Father Unknown (10 page)

Behind a screen of azaleas, still dazzling with blooms of purple, orange and magenta, the courts came into view. The players, Suzie observed, were all carefully attired for their Sunday afternoon game. No scruffy trainers, or jogging pants. No inappropriately coloured shorts, such as you might see on the municipal courts in the park. She glanced at Millie and realized with surprise that she did not look out of place here. She had put on one of her smarter dresses: sleeveless, peppermint green. With her cropped blonde hair, she looked a picture of cool elegance. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Suzie had to adjust the mental image of her fourteen-year-old daughter.

Then she was struck with a sudden chill. Had Millie dressed up like this to catch the handsome tennis coach's eye?

‘That's got to be him.'

Nick had been scanning the players. He pointed to one of the further courts, where a good-looking man in his twenties was adjusting the grip of a rather fat boy, who looked several years younger than Millie.

‘Blond curls. Yep, that's the one,' Millie agreed. ‘Nice.'

‘He's a bit old for Tamara, isn't he?' Suzie said.

‘Mature,' said Millie.

They worked their way around the wire-mesh enclosure until they stood at one end of the coach's court. He came back to the side of the net to watch his pupils resume their game. After a while, his eyes went to the Fewings. He waited until the boys changed ends, then he strolled towards them. Suzie noticed how his eyes raked appreciatively over Millie, and not just, she thought indignantly, her daughter's face. The square-jawed features Millie had commented on lit up with a smile.

‘Can I help you?'

Did he ask that of every spectator? Suzie was already beginning to regret her idea of bringing Millie along to provide the excuse to get into conversation.

‘Yes,' said Nick. ‘You're Dan . . .?'

‘Curtis.'

‘That's right. Is it possible to have a word?'

The coach looked at his watch. ‘Give me a few minutes. These brats' hour is nearly up. And I've had a cancellation for the next session. Is that all right?'

‘Fine.'

His appraising eyes went back to Millie, before he turned his attention to the boys slugging it out with much panting and perspiration.

‘Mm. I see what Tamara means,' Millie said.

Alarm bells rang louder in Suzie's head.

The session ended. The young man came through the gate and strolled towards them. Sunlight on his blond curls. He glowed with health. Suzie felt her nerves tightening. This is not about Millie, she scolded herself. We're here because of Tamara. It was all too easy to see how a teenage girl might have fallen for this sporting Adonis. But even if it had ended in pregnancy, why would that make her leave home? The two of them clearly hadn't run away together.

‘Now.' His smile embraced the three of them. ‘I'm all yours.'

Nick held out a hand. ‘James Peters. This is my wife Anne. And my daughter Sally.'

Suzie threw him a startled glance. But Millie, she saw, was grinning. Nick really was covering his tracks, not wanting to risk his real name coming up in clubhouse gossip.

‘And what can I do for you?'

‘We're new here,' Nick said. ‘And we were wondering if it was possible to arrange for Sally to have some coaching.'

The smile positively shone from Dan Curtis's face. His eyes were fully on Millie now. ‘I'd be delighted.' This time the smile was for her alone.

Millie blushed.

I bet you would, Suzie thought. Instead, she said, wrestling his attention away, ‘You were recommended to us. By one of your pupils. Tamara Gamble? She's a friend of Mi— Of Sally's.'

A momentary cloud obscured the smile. Then it was gone, replaced by professional courtesy. ‘Of course. The charming Tamara. How kind of her. As a matter of fact, she's let me down today. It's my session with her that was cancelled. I heard she was unwell. I hope there's nothing seriously wrong?' He turned his inquiring eyes back to Millie.

‘I . . . I don't know,' she gulped. ‘She's gone.'

‘Gone?' A frown of what looked like genuine concern crossed Dan Curtis's face. ‘Gone where? Her father just said she was feeling off colour.'

‘We don't know. Do you?'

The sudden aggression in her voice broke through her shyness. The question knocked the young man's confident charm away. ‘Why should I?'

