Person or Persons Unknown

by Anthea Fraser

  On the step, seeming to have materialized out of the shifting whiteness, stood James Latymer – for all the world, thought Rona in confusion, as though she’d telepathically summoned him. For a split second time hung suspended and she was aware, with penetrating clarity, of the acrid smell of fog, of its coldness seeping towards her and of beads of moisture on the coat of the man in front of her.

  ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you?’ he said.

  Sanity came flooding back and she hastened to redeem herself. ‘I’m so sorry – no, not at all.’ There was positively no option but to invite him in, and this she did, stepping aside with a silent gesture.

  ‘I realize I should have phoned in advance,’ he apologized as he came into the hall, but offered no reason for the omission. ‘May I take my coat off? It’s rather wet, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of course.’ She took it from him, hung it on one of the pegs, and showed him into the sitting room. The radiator wasn’t on, and she lit the gas fire to dispel the chill. Gus, having confirmed his recognition of James and received a pat in return, settled contentedly in front of it.

  ‘Can I get you some coffee?’ Rona asked as they seated themselves, but he shook his head.

  ‘No, thank you; I’ve just had some.’

  He didn’t look well, she thought. His face, which on the two previous occasions she’d seen him had been florid, was pale, and there were pouches under his eyes.

  To break the lengthening silence, she asked facetiously, ‘Is a by-election looming?’

  A brief smile touched his mouth. ‘Quite possibly,’ he said. Then, ‘Sorry; of course you want to know why I’m here. I’m just wondering where to start.’

  She waited tensely, hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘This – assignment you’re working on,’ he began, and came to a halt.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  She met his eyes. ‘Things are beginning to slot into place,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Ah; I thought they might.’ A pause, then: ‘Do you mind telling me why you undertook it?’

  ‘I’ve been asking myself the same thing.’

  ‘I understand it was the girl herself who approached you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Rona braced herself: time to put her theory to the test. ‘You’re her father, aren’t you?’

  For a long moment he held her gaze. Then he gave a deep sigh. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I am.’

  That, at least, had been easy. ‘You met Gemma at the flower show?’

  His eyes widened. ‘Good God! Have you got a crystal ball?’

  ‘Something of the kind.’

  He bent forward, hands clasped between his knees. ‘It’s at times like this I wish I still smoked.’

  ‘Is that what you came to tell me? That you’re the missing father?’

  ‘I had to get it off my chest, and there’s certainly no one else I could tell. So here goes: as you guessed – God knows how – we met at the flower show, and I – well, she completely bowled me over. Basically she was shy, but being a reporter she tried hard not to show it, and the result was – endearing, somehow. Also, let’s face it, she was extremely pretty. Anyway, she was on my mind all afternoon, and when I’d handed out the prizes, I invited her for a drink. Before I knew it, I was totally infatuated with her. I think the clandestine element added to the attraction.’

  ‘Morrison Morrison,’ Rona supplied.

  He stared at her incredulously. ‘God, I’d forgotten that bit. You really are a witch, aren’t you?’

  ‘You were married at the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged heavily, ‘I was married, and, as a rising young politician, I knew I was playing with fire. I kept telling myself it was madness, but I hadn’t the will power to end it. Until Hester became pregnant.’

  ‘And you didn’t know Gemma was?’

  He sat back, looking reflectively into the gas fire. ‘You know, the ironic thing is, I don’t think she was. Not when I told her, I mean. I don’t know what I’d expected, but she took it extremely badly – became quite hysterical, in fact. She’d thought I was going to get a divorce and marry her, though I’m sure I never said so, and when I mentioned Hester’s pregnancy, she went ballistic. It hadn’t occurred to her that I was still sleeping with my wife.’

  No, Rona thought achingly; in her innocence and naïvety, it wouldn’t have.

  ‘But if she wasn’t pregnant—’

  ‘Lord knows, I hadn’t meant it to happen; but she kept clinging to me, sobbing that she knew I really loved her, and I told myself one last time wouldn’t make any difference. My God, if I’d only known!’

  ‘She never contacted you, when she found out about the baby?’

  He shook his head. ‘In the end, mainly to stop the hysterics, I’d had to be pretty brutal, insisting she never got in touch again. But if I’d known—’

  ‘It would have made no difference,’ Rona said.

  He flashed her an angry glance, then his eyes dropped. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Her murder must have come as a shock.’

  ‘An enormous one, made all the worse because I had to hide my feelings.’

  ‘The baby was mentioned in all the reports. Didn’t it cross your mind it must have been yours?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not at that stage; I convinced myself it was impossible – that she must have gone with someone else on the rebound. By then, of course, our son Rupert had been born.’ He paused, adding reflectively, ‘There can be only a few months between them.’

