Sight Unseen (38 page)

'Shall I put in an extra rasher for you?' Larter gestured at the frying pan with his spatula.

'Can't stop.'

'Please yourself.' Larter nodded at the box. 'You can leave that if you've a mind to. It'll be good practice in case I have to go into left luggage to top up my pension.'

'I'll be in touch.' Umber dropped the spare set of keys Larter had given him on the table. 'Thanks, Bill.'

'Don't mention it.'

'I'll be off now.'

'Righto.' Then, after the briefest of pauses, he added, 'Good luck, son.'

* * *

Back to Liverpool Street, round the Circle line to Paddington, then a fast train to Reading. Door to door from 45 Bengal Road, Ilford, to the Royal Berkshire Hospital took Umber nearly two hours. Time was sliding through his fingers like sand. If the stitches in his head had not been causing him almost as much discomfort as his troublesome knee, he would probably have given the out-patients' clinic a miss, but, as the whims of the NHS would have it, he did not have to wait long for the stitches to be removed and felt instantly better for it, despite the nurse's less than encouraging assessment.

'How are you feeling, Mr Umber? You look a little under the weather.'

'I'm fine, thanks.' Which he was not, of course. But under the weather? No. That description did not do his condition any kind of justice.

* * *

By noon he was back at Reading station, waiting for a train to Bedwyn. And one and a half hours later, he was clambering off the connecting bus in Marlborough High Street. He had a plan. He knew what he was going to do. What it would achieve, however, was quite another matter.

* * *

His first port of call was W. H. Smith, where he grabbed a copy of the local weekly newspaper. He was still in the queue, waiting to pay for it, when he found what he was looking for among the funeral notices.

HALL, Jeremy. Died tragically in Jersey, Thursday 25th March, aged 33. Dearest son of Jane and Oliver, fondly remembered by Edmund and Katy. A service of celebration for his life will be held at Holy Cross Church, Ramsbury, on Friday 2nd April at 11 a.m., followed by interment at Marlborough Cemetery at noon. Family flowers only.

Umber reread the notice after he had left the shop. It had to be a coincidence, of course. But it did not feel like one. Jeremy Hall was due to be buried on the day and at the hour when the deadline Umber had been set to hand over Chantelle expired. The burial of the brother and the betrayal of the sister were paired events in a possible version of the all too near future.

* * *

He entered the Kennet Valley Wine Company little expecting to find Edmund Questred manning the till. In truth, he was faintly surprised to find the shop open at all. But Questred had found a stand-in -- a plump, bespectacled, middle-aged woman with an engaging smile.

'Good afternoon,' she said. 'Can I help you?'

'I'm looking for Mr Questred.'

'I'm afraid he's not in today. There's been a family bereavement.'

'I know.' He held up his copy of the
Gazette & Herald.
'A terrible business.'

'Yes, indeed.'

'I knew Jeremy as a boy. Nice lad. I, er, taught at his school.'

'Really?'

'Do you happen to know which undertaker is handling the funeral? The notice didn't say and I, er...'

'Umber.'
The office door beyond the counter opened by a foot or so and Edmund Questred stared out through the gap. 'Come in here.' He glanced at the woman. 'It's OK, Pam. We know each other.'

Umber edged round the counter and moved through into the office. Questred closed the door behind him, then gestured for Umber to follow as he led the way out into the storeroom and switched on the lights. Fluorescent tubes flickered pallidly into life above the assorted boxes of wine.

'What are you doing here?' Questred looked and sounded too tired to summon up much in the way of overt hostility. 'And why do you want to know which undertaker we're using?'

The answer was that Chantelle might want to see Jeremy one last time before the funeral. But it was not an answer Umber could afford to give. 'I'm not sure. Just trying to draw something out, I suppose.'

'Haven't you the decency to drop all this now Jeremy's dead?'

'It's not a question of decency.'

'Are you going to tell me you think Jeremy was murdered, like you reckon your wife was?'

'No. I'm not. Though, as I recall, you agreed Sally's death was suspicious last time we spoke.'

'I agreed nothing.'

'Have it your way.'

'Is Sharp with you?'

'No.' Questred did not seem to know about Sharp's arrest. Nor did he appear even to suspect that either Sharp
or
Umber had been in Jersey the day Jeremy had died. 'I'm on my own.'

'At least one of you has realized you ought to back off, I suppose.'

'I'm sorry about Jeremy. Truly. How's your wife taking it?'

'How do you think?'

'Hard, I imagine.'

'And then some.' Questred frowned. 'You're not planning to show up at the funeral, are you?'

'Would it be so awful if I did?'

Questred shook his head, as if despairing of Umber's sensitivity altogether. 'You have no idea, do you? Jane's lost three children.
Three.
Jeremy's suicide has brought back the grief of Tamsin and Miranda's deaths as well. If it weren't for Katy, I'm not sure Jane would be able to get through this. But I'm sure seeing you won't help. I'm
absolutely
sure of that.'

'She won't see me.'

'Do I have your word on that?'

Umber looked Questred in the eye. 'No. You don't. All I can say is ... she won't see me unless I feel she has to.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Why do you think Jeremy killed himself?'

'The best guess is... Radd's murder sparked something off in his mind. Seeing his sisters killed in front of him...' Questred shrugged. 'Maybe he never really got over it.'

'He only saw one of his sisters killed, actually.'

Questred squinted at Umber in genuine bafflement.
'What?'

'Do Jeremy's friends in Jersey say he was depressed?'

'No. Well, not exactly. He'd been keeping himself to himself a lot lately, apparently. He hadn't been seen around. Maybe that was the start of it. Even before Radd.'

