Father Unknown

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I think you’d better have a little nap,’ she said gently, and helped her into the lounge and down on to the couch. ‘I’m sorry, Mavis, I shouldn’t have talked you into it. Have a little sleep and I’ll stay until Harriet gets back.’

  ‘Daisy, sit down,’ Mavis said, and though her voice was tremulous it still had a note of command. ‘That wasn’t Ellen. It was Josie. I know it was.’

  Daisy groaned inwardly, she had thought that silliness was over. But given how shaky Mavis was, she thought she’d better humour her, so she sat down beside her on the couch.

  ‘You always said they were very alike,’ she said, keeping her tone light. ‘Thirteen years is a long time not to see someone. You’re just confused because she doesn’t look frumpy any more.’

  ‘Thirteen years is nothing when you’re eighty-six,’ Mavis said, fixing her eyes on Daisy as if daring her to argue with her. ‘That woman’s voice isn’t Ellen’s, it’s too London. She never had a waist as small as that either, and she couldn’t have walked in those high-heeled shoes, not if she practised for fifty years. She certainly wouldn’t have a dress shop like that one. That was Josie.’

  ‘Oh, Mavis,’ Daisy said in exasperation. ‘How can it be Josie? She died in the fire.’

  ‘Someone died in the fire. A young woman with red hair and good teeth. Everyone thought it was Josie because she was staying there at the time, and because the police found someone who called herself Ellen in her flat in Bristol the next day.’

  Daisy said she was going to make the tea. She hoped that after a rest the old lady would come to her senses.

  ‘I don’t want more tea,’ Mavis said petulantly. ‘I’m not senile yet. If that had been Ellen you wouldn’t have got me out of that shop so quickly. But I had to get away, to think it through.’

  ‘And what did you come up with?’ Daisy said sarcastically.

  Mavis had a faraway look in her eyes. ‘The day of the fire was Albert’s birthday. Ellen always tried to get down for that, I only remember her missing it once or twice. I bet she was there too, but arrived so late in the evening no one saw her.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she have told you if she was coming down?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘Not necessarily, she liked to surprise people, you take after her in that respect! Josie knew this as well as anyone, maybe she even set it up by getting Ellen to leave her car up on the road so Albert wouldn’t hear it! I can just imagine her bursting through the door with a cake and a bottle of whisky for him. That was her style.’

  ‘Oh, Mavis.’ Daisy wanted to laugh. It was such a farfetched idea.

  ‘I bet you anything that’s what happened,’ Mavis insisted. ‘They all had a lot to drink and then went off to bed. Except for Josie. She set the fire, then drove Ellen’s car back to Bristol, let herself into her flat and became Ellen from that moment on.’

  ‘Mavis! No one could get away with that,’ Daisy said impatiently.

  ‘Couldn’t they?’ Mavis raised one eyebrow. ‘As little girls everyone mixed them up. It was only once they were older and began to have distinct styles of their own and different kinds of clothes and hair-styles that it became obvious which was which. No one knew Ellen as well as Josie – once she was in her flat she could put on her clothes, do her hair like hers, and who would know the difference?’

  Daisy shrugged. She wasn’t going to buy that one.

  ‘Only someone like me,’ Mavis said tartly. ‘Someone who knew Ellen inside out. That’s why Josie wouldn’t come down for the inquest or the funeral. It was rubbish about her being out of her mind with grief. She knew she wouldn’t fool me for a minute. Even with her being as sweet as honey just now, I knew. I didn’t say any more, because if she can kill her parents and her sister to get what she wants she wouldn’t think twice about you or me.’

  Daisy gulped. Mavis’s idea did have a peculiar ring of truth to it. But then some of the more outrageous things she’d told her about Josie did too, and Ellen had given a quite different slant on many of those.

  ‘But her signatures on legal documents, cheques and things?’ Daisy pointed out. ‘How would she get round that?’

  ‘People can learn to copy others’ handwriting,’ Mavis said with a shrug. ‘Look at all the credit card frauds there are! If Josie was clever enough to fake her own death, she’s quite clever enough to do a bit of forgery.’

