Sight Unseen (34 page)

* * *

Eventually, the van came to a halt. The engine died. The side-door slid open. He was pulled upright and bundled into the open air. He felt the coolness of it against his skin at once. The wind stirred his hair. There was stony ground beneath his feet. 'Start walking' came the instruction. He was frogmarched forward. They covered about twenty yards. He heard a burble of conversation nearby, but could not catch the words. Then: 'Get in the car.' He was pushed through an open car doorway, a hand pressing down his head to clear the frame. The door clunked shut behind him.

He could smell new leather and a residue of cigar smoke. There was an arm-rest to his left. With his hands tied behind him, he had to lean forward slightly in his seat. He sensed there was someone beside him. He heard an envelope being torn open. There was a rustling of paper. A few minutes of silence followed. Then the man beside him spoke, in a soft, moist, sticky tone, as if he was sucking a toffee.

'Listen to me carefully, Mr Umber. I'm going to offer you a deal. And you're going to accept it. That's the way it is. That's the way it has to be. We want Cherie. Or Chantelle, as I gather she calls herself now. You're the only one who's seen her recently. The only one alive, anyway. So, you know what she looks like these days. And we believe you can find her for us. We could persuade you to tell us what you know about her and go after her ourselves, but we're concerned about our profile. It's been worryingly high lately. So, you get the job. Congratulations. There's a time limit, naturally. Three days. I'm going to put a card in your pocket.' Umber felt something being slipped into his shirt pocket. 'There's a telephone number on it. Ring us by noon on Friday with details of where and when we can collect the girl. In return, we'll arrange for a reliable witness to tell the police he saw the drugs being planted on Sharp's van and we'll refrain from sending them this incriminating document you've kindly supplied us with. We cleaned up after you at the flat in St Aubin, but there's a body waiting to be found in an abandoned car at Noirmont Point which fingerprints and DNA would tie you to for certain
if
the police were pointed in the right direction. Wisby's likely to throw all sorts of accusations your way. You really do need to be in a position to refute them. There'd be other kinds of retribution if you defied us, of course. For you and Ms Wheatley and Ms Myers. And we'd find Cherie in the end anyway, so you and your friends would be sacrificed in vain. But I don't need to spell it all out for you, do I? You're an intelligent man. You can see there's no choice. It's open and shut. So, just nod your head to confirm we have a deal. That's all you have to do. That and deliver the girl, of course.' There was a pause. 'Well?'

A moment slowly passed. Then Umber nodded.

'Thank you, Mr Umber. It's been a pleasure doing business with you.'

* * *

A signal of some kind must have been given. The car door opened and he was pulled out. His captors led him back to the van, loaded him aboard and dumped him, as before, face down on the floor. They set off once more.

It was a shorter drive this time, or perhaps it merely seemed so to Umber, who no longer feared for his life, at least in the short term. The knowledge that he would soon be set free relaxed him to a degree.

The van made slower going as the journey continued. At one point, it stopped and reversed to the sound of roadside branches scraping against the bodywork, then went on again, as if passing another vehicle in a narrow lane. Eventually, it pulled over and came to a halt, with the engine running. The side-door slid open. Umber was hauled into a sitting position in the doorway, his feet resting on the ground. 'Stand up,' he was told. He did so. 'Take one step forward.' He did that too. Then his hands were untied, the door slid shut behind him and the van pulled away, accelerating hard.

By the time Umber had released the blindfold and his eyes had adjusted to the light, the van was out of sight. He was standing a few feet from a five-bar gate into a field. On the other side of the gate a herd of Jersey cattle were grazing contentedly on rich green pasture. One of them cast him a mildly curious glance, then returned her attention to the grass. Even the cry he gave as he pulled the strip of tape away from his mouth did not distract her further.

* * *

Umber started walking along the lane in the direction the van had taken, reasoning fuzzily that a main road was likely to be closer ahead then behind. His throat was dry, his lips were sore from the tape, his eyes were aching from constriction by the blindfold and the wound on the back of his head was throbbing. One of his knees was also paining him, having taken some kind of knock while he was being bundled into the van in St Helier.

Unfortunately, none of these discomforts had the merit of taking his mind off the deal he had notion-ally struck. He was lost in the Jersey countryside and part of him would have been happy to stay lost. Within three days, he was required to betray Chantelle to her pursuers, something he had no intention of doing. But what was he to do instead? Who was he to betray in her place? He plucked the card he had been given out of his pocket and looked at the number printed on it. There was no clue to be found there, no message but the one already conveyed to him, calmly, clearly and implacably. An answer was required of him by Friday. And only one kind of answer would suffice.

A limping forty-minute hike through a maze of lanes took Umber to the village of Maufant, where he had to wait more than half an hour for a bus back to St Helier. It was gone one o'clock by the time he was delivered to Liberation Square. Limping now more heavily than ever, he hurried up Pier Road to the multi-storey, hoping on balance he would find the hire car gone -- and Chantelle with it.

But the car was where he had parked it. As he caught sight of it in the bay ahead of him, he hardly knew what to expect to find inside. Surely Chantelle could not still be waiting for him, more than three hours beyond the deadline he had set for his return.

She was not. It was a relief in a way, though also a disappointment. He did not like to consider what thoughts would be going through her head. She would be frightened, alone and uncertain what to do. And she had good reason to be frightened. The reason was if anything better than she knew.

The car was unlocked, the key still in the ignition. She must have left on foot, which worried him, since driving straight to the Airport would have been her best bet for a swift departure. He opened the boot. Her bag had gone, along with the Juniuses. His bag -- and his box of Junius-related papers -- remained.

