Father Unknown (12 page)

The letter box rattled. Tom appeared in the doorway, with the day's post in his hand. He made a performance of reading out the recipients' names and handing the letters round, like Father Christmas.

‘Oh, ho, ho! And here's one for Miss Millie Fewings.'

Millie snatched it from his hand. Suzie looked across the table in curiosity. It was unusual for the children to get letters. Mobiles and emails took care of their social contacts. Nor did this look like a formal, computer-printed address. She caught the uneven handwriting as Millie ripped the envelope open.

‘It's from her!' she almost screamed.

The morning grew suddenly brighter.

‘Tamara?' Suzie breathed.

A wary expression came over Millie's face, as if she was afraid she had already said too much. She scanned the contents swiftly and silently. All Suzie could see was the front of the notelet on which it was written. A drawing of a half-timbered, thatched cottage.

‘At least we know she's alive,' Nick said, with evident relief. ‘Where is she?'

Millie read to the end and raised troubled grey eyes. ‘She doesn't say.'

Tom reached for the envelope, to read the postmark. ‘London, W1A.'

Millie shook her head. Reluctantly, she passed the card to Nick. Suzie read it over his shoulder.

Suzie cast a worried glance up at her daughter. ‘She hasn't even signed her name. She asks you to burn this and not tell anyone about it.'

‘Yeah, well. I'm not sure I can handle this on my own. And you –' with an accusing glare at Tom – ‘are not to say
anything
, or I'll murder you. Don't even breathe a hint to your mates that you know something they don't.'

‘As if! Cross my heart and hope to die.'

She scowled at him suspiciously.

‘Well,' said Nick, rising from the table, ‘the good news is she's still alive. The bad news is that he's threatened to kill her.'

‘Oh, come on, Dad,' Tom protested. ‘People say that sort of thing. Doesn't mean they'll follow through.'

‘Tamara's scared enough that he means it to go into hiding,' Suzie said. ‘Where would she go, Millie?'

‘I wish I knew. All this says is that you can rule out London.'

‘Unless she's bluffing,' Tom countered. ‘Put us off the scent.'

‘What about her father? Her real father, I mean. Reynard Woodman. We never did get through to him.'

Millie frowned. ‘I'm not so sure about that now. I kind of feel they don't get on like they used to.'

‘Still –' Suzie pointed to a word that had been crossed out – ‘she started to write “My”, then changed her mind and put “The person I'm staying with”. Somebody's sheltering her. Somebody she knows.'

‘Ah, the family history detective at work. Studying the fine print of the documents.' Nick forced a grin. ‘Still, it's good to know she's staying with someone she can trust. Anyway, she could hardly book in at a B and B at her age, without someone asking questions. And she wouldn't have the money . . . Look, folks, I really do have an appointment at nine. I've got to go. We'll talk about this later.'

‘You're picking me up after school, remember,' Millie called after him. ‘To go to the police.'

‘I'm not sure that's necessary now. I'll ring your mother this afternoon. Bye.'

Millie rose from her seat, slopping milk from her cereal bowl. ‘He can't mean it! He's backing out? Just when we got him to agree it's important. If he won't, I'll flipping well go on my own.'

‘Calm down, love. We need to think this out. Tamara believes she's in danger. But suppose the police start asking questions of Mr Dawson? I'm sure he can be very plausible. Just a hysterical teenager. They'd probably help him find her. And then what? Do you really want Tamara back in that house with him?'

Millie shuddered. ‘That's awful. That means that people like him can get away with whatever they like. A pillar of the community. Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. You think they really wouldn't believe Tamara?'

‘Would she testify against him? Supposing he
is
the father. She wouldn't even tell you who it was.'

‘I hate to break up the party,' Tom said. ‘But don't you two usually go to work and school on Monday mornings?'

Suzie glanced at the clock in dismay. ‘Come on, Millie. We have to run.'

Millie picked up the notelet and looked at it doubtfully. Then she set it defiantly on the kitchen shelf, like a birthday card. ‘Exhibit Number One,' she declared. ‘No, Tamara, I'm not going to burn this.'

FIFTEEN

A
t one o'clock Suzie closed down her computer in the office at the back of the charity shop. Normally, she would have gone straight home. But there were some bits of shopping she wanted to do in town, and she needed to change her library book.

She collected her handbag and walked out through the shop.

‘All done?' Margery, the manager, gave her a warm smile, which faded into a look of concern. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘Yes. Why?'

‘I don't know. You were looking a bit . . . bothered when you came in this morning.'

Suzie hesitated. It was tempting to pour out her worries on to Margery's always sympathetic shoulder. But Tamara's secret was not hers to share. And she knew that Janet, one of the volunteer helpers, was in the cloakroom. She could come back at any moment. Margery, she knew, would be discreet, but Janet's ears flapped at the slightest hint of gossip.

Reluctantly, she lied. ‘No, I'm fine. I was sitting up too late talking. Tom came home yesterday. They were washed out of their campsite in France.'

