‘What happens now?’ Christ, he wished his voice didn't sound so shaky.
‘We’ll send an officer over to speak with your parents today. Assuming we can get hold of both of them, and depending on how they take the news – this will obviously come as a huge shock to them – it's possible you might be reunited with them today.’
‘My God.’ He’d not anticipated seeing his family so soon. ‘I didn’t think things would move so quickly.’
‘Remember, they’ve been waiting twenty-two years. I don’t imagine they’ve ever given up hope. I wouldn’t if one of my kids disappeared. No matter how many years it took.’
‘How will I see them again? I’d rather it wasn’t at New Scotland Yard.’
‘I get that. We’ll check out what your parents think, how they want to play things. Could be we take you to their house, something along those lines. But no, it doesn’t have to be at the station.’
Thank God for that. Meeting his parents again in the sterile surroundings of a police station held little appeal, not for a reunion as emotional as this one promised to be.
‘We’ll call after we get to speak with your parents. We’ll also be picking Laura Bateman up and bringing her in for questioning. But for now – all you can do is wait.’
Daniel let the police officer out and threw himself down on the sofa. His head pounded as if he’d shoved it into a blender, but through all the mental chaos he felt buoyant, almost good, after the anguish of the break-up with Katie. The world was returning to how it should be, before Laura Covey had stolen him; perhaps now he’d lose the sense of not belonging he’d always carried deep inside. The thought of experiencing life in a real family at last, with his parents and grandparents, was overwhelming; he hoped like hell they were nothing like the sham family into which Laura Bateman had forced him. Given how Katie had described them, he didn’t think he had cause to worry.
The ringing of his mobile, shortly after four o’clock, jolted him out of his thoughts. He listened to the family liaison officer on the other end.
‘Been able to reach both of your parents. Understandably, they’re in shock. Asking whether we’d identified you properly, questioning if it’s really you. Took a while to convince them we’d found their long-lost son at last. Got there in the end, I’m pleased to say. Predictably enough, they’re ecstatic at the news.’
‘Do I get to see them today, like you said?’
‘You do. They want to be reunited with you as soon as possible, at their house. I’m to take you there but I won’t be present afterwards; they want the meeting to be private, between you and them only.’
Daniel concurred with that one; the reunion would be intensely personal, not something to share with strangers.
‘I’ll be at your flat within the hour to collect you if that’s the way you want to play it as well.’
The police car didn’t draw up outside for nearly fifty agonising minutes. On the way to his parents’ house, the liaison officer told him Howard and Sarah Cordwell lived in Richmond, having moved to London after the kidnap to be closer to Sarah’s parents. Not surprising, with such a tight-knit family, Daniel thought. There was Sarah Cordwell’s suicide attempt, for one thing. He remembered what Katie had said about his mother's descent into despair. He pictured her, devastation drowning out hope in her brain, the knife slicing through her veins, turning her bath water crimson with the blood for which she thought she no longer had any use. Jeez, he'd been through some God-awful moments in his twenty-six years, but he didn't think any of them would top what his mother had suffered. Laura Bateman deserved to burn in hell. Given half a chance, he'd stoke up the fires himself.
The battle through the rush hour traffic did nothing to ease Daniel’s shredded nerves; the turmoil in his head only increased when eventually the car pulled up outside his parents' house. Dear God. Hazy dreams were about to become solid reality; what would it be like seeing his mother again? This was it, the moment when the blurred face of the woman beside his bed would meet her flesh and blood counterpart. Would he get the usual feeling of familiarity, of security, he experienced every time he recalled the mother of so long ago from his memories? Would he feel anything when meeting his father, a man of whom he had absolutely no recollection? How would they greet each other? A manly handshake, macho slaps on the back? It hardly seemed appropriate but he couldn’t think how else to visualise it.
The place was typically Richmond, a large detached affair with trees in the front garden and a Jaguar in the drive, but Daniel barely had time to take in any details. Nor did he care about them.
He stared instead at the woman running through the open door of the house, down the drive towards the police car, as he stepped out.
She stopped in front of him. Tears were welling in her eyes and running down her face. The elation, the undisguised utter delight in her face, made something deep inside him twist with his own joy. He recognised this woman as the missing central piece of the jigsaw of his life. She slotted into place perfectly and the old sense of knowing stirred in his gut. This was his mother. Their reunion must be as intense for her, he thought. They’d bonded once, when he was fresh out of the womb, and she recognised him, her son, through the strength of their bond.
Neither spoke. Then his mother pulled him towards her, her hug fierce and possessive, ecstatic sobs shuddering through her. Daniel’s emotions swam up, thick and overpowering. A sense of justice overwhelmed him; he belonged to this woman, and something that had been wrong for a long time was being set right at last.
He became aware she was saying something. ‘Daniel. My precious baby.’
She pulled back, looking up at him, her smile shaky. ‘My darling boy. I thought I’d lost you for ever.’ She shook her head. ‘They say miracles don’t happen, but they do. I’ve got you back.’
