‘This is the deal, Umber. Tamsin says she’ll be at Pewsey railway station when the seven twenty-four for London leaves tomorrow morning. Does she mean she’ll be on the train when it pulls in or waiting on the platform? I’m not sure. There’ll be quite a few commuters at the station. Maybe she wants witnesses to our reunion. Maybe she doesn’t trust me. I could hardly blame her if she didn’t. I used to catch the first train up to London from Pewsey every weekday, you know. When we were one big happy uncomplicated family, in those halcyon days I can hardly remember now, before the twenty-seventh of July, 1981. She’s hardly likely to know that, of course. But I think of it a lot.
‘I’ve booked the pair of you on a noon flight from Heathrow to Zürich. Be sure you’re on it. And be sure Tamsin understands why you have to be. If I met her tomorrow, I wouldn’t have the strength of mind to go through with this. That’s why I mustn’t meet her. Because this is her only hope. And she’s the only child I have left.
‘Take this envelope. The tickets to Zürich are inside. It also contains the letter to Ives and the Junius fly-leaves. You’ll find the inscriptions on them very interesting. It’s small wonder Griffin wanted to show them to you. I imagine you might have made quite a splash in the historical world with such information twenty-three years ago. Not now, though. It’ll have to be your secret.
‘This is the only way out, Umber. The only certain way. I have a gun under my seat. When you’ve gone, I’ll put it to my head and pull the trigger. Suicide, the night before my son’s funeral, in the forest where Radd’s thought to have buried Tamsin’s body. I’ve got a note in my pocket to leave on the dashboard. It’ll make the coroner’s job very easy, very straightforward. “Took his own life while the balance of his mind”, et cetera, et cetera. You follow? Smith and his friends won’t have to worry about me any more. And that means they won’t have to worry about Tamsin. Or you. Provided you’re never heard of again.
‘I’m giving you a fresh start. Tamsin too. For her sake, naturally, not yours. But take advantage of it, there’s a good fellow. I don’t know what she’s planning tomorrow. A graveside confrontation with her mother, perhaps? It mustn’t happen. Talk her out of it. Talk her onto that plane. She trusts you. She’ll go with you when you tell her why she has to.
‘What does the future hold? For me, nothing. For you and Tamsin, who knows? She’s young enough to be your daughter. And she is a kind of orphan. Take her in out of the storm, Umber. Do that for me. And for yourself. End this. Tomorrow.
‘It’s time you left. I’ve said enough. There’s no need for you to say anything. Just take the envelope and go. It’s the only assent I need from you. Wait along the track until you hear the shot. You won’t have to wait long. I can promise you that.’
THIRTY-SIX
THERE WAS A score or more of London-bound passengers waiting on the up platform at Pewsey railway station next morning as the minutes ticked round till the arrival of the 7.24 to Paddington. It was on time, according to the information screen. Some people were already glancing down the track for a sight of it approaching. But as yet there was nothing to see beyond the illusory convergence of the silvery-grey lines of rail in the misty distance.
The person best placed to see the train first was standing on the footbridge. He had been there longer than any of the passengers, but showed no inclination to join them on the platform. The holdall resting by his feet and his casual, weather-worn clothes marked him out from the smarter-dressed commuters who had left their four-wheel-drives and company saloons in the station car park and were dividing their attention between chunky wristwatches and broadsheet newspapers as the arrival of the 7.24 drew near. Paddington was an hour away from them, the City an hour and a half. These aimless minutes of waiting at Pewsey were a featureless fragment of a hectic day. They meant nothing. They were forgotten even as they passed.
They weighed slow and heavy in the mind of David Umber, however. He was here, as Oliver Hall had told him to be. He was here, short of sleep and ragged of nerve. His thoughts were clear, but taut, stretched thin by doubt and anxiety. He had resolved to do what Hall had beseeched him to do. But if Chantelle did not step off the London train, his resolution would count for nothing.
There had been no sign of her at the station when he had arrived by taxi from Marlborough three quarters of an hour before. He had not seriously expected there to be. The train was always the smarter bet. He wondered where she had been staying. Taunton, maybe? Exeter?
It occurred to him then that Taunton and Exeter were places he knew reasonably well. But they were places he could never return to. The escape route Hall had mapped out for him was a flight into semi-permanent exile. It was a fresh start with a heavy price. A long time would have to pass before he could risk contacting his parents. His friends, in Prague and elsewhere, would be lost to him. David Umber was standing at the edge of his world.
But he was still alive. And he would go on living, whatever name he used. Not so Oliver Hall. The sound of the gunshot that had ended his life – the exact, muffled note of it – still echoed in Umber’s memory. The sound – and the long, vast silence of the forest that had engulfed it.
He tensed. There was the train, materializing in the distance as a dark, growing shape. He picked up his bag and headed for the steps leading down to the platform.
By the time he reached it, most of the waiting passengers had spotted the train themselves and were edging forwards, some hurrying towards the far end of the platform where the first-class carriages would be found, others bunching in the central stretch, near the gate in from the road. Umber threaded his way into the latter group and stood amongst them. The rumble of the approaching train grew.
