Instant Father

“Nonsense, of course he was. That’s what he came here for.”

“Whatever I came here for, it was plainly a wasted journey,” Gavin said, tight-lipped. “I had hoped that we could talk reasonably, but you won’t listen, so I may as well leave. Take good care of my son. Goodbye, Peter.” He reached out to pat his son’s shoulder, but Liz stepped back, taking him out of reach and began to run toward the house. Gavin tightened his lips against the pain and walked away to his car.

As he was getting into it he stopped for one look back. Liz had gone, but the young woman was still there, watching him and frowning as if something had puzzled her. He got in, slamming the door, and drove off. His mind was in too much of a whirl to think straight. It was only when he was miles away that he realized she had actually defended him.

After that visit things became more difficult. Liz had called her lawyer to report that he’d tried to abduct Peter, and although he still had access to his son it became very limited. On the rare occasions when they met Peter’s manner toward him was awkward, and Gavin could only guess at how they’d tried to turn him against his father. As six years passed and the boy grew up, Gavin had felt with despair that he was losing something he could never regain.

But now everything would be different. Now there was nothing to stop him from reclaiming his son. Peter had suffered from divided loyalties, but that was over, and soon he would be close to his father again.

As dawn broke he could hear the sound of the sea in the distance, and his heart quickened at the thought that he would soon be there. He thought of how Peter would run to him as the only safe point in a world that had suddenly become chaotic. He wondered who would be with him. Probably Ackroyd’s daughter. He knew now that her name was Norah, but she’d lived in his mind as the angry young woman. He wondered if she would try to stop him from claiming his child. If so, she wouldn’t succeed. As he drove the last stretch he rehearsed the words he would say to her, strong words that would leave her in no doubt that he wasn’t to be trifled with.

At last the house came in sight, pale and beautiful in the dawn light. He felt a surge of love for the place. His thoughts had been all of Peter, but now it occurred to him that the house too would revert to him, in a sense. Liz’s share would pass to Peter, and as Peter’s guardian he would hold his son’s inheritance in trust. They would own Strand House together. He liked the sound of that.

There was no sign of life as he drove up the drive and stopped in front of the house. The light was already growing strong, but it was six in the morning. He got out of the car and looked up at the windows which showed no sign of life. He began to walk around the house to reach the extensive grounds that stretched away at the rear. He wanted to groan when he saw what had become of them. The perfect lawns that would have been the golf course had been dug up and now housed what appeared to be a small zoo.

He made his way between wire cages until at last he saw a figure sitting on a wooden bench. She was dressed in an old sweater and dark jeans, and she sat hugging her arms across her chest, staring into space.

A black-and-white dog who’d settled at her feet looked up at Gavin’s approach and gave a soft, “Wuff.” She glanced up at him without speaking and he recognized Norah. She was different. Her face was deadly pale and full of despair and she looked as if all the fight had been drained out of her. Suddenly the firm words he’d rehearsed vanished from his head, leaving only one thought.

He said gently, “I’m so very, very sorry. It must be dreadful for you.”

Chapter Two

“It’s you,” she said, as if dazed.

“Weren’t you expecting me after—what’s happened?”

“I don’t know—I haven’t taken it in yet. It seems only yesterday that I waved them off….” She gave a little shudder. “It was only yesterday. And now the whole world has changed.”

He sat beside her on the bench. “How is Peter? Does he know?”

“He knew before anyone else,” she said huskily. “The worst possible thing happened. He was watching the news, and he saw it first. Nobody had called to warn us. It was a dreadful shock for him. He came and told me. At first I didn’t believe him. I thought he’d misunderstood. He kept crying and saying, ‘It’s true, it’s true.’ Then we cried together for most of the night.”

“It’s a terrible burden for you,” he said sympathetically. “But I’m here now.”

She gave him a strange look which he failed to interpret, and said, “Peter fell asleep about an hour ago. I came out here because it’s where I feel closest to Dad. We built all this up together. He loved it so much. He used to say all the money in the world didn’t mean as much as an animal’s trust.”

Gavin thought that a man who’d attached himself to a rich woman was free to be indifferent to money, but it would have been cruel to say it to her, so he kept silent.

