Robert Goddard - Sight Unseen

'What about the day your second life ended, Chantelle? Can you bear to tell me about that?'

'Reckon I've got to.'

'It'd be good if you wanted to.'

'I do. But it's like…' She looked round at him, her expression indecipherable in the darkness. 'Jem never thought you'd team up with Wisby. That was a real shock to him, y'know.'

'I didn't team up with him.'

'No. Guess you didn't. But it looked like you had. And that tore something out of Jem. He'd thought of you as a… fellow-victim. He didn't blame you. He only sent the letters to people he blamed… for not getting it right.'

'Why did he send the letters, Chantelle? I mean, really, why?

'Why didn't I stop him's a better question. But that's starting at the wrong end. I have to tell you about Sally first.' She shivered. 'Let's go inside.'

There was a trayful of paraphernalia for making tea and coffee in Umber's room. He turned the radiator up to maximum while the kettle was boiling and went to pull the curtains, but Chantelle asked him to leave them open. He did not argue.

He sat on the bed and Chantelle took the only chair, which she dragged close to the radiator. Energy was failing her almost visibly now. She looked drained and haunted and, somewhere deep inside, damaged. She sat hunched in the chair, holding her mug of coffee in both hands, sipping from it as she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper.

'I suppose I knew from my early teens there was something iffy about the way Da -' She broke off for a second, then resumed. 'About the way Roy made a living. And about the people he did business with. I never came out and asked. That wasn't encouraged. I was spoiled rotten and I liked it. We had it soft in Monte Carlo. Big duplex looking straight out onto the Med. Everything I wanted. Plus loads of things I didn't even know I wanted. Except… background. There was no family. No grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins like my friends had. Unless you counted Uncle Eddie, which you can bet I didn't. Just a blank. Only children of dead only children. That was Roy and Jean's story. And they were sticking to it.

'It didn't bother me anyway. I was having too much fun. After I finished school, they wanted me to go to university and I thought, great, that'll be in England. But no. They didn't want that. Easy to see why now. At the time, I thought they were just being… over-protective. They were keen on Nice, so I could come home at weekends. My French was certainly up to it. We argued. In the end, I went nowhere. That pissed them off. I went with boys they didn't approve of. That pissed them off some more. Then I met Michel and it was, like, all is forgiven. He was perfect as far as they were concerned. Even when I went to Paris with him.

'Then came the Wimbledon trip. They couldn't really object after going such a bundle on him. He was a tennis player, after all. And I didn't know there was any reason why they should object. A fortnight in Paris had been no problem. So, what did they do? They came with us. Michel got them tickets for the tennis, of course. He more or less had to. He'd rented a flat near the club and I stayed with him there. Roy and Jean booked themselves into a plush hotel on Wimbledon Common. I thought – I honestly did – that they were just using my trip as an excuse to visit London. We saw some of the sights together while Michel was busy practising. Everything was OK. I mean, I'd have preferred them not to be mere, but it wasn't so bad. They didn't crowd me. Though now, when I look back, I see what they really did was… mind me. Keep an eye on me. Make sure that whatever they couldn't help worrying might happen didn't happen.

'But it happened anyway. Despite them. Despite all the precautions they'd taken over the years; all the things they'd ever done to prevent me asking or checking or finding out or wondering or somehow, against the odds, remembering… why there were no photographs of me as a baby, why we had no relatives, why that was the first time I'd ever been to England, why… why… why…'

'Wednesday evening, it was. June twenty-third, 1999. Michel was still at the club, warming down after his second-round match. I'd gone back to the flat. Hadn't been there more than a few minutes when Sally arrived. She'd followed me from the club, she said, after waiting all afternoon for me to leave. She told me who she was. Then she told me who I was.

'I thought she was mad. Well, what else would I think? Michel thought the same when he arrived. More or less threw her out. Told me to forget about her. She was a crazy woman trying to get to him through me. Typical of him to decide it was all about him. We rowed. I went for a walk to clear my head. I didn't believe Sally. But I didn't exactly dis believe her either, even then. What she'd said made a horrible kind of sense. It slotted into those holes in my life. It wasn't something I could just ignore, however much I wanted to.

'Sally hadn't gone far, of course. She was waiting for me at the corner of the street, as I suppose I'd half-hoped she would be. Mad or sane? I didn't know. But I wanted to hear more.

'It was still light. I walked with her to Southfields Tube station. I listened as she talked. I even… let her hold my hand. I made a deal with her. I'd think about what she'd said. I'd ask my… "parents"… some questions and see what answers I got. I'd meet her on Friday morning, while Michel was with his coach, to talk some more. We agreed the boating lake in Wimbledon Park as a rendezvous. She kissed me and went into the station. There were lots of people about, trickling home from the tennis. I lost sight of her in the crowd. And I never saw her again.

'I never got the chance to put any questions to Roy and Jean either. Michel had called them while I was out and they were at the flat when I got back. They were the ones asking the questions. Why had I let her in? Why had I talked to her? Why had I encouraged her? I was gobsmacked. It was like I'd done something wrong – really wrong. And I had, of course. Just when it ought to have been impossible, too late, way past any danger – I'd learned the truth.

'I didn't know that then, of course. I only knew their reaction was all wrong. It was so out of proportion if Sally was just a nutter. They were taking me back to Monte Carlo right away, they said. Michel sided with them, said he couldn't concentrate on his tennis with so much going on. I saw through him that night as well. I didn't bother to argue. I could tell it was a waste of breath. I said OK, fine, we'll go. They were happy with that. They believed I meant it. They believed most things I said, actually. Just like I believed most things they said. Until then.

'Roy and Jean went back to their hotel, saying they'd collect me in the morning. I decided there and then I wasn't going to be collected. I started another row with Michel, knowing he'd react by storming out and driving round London in his sponsored Ferrari. He was a pretty predictable kind of guy. Once he was out of the way, I packed as much as I could into a rucksack – and left.

'I walked all the way into the centre of London. It was a warm night. I remember sitting on the Embankment at dawn thinking you've done it now, girl, you really have. I wasn't short of money, of course. I wasn't homeless, like other people my age I saw on the streets. I bought breakfast, tried to stop feeling sorry for myself and asked a policeman where I could look up back copies of national newspapers. He said he'd never been asked that one before. But he knew the answer.

'So, I ended up spending most of the day in the Newspaper Library at Colindale. As soon as I saw one of the photographs of Tamsin Hall, I knew. Sally had told me the truth. I read every report there was to read on the case. I stayed there till closing time. I went in as Cherie Hedgecoe. I came out… as someone else.