‘I’m putting my foot down,’ Joe announces, unhappy voice muffled against me. ‘I don’t want you going back to Sugar’s until he sorts this out.’
‘Putting your foot down? This isn’t 1973, Joe. Women’s liberation – remember?’ I don’t say it with much conviction because Joe isn’t in the least bit macho. He’s just worried about me, which is only natural. If he’d walked into the house with bruises on his neck, I’d probably go all alpha-girl on him too. Still, best not to tell him about being slammed on to the floor.
What I’m about to share next will send him into another tailspin. I ease him up and on to his feet.
I give him a rundown of the attempted burglary and, ‘There’s a photo of a group of young women on his whiteboard. Four of them, all black, Sugar’s marked out with a ring around their faces and written their names.’ I scoff, ‘He claims it’s not a photo from the 1990s but taken now because everyone is currently doing the nineties all over again—’
‘The comeback of bowl cuts?’ Joe dramatically shivers. ‘No thank you very much.’
Our chuckles fill the room. We’re still tense but that moment of laughter pushes some of the stress away. And reminds me how much I lean on this man during times of need.
He carries on, frowning. ‘But why would Sugar lie about these women?’
‘Because I think he’s investigating their disappearance nearly thirty years—’
‘Woah!’ Joe points a restraining finger level with my face. He’s half out of his seat. ‘Those women are missing?’ Joe says, his eyes jerking wildly. ‘And the burglary had something to do with this investigation?’
He can’t hide his horror. I take something out of my bag and gently place it on the breakfast bar. The Good Knight. I tell him, ‘I saw this in the photo. It was on the desk in the picture. Sugar tried to say it’s another mass-market product.’ My voice softens, my fingertips cruising the broken edge of my Good Knight. ‘I know it’s not. He’s not telling me the truth. I know he isn’t.’
Joe lightly touches my fingers, his voice filled with gentle concern. ‘The Good Knight is the only thing you have that connects you with your mother, so do you think one of the women in the photo could be her?’
Silently, I nod and pull out my phone and share the image of the photo I took. Joe picks it up with such reverence to study each of the women in turn. His hand scrolls to the next image before I can stop him.
He flies straight back into outrage mode. ‘Eva, this had better be a joke.’
I pluck my phone back and look at the other photo I took, the one of Sugar’s writing on the whiteboard that he insists doesn’t exist: Was baby Eva meant to die? This piece of evidence is why I stuck to my guns while we headbutted earlier on. For whatever reason, Sugar isn’t telling me the truth.
I need to be straight with Joe. I put the Good Knight and phone away and glance up at him.
‘I’m going to investigate—’
‘When hell freezes over.’ His voice is the sound of gritted self-control. ‘Don’t you get it, Eva? Some nutjob nearly bashed your brains in.’ Joe’s on his feet, fingers running through his hair. ‘You could’ve been killed.’
I’m standing now too. ‘You were the one who got me the DNA test to kickstart my journey trying to find my mother.’ I walk into his space, place my palms on his chest, but Joe won’t look at me. ‘I’ve found my blood father thanks to you. The stuff in Sugar’s room, these women, in my heart I know finding them means finding my mother. I’m sure I heard Sugar talking about this with Commander John Dixon at Mummy Cherry’s funeral.’
Limply, my palms fall from his body. A sudden weariness drags me so hard I have to sit again. I look down at the speckled pattern of the breakfast counter.
‘That bloody DNA test,’ Joe mutters.
‘What?’
He dismissively waves his hand, not answering. Cautiously, he sits back next to me. ‘I recognised John Dixon at the funeral. He’s a high-profile and much-admired police officer. I read a big feature about him in the newspaper some years ago. How he’d more or less single-handedly calmed tensions between different communities and the police in South and East London before taking up his post as commander. He’s also heavily involved in the Poppy Munro case.’
My mind scrolls back to him talking earlier on the documentary about the young woman at the centre of this tragic case.