Sight Unseen

'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.'