Where had she gone? What would she have decided to do once it had become clear he was not coming back? She might have gone to look for him at Le Templier & Burnouf. If so, she would have drawn a blank. What then? The absence of the Juniuses suggested she had paid at least some attention to what he had said. Logically, she must have resolved to leave Jersey. But why not take the car? Perhaps, it occurred to him, she simply could not drive. Stupidly, he had not bothered to check the point. Or perhaps, it also occurred to him, she had left by ferry. St Malo was only an hour and a bit away.

He drove down to the Harbour, frustrated by the slowness of the lunchtime traffic, parked in front of the ferry terminal and hurried inside. The girl at the Condor information desk told him a ferry had sailed for St Malo at noon; the next one sailed at six. His description of Chantelle rang no bells.

The timings proved nothing anyway. It was equally possible Chantelle had taken a bus to the Airport and flown out. Umber had to assume she would do as he had told her and make for London. If so, she would contact Claire. He decided to call Claire himself and forewarn her.

But all he got on her practice number was the answerphone. And her mobile was switched off. He got no response from Alice's home number either. He left a message on none of them; there was no telling who might end up hearing it. Then he went back to the car and headed for the Airport.

* * *

He knew the BA flight times to Gatwick, having phoned an information line before leaving Greve de Lecq that morning. He was too late for the 1.30, though Chantelle of course would not have been. The next flight was at 5.30. There was no way he could be in London before early evening.

* * *

It was a quiet and orderly afternoon at the States Airport. Umber parked the car, heaved his bag and box of notes out of the boot and carried them into the terminal building. He dropped off the keys, then made for the BA desk.

There was no queue and the woman on duty was chatting with a female colleague as he approached. One of them had a newspaper open in her hands. The name 'Jeremy Hall' reached Umber's ears an instant before they noticed him and he peeled off to inspect a rack of leaflets, remaining within earshot as their conversation continued.

'The coffin was on the one-thirty flight. His mother was aboard. I saw her in the club lounge waiting for take-off. Like a ghost, she was. So pale.'

'Was the father with her?'

'Not sure. There was a man. But he didn't look like this picture of Oliver Hall.'

'The second husband, then.'

'I suppose so.'

'It must be dreadful for all of them. Just dreadful.'

Umber had heard enough. He interrupted and booked himself onto the 5.30 flight. His eye strayed to the newspaper they had been reading. It was that afternoon's
Jersey Evening Post.
He could see photographs of Jeremy and Oliver Hall beneath the headline MURDERED GIRLS' BROTHER TO BE BURIED IN ENGLAND. It seemed that in one way at least he had had a narrow escape. But what about Chantelle? Was it possible she had been on the same flight as her mother -- and her dead brother? He felt sick at the thought, unable to imagine what the consequences of such a coincidence might be.

After checking-in his box of notes as hold luggage, Umber headed back to the news stand and bought a copy of the paper. He sat down and read the article through.

An inquest was opened and adjourned yesterday into the death last week of Jeremy Hall, proprietor of Rollers Sail & Surf, St Aubin, and brother of the two girls slain in the infamous 1981 Avebury murder case. Jeremy was found dead at the Waterworks Valley home of his father, Oliver Hall, who told the
Post
after the hearing that he was very grateful for the many messages of sympathy he had received since the news broke. Mr Hall said Jeremy would be buried next to his sister Miranda in Marlborough, Wilts, in accordance with his mother's wishes. Mr Hall also said he knew of no connection between his son's death and the arrest in St Helier earlier last week on smuggling charges of a retired police officer said to have been prominently involved in the 1981 murder inquiry.

The article only heightened Umber's fears, formless though many of them were. He made for the payphones and called Claire again. It was the same story: recorded messages at the practice and Alice's house and no joy on Claire's mobile. Nor did the story change at the second, third, fourth or fifth time of trying. Eventually, he gave up.

* * *

The flight, short as it was, felt agonizingly protracted to Umber. Several drinks failed to quell the whirl of his anxious thoughts. It was too late to expect an answer from Claire's practice by the time he made it through baggage reclaim and Customs at Gatwick. But she or Alice really ought to be answering on the Hampstead number. Except that they were not. And the mobile was still switched off.

* * *

Umber's only recourse now was to head for Hampstead and hope to find them in when he arrived. Even if he had not been in a hurry, he would have taken a taxi after the Gatwick Express had delivered him to Victoria; the box he was carrying seemed to weigh more every time he picked it up. Even so, the journey contrived to take longer than the flight from Jersey and it was gone 8.30 when the taxi pulled up outside 22 Willow Hill.

The hall light was on, but the ground and first-floor rooms were in darkness. Claire's TVR was not parked nearby. The auguries were far from good. Umber had wheedled an undertaking out of Claire to dissuade Alice from going to Monte Carlo to grill Michel Tinaud. But it was beginning to look as if they had both overestimated her powers of dissuasion. Or perhaps she had simply tired of waiting to hear from him. He had asked for a few days' grace and, technically, that is what he had already had.

The lights
were
on in the top-floor flat. It was occupied by an articled clerk called Piers. Alice had made several references to him, though Umber had not actually met him. Telling the taxi driver to wait, Umber clambered out, hurried to the door and pressed the bell next to the neatly printed label PIERS BURTON.

There was no intercom system and consequently no way to tell whether Piers was going to respond or not, until, just as Umber was about to give the bell a second prod, the door opened. A sleepy-eyed, curly-haired young man in fogeyish casual wear regarded him through owlish, black-framed glasses and ventured a wary hello.

'Piers, right?'

'Yes. I --'

'I'm David.' Some instinct deterred Umber from volunteering his surname, sharing it as he did with a deceased former tenant of Piers's flat. 'I'm, er... a friend of Alice's. I was staying here at the weekend.'

'I was out of town.'

'Well, we'd probably have bumped into each other if you'd been here.'