Person or Persons Unknown

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘Doctor Morris?’ she said hesitantly, walking forward. He had reached his car, and turned impatiently, his unfastened tweed coat flapping round his legs.

  ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, surgery’s over for today. If you’d like to make an appointment—’

  ‘It’s on a – personal matter.’

  In the rapidly thickening dusk, she saw him frown and peer at her more closely. ‘I don’t know you, do I?’ He had a very faint Australian accent.

  ‘No, but I need to speak to you about someone you did know, some time ago.’

  ‘Need, Miss …?’

  ‘Parish,’ she supplied. ‘Yes, need, Dr Morris. I—’

  ‘Look,’ he broke in, ‘I’ve no wish to be rude, but I’m already late and I’m supposed to be meeting my brother. Couldn’t—’

  ‘Your brother?’ she broke in. ‘I was hoping to see him, too.’

  ‘Then I suggest you make some mutually convenient appointment—’

  ‘Dr Morris, I’m only here for the day. I’ve come specially to meet you both.’

  He stared at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘You’ve—?’

  ‘Please, I really must speak to you. It’s important.’

  A cold gust of wind swept into the car park, blowing Rona’s hair across her face, and she shivered.

  He said brusquely, ‘Well, if it’s that important, and you want to see David too, you’d better come along. You can follow me; presumably your car’s at the front?’

  ‘No, I came by train. To Exeter, that is.’

  He sighed resignedly and opened the passenger door. ‘Get in, then.’

  Rona had a brief vision of Max’s reaction to her getting into a car with a man she’d just met, who might be harbouring any number of guilty secrets. But she wouldn’t get anywhere if she didn’t take risks, and this tall, abrupt dentist surely posed no threat.

  The car felt blessedly warm after her long wait on the street. ‘I thought he didn’t finish till seven,’ she said, as Morris switched on the engine. His head swivelled towards her. ‘My God, you have been doing your homework. As it happens, though, he’s not on duty this evening.’

  So she’d have wasted her time in going there, Rona reflected.

  They didn’t speak again as he drove competently down the darkening road towards the city centre. After a few minutes, he turned into the car park of a large hotel.

  ‘We’re meeting in the bar,’ he said briefly, and she followed him into the warm, lighted building. Barely waiting for her, he strode through the foyer, turned into the bar, and made for the table where his brother was waiting.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Dave – I overran,’ he said tersely. ‘Then, in the car park, I came across this young lady, who tells me she’s travelled from God knows where especially to meet us.’

  ‘To meet us?’ David Morris repeated in bewilderment, staring uncomprehendingly at Rona.

  ‘We saved the explanations till we got here, to avoid going through them twice.’ Peter paused, also glancing at Rona. ‘I suppose I should introduce you, but I don’t know you either. Miss Parsons, did you say?’

  ‘Parish – Rona Parish. And I really am grateful for your time.’

  His eyes flicked to her wedding ring. ‘What are you drinking, Mrs Parish?’

  ‘Vodka with Russchian if they have it. Otherwise, bitter lemon would be fine.’

  He lifted an eyebrow and made his way to the bar. Rona turned to David Morris, who was staring at her appraisingly, and gave him a tentative smile. Her first impression was that both were older than she’d expected – foolish, now that she thought of it. But Mrs Powell had spoken of ‘the boys’, and that was how she’d continued to think of them, forgetting that they’d been boys – or young men – more than twenty years ago. The word ‘rugged’ applied to them both, she thought, and there was a decided family resemblance, both having thick fair hair and pale lashes over light-blue eyes. She guessed that David was the younger.

  Peter reappeared, set glasses on the table, and seated himself. ‘You were in luck,’ he said shortly, ‘they had Russchian. Now, what the hell is this all about?’

  Rona took a quick sip of her vodka, aware of two pairs of eyes intent on her face.

  ‘It’s about Gemma Grant,’ she said.

  She looked quickly from one to the other, but if she’d been hoping for some reaction she was disappointed.