  Daisy just sat there for a minute mulling everything over in her mind. She couldn’t believe Mavis’s idea, it was just too melodramatic. Besides, such an audacious and cunning plan could only have been executed by someone utterly ruthless or half mad. If Ellen really was Josie she’d need to have nerves of steel, acting ability and incredible determination to continue to hold it together for such a long time afterwards. From what she’d heard about Josie she was weak and even a little stupid.

  Harriet got home at five. She was very like her brother Tim, tall and with a slim build. She wore wire-rimmed spectacles and her fair hair was tied back in a single bunch. When she saw her grandmother looking so nervy and pale and heard what had happened, she was quite sharp with Daisy.

  ‘She’s an old lady, Daisy, and she’s entitled to calm and peace of mind at her age,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it was a good idea to see Ellen again, not after what she put her through before, and now it’s sent her gaga.’

  ‘I am not gaga,’ Mavis insisted indignantly. ‘You should call the police and get them to arrest that woman. She’s a murderer.’

  Daisy didn’t know what to say or do. She certainly didn’t think Mavis had gone gaga, as Harriet put it, but on the other hand she didn’t believe Ellen was really Josie either. If they called the police they would all look ridiculous.

  Daisy went out into the kitchen with Harriet, apologized for being responsible for upsetting Mavis, then ran through her theory again. ‘Do you think she might be right?’ she asked. ‘I don’t, I can’t believe anyone could do such a thing, let alone someone like Josie, who was nothing more than an air-head model on drugs. But you know your grandmother a great deal better than I do, and you must have known the Pengellys.’

  ‘Yes, I do know my grandmother very well,’ Harriet said. ‘She’s got a keen mind, but she reads too many murder mysteries. I didn’t know any of the Pengellys, I didn’t go down to Cornwall as often as Tim, but I well remember how hurt she was by Ellen after the fire. Shock has brought on this lapse of common sense, nothing more. She has had years of thinking and worrying about that woman, during that time she lost her husband too. Then you swan into the picture, bring back all that hurt, and finally take her to see Ellen. Her mind can’t take it. It’s like a fuse has blown.’

  ‘Well, what should we do?’ Daisy was on the point of bursting into tears now, she felt so ashamed of herself for causing all this. ‘Should we call the police?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Harriet snapped at her. ‘Go home, Daisy. You’ve done enough damage for one day. I’ll put Gran to bed and call my doctor to take a look at her.’

  Daisy left feeling like a whipped dog. As she approached the North Circular Road, which would be the quickest route back to Chiswick, she suddenly changed her mind and thought she had to go to see Ellen. She didn’t want to, she was afraid she would still be angry with her, but she felt she must.

  As Daisy drove on down the Finchley Road towards Swiss Cottage, she felt queasy with anxiety. It suddenly occurred to her that she had been wrong in thinking that finding Ellen was the answer to everything. She had lost Joel along the road, she still had no job, and in the last few weeks she’d sensed that dad and the twins were growing cooler towards her because of her preoccupation with Ellen.

  Maybe that was why Lucy suggested she went travelling with her and Tom. They wanted to remind her she was still important to them. She blushed as she remembered she’d said back-packing wasn’t her style, and that she thought she might have a holiday in Italy with Ellen.

  Ellen’s car was parked at the back of Askwith Court, and as the back door, which was onl
y used by the residents and normally locked, was propped open, Daisy nipped in that way and up the stairs.

  Ellen’s door was also propped open, so Daisy stepped into the tiny hall and called out.

  Ellen came out of her bedroom and frowned when she saw it was Daisy. ‘What is it now?’ she snapped. ‘I’ve seen quite enough of you for one day.’

  ‘I had to come round. Mavis was still odd when I got her home,’ Daisy blurted out. ‘I thought I ought to warn you before you phone her that her granddaughter is quite angry with me and she might be nasty to you too.’

  ‘I don’t blame her for being angry with you,’ Ellen said crisply. ‘Now, clear off home. I’m going away for the weekend, and I’m in no mood for post-mortems.’

