Sight Unseen

TWO

'Chief Inspector Sharp.' Even as he spoke the words, Umber realized that the man he knew as Detective Chief Inspector George Sharp of the Wiltshire Constabulary could by no stretch of the imagination still be a serving police officer, even though his appearance had not been much altered by the passage of years. He must have retired long since. 'Here on holiday?'

'Let's get one thing straight from the off.' Sharp discarded his parka and sat down. 'This isn't a chance meeting. I didn't sign up for that tour today and suddenly think, swipe me, isn't our guide that David Umber I remember from the Avebury case?'

'No?'

'I followed you from your flat this morning. I just didn't know I was going to have to wait this long for a word in private.'

'You call this private?'

Sharp glanced around. 'It'll do.' Then his gaze returned to Umber. 'And you can drop the "Chief Inspector". I was put out to grass years ago.'

'I suppose you must have been.'

At that moment Sharp's beer arrived. He eyed it suspiciously. 'Don't they ask what you want here?'

'It's taken for granted. Beer or nothing.'

Sharp took a gulp and grimaced. 'Not a patch on Bass.'

'What do you want… Mr Sharp?' Umber tried to drain the snappishness out of his voice as he finished the question.

'What do you think I want?'

'After more than twenty years? Search me.'

'It's not that hard to work out.'

They looked at each other for several seconds in uncongenial silence. Then Umber said, 'I thought your people reckoned they had the truth when they put Brian Radd away.'

'My people? I'll give you that. But not me. I never swallowed Radd's story. Not for a second.'

'Didn't you?'

'Did you?'

More silence, blanking out for the pair the burble and bustle of the pub. Then Umber shook his head. 'Of course not.'

'There you are, then.'

'You still haven't told me why you're here. Or why you've been tailing me. There was no need for the gumshoe routine, anyway. You could just have called round. Or phoned me without leaving England.'

'I like to know what I'm dealing with.'

'And what are you dealing with?'

'Unfinished business.'

'For Christ's sake.' Umber was beginning to feel angry, now the shock of Sharp's appearance had faded. 'You're not serious, are you?'

'Why do you think I'm here?'

'Bored by retirement. Writing your memoirs. God knows.'

Sharp smiled. 'Memoirs. That's a good idea. One I've thought about, matter of fact.'

'Really?'

'I handled quite a few big cases over the years. Mostly with the Met, before I transferred to Wiltshire. I thought it'd be a quieter life down there. Didn't turn out to be, though.'

'Bad luck.'

'Wrong place, wrong time. Like you, I suppose.'

'Not quite like me.'

'No. Maybe not. But you know what I mean.'

'I still don't, actually.'

'I put a lot of evil people behind bars. There were a good few more I couldn't pin anything on, but I knew what they were guilty of. As far as murder goes, there wasn't one I didn't crack. Not one. Except…'

'Avebury.'

'You said it.'

'Well, you'll just have to live with that, won't you? Like the rest of us.'

'Will I?'

Umber sat back as his by now empty glass was collected, letting slip the chance to decline a refill and take his leave. He looked at Sharp, steadily and disbelievingly. "What are you on – a conscience trip?'

'Sort of. I should have got to the bottom of it. And I didn't. It may not be as hard to bear as the what-ifs and why-didn't-Is of those who were there at the time, of course, but -'

'What the hell do you mean by that?'

'Well, you must have said to yourself often enough over the years, "If I'd reacted faster, if I'd moved more quickly… might have saved the girl."' Sharp broke off as Umber's second beer arrived, then went on: 'Don't tell me you never have.'

'All right. I won't tell you.'

'She'd be thirty this year. If she'd lived.'

Umber raised a hand to his brow and closed his eyes for a second. 'Oh, Christ.'

'What's the matter?'

'Nothing.' Umber opened his eyes. 'Nothing at all.'

'Is that the sort of thing Sally used to say?'

There was another wordless interval. Umber swallowed some beer and looked towards the window. 'I don't have to listen to this.'

'I only realized you'd married her when I heard about her suicide. The change of surname. It was a surprise, I don't mind admitting. How did that happen – you and her getting together?'

'None of your business.'

'Orphans of the storm, I suppose. But maybe the storm never quite blew itself out.'

Umber looked back at him. 'You don't know what you're talking about.'

'Put me right, then.'

'It wasn't -'

'Suicide? Not according to the coroner, no. But that's what it sounded like to me. And to you, I'll bet.'

This was too close to the bone – and to the truth. Umber stood up and grabbed his tab. He would pay at the bar and go. He would leave and have done with it. 'I've had enough,' he declared.

'I can make trouble for you, Mr Umber.'

That stopped Umber in his tracks. He looked down at Sharp. 'What did you say?'

'I can call in a few favours if I need to and have your affairs given close attention. Uncomfortably close. Your tax status springs to mind. Always a promising place to start where expats are concerned. Catch my drift?'

'You're bluffing.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. Why take the risk? All I'm asking you to do is to sit down and answer a few questions.' Sharp smiled thinly. 'Help me with my enquiries. As the saying goes.'