  ‘Who?’ they demanded in unison.

  ‘Gemma Grant,’ she repeated, less certainly. ‘From Stokely.’

  ‘Stokely?’ David exclaimed. ‘My God, you’re going back a bit, aren’t you? We left there twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘To go to Australia. Yes, I know.’

  Peter’s eyes narrowed. ‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about us, young lady, without volunteering any information on yourself. And who the devil is Gemma Grant?’

  Oh God, Rona thought. Right – they’d asked, so she’d give them a straight answer. ‘She was murdered,’ she said, adding above their involuntary exclamations, ‘twenty-five years ago.’

  There was a pause. Then David said, ‘Let me get this clear: are you trying to imply there was some link between us?’

  ‘Surely you knew her?’ Rona asked with a touch of desperation. ‘At the tennis club, perhaps?’

  ‘Our game was cricket,’ Peter replied. ‘You say she was murdered: how, why, and by whom?’

  ‘I can only answer the first question: she was strangled in her bath.’ Rona braced herself, and added, ‘Her baby was in the next room.’

  The baby’s existence wasn’t commented on. ‘You’re saying they never found who did it?’

  ‘No; she wasn’t married, and the baby’s father would have been the obvious suspect, except that—’

  She broke off. This was harder than she’d anticipated.

  ‘Except?’ prompted David.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Except that she said he’d emigrated to Australia without knowing she was pregnant.’

  There was a deep, unfathomable silence, untouched by the noises of the room about them.

  ‘She told people it was one of us?’ Peter demanded incredulously.

  ‘No, she refused to name him.’

  ‘Well, it sure as hell wasn’t us,’ David said explosively. ‘We’ve never even heard of the girl. Anyway, this is ancient history. Why start digging it up now?’

  ‘Because her daughter – the baby who was in the flat at the time – is expecting her own baby, and wants to trace her father.’

  ‘Fair enough, but what in the name of charity put you on to us?’

  ‘I placed an ad in the local paper, asking about families who’d emigrated in ’78, and your name came up.’

  ‘And that’s all you’ve got to go on? On the strength of that, you come charging down here, accusing us of God knows what—’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Dr Morris. I just wanted to know what you remembered of Gemma, that’s all.’

  ‘And for that you came all the way from Stokely?’

  ‘Marsborough, actually, but yes.’

  ‘So what are you, a professional people-finder?’

  ‘No, I’m a writer. And don’t ask me why I got involved; I’ve been asking myself that, but it was through the offices of a mutual friend.’ Thanks again, Magda.

  There was another silence, while the brothers exchanged glances and David helplessly lifted his shoulders. Then he said, ‘So tell us about this Gemma. What did she do, apart from play tennis?’

  ‘Actually, she didn’t even do that. She worked for local radio – a junior reporter. She was only twenty.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Peter interrupted, putting a hand to his head. ‘Something’s beginning to come back to me.’ He turned to his brother. ‘Didn’t we give an interview to some reporter or other who came to the house? About why we were emigrating and what we were proposing to do in Oz?’

  ‘God, yes,’ David said slowly. �
��She turned out to be a patient of the old man’s. Rather pretty, as I recall.’

  Rona’s mouth was dry. ‘That sounds like Gemma.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey. If that was her, we met her for an hour at most, and by “we” I mean the whole family. There was neither time nor opportunity, even if we’d had the inclination, for either of us to impregnate the girl.’

  Another blind alley. Ridiculously, Rona felt close to tears. ‘Then I’m sorry to have troubled you.’ She started to rise, but Peter reached out and gently pushed her back on her chair. ‘Finish your drink, then I’ll run you back to where you’re staying.’

  ‘Really, there’s no need; I’ve already taken up too much of your time.’

  ‘No argument.’ He grinned, looking suddenly younger. ‘Wait till I tell Chrissie I was suspected of fathering a love child!’