Then the carriages were rolling past, slowing as they went. Umber shrank back, scanning the windows for a glimpse of Chantelle. But he could not see her. He heard himself muttering a prayer. ‘Please, God, let her be aboard.’
The train came to a halt. The doors opened. The waiting passengers hurried forward. Looking towards the front of the train, Umber saw no-one get off except the guard. He turned to look the other way.
And there she was. Chantelle. He knew it was her at once by her dark, baggy clothes and pale, expectant face. He stepped out of her line of sight, into the gateway next to the station building, resisting the urge to run towards her for fear she would take fright and jump back onto the train. He could see her gazing nervously past him along the platform, her grip on the rucksack hoisted on her shoulder visibly tightening. She was braced for a first sight of her father and had no reason to think he might hide from her.
The last of the train doors slammed shut. The guard blew his whistle. Chantelle hesitated, as if wondering whether she should stay or go. There was a second blast on the whistle. The lights above the doors went out, signalling that they were locked. Chantelle glanced over her shoulder to check there was no-one waiting at the end of the platform behind her. The train began to move. She glanced back.
And Umber stepped into view.
She gaped at him, open-mouthed and wordless, as the train accelerated, the draught blowing her hair across her face. The rear turbine roared past them, exhaust fumes billowing and drifting in its wake.
Then the train was gone. And the station was empty. Save for two people, standing twenty yards apart, staring fixedly at each other.
‘Shadow Man,’ was all Chantelle could find to say in the end.
‘Your father isn’t coming, Chantelle.’ Umber stepped cautiously towards her. ‘He sent me.’
‘You didn’t come back to the car. I thought I’d lost you.’
‘So did I.’
‘You’re all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Where’s my father?’
‘Come and sit down.’ He pointed to a bench a little way along the platform behind him. ‘There’s a lot I have to tell you.’
The next train to London was due in an hour. For most of that hour they would have the station to themselves. No-o
ne came and no-one went as they sat on the bench and Umber told Chantelle all that had happened to him since their parting in Jersey.
She wept, shedding tears for a man she could not and now never would remember: her father, who had ruined her life and somehow contrived to offer her another to take its place. She was weeping for her mother as well of course, the mother who, though still alive, was yet as good as dead to her, as dead as the mother in turn believed her daughter to be. She was weeping for the unfairness of it all.
‘I was giving in to all kinds of fantasies on the way here,’ Chantelle said when he had finished. ‘My father turning out to be a nice guy despite everything. Taking me to meet my mother and my stepsister and making everything all right again. Giving me back my family. I saw my mother on the flight from Jersey, would you believe? Of all the ironies. I saw her, but I couldn’t speak to her. I could still speak to her today, though, couldn’t I? At the church. Or the cemetery. She’ll be there, in just a few hours, to say goodbye to Jem. And I could be there too. But if I am …’ She thumbed the tears away from her eyes and gazed imploringly at Umber. ‘What my father planned for us, will it work? Will it really work?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘And nothing else can?’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘But Tamsin has to stay dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they have to bury Jem without me?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll be on a plane to Zürich, while they’re shovelling the earth in on top of his coffin?’
‘Chantelle—’
‘It’s OK.’ She held his hand. ‘What will they say about you, Shadow Man?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing good, I suspect.’
‘I kept the Juniuses safe for you.’ She nodded to her rucksack on the bench beside her. ‘Never thought you’d get the fly-leaves, though.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘How long before we have to go?’
Umber glanced at his watch. ‘Half an hour. Till the London train gets in. It stops at Reading. We can take the coach from there to Heathrow.’
‘And fly away from everything?’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘When there was no answer from that number you gave me – the psychotherapist’s – I thought you must have …’ She shook her head. ‘It was weird to hear his voice on the phone. My father’s, I mean. I couldn’t think of anything else to try. I just … hoped I could shame him into telling me the truth.’
‘You did. But he told it to me instead. I don’t think …’
‘He could have faced me with it?’
‘He’s done his best for you, Chantelle. Strangely enough, he always has done.’
‘The two of us together. That was his idea?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sure you want to go with me?’
‘Would you rather go alone?’
She frowned. ‘’Course not.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘But—’
‘I’m sure, Chantelle. OK?’
‘OK.’ She took a long, slow breath. ‘Half an hour, you said?’
‘About that.’
‘I think I’ll take a stroll. Stretch my legs. I … need some space. Y’know?’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t go far.’
She rose and walked away, head alternately bowed and thrown back. She passed the steps leading up to the footbridge and pressed on along the platform, her arms folded pensively across her chest. Umber wondered what she was thinking. They were, in many ways, strangers to each other. That would change, though. It was bound to, in the days and weeks – and months and years – that lay ahead of them.