Umber hesitated. Why was Sharp so determined to put him through this? It was all so pointless, so pitifully late in the day. He remembered Sharp as a bluff, no-nonsense policeman. There had been no hint of obsession. What was he trying to achieve?

'Sit down.'

With a sigh, Umber obeyed. 'I could do without going over it all again,' he said, almost to himself. 'I really could.'

'So could I.'

'Then spare us both.'

'Not in a position to, I'm afraid.'

'Why not?'

'All in good time. Besides, I'm not convinced you don't know why.'

'You're making no sense… Mr Sharp.'

'All right. Let's stick for the moment to the facts. Those we can agree on. Let's just… run through a few of them.'

'Must we?'

It was unclear if Sharp had even heard the question. 'Avebury: Monday, twenty-seventh July, 1981,' he said, Umber's heart sinking at the implacable declaration of place and date. 'Two days before the Royal Wedding, incidentally, which denied us a lot of valuable publicity in the early stages of the inquiry. Anyway, that's the where and when. Sally Wilkinson, nanny to the Hall family, takes the Halls' three children – Jeremy, aged ten, Miranda, seven, and Tamsin, two – to Avebury for fresh air and exercise. Also because Jeremy's been badgering her to go on account of a school project that sparked his interest in stone circles. They walk around. They look at the stones. Everything's very normal, very peaceful. But there's a white van parked in Green Street. A man gets out of the van, grabs little Tamsin while Sally's back is turned and drives off with her. Or is driven. We'll come back to that point later.'

'You're not telling me anything I don't already know,' Umber pointed out wearily.

'Tamsin's sister runs into the road, presumably to try and stop the van,' Sharp pressed on. 'She is struck. And killed. Outright.' He paused, as if encouraging Umber to interrupt again. But there was no interruption. 'Witnesses,' he continued. 'Other than Sally and Jeremy, we have three. Percy Nevinson, a local man with a comprehensive knowledge of the circle. Not exactly level-headed, though. Tells me he's working on a theory that Martians built Avebury – and Silbury Hill. That puts him in the nutter category in my book. Then there's Donald Collingwood, who drives through the village as all this is happening, but doesn't stop and only comes forward three weeks later. Explains he was afraid of losing his licence on account of his dodgy eyesight. As a result of said eyesight, he isn't too sure what he saw or where the van went. Finally, there's -'

'Me.'

'That's right. David Umber. Sitting outside the Red Lion. With a ringside view of the whole thing.'

'I told you everything I knew at the time. Every single thing I could remember.'

'Which didn't amount to much. And the same goes for the rest. Confusion is the top and tail of it. No registration number for the van. No decent description of the abductor. No nothing. Result: one dead girl; one missing girl; one traumatized boy; one guilt-ridden nanny; a devastated family; a hamstrung inquiry; an unsolved murder. Maybe two unsolved murders. What happened to Tamsin… we have no idea.'

'You have no idea. Officially, it's down to Radd. That's still so, isn't it?'

'It's a grey area. He was never formally charged. But he did confess. The whole thing had a… desk-clearing feel about it to me.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nine years after the event, and only a few months after I've taken early retirement, Brian Radd, child murderer, suddenly adds Tamsin Hall to his admitted list of victims just before he goes into court certain of a life sentence. Says he drove her off, did God knows what to her, then strangled her and buried the body in Savernake Forest. Can't remember, even vaguely, which part of the forest, so a search is out of the question. They'd have found bugger all after nine years anyway. Radd's from Reading, so it's a Thames Valley case, but Hollins, my successor in Wiltshire – a by-the-book timeserver if ever there was one – goes with the flow and puts out a statement saying they're not looking for anyone else in connection with the crime. I smell a rat. Radd's confession gets the murder and the abduction off the books. Nobody cares whether it would stand up in court – whether it's true.'

'Sally cared.'

'Were you married by then?'

'No. Together. But not married. That came later.' Later as in too late, Umber thought but did not say. The marriage had been an attempt to deny that their relationship was falling apart. Its disintegration would have been easier to accept if the reason had been something banal like infidelity or incompatibility. But no. The reason was Avebury, 27 July 1981. That was always the reason. 'The police signing up to Radd's version of events really got to her, you know. She saw the bloke who grabbed Tamsin bundle her into the back of the van and climb in after her. Then the van took off. But Radd claimed to have been alone. No accomplice. Therefore Sally must have been mistaken. She'd been blamed for not taking better care of Tamsin. Now she was being told her account of what happened wasn't credible. She never got over that.'

'It would have been different if I'd still been on the Force.'

'Pity you didn't tell her so.'

Sharp scowled into his beer. 'My old Chief Super asked me not to rock the boat.'

'And you were a loyal cop, even in retirement.'

'I should have contacted Sally and assured her I still believed her.'

'Yes. You should.'

'Is that what made you do it?'

Umber was wrong-footed by the question. He had seemed to have Sharp on the defensive. It had not lasted long. 'Do what?'

Sharp stared at him long and hard. The server replaced their empty glasses with full ones. Sharp held the stare.

'What are you talking about?' pressed Umber.

'Remind me why you were at Avebury that day.'

'For God's sake.'

'Remind me.'

