Still Waters (19 page)

Tess sighed. ‘It’s got something to do with the dream I told you about, or at least, I think it has,’ she said. ‘But I’m guessing, really. It’s just that I can’t imagine why Daddy won’t take us to the coast if my dream doesn’t mean anything. And if it does . . . well, I think I should know, don’t you?’

‘I’m inclined to agree,’ Andy said. They reached the thin part of the hedge and shoved their machines through, then followed them on to the soaked, thigh-high grass of the verge. ‘Look, there’s a call box; let’s see if we can get through to your people first.’

They put in their pennies, waited until the telephone was answered the other end and pressed button A, only to be disappointed.

‘It’s what they call one way transmission,’ Andy said. ‘We could hear your stepmama clear as clear but she couldn’t hear us. Damn and blast! And I don’t have any more pennies, do you?’

‘I never had any to start with,’ Tess told him. ‘Can we reverse the charges, perhaps? I know people do that, sometimes.’

But the telephone was clearly faulty, for though they rang the operator and she answered she could not hear their voices either so they were forced to turn away without having got their message through.

‘Never mind,’ Andy said consolingly as they pushed their bikes on to the shiny wet tarmac. ‘We did try – that means we aren’t all bad. Look, you know what I said this morning about me being Sherlock Anderson and you being Tess Watson – why don’t we have a go? Try to find out what the mystery is all about? We’ve another five weeks of the hols left, pretty well, we could do a lot of digging around in that time.’

‘Could we?’ Tess said. She fell into step beside him, keeping her bicycle well clear of his, and began to plod, and to take her mind off the trouble they would be in when they did reach home, began to chatter as well. ‘I’d like to find out about my mother more than almost anything – and I’d really love to find out about that beach, and the boy. Only . . . I don’t want to upset my father, so we’ll have to do it on the quiet.’

‘Fair enough,’ Andy said. ‘Now let’s go over your dream again. We’ve a long walk ahead of us, no point in wasting time.’

‘Right,’ Andy said when Tess had told her story. ‘Now what have we got to go on? A boy who chews liquorice sweets and bosses little girls and not much else, but I’m going to solve the mystery and you’re going to help me! We’ll start first thing tomorrow morning, by finding your mother’s grave. We know her name’s Leonora Delamere, we know she died when you were born, or soon after, so we’ll track her down easily, once we start. We’ll catch a train into Norwich and find out who keeps registers of births and deaths and we’ll go and visit the grave, see what it says on the headstone. Are you game?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Tess breathed. ‘You don’t know how much it would mean to me, Andy, to find my mother’s grave. I’d feel – oh, more
real,
somehow, if I could put some flowers on her grave now and then.’

‘Right. Then I’ll come round to the Old House first thing tomorrow and we’ll go detectiving. I’ll wheedle some train-money out of the old girl, because your bike won’t be put right in a minute, and we’ll start our search at once!’

At the Old House, Peter began to worry when Tess didn’t turn up as it grew dusk, though as he said to Marianne, it was a good bicycle ride from the Hall to Deeping Lane. Marianne, clearly not worrying at all, said that Tess had promised to bring some plums back if she could and was doubtless heavily burdened. Then she turned to the task of putting Cherie to bed, having already prepared guinea fowl in red wine and a raspberry mousse for their dinner.

Peter went and sat in his study and tried to read the
Eastern Daily Press,
but he found it difficult to concentrate. It was such a foul evening, that was the trouble. Tess was going to be half-drowned . . . he cut the thought off short. What a fool he was even to think such a thing! He had meant soaked, he didn’t worry about her falling into the Broad, not when she was with the reliable Andy, and besides, the kids could both swim and anyway, they were on bicycles, and over at the Hall. If you want to worry, he chided himself, worry about road accidents, not about . . . about other things.

He read the paper for a bit, then Marianne called that dinner was on the table and he went through to the dining-room, pausing in the front hall to swing open the door and glance up and down the lane. Immediately, he felt reassured. It was not really dark, it was just heavily overcast, and though it was raining, the rain wasn’t too heavy. Knowing those two, they were probably deep in some game and weren’t even thinking about the weather, let alone the encroaching dark. And Lady Salter wasn’t a bad old stick; if the rain continued she would probably get her chauffeur to run Tess home rather than see her guest turned out in such weather.