Millie shrugged, her blush returning. ‘I just wondered.'

‘Look, I don't know what you're suggesting. I only saw her a couple of times a week. On the tennis court. With witnesses.'

It was the coach's turn to sound aggressive now.

Nick took hold of Millie's arm and turned her away. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Curtis. Sally's a bit upset about this. Perhaps we'd better talk about coaching another time.'

‘Suit yourselves. If Tamara's really has left, I'll have a vacancy on Sunday afternoons. But you'd better make up your minds quickly. My services are in considerable demand, you know.'

His eyes followed Millie with a heightened mixture of admiration and curiosity. Millie, Suzie was disturbed to see, turned her head to gaze back at him over her shoulder.

When they were out of earshot, Suzie rounded on her daughter. ‘Well, that didn't exactly go to plan. You practically accused him of being involved in her disappearance.'

‘And whatever story Dawson has been putting about,' Nick added, ‘the word will be out now that she's missing.'

Millie shook off Suzie's rebuke. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘So what? Did you see? When you said Tamara's name, his face changed. He was all smiles before, then, poof! He went all serious. He covered it up fast. But there was something.'

‘He might just have been cross because she'd stood him up at short notice,' Nick reasoned.

‘I bet he wasn't. He knows something.'

‘I think we were expecting too much,' Suzie said as the car came in sight. ‘He was hardly going to put his hands up and say, “It's a fair cop, guv. I got her in the club.”'

‘You can imagine it, though.' Millie's voice took on a dreamier tone. ‘Tamara wasn't exaggerating, was she? He's better than the photograph. I can see why she fell for him.' She shook her head, as if to clear it. ‘He's a beast, though. If he did it. There he is, playing tennis as if nothing had happened. While Tamara's . . . nowhere.'

The word fell chilly on the heated air.

‘Stop exactly where you are!'

A yell from behind made them spin round. Cresting the ridge at speed was a very large man in white shirt and flannels. His face and the crown of his head were pink and perspiring. He was brandishing a tennis racquet.

It was Leonard Dawson.

The Fewings flinched. Suzie had a desperate desire to run for the car.

Nick recovered faster than any of them. ‘Can we help you?'

Dawson came striding down to tower over them. Suzie eyed his racquet nervously. The pudgy hands were clenched so hard that the knuckles showed yellow through the flesh.

‘You!' he exploded. ‘What do you mean, calling yourself Peters? You're the bloody Fewings.'

‘I'm sorry . . .'

‘I thought I told you to stay out of our affairs. What do you mean by telling Dan Curtis lies about Tamara? What the hell are you suggesting?'

‘We came to talk about tennis coaching.'

‘And I'm a Dutchman. You gave that young man a false name. That shows you've got a guilty conscience. I warned you this morning, when you were bothering my wife. Can you not understand plain English?'

He was shouting at them now from point-blank range. Suzie retreated from the flying spittle. Alarmed, she saw the fist with the racquet begin to rise. She pulled Nick back.

For a moment, Dawson's face flared purple. Then he swallowed and gained control of himself. To Suzie's relief, the racquet fell to his side.

She did not trust the cold smile he now gave them.

‘You may be reassured to know that Tamara's gone away for a rest. On medical advice. From what Curtis has just told me, you'd have thought sick leave was a matter for a police enquiry. Have you any idea who I am?'

‘Of course. Leonard Dawson. Headmaster of Briars Hill College.'

‘That should speak for itself. And I'm also a member of the management committee of this club. As is the Chief Constable, by the way. So I recommend that you get yourselves off these private premises double quick. And should you ever have the temerity to apply for membership, I'll have you blackballed. And as for you –' he glared venom at Millie – ‘you say one word more against the good name of my stepdaughter, and I'll have you in court for slander.'

‘Sorry,' Millie said in a small voice.

They turned, feeling like cowed dogs, and found their car. They slipped into the seats in silence.

‘Well,' Suzie said, with an attempt at humour, ‘that's us told.' She found she was shaking.

