Father Unknown (23 page)

‘He's not coming,' Nick said. ‘He'd have been here by now.'

All the same, he drove a little further on, past the entrance. Outside the boundary wall, trees crowded down to the roadside. He nosed the car along a smaller path, where branches shielded it from the road.

‘You stay here. I'll check the house out. If the coast's still clear, I'll knock and see if I can sort things out with the aunt. I'd feel easier in my mind if we had some definite news about Tamara. There's been too much guesswork.'

‘If you're going to see Tamara, I'm coming too!' Millie had her seat belt off and was opening the door.

‘There's no saying the aunt will let us in, even if Tamara is here.'

‘She's more likely to let me in than you.'

Suzie sensed that Nick was on the point of refusing her. Then he hesitated. ‘All right. But do exactly what I tell you. I'm going first. You stay behind the wall. If I signal you that it's OK, you can come.'

He did not refer to Suzie. She followed them, the tall figure of Nick ahead, with his wavy black hair, the slight figure of Millie with her blonde crop.

They picked their way through the trees, avoiding the road, until they came to the brick wall surrounding the house.

‘Wait here,' Nick ordered Millie. ‘Suzie, have you got your mobile? I want you to watch the road. If you see Woodman's car turning in, or stopping on the road, ring me immediately.'

He climbed the wall easily. Trees grew close to the house, but some had been felled to leave wider spaces. Nick flitted from one to the next, drawing nearer to the brick house.

The summer sun had not yet set, but it was slipping down into an almost invisible bank of violet haze. It was duskier under the trees. There was a glow of light in one of the downstairs windows. Perhaps a reading lamp.

Suzie watched Nick position himself behind the substantial trunk of an oak, almost opposite the window. He peered carefully around it. Then he drew back into hiding and waved to Millie.

So Reynard wasn't there.

In a moment, Millie was over the wall and running to join him. Suzie hesitated, then decided she would have a better view along the track to the road if she climbed over too.

She wished she had left her shoulder bag in the car, but she could hardly abandon it here. She slipped the strap over her head, so that it hung more securely across her body. She was not unused to scrambling over moorland tors. Soon she was dropping on to soft leaves the other side. The only significant damage was to the leather of a good pair of sandals.

She crouched and faced the road. Nothing yet.

Nick and Millie were now making their way openly to the front door. What Nick had seen through the lighted window had given him confidence.

Reynard wasn't coming, then. She must have been wrong about that flash of intuition she thought she had seen in his eyes. He hadn't suspected whom Tamara might be with. She felt a great relief. It wasn't for Tamara's safety. She hadn't been able to bring herself to share Nick's suspicion. It was not like the fear she had felt confronting Leonard Dawson. She would have been shaking with nerves if she were watching for
his
arrival. What she feared if Reynard Woodman found them here was extreme embarrassment. The Fewings family, caught behaving like children in an Enid Blyton mystery.

A wider slice of light showed as the door opened. Suzie turned her head from the road to watch. A tall, red-haired woman in a blue smock stood eye to eye with Nick, listening to his story. Then she bent her head to look down at the smaller figure of Millie. It was too far to be sure of her expression. She ushered them inside.

Warmth coursed through Suzie. It was all right. That must mean Tamara was there. They had done what they set out to do. They had found Tamara. Millie would be reunited with her. The two girls would be hugging each other, pouring out their separate stories. Presently, someone would probably come out to invite Suzie in. They would talk for a while, discussing Tamara's future. Then the Fewings would go back to the Bear and Staff for the night, and home tomorrow. Mission accomplished.

She was just about to turn her attention back to the road when her eye was caught by a brightness beyond the house. The sun had slipped below the bank of cloud. She gave a little gasp of surprise. She had not realized, as they navigated the twisting roads, how close they had come back towards the river. Through the widely-spaced trees at the back of the house, she had glimpses of golden light on the water.

