Robert Goddard - Sight Unseen

'Like the editor said. There's no evidence.'

'Could any of it be true?'

'It could all be true. The Hannah Lightfoot-George Rex story is semi-official history these days. But it can't explain the theft of the registers, because George Rex was already dead by then, supposedly without an heir to take his place as a threat to Victoria. Your family legend, on the other hand, accounts for it perfectly. Unfortunately, without supporting evidence that's all it is: a legend.'

'Could the special edition Junius have changed that?'

'It depends on the inscription. "Illuminating and more than somewhat surprising". That's how your brother described it. I only wish I'd seen it for myself. I only wish I'd met your brother.'

'Me too.'

'I suppose he was hoping my work on Junius would beef up his case into something the likes of History Today would have to take seriously. And maybe it would have. The Chesterfield connection certainly ties in with some leads I was following.'

'Father always said something called the Royal Marriages Act meant the Griffins' claim to the throne failed on technical grounds.'

'It's a good point. Since the act was passed – in 1772, I think – members of the Royal Family have needed the monarch's consent before they can marry. Without such consent, their marriage isn't valid. George the Third obviously learned something from his youthful indiscretion. The effect is that either George Rex wasn't a member of the Royal Family, in which case his marriage to Mary Ann Leavers doesn't matter, or he was, in which case it doesn't count.'

'Something and nothing, then?'

'I wouldn't say that. It's a humdinger of a story. If I'd been able to dig up some hard evidence, it might have turned my file-and-forget thesis on Junius into a bestselling book. With your brother as co-author.'

Griffin smiled. 'Henry would have liked that.'

'So would I.' A thought suddenly struck Umber. 'What sort of car did your brother drive, Mr Griffin?'

'Sorry?'

'Your brother's car. The one he was travelling in to Avebury. What type was it?'

'I don't know. He used to run a…' Griffin struggled with his memory for a moment. 'Triumph Herald estate. Yes, that's right. Phenomenal lock – it could turn on a sixpence – but a bit of a rust-wagon. Whether it was still on the road in 'eighty-one…' He shrugged. 'Henry wouldn't have traded it in unless he had to, that's for sure.'

'What colour was it?' Umber asked, replaying in his mind's eye the glimpse he had had of the car that had followed the van out of Avebury that day in July 1981, past the small, broken body of Miranda Hall.

'Dark green.'

'Of course.' Dark green it was. Dark green it had to be.

Dusk was coming on when Umber left Strand-on-the-Green and wandered back towards Kew. He was more or less at the halfway point of the three days he had been given to find Chantelle and hand her over. But his search for her and for ammunition to use against those who wished her ill had so far yielded nothing.

That was not strictly true, of course. He had traced Henry Griffin. He had learned what Griffin had meant to tell him at Avebury. And he had established Griffin's murder by Tamsin Hall's abductors as a virtual certainty. But none of that made any difference. In a sense, it only made it worse. Twenty-three years ago, David Umber the budding historian had been cheated of an encounter that might have changed his life. Yet his life had changed anyway. It had taken the course leading to the evening of solitude and despair that was opening out before him. It had led inexorably to where he was. And where it would lead next he preferred not to imagine.

But imagine he had to. The strange tale of the Griffins of Kew, which would once have delighted and fascinated him, was no help in his predicament. It left him as powerless to obey as to defy those who required an answer of him by noon on Friday. Yet an answer of some kind he would have to give.

Alcohol put Umber to sleep that night. It was more like oblivion than slumber. He woke, dry-throated and gritty-eyed, with the stitches in his head tugging sharply at his scalp. Dawn was edging its grey fingers between the curtains of his room at the Travel Inn and the traffic on Euston Road was only just beginning to thicken. He stared out at it through the tinted glass of the window as he sipped a two-sachet black coffee, wondering not so much what he should do as what, almost independently of his own reasoning, he was going to do.

The answer came to him in the shower, as cold water sluiced over him. Chantelle had said she could not go on alone and there was no reason to disbelieve her. Failing to contact Claire, she would have sought some other way out of the waking nightmare her life had become. It was quite possible she had flown to England on the same plane as her dead brother and the mother who thought she was dead too. Even if she had not, their destination must have drawn her as well. Home. The place where it all began. The unremembered start of her journey. There was nowhere else she was likelier to have gone. And there was nowhere else for Umber to go in search of her.

He had to do his best by others before setting off, however. He tried Claire's mobile again as soon as he was out of the shower. And this time there was an answer.

'Hello.' Her voice sounded husky and slightly slurred, as if she had just woken up.

'Claire. It's me. David.'

'David. Where are you?'

'London. Sorry if I woke you. I thought you'd already be up. You're an hour on in Monaco, aren't you?'

'You must have been out to Hampstead, if you know where we are.'

'I thought you were going to wait until you'd heard from me, Claire.'

'For a few days. That's what we agreed. And that's as long as I could wait. Alice would have come without me otherwise. And I didn't reckon that was a good idea.'

'Have you spoken to Tinaud?'

'Not yet. His PA's blocking us. I haven't pushed it. I've been hoping you'd call and say there was no need. Is that what you're going to say?'

'In a sense.'

'Care to explain?'

'Can't. I'm in over my head, Claire. I know too much. I don't want to put you in the same position. Don't speak to Tinaud. And don't come back to London until you've heard from me again.'

'What?'

'Now would be a good time for that girls' jaunt to South America. It really would. Talk Alice into it. Talk yourself into it.'

'What's happening, David?'

'I don't know. But, whatever it is, I will know. All too soon.'

'You're not making any sense.'

'If only that was true. If you never trust me in anything, trust me in this. You'll learn nothing from Tinaud I don't already know. But speaking to him may get you the attention of some very dangerous people. Don't do it. And don't come back here. At least for a few days.'

'We're back to a few days, are we? A few more days for you to go it alone.'

'The last few. I can promise you that.'

'You're going to have to -'

'Goodbye, Claire.' He put the phone down, certain, because he had withheld his number, that she would not be able to call him back.

He skipped the Travel Inn breakfast, checked out, took a cab to Liverpool Street station and boarded a train for Ilford. The only place he could think of to store his box of Junius Papers was 45 Bengal Road. He planned to leave a note for Larter, then head west.

But his plan had taken no account of the pressure on beds in the National Health Service. Larter had been patched up and sent home, with stitched lip, reinflated lung and slowly healing ribs. He was moving gingerly around the kitchen, preparing a bacon-and-egg start to the day, when Umber let himself in.