Father Unknown (19 page)

‘How well do you know her?' Nick asked.

‘She's been coming to our youth group lately. I think Leonard Dawson insisted on it. Nice girl. But I don't know anything you don't, if that's what you mean. And where exactly does Mr Gamble live?'

Suzie shot a look at Nick. How much more should she tell him?

But there was something reassuring about Alan Taylor. He was a man whose daily work was sharing other people's problems. And if it gave the Salvation Army another clue to work with, it would do good, not harm.

‘Burwood. It's a little village six miles from Stratford. We're going there on Saturday to see if we can find her.'

His eyes held hers. ‘If you do find her, you'll let me know, won't you? I've been really worried since you told me.'

‘Of course. Would you like some tea or coffee?'

‘No, thanks. I've got a church council meeting.'

She saw him to the door.

When she returned to the sitting room, Millie turned a bright face to her. ‘Tamara was right. He's not bad, for his age, is he? Not like the last one. And he sounded like he really cares about her.'

‘But still no hard facts,' Nick said. ‘We're on our own.'

TWENTY-ONE

‘
I
wonder if we should have taken Millie out of school and gone to Warwickshire straight away. I have a sinking feeling that every day Tamara is missing, she's in greater danger.'

Suzie had borrowed the car from Nick. She was filling the time by driving Prudence to Corley again, but it was hard to concentrate on the troubled history of a teenage girl two and half centuries ago. Still, she owed it to Prudence to make the most of the few days remaining before she flew home.

The narrow lane was climbing, round tricky bends. They must be near the village now.

‘You don't think she's safe where she is? Her father's evidently got money. If he's that famous, he'll have a full-on security system, where he is.'

A shiver ran through Suzie. ‘I don't know exactly what it is I'm frightened of. It's just that Tamara is terrified. You could read it in her letter. But she's miles away from Dawson now, and he's tied up with his school.'

‘But she seems to have found sanctuary somewhere. Maybe it's her father's house, maybe not. As long as she's safe, it might be better to leave well enough alone.'

Suzie was startled by a tractor appearing round the bend. She hit the brakes. There was clearly no room to pass, and the tractor was still coming steadily towards them.

She racked her memory for passing places behind her. Nervously, she began to reverse. With relief she negotiated a bend and spotted a splay for a field gate. She pulled on to the grass. The tractor lumbered past, and the driver lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

Suzie steered back on to the lane. ‘You think she might
not
be with her father? In spite of that card?'

‘I'm afraid I don't know any more than you do. Just let's not jump to conclusions, is all.'

They reached the village green without further incident. The two women got out and looked at the imposing house that was Corley Barton.

Prudence gave it a grim smile. ‘You know, I was really glad when we found that bastardy bond. I'd hated to think of Johan inside there, being abused by the master of the house. Just for a while, I could imagine it was a teenage romance with a young workman . . . until you found he was married. Then you spotted that
Mr
and suddenly it all seemed back to the same old story. Somebody with power was taking advantage of an innocent girl.'

‘You don't think it could have been a romance?'

‘She was either a partner in adultery or the victim of abuse. Either way, it's not a pretty picture. This is going to be a hard story to tell the folks back home.'

‘I'd like to think that there was love in it somewhere.' Suzie sighed, scuffing at the cobbled pathway in front of the church. ‘But that still wouldn't make it a happy story, would it?' She looked around at the huddle of cottages, the scattered farmhouses, the big house. ‘Michael Atkins had to bring up his family here. Everybody would have known what happened. His wife, his children. Johan's family. You couldn't stop people talking.'

‘But my Johan was spared all that, poor girl. After she confessed who it was, and the baby was born.'

‘And little Adam was left an orphan.'

‘What do you suppose happened to him? Would his father have taken him in, along with his other kids? Or did Johan's people give him a home?'

‘He was apprenticed out at the age of eight. And not even to his father's trade. Farm work.'

‘But he might have lived down at this Hole place. With his grandfather.'

