Sight Unseen

'Wouldn't that be a little risky, Marilyn? I might take off with the Junius myself and do my worst with it.'

'And what would your worst be? You're hardly likely to inflict the truth on Oliver and Jane when you come out of it so badly yourself. Besides, you lack Wisby's cruel streak. I don't mind you hanging on to the Junius. It's no use to me. I only want it out of Wisby's hands. I only want to be sure it isn't going to come back to haunt Oliver and me.'

Umber paused for a momentary show of reflection before he responded. Then he said, 'All right. I'll do it. As long as you do something for me in return.'

She looked long and hard at him. 'What did you have in mind?'

'I want the keys to this place. All the keys. Including those for the office and the boat store.'

'Why?'

Umber allowed himself a smile. 'And no questions asked.'

'Think Chantelle will come back, do you?'

Umber did not think that. But he did think there might be clues to her whereabouts to be found on the premises. And he needed time to look for them. Alone. 'Like I said, Marilyn. No questions.'

'Who is she?'

'No-one, according to you.'

'Very cute.' She leaned against the chair-back behind her. 'You're a nicer person to negotiate with than Wisby, David. Much nicer. We have a deal.'

'Can I have the key you used to get us in, then?'

'I'm afraid not. I took it off the bunch Jeremy had in his pocket. If Oliver or Jane change their minds and decide to come here after all, lean hardly tell them I've given the key to you. But I can have duplicates of all the keys cut for you tomorrow. You can have them when I see the Junius.'

'What are your arrangements with Wisby?'

'The exchange is fixed for noon tomorrow. I can't get the money until the banks open. Do you have a car with you?'

'Yes.'

'All right. You know the Pier Road multi-storey in St Helier?'

'Beneath Fort Regent?'

'That's the one. Drive up past it to Mount Bingham. You'll see a small car park next to a play area with a view of the harbour. I'll meet you there at eleven, deliver the keys and the cash and tell you where Wisby will be waiting. He's going to phone me around then with his choice of rendezvous.' She raised her eyebrows. 'He seems to feel the need to behave like some character in a spy novel.'

'Perhaps he doesn't trust you.'

'We'll agree then how to meet up afterwards,' she went on blithely. 'I have to take my own precautions. Oliver's not paying me a lot of attention at the moment. But I can't go missing too often.'

'I'm sorry, you know.' He looked her in the eye, needing to be sure she believed him, about this if nothing else. 'For what happened to Jeremy. Sorrier than I can say.'

'We're all sorry.' She moved suddenly away and across the room, to the chest of drawers beside the bed. She picked up something that had been lying next to the alarm clock: an expensively chunky wrist-watch. 'The Rolex Oliver gave Jeremy for his eighteenth birthday,' she explained, flexing the metal strap between her fingers. 'One of the things I was sent to collect. He wasn't wearing it, you see. Didn't want to smash it in the fall, I suppose. Which means he'd already made up his mind to kill himself when he left here on Thursday afternoon. You didn't push him off the roof, David. He jumped. You didn't force him to send those letters. He did it on his own. He brought it all on himself.' She frowned. 'Unless you think… Chantelle was in it with him.'

'What else did you come for?' Umber asked, evading the point.

'There should be an address book.' She pointed. 'By the phone, maybe?'

Umber stepped over to where the telephone sat amidst crooked stacks of CDs in the lee of the hi-fi tower. There was indeed a dog-eared address book sitting beneath it. Umber slid it free.

'We need it to notify Jeremy's friends.' Marilyn held out her hand.

'Mind if I take a look?'

'Go ahead.'

Umber opened the book speculatively at T – T for Tinaud. There was no such entry, of course.

'You've gone way past C,' said Marilyn.

'So I have.'

'Do you know her surname?'

'Whose?'

'Maybe we should stop playing games, David.'

'Too late for that, don't you think?' Umber closed the book and handed it to her.

'I've got what I came for. We ought to leave.'

'You go ahead. I'll let myself out.'

'Nice try. But there's no deadlock on the door. I can't leave the flat unsecured. We leave together. After tomorrow, you can come and go on your own. But you'll have to be careful. If Oliver finds you here…'

'I'll have a lot of explaining to do.'

'And he won't be as easily fobbed off as me.'

'I don't think you're easily fobbed off at all,

Marilyn. I think you're just tolerant of other people's

secretiveness… on account of your own.'

'You really know how to sweet talk a girl, don't

you?' She gave him a fleeting, enigmatic little smile.

'Let's go.'

* * *

Marilyn took the accumulated post (an electricity bill and credit card statement) with her as they left, locked up carefully and led the way down the steps. Umber felt frustrated at having to walk away from the chance to search the flat for something – anything – that might lead him to Chantelle. But the chance was merely postponed and so gift-wrapped that it could not be spurned. He had got what he wanted and more then he expected. But, strangely, he sensed Marilyn had too.

'Where are you parked?' she asked, as she opened her car door.

'Behind the parish hall.'

'Jump in. I'll run you round there.'

'It's only a two-minute walk.'

'Jump in anyway. There's something else I want to say to you.'

* * *

Umber did not argue. Marilyn reversed out and turned right onto the Boulevard, planning, he assumed, to take a roundabout route to the car park – as roundabout as it needed to be, anyway.

'Wisby told me about Sharp's arrest,' she said as they cruised slowly past the harbourful of moored yachts, their bare masts clustered like winter saplings. 'You must be worried about him.'

'He was fitted up.'

'No doubt. But what are you going to do to get him unfitted?'

'What can I do?'

'Pull a few strings. It's the Jersey way. Get someone to have a word in the right ear. Sharp's not going to get off scot-free. But a light sentence – maybe suspended – could be arranged. If you set about it in the right way.'

'And what is the right way?'

'Royal Channel Islands Yacht Club,' she said, pointing to an imposing building ahead of them at the end of the Boulevard. 'A good place to start.'

'I'm not a member.'

'Neither am I.' Marilyn took the sharp bend by the club entrance at a crawl. 'But Oliver is.' The road narrowed as it climbed between the cottages of an older part of town. 'Through him, I've met most of the people who matter on this tight little members' only island. There are ways and means of achieving what you want, David. But they aren't written down anywhere. They aren't even spoken about. You just have to move in the right circles.'

'Do you move in the right circles, Marilyn?'

'Oh yes. I make a point of it.'

'Could you help George?'

'I'm sure I could. In fact, I'd be happy to.'

'Why?'

'Because this is getting messy.' She turned back towards the centre of town, along the higher, inland route. 'And I don't want it to get any messier.' She glanced round at him. 'We should all walk away from this, David. We really should.'

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.