Someone heard me crying and came in. I felt like a right plum, a top idiot, let me tell you. I couldn’t get the tissues out quick enough to mop up the tears. But they wouldn’t stop coming. This person put their arm around my shoulder and let me cry. They took time out and listened to me. Really listened. I think it must be part of the training in the job they do because they were a proper expert at it. And that’s how it started, the days and weeks after we sorta got into a groove, talking and listening, chatting about life ’n’ stuff.
Looking back, I must’ve had muck in my eye not to see what I was getting involved in. But when you’re twenty-three you’re still learning. Still wide-eyed and innocent ’bout the world. Believe me, us young girls sometimes don’t see the traps waiting up ahead. One minute I’m walking on air and the next I’m falling. I fell hard and deep, straight into a bottomless hell.
CHAPTER 16
Hope. Amina. Sheryl. Veronica.
I cling to their names as I wait on Danny’s doorstep for him to open the door. Their names are the ones I reach for, the names of the strong black women who give me strength during the stress of life. I say their names every morning, every night. And I must say them in the order that they appear in the photo. Especially as I still can’t find anything about them online. At least I can say their names. I remember.
Danny’s worried gaze checks me over trying to locate the damage done by the intruder in Sugar’s house. Miriam told him what happened. The turtleneck jumper I wear hides the bruises pressed into my neck.
Outrage suddenly contorts Danny’s features. ‘The practice of cutting off the hand of a thief I usually find barbaric. But in this instance I’d take an axe and have the hands off the scum who dared put them on you in one second flat.’ His nose wiggles. ‘Come to think of it, I’d do his legs too. Some people really shouldn’t be walking the same streets as the rest of us.’
His bristling fury leaves him rocking from side to side, his fingers flexing and bunching. His gaze is as impenetrable as frozen lakes of blue ice. Then in the swish of a second he slips back into the guise of chilled-out retired man. So much so I wonder if I was a witness to his blazing anger at all and his extreme words about cutting people’s limbs off.
He ushers me along the hall, past his gallery of the rich and famous, but instead of proceeding to the garden he stops outside what looks like a large study. This room is different from the house’s airy, light atmosphere. The curtains are half-drawn, the ceiling seems lower. A room that enjoys holding on to its shadows.
Inside are several desktop computers and a laptop, a database of information on its screen, and various high-tech gizmos. Maps and charts decorate the wall, although one wall is empty. Files, newspapers and paperwork of varying kinds compete for space on the writing desk and the floor. It’s a dead ringer for Sugar’s room minus the lingering stink of death. Some sixth sense stops me from going in.
‘What are you doing in here?’ I enquire.
‘Helping my daughter of course! This is my operations room.’ His long, slim fingers squeeze my arm. He manages to draw me inside the room. ‘This is just the start of me helping you locate your mother. I’m tracing everyone I can find who was at that party where I met her. Someone must have invited her. I’m searching college databases, local government files, tax returns; you name it I’ll find it! Plus of course hospital records. You must have been born somewhere. There can’t have been many black women in Brighton who gave birth to a mixed-race baby.’
‘Multi-heritage. Or better still, simply Eva,’ I correct with a snap. ‘Sorry. That was uncalled for. But the phrase mixed-race makes me feel like a cross between someone who is a member of the human race and a Martian.’
Swiftly, I change tack. ‘Did the friends who held the party get back to you?’
His slightly averted expression tells me everything I need to know. ‘They couldn’t remember Tish after all these years. They don’t remember inviting her to the party.’
I’m pleased he doesn’t pat my knee or some other type of pity gesture and instead gives me the space I need to absorb and discard this as part of mine – our – hunt for my blood mother.
I check out a screen filled with information and get very annoyed when I figure out what I’m reading. Someone’s medical records. My hackles rise.
‘These are strictly confidential. How on earth did you get into them?’
Danny emits a knowing noise from deep inside his throat. ‘I told you, Eva, I’m a man of considerable resources and powerful contacts. Believe me, if you’ve got enough money, you can get into anything and find anyone.’