Umber sighed. 'All right. Here we go again. I was one year into a Ph.D at Oxford, studying the letters of Junius. I was spending the summer with my parents in Yeovil. I got a call from a man called Griffin, who said he was up in Oxford, had heard about my research and had something to show me which he thought would be helpful. We agreed to meet in the pub at Avebury that lunchtime. It's as simple as that. Though, as I recall, you never accepted the explanation at face value.'

'I kept my notebooks from the investigation. Took a look through them before I came out here. You're right. There were a lot of question marks in the sections relating to you. And question marks mean doubts.'

'Because Griffin never showed up? Well, you had road blocks up within half an hour. He must have got caught up in the traffic jam and… decided to turn round and go back to Oxford.'

'Plausible enough. But then why didn't he contact you again?'

Umber shrugged. 'I haven't a clue.'

'You had no phone number for him? No address?'

'He was… cagey. I assumed I'd get the details when we met.'

'How had he heard about your research?'

'He didn't say.'

'And you didn't ask?'

'I was more interested in what he was offering to show me.'

'Which was?'

'You already know. It's in your notebook, isn't it? All this stuff must be.'

'Junius was the pen name of the author of a series of anonymous letters to the press in the mid-eighteenth century blowing the lid on the politics of the day. A mole, I guess we'd call him now. Correct?'

'Yes. More or less.'

'What made him such a big deal?'

'For three years, from 1769 to 1772, he savaged the conduct of government ministers in the letters page of the Public Advertiser and succeeded in hounding the Duke of Grafton into resigning the premiership. The reading public lapped it up. Especially since he was clearly either a government insider or someone with access to extremely accurate inside information. But he was never unmasked. The mystery of his identity added to his appeal. And he quit while he was ahead. So, a fascinating figure.'

'What exactly were you researching about him?'

'His identity. The classic unanswered question. Recent historical opinion favours Philip Francis, a senior clerk in the War Office, as the culprit. I was aiming to put that theory to the test.'

'And did you?'

'I never finished.'

'Why not?'

Umber stared Sharp down. 'Something else cropped up.'

'Was it you or the mysterious Mr Griffin who suggested meeting at Avebury?'

'Griffin. But, Avebury being about halfway between Yeovil and Oxford -'

'It's a good bit closer to Oxford.'

'Is it? Well, he was the one doing me the favour. I wasn't going to quibble.'

'And the favour was?'

'After Junius gave up his letter-writing campaign, Henry Sampson Woodfall, the proprietor of the Public Advertiser, published a two-volume collected edition of the letters. He and Junius were in secret communication and Junius asked for a special vellum-bound, gilt-edged copy to be sent to him, which Woodfall duly arranged. It's never been seen since. If found, its provenance would obviously be a pointer to Junius's identity. Well, that's what Griffin claimed he had and was willing to show me: the specially bound copy, with, he said, a revealing inscription inside. It sounded too good to be true, but I wasn't about to pass up the chance, was I?'

'If Griffin had this… unique copy, why didn't he… put it up for auction or something?'

'He didn't say.'

'Why involve you, a…'

'Piddling research student?'

'You said it.'

'I don't know. He promised all would become clear when we met. But we never did.'

'Could it have been a hoax? Some fellow student of yours pulling your leg?'

'I don't think so.'

'Then what do you think it was all about?'

'I don't know.'

'Did you try to track Griffin down when you went back to Oxford?'

'I asked around, but nobody had heard of him. After what had happened at Avebury, though, it seemed so… trivial. I mean, Junius, who really gives a damn? I suppose that was one of the reasons why I gave up on the Ph.D.'

'And the other reasons?'

'They were mostly to do with Sally.'

'I was told she went abroad after the inquest.'

'So she did.'

'You went with her?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry… about her death.'

'Me too.'

'Was it suicide?'

'How would I know? We'd separated by then.'

'But what do you think?'

Umber took a deep swallow of beer and stared at Sharp. 'Same as you.'

Sharp cleared his throat. 'According to my notes, I considered the possibility that you'd made the Griffin story up to explain your presence at Avebury.'

'And did you consider why I'd have wanted to be there?'

'Of course.'

'With what result?'

'I never figured it out.'

'That's because there was nothing to figure out.'

'It seems not.'

'Is that definite, then? You no longer think I might have been lying?'

'I'll go one better. I don't think you're lying now either. I just can't decide whether that's good news or bad.'

'What the hell does that mean?'

'It means you're wrong about Junius, Mr Umber. Somebody does give a damn.'

Umber grimaced in bewilderment. Perhaps he had drunk too much. Perhaps Sharp had. What in God's name was the man driving at?

'I had a letter a few weeks ago, basically telling me I cocked up the Avebury inquiry and should do something about it. Anonymous, naturally.'

'Did you think I sent it? Is that why you came all this way to see me?'

'Yes.'

'Well, you've had a wasted journey, then, haven't you?'

'I don't see it that way. You have to understand. You were the obvious suspect.'

'Why?'

'Because of the source of the letter.'

'You just said you didn't know who it was from.'

'I said it was anonymous. Maybe I should have said… pseudonymous. That's the really strange thing, you see. The letter… was from Junius.'