I didn’t answer right away.
‘Daniel,’ I eventually managed.
‘Do you have any more pictures of him, my love?’
I took out the rest of the photos of Daniel from the wardrobe, and together we looked at them. I remembered his gummy smile, and the way he wriggled around as I changed his nappy, and the snuffling sounds he made as he slept. I remembered, and I cried, and the agony inside softened into something I thought I might be able to deal with, in time.
I hugged Emma fiercely. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
I allowed the pain to come to the surface after she left, letting out as much as I dared, hot tears stinging my face as I looked through the photos of Daniel again. I read Mariette Sinclair’s article once more and I thought about what Emma had said, and about her sister too. All three women had been through the same agony I had experienced, and all had come through it. Eventually.
I might be able to get through it as well, I thought. Wasn't that the decision I'd come to anyway, when I realised I was no longer contemplating suicide? I could survive this. I might not manage to be happy, but I didn’t want to slash my wrists and let my life drain away in a pool of blood anymore.
It didn't happen overnight. I did a lot more crying, spent more time looking at Daniel's photos, more evenings soaking up Emma's warmth and understanding. I didn't stop once I started. I spent less time thinking about the agony of finding him dead and more time thinking about the joy of being his mother. He had graced my life for a very short space of time, but what an incredible blessing he had been. My beautiful, beloved baby. My Daniel.
I was right. Happiness eluded me, but the frozen numbness had gone for good. The pain of my baby's death still sliced through me every day but not in the old agonising way. It was bearable. The more I cried, the more I slowly healed and came back to life.
I bought a copy of the local paper one day and started to browse the job vacancies. I had no training for anything, but some job must exist for me somewhere in this city and I didn’t care what I did.
Time to start some sort of living again.
18
WHEELS IN MOTION
‘What the hell are you doing sitting in the dark?’
Tim found his flatmate curled up on the sofa, his knees under his chin, his arms wrapped around them. Daniel had lost track of time since getting back from Katie’s flat; it was after ten o’clock when Tim came in to find him sitting in the living room with the lights off.
‘Mate? You OK?’ Tim sat down beside Daniel on the sofa. ‘Has something happened with Katie?’
‘We split up.’ The bald words choked him up, almost unbearably.
‘Jeez, Dan.’ Daniel heard genuine regret in his flatmate’s voice. ‘What brought that on? I thought everything was going great with you two?’
‘Something’s happened, Tim. I need time to get it all sorted, and right now I can’t deal with a full-time relationship.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll grab us both a beer. This may take some time.’
Within half an hour he’d told an incredulous Tim what he’d found out, omitting any mention of Katie. The pain of their blood relationship had to remain his secret, forced deep down inside him.
‘So that’s why you were suddenly so interested in family history websites?’
‘Yeah. That was the first avenue I went down. Proved a dead end, but after the DNA test showed she wasn’t my mother, well, I became a bit obsessed. Then I got the notion in my head that she might have kidnapped me. It seemed an insane idea, but I had to follow it up. I did some digging in the old newspaper archives and then things moved pretty quickly.’
‘You’re not joking, mate. But what about Katie – this is going to be a weird time for you once you go to the police – don’t you think you’d be better off sticking with her, getting some support?’
‘Tim, I don’t know who I am anymore. One minute I’m Daniel Bateman, son of Laura Bateman, and the next I’m Daniel Cordwell, son of Sarah and Howard Cordwell, people who are my parents but who are complete strangers to me. I have grandparents I had no idea existed. I need to get my head round all that and right now I have nothing to offer Katie.’ Definitely better than telling Tim that as well as parents and grandparents, he also had an aunt who he’d been shagging every chance he got for the past few weeks.
‘Yeah, I sort of get what you’re saying.’ Tim’s lack of conviction grated on Daniel, but what the hell. He stood up.
