Father Unknown

by Fay Sampson

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’ Nick covered the lie with a smile of gratitude. In a few strides, he was back at the table, flicking through the telephone directory more rapidly. ‘Keep your fingers crossed it’s in her name, not her husband’s.’

  ‘Tamara never said anything about an uncle,’ Millie said.

  ‘Got it! O’Malley, F.D. The House in the Forest, Little Fairing.’ He jotted down the number, then swivelled back to the landlord. ‘How far would Little Fairing be?’

  ‘About twelve miles, I should think. Will you be wanting a table for this evening?’

  ‘Could we leave that open? I’m not sure when we’ll be back.’

  He threw a meaningful look at Suzie and Millie as he strode for the door.

  ‘Nick, what are you doing?’ asked Suzie as she caught up with him in the car park. ‘We can’t just go barging in on them. Not now we’ve handed it over to her father.’

  ‘You’re right. We ought to ring her first. There’s just a chance we might catch her before Reynard Woodman gets there.’ He got out his mobile and phoned the number he had copied. His voice was sharp with anxiety.

  She felt a stab of irritation. All they needed was for Nick to take off down a false trail of suspicion.

  ‘Frances O’Malley? This is Nick Fewings. You don’t know me, but my daughter Millie is best friends with Tamara . . . No, look. I know that Tamara doesn’t want anyone to know where she is. It was Millie who worked it out. I’m afraid we may have been a bit indiscreet. We were at Reynard Woodman’s house this afternoon . . . Yes, her father. We’ve all been desperately worried about her since she disappeared. Our first thought was that she might have gone to him . . . Yes, I’m afraid he knows now. And we think he might have guessed she’s with you . . . Look, I understand your feelings . . . You don’t have to tell me anything. We just thought we might have done the wrong thing and that he’ll be over to your place . . . Yes, I’m sorry. It was stupid. But, well . . . He hasn’t got there yet? Thank God for that, at least. If there’s anything we can do . . . No, I quite understand. That’s perfectly justified. I’m sorry.’

  He pulled a wry face as he snapped the mobile shut. ‘She wasn’t admitting anything, but from the earful I got, I don’t think we’re flavour of the month.’

  ‘Nick!’ Suzie protested. ‘You’re just being ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Millie wailed. ‘I told him about the card. But he can’t mean her any harm. He’s Reynard Woodman. He wouldn’t.’

  Nick ran his hand through his hair. He stood indecisively in the middle of the car park. ‘I wish I was as sure as you are. We’ve fouled up, big time. We’ve broken her cover. Or as good as. The only thing we can hope is that Suzie was wrong, and that Reynard Woodman didn’t twig where she was.’ He juggled his car keys. ‘On the other hand . . . if he does show up, and there are just the two of them . . .’

  He reached a sudden decision and made for the car. After a moment’s exchange of furious looks, Suzie and Millie hurried after him.

  ‘I’m not sure if you should come,’ he said.

  Suzie got in, without stopping to argue. Millie did the same.

  ‘She’ll deny it,’ he said, starting the engine. ‘The only thing she has to do is tell him Tamara’s not there. What can he do?’

  ‘What would he want to do?’ Suzie demanded. ‘Nick, you and Tom are being outrageous. What does it matter if he does find out where she is? I’m sure he could warn Dawson off a lot better than his sister could.’

  ‘I wish it didn’t matter if people found out. But Tamara evidently thought it did. And, from the sound of it, her aunt does too. So let’s just hope we get there before he does.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Which way?’ Nick asked as they headed out of the pub car park.

  ‘Pass me the road atlas, will you? And that Ordnance Survey map.’ Suzie turned to Millie in the back seat. She checked the location of Little Fairing. ‘Back to the main road, then left.’

  A summer landscape of the English countryside flew by them. A glimpse of a cricket match, white figures on a tree-lined field. Half-timbered cottages, whose crooked walls added to their selling price, rather than diminishing it. Newer houses, flocking round the desirable waterside like recently-hatched ducklings.

