‘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 that’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?’
TEN
IT WAS UNCLEAR exactly how long it would take Questred to set up a meeting for them with Oliver Hall. Sharp gave him a twenty-four-hour deadline to concentrate his mind, then booked Umber and himself out of the Ivy House and headed for London.
‘Alice Myers was her best friend. She owned the flat Sally died in. Still does, presumably. If anyone knows what was going on in Sally’s head at the time, it’s Alice.’
‘We’ll start with her, then.’
‘But there’s a problem. Alice is anti-Establishment to her fingertips. Spent a whole winter in the Eighties camped out at Greenham Common. Obstructs the police on principle. She’ll clam up in front of you.’
‘What are you trying to say, Umber?’
‘I’ll get more out of her on my own, George. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Huh.’ Sharp said nothing more for a mile or so, then resumed, the affront to his status evidently shrugged off. ‘All right. Leave me out of it. There’s something else I need to do anyway.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Alan Wisby. Does the name ring any bells?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘He was a private detective Oliver Hall hired when my investigation ran into the sand. You and Sally would have been in Spain by then, but if Wisby was doing a thorough job, which I—’
‘Hold on. Yes. A private detective did come to see us. I can’t remember his name. Insignificant sort of bloke.’
‘That would be Wisby. I can’t blame Hall for going down the private route when it became obvious I was getting nowhere, but he could have done better than Wisby.’
Umber was not going to argue with that. He recalled a short, thin, whisper-voiced chain-smoker, a pale streak of English winter in the Catalan spring. Sally had taken an instant dislike to the man. But he had not stayed long enough to become a nuisance. He had asked his questions, they had answered them and he had gone, with little or nothing to show for his trouble.
‘I don’t know how long Hall kept him on the case, but he’ll have got bugger all for his money. Wisby was a wash-out. Anyway, according to Yellow Pages, he’s still in business, so I was thinking of dropping by his office.’
‘Do you think you’ll get anything out of him?’
‘Shake a tree, Umber, and it’s surprising what falls out. If Jane Questred didn’t tip anyone off about our activities, you have to ask yourself: how were we rumbled?’
‘And Wisby’s the answer?’
‘Probably not. But he’s worth a visit. You see, it’s occurred to me Junius may have sent the same letter I got to anyone else who was involved in investigating the case. And Wisby falls squarely into that category.’
Sharp dropped Umber in Hampstead High Street and headed on his way. They had agreed to meet later at Bill Larter’s home in Ilford. Umber had fewer qualms about his reception there than at Alice Myers’ home, where he had last set foot, lingering for all of ten excruciating minutes, on the afternoon of Sally’s funeral.
Alice lived in a tall, elegant Victorian house about halfway between the High Street and Hampstead Heath. She occupied the ground and first floors, where she worked as well as lived, while renting out the basement and the top floor. It was the top-floor flat she had given Sally the use of following her return from Italy. And it was there, on the evening of Thursday, 24 June 1999, that Sally had died by supposedly accidental electrocution.
Alice’s multiple occupations of fabric designer, curtain-maker, cello teacher and political activist all had 22 Willow Hill as their hub. Umber was therefore confident he would find Alice in. But there his confidence ended.
There was no immediate response to the bell, but he hesitated to ring again. Then he heard a faintly vexed cry of ‘Coming’. Alice, it seemed, was already preparing a less than fulsome welcome before she even knew who her caller was. A second later, the door was yanked open.
Umber never ceased to be surprised by Alice’s size. Her name and her feathery voice created in the mind’s eye an altogether slighter person than she actually was. Her outfit on this occasion – a baggy paint-spattered boilersuit – merely exaggerated her bulk. There were flecks of paint in her hair as well, flamingo pink amidst the pigeon grey, and one on the arm of her round, gold-framed spectacles, through which her large brown eyes regarded Umber with widening dismay.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘David.’
‘Long time no see,’ Umber responded, smiling uncertainly. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure. I’m … in the middle of decorating.’ She led the way down the hall. They passed one room, bare of furniture, where a tide of pink had advanced halfway across the ceiling and a roller stood propped in a paint-tray against a stepladder. The next room contained the furniture displaced from the first room, crammed in with its own. By simple elimination, they ended up in the kitchen. ‘Do you want some tea?’
