TWENTY-FOUR

Walking away as soon as they had extracted the Junius from Wisby probably

would be the prudent course. Umber conceded as much to himself as he

strolled out along St Aubin's harbour wall and gazed back towards the

Boulevard. If he had done that when Sharp had approached him in Prague,

however, he would still be frittering away his days there — safely, dully,

deludedly, believing Sally had committed suicide, believing Tamsin Hall

had been murdered, believing… all that he believed now to be false. He was

not about to walk away.

* * *

He did not even intend to stir far from St Aubin. He had told Marilyn openly

that he suspected her of duplicity and it was true. What form it took he had

no way of determining, but her ignorance and indifference where Chantelle

was concerned could have been feigned. He proposed to keep a close eye on

the flat in case anyone tried to conduct a search before he could — or,

against the odds, Chantelle returned.

He had noticed from the harbour wall that there was a small hotel on the

Boulevard just beyond the turning into le Quai Bisson. A prowl round past

Rollers Sail & Surf revealed there were first-floor rooms at the back of the

hotel with a view of the boat store and flat above. The receptionist, used to

people requesting a sea-facing room, had no difficulty accommodating him.

He booked himself in.

Then he went along to the supermarket in the centre of town, bought some

sandwiches and bottled water and returned to the hotel to keep watch.

* * *

He had bought a day-old copy of the Jersey Evening Post, along with the

food and drink. In the privacy of his room, he bleakly perused its coverage

of the 'Eden Holt Tragedy'. The family background was given more detail

than in the nationals. Jeremy's contribution to Jersey life was emphasized,

with a photograph of him being presented with a cup for winning some local

regatta. There was a photograph of Miranda and Tamsin as well — the one

all the papers had used back in 1981. And there was a quote from the police,

appealing for the anonymous caller who had alerted them to Jeremy's death

to come forward. But there was, Umber knew, no prospect of that.

* * *

Nobody went near the flat all day. Umber thought he saw a movement at one

of the windows midway through the afternoon and dashed round to

investigate, but there was no sign of anyone and he eventually concluded

that what he had seen was merely the reflection of a seagull in flight.

When nightfall came — late, thanks to the clock change for summer time —

Umber relaxed, reasoning that no-one would visit the flat once they had to

switch on lights to see what they were looking for, because it would signal

their presence to anyone who might be watching.

If anyone was even planning to, of course. If there was anything to find. If…

But ifs were all Umber had to bet on. He spent a couple of hours in a pub

further along the Boulevard, then walked out to the Yacht Club and back by

the higher route, cutting down to le Quai Bisson by the steps past the flat.

All was in darkness. All looked to be undisturbed. It seemed he was waiting

for something that was never going to happen. He stood for some minutes by

the door of the flat, turning over in his mind the possibility that somehow he

had deceived himself. How sure was he that Chantelle and the girl in Hello!

were one and the same? How likely was it that she had left anything there

that would enable him to trace her? Just how slender a chance was he

chasing?

* * *

Nothing changed next morning. A modest weekday bustle took hold of St

Aubin. But it did not spread to Rollers Sail & Surf. At ten o'clock, Umber

imagined Marilyn presenting herself in a marbled banking hall with a coolly

phrased request to withdraw £100,000 in cash from an account that

presumably held a great deal more. At 10.30, he set off for St Helier.

* * *

He spotted Marilyn's Mercedes in the car park by the play area at the top of

Mount Bingham as he crested the rise from Pier Road. As he pulled in

beside it, he saw she was speaking to someone on her mobile. She signalled

to him to wait until she had finished, so he sat where he was, looking down

at the docks and the ferry terminal spread out below him, at Elizabeth Castle

and the causeway linking it to the shore, exposed by the retreating tide. His

gaze came to rest on a vast, sleek-lined private cruiser heading in slowly

from the sea lane away to his left. The pallid sunlight glistened on its

polished silver-grey hull.

'Penny for them,' said Marilyn as she pulled open the passenger door and

slipped in beside him. 'Well, rather more than a penny, actually.'

She was wearing a short-skirted dark-blue suit and pearl-buttoned blouse.

Resting on her knees was a black leather briefcase that looked new enough

to have been bought for the occasion. She plucked off her sunglasses and

looked at him.

'Are you all right?'

'Fine,' he replied. 'Just fine.'

