. You won't get past the gate if he doesn't want you to.'

'In return for leaving Jane alone?'

'Yes.'

'That'd be up to Sharp as well.'

'But you could put it to him.'

'Yes.' Umber stood up. 'I could.'

And he did, over the breakfast he found Sharp polishing off back at the Ivy House.

'We only have his word for it that Jane didn't speak to anyone else,' Sharp objected.

'He didn't have to tell me about Sally's call, George.'

'True.'

'And Hall could refuse to see us if he was so minded.'

'Also true.'

'So what do you think?'

'I think we'd better accept his generous offer.' Sharp eyed Umber over a jagged triangle of toast. 'Don't you?'