Robert Goddard - Sight Unseen

'How do we find out?'

'By forcing Jeremy to tell us. Which brings me to your part in the proceedings. You're the historian, not me. Part of my deal with Jeremy is that he hands over the Junius and in return I don't tell his father he stirred up all this trouble for his family by sending anonymous letters to Sharp and me and God knows who else.'

'Jeremy sent them?'

'I think his purchase of the book proves he did. And the book proves something else. If it's authentic. That's where you come in. I was going to have to back my own judgement but I don't need to with you tagging along. You'll be able to say for certain if it's the copy Griffin promised to show you at Avebury.'

'Well, yes, I can. But -'

'How did it get to Jersey, hey?' Wisby turned to look Umber in the eye. 'And what does it mean? I think I know. I think I have it all worked out.'

'Planning to let me in on the secret?'

'Yes – as soon as we have the book.'

'Tell me now.'

Wisby shook his head. 'Too risky. There's a chance you might try to do your own deal with Jeremy and cut me out. Got a meeting arranged with him, have you?'

'Yes. I have. Why shouldn't -'

'When is it?'

'This afternoon.'

'Time and place?'

'A cafe on the seafront. La Fregate. Four o'clock. Come along if you don't believe me.'

'Oh, I will. That's where and when I'm meeting him too.' Wisby laughed, setting off a phlegmy cough. He discarded his cigarette in apparent disgust. 'Quite a comedian, isn't he? He obviously thinks we're in cahoots. As we are now, I suppose.'

'Are we?'

'Might as well be.' A second bout of coughing came and went. 'Don't you reckon?'

Partnering up with Wisby did not leave Umber with a pleasant taste in the mouth. But he could not see, even when he reviewed matters back at the hotel, how he might have managed their encounter any differently. They stood a better chance of extracting the truth from Jeremy Hall by joining forces. Theirs was only a temporary alliance, Umber told himself. Once they had learned the truth – whatever it was – different rules would apply.

He phoned Larter during the empty few hours that separated him from their meeting with Jeremy. He should have made the call sooner, as Larter forcefully reminded him. The truth was that he had felt safer with no-one knowing his exact whereabouts. But it was not a feeling he could afford to indulge.

'What are you up to, boy?'

'Can't go into details, Bill.'

'Onto anything promising?'

'Depends what you mean.

'I mean something that will get George out of choky.'

'I might be.'

'I had him on the blower yesterday.'

'George?'

'Prisons ain't what they used to be. Inmates are allowed all sorts these days – including phone calls.'

'How did he sound?'

'Down in the mouth.'

'Did he ask about me?'

'Of course he asked about you. I told him you'd scarpered, intentions unknown. He didn't believe me, though. I could tell. He never said as much, but I got the feeling he reckons you'll have ignored his message. That's why he's keeping his lawyer in the dark. To give you a clear run.'

'I'll try and make the most of it.'

'You better had, boy. You better had.'

La Fregate was a cafe housed in an artful representation of the inverted hull of a wooden ship, beached on St Helier's breezy seafront. The chill edge to the breeze had driven its few customers inside, with the solitary exception of Alan Wisby. He was sitting at one of the outdoor tables, hunched over a cigarette and a cup of tea, when Umber arrived. There was nearly a quarter of an hour to go till their appointment with Jeremy Hall, but beating Wisby to any rendezvous was clearly next to impossible.

'Couldn't wait, hey?' said Wisby by way of greeting.

'Like you, it seems.'

'No, no. I got here early for the sea air. Ozone's good for the brain, they tell me.'

Umber did not pursue the point. He went into the cafe and bought a coffee. By the time he came back out, a way to wrongfoot Wisby had presented itself appealingly to his mind. He sat down and looked at Wisby, who had angled his chair to face the dual carriageway heading into St Helier from the west – the direction Jeremy Hall would come from.

'We should hear him coming even if we don't see him,' Wisby said. 'Unless he's already in town. As he may well be, if, as I suspect, he's been keeping the books in a safe-deposit box somewhere.'

'You can tell me about your theory now.'

'No, no. Not until the books are in our hands.'

'You refused to tell me earlier on the grounds that I might cut my own deal with Jeremy. Well, it's too late for that now, isn't it? So, there's no need for you to hold out on me.'

Wisby squinted round at Umber in the dazzling sunlight. 'No need for me not to, either.'

'Oh, but there is. Particularly if you want to be able to rely on my say-so as to whether the Junius he brings with him is the one Griffin promised to show me at Avebury. And that's central to your theory, isn't it?'

'Yes,' Wisby hesitantly and reluctantly agreed.

'So you need to be certain. Absolutely certain. And for that you need to give me something in advance.'

'Don't you trust me, Mr Umber?'

'Not at all.'

Wisby drew smilingly on his cigarette. Well, it's good to know where we stand, I suppose.'

'What's your theory?'

Wisby sat in thoughtful silence for a moment, then said, 'All right. I'll tell you. Since my good faith's being questioned. Griffin is central. Why didn't he turn up at Avebury?'

'I don't know. I've never known.'

'It's a mystery.'

'Yes. A total mystery.'

'Perhaps not. If he did turn up.'

'What do you mean?'

'Donald Collingwood was already dead when I went back over the case five years ago. That turned out to be to my advantage. I went to see his widow. She was in an old people's home. With Collingwood six foot under, she didn't mind telling me something she'd never have breathed a word about while he was alive. Seems Collingwood came into money straight after the Miranda Hall inquest. Not a fortune, but a tidy sum. He spun his missus a yarn about a lucky bet on the horses, but she never believed him. Just like she never believed he drove through Avebury on the twenty-seventh of July, 1981.'

'What?'

'Seems there was no reason for him to have been on that road.'

'And you're saying… he wasn't?'

'Exactly.'

'But -'

'He came forward three weeks into the inquiry to account for the car that followed the van. Don't you see? He was put up to it. Paid… to cover Griffin's tracks.'

'Griffin?'

'He was the car driver, not Collingwood. Griffin saw what happened and, good citizen that he was, set off after the van. Well, I think he caught up with it. Or was allowed to, once the driver realized he was tailing them. I think he was murdered to stop him telling the police where the van had gone. Plus its registration number, of course. Plus… who knows?'

'Can you prove any of this?'

'Not yet.'

'What about a body? If Griffin was murdered…'

'I've checked the records carefully. There were no unclaimed corpses within any feasible radius of Avebury in late July of 'eighty-one. And no missing-person report anywhere for anyone called Griffin. If there had been, Sharp would have picked up on it straight away.'

'Sounds like you've gone a long way to proving yourself wrong, then.'

'Not if Griffin was using an assumed name and/or his body was carefully disposed of.'

'Come off it. You're stretching.'

'Wait till you hear what Jeremy Hall has to tell us, Mr Umber. The key is how – and in whose hands – the book got from Avebury twenty-three years ago to Jersey a few months ago. I don't believe for an instant Jeremy found it on the shelf at Quires by chance. I reckon -'