  Daisy turned to leave, she was too demoralized for any further discussion. But as she turned, the propped-open door jangled something in her mind. People only did that when they were carrying a lot of things out. The door downstairs was also left open, so Ellen must have already put one load in her car and had returned for another.

  No one took that much stuff for just a weekend. She was going somewhere for longer than that.

  ‘Go on then,’ Ellen said, her tone impatient now.

  Daisy knew Ellen hadn’t been planning to go anywhere this weekend, otherwise she wouldn’t have said she would phone Mavis and make arrangements for taking her out to lunch the following day. So it had to be a spur-of-the moment thing. But why? Because she was rattled by Mavis thinking she was Josie?

  ‘Let me stay and help you down with your things,’ Daisy said, and without being asked brushed past Ellen and into her bedroom.

  ‘Get out now!’ Ellen shrieked at her.

  The fright in that shriek, along with the mayhem in the bedroom, told Daisy everything. She was flitting, there were clothes and shoes strewn everywhere. Two half-packed cases lay on the bed, and drawers were gaping open.

  ‘You are Josie!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re running because you’ve been rumbled.’

  ‘You’re as daft as that old bat,’ Ellen retorted. ‘I’m going away for a weekend, that’s all.’

  Daisy pushed her way past Ellen and into the lounge. Calling Mavis an old bat was further evidence to her – the real Ellen, from what she knew of her, would never call her that.

  Ellen grabbed her arm as she reached the lounge and tried to pull her back. But it was too late, Daisy had already seen what was there. On the table was a large open cash-box, several bundles of banknotes beside it, and her passport.

  ‘I’m getting the police,’ Daisy said as she tried to shrug the woman off her.

  ‘Oh no you aren’t,’ Ellen yelled back. She kicked the door shut behind her and almost in the same movement, lunged at an object on the sideboard.

  Daisy tried to get away as she saw what it was, a kind of gold wooden obelisk with figures carved on it. She had admired it on a previous visit to the flat and had been surprised by the heaviness of it when she picked it up. Ellen had said she’d bought it in a flea market – it was weighted with lead and she’d sprayed it with gold paint herself.

  Now Ellen held it by the thin end and advanced on her. Daisy backed away but was hampered by a coffee table, then the settee. She had no doubt the woman fully intended to hit her with it, her eyes looked mad now, almost popping out of her head, and her lips were curled into a savage snarl.

  Daisy went to leap up on to the settee and over the back, but she had forgotten how tight her dress was, and she toppled forward. She heard the blow coming as she tried to cover her head. There was a rush of air, a dull sound of wood against bone, then a sudden searing pain above her ear before she slipped into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘Do we have to wait any longer for Daisy?’ Lucy asked plaintively. ‘It’s nearly eight o’clock and I’m starving.’

  ‘I can’t imagine where she’s got to,’ John said, looking worried. He looked up at the kitchen clock and then at the electric slow-cooker, still gently simmering. ‘She said she was coming home for supper. It’s not like her not to ring if she’s changed her plans.’

  Tom came into the kitchen and lifted the lid of the slow-cooker, inhaling the smell of beef, garlic and herbs. ‘Let’s start without her,’ he suggested. ‘She won’t expect us to wait for her.’

  ‘It’s a shame she isn’t as good at time-keeping and getting her head together as she is at cooking and housekeeping,’ Lucy said with a grin. ‘I bet she’s even made us pudding too.’

  ‘Turn those spuds on then,’ John said, and frowned. Daisy might not be a good time-keeper when it came to getting to work, but she always let him know when she was going to be late. Besides, family meals were important to her. Just the careful way she had made this casserole and peeled the potatoes too, was evidence she wanted to be home with him and the twins tonight. She had been a bit mysterious this morning about where she was going though. Could something have happened to her?

  Leaving the twins to set the table and look after the potatoes, John went up to Daisy’s bedroom to see if he could find her diary. She tended to scrawl telephone numbers in there and with luck there might be one for today.

  His luck was in – the diary was by her bed, and for Saturday, 19 May there was a number marked Harriet. Taking the diary with him into his bedroom, he rang the number from there.