  ‘So,’ Rona pursued, ‘life went on. Until what?’

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Deep down, I must have come to accept I was the father, but it didn’t hit me till Hester saw that paragraph in the Gazette. “Why do people do it?” she said. “Do they really think their parents will welcome it all being dragged up again?”’

  ‘A lot of parents do,’ Rona said from a dry mouth.

  ‘Not this one.’ He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Dear Hester – she never knew what a shock she’d given me.’ He glanced at Rona. ‘When we had lunch that day, at Max’s studio, I’d no idea you were working on it. It was only when I got home and mentioned seeing you, that she told me it was you who’d instigated the search.’

  ‘So,’ Rona said, as the fact leapt out at her, ‘you sent me an email, warning me off.’

  He flushed. ‘I’m not proud of that. I’m not into issuing threats.’

  ‘How did you know my email address?’

  He wasn’t meeting her eyes. ‘It was on the letterhead, when you wrote to thank Hester for the lunch.’

  After all her ponderings, such a simple explanation. ‘And the phone calls?’

  He looked blank.

  ‘Did you also phone anonymously, wanting to meet me?’

  ‘Certainly not. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because someone did.’

  He frowned. ‘Probably just a malicious call. People cash in on news items, you know. It happens all the time.’

  No doubt he was right. ‘So another reason for coming here was to ask me to stop the search?’

  Slowly he shook his head, and she felt the first prickle of unease. She thought back over what he’d told her, about the end of the affair and his reaction to Gemma’s death – and went suddenly, icily, cold before she understood why. Then, as though a button had been pressed, a sentence obediently repeated itself in her head.

  The prime suspect would normally have been the father, but he’d emigrated to Australia.

  Only he hadn’t, had he?

  God, she thought in sudden panic, that was why he’d come; he was sure she was on his trail – and she was alone in the house with him! If she could only get outside, the fog would hide her – but she’d no chance of even leaving the room without his catching her. And Gus, beloved Gus, sleeping peacefully on the hearth: he’d met this man before, heard her invite him in, talk to him. How could he be expected to understand he was now the enemy?

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nbsp; Though she dreaded looking at James, she couldn’t prevent herself and, as their eyes met, he saw that she knew. ‘Oh Rona,’ he said softly, ‘I so hoped it wouldn’t come to this.’

  Above the suffocating beat of her heart, defiance unexpectedly came to her aid; she was damned if she’d die not knowing the end of the story! Aloud, she said, ‘So what really happened?’

  There was a long silence. He was staring into the fire again, seeing God knew what. Eventually he began to speak.

  ‘It was true, that I didn’t know about the baby. Not until after it was born, when, completely out of the blue, she phoned me. I was – poleaxed. I’d managed to put the whole thing behind me, and when I heard about the baby, I panicked.’ He paused. ‘It was January ’79, remember, just months before Margaret Thatcher came to power. And I’d been told I’d a chance of being in her cabinet – one of the youngest members on record. The last thing I needed was an illegitimate child crawling out of the woodwork.’

  Did he realize how brutal that sounded? Rona wondered dully. Probably not.

  ‘What did she want?’ she asked. Although part of her brain was concentrating on his story, intent on finally learning the truth, another part still worked on her escape. Could she say she needed the loo? Offer coffee again? Anything to free herself from her dangerous proximity to this man, this – murderer. She no longer had any doubts.

  ‘Maintenance,’ he answered her. ‘She said her friends were insisting I take some responsibility – which gave me the hell of a jolt, I can tell you; I thought she’d told them who I was. But she said not, that to stop them pestering her, she’d said her boyfriend had gone to Australia. Apparently she’d interviewed a family who were emigrating, which gave her the idea.’

  The Morrises. So there had been a connection, albeit a nebulous one.

  ‘You refused to help?’

  ‘I’d no option; if I’d done so, I’d have been admitting paternity. But she became more and more upset; said she wouldn’t have asked for herself, but she wanted the best for the baby and she’d virtually no money. I advised her to contact her mother, but I couldn’t shake her.’

  He stood up abruptly and Rona stiffened, poised for flight, but he moved to the fireplace and leaned an arm on the mantle. Surreptitiously, she measured the distance to the door: escape was still out of reach.

  When he began speaking again, his voice was harsher, flatter. ‘She told me her friend would be late home that evening, so it would be safe to call round. We could talk things over face to face, come to some arrangement.’

  ‘And couldn’t you have done?’ Rona asked.

  He shook his head violently. ‘Once you start on that kind of thing, you’re on a slippery slope; there’s no saying where it will end. I just couldn’t risk it. And when I still refused, she – threatened to contact Hester.’

  Oh, Gemma! A fatal mistake. ‘So you decided to go after all.’

