I have to close my mind off to the image. It’s too painful, too soul-destroying. I think out loud. ‘Hope must’ve defied him in some way and got caught.’
I observe my half-sister more keenly. ‘If you hate Danny, why did you get involved in scamming me with the DNA set-up?’ Her eyes brighten with the knowledge that I know. ‘Joe told me. It’s messed him up.’ And he’s left me.
‘We were estranged for many years,’ she begins. ‘I went through some rough times.’ Her fingers inch down her sleeve making double sure her old track marks are hidden from view. ‘But he was still my dad, so when he came to me with the tale of a former lover who’d had his child, I said I would help. He told me he’d found you, but he didn’t want to come knocking on your door in case it was awkward.’
‘Miriam,’ I utter with outrage, ‘I’ve just discovered evidence in his house that he’s known about me since I was a child. He played you. He played me.’
Miriam’s lip curls. ‘If there’s one thing Dad knows how to do it’s spin a story. I should’ve remembered that. He told me he’d left a DNA sample on one of those databases and all he needed was to somehow persuade you to leave yours. He begged me to help him. He wanted to get to know his lost daughter. I believed him.’
Suddenly she’s on her feet looking down at me with a haunted expression on her face. ‘You have no idea what he’s like. He’s so clever. Knows how to wrap people, especially women, around his cruel little finger. I was no different. Despite what he did to my mum. Despite all that, I idolised him growing up.’
Pain criss-crosses her face, contorting her features. I hate seeing her like this. I take her hand and tug her back down. I place the Good Knight beside his Lady. ‘He had me fooled,’ I tell her. ‘Putting up with him your whole life can’t have been easy.’
Miriam shocks me by whipping up her sleeve and openly displaying her track marks. ‘I wear these with pride. Every time I look at them I remind myself that I’m no longer broken. No longer under his control.’ She catches my other hand. ‘And you. Since I was ten years old I have been worried sick about what happened to you. Did I do the right thing? Maybe I should’ve taken you to a hospital? Guilt ate me up for years. Sticking a needle in my arm helped me forget. Forget about the evil man whose blood runs in my veins.’
I pick up my Good Knight. ‘My blood runs in your veins as well,’ I quietly affirm. ‘Without you I wouldn’t even be here.’
My half-sister, my saviour, picks up her Lady. We fit the Good Knight and his Lady together.
Then Miriam says, ‘This wasn’t the only thing Hope gave me.’
What she gives me is a piece of paper, telling me, ‘I was meant to take this to Detective Carlton McNeil, who I now know is Sugar. I was too frightened to go to the police station. So I tucked it away. I kept it all these years.’
After I’ve read what Miriam has given me my mouth compresses into a thin line; I need my revenge.
Around twenty minutes later I’m alone in Miriam’s kitchen. I can’t shake off the darkness in Miriam’s eyes when she talked about Danny, a darkness full of dread and fear.
I hear Ronnie in Miriam’s bedroom, coaxing her to take a nap. Let her rest while I rage. And rage. Until I’m blind with it. Revenge isn’t a dish best served cold, it’s best when you feel the burn.
I take the bread knife from the chopping board and leave the house. Am I going to confront Danny, my father who glories in terrorising women? Or am I going to kill him?
CHAPTER 45
I am fuelled by a blind fury. My heart is white hot with rage at my blood father while my head is stone cold and rational. How many rules of the road I’ve broken on the drive to Danny’s house I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Speed limits, red lights, due care and attention? All in the bin. A crazy journey fuelled by my own anger and the haunting suspicion that he’ll be too clever for us, in the same way he’s been too clever for everybody else.
That’s why I’m back – to find evidence that will put my father away. I need to get the original copy of the document that shows he was a trustee of Pretty Lanes and any other type of evidence I can find in his operations room. Now that the blood sample has disappeared Sugar desperately needs any new evidence he can get to re-open the case. The trusteeship and anything else I find may not be enough but at least it will raise questions. And, of course, I have the other thing that Hope gave to Miriam. I don’t know if this will be enough, but what I do know is I’m going to do everything in my power to bring Danny down.