  Rona felt herself flush. ‘I do apologize, but by this stage I’m clutching at straws.’

  She hastily finished her drink, and despite her protestations Peter Morris, telling his brother he’d be back in five minutes, drove her to her hotel – as it happened, only a couple of streets away.

  ‘I’m so sorry to have caused this upset,’ she said again, as he dropped her off. ‘Thanks for being so understanding.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be dining off this for years!’ He sobered. ‘Which doesn’t mean I’m not sorry about the girl; of course I am. It’s a ghastly thing to have happened. Good luck in your hunt.’

  Back in her room, Rona phoned Max, who was preparing for his class. ‘It was a fiasco,’ she ended flatly. ‘Still, I suppose it’s another possibility ticked off.’

  ‘A long way to go for a tick!’ Max responded. ‘You sound tired, love. Just relax now, have a good night’s sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Yes, Rona thought, kicking off her shoes, she was tired. She could not, she realized, be bothered to wash and change and go down to sit in solitary state in the restaurant. Instead, she’d order room service, and unwind with television.

  First, though, for the record, she wrote up the interview with the Morrises while it was fresh in her mind. She hadn’t dared suggest recording it.

  The evening passed lazily. She enjoyed her meal, and a little later had a leisurely bath. She’d left the television on, and came back into the bedroom as the ten o’clock news was starting. She decided to watch it, and then go to bed.

  Half-listening to reports from around the world, she stacked her supper things on the tray and put it, as requested, outside her door. As she closed and locked it behind her, there was a subtle change in the announcer’s voice.

  ‘The television interviewer Selina O’Toole is fighting for her life tonight after falling under a bus in Oxford Circus during the rush hour. The kerb was crowded with commuters at the time, and witnesses say she appeared to stumble and fall forward as the bus approached. There has been no official bulletin, but we understand her condition is critical.

  ‘Selina O’Toole began her career—’

  Rona heard no more. Stumbling across the room, she half fell on to the bed and stared disbelievingly at the photograph filling the screen, of a Selina vividly, vibrantly, alive. No, she thought, unconsciously shaking her head from side to side, no – there must be some mistake. She hadn’t caught the name of the hospital, but it would in any case be useless to phone. For one thing it was too soon, and for another, information is never passed to outsiders.

  Carefully, as though it were she herself who’d been injured, Rona lay back against the pillows and pulled the turned-down sheet over her. She lay unmoving until the news finished, but although the incident was repeated in the closing headlines, there was no further information. Automatically, she reached first for the remote control and then for the light switch. If only, she thought as the room plunged into darkness, she could switch off her thoughts as easily.

  Fourteen

  It was after midnight before Rona fell asleep, and by five o’clock she was again wide awake. The early hours, she knew, were the most crucial for the seriously ill or injured, when the body’s resistance was at its lowest ebb. Had Selina survived them? ‘Critical’, the newsreader had said, and ‘fighting for her life’.

  She sat up, turned her pillows over yet again and, despairing of sleep, switched on the light. The hotel room sprang out at her, austere and anonymous, her meagre possessions insufficient to personalize it. It had been, as Peter Morris said, a wasted journey; in fact, the whole enterprise, at this lowering hour of the morning, seemed doomed to failure. It was three weeks to the day since she’d embarked on it, with her visit to the Fairchilds – halfway through the six she had allotted herself. And what had she accomplished? she asked herself despairingly. Virtually nothing. She should never have given in to Zara’s pleadings in the first place.

  As her mind slid insidiously back to Selina, she reached for the paperback on the bedside table and determinedly opened it.

  At six o’clock, having read the same page several times without making sense of it, she switched on the radio, turned low for the sake of fellow guests; but Selina was mentioned only briefly in the news summary, with no update on her condition. At six thirty, unable to remain in bed any longer, Rona made a cup of tea and carried it with her to the bathroom for a shower, gradually cooling the water and tipping her head back so the stinging stream sluiced over her face. But even that failed to revive her; she felt tired, restless and disorientated, longing above all to be home. The card on the dressing table stated that breakfast was served from seven to nine, so that needn’t hold her up; however, if she caught a earlier train than she’d intended, there’d be an excess fare to pay. Grimly, she felt it would be worth it.

