Sight Unseen

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Know who this is?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We need to meet. Tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Want the truth? The whole truth? And a way out of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then don’t argue. I’ll pick you up at midnight. Wait in front of the Town Hall.’

  ‘How did—’

  ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘Yes. All right. But—’

  ‘See you then.’ The line went dead.

  Umber put the phone down, hoisted his feet up onto the bed and lay back against the pillows. He stared up into the shadows angled across the ceiling, his mind struggling with the implications of what had just happened. Oliver Hall wanted to see him. Oliver Hall was willing to tell him the truth. Oliver Hall was offering him an escape route. It was too good to be true. It was too alluring to be anything but a trap. And maybe it was a trap deadlier than any of those he had so far blundered into. But he had agreed to go. And he would. He could not ignore the summons. He could not resist the bait. He could not avoid the trap.

  Umber got to the Town Hall several minutes early. Marlborough was quiet, the High Street largely empty. It had occurred to him by now that leaving an anonymous message at the Ivy House and nominating a pick-up point a little way from the hotel showed just how determined Hall was to avoid leaving any evidence that they had conversed, let alone met. Such precautions did not augur well. But there was of course no reason why they should. Umber waited, sitting on the steps that led up to the Town Hall entrance, staring along the curve of the High Street.

  He had no way of knowing Hall would approach from that direction, of course. In the event, shortly after St Mary’s Church clock struck twelve, a gleaming blue-black Bentley purred round the sharp-angled bend to Umber’s left and pulled in.

  Oliver Hall nodded at him through the driver’s window, then jerked his head towards the passenger’s door. Umber stood up, walked round and climbed in.

  ‘You came, then.’ Hall was dressed in a Barbour, open-necked shirt and dark trousers. His face was sallow in the filtered amber lamplight, his eyes hooded and weary, his brow furrowed, his mouth set in a grim, charcoal-shadowed line.

  ‘I said I would.’

  ‘You said you’d wait to hear from me before visiting Jeremy. You didn’t, though, did you?’

  ‘Sharp’s arrest forced my hand.’

  ‘Did it really?’

  ‘Yes. It really did.’

  ‘Were you surprised to hear from me this evening?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re here. That’s what counts. Let’s go.’ Hall started away.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Not far. Not far at all.’ He swung the car round into Kingsbury Street and headed up the hill Umber had climbed earlier on his way to the cemetery.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘Edmund told me you were in Marlborough. It was a fair bet you’d stay at the Ivy House again.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘Worried about how close Marilyn is, are you, Umber?’

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘No. She’s still in London. I’m here on my own. On my own initiative, you might say.’ Hall followed the road round to the right at the top of the hill. The cemetery, then, was not their destination. ‘High time, you might also say. And you’d be entitled to. Don’t think I’m not aware of that.’ He took another right onto the main road.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Savernake Forest. Where my ex-wife has convinced herself Radd buried Tamsin. Where she often goes to mourn her, I believe.’

  ‘Why there?’

  ‘No possibility of interruption, Umber. No prying eyes or ears. That’s why. That and something else we’ll come to later.’

  ‘You promised me the truth.’

  ‘So I did.’

  ‘When am I going to get it?’

  ‘Soon enough. There are a few questions I want to ask you first.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Why did you choose to study the letters of Junius?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean, was there any particular reason?’

  ‘Why in God’s name should you care?’

  ‘Humour me on the point.’ Hall took the Salisbury road at the double-roundabout just beyond the bridge over the Kennet and headed towards the forest that was waiting ahead of them, still and silent in the moonless night. ‘There’s a good fellow.’

  ‘I specialized in eighteenth-century British politics. Junius was an ideal case study.’

  ‘No other reason? Nothing more … personal?’

  ‘I’d always been curious about him. There was an old copy of the letters in the bookcase at home. Something of an heirloom in my father’s family.’

  ‘Was it now?’

  ‘But I can’t believe you’re dragging me out here to discuss Junius.’