Then she remembered why Nick had left her here. She was supposed to be watching the road. However melodramatic she thought he was being, she supposed it was prudent to keep an eye open. She could at least give Aunt Frances and Tamara some warning if Reynard was on his way.

She had a moment's guilty panic. Might he have turned into the track while her attention had been on the river behind the house?

The road was shadowed, on the edge of the wood. Nothing moved.

As she watched, a beam of light probed through the trees. Suzie stiffened. Her hand went to the mobile in her bag. She opened it and found Nick's number. Her thumb was poised to confirm, just in case.

The headlights came on, passed the entrance to the track and zigzagged away. She relaxed.

It was a long five minutes before the next car approached.

It, too, drove on.

She glanced back at the house. It was hardly fair of Nick to leave her out here in the woods. It was obvious by now that Tamara's father wasn't coming. And what if he did? He
should
know.

When she resumed her watch, the road was harder to see. In those few minutes, the sun had set. She was conscious of things stirring in the twilit wood. There were rustlings among the leaves.

A low, amused voice spoke behind her left shoulder. ‘Well, Suzie! It seems the Fewings family are determined to meddle with other people's business.'

She jumped up, spinning round, to find herself face-to-face with Reynard Woodman.

TWENTY-FIVE

F
or a horrified moment, the spy-thriller nature of the evening convinced Suzie that he was holding a gun to her.

Then sanity returned. She saw nothing but mocking laughter in his light-blue eyes.

A hot flush suffused her body. She could not begin to explain why she was crouched in the woods outside his sister's house. Mercifully, he did not ask.

‘So, great minds think alike. You've obviously worked out, too, that if Tamara wasn't with me, she must be at Fran's house.'

She nodded, her mouth too dry to speak.

Belatedly, she became aware of the mobile still clutched in her hand. She dared not look down at it. She must just hope that Nick's number was still the one selected. It seemed foolish now to be carrying out her instructions. But her thumb felt for the button and pressed it. She slipped the phone into her dress pocket, under cover of her shoulder bag, and hoped he would not notice the movement in the shadow of the trees.

‘Were you waiting for someone?' At last the question she had been dreading. ‘I'm sorry if I surprised you. Cars are such a carbon-inefficient way of travelling when we have the river, don't you think?'

Only then did she look past him. It was twilight in the wood, but still clear evening light over the river. She saw the trim, white lines of a motor launch against the bank.

Embarrassment deepened, as she pictured how he must have come walking up through the trees to Frances's house, until he saw the light blur of her dress as she crouched by the wall. What must he have thought?

‘Shall we go in? I can't tell you how upset I am about Tamara, after what you told me. Poor little sweetheart. You know these things happen to girls, but you never think it will be your kid. You've got a daughter, Suzie. I'm sure you can imagine how gutted it makes me feel. I'd like to get my hands on the boy and thrash him.'

No mention that it might not be a schoolboy. Suzie cast her mind back. She was almost sure they had voiced their suspicion of Leonard Dawson.

They walked towards the house. Reynard chatted, without apparent embarrassment.

‘Luckily, she doesn't have to go through with it. I can afford to have it dealt with in the very best clinic. Emotionally painful, of course. But in time she'll thank me for it. We don't want to mess up the rest of her life, do we?'

‘She won't,' Suzie said. ‘Millie says Tamara's refusing to have an abortion.'

‘
What
?' He stopped and faced her. His expression had changed. She read alarm.

‘Didn't I tell you? That's why we're afraid Leonard Dawson would beat her. He'd want to hush it up. But she already thinks of it as a human being. She doesn't want to kill it.'

He snorted. ‘She's bound to be emotional just now. Who wouldn't be? I'll talk to her. Father-daughter stuff. I'm sure she'll see reason. Can't have her saddled with a baby at fourteen. Think what she'd be giving up. Her whole future.'

They had reached the steps. There was the sound of a door opening. Frances O'Malley stood in the porch. The flood of light illuminated a stone dragon on one side of the threshold, a troll on the other. Moths circled the lamp above her red hair.

