Sight Unseen (30 page)

By the time he had trawled through the bathroom and kitchen with similar results, three o'clock -- the hour set for Marilyn's arrival -- was no longer comfortably distant. He decided to try his luck in the Rollers Sail & Surf office. Hurrying down to it, he found the right key after a couple of tries and went in.

It was a cramped, single-windowed room furnished with a desk, swivel-chair, filing cabinet and cupboard which looked as if they had been bought as a job lot second- or third-hand. A communicating door leading into the boat store stood half-open, explaining the faintly salt-tinged mustiness that filled the air.

Umber glanced through the doorway into high-roofed gloom, where he could make out little beyond the shrouded shapes of wintered vessels. They did not interest him. The office held infinitely greater promise. He decided to start with the filing cabinet. He walked over to it and pulled the top drawer open.

* * *

Whether he heard something first or merely sensed movement behind him he could not afterwards have said. Perhaps his instincts gave him some fractional forewarning. Or perhaps the breath Chantelle took as she lunged across the room at him, knife in hand, was sharp enough to be audible.

He threw himself to one side. The blade of the knife struck the metalwork of the drawer at an angle but with enough force to dent it and throw out a scatter of paint fragments. He heard her cry out 'Shit!' in pain at the jarring of her wrist. The knife fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. Umber glimpsed its blade -- long, pointed and gleaming. Then he looked up into Chantelle's eyes. Fear and hatred and desperation burned back at him.

'You bastard,' she screamed. 'You fucking bastard.' She stooped for the knife.

His foot got there first, stamping down hard across the handle. She grabbed his ankle and tried to pull him off, but she was physically no match for him. He grasped her waist and swung her off her feet, whirling her round into the angle of filing cabinet and wall, where he pinned her by his own weight.

'Let go of me,' she shouted, flailing at him with her fists. 'Let fucking go of me.'

He caught her wrists and forced her arms back above her head. Their faces were no more than a couple of inches apart now. He could feel her hot, racing breaths against his chin, could see deep into her staring, wide-pupilled eyes. And they were a different colour, he suddenly realized. Not the dark brown that he recalled, but a pure cornflower blue. 'Listen to me, Chantelle,' he shouted. 'I know who you are. But I've told no-one.
No-one.'

'I don't care who you've told. I just want to make you suffer for what you did to Jem.'

'I did nothing. He took his own life. I don't really know why.'

'Yes you do, Shadow Man.'

'To protect you, I guess, but --'

'You boxed him into a corner. You left him no way out.' Her face crumpled. She closed her eyes. Tears flowed down her cheeks. 'No way out at all.'

'Wisby was the one threatening him, Chantelle. Not me.'

She reopened her eyes and stared at him through her tears. 'You're lying. Wisby and you are in it together. Jem said so.'

'I know he thought that and I understand why. But he was wrong. And I can prove it. Wisby's gone. Left the island. He wouldn't have gone if he knew about you. But he doesn't. He never met you, did he? He never had the chance to put two and two together. Only I had that chance. I give you my word, Chantelle. No-one else knows what I know. And no-one else can protect you now Jeremy's dead. Trust me. Please. For my sake as well as yours.
Trust me.'

Her arms slackened. Her expression altered fractionally. 'Give me one good reason... why I should.'

'Because you have to. Because I'm your only hope. And you're mine.'

'You haven't told anyone about me?'

'I told Marilyn I'd met Jeremy's girlfriend here. A girlfriend she knew nothing about. But I didn't tell her what I really think you and Jeremy were to each other.'

Chantelle swallowed hard and sniffed. 'What d'you really think we were?'

'Brother and sister,' Umber whispered. Then he took a step back, releasing her wrists. Her arms fell to her sides. She did not move. Her mouth was open. But she did not speak. She stared at him, barely blinking. A frozen moment passed.

Then she said, 'Fuck.' And that was all she said.

'Why have your eyes changed colour, Chantelle?'

'I haven't got the brown lenses in. They were Jem's idea. Part of my... disguise.'

'It's a good disguise.'

'Not good enough, though. Is it?'

'I'd never have seen through it.'

'How did you rumble me, then?'

'I didn't. Sally did. My wife.'

'I know who she is.
Was
. Sorry.'

'She left a clue. I only came across it recently. A magazine cutting.'

Chantelle closed her eyes and sighed. 'That fucking magazine. Changed my life. My whole life.'

'Why don't you --'

Chantelle's eyes flashed open, wide and alarmed, at the sound of a car drawing near. Umber grabbed her by the shoulders and hurried her from the room, through the doorway into the sheltering darkness of the boat store, where they stood listening as the car drew nearer still, into the parking space in front of the office -- and stopped.

'Don't worry,' Umber whispered. 'It's Marilyn. She's come to see me. I can get rid of her.' They heard the clunk of a car door closing. 'She'll go up to the flat. I'll follow and speak to her there. All you have to do is wait here. Will you do that?'

'OK,' said Chantelle in a quavering voice.

'Don't move from here. All right?'

'All right.'

There was another clunk above them: the flat door closing. A floorboard in the hall creaked. 'I'll be as quick as I can. Just stay still and silent.'

'OK.'

He squeezed her shoulder, then slipped out through the office.

And there he stopped. The car was not Marilyn's. It was a charcoal-grey BMW. And Umber would have sworn on his life he had seen it before -- in Yeovil.

* * *

Too many thoughts tumbled through his brain for him to sort into any pattern that made sense. It was Walsh's car. Which meant Walsh, not Marilyn, was waiting for him in the flat. Which also meant Walsh knew of his appointment with Marilyn. Umber had clearly been set up.

Set-up or no set-up, he had no choice but to climb the steps to the flat and go in. If Walsh came down, he would find Chantelle, with consequences Umber dared not contemplate. He pulled the office door shut and ran up the steps two at a time.