  She turned to the Ordnance Survey map for more detail. ‘Got it. It’s even marked on the map. “The House in the Forest”. Wonder if that’s where Reynard got the idea for his book from. Now, there’s a small town coming up. Take the right fork in the centre. Little Fairing’s the next village.’

  Her mobile rang.

  ‘Hi, Tom.’

  ‘I’m guessing you’re checking out that aunt’s address. Right?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, we’re on our way there now. The House in the Forest, Little Fairing. I’m not for a minute accepting your ridiculous suggestion that Reynard Woodman’s our culprit. But your father seems to think it’s a possibility. And having come this far, we’d like to check that Tamara really is fine. Well, as fine as she can be, in the circumstances. At least then I can tell Lisa I’ve seen her.’

  ‘And you think this Woodman bloke has sussed where she is, too?’

  ‘I’m only guessing. He didn’t say so.’

  ‘Watch yourselves, then.’

  ‘What ever do you mean?’

  ‘Rich, famous man. An inconvenient truth. He may not be as crude a bully as Dawson, but I bet he can find his own ways of shutting people up.’

  ‘He’s a children’s author, for heaven’s sake, not a Mafia boss.’

  ‘Yeah. You’re right. I reckon that’s why Tamara should be scared.’

  ‘Tom! Look, I’m not going on with this conversation. I’m supposed to be navigating. We’ll be home tomorrow.’ She snapped the phone shut and put it back in her bag.

  Tomorrow. Back to everyday life. This whole peculiar day behind them – meeting Reynard Woodman and his new family, in their riverside luxury. The aunt ahead, in her lonely house in the woods. Tamara’s hideaway. Some questions answered, but not the most important ones. Who was the father of Tamara’s child? What had sent her running away here?

  ‘Straight through the village,’ she said, hastily getting her bearings as Little Fairing sped towards them. ‘Then left at the next crossroads. It’s all on its own. The Gambles obviously like their privacy.’

  The wood was bounded by an old brick wall. Nick slowed. An unmade track led off to their left through the trees. They could just glimpse the house between the branches. Not Tudor, by the look of it, but mellow red-brick.

  ‘You’re not going to drive up to the door, are you?’ Millie’s voice came from the back seat. ‘It’s not going to be much good her aunt telling Reynard she’s not here, if we all pile in. He’ll know she’s lying.’

  ‘This is madness, anyway,’ Suzie told them. ‘Surely her father’s the very person she needs right now?’

  Nick clenched the steering wheel. ‘It may not look like it to you, but I’m trying to be rational. Tamara’s here, and not at her father’s, for a reason.’

  ‘The girlfriend? Those kids? There are lots of reasons why she might prefer an aunt living by herself. And if she really is afraid of Dawson, somebody needs to warn him off. Somebody with more clout than we have.’

  ‘I wish we’d stayed at home,’ Millie said. ‘Tamara was all right with her aunt. All we’ve done is mess it up.’

  ‘That’s all I need,’ Nick said. ‘You were the one who was dying to come.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Suzie said. ‘I feel ridiculous with this cloak-and-dagger stuff, but it will be even more embarrassing if Reynard Woodman catches us here, prying into his family business.’

  ‘I can’t see a car outside the house.’ Nick was peering up the track.

  ‘It was all a wild goose chase. He isn’t coming. He probably rang his sister and she told him no.’

  ‘You didn’t speak to her. It’s not just Tamara who’s scared. Her aunt is too. At least, that’s the only way
I can explain how mad she was with me. With us.’

  ‘With me,’ said Millie. ‘I told him. But he is her father.’

  ‘I’d pretty well filled him in on the picture before that,’ Suzie said. ‘About her being pregnant and running away.’

  ‘But you didn’t say about the card and Anne Hathaway’s cottage. That was me. I led him here. But I’m sure she’d want to see him. I would.’

  ‘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

  For 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. P
oor 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.