He ate his dinner with a good appetite therefore, and congratulated Marianne on the guinea fowl, which was delicious, and on the new potatoes, which were from the Throwers’ garden and had a flavour all their own.

But, dinner over, his worries reasserted themselves. It was full dark now, and there was still no sign of Tess. He went outside and walked up and down the lane in both directions, under the pretence of having a cigarette, and came home really disturbed. The rain had stopped and the moon was out, but it was no night for a couple of kids to be abroad. He had best ring Lady Salter, just in case she expected him to get the motor car out and go and fetch his girl.

He rang. Lady Salter, very surprised, said she understood the children had gone off on a bicycle ride, taking their luncheon and tea with them. They had promised to be home before dark, she added, so she had concluded that Herbert must have accompanied Tess home and stayed with the Delameres for dinner.

‘We thought they were with you,’ Peter said. Fear, cold and heavy, clutched at his heart. ‘Where had they meant to go, do you suppose?’

‘I have no idea,’ Lady Salter said rather impatiently. ‘My nephew does not confide in me. He’s a sensible young feller, however, I don’t think he would lead your gel into mischief.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t, but I’m beginning to fear they might have had an accident,’ Peter said. ‘The Broad, you know . . . the lonely lanes . . . then there’s the common . . . they could have gone miles!’

‘Ring the police,’ Lady Salter said. ‘I shall send my chauffeur out to see if he can find them. But they’ll not have been on the Broad today, Mr Delamere; the boat is still in the boatshed, I got Aggie to check earlier, when the boy wasn’t back for dinner.’

She pretends she doesn’t care for Andy, but she does, really, Peter told himself, putting down the receiver and then picking it up again to ask the girl on the exchange if she would connect him to the nearest policeman. Lady Salter wouldn’t have got the maid to check the boathouse if she didn’t worry a bit. But then he realised that she had done nothing, even knowing the boy hadn’t returned from his jaunt, and decided she was just a nasty old lady who didn’t appreciate the Anderson boy.

Accordingly, Peter got through to the local policeman and told his story. Constable Peddar was tolerant of fatherly fears but said he would keep a look-out for the truants and would warn neighbouring colleagues that there were two youngsters overdue.

Meanwhile Lady Salter, alerted to the fact that her great-nephew had effectively disappeared, decided that she should telephone the authorities too, and chose to inform the Chief Constable, a friend of hers, that her nephew and a young friend had gone for a jaunt on their bicycles and had failed to return home. This had a much more galvanising effect than Peter Delamere’s call; Peter was not a member of the aristocracy, nor did he employ twenty local people. After Lady Salter’s call policemen on bicycles began to tour the neighbourhood and local farmers were asked if they had seen a couple of benighted youngsters in their area.

But the real fear in everyone’s mind was the Broad. Peter Delamere got Tess’s dinghy out, greatly relieved to find that it was safely moored in the reeds and not upside down in the middle of Barton Broad. He shed a few tears as he pushed it out from its nest, jumped in and began his search, because he was realising that he hadn’t been fair to Tess. Marianne was a wonderful wife and a good mother to Cherie, but she never gave Tess credit for anything, and Peter never made her do so. Marianne had stopped his daughter from seeing Janet – and on the thought Peter rowed round to the Throwers’ staithe. He moored his tiny craft and went and banged on the door.

Mrs Thrower answered his knock.

‘Evenin’, Mr Delamere,’ she said placidly, as though it was a common thing to open her door and find her neighbour standing there, wet to the skin and shivering, at well past ten in the evening. ‘What can I do for you?’

Peter told her, in a few words, what had happened and Mrs Thrower turned and shouted.

‘Fellers! Young Tess an’ young Andy ha’ gone missin’. They was bicycling; any point gettin’ the boats out?’

Peter felt sick; the fear which had been hovering in the back of his mind had also entered Bessie Thrower’s, then. But Mr Thrower said, nonchalantly, that he would get his craft out anyway, ‘in case’, but thought Peter would do better to get into his motor and search the lanes.

‘Doubtless she’ve had a puncture, and they’re tryin’ to mend it,’ Mrs Thrower said placidly. ‘She’s a good gal, your Tess. She wouldn’t worry you for the world, Mr Delamere.’

Peter read reproach into the words and muttered that he knew it; Tess was worth her weight in gold, that was why he couldn’t rest until he found her.

‘And you’re right, I’ll get the car out,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have any idea where they might have gone, I suppose?’