'Maybe it was.'

'You didn't speak to him, did you? You or Sharp, I mean. If Jane thought...'

'Would it make it easier having us to blame?'

'It might.'

'Then, tell her whatever you think it's best she believes.'

'Don't make tomorrow any more difficult than it has to be, Umber. Please don't do that to her.'

'I won't.'

'Is that a promise?'

'Yes.' It was one promise Umber was sure he could keep, if only because the events of tomorrow were so comprehensively beyond his control. 'It is.'

Umber left Questred to puzzle over his intentions and headed along the High Street to the Ivy House Hotel, where he booked himself in for the night. Before going to his room, he borrowed the local
Yellow Pages
from behind the desk and hunted down the addresses and telephone numbers of Marlborough undertakers.

There were only two, so it seemed easier to walk round than phone ahead. As it happened, the first one he tried, a short walk away at the eastern end of town, was the firm handling the Jeremy Hall funeral.

He had harboured no wish to view the deceased, but felt bound to ask if he could do so, if only to camouflage his curiosity about who else had been to the chapel of rest for the same reason. The receptionist had been well schooled in the arts of discretion, however. She was giving nothing away, other than a coolly framed confirmation that he was the first person from outside the family to make such a request -- which happened to be exactly what he wanted to know. So much for his hunch that Chantelle would not be able to stay away. Unless, of course, she had claimed to be a relative. A cousin, perhaps. Something like that. Anything, in fact, but what she really was.

* * *

He had seen Sally only a few hours before her funeral, at a chapel of rest in Hampstead. He had wished later that he had not seen her, so hard did it prove to rid his mind of the memory of her white, drained, lifeless face. This time he knew better than to linger by the coffin. He prowled the room for a few minutes, just long enough to suggest he was a sincere mourner, which in one sense he was. He did no more than glance at Jeremy Hall. The young man's face was unmarked. Either that or the marks his fatal fall had left on it had been expertly masked. You could imagine he was at peace, if that was the way your imagination worked. It was not the way Umber's worked, however. He hurried out.

* * *

The cemetery was his next destination. Chantelle's sister was buried there, after all. And men were at work digging the grave, not far from Miranda Hall's, where Jeremy Hall would be laid to rest tomorrow. There was a good chance Chantelle would go there. But there was no sign of her. She could have been and gone, of course. She might be planning to visit later, when the gravediggers had finished their work. Or she might be determined to stay away. She might be miles away -- thousands of miles, even. In a part of his mind, Umber hoped she was. But in another part, the part where hope held no sway, he knew she was not.

* * *

He walked out along the Ridgeway, then on across the downs towards Avebury. The afternoon began to fade into evening. The light was pearly grey, the air cool but barely moving. He could hear skylarks singing above him, but he could not see them. Once he saw a larger bird that might have been a kestrel, hovering away to the north. But he could not be sure. He pressed on through the broad, rolling landscape.

* * *

He had acknowledged the probable futility of his journey long before he reached Avebury. The simple truth was that even if he was right about the places Chantelle would feel drawn to, he had no way of calculating when or even if she would actually visit them. If he found her by this method, it would be pure luck.

But he had no other method to apply. Passing Manor Farm and cresting the last hillock before the henge came into view, he half-expected he
would
see her, walking slowly along one of the banks, head bowed, lost in thought, her slim, dark-clad figure silhouetted against the wide, pale sky.

* * *

But she was not there. Umber walked most of the way round the north-eastern bank, from which he had a clear view of the Cove. No-one was loitering by the Adam and Eve stones. Visitors to Avebury were few at this hour of the day. Umber could see nobody even remotely resembling Chantelle.

He doubled back and completed a slow half-circuit of the henge, passing one dog-walker and a pair of hikers on the way. He finished up in the High Street of the village with nothing to show for his efforts but a renewed ache in his injured knee. It was growing cold now. The place was different, utterly different, from how it had been that blazing day of high summer twenty-three years ago. But still it was the
same
place. The ghosts remained, whether they showed themselves or not.

Umber headed along the High Street towards the Red Lion. Chantelle might be waiting till dusk to put in an appearance, he told himself, till it was safe to follow in her own forgotten footsteps. He would wait at the pub, as he had waited before.

* * *

But someone had got there before him. As Umber rounded the front gable of the pub, he saw a figure seated at one of the tables set in the angle of the L-shaped building, a figure muffled up against the encroaching chill, anorak collar turned up, Tilley hat brim turned down.

'Good evening, David,' said Percy Nevinson. 'Thank goodness you've arrived. It's getting decidedly nippy out here.'

'Percy.' That was all Umber could find to say. There had been a risk of bumping into Nevinson. He had realized that. But the pub was not the man's natural territory. And it was clear that this encounter, unlike their last, was not a product of chance.

'Shall we go inside? Perhaps I could buy you a drink?'

'All right.' Umber struggled to recover himself. If Chantelle did turn up, the last person he wanted for company was Nevinson. Getting rid of the man would be next to impossible, however. Maybe it was safer for them to be inside the Red Lion than out. 'Let's do that.'

* * *

The bar was quiet. Nevinson bought Umber a pint and another half for himself. They sat at a table by the window, Umber taking the chair facing it, so that he had a view of the road and the stones of the henge's southern inner circle. Nevinson took off his hat and ruffled his hair, smiling at Umber with irritating mildness.

'You came to no harm in Jersey, then,' he said after a sip of beer.

'As you see.'

'When Abigail came back from shopping in Marlborough this afternoon, she told me she'd spotted you from the bus. I felt sure you'd come out here sooner or later if I waited long enough.'