  ‘He does have a bearing on what we need to discuss, Umber, take it from me. But that can wait.’

  The road curved as it climbed Postern Hill. At the top, Umber knew, Savernake began. The old Norman hunting forest had once stretched for many miles to east and west. What remained was a remnant, but a large remnant nonetheless. Several square miles of heavily wooded land in which bodies could plausibly be buried – and secrets likewise.

  ‘Jane believes our three children are all dead now, Umber. Do you believe that?’

  ‘Do you?’

  They drove in silence, the unanswered cross-questions contending in the darkness between them. The car’s headlamps arced across the screen of trees ahead of them as they crested the rise. Then Hall said, with quiet emphasis, ‘Of course not.’

  Umber was at first too dumbstruck to respond. Hall was as good as admitting that Tamsin was alive and that he had never once thought otherwise in all the twenty-three years since her supposed death. ‘You mean …’

  ‘Tamsin is Cherie … is Chantelle. That’s what I mean. You know it. And I’ve always known it.’

  ‘You’ve known? All along?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sometimes I’ve envied Jane her certainty. The simplicity of her grief. The finality of it. Tamsin dead rather than taken. Buried rather than hidden.’ Hall sighed. ‘But only sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How—’

  ‘Wait.’ Hall braked sharply and pulled in off the road. The cones of light from the headlamps tunnelled ahead of them along a track leading into the woods. Hall drove slowly, tyres crunching over the rough surface, suspension wallowing through the potholes. ‘Let’s get clear of the road,’ he said.

  Fifty yards or so sufficed. At that point Hall steered into the side of the track and stopped. He turned off the engine and, a second later, the lights. Darkness closed around them like a hood. Then Umber saw the glow of the dashboard lighter. Hall had taken a cigar out of his pocket. He lit it, replaced the lighter, then lowered the window. The damp night air drifted in, thinning the pungent smoke.

  ‘What now?’ Umber asked.

  ‘I talk.’ Hall drew on the cigar. ‘And you listen.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘I’VE ALWAYS DONE my best for my children, Umber. You may find that assertion ironic in the light of what you know. And you may find it even more ironic in the light of what you’re about to learn. But it’s true. I’ve done everything in my power to protect them. Everything.

  ‘I’m going to tell you a story. In every important sense, it’s the story of my life. It begins – and I suppose it ends – with money. The making of it. The multiplying of it. And the spending of it. I don’t do much of the last. No need, really, with Marilyn on hand. And the first isn’t strictly my line. But the second? I’m a past master at that. One of the best. One of the very best. The keeping, the concealing and the breeding of wealth. That’s my speciality. My vocation, if you like.

  ‘You could call it a gift,
this skill of mine. Many have. I have. I don’t any more, though. I understand all too clearly now how big a curse it can be. Not because of the money itself, but because of the sort of people it’s brought me into contact with. My particular kind of talent attracted a particular kind of client. The kind I should never have trusted. Because they never trusted me. It’s lack of trust that does for you in the end, every time.

  ‘My career in banking was entirely above board until I met … let’s call him Smith. I suspect you may have met him recently yourself, in Jersey. You may also have seen his oversized yacht moored in St Helier Harbour. At the outset of our relationship, I believed Smith was a bona fide businessman. Likewise the friends he recommended me to. Later, I realized they were all criminals. I could have stopped acting for them at that point. I should have. But I didn’t. The commission they paid was generous. And there was a thrill, I don’t deny, to working for them. Plus a good many fringe benefits. They were difficult people to say no to. Though, to be honest, I never put that seriously to the test. They weren’t the sort of criminals you ever read about, of course – the sort who get caught. They were the big fish.

  ‘I referred to Smith’s network as the consortium, though needless to say they never called themselves anything of the kind. They thrived on caution and anonymity. They were powerful, with interests and associates around the world. But they were also invisible. And they wanted to stay that way. They had money to invest. Lots of it. More than they could handle. Which is where I came in. I made their money work for them – discreetly.