Mrs Thrower shook her head. ‘No; she in’t been here much, not this summer,’ she observed. ‘She in’t been around the same since she were sent off to boardin’ school. Take Ned with you, Mr Delamere; you drive an’ he’ll keep an eye out for ’em. Keep your pecker up, you’ll find her because she still want to be found; thass the ones what don’t want to get found you should worry about.’

Peter thanked her, got the car out and was backing it down the drive to where Ned obediently waited when it occurred to him to wonder why Mrs Thrower had said that about Tess.
You’ll find her because she still want to be found
. He knew of course that girls did run away from home, go missing, but . . . his Tess? Surely she would never be one of those girls?

Ned opened the passenger door and got in, slamming it behind him. He said, ‘Orf we goo, then, Mus’ Delamere,’ and Peter realised that the boy was looking forward to a ride in the car. It wasn’t something which often came Ned’s way, of course, and he’d not taken young Janet out much of late, either.

Come to that, you haven’t taken Tess out much for a while, Peter reminded himself, beginning to drive up Deeping Lane. You’ve been so busy with Marianne and Cherie that you haven’t given Tess nearly as much of your time as you did once. Perhaps that’s why she went off with the Anderson boy today. Perhaps that’s why she told Marianne they were going to the Hall, to pick plums. Because she knew Marianne would agree to a visit to the Hall because she wants to get on good terms with Lady Salter, but a mere expedition of pleasure . . .

She could have asked me, though. I’d have told her to go off, have fun. But she couldn’t ask me, of course, because I’m hardly ever there and when I am, I’m always busy with Marianne and the baby. Marianne sees that I am. She makes a point of it. She bundles Tess off to her room so we can have dinner alone and I’ve never objected, never said it wasn’t fair.

‘Try the low road, sir. That might be easier for a cyclist. Next right.’

That was Ned; Peter had forgotten his companion completely, was simply driving, with his mind too busy with thoughts of Tess to wonder where he was going.

‘Oh . . . thanks,’ he said, and relapsed into thought once more.

He had always vowed never to send Tess to boarding school. He had agreed to her being a weekly boarder because Marianne was expecting the baby and was having a sick pregnancy. It seemed only fair when she explained she could not give Tess the attention she needed until after the baby was born. Only then she had been so busy with Cherie, and the house, and she’d said it wasn’t fair to Tess, going backwards and forwards to Norwich, and Tess had seemed keen enough . . .

Marianne has pushed Tess out, Peter saw now, as the car bumped down from the main road on to the lower one, and I’ve done nothing to stop her, nothing to help. Dear God, what have I done? What would Leonora say if she knew? Suppose she does know? Suppose she’s grieving her heart out somewhere because of what I’m doing to our daughter? I’ll make amends, he promised God, all His angels, and Leonora. I’ll keep Marianne in check, see more of Tess, show her how much, how very much, I love her. Because I see, now, what Mrs Thrower meant; if I don’t I’ll lose her. She’ll run away as soon as she’s old enough and I’ll spend the rest of my life worrying about her and blaming myself.

‘Turn right again now, sir, an’ you’ll be back on track for Barton,’ Ned said quietly. ‘They in’t along here I don’t reckon. Unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’ Peter slowed, almost stopped.

‘Unless they’d been to Palling,’ Ned said slowly. ‘It in’t that far, an’ Tess were always mortal fond o’ Palling.’

Sea Palling! He had never taken her to the sea because there were some memories which were best forgotten, but she’d loved the sea, once. Would she, could she, have made for the coast?

‘We’ll take a look,’ he said. The rain had stopped and the moon was silvering the countryside as though it didn’t know the meaning of the word cloud. The car purred quietly along and somehow, as they rounded the next bend, it was no surprise to see two small figures, both pushing bicycles, approaching them.

‘They in’t got no lamps,’ Ned said almost excusingly. ‘I reckon they dussen’t bike without lamps. Cops can be hard on kids.’

‘They’re safe!’ Peter said exultantly. ‘Daft . . . but safe!’ He leaned over and shook Ned’s hand hard. ‘That was a brainwave of yours, to try the Palling road,’ he said. ‘Well the little devils!’

But he said it admiringly, and when he drew the car alongside the truants and saw their faces he could only jump out of the car and envelop first his daughter and then her friend in a hard bear hug.