‘Oh, that's good news. I don't mean about his holiday being spoilt!' Margery laughed. ‘But you'll enjoy having him back. I expect you missed him.'

‘Yes, I did.'

Soon, Suzie thought, I'm going to lose him for longer than ten days. He'll be going to university at the end of summer. It will never be the same without him.

She smiled gallantly for Margery. ‘Still, that's what happens, isn't it? They grow up. Leave home. We wouldn't want to stop them, would we?'

Too late, she remembered that Margery, so eminently motherly, was childless.

But Margery was more concerned for her. She held Suzie's eyes. ‘Still, if there
is
anything . . . You won't mind if I pray for you.'

Suzie found herself envying the ease with which Margery, like Prudence, could say things that like. It wasn't a Bible-thumping assertion of her faith, just that it really was natural to her to say it. She felt a stab of guilt. She should have been praying for Tamara herself.

‘Thanks, Margery.' It was the nearest she could get to admitting that Margery had been right.

She left the shop for the midday heat of the streets. There was a baker's next door which sold sandwiches. Suzie settled for prawn and cucumber and crossed the road to eat them in the cathedral close, among the tourists and pigeons.

She glanced across at the Angel Hotel in the far corner. Tomorrow, Prudence would be coming back. She found herself unexpectedly looking forward to meeting the plump American again. At least there was no reason why she shouldn't talk to Prudence about Tamara. After all, it had been Prudence who had made the breakthrough with Millie and got her to confess the truth about that pregnancy test. It would be unfair not to update her on this latest development. Prudence, she felt sure, could be trusted to keep the information to herself.

Her mobile rang. She fished it out of her handbag. It was Nick.

‘Look, I've been thinking it over. I'm not sure it's such a terribly good idea to go to the police. Not since Millie got that letter. Tamara's safe where she is at the moment. Since Dawson evidently hasn't disposed of her, we can forget the threat to Millie. But if we get the police on to it . . . The worst thing might be if they found her and brought her back.'

‘That's just what we told Millie. I mean, who are they going to believe? A well-known headmaster, who's already warned us he's on first-name terms with the Chief Constable, or a teenager? Unless Tamara's willing to report he abused her, if that's what happened. Even if it did, I'm not sure she's ready to talk about it.'

‘So. It's a big responsibility, either way. I'm beginning to feel like she's my own daughter. But my hunch is that we should let it ride. I don't see Dawson getting to Tamara any time soon. He has less idea where she is than we do.'

‘Yes, I know what you mean. I'm dying to do something to help her, but I can't think what.'

‘I'll text Millie, shall I? Tell her to come home from school as usual.'

‘She isn't going to be pleased. Though we did try to explain why.'

‘You don't think she'd go to the police station on her own, do you?'

‘You can never tell what Millie will do.'

There was a pause. ‘Should I ring Tom? Get him to meet her at the gates. Make sure she comes straight home.'

‘Are you joking? Her big brother? I really don't think that would be a good idea.'

She brushed the crumbs of her sandwich from her lap, attracting the swoop of a predatory seagull.

Half an hour later, she had finished her shopping. A new library book was in her bag. But instead of heading for the bus stop, she found her steps turning towards the Local Studies Library next door.

It wasn't her usual afternoon for family history research. She recognized the symptoms immediately. Avoidance strategy. She didn't want to go home and face the thoughts that waited for her there. Tom would probably be out. There would just be the silent house and Tamara's card, sitting accusingly on the kitchen shelf. A girl apparently frightened for her life.

She shook the unsettling thought away. Besides, she told herself, she did feel a little guilty. She had really meant to do some more research while Prudence was away, so that she would have some fresh discoveries to give her when she came back. The dramas of Lisa and Leonard Dawson yesterday, and Tamara's letter today, had driven it out of her mind.

She felt the studied peace of the search room fold around her. The walls were lined with books, all crammed with local information. Researchers sat at the microfiche readers and computers. Two librarians at the desk were ready to help.

Suzie's first thought was to try to trace Prudence's Clayson family further back. Fiches of the registers were available here too. Then she remembered that they had already gone past the point where the Corley parish registers began. Too late a date for Johan's baptism. But at least she could find out more about Corley. There was always a chance that the Clayson name might crop up in parish histories. There were books which wouldn't show up on Internet searches. And even if not, she could paint a more vivid picture for Prudence of the life of the village in the seventeenth century and earlier. Bring to life the background against which Prudence's ancestors would have lived.

She checked the computer catalogue for Corley. There were three possibilities. One was the booklet about the parish church which they had already picked up on their Saturday visit. Another seemed to be a fuller account of the parish by the same author, a previous rector. The third was a typewritten manuscript by a member of the Marsdon family of Corley Barton. Suzie felt a prickle of indignation. She could not get out of her mind her first conviction that Johan Clayson had been a servant in that grand house and that baby Adam was the result of abuse she had suffered from one of the Marsdons.