  She had just finished dressing when the telephone shrilled, and Max’s voice said, ‘I take it you heard about Selina?’

  ‘Oh, Max!’ Rona sat on the edge of the bed, blinking back tears. ‘It was on the ten o’clock news.’

  ‘I didn’t hear till after eleven, too late to phone. You OK?’

  ‘Not really. I’m desperately worried about her.’

  ‘I’ve been watching the box, and the latest report said she was stable.’

  ‘Is that better than critical?’

  ‘I’d say so. Don’t worry, love; she seems a tough cookie.’

  ‘Even a tough cookie is no match for a London bus,’ Rona said, but she felt marginally better.

  ‘What time are you due back?’

  ‘I was thinking of catching a commuter train, but I’d have to pay excess.’

  ‘What the hell. Get the first you can, give me a ring when you’re on your way, and I’ll meet you. Then we’ll go somewhere for lunch.’

  ‘Bless you,’ she said.

  Before leaving the hotel, she checked in her Filofax for the O’Tooles’ number, but though the phone rang for a long time, nobody answered it, nor was it intercepted by an answerphone. Perhaps they didn’t go in for such things. They must be at the hospital, Rona thought, and her concern deepened.

  The Exeter train was crowded and she had to stand for a time, but she was able to doze on the local service, jerking awake at successive stations with a crick in her neck. Half an hour from Marsborough, she phoned Max, who confirmed he’d be there to meet her.

  ‘Poor love,’ he greeted her, as she came through the barrier. ‘You look shattered.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then I suggest we go somewhere for a stiff drink, followed by lunch with a bottle of wine, and you then retire to bed for the afternoon. I’ll come home early and cook something special for supper.’

  Friday was the one day in the week when he had no classes and no commitments other than his own work.

  ‘That sounds wonderful,’ she said.

  When she eventually reached home, she found two messages from Zara, anxious about Selina, and after the nap Max had prescribed, Rona returned her call, though she’d nothing further to contribute.

 
‘How are you getting on?’ Zara enquired tentatively, when they’d exhausted the topic of Selina.

  ‘Slowly, I think is the word.’

  ‘No breakthrough?’

  ‘No; several times I thought I’d found one, but they seemed to fizzle out.’

  ‘You’re halfway through your time limit, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes; I realized that myself. I’ll stick it out as promised, but please don’t get your hopes up.’ She’d not told Zara of either the email or the importunate phone calls; no point in alarming her. She added impulsively, ‘But be warned: if I do come up with something, it mightn’t be what you want to hear.’

  ‘I don’t care what it is, or what he’s done, as long as I know who my father is.’

  Rona, thinking of Jonathan Hurst and Philip Yarborough, held her breath, but Zara added, ‘And, of course, who killed my mother.’

  ‘Is this shoe box a permanent fixture?’ Max enquired as he laid the table for supper.

  ‘Oh, sorry – I’ve been meaning to take it upstairs.’ Rona picked it up and placed it on the bottom step.

  ‘What is it, anyway?’

  ‘Some things of Gemma’s that – Selina found.’ Her voice wavered at the name. In the later news bulletins, Selina had not been mentioned. Rona assured herself it was a positive sign, but the O’Tooles were still not answering their phone.

  ‘Can’t be anything important, surely, or the police would have taken it.’

  ‘There are a few cassettes they didn’t find, because they were mixed up with commercial ones. Selina’s played them and says there’s nothing significant; she suggested I pass them on to Zara, but first I want to listen to them myself.’

  Max merely grunted in reply.

  It was a wet weekend. Tom stood at the French windows of Catherine’s sitting room, staring at the dismal autumn garden through a veil of rain. It suited his mood, he thought grimly.