Sight Unseen (42 page)

'Neither did I.'

'How long before we have to go?'

Umber glanced at his watch. 'Half an hour. Till the London train gets in. It stops at Reading. We can take the coach from there to Heathrow.'

'And fly away from everything?'

'That's the idea.'

'When there was no answer from that number you gave me -- the psychotherapist's -- I thought you must have...' She shook her head. 'It was weird to hear his voice on the phone. My father's, I mean. I couldn't think of anything else to try. I just... hoped I could shame him into telling me the truth.'

'You did. But he told it to me instead. I don't think...'

'He could have faced me with it?'

'He's done his best for you, Chantelle. Strangely enough, he always has done.'

'The two of us together. That was his idea?'

'Yes.'

'You sure you want to go with me?'

'Would you rather go alone?'

She frowned. "Course not.'

'There you are, then.'

'But --'

'I'm sure, Chantelle. OK?'

'OK.' She took a long, slow breath. 'Half an hour, you said?'

'About that.'

'I think I'll take a stroll. Stretch my legs. I... need some space. Y'know?'

'I know.'

'Don't worry. I won't go far.'

She rose and walked away, head alternately bowed and thrown back. She passed the steps leading up to the footbridge and pressed on along the platform, her arms folded pensively across her chest. Umber wondered what she was thinking. They were, in many ways, strangers to each other. That would change, though. It was bound to, in the days and weeks -- and months and years -- that lay ahead of them.

'What will they say about you?'
she had asked. And there had come no ready answer. Claire, Alice, George Sharp, the Questreds: they would not understand. It was, ironically, essential they should not. It was vital his conduct should be a mystery to them, vital he should never explain himself, especially to those he most owed an explanation.

'I guess that makes us even, Sal,' he murmured. 'Now we're both destined to be misjudged.'

The zip on Chantelle's rucksack was not fully closed. Through the gap Umber could see the pale vellum spines of the Juniuses, kept safe for him, just as she had said. The sudden need for certainty came over him. He tugged the zip another few inches open and lifted the volumes out. They were tied together with pink ribbon. Chantelle must have bought it specially. He smiled at the thought as he released the knot.

Placing the two volumes on the bench beside him, he leant forward, opened his holdall and pulled out the envelope Oliver Hall had given him. He tipped it up and a smaller envelope slid out into his lap. He raised its torn flap and delicately removed one of two flimsy pieces of paper -- the missing fly-leaves. He opened the first volume of the Junius and matched the jagged left-hand edge of the fly-leaf he had chosen to the dog-tooth fragments held by the book's binding. The last scintilla of doubt vanished. The match was perfect. He gazed in wonderment at the inscription, still unable to imagine how different his life would have been if he had seen this twenty-three years ago. Both fly-leaves were inscribed
Frederick L. Griffin, Strand-under-Green, March 1773,
but only the one Marilyn had torn from the first volume bore the additional inscription, in the same hand, at which Umber stared fixedly as he closed the book and held the fly-leaf before him. Junius's 'gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of our correspondence' had been identified at last. Umber chuckled at the surpassing irony and glanced along the platform, hoping to catch Chantelle's eye, eager to show her this final confirmation of what he could still scarcely believe.

She was looking in his direction, but did not seem to notice his signal. Then he realized she was looking past him, squinting into the distance, focusing on something she could see down the line. He turned to see for himself.

It was an approaching train, speeding towards them. The rails had just begun to sing. It could not be the London train. It was far too early. And it was travelling too fast to stop anyway. It was probably a goods train. One had sped through earlier on the other line while they had been talking.

He looked back at Chantelle. In that instant, fear gripped him. She was standing at the very edge of the platform, well beyond the yellow danger line. She was holding her arms stiffly at her sides. Her face was a mask of concentration, her mouth half-open, her eyes staring, her brain judging distance and speed and time in precise ratios.

Umber sprang up from the bench and started running towards her. The train's horn blared. Chantelle did not move. The noise of the train grew. The note of the rails' reverberation deepened. Umber's feet pounded the concrete as he ran, his lungs straining, his limbs stretching, his injured knee jarring. He had never run faster in his life.

But he was still too slow. The distance he had to cover was too great.
'Don't!'
he shouted. But Chantelle could not have heard him above the roar of the train even if she had wanted to. There was a second blast of the horn. The dark blur of the locomotive swept past Umber. In the shrinking instant before Chantelle jumped into its path, he closed his eyes.

* * *

Umber had stopped running, his final strides carrying him blindly to within a few yards of where Chantelle had been standing. The deafening clatter of the train filled his ears as the long line of trucks surged past him. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, gulping air, his heart thumping, his mind in chaos.

* * *

The train was gone. Noise and motion were spent. The present was a frozen moment. Umber opened his eyes and looked up.

* * *

Chantelle was crouching on the platform, her hands held over her mouth, looking straight at him. She had not moved from the spot where she had been standing. She had not jumped.

Umber stared disbelievingly at her. Then he felt his lips curling into a broad, spontaneous grin. 'Chantelle,' he said, shaking his head in relief. 'Chantelle.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, lowering her hands. 'Christ, I'm sorry.'

'I thought you were going to jump.'

'I know.' Something between a sob and a gasp came over her. She squeezed her eyes shut. 'So did I.'

Umber stood upright and moved across to her. Clasping her beneath the arms, he pulled her gently to her feet, then led her back towards the bench.

