Sight Unseen

'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 -'