  Five minutes later, after having his ears bashed by an irate woman who had called Daisy feckless, stupid and totally irresponsible, he had got the gist of what Daisy had been doing today. It also explained her excitement this morning.

  John sat there for a few moments mulling over the strange story of Mavis Peters mistaking Ellen for her dead sister Josie. But where was Daisy now? She’d left Harriet’s house soon after five with a flea in her ear, so surely she’d have come straight back here?

  It seemed very odd to him that Mavis Peters was still insisting Ellen was in fact Josie. Everything Daisy had told him about the woman led him to believe she was completely in command of all her faculties. And what if Daisy had gone to see Ellen again after leaving Mavis?

  A cold chill ran down his spine. While common sense told him he was daft even momentarily to consider Mavis might have been right, he had a gut feeling all was not well with Daisy. He felt he had to ring someone else and get their opinion, and who better than Joel, who was the most rational man he knew?

  Luckily Joel was home, he said he’d just walked in as the phone rang. John told him the story and fully expected that Joel would make some disparaging remark about Daisy and tell him to do nothing and wait for her to turn up.

  But he didn’t. ‘Going to Ellen would have been the most logical thing for her to do,’ he said. ‘But I would have expected her to phone from there if she was going to be late.’

  John said that she’d made supper for the whole family.

  ‘I’m going to drive over there,’ Joel said without a second’s hesitation. ‘Have you got the address?’

  Ellen’s card was stuck in the front of the diary, so John read it out. ‘Do you think this old girl could be right then?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, let’s just say I care too much about Daisy not to take her seriously,’ Joel said.

  As Joel was setting off from Acton, Josie was already half-way to Bristol, driving her silver Golf flat out and muttering the same thing over and over again to herself. ‘It’s all her fault. She should’ve kept her nose out.’

  She didn’t know where she was going, this road was just the one she always used to take when things went wrong for her and she rushed to Ellen who always straightened her out. She frowned as she remembered there was no Ellen now, no one to take her in and care for her. But in thirteen years of posing as Ellen, thinking like her, acting like her, mostly she even believed she was her. Josie was dead and buried, with all the bad memories that went with her.

  Yet each time a car’s headlights came into her rear-view mirror she felt frightened. Was she being chased? Was Daisy coming after her? Everything was so c
onfusing.

  When Daisy turned up at the shop with Mavis she thought she had handled it just as Ellen would have. There was one brief moment of blind panic, but she controlled it and she knew she had convinced Daisy that Mavis was mistaken.

  Yet on the way home after closing the shop, she suddenly had a panic attack. What if Mavis stuck by her story and Daisy’s family called the police to investigate? All at once she was trembling all over with fear and apprehension, and making a run for it while she still could seemed the only thing to do.

  She had packed one suitcase and put it in her car, then all at once Daisy was there at her door. Up till then Josie had been frightened, but she had a plan and felt she was in control. She was off to the airport to catch the first plane out to Spain or Italy. She had enough cash to live for several months, she would change her name, and start all over again.

  Then suddenly Daisy was calling her Josie, saying she was going to call the police. She just had to stop her, and hitting her with that obelisk was the only way.

  From then on it was all hazy. She could remember fragments, the girl’s blood on the settee, getting the tow-rope to tie her hands and feet. But it didn’t seem real, more like memories of a nightmare. Yet she could remember very clearly packing her money, passport and jewellery into her vanity case, and going into the bathroom and looking at it for one last time.

  She had loved that bathroom. Every time she slid down into a scented bubble-bath she would think of how it had been when she was a girl and had to use the tin bath in the kitchen. The rough patches rubbed against her skin and a draught came under the kitchen door and nearly cut her in half. That image had never left her.

  She had many luxurious baths in beautiful hotels later, but almost all of them were spoiled by a man wanting to have sex with her. When she moved into Askwith Court and had her own pretty pink bath, she vowed no man would ever use it. The big mirrors reflected only her, and the soap and the fluffy towels only ever touched her skin. She began to feel clean at last.