  ‘Only later, after she’d rung off. The more I thought about it, the more I panicked. I’d so much to lose – my career, perhaps my marriage. Then I remembered she’d be alone that evening; and it struck me that a chance like that might not come again.’

  ‘A chance to kill her,’ Rona said in a whisper.

  He didn’t seem to have heard. ‘I was going to ring the bell, but I tried the handle and the door opened, so I went in. There was no sign of her in the kitchen or living room, then I heard sounds coming from the bathroom.’ He paused, his breath becoming laboured. ‘And that door wasn’t locked, either.’

  There was a long silence. Rona was having difficulty breathing, each intake a sharp pain in her chest. God, the tragedy of it – the waste. What was it he’d said to her, the first time she’d met him and handed him his teenage manifesto? Oh dear, is my past catching up with me? Well, it had certainly caught up with him now.

  James cleared his throat. ‘Afterwards – I had a quick look round to check there was nothing that might lead back to me. I couldn’t see anything, so I – let myself out and – went home.’

  ‘And duly became a cabinet minister in Mrs Thatcher’s government.’

  ‘As you say.’

  ‘And never spared a thought for your little daughter?’

  He passed a hand over his face. ‘I did see her – while I was searching the flat. She was awake, and looked up at me with Gemma’s eyes. It – freaked me, I can tell you.’

  For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Rona said, ‘Even if I’d worked out you were Gemma’s lover – and you couldn’t know I had – it didn’t follow that I’d think you killed her.’

  ‘I was pretty sure you would.’

  ‘Because the lover’s the most likely suspect?’

  ‘That’s one reason.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘I had a sitting with Max yesterday. Did he tell you?’

  ‘No. Why is that relevant?’

  He turned then to face her, and she didn’t care for the look in his eyes. ‘Because,’ he said slowly, ‘it came out that you’d met Selina O’Toole.’

  Rona’s hands went slowly to her mouth as she gazed at him in dawning horror. ‘You tried to kill her, too?’

  He flinched. ‘I’d never met the woman, but Gemma often spoke about her and she’d always worried me. Once, a few years ago, she tried to interview me for some programme or other, but I backed down; I couldn’t get it out of my head that she knew more than she’d said. But time went on and nothing happened, and I gradually relaxed. Until this bloody search began. It was like opening Pandora’s box; first the article, then a letter connecting Selina with Gemma. I was afraid you’d contact her.’

  ‘I already had,’ Rona said hoarsely.

  ‘I didn’t know that. I reasoned that if you met, she’d start remembering things she’d not thought important at the time. So – it seemed best to prevent that meeting. Yes,’ he added heavily, ‘I don’t blame you for looking at me like that. I can’t even face myself. God!’ he said explosively, making Rona jump. ‘I’ve spent my life trying to deny what happened with Gemma, only to discover, when another crisis threatened, that I reacted in precisely the same way.’

  He gave a twisted smile. ‘A prime example of the ruthless politician, intent only on furthering his career.’

  ‘They usually stop short of murder,’ Rona said through dry lips.

  ‘Yes; well, at least it turned out not to be murder this time. No thanks to me, she survived.’

  ‘And Max told you I’d visited her in hospital?’

  James nodded. ‘When I asked how your assignment was going. And that was what clinched it for me.’

  Oh God! she thought. Oh God!

  ‘Which brings me to my third reason for coming here.’ She watched, incapable of movement, as he reached into his pocket. What was he going to produce? A gun? A knife? A syringe? What actually appeared was an innocuous-looking envelope, though she stared at it as though it, too, might be lethal.

  ‘I felt you deserved to know the whole story. Well, now you have it. In return, I want you to do one last thing for me. Before I left home just now, I wrote three letters; one I sent to my solicitor, one I left for my wife, and this is the third. I’d like you to give it to my daughter.’

  She stared at him as the sick fear began to recede, not daring to believe that she wasn’t, after all, in mortal danger.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you about her – her current name, what she looks like, anything. It’s better for me not to know. Just tell her – that I’m sorry.’

  Rona’s voice came as a whisper. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Crash my car,’ he said simply. ‘Into a brick wall, for preference, though in this fog it might be difficult to find one.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I told you I can’t live with myself any more; why should anyone else be expected to live with me?’

  He held out the envelope, but when she made no move to take it, he laid it on the coffee table.

  ‘I’ll let myself out,’ he said. />
  She didn’t argue; reaction had set in, and she was incapable of standing. As he crossed to the door, Gus opened one eye and thudded his tail sleepily on the rug. Out in the hall, James took down his coat, shrugged into it, and let himself out of the front door.

  Rona was still sitting there when, twenty minutes later, Max’s key sounded in the lock.