* * *

'Are you OK?' he asked banally, when they were sitting down again.

'Reckon so.' Chantelle pulled a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. 'Now I know I can't do it.'

'What made you think you wanted to?'

'Jem. My father. The past. Everything, I suppose.'

'And what stopped you?'

'I guess I'm just not the type. I thought I was.' She forced a smile. 'But I found out different. In the split-second when I so nearly went through with it. When the train was almost on me. Suddenly, I wanted to live. Like never before.'

'Thank God for that.'

'Looks like you're stuck with me now.'

'That won't be a problem.'

'Don't be too sure. I can be a real pain sometimes.'

'That's all right. So can I.'

'Not as big a one as me, I'll bet.' She sighed and looked down. 'What's that?' She pointed to a small piece of paper lying at their feet. Umber was half-surprised to recognize the few lines of antique writing visible on it. He leaned forward and picked it up. 'Is it what I think it is?'

Umber nodded. 'I was going to show it to you... just now. I'm not sure... it matters any more.'

'What does it say?'

'You really want to know?'

'I may as well. Seeing all the fuss there's been about it.'

'OK.' Umber cleared his throat. 'The initial inscription reads:
Frederick L. Griffin, Strand-under-Green, March 1773.
That's the same on both fly-leaves. But on this one, from the first volume, it continues underneath, in the same hand, though written many years later, I assume:
For my ward, John Griffin, in memory of those two of Junius's most trusted friends and assistants who predeceased him: Mrs Solomon Dayrolles, his loyal amanuensis; and Mr Robert Umber, his valiant courier.'

'What does it mean?'

'It means Frederick Griffin came into possession of the book in March 1773, which we know is when it was sent to Junius. Then, towards the end of his life, Griffin passed the book on to his ward, dedicating it to the memory of two people who had helped Junius in his letter-writing campaign.'

'So... Frederick Griffin was Junius?'

'Looks like it.'

'And these two were his helpers?'

'Apparently.'

'But one of them... has your surname.'

'Yes.' Umber smiled. 'So he does.'

'A relative?'

'An ancestor, I imagine.'

'Did you know about him?'

'Not until last night.'

'But... how can that be?'

How indeed? Umber truly had no answer to give. He was not sure he ever would have.

'David?'

It was, he realized with a shock, the first time Chantelle had ever addressed him by name. Something had changed between them. He was the Shadow Man no longer.

'David?'

It is a little after noon on the first Friday of April, 2004. Shower clouds are in chase of one another above the early spring landscape. Sunlight and shadow feint and dodge between the standing stones at Avebury. A short, tubby, middle-aged man dressed for hiking moves at a slow, reflective pace across the northern inner circle of the henge. He stares thoughtfully at the pair of stones known as Adam and Eve as he passes them, but he does not stop.

A few miles to the east, at Marlborough Cemetery, a burial is in progress. The mourners are gathered at the graveside, heads bowed, as the priest recites the prayer of committal. He is speaking softly, but in the prevailing silence his words carry across this other expanse of standing stones. 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed...'

Some miles to the south, a police cordon has been slung across the start of a track through Savernake Forest known as White Road. Two cars with Wiltshire Constabulary badges on their doors have pulled onto the grass verge of the main road next to a blue and white Volkswagen camper van. Three emergency vehicles have drawn up along the track itself behind a parked Bentley, which men in white overalls are inspecting with painstaking care.

Several miles to the east, at Ramsbury, a telephone is ringing in a picturesque cottage at the western end of the village. There is no-one at home to take the call. The answerphone cuts in. And the ringing stops.

Many miles to the south, off Jersey, a telephone is also ringing, in the master cabin of a vast, sleek-lined private cruiser as it noses out from St Helier Harbour into the sea lane. It is ringing. And soon it will be answered.

But not before British Airways Flight 714 to Zurich has lifted off the runway at Heathrow Airport and soared into the sky.

It began at Avebury. But it did not end there.

THE END

The known facts about Junius, the pseudonymous eighteenth-century polemicist, are faithfully represented in this novel. All quotations from his letters are accurate and the production of a specially printed vellum-bound edition of them for Junius's personal use is well documented. The historical consensus is that the letters were the work of War Office clerk Philip Francis, but certainty on the issue is impossible. The question of how Francis was able to deploy a handwriting style for Junius in such elegant contrast to his own, entangled as it is with speculation about whether he employed an amanuensis, and, if so, who that amanuensis might have been, has never been satisfactorily resolved.

So it is with the controversy over whether George III, while still Prince of Wales, secretly married Hannah Lightfoot and fathered by her a son, George Rex. A certificate of their marriage at St Anne's Church, Kew, on 17 April 1759, bearing the apparently authentic signatures of George, Hannah, Dr James Wilmot and, as one of the witnesses, William Pitt, at that time Secretary of State for the Southern Department, can be inspected at the Public Record Office, located, ironically, in Kew.

The certificate was denounced as a 'gross and rank' forgery by the Probate & Divorce Court in 1866 when considering a petition by Dr Wilmot's great-granddaughter, Lavinia Ryves, for recognition of her related claim to be the legitimate granddaughter of George Ill's younger brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland. But the verdict, which flew in the face of the testimony of the leading handwriting expert of the day, can hardly be considered conclusive, given what the consequences would have been of pronouncing the certificate genuine. In strict legal logic,
Victoria
would have been required to vacate the throne. Some things are not meant to be. And some things are not allowed to be.