'This is the money.' She snapped open the case to reveal neatly stacked wads

of £20 notes. 'All Bank of England issue, no Jersey currency, as Wisby

specified.' Then she closed it again. 'And here are the keys.' She handed him

an assortment of Yales and mortises held on a ring. 'You'll have to sort out

which is which, I'm afraid.'

'OK. Thanks.'

'That was our man on the phone.'

'I thought it had to be.'

'You're to meet him at La Rocque. It's a village on the coast about five miles

east of here.'

'I've got a map. It came with the car. I'll find the place easily enough.'

'There are parking spaces by the harbour just after you pass the martello

tower. He'll be waiting for you there.'

'Does he know who he'll be waiting for?'

'I told him I was sending someone.'

'It could be quite a shock for him, then.'

'I imagine the contents of the case will help him get over it.'

'What about afterwards? You'll want to see what you've got for your money.'

'Oliver is taking Jane to see the undertaker at three o'clock. My presence is…

not required.' There was something in her tone that implied resentment of

the degree to which Jeremy's death had brought his parents together, but

Umber had no thoughts to spare for such an issue. 'I'll meet you at the flat

then.'

'Suits me.'

Marilyn slid the briefcase across to him; their fingers brushed as he took it

from her. 'You'll be careful, won't you, David?'

'Of course.'

'Only… Wisby outwitted you last time you met, didn't he?'

'Is that what he told you?'

'Isn't it true?'

'No. Not really.' That was not how Umber saw it, anyway. Wisby had simply

been cold-blooded enough to seize the advantage Jeremy's death-fall had

given him. There would surely be no such advantage for him to seize this

time.

'Well, in case you need it, good luck.'

'Thanks.'

To his surprise, she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth,

then climbed swiftly out of the car.

'I'll see you later, Marilyn,' he said as she held the door briefly open.

'Right,' she said, smiling tightly. Then she slammed the door, hurried round

to her own car, climbed in and started up.

Umber was watching her as she reversed out of the bay and drove away. But

she never once glanced at him.

* * *

Umber followed the coast road out through St Helier's straggling eastern

suburbs. The retreating tide had revealed great stretches of grey-brown reef,

so extensive that the sea was a mile or more from the shore. The weather

was a mix of winter grimness and spring cheer — ambiguous, uncertain, on

the cusp of the seasons.

He sighted the first of several martello towers marked on the map as he

neared Le Hocq. He pulled in there and waited. When only five minutes

remained till Marilyn's noon appointment with Wisby, he drove on.

It was barely another mile to La Rocque. He slowed as he passed its martello

tower, scanning the arc of parking spaces facing the harbour. He was

looking for a hire car similar to his own. And he saw one almost

immediately, his eye drawn to the H-prefixed numberplate. There was a

single occupant, staring straight ahead at the harbour, in which assorted craft

lay beached at their moorings. The profile was Wisby's.

He pulled in to the left of the car and looked round, meeting Wisby's gaze, in

which there was not the merest flinch of surprise, though a surprise it must

have been — and a big one.

Umber climbed out, carrying the briefcase with him. He opened the

passenger door of the other car and eased himself in beside Wisby, cradling

the case in his lap.

'Mr Umber,' Wisby said neutrally, with no hint of fear or hostility. 'We meet

again.'

'Not in your game plan, I dare say.'

'No. But I wasn't to know you'd got into bed with Marilyn Hall, was I?'

'She thought you might try to trick her,' Umber replied, refusing to be

provoked. 'A chap with your track record must expect that.'

'Well, I should congratulate you, I suppose. You get the Junius after all. And

Mrs Hall pays for it. Sorry I left you in the lurch at Eden Holt, by the way. It

was nothing personal.'

'Did you really do all this just for a fat pay-off?'

'No. But I've decided to settle for one. You too, I imagine.'

'I'm getting nothing out of this.'

'Really? I can't believe you haven't cut a deal with Mrs Hall. Why else

should you be acting as her go-between? What have you gone for? Cash…

or kind?'

'Where are the books?'

'Ah. Is that it? A late revival of your historical career. Junius: the truth at

last. I might have a minor disappointment for you on that front.'

'I know the fly-leaves are missing, Wisby. I checked with Garrard. Like you

should have.'