  ‘I also laundered it, of course. The profits they made through me left no trail that could be followed to their doors. That was easier to do then than it is now. But I don’t have to involve myself much in that kind of activity any more. After a certain point, which we passed long ago, the process becomes self-replicating. The system takes over. And it’s a good system. Foolproof. I should know. I designed it.

  ‘Let’s be under no illusions. The crimes these people made their lavish livings out of were as vile as you can imagine. They wore smart suits. They spoke softly. But that was merely the side of them they chose to show me. The other side … I didn’t want to see.

  ‘I persuaded myself I deserved the considerable rewards that working for the consortium brought me. I acquired responsibility for managing the greater part of their finances. I set up my own business and became wealthy in my own right. I maintained a notional presence in conventional banking, but it was only cover for my activities on behalf of the consortium. I was their banker, exclusively, piloting the proceeds of their crime through legitimate and lucrative investments around the world via respectable institutions and untraceable accounts. It was a great time. I loved my work.

  ‘I don’t any more. I haven’t for many years. I still act for them, of course. I don’t actually have any choice in the matter. It’s not the sort of job you can resign from. But I would if could. Like a shot.

  ‘What it boils down to is this. They decided they couldn’t continue to rely on my discretion. I knew too many of their secrets. I was their one potential weakness – an unacceptable risk, but also indispensable. They needed a way to bind me to them, to guarantee my loyalty absolutely. And they found such a way: the theft of my youngest child. That was their plan. Brutal, simple, effective. Such is the nature of men like Smith.

  ‘Their calculation was that to ensure the safety of my other two children and in return for evidence of Tamsin’s continued wellbeing, I would serve them unquestioningly. And so I did. Ironically, Miranda’s death, which formed no part of their plan, rendered it even more effective. I only had Jeremy left then to fear for. And my fear was all the greater as a result.

  ‘Carrying that secret dread around with me destroyed my marriage. But what could I do? Tamsin’s life would have been forfeit – as well as Jeremy’s – if I’d told anyone the truth. I had no choice but to do their bidding. Tamsin was lost to me. But she wasn’t dead. She could lead a happy and fulfilled life under another name provided I never tried to find her and let the world believe what Jane believed: that both our daughters were dead.

  ‘The flaw in any plan, of course, is the unpredictability of events. Griffin saw what happened and followed the van. He had to be disposed of. And he was. But then someone else had to be found to account for the car you saw driving past the pub. And Miranda’s death raised the stakes. The planned abduction became a callous murder. Worse, it was an unsolved murder, which meant it didn’t fade from the public mind. So then I was required to hire Wisby to give the impression I was doing everything in my power to crack the case. And eventually it was decided someone had to be found to admit he’d killed both girls. Step forward Brian Radd. As a sex offender, he needed the kind of protection in prison only someone like Smith could arrange for him. In return for that, he was willing to confess to anything. And he got his protection, didn’t he? Until the day he died.

  ‘Then there was Tamsin herself – Cherie, Chantelle – growing to rebellious adulthood. And Sally, driven by her certainty that Radd’s confession was false, looking, always looking, for the girl she believed was still alive. And then finding her, by chance, in the pages of a magazine.

  ‘So they killed Sally, dressing it up to look like suicide. The man you know as Walsh was good at that kind of thing. He wasn’t so good at hide-and-seek, though. Cherie gave him the slip, became Chantelle and, eventually, last year, contacted Jeremy.

  ‘Well, you know about that. So do I now. Flushing out Marilyn. Sending the letters. Stirring up all the secrets. And what you don’t know you can guess. Someone must have tipped the consortium off about Sharp’s intention to question Radd. Taking him out was an overdue precaution on their part. But they had to tread carefully. They probably considered killing you, Sharp and Wisby. But that would have risked splitting the official version of events wide open. So, they played it softly. Softly by their standards, anyway.