‘Look, mate, today’s been one big rollercoaster so far.’ He drained his beer. ‘I need to get some sleep. Going to the police tomorrow.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘That'll be a wagon load of fun. Can’t be every day someone turns up saying they’re a long-lost kidnap victim.’
‘I’ll be thinking of you, mate. You’re going to need all the luck you can get.’
‘Amen to that.’
Daniel’s brain shot into overdrive the next morning as he went through the motions of forcing breakfast down himself. God, he yearned to text Katie, find out if she felt as crap as he did. He resisted the urge. A clean break between them was the only solution. Right now, though, he ached for her; her loss had ripped a gaping hole in him and he hadn’t a clue how he’d be able to deal with the pain. Perhaps being reunited with his parents would help. He’d have plenty to keep him occupied in the days to come. At some point, though, he’d have to meet his grandparents, Katie’s parents, and hear everyone talk about her, see photos of her, and he didn’t know how the hell he could get over her loss when she would still be all around him. The hard way continued to get harder, not easier.
Tim came into the kitchen and looked at the dark shadows under his flatmate's eyes. ‘You OK? Still planning to go to the police today?’
‘No point in putting things off. I tell you, Tim – I’m not looking forward to this.’ He slammed his coffee mug down. ‘The shit is going to hit the fan and I haven't a frigging clue how to deal with it. I mean…’ He shook his head. ‘How weird is it going to be, meeting my real parents? It's been twenty-two years, for God’s sake. I don't remember a single thing about my father. What the hell are we going to say to each other?’
A stupid question, he told himself. As if Tim could give him the answer. He’d have to figure things out as he went along.
He’d already decided he’d go to New Scotland Yard; there seemed little point in asking the local police to deal with something like this. OK, so his kidnapping had taken place in Bristol, but his kidnapper, damn the bitch, lived here in London.
New Scotland Yard. He'd already found out how to get there. He needed to get this crap sorted, as he’d said to Tim. He grabbed his jacket and keys and headed for the Tube.
Eventually he stood outside. Crunch time. No going back once he entered the building.
About half an hour was needed to get his head in gear before he walked in, heading towards the front-office clerk at the main desk. ‘I need to talk to somebody about a child abduction.’ He cleared his bone-dry throat, which felt as if it were closing over. ‘I believe I was the one who was kidnapped.’
He’d done it. He’d said the words, clocked the look on the man’s face. And, boy, did he get everyone’s attention, once the words were out. He ended up being ushered into a room, with two police officers, one male, one female, who listened as he told his story.
He kicked off with his memories of the girl and the woman, how he’d never believed Laura Bateman was his mother, and he saw the disbelief in their faces. The younger of the two officers, the woman, did little to conceal her impatience with someone she clearly thought was some kind of weirdo or time waster. The disbelief started to fade a little when he told them about the eye colour thing, and how genetics had fuelled his suspicions.
He told them about the DNA test and the results, and watched the raised eyebrows when he admitted to having falsified the consent form. Well, what the hell, he had to tell them the whole story; leaving anything out would be pointless and he doubted they’d be too concerned with such details when they had a genuine kidnap victim, alive and well, in front of them. There was definitely more interest than disbelief coming now from their side of the table.
He described the ugly scene when he confronted Laura Bateman. Then the visit to the British Library, and finding the story about Daniel Cordwell’s kidnap. He told them his age, how it fitted in with him being Daniel Cordwell.
Finally, he told them about the birthmark mentioned in the newspaper article, pulling down his jeans to show them his hip. He fell silent then. He’d done his bit.
Questions were fired at him, lots of them, some of them repeated until Daniel nearly exploded with frustration, his conviction that he’d nailed the truth of the matter chafing against the apparent cynicism still coming from the other side of the table. The scepticism seemed to dissipate gradually as the questions went on and Daniel started to think he’d managed to convince them he wasn’t a timewaster or loony tune.