A few seconds later, he was in the flat, the door slamming behind him as he rushed into the hall, expecting to see Walsh standing expectantly in the middle of the main room. But the room was empty.

'Umber!' came Walsh's voice from the kitchen.

Umber turned. Walsh was leaning casually against the fridge, arms folded, dressed as if for golf, in mustard-yellow polo shirt, generously cut chocolate-brown trousers and two-toned brogues.

'I was just going to come and look for you. Thanks for saving me the effort.'

'What are you doing here?'

'Marilyn sent me.' Walsh smiled his gleaming smile. 'Well, that's not strictly true.
I
sent
her
yesterday. And now I've come myself.'

'What do you want?'

'These, obviously.' Walsh picked up the Juniuses from the work-top where Umber had left them. 'For starters.'

'Starters?'

"The main course is Chantelle. What do you know about her, Umber? What have you found out?'

'Nothing.'

'Worse luck for you if true, which I doubt. Let me explain the situation to you. Then you'll understand why you've no choice but to cooperate.' Walsh glanced at his watch. 'Wisby will have been picked up at the Airport by now. By the police, I mean. Acting on a tip-off. That money you gave him? Hot. Very hot. The serial numbers of the notes match those on a vanload of cash stolen from Securicor in Essex six months ago. Wisby will have a lot of explaining to do. As will the man videoed delivering the money to him at La Rocque earlier today. If and when the film comes to the attention of the police, that is. You catch my drift?'

'I catch it.'

'So, what can you tell me about Chantelle?'

'Like I said: nothing.'

Walsh dropped the Juniuses back on the worktop, pushed himself upright and took two slow steps towards Umber. 'You know who she is, Umber. You've worked it out. And according to what you told Marilyn you've recently met her. Well, I'd like to meet her too. Very much. So would one or two other people I know. Can you arrange that for us?'

'No. I can't. I wouldn't know how to.'

'I find that hard to believe.'

'Many things are.'

'Too true.'

The man moved like a snake striking. Umber had half-expected something of the kind, but his reactions were far too slow and Walsh was far too quick. The next thing Umber knew was that his face was pressed against the frame of the door to the main room, the edge of the wood grinding against his cheekbone, his right arm doubled up behind him several degrees beyond its natural limit.

'You're a lucky man, Umber,' Walsh rasped in his ear. 'Knowing more about Chantelle than anyone else means you get the chance to wriggle out of this situation. But don't push your luck. I'd be happy to reopen those stitches I can see in the back of your head with a few taps against this doorpost. More than happy. So, I suggest you start talking. I really do.'

'There's nothing... I can tell you.'

'Wrong answer. You're going to have to --'

'Stop!'

It was Chantelle's voice. Umber could not see her, but he heard the front door bounce against its stop, setting the letterbox rattling, and glimpsed her shadow in the hallway from the corner of his eye.

'Let go of him.'

'Happy to.' Walsh released Umber's arm and moved back. 'Now you're here.'

Umber turned in time to see Chantelle advancing towards Walsh, her right arm tucked behind her, and guessed in that instant what she was about to do.

'Good to see you again, Cherie,' said Walsh. 'It's been far too --'

The blade plunged into his stomach, deep and hard. He rocked on his feet, clutching at her as she pulled the knife up, tearing through his flesh and innards and the fabric of his shirt, blood spilling and spreading between them. His mouth opened wide. But no words came. Only more blood and a clotted, strangulated groan.

He lolled forward against her. His weight pushed her back. The knife came out of him. There was yet more blood. And something thicker and darker, sagging from the wound. He dropped to his knees, then fell sideways into the kitchen doorway.

He moaned and pressed his right hand to his stomach. The sound in his throat became a gurgle. His feet scrabbled at the thin mat beneath them. Then, suddenly, they stopped. His body slackened. His hand slid away from his stomach. He twitched twice. And then he was still.

'What are we going to do?'

It was the third or fourth time Chantelle had asked the question and Umber was no surer how to answer it. They were sitting on the bed, facing the Catherine-wheel window, neither caring to glance back at the shape in the kitchen doorway. Umber had covered Walsh's body as best he could with the hall mat, though that did nothing to conceal the pool of blood on the tiled floor of the kitchen or the patches of it on the hall carpet. Chantelle had removed her blood-smeared T-shirt and trousers and was now enveloped in Jeremy's dressing gown, but bloodstains remained on the trainers she would at some point have to put back on. Walsh's death and her responsibility for it were facts they could not ignore.

'What are we going to do, Shadow Man?' Chantelle's voice was tremulous and plaintive. But the
we
was important. Umber had asked her to trust him. And now it seemed she did.

'We can't stay here,' he said, forcing his brain to reason its way through the shock of what had happened. 'They'll come looking for him sooner or later. And you know who
they
are, don't you, Chantelle? Or should I call you Cherie?'

'Chantelle's my name now. And I don't know who they are. Or
what
they are. The people my parents work for, I mean. My foster parents, I ought to call them. My
false
parents. That man...' She gestured with her chin towards the door.

'Walsh?'

She shook her head. 'Waldron. Eddie Waldron. Uncle Eddie, he wanted me to call him. But I never did. I was always frightened of him.'

'You don't have to be frightened of him any more.'

'He'd have forced you to tell on me. When I saw his car and realized it wasn't Marilyn who'd come...' Her head sank. 'I knew it was him or me.'

'We've got to get out of here, Chantelle. That's about all I'm certain of. We've got to get out.'

'I was going to make a run for it,' she went on, hardly seeming to hear him. 'I wasn't sure of you. I reckoned it was safer not to trust you. But when I saw the car... I went back for the knife. I thought, finish Uncle Eddie this time, girl. I thought... stop him ever hurting you again.'