  ‘It didn’t work, did it? In the end, there were too many hatches to batten down. Jeremy’s death has made them doubt my reliability. I just don’t have enough to lose any more. But I’m untouchable. I’ve wrapped up their investments so tightly they know they can’t unravel them without me. If I went without putting matters in order, most of their money would go with me. They had me where they wanted me. Now they’re not so sure. I was a problem solved. Now I’m a problem all over again.

  ‘I’m glad to be paying them back in some small measure for the hell they’ve forced me to live through these past twenty-three years. I didn’t deserve to be treated as they’ve treated me. Recently, I’ve discovered that it was even worse than I thought. I never doubted Marilyn was a gold-digger. I was happy to overlook that for the fun she brought back into my life. But now I realize she was one of them all along, steered into my path after Jane and I split up to give them early warning of any backsliding on my part.

  ‘How can I be sure of that, Umber? Her possession of the Junius letters proves it. That’s how. She was there when they grabbed Griffin. They’d have wanted a woman on hand to look after Tamsin. That must have been Marilyn’s role. She took the books from Griffin’s car and hid them. Why? As ammunition to use against the consortium if the need ever arose. That would be my guess. When Jeremy started pressurizing her, she panicked and tried to get rid of them. But she kept the fly-leaves. That was a big mistake. She should have destroyed them. She really should.

  ‘I found them, you see. I don’t think she realizes yet they’re not where she hid them, but she soon will. I spoke to Tamsin on the telephone earlier today. Chantelle, I should say. But she’ll always be Tamsin to me. She sounded desperate. Well, she must have been, mustn’t she, to phone me of all people? We agreed to meet tomorrow morning. She told me the truth about the letters. And I agreed to tell her the truth about her life.

  ‘I’ve had Sharp on to me as well. He hasn’t worked everything out yet, but he’s getting close. Enforced idleness in La Moye has given him time to think a lot through. He believes h
e might be in a position to squeeze the truth out of me, or at least some of it. He might be right. I fixed his release on bail, just to show Smith and his friends they couldn’t always have things their own way. I didn’t tell Sharp that, of course. Nor did I disabuse him of the notion he seems to have got into his head that you’ve been nobbled.

  ‘I’m supposed to be meeting Sharp tomorrow as well as Tamsin. It promises to be a busy day. The burial of a son. The resurrection of a daughter. And then … the sky falls in.

  ‘That’s what it would mean, Umber. Be in no doubt. If Tamsin returns to life, twenty-three years’ worth of lies collapses around her and the truth emerges. Then Smith would need a firebreak between the consortium and me. To create it, he’d have to kill me. And Tamsin too.

  ‘Plus you, of course. I mention that in case you need an incentive to do what I’m going to ask you to do. It truly is a matter of life and death.

  ‘I have the fly-leaves with me. Match them to the books Tamsin has and you’ve got evidence linking Marilyn with Griffin’s murder. If anyone’s been buried in this forest for twenty-three years, it’s him. I want you to meet Tamsin tomorrow morning and tell her what’s happened. I want you to persuade her to turn her back on all this. I want you to take her away. I have a letter for you to deliver to a man called Ives. He has an office in Zürich. Ives has access to funds held on my behalf and can arrange new identities for both of you. With his help, you can disappear. Go wherever you want, as long as it’s far from here. It’s an escape route I devised for my own use a long time ago. But now I realize escape is simply not possible for me. The consortium would come after me. They’d never stop looking, because they couldn’t afford to. In the end, they’d hunt me down.

  ‘Different considerations apply to you and Tamsin. They’ll decide, however reluctantly, to let you go, because in the wake of all this they’ll need to lie low. They’ll have their money, after all. I’ve seen to that. Smith must already be worried that they’ve shown their hand once too often. Sharp’s continued probing will force him to be careful. And the suspicion that I’ve passed the missing fly-leaves on to you will prompt Marilyn to urge caution. You’ll be in the clear. My guess is that they’ll arrange for the case against Sharp to be dropped. Maybe the case against Wisby as well, though that will be more difficult to pull off. They’ll want everything dropped.