Father Unknown

by Fay Sampson

  ‘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

  ‘You 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.’

  As she spoke, the house phone rang. Suzie sprang to answer it. The familiar voice came, it seemed, from a lifetime away. Could it really only have been yest
erday that they were showing Prudence Clayson round the peaceful English village of Corley? There was something comforting about the warm Pennsylvanian accent.

  ‘Gee! I’m having the greatest time. You folks over here are so kind. This guy I’m staying with seems to know just about everything there is to know about the English Claysons. Apparently, there’s only a small pocket of them in your neck of the woods. But he told me something else. It might be really important . . . No, I think I’ll hang on to that till I see you. But I guess we might get that computer of yours working again.’

  Suzie let the gush of words wash over her. She was still too stunned by Millie’s conviction to think clearly. Certainly not about anything as removed from it as family history.

  It didn’t matter. Prudence’s enthusiasm swept on. ‘And tomorrow, they’re taking me to see Stratford-upon-Avon. Would you believe, one of his Claysons actually went to the same grammar school as William Shakespeare? He says I really couldn’t be this close and not go see it. I’m so excited. Shakespeare was such a big thing for me at high school. I was Rosalind in As You Like It. Can you imagine that?’

  Suzie murmured polite responses, hardly knowing what she said.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you guys in a couple of days, then. God bless.’

  The phone went silent. Suzie tried to reorder her thoughts. ‘That was Prudence. She seems to be having a great time.’

  ‘I’m glad somebody is,’ Millie retorted.

  It was nearly six before Tom swung his bike into the drive and breezed into the house. Once again, Suzie felt the shock of altered perception. The world seemed suddenly sunnier for having her tall, energetic son back home. His arms crushed her in an enthusiastic hug. He ruffled her hair and threw himself on to a kitchen chair with dangerous abandon.

  But the sparkle in his eyes cooled. ‘No luck, I’m afraid. I must have cycled half round the city, catching up with guys. Dropped the odd question about Tamara. Got the answer you’d expect. A couple of them knew she’d been out of school last week. Most of them looked blank. Sorry, Millie,’ he added as he saw her standing in the doorway of the conservatory, listening avidly. ‘She doesn’t seem to have scored with the sixth form. There was a bit of a word about Justin Soames in Year Eleven being keen on her, but nothing definite. Of course . . .’ He grinned ruefully up at Suzie. ‘They all think I’ve got the hots for her now. I tried to make it sound casual, but I guess they were bound to wonder why I was asking about her, my first day back.’

  ‘Just as long as nobody thinks you’re the reason she’s disappeared.’ Nick’s voice came from the sofa behind Millie.

  ‘Hey, leave me out of this. It’s the big, bad Dawson she’s running away from, isn’t it?’

  ‘But the kid’s father could be someone else,’ Nick warned. ‘We don’t have to believe the worst.’

  ‘We don’t know she has run,’ Millie said. ‘What if she hasn’t? Mum and Dad don’t want me to go to the police. But if Tamara’s dead, the sooner someone starts looking for evidence, the better.’

  THIRTEEN

  Suzie twisted restlessly in the hot summer night. Could Tamara really be dead? By daylight, it was easy to dismiss Millie’s wilder imaginings. She was at that age when the most ordinary event could become a melodrama. But lying in the dark, with Nick heavily asleep, it was not so easy to shake off the idea. Millie and Tamara were such close friends. In vain she puzzled to think of some explanation for Tamara going off without telling Millie, and still not getting in touch.

  Yet was it really possible to think that Leonard Dawson had killed her?

  In the hot darkness she saw him looming over her, as he had at the country club. The fleshy bulk of him. The face reddened with exertion and rage. Those small, glaring eyes. Even now, her throat constricted as she saw the metal-framed racquet swing above his head. For an awful second, she had thought he was about to bring it smashing down on Nick.

  She sat up, pushing her side of the bedclothes back. It hadn’t happened. Whatever the anger he had felt, he had made himself behave like a member of the civilized establishment.

  They had been in a public place. Mr Dawson was a member of the management committee. He had a reputation to uphold.

  But in private?

  She recalled the bruise on Lisa Dawson’s temple, only half-hidden by her fringe. So dark red, it was almost black. Ugly. The evidence of an uglier scene.

  She wished Nick was awake, so that she could talk to him. He was better at pouring common sense on Millie’s ideas. But he slumbered on.

  She padded downstairs and took a glass of cold milk through to the conservatory. She rested her hot forehead against the window pane.

  Nick would have designed a better house than this. Summer heat rose to the bedrooms and beat down through the tiles. It was cooler down here. She felt less feverish now.