‘Shall we go there now?'

‘That's why we've come.'

They got back into the car, and Suzie spread out the map. ‘It's down at the bottom of the valley, as you'd expect. This looks like the road we need, round the back of the church.'

The lane plunged steeply through banks bright with red campions. At the bottom there was a brook shaded by trees. A narrow, humpbacked bridge led over it.

Suzie stopped the car. ‘It should be on this side of the stream, but I can't see anything, can you?'

‘Those are apple trees, aren't they? Do they grow wild here?'

‘No. Or not in rows like that. You're right, it's an orchard.'

They got out and inspected the scene. Ancient fruit trees sprawled over the long grass. The half-formed apples were small and green.

Suzie lifted the rickety gate aside and walked in. ‘I was wrong. You know, I do believe there is a house here, or was.'

The gable wall facing them was so smothered in ivy that it was hardly distinguishable from the foliage of the trees. There was no roof. Two chimneys rose above the gaping void, one at each end.

Suzie and Prudence walked round to the front of the ruined cottage. On the ground floor, window holes were still visible in the crumbling cob. Brambles and willowherb were all the furnishings inside.

‘Must have been a pretty cottage once,' Prudence said.

‘We call these cottages now, but really, the cottages the poor lived in have mostly vanished without trace. This may be a wreck now, but not long ago it was a snug little farmhouse. Do you see how it was twisted away from the road to face south? They wanted what sun there was, for the women to do their work by. Not that they'd get much sun, deep down here in the valley.'

‘And my Johan lived here? Ran about among those apple trees?'

‘Well, not those actual ones. It was nearly three hundred years ago. But the ancestors of these trees. Now we've seen that bastardy bond, I'm sure the Adam and Robert Clayson who held the lease to Hole have to be her grandfather and father.'

‘So maybe she came back here. When she knew she was pregnant. Somewhere quiet, out of the way of gossiping tongues. If she had her parents here, she'd feel safe.'

‘If they didn't throw her out,' Suzie said.

The two women fell silent.

Prudence looked at the deep shadows under the oak and hazel trees along the brook. The brown water caught only a hint of sunlight as it slipped past. Above them was the long climb to the village. The church and houses were hidden from view. She shivered. ‘You're right. It's not exactly a homely place. I sure hope she was happy here. It's a long ways from any neighbours.'

Suzie was silent for a moment. This might once have been a bright and busy place: children tumbling in the orchard, women busy cutting vegetables or carding wool. And not just women.

‘I've just remembered. Robert Clayson wasn't a farmer, was he? Not even a humble husbandman. According to the bastardy bond, he was a woolcomber.'

‘What's that, for heaven's sake?'

‘He'd have taken the fleeces from the sheep farmers and combed the wool out into hanks, ready for spinning. It was a skilled job, with special tools. This was great wool country once. There were serge-makers all over the county. They exported cloth to the continent. We were the richest county in England in Tudor times.' She pulled a face. ‘But the cotton industry put an end to that.' She laughed. ‘We can blame you American settlers for that. You shipped the cotton from your plantations to Lancashire and put us out of business.'

Prudence bridled. ‘You won't find cotton plantations in Pennsylvania.'

‘I'm sorry. I was only teasing. Shall we go?'

As they walked through the tangled grass to the gate, Suzie turned and looked back. Had Johan been happy here as a child? Had she found comfort here when she needed it?

There was nothing in the records about Johan's mother.

An isolated house, far from the prying eyes of the village. There were stories about such lonely farms. Things that never surfaced in the parish registers. Incest between brother and sister. Fathers conceiving children on their own daughters.

Perhaps the stonemason was not the worst thing that could have happened to Johan.

‘It's not fair.' Millie trailed a sweatshirt across the floor in her wake. ‘What does it matter if I miss a day's school? Honestly, Mum? We could have been up to wherever it is her dad lives, found Tamara, and been back in time for the weekend. Sorted.'