‘All right. Thanks.’
Alice filled the kettle and switched it on, then plucked two tea bags from a jar. ‘Green OK? Well, it’s all I drink, so …’
‘It’s OK.’
‘You should’ve told me you were coming.’
‘What would you have said if I had?’
‘That I was decorating.’
‘Anyway, it was a last-minute decision.’
‘Just passing through?’
‘Not exactly.’
Alice leaned back against the worktop and gave him a long gaze of scrutiny. ‘You look kind of strung-out.’
‘I feel kind of strung-out.’
‘I heard you were in Prague.’
‘I was.’
‘Home for good?’
‘I doubt it.’
The kettle boiled. Umber sat down at the kitchen table while Alice dunked the tea bags. A rumpled copy of the Guardian lay by his elbow, folded open at an inside page. There was a different headline from the one in Questred’s paper, but the same grainy mugshot beneath it of Brian Radd, lately deceased paedophile.
‘I owe you an apology, Alice.’
‘You do?’ She glanced over her shoulder at him.
‘Leaving like that. Without even saying goodbye.’
‘It was a tough day for everybody. Tougher for you than for most, I guess.’
‘I bet that’s not what you thought at the time.’
‘It was five years ago. I’d just lost my best friend. I thought lots of things.’ She delivered the mugs to the table and sat down opposite Umber. ‘I’m sure I thought I’d never see you again, for instance. Certainly not here.’
‘Read this?’ He turned the newspaper round to face her.
She frowned. ‘That’s surely not what’s brought you here.’
‘Do you know why I left so abruptly after Sally’s funeral?’
‘Afraid people would give you a hard time, I guess.’
‘I reckoned I deserved one. I felt ashamed for running out on her. Guilty for what had happened.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Whose fault was it, then?’
‘No-one’s. There’s no blame … in situations like that.’
‘But what was the situation? I should have asked more questions. I should have forced myself to understand. We all should have.’
‘Things just got too much for her. There’s nothing else to say.’
‘I think there is. Everyone was so eager not to challenge the verdict for fear we’d have to admit it was suicide that no-one asked whether it could have been … something else altogether.’
‘Such as?’ Alice stared at him in bemusement.
He folded his hands together and looked at her over them. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Alice, that Sally might have been murdered?’
‘What?’
‘It’s occurred to me, you see. As a very real possibility.’
‘I don’t believe this. I really don’t
.’ She shook her head to emphasize the point. ‘You turn up out of the blue after five years – five years of silence – and you tell me you think my best friend might have been murdered. In my house. Without me noticing. I mean, what did I do, David? Mistake the murderer for the plumber and let him in, saying hello, help yourself, you know where everything is?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘Sally was alone when it happened. On her own. And you know what? It takes two to murder as well as tango. Give me a break.’
‘How do you know she was alone?’
‘How?’
‘Yes. It’s a simple question.’
Alice’s expression suggested that it was less simple than stupid. ‘She was in the bath, David. Have you forgotten that? Where did this murderer suddenly spring from? There was no sign of a break-in, down here or up there.’
‘Perhaps he tricked his way in.’
‘And she decided to take a bath while he was still there? You know as well as I do how ludicrous that would be. Her problem wasn’t people coming to see her. It was people not coming to see her.’
‘You said at the inquest she’d been in good spirits.’
‘Irrationally good spirits, I thought, when I looked back on it, though I didn’t say so to the coroner, obviously. She’d broken her last appointment with Claire, you know.’
‘Who?’
‘Claire Wheatley. Her psychotherapist. And a good friend of mine. She was at the funeral. I think you spoke to her. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’ Such conversations as Umber had had at Sally’s funeral he had done his level best to forget. ‘I can’t say I do.’
‘Sally was supposed to see her earlier that week. She’d been doing well, according to Claire. They had regular Monday afternoon sessions. I remember seeing Sally set off at the usual time. She just never turned up at the other end. Well, that’s not strictly true, but—’
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