  But the black thoughts would not go away. It was not melodrama now, but cold reality that told her such things were possible. A violent man could strike one blow too many. She pictured Tamara going down before him. Not rising. A trickle of blood on her white face. And the head of one of the most respected schools in the city knowing he had committed murder.

  She almost felt compassion for him as she imagined his panic. This could not have happened to him. It must not have happened. He had to do something, fast. Wipe out the evidence. Get rid of Tamara. Permanently. Bury the body where no one would find it. Concoct a story about her moving away. A temporary arrangement at first, not to arouse suspicion. Lengthening into permanency.

  At what stage had Lisa known? Had she witnessed it? Had he told her later? Got her to help dispose of the body, so that she was an accessory? Or had she only guessed?

  She must know, mustn’t she?

  Suzie struggled to imagine how she herself could ever have kept silent if someone had committed such a crime against Millie. She would want to scream it to the sky. But then, she was not the cowed and frightened person Tamara’s mother had become.

  She seized on a sudden shred of hope. Lisa had told them Tamara had run away. That she had as good as said goodbye. Millie had doubted it, but what if it was true after all?

  But Tamara had said nothing to Millie. Her best friend.

  Her hopes fell. She swallowed the milk and felt its chill course through her body.

  Lisa had wanted to believe that. Because the alternative she feared was too unbearable to live with.

  She hadn’t reported Tamara missing. No one had gone to the police. The school must have been given a plausible reason for Tamara’s absence. Millie was right. A headmaster would know what to say.

  There was only one person who could not be so easily satisfied.

  Millie. Like a piece of grit in a shoe.

  Millie, who had bombarded Tamara’s phone with unanswered messages.

  Millie, who was not going to stop asking awkward questions.

  Millie was the obstacle which stood between Leonard Dawson and the successful silencing of what he had done.

  And now the image of that furious bull of a man came rushing back. This was how it happened, wasn’t it? The first murder, almost an accident. But then the next, made inevitable to cover up the first. Anything to stop Millie going to the police.

  She wrenched herself away from the window, suddenly cold.

  They had to tell the police now. It was not just Tamara they should be afraid for. As long as only they knew, Millie wasn’t safe. They had to act before Leonard Dawson decided that Millie’s insistent questions had to be silenced.

  She crept back to bed, shivering. Even the duvet wasn’t enough to warm her.

  Rational doubt returned with daylight. When Suzie came back from the bathroom, she sat brushing her hair. She felt oddly ashamed of raising the subject. Nick had his back to her, dressing.

  ‘You know, I think Millie may be right. We ought to tell the police. Even though we’re not her family.’

  Nick stopped, in the act of hoisting his trousers. ‘Tell them what? That Tamara�
�s gone away, but her parents don’t seem to have noticed there’s a problem? Don’t you think I’ve made enough of a fool of myself at the country club yesterday?’

  ‘Lisa knows Tamara’s not away on sick leave. She thinks she’s run away. Or she says she does.’

  Nick’s face sobered as he fastened his belt. ‘Whatever Lisa Dawson believes or doesn’t believe, she’s not going to stand up in court and say it, is she? She’s too scared.’

  ‘So you do think there’s something which could end up in court?’

  He kissed her head. ‘Let’s say, I don’t think Leonard Dawson is the pillar of rectitude he’d like the town to believe.’

  ‘Nick! It came to me in the middle of the night. If something has happened to Tamara . . . If he lost his temper and hit her . . . too hard. Then he’s doing a pretty good job of covering up. Presently, we’ll hear that Tamara has moved to another school. A boarding school, even an international one. No one will ask any questions. Except Millie.’

  Nick’s silence was expectant. Clearly, the wires of his mind had not connected with the same explosive force which she had experienced. Putting it into words was bringing it back to her.

  ‘So?’

  She swung away from the mirror to face him. ‘So don’t you see? Millie is in danger, too. She has to tell the police before he . . . shuts her up too.’

  She saw the storm of emotions pass over Nick’s face. Shock, incredulity, the desperate struggle to hold on to normality.

  ‘Steady on, love! It’s one thing to guess he might have lost control and killed Tamara. That’s pretty far out in itself. It’s far more likely she was scared of what he would do to her when he found out she was pregnant, and ran away. But even supposing he did, that would be manslaughter. To deliberately go after Millie . . . You’re talking about murder.’

  ‘You’ve seen what he’s like. He came within a millimetre of hitting you with his racquet, because you interfered. He’d have done you serious damage. Tom says he terrorizes the kids at Briars Hill. If he thought that only a fourteen-year-old girl was standing between him and freedom, respectability . . . He’ll know he’ll go to prison if she doesn’t keep quiet . . . Is it really so fanciful to think he’d silence her too? Nick, it’s our keeping quiet which is putting Millie in danger. Once she’s told the police, it’ll be too late for him to do anything to her.’