‘Imagine living with that,' Millie said. ‘Poor Tamara. No wonder she went. I don't believe that stuff about a rest cure for one moment. But why on earth didn't she ask me for help?'

‘I wish I thought that all he did was shout at her,' Suzie said as the car slipped down the drive. ‘I really thought he was going to brain you with that racquet, Nick.'

‘I'm not surprised she preferred the coach,' Millie said. ‘He was a dream, wasn't he? You don't get talent like that in our year group. But if it was him, why would he let her down?'

‘You're forgetting the important thing,' Nick said. ‘It's not just the baby. She's still fourteen.'

‘So?'

‘Whoever did it, he's committed a criminal offence.'

TWELVE

‘
Y
ou have to go to the police.' Millie turned abruptly from the window, where she had been staring moodily at the garden. ‘Something bad's happened to Tamara. I'm sure it has. It's been five days now, and I haven't heard a word from her.'

‘Be reasonable,' Nick told her. ‘I know you're upset. We're worried too. But the police are hardly going to listen to us, are they? We're not her parents. You heard Mr Dawson. He's a very well-respected man in this city. If he says they've sent her away for some sort of rest cure, the police are going to believe him, not us.'

‘That's not what her mother said. She thinks Tamara's run away.'

Suzie sighed and sank into an easy chair. ‘I know, love. I believe Lisa. But can we get her to say that in front of Dawson?'

‘I'm not sure I do believe her,' Millie said stubbornly. ‘She only
thought
Tamara must have been saying goodbye to her. Tamara didn't actually say that. She just disappeared.'

‘And your point is?' Nick asked. ‘It's not unheard of for teenagers to run away. Especially in her condition. I'd suggest getting the Salvation Army to trace her. They're supposed to be great at that. But it would be the same as the police. They'd trust her parents, not us.'

‘And think what would happen to Lisa if Mr Dawson found out what she'd told us. It doesn't bear thinking about. It would blow his story to shreds.'

‘That's what I mean!' Millie cried. ‘You saw the way he was waving that tennis racquet at Dad. I was scared he was going to kill you. Tamara was really frightened of him, even before the baby. What if he found out about it and . . . and . . . hit her. It could have been in a temper. But he might have done it deliberately. Get her out of the way, so nobody could talk about it behind his back. What if he's
killed
her?'

‘Millie!' Suzie's cry of protest was joined by Nick's.

‘Well, you saw what he's like.' Her voice was harsh with defiance. ‘He could have lost it. And then covered up what he'd done. Buried her somewhere.'

‘But even supposing for a moment that was true, he couldn't keep it secret for long,' Suzie protested. ‘People would want to know what had happened to her. Your school, for instance.'

‘He's a headmaster, isn't he? He'd know how to do it. What you need to say. He'd make up some story about sending her somewhere else. You heard him. He's started to do it already, hasn't he?'

‘I'm not sure.'

Suzie tried to order her troubled thoughts. Could Dawson do that and get away with it? Permanently? Was it so easy for a girl to drop out of existence and nobody realize?

She was horribly afraid that it might be. There had been too many stories about children slipping through safety nets.

‘What about Lisa?' she tried. ‘She'd know it wasn't true.'

‘She's terrified of him,' Nick said, weighing the idea. ‘And with good reason. She's got the bruises to prove it. And abused wives can fool themselves. They can't let go of the idea that he's still the man they fell in love with, and if they hang on to him, it will all come right. I'm rather afraid she'd
want
to believe whatever he told her. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.'

‘She'd just let Tamara go, and never hear from her again?' Millie was incredulous.

‘Even if she suspected, he'd probably terrorize her into believing she was guilty too . . . Look here!' He slammed his hand on the coffee table. ‘You've got us doing it now. Talking as if Tamara's dead. Have you forgotten your theory about the glamorous tennis coach? There's not the slightest evidence that anything's happened to her since she got pregnant, except that she's done a runner.'

‘There is,' Millie said. ‘She hasn't phoned me for five days.'