'I should. You're right. But you said yourself the vellum-bound 1773 edition

is unique. Even without the fly-leaves, it proves my case. A case Marilyn

Hall can't afford to let me go public with.'

'Exploiting the Hall family's grief is beneath contempt.'

'That's what you think I'm doing, is it?'

'What would you call it?'

'How much do you know about Marilyn Hall, I wonder? Less than me, I

suspect. A lot less. I've enquired into her background, you see. I've done my

research.' Wisby smiled thinly. 'Like you should have.'

'And what have you learned?'

'Enough to make me worry I may have settled for too modest a sum.'

'Are you going to tell me what you're getting at?'

'No.' Wisby squinted out towards the distant ocean. 'I'll let you find out in

your own good time.'

'Where are the books?' snapped Umber, losing patience with the gameplaying.

'You can have them when I have the money.'

'How about when you see the money?' Umber flipped up the lid of the

briefcase, giving his companion a clear view of the contents. There was a

gleam of satisfaction in Wisby's eyes and a greedy little swipe of his tongue

along his lower lip. He reached out for the case. But Umber held on. 'The

books. Remember?'

Wisby looked at him and grimaced, as if giving up what he had come to

trade genuinely pained him. 'They're in the glove compartment. In front of

you.'

Umber stretched one hand forward to open the compartment. Its door

flopped down. And there were the books, vellum-bound and gilt-edged, held

together by a rubber band as he had seen them before. The spines were

facing him. He angled his head to read the gold-lettered titles. Not Junius's

Letters I and Junius's Letters II, like every other edition he had come across,

but simply JUNIUS 1 and JUNIUS 2.

'The money, Mr Umber,' said Wisby. 'If you please.'

Umber surrendered the case and took the books out of the glove

compartment. It was strange — surpassingly strange — to lay his hands at

long last on the prize Griffin had promised to deliver to him at Avebury

twenty-three years previously. He peeled off the rubber band and opened the

first volume.

A few jagged scraps close to the binding were all that remained of the flyleaf. But the title page was untouched. The name of Junius appeared at the

top in bold Gothic capitals. Umber's gaze shifted to the bottom. Printed for

Henry Sampson Woodfall, MDCCLXXIII. The date was right. And the

binding was right. It was Junius's personal copy.

He looked round at Wisby, who was checking his way through the money,

fanning each wad of notes and counting roughly as he went. Then he looked

back at the Junius, shaking his head: £100,000 was a high price to pay for

two mutilated old books. Nor was it by any means the highest price to have

been paid for them. They were not worth Jeremy Hall's life. Yet he had lost

his life because of them. Volume two fell open in Umber's hands at the last

paragraph of Letter LVIII, encouraged to do so, he guessed, by being

pressed flat on a photocopier some weeks before. There was the fateful

phrase Jeremy had chosen near the end of the letter. 'The subject comes

home to us all.' And so it did.

The snapping shut of the briefcase interrupted Umber's thoughts. 'It seems to

be all here,' said Wisby, with a flicker of a smile.

'Did you doubt it would be?'

'I doubt everything.'

'Yes. I suppose you would.'

'Why were the fly-leaves removed, do you think?'

'You tell me.'

'It's obvious, isn't it? To break the evidential link with Griffin. Without them

they're just another copy of Junius's letters.'

'Not quite.'

'No. But they'd seem so, other than to an expert. And having removed the

fly-leaves, where better to lose the books, so to speak, than an antiquarian

bookshop? I doubt Garrard's scatterbrained brother bought them. I suspect

they were simply slipped onto the shelf. Not by Jeremy, obviously. Perhaps

by someone who was trying to keep them from Jeremy. By implication

someone Jeremy knew, resident on the island. Someone… close to him.'

'Like you say, Wisby. You doubt everything.' The man's logic was as

seductive as it was disturbing. But Umber had no intention of

acknowledging as much. 'Are we done?'

Wisby nodded. 'I believe we are.'

* * *

A few minutes later, Umber sat in his hire car, watching Wisby drive away.

Wisby was heading west, probably making for the Airport. He had every

right to be well pleased with his day's work. But Umber's work was far from

done. He skip-read his way through Junius's grandiloquent Dedication to the

English Nation at the beginning of volume one of the Letters till he had

given Wisby the ten-minute start he had agreed to. Then he started the car

and headed in the same direction.