‘Well, Kevin.' The name jolted Suzie. She had used it herself once. But now it subtly diminished the image of the celebrity author Reynard Woodman. She sensed from Frances's tone that he was her younger brother. ‘It's been two years since you deigned to set foot in my garden. To what do I owe the honour of this unexpected visit?'

So he hadn't phoned to ask her if Tamara was here. Instead, he had come slipping along the river in his launch to surprise her. And Tamara.

The first spasm of doubt crossed Suzie's mind.

‘As a matter of fact, I came to see Tamara. I'm sorry to sound rude, my dear, but you'll understand how shocked I am at the news. It's bad enough to put herself in the club, at her age. But running away from home is a bit over the top, even given that she doesn't like that louse Dawson. I'm here to do my fatherly duty and sort things out for her.'

‘Tamara's not here.'

The words came as a jolt to Suzie, as well as to Reynard. They both stopped, the somewhat strained smiles wiped from their faces.

Suzie's eyes flew to Nick, who had appeared behind Frances. His sober expression gave nothing away.

Her eyes questioned him. Tamara wasn't here? What about that angry phone call Nick had had with her aunt? Hadn't it meant what they thought it had?

He looked past her.

‘But I think you know where she is.' Reynard's voice sharpened.

‘I know that she's pregnant, and she's run away from home, yes. Mr Fewings has just told me. I gather they went to you first. And you gave them the same answer I have.'

Suzie looked from brother to sister. Which should she believe?

‘That's right. They turned up at my place this afternoon.'

‘If you thought she was with me, it's taken you a while to get here. It's nearly nightfall.'

‘Hardly. Just because you choose to live in such a gloomy place in the forest. Like a witch's house. It's only just past sunset. Light enough to take Tamara back with me on the boat.'

Suzie saw the startled look Frances sent towards the river. But she turned back to her brother with a different question.

‘I suppose you've told the police she's missing?'

‘Isn't that being a teeny bit melodramatic, my dear? I thought she was with you.'

‘And now that you've found she isn't, shall I ring them, or will you?'

Suzie was aware of tension crackling in the atmosphere as brother and sister faced each other. Her thoughts were racing. Where
was
Tamara? Had she been here? Was Frances bluffing?

What had happened when Nick picked up her call? He refused to meet her eye.

Belatedly, a new question insinuated itself into Suzie's mind. Her mouth opened to ask: ‘Where's . . .'

Nick shot her a look of such intensity that she stopped before she could say ‘Millie'.

‘Sorry. Nothing.'

‘Would you like to come in?' Frances said, with a lack of sisterly warmth. ‘I expect we could all use a coffee. Is Petronella with you?'

‘She's on the boat. I don't think we need to call her. She'll be fine keeping an eye on it.'

As they trooped indoors, Suzie caught the troubled glance that passed between Nick and Tamara's aunt.

She was hardly surprised to find that Millie was not in the sitting room.

The atmosphere was awkward. Frances served coffee and cake. As she accepted a slice, Suzie was aware that she and Nick were sitting on the edge of their seats, unable to relax. Reynard Woodman, however, leaned back on the cushions, smiling. That seemed strange to Suzie. Anxiety would be more appropriate. It was almost as if he were playing a game now. He had looked genuinely upset when he first learned that his daughter was pregnant and nobody knew where she was.

It was a relief that the author's composure scotched Tom's wild notion that Reynard himself was the father of Tamara's child. That would certainly have been a disaster, for him, as well as Tamara. He was still endeavouring to be as charming as he used to be, in the days when he took Millie and Tamara on picnics in the woods . . .

No, don't go down that path.

She wrenched her thoughts away, to sense that Frances and Reynard – or Kevin, as his sister still called him – were locked in a sibling rivalry they had conducted from childhood.

‘Let's take this slowly,' Reynard was saying. ‘The Fewings, Nick and the charming Suzie, came here because they believe you know where my daughter is. Just as they came to see me this afternoon.'