Person or Persons Unknown (32 page)

As she slipped the pizza into the oven, Gus looked up reproachfully from his basket. He'd had a lonely morning, Rona thought guiltily, and there'd be no walk today.

‘Just for two minutes,' she promised, as she guided him to the French windows and gently pushed him outside.

She laid the table with a glass of bottled water, the fruit bowl, and a knife and fork for the pizza.
Morrison Morrison
, she thought again – and somewhere in the far reaches of her memory an echo stirred.

There was a scratching at the glass door and she readmitted Gus, who promptly shook himself all over her. Tit-for-tat, she thought ruefully, rubbing down her skirt. She switched on the lunchtime news, only half-listening as she ate her pizza. No mention of Selina; if she phoned the hospital, would they let her speak to Mrs O'Toole?

Why, she thought with exasperation, had she allowed herself to become embroiled in this? A series of snapshots flicked through her mind: Zara and her plump, solicitous husband; the Fairchilds, troubled about the parent search; Joyce Cowley, the Morris brothers. And there were those to whom she could not put a face but who were also connected to the case – the mysterious caller and the sender of the email. Were they one and the same? She doubted it; they had different styles.

She put her glass and plate in the dishwasher, replaced the fruit bowl. Morrison Morrison. Why was the repetition somehow familiar?

She glanced at the clock: one fifteen. Max would be preparing for his afternoon classes. Would Adele turn up this week, she wondered? On impulse, she lifted the phone and pressed the Farthings button.

‘Max Allerdyce,' said her husband's voice.

‘Max, it's me.'

‘Hello, Me. Filthy day, isn't it?'

‘Yes; I haven't set foot outside.'

‘Very wise. I had a plethora of apologies for the first class, so I've cancelled the second.'

‘Good; you'll be home early, then?'

‘Yes, but at the moment I'm in the middle of assembling the still life; did you want something in particular?'

‘Sorry, yes. I know this sounds mad, but does the name Morrison Morrison ring any bells?'

He sounded amused. ‘As in “Weatherby George Dupree”?'

‘
What?
'

‘Christopher Robin, isn't it? “James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree, took great care of his mother, though he was only three.” There's the doorbell – I must go, love. See you later.' The phone went dead.

Rona continued to hold it, staring unseeingly ahead of her.
James James
Morrison Morrison. And like an echo came Hester Latymer's voice: ‘
A penchant for quoting A. A. Milne
.'

Was it possible
James Latymer
was Zara's father and Gemma's secret lover? But – Australia?

Rona drew a deep breath, trying to adjust to this staggering supposition. Say they'd first met at the flower show that July. Had an affair started soon afterwards? He must have been thirty-two or three at the time, Gemma only nineteen. The Morrison Morrison soubriquet – shortened, for convenience, to a single word – would be, as she'd told Selina, a private joke, effectively disguising his identity. And if, as was accepted, the affair ended before Gemma knew she was pregnant, it was possible James had remained unaware that he had a daughter. Until, perhaps, he learned of the current search.

Rona checked herself. All this, she reminded herself, was pure speculation. Dare she put it to the test, as she had with Jonathan?

First, though, she needed to list all known facts and see if the hypothesis would hold water. She ran up the basement stairs en route for the study, but as she reached the hall the doorbell rang. Gus, who always assumed she was deaf on such occasions, came bounding up behind her, barking loudly, and, holding his collar to restrain his enthusiasm, she opened the front door.

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?

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.'