Suzie looked up from her laptop. She scribbled a few notes of what she had just discovered, before she forgot. The registers for the Presbyterian chapel at South Farwood, the nearest town where Johan might have worshipped, were lodged at the Record Office.

‘Mum!' Millie's hand crashed on the coffee table. ‘You're not
listening
!'

‘I am. You think we should have gone to this Burwood place today, and not waited till Saturday. Millie, she's been gone a week. She seems safe for the moment. Another day isn't going to make any difference.'

‘It is to
me
!'

Suzie was suddenly aware that there were tears beading Millie's eyes. Knowledge dawned. ‘You're not still thinking about that invitation from the tennis coach? What was his name . . . Dan Curtis? Millie, you have cancelled it, haven't you? You've told him you can't go?'

Millie's face showed mute, obstinate grief.

Suzie jumped up. ‘Look, love. It's not just that we're going to Burwood. It would be just the same if Tamara was safe at home. He's way too old for you. He shouldn't even be asking a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl out. It shows what sort of man he is.'

Millie's lower lip pouted. ‘You're just prejudiced. I'm quite old for my years. I wouldn't want to go out with any of the stupid nerds in our year. And he's
so
good-looking.' Her voice rose to a wail. ‘I may never get a chance like this again. Just think what the girls at school would say if I could show them a photograph of us together at the dance. I'd have to get a new dress, of course.'

Suzie put her arms around her daughter. But a chill hand of fear moved down her spine. How long could she protect this fragile, lovely child?

No one had been there to protect Tamara.

‘Look on the bright side. You'll be seeing Reynard Woodman again. You adored him when you were younger. That'll be something to tell your friends. I could take a camera and photograph the two of you.'

Millie sniffed. ‘Don't be silly. He's married. He's got kids. It's not the same.'

When she had gone, Suzie went back to her computer, uneasy and unsettled. For a while she stared blankly at the screen. What was it she had found which seemed so important?

Oh, yes. The South Farwood Presbyterian records. Something else for Pru to follow up. The baptisms were available on the web, but not the burials. They had already discovered that Johan had not been buried at the parish church. Would that be where she was?

Her eye ran down the list of research sources for South Farwood.

She grabbed her phone. ‘Prudence? I've think I've got something for you to follow up while I'm away. You know we couldn't find Johan's burial in the Corley register? Well, if you can get to the Record Office tomorrow, they have the burial register for South Farwood Presbyterian Chapel. And if she's there, there's a Dissenters' burial ground in Meeting Lane. I'm sorry I can't take you, but there's a bus to South Farwood.'

An eager voice came from the other end of the line. ‘That's fabulous. I'm so grateful to you. Let me check that out. This burial ground's in Meeting Lane?'

‘Yes. You know, it's the oddest thing. I had a great-aunt in South Farwood we used to visit. She told me Meeting Lane was the place where lovers met. It never occurred to me till today that it was called that because there used to be a Dissenters' meeting house there. With its own graveyard.'

‘I'll surely follow that up. I wish you could come with me. But you've got more important things to do. I do hope you find your Tamara safely.'

‘So do I. Though even if we do, I'm not sure that I can see how this will end. If she's as frightened as she seems, how can we put a stop to it?'

‘I'll pray for you all.'

Suzie put down the phone. Currents of uneasiness swirled together in her mind. Tamara, running away from home, too scared to tell anyone where she was, or who had fathered her baby. Millie, flattered by a too-handsome older man, losing her sharpness of judgement.

It was not only Prudence who needed to pray.

TWENTY-TWO

T
hey left the motorway for the quieter road of the rural Midlands. Gazing through the windscreen, Suzie thought it had changed less from Shakespeare's time than she might have expected. They passed orchards, their boughs beginning to bend with the swelling fruit. There were still a surprising number of half-timbered houses. It was a gentler landscape than the moors and sea-coasts, the steep wooded valleys of the south-west, but with its own charm.