“They all trusted him,” Norah said, looking around at the animals who were beginning to awake and appear. “How am I going to tell them?”

“Tell them what?” Gavin asked blankly.

“That he and Liz are dead,” she said simply.

He stared at her. Nothing in his experience had prepared him to cope with someone who talked like this. Trying to hide his exasperation he said, “Surely there’ll be no need to tell them.”

Her frown cleared. “You’re right. They’ll know by instinct. I should have remembered that.”

She looked at him with her head on one side, and he realized that she was wondering how he came to understand such a thing. He felt at an impasse. It irritated him to be misinterpreted, but he was touched by the grief so clearly evident on her face.

It was six years since he’d seen her and in that time she’d changed from an urchin into a woman. Her body had rounded out and her face had grown softer. It was pale now, and haggard and suffering, but some men would have found her attractive, he realized.

As he watched her he saw her expression change yet again, and she gave him a rueful look that was almost a smile. “I read you wrong, didn’t I?” she asked. “You didn’t mean that the animals would know. You meant, why bother to tell animals anything?”

Paradoxically he was even more disconcerted now than he’d been a moment ago. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “after all, they are only animals.”

She sighed. “Dad spent his life trying to open the eyes of people who thought like that.”

“I doubt he’d have converted me.”

“No, I don’t suppose he would. But that wouldn’t have stopped him trying. He said you should never give up on anyone, no matter how—” she stopped.

To divert her attention he asked, “If he felt like that, why did he keep a zoo?”

“It’s not a zoo, it’s a sanctuary. Most of the creatures here were brought in because they were sick or ill treated. We try to get—that is, the idea is to get them well enough to return to the wild.”

He felt relieved. He’d been wondering how to break it to her that she must close down the place and leave. Now he saw that it could be done gradually as the animals were released. He had no desire to be brutal.

“Let’s go inside,” she said. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

The dog rose at the exact moment she did and kept close to her as they walked. She led him up to the house and through the french doors that led into the big sun lounge at the back of the house. He stared at the change he found. The beautiful eighteenth-century furniture had all gone, replaced by functional pieces that looked as if they’d come from junk shops. Some of them were completely covered in sheets on which a variety of creatures lay snoozing. There were dogs and cats, a parrot and a monkey.

“The good furniture is stored at the top of the house,” Norah said, reading his look. “It would have been a pity to let it get dirty.”

“Quite,” he said wryly.

The animals were awakening and beginning to crowd around her. She scratched their heads and caressed their coats, seeming to take comfort in the very feel of them. “The sanctuary doesn’t officially take cats and dogs, because there are so many other places for them,” she said, “but they seem to arrive anyway. People bring them, and there are a couple who made their own way here. It’s almost as if they knew where to come.”

Gavin said nothing. Her approach seemed to him so outrageously whimsical that it was better to hold his tongue. He thought of his son being reared in this atmosphere, and thanked a merciful heaven that he’d been allowed to rescue him in time.

The kitchen had also altered beyond recognition. He’d last seen it when it was charming and old-fashioned. Now it closely resembled the deck of a spaceship, and in this he recognized Liz’s handiwork. She’d been an avid cook, complaining bitterly when he arrived home late and her creations were ruined.

“This was Liz’s dream,” Norah explained, apparently reading his thoughts again in a way that was becoming unsettling. “She loved having every modern gadget she could find.”

“But this looks like a hotel catering oven,” Gavin protested, regarding a shiny monster, all knobs and lights.

“It is. She got it because the animals need so much food. She used to do huge batches of cooking and store it in the freezer.”

“Liz cooked for animals?”

He thought of the elegant, sophisticated woman who’d once been his wife, thought of the Cordon Bleu dishes that had been her expression of artistry. But “they” had got to her. She’d fallen into the clutches of Tony Ackroyd and his daughter, and this was the result.

Norah put on the coffee, then turned her attention to a small hedgehog in a box in a corner. “She let you keep animals in her kitchen?” Gavin asked.

“It was Liz who brought Bert in here,” Norah said, setting down a saucer of milk for the hedgehog. “He’s very frail and he needs warmth. She loves—loved—the animals as much as Dad and me.”

“Hmm. I doubt that. She wasn’t exactly an ‘animal’ sort of person.”