‘What will they say about you?’ she had asked. And there had come no ready answer. Claire, Alice, George Sharp, the Questreds: they would not understand. It was, ironically, essential they should not. It was vital his conduct should be a mystery to them, vital he should never explain himself, especially to those he most owed an explanation.
‘I guess that makes us even, Sal,’ he murmured. ‘Now we’re both destined to be misjudged.’
The zip on Chantelle’s rucksack was not fully closed. Through the gap Umber could see the pale vellum spines of the Juniuses, kept safe for him, just as she had said. The sudden need for certainty came over him. He tugged the zip another few inches open and lifted the volumes out. They were tied together with pink ribbon. Chantelle must have bought it specially. He smiled at the thought as he released the knot.
Placing the two volumes on the bench beside him, he leant forward, opened his holdall and pulled out the envelope Oliver Hall had given him. He tipped it up and a smaller envelope slid out into his lap. He raised its torn flap and delicately removed one of two flimsy pieces of paper – the missing fly-leaves. He opened the first volume of the Junius and matched the jagged left-hand edge of the fly-leaf he had chosen to the dog-tooth fragments held by the book’s binding. The last scintilla of doubt vanished. The match was perfect. He gazed in wonderment at the inscription, still unable to imagine how different his life would have been if he had seen this twenty-three years ago. Both fly-leaves were inscribed Frederick L. Griffin, Strand-under-Green, March 1773, but only the one Marilyn had torn from the first volume bore the additional inscription, in the same hand, at which Umber stared fixedly as he closed the book and held the fly-leaf before him. Junius’s ‘gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of our correspondence’ had been identified at last. Umber chuckled at the surpassing irony and glanced along the platform, hoping to catch Chantelle’s eye, eager to show her this final confirmation of what he could still scarcely believe.
She was looking in his direction, but did not seem to notice his signal. Then he realized she was looking past him, squinting into the distance, focusing on something she could see down the line. He turned to see for himself.
It was an approaching train, speeding towards them. The rails had just begun to sing. It could not be the London train. It was far too early. And it was travelling too fast to stop anyway. It was probably a goods train. One had sped through earlier on the other line while they had been talking.
He looked back at Chantelle. In that instant, fear gripped him. She was standing at the very edge of the platform, well beyond the yellow danger line. She was holding her arms stiffly at her sides. Her face was a mask of concentration, her mouth half-open, her eyes staring, her brain judging distance and speed and time in precise ratios.
Umber sprang up from the bench and started running towards her. The train’s horn blared. Chantelle did not move. The noise of the train grew. The note of the rails’ reverberation deepened. Umber’s feet pounded the concrete as he ran, his lungs straining, his limbs stretching, his injured knee jarring. He had never run faster in his life.
But he was still too slow. The distance he had to cover was too great. ‘Don’t!’ he shouted. But Chantelle could not have heard him above the roar of the train even if she had wanted to. There was a second blast of the horn. The dark blur of the locomotive swept past Umber. In the shrinking instant before Chantelle jumped into its path, he closed his eyes.
Umber had stopped running, his final strides carrying him blindly to within a few yards of where Chantelle had been standing. The deafening clatter of the train filled his ears as the long line of trucks surged past him. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, gulping air, his heart thumping, his mind in chaos.
The train was gone. Noise and motion were spent. The present was a frozen moment. Umber opened his eyes and looked up.
* * *
Chantelle was crouching on the platform, her hands held over her mouth, looking straight at him. She had not moved from the spot where she had been standing. She had not jumped.
Umber stared disbelievingly at her. Then he felt his lips curling into a broad, spontaneous grin. ‘Chantelle,’ he said, shaking his head in relief. ‘Chantelle.’
‘I’m sorry,’ sh
e said, lowering her hands. ‘Christ, I’m sorry.’
‘I thought you were going to jump.’
‘I know.’ Something between a sob and a gasp came over her. She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘So did I.’
Umber stood upright and moved across to her. Clasping her beneath the arms, he pulled her gently to her feet, then led her back towards the bench.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked banally, when they were sitting down again.
‘Reckon so.’ Chantelle pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. ‘Now I know I can’t do it.’
‘What made you think you wanted to?’
‘Jem. My father. The past. Everything, I suppose.’
‘And what stopped you?’
‘I guess I’m just not the type. I thought I was.’ She forced a smile. ‘But I found out different. In the split-second when I so nearly went through with it. When the train was almost on me. Suddenly, I wanted to live. Like never before.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Looks like you’re stuck with me now.’
‘That won’t be a problem.’
‘Don’t be too sure. I can be a real pain sometimes.’
‘That’s all right. So can I.’
‘Not as big a one as me, I’ll bet.’ She sighed and looked down. ‘What’s that?’ She pointed to a small piece of paper lying at their feet. Umber was half-surprised to recognize the few lines of antique writing visible on it. He leaned forward and picked it up. ‘Is it what I think it is?’
Umber nodded. ‘I was going to show it to you … just now. I’m not sure … it matters any more.’
‘What does it say?’
‘You really want to know?’
Sight Unseen Page 30