Over her shoulder, he saw a man standing in the doorway of the house. As reluctant as he was to pull away from his mother, the need within drew him towards this man, his long-forgotten father. He moved towards the doorway, his mother's arm tight around him.
The two men stared at each other, Daniel looking at the father denied to him for twenty-two years. He retained no conscious memory of him, and yet he still felt a certain sense of recognition that hadn’t existed when he’d looked at his photograph. Not as deep, not as strong, as with his mother, yet undeniably there. Another missing piece of the puzzle of his life slotted neatly into its appointed place.
His father strode out from the doorway and pulled him into a fierce hug. ‘My son. You’re home.’ Howard Cordwell drew back and brought his wife close to him with one arm, still holding Daniel with the other. He guided them into the house.
The three of them sat on the front room couch, Sarah Cordwell’s hand clasping his.
He looked at his mother. Thank God, he couldn’t see much of a resemblance to Katie. The heart shape of her face was similar; her smile reminded him faintly of her sister but other than that, he wouldn’t have thought the two of them were related. Sarah Cordwell’s hair was a lighter brown, mixed now with a few strands of grey. Her mouth was more regular than Katie’s was. She had little in her mannerisms to remind him of her either. Perhaps once she’d had the same bullish poise of her sister. Having a child abducted and surviving a suicide attempt probably knocked the stuffing out of a person, he thought.
‘I couldn’t believe it when I got the phone call. I’d almost given up hope over the years. I didn’t think you could still be alive.’ Sarah Cordwell wiped tears from her face. Daniel’s gut clenched at the scar slashed across her raised wrist.
His mother went on. ‘They told me about that woman on the phone. Did she treat you well, Daniel? Were you happy?’
Christ. He’d conceal the wretchedness of his childhood from her. She deserved that.
‘Yes. She was good to me.’ No lie needed there, anyway. Right now it scarcely seemed to matter he’d not been happy.
His father’s hand squeezed his arm, and Daniel glanced up. His father gave him a slight nod.
Daniel grasped straightaway Howard Cordwell understood what he’d said and what he’d not said. Like him, his father wanted to shield Sarah Cordwell from additional hurt, the same as he’d protected her after he’d found her limp and bloodied in her bath, her life force draining away.
How was such a sense of collusion with his father possible when he had never really known him? Probably something inexplicable, he thought, a quirk of unspoken communication between his genes and those of his father.
He gazed at the older man’s face, seeking similarities with his own besides the green eyes. Howard Cordwell must once have had hair as dark as Daniel, although now his father sported a lot more grey than brown. His skin had started to fold into the lines of middle age, his neck somewhat slack, pouches forming under his eyes. He shared Daniel’s full mouth but the lop-sided smile was all his own. His father's face. Unremarkable in the physical sense, but something about it spoke to Daniel of the man's underlying strength.
His mother was speaking again.
‘Mum and Dad will be coming over later. They said they’d give us some time to ourselves first. They couldn’t believe it when I phoned and told them; Mum was laughing and crying and absolutely beside herself. Do you remember them at all, Daniel?’
‘No. I do remember you, though. My nanny, too.’
His mother’s expression hardened, but she didn’t say anything. Daniel continued. ‘What became of her?’
‘I have no idea. We had no contact with her after it happened. I couldn’t bear to see her.’ Sarah Cordwell’s voice began to rise. ‘She abandoned you. She left you in the flat all alone.’ Anger dripped from her words. ‘We trusted her to look after you. It should never have happened. Never.’
What could he say? He supposed she had a point, but for him, the one to blame had to be Laura Covey. Probably because his nanny had always been there, in his memories, and he remembered her as the laughing girl who played with him in the garden, and for that, he retained a certain fondness for her, affection for her smile and her swinging dark hair. He didn’t blame her; she’d not been the one to kidnap him, after all.
His mother got up and walked across the room, pulling a thick photo album from the bookcase. The leather cover was worn, the edges battered; the photos it contained had been looked through often over the years, Daniel thought. He stared at the old pictures, saw himself as a baby, as a toddler. His mother’s voice was proud, adoring, as she turned the pages. ‘You were such a beautiful baby, Daniel.’ She pointed to a photo of two small children. ‘Look. There’s you, with Katie, my little sister, your aunt. In our back garden when we lived in Bristol. Mum and Dad would come down from London with her, at least once a month, to stay. Wasn’t she pretty?’ She laughed. ‘She still is, of course.’
The younger version of Katie smiled at Daniel from the photograph, a miniature version of the woman with whom he’d started the heady journey into love, and it hurt. It goddamn well hurt.
‘Do you remember her, Daniel?’
Daniel shook his head, unable to speak.
‘You used to play together, as children. There’s only two years between you, after all. I called her, but she wasn’t home, so I left a message. Seemed so wrong, somehow, speaking into an answerphone about something as wonderful as this.’ His mother laughed. ‘You’ll love her. She’s so warm, so caring. A doctor.’ She sighed. ‘I wish she wasn’t, odd as that sounds. She told us, only yesterday, she’s emigrating from the UK to Australia. We knew they’d granted her the visa. Thing is, we all hoped she’d decide to stