Father Unknown (7 page)

Suzie consulted the map. ‘Norworthy's not far from here. I make it the second farm after this cattle grid.'

Nick drove on, skirting sheep that sauntered across the road.

‘This is Lower Norworthy.' Suzie read the board at a farm gate. ‘Next one.'

The road climbed gently now. The moors and valleys of half the county lay spread around them. Another farm came into view.

Nick stopped the car. ‘This seems to be it.'

The three of them got out. Suzie felt the moorland breeze fresh on her face. The song of a skylark cascaded down to them.

‘Will you look at that,' Prudence marvelled. ‘How did they ever shift such stones?'

The barn nearest to the road was made of massive granite blocks. No two were the same size, yet they bonded together to make an outbuilding strong enough to resist any onslaughts of weather or time.

‘Who knows?' said Suzie. ‘That hayloft may be where the apprentices slept.'

The yard was quiet.

‘Do you think we dare knock on the door and ask if we can see inside that farmhouse?'

‘You could try,' said Nick. ‘But from the look of it, it's been rebuilt since Adam was here in the eighteenth century. Not much of its history left, I'm afraid.'

Prudence still looked wistful.

‘No harm in trying,' Suzie said.

They walked up to the closed front door. Nick was right. The house was modern. It did not have that thrill of history that the stone barn did.

Suzie rang the bell. There was no answer.

‘Gone into town for their Saturday shopping,' Nick said. ‘Probably get their food from Sainsbury's nowadays.'

Prudence swivelled slowly, taking in the surroundings. She got out her camera again. ‘The house may be new, but I guess that view hasn't changed in centuries.' She snapped the four quarters of the horizon, then the stonework of the barn.

‘You're right about the weight,' Nick commented. ‘It gives me a hernia just looking at some of those stones.'

Prudence shook herself slowly, as if trying to convince herself of the reality of what she saw. She reached out a hand and stroked the masonry. ‘I'm here. Where he lived. From the time he was eight years old.'

Suzie wandered back to the gate, giving the other woman space to form her memories.

Nick looked at his watch. ‘Did you want to go to this other place?'

‘Hole? It's the other side of the parish. Time's getting on. And I haven't found a definite link to it with this younger Adam. Maybe we should leave it for today. Pru's in England for another week. If we find her family did live at Hole, I can bring her back when she returns from William Clayson's.'

Nick drove them home.

Millie met them, pale and distraught. ‘I've been over to her house. She's not there. Her mother's trying to cover up, but I don't think she knows where Tamara is either.'

EIGHT

N
ick put his arm around Millie's shoulders. ‘Hey, love. Calm down. There's bound to be a simple explanation.'

‘I know this is the twenty-first century,' Suzie said. ‘But they may be hoping to keep her pregnancy a secret. With her stepfather being a headmaster of the old type, he'll be thinking of his own reputation, as well as hers. I expect they've sent Tamara off for a few days to have it dealt with.'

‘You mean an abortion? But she wouldn't. She absolutely
wouldn't
. We talked about it. She thinks it's a real person, from the moment it was conceived. She said she felt responsible for it. Another life.'

‘She's only fourteen. Her parents may have talked her into it.'

‘Her mother wouldn't.'

‘But her stepfather might. By all accounts, he's a pretty forceful man. She may not have been able to say no to him.'

‘Pig! He couldn't make her, could he? He was there all the time I was talking to her mother, sort of glaring at me. At her too.'

‘Legally, no, he couldn't,' Nick said. ‘But emotional pressure can be hard to stand up to, particularly from a man used to exercising authority on teenage girls.'

An idea was growing in Suzie's mind. ‘Unless . . .' She hesitated. She didn't want to worry Millie further. ‘If Tamara couldn't say no to him, might she have run away?'

All this time, Prudence had been hanging back tactfully, pretending to admire the roses along the garden path. Now she spoke for the first time. ‘I'm with Tamara about the baby. In my book, it's a living human being. Question is, if Tamara's run off to save it, where would she run to?'

The adults were looking at Millie for help.

She thought for a while, then shook her head. ‘I can't think of anywhere. No one she talked about. Unless . . . What about her father? Her real father? You remember? Reynard Woodman.'

‘Kevin Gamble, before he got famous.' Suzie's eyes questioned the others. ‘Would she?'

Nick shrugged. ‘Depends how close they still are.'

‘She used to go and see him once a fortnight,' Millie said. ‘Stay the weekend. Lucky cow. Reynard's a bundle of fun. Or he used to be when he lived here.'

‘Don't they get on now?'

‘She doesn't talk about him so much nowadays. If I ask her how her weekend was, she just sort of mutters “OK”. There was one good day. Her aunt came over and took her shopping in Selfridges in Birmingham. But otherwise . . . I told her, if she doesn't want to go any more, she could let me go instead. I think he's fabulous.'

‘Why don't you try ringing his number? In case she
has
gone there.'

Millie's eyes widened. ‘Could I? Speak to Reynard Woodman?' Her tone was almost reverential. ‘Thanks, Mum! That's a brilliant idea.' She made for the door. ‘But I still can't understand why she's not answering her mobile. It's been switched off since I saw her on Wednesday. She hasn't even sent me a single text.'

‘That's little short of a miracle,' said Nick. ‘Girls your age seem to spend half their lives on the phone. Sounds as if she's going out of her way not to let anyone find out where she is.'

‘Why would she do that to
me
?'

‘I don't know, love,' Suzie comforted her. ‘She's obviously upset. She probably wants some time to think about it. Sort herself out. She'll get back to you, I'm sure.'

‘That man!' Millie burst out. ‘Mr bloody Dawson. All the time I was talking to Tamara's mum he was there. Sort of looming in the background. He didn't say anything. But he was listening, all right. And Mrs Dawson kept looking round at him. Like she was frightened of saying the wrong thing.'

‘Hey, easy,' Nick put in. ‘If Tamara's really disappeared, they'll be as upset as you are. I don't think I'd be behaving normally if you'd done a runner.'

‘If she has run away,' Prudence said, ‘they'd tell your police, wouldn't they? Don't you worry, Millie. They'll find her.'

‘Well, I'm going to ring Reynard Woodman,' Millie said. ‘What's the number for directory enquiries?'

They were drinking tea on the patio when she came back. Millie's face was sullen, her anger only just under control.

‘He's ex-directory.' She threw herself into an empty chair. ‘Why? It's like walking up to a building and all the doors slam shut and the lights go out.
Why
can't I reach her?'

‘I'm sure her mother will have his number.'

‘I don't fancy going back to ask. She practically threw me off the doorstep last time. I mean, I've been going round to Tamara's house for years, and it was like she didn't want to know me.'

‘Look, he's bound to have a website. That'll tell us how to contact him. I'll check it out.'

She went to her computer and came back a few minutes later. ‘No joy, I'm afraid. It says all enquiries should be addressed to his agent. I'm not sure this is the sort of query I'd want to do through a third party.'

‘What's her father like?' Prudence asked.

‘Do you mean her real father?' Suzie asked. ‘Kevin?'

‘Mum!' Millie protested. ‘Nobody else calls him Kevin Gamble any more. He's Reynard Woodman now. Author of
The Secret of Humbledown Forest, and all that series
.'

Prudence looked apologetically blank. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘He writes children's books. I used to love them when I was younger. I've still got most of them up in my bedroom.'

‘That's right,' Suzie remembered. ‘You were so excited the day you found out. You came running home from primary school to tell me you'd sat next to this new girl and she was his daughter. But that was years ago. He'd only just written his first best-seller. We still knew him as Kevin Gamble round here. How long is it since he and Tamara's mother broke up?'

‘Four years. It was our last year at Blackhills, before we went to Bishop's High. I stopped reading his books for a bit, because I was mad at him for leaving them.'

‘It's a shame. I remember him as a fun person. He used to take you with them for picnics and boating on the river.'

‘Well, he doesn't seem much fun now. He doesn't want anybody to know his phone number.'

‘He's famous. I expect he'd get inundated with calls if he was in the directory. Maybe we can find out how to reach him through his agent. It'll have to be after the weekend.'

‘If he's ex-directory, I don't suppose they're giving his phone number away.' She flounced from her chair, every line of her slender body evincing frustration.

Prudence followed her with her eyes. Then she bent to retrieve her handbag. ‘You guys have been so wonderful to me. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed today. Just to stand in the actual village where Adam and Johan lived. To touch the font where he was baptized. It's a dark story in places, but at least it's real to me now.'

‘Won't you stay for supper?'

‘No, thank you kindly. I've imposed myself enough on you. And Millie's not going to want to make polite conversation with someone she still hardly knows, the way she's feeling. Besides, I have to be off early in the morning. I'll be back in two or three days. And I sure hope Millie will have found her friend before that.'

Suzie and Nick were startled awake as the bedroom door flew open. Nick snapped on the light.

Millie hurled herself at the bed, a spectral figure in a long white T-shirt. Her face was haggard. ‘Mum, Dad! I've just thought of something terrible. I've been lying awake, worrying about Tamara, and I suddenly thought: what if she's dead?'

Nick swung his legs out of bed and put an arm around her. ‘Millie. Don't give yourself nightmares. Tamara's got herself into trouble. It's been a shock for her. But she'll get over it. It's not like a Dickens novel, where young women throw themselves into the Thames. This is the twenty-first century. It happens all the time.'

‘I don't mean
she'd
do it. Commit suicide. She wouldn't. But what if someone wanted to shut her up? What if whoever it was doesn't want her to tell whose baby it is?'

Suzie hoisted herself up and draped a fold of duvet around Millie's cold legs. ‘You've been giving yourself nightmares. It can't be as bad as all that. It's easy to start imagining terrible things in the middle of the night. Then it all seems silly next morning. You'll see.'

‘But why won't she answer her phone? It's been
days.
She'd have rung me if she'd gone away. I know she would. And her mum couldn't wait to get me out of the house. She was scared of Mr Dawson. I'm sure she was. What if
he's
done it? And Mrs Gamble – I mean Mrs Dawson – knows about it and is terrified of him?'

‘Millie, Millie!' Nick laughed. ‘This is real life, not a TV thriller. Mr Dawson may have his reasons for wanting to hush up her under-age pregnancy. But I hardly think he'd resort to murder.'

‘Not even if he was the father of her baby?'

A stillness fell over the bedroom.

At last Suzie found her voice. ‘Do you have any reason to think that?'

Millie bent her head and began to twist the edge of the duvet. ‘She wouldn't tell me who the father was. And I'm her best friend. If it had been one of the boys at school, I'd have known about it. I'm sure I would. And she was really scared of her stepfather.' She raised an accusing face to them. ‘Don't tell me it doesn't happen. Men having it off with their daughters. You see it on the news. He doesn't have to shut her up in a cellar for it to happen.'

‘Like those servant girls in the big house,' Suzie murmured. ‘They can't say no to him.'

‘And he wouldn't just be ashamed if
that
got out,' Nick mused. ‘A headmaster? It would finish him. He'd not only go to prison; he'd never work with children again.' Then he shook himself and stood up. ‘Look, Mum's right. It's the middle of the night. Everything seems much worse then. We're letting our imaginations run away with us. You go and snuggle under the bedclothes, and I'm going to make you a hot chocolate. Deal?'

‘Deal,' said Millie, reluctantly. ‘But you're not denying it could have happened?'

‘There's a one in a million chance, yes. But there'll be a simpler explanation. You'll see.'

When they were gone, Suzie lay in bed, wondering. Nick was right. It was a preposterous suggestion. But what if they'd been too concerned with the guilty young woman in church, naked except for a white sheet, before the accusing eyes of the congregation?
She
had to confess the name of the father.