‘Christ. Not every day we get someone like you walk in here, that's for sure.’ The more senior officer looked like he’d seen an ugly thing or two in his time. Daniel could sense the barely leashed anticipation of being involved in a break in a cold case as important as this one. ‘We’ll need you to come back tomorrow and provide a full statement to us. It’ll mean taking a day off work. Giving a statement and all that goes with it isn’t something we’re going to get through quickly – be prepared to be here for several hours.’
Dear God. He’d hoped to get this over with today. Nothing he could do except go with what he’d started, though.
‘Fine. Just tell me what you need me to do.’
‘Obviously, we won’t be saying anything to Sarah and Howard Cordwell until we have conclusive proof you’re their son. Don’t want to raise their hopes unnecessarily. It’ll be easy enough to prove, one way or another. There’ll be DNA from Daniel Cordwell, obtained at the time when the case was fresh. You’ll give us a sample of your DNA tomorrow and we’ll check if they match.’
‘I’ll give you a DNA sample. Whatever you want.’
There was paperwork, form filling, a mountain of migraine-inducing details to wade through, before Daniel was able to leave. He spent the evening with a six-pack of beer, downing enough to take the edge off the churning emotions inside without getting drunk. A clear head would be needed for what he had ahead of him the following day and he wasn’t going to screw it up by turning up with a hangover.
He ended up being proved right about that. Jeez, if he’d thought the initial police interview hard going, the second one turned out to be ten times worse. Not in all ways, he’d give them that. Once convinced there was a case to investigate, the scepticism had disappeared, being replaced by a brisk determination to handle a potential kidnap victim with the right degree of sensitivity. The questions were hell, though; they probed into every aspect of those hazy first memories, his childhood, how Laura Bateman had treated him, asking the same thing in different ways, turning him inside out. ‘What makes you think...?’ ‘How can you be sure…?’ He’d wanted to scream with frustration but steeled himself to stay calm, in control.
The worst had been when they started on about his stepfather. He’d had no option but to fudge the facts in places, telling them truthfully he didn’t have a close relationship with Ian Bateman but clamping down on revealing anything that would lead them too far down that path. Hell, it wasn’t so hard; he’d had years of suppressing his hatred of the bastard. So what if he didn’t tell them everything? It had no bearing on the fact Laura Bateman had kidnapped him, which was the whole reason behind him being at New Scotland Yard anyway.
The day ground on and on, but eventually it was over. He signed the statement put in front of him at the end of it all, had his cheek swabbed to provide a DNA sample and was told they’d let him know when the results came through. The wheels were in motion, turning faster and faster; no stopping them now, Daniel thought.
He walked out at the end of it all, a jackhammer pounding away in his head. Satisfaction, smug and triumphant, washed over him, shitty day notwithstanding. The process he’d started meant that Laura Bateman, damn her, would soon be arrested and charged with his kidnap.
For some twisted reason, she had stolen him from his parents. She’d taken him from a loving family, where he could have grown up with a father as well as a mother, with grandparents, and a little girl called Katie who would always have been simply an aunt to him. Above all, he would never have had to suffer Ian Bateman.
Yeah. The bitch was going to get what she had due to her.
He did get drunk that night, hammering the beer, drowning out the questions, the memories, washing them away on a tide of alcohol. Tim quietly suggested he should ease up on the booze, Daniel responding to his flatmate’s concern by yelling at him to leave him the hell alone. Tim ended up going out in an obvious attempt to avoid him. Fine by me, thought Daniel. He needed solitude, time alone to nurse the bitterness inside him.
He didn’t get drunk on the third night, though. Booze wouldn’t have cut it for him that evening; the dark fury inside was too overwhelming. Because on the third day he came home to a message from Ian Bateman on his answering machine.
No niceties. Straight to the point. Typical of the asshole.
‘You shit. You goddamn little shit. Your mother’s having one of her turns again, but this time she’s a hell of a lot worse than she’s ever been before. Won’t say a word, just sits there, holding a photo of you, staring at your stupid face. If I find out you’ve had anything to do with making her this way…’ There was a pause.