Sugar says, ‘Danny Greene wasn’t just her son, he was also a patron of the Suzi Lake Centre, a son of the woman who owned it, which means he would have had access to the place day and night. He probably had a set of keys.’ Frowning, he adds, ‘It’s strange that Suzi Lake didn’t make him a trustee of the centre too.’
We sit in silence, letting the secrets and brutality of what we’re dealing with sink in.
Sugar says, ‘The information request revealed there was a blood sample attached to one of the bodies.’ His voice is full of such weary despair. ‘That’s why Dixon was here. He came to tell me that the blood sample has got lost.’
‘Danny,’ I growl. ‘He has friends in the police. It hasn’t got lost. Somehow he’s found out about the blood sample and has got one of his cop buddies to make it disappear.’
Sugar bangs his fist on his thigh in bitter frustration. ‘I think the blood sample is Hope’s. Her mother has provided me with DNA to test it against. So, I’ve been waiting for the blood sample to come through to carry out that test. This is dangerous and that’s why I don’t want you anywhere near this.’
I’m burning up with such a fever of vengeance I have to stand up. ‘In those cold mortuaries Hope, Amina, and Sheryl ended up as part of the no names. But the truth is the police and media forgot their names long ago. It’s not just Danny and those murderers at Pretty Lanes who stripped them of their names, their very identity.’
It’s not lost on me that I started life with no name as well. The difference is that they were dumped, dead on the street, while my mother left me on one to make certain I lived.
‘Don’t you get it yet?’ Sugar says, getting to his feet. ‘That all those years ago I came to get you?’
Startled, I rock back. ‘What are you talking about?’
Sugar comes forward and wraps his fingers around both my arms. ‘There were rumours that Hope was going to have a baby. Some of the women at the centre recall her throwing up and trying to brush it off, but they knew. The reason they remember her was she would do the occasional spot of reception duty there, probably to add to her living costs for university. And there were other stories about a woman living in the Suzi Lake Centre at night.’
I know I’m breathing but I can’t feel the air going in and out of my lungs. My blood has frozen in my veins.
Sugar runs his palms up and down the goosebumps on my arms. ‘At first I thought her baby was dead too. A few years later I heard about a baby, a little girl. Some people said she was dual heritage, others black. She was left outside the Caribbean Social Club a few streets away from the centre. The dates all fit.’ His face almost crumbles. ‘I looked for you everywhere, for years. Back then the record-keeping for abandoned babies was still in its infancy so it was hard to find information about you.’
His eyes sweep my face. ‘But I found you. And thank God I did because they were killing you in there. It’s as if Hope wanted me to take care of her child, make sure no harm came to you.’ Sugar hugs me tight. ‘Leave Danny Greene to me.’
I spend time on my own with the photo of Hope on my phone with the awareness now, that I’m her daughter. Her flesh and blood. That she carried me for nine months and gave birth to me. I’m sitting in Mummy Cherry’s favourite space, the conservatory, while I try my hardest to connect with the mother who gave me life. Hope is leaning into the camera, basking in it. She’s beautiful, with sparkling brown skin, an open grin, huge looped earrings and head thrown back, ever so slightly, as if she’s basking in the joys that life brings. I close my eyes and lay my mother’s picture over my heart.
The phone rings, vibrating against my skin.
It’s Ronnie. ‘I’ve found Miriam.’
Ronnie answers Miriam’s buzzer. She holds herself with the ramrod straightness of a soldier doing sentry duty guarding the entrance into my sister’s flat.
Ronnie informs me, ‘She’s had a rough time of it.’ She gives me the eye. ‘When she came back after leaving you that night she hit the bottle, smashed the place up and fell; that’s why there was blood on the floor. She hurt her hand—’
‘What?’
Ronnie waves my alarm away. ‘I took her to A&E where they stitched it up. The last thing Miriam needs is more heartache.’
I’m surprised at Ronnie’s level of protectiveness.
‘Where did you find her?’ I ask, but Ronnie’s mouth remains stubbornly closed. Irritation resurfaces in me. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ I warn.