Robert Goddard - Sight Unseen

'There's something you should understand, Claire,' he said hesitantly. 'The Wilkinsons and I… er…'

'What he means,' put in Alice, 'is that they hate his guts. They aren't likely to give him the time of day, let alone the chance to root through whatever they have left of Sally's.'

'It's not as bad as that,' Umber protested. But, almost instantly, it struck him that pretence on the issue was pointless. 'Well, maybe it is.'

'Yes,' said Claire dispassionately. 'Bearing in mind what Sally told me about how things stood between you and her parents, I should imagine it might well be. Which is why Alice and I will go to see them without you.'

'Excuse me?' spluttered Alice.

'Tomorrow,' Claire breezed calmly on. 'I think we can all agree there's no time to be lost.'

Several hours and an awkward little supper party later, Alice took herself off to bed none too soberly, leaving Claire to load the dishwasher, while Umber sat at the kitchen table with a mug of black coffee.

'She'll be fine in the morning,' said Claire, with a wry smile. 'Stress affects people in different ways.'

'You seem to be coping all right,' said Umber, understating the case if anything, given her consistent sangfroid.

'It's just a technique. I break problems down into small, soluble portions. That way I can kid myself nothing's beyond me, as long as I can take it one logical step at a time.'

'Do you teach the technique to your patients? Sorry. I mean clients.'

'Well remembered. And yes, I do. Or at any rate I try. But psychotherapy isn't really that simple.'

'I imagine not.'

'It can be helpful, though.' She pushed the dishwasher door shut and started the machine going, then turned to look at him. 'It can resolve a lot of issues.'

'Think I could benefit from a course?'

'I'm sure you could.' She sat down at the table opposite him. Her shoulder-bag was hanging from the back of the chair. She delved into it and plucked out a pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter. 'Just now I recommend something a bit more basic, though. You want one?'

Umber shook his head. 'I didn't know you smoked.'

'Only in emergencies.' She lit up and piloted a spare saucer into the centre of the table to serve as an ashtray. 'What about you?'

'Never got the taste for it.'

'Nor for resolving issues?'

'I've taken that up late in life.'

'With what results?'

'Mixed. Decidedly mixed.'

'Alice suggested something to me before you arrived this evening. And before the gin hit her bloodstream. She said the two of us ought to go away together. She had South America in mind. An adventure holiday. A couple of middle-aged girls on a spree.'

'Sounds like fun.'

'Think we should go?'

'You could do worse.'

'Like staying in London, you mean?'

'The people we're dealing with, Claire, whoever they are, whatever their motives -'

'Aren't kidding around?' She held his gaze through a plume of cigarette smoke.

'No. They're not.'

'So, if we succeed in finding out what Sally knew…'

'You may wish you'd taken that trip to South America.'

The bloated Saturday edition of the Guardian arrived in Alice's hallway with a loud thump, though it was probably the higher-pitched rattle of the letterbox that roused Umber from an uneasy sleep in the rear drawing room. Alice's sofa-bed was several comfort points up on Bill Larter's, but that had hardly been sufficient to provide him with a good night's rest. The stitches in his scalp were becoming more of an irritant the longer they stayed in. And the demons inside his head never paused for slumber.

He struggled into his clothes, collected the Guardian from the doormat, then headed for the kitchen – and the coffee jar.

The kettle had not even come to the boil when his idle leafing through the newspaper took him to a headline he had hoped against false hope not to see. TRAGEDY RETURNS TO MURDER FAMILY 23 YEARS ON. He anxiously scanned the paragraphs below, relieved at least not to find his own name – or George Sharp's – staring back at him. But that was the full extent of his relief. Events at Avebury in July 1981 were back in the public eye. And its gaze was unblinking.

Less than two weeks after the murder in prison of Brian Radd, the serial child killer held responsible for the deaths of Miranda and Tamsin Hall in 1981, the girls' brother, Jeremy Hall, has been found dead at his father's house in Jersey.

A police spokesperson said Mr Hall, who was 33, had died as the result of a fall from the roof of the house. He had been alone at the time and the circumstances surrounding the incident were as yet unclear.

The dead man's father, Oliver Hall, aged 66, said Jeremy's loss had come as a great shock to him and to Jeremy's mother. He appealed to the media to respect their privacy at 'this terrible time'.

The original murder case has dogged many of those involved in it. Five years ago, the children's nanny, Sally Wilkinson, died in what was officially ruled an accidental electrocution. She was among those who had cast doubts on Brian Radd's confession, which he volunteered shortly before his trial on multiple murder charges in 1990. Jeremy Hall's death will only fuel speculation that-

'The press were bound to pick up on it,' said Claire, causing Umber to jump with surprise as she leaned over his shoulder to examine the article. She was dressed in a navy-blue tracksuit and mud-spattered trainers. Her hair and face were damp with sweat. Umber had supposed himself to be awake before the rest of the house, but that was clearly not the case. 'You must have seen this coming, David. Surely.'

'I didn't think they'd make such a splash of the story.'

'Coming hard on the heels of Radd's murder? They were never going to ignore it.'

'They even mention Sally.'

'But they use her maiden name, I see. Maybe you should be grateful for that.'

'Will the Wilkinsons be grateful?'

'Only one way to find out. Isn't there?'

Claire and Alice set off for Hampshire in Claire's TVR at 10.30. There was no guarantee the Wilkinsons would be at home, of course. But the risk of a wasted journey was preferable to the possibility that Reg would forbid them to come if they phoned ahead. Alice predicted he would not let them past the door even without Umber for company, but her pessimism was partly a symptom of her hangover. Claire seemed altogether more confident. 'They'll be happy to talk about Sally. Silence is never golden for bereaved parents.' The professional had spoken.

As far as she and Alice were concerned, Umber was planning to spend the day at the British Library, boning up on Junius. He had, of course, already established that the Ventry Papers, which represented his only remaining lead to Junius's identity – and hence Griffin's – were lodged in the Staffordshire Record Office. It was therefore unnecessary for him to do any more research in London and, in fact, he had no such intention. Alan Wisby had given him the slip in Jersey, cunningly and clinically. That did not mean he could go on doing so. Monica would remain in the boatyard at Newbury, deserted by her owner. Umber had no doubt Wisby would stay well away from her. But the man had to stay somewhere. And that put another Monica in the frame.

Umber's trip to Southwark was little more than a fishing expedition. He did not seriously expect to find anyone in the office at 171A Blackfriars Road on a Saturday morning. His ambitions were fixed no higher than extracting a home address or telephone number for Monica Wisby from the shoe-repair man in the ground-floor shop. He turned the handle of the door leading to the stairs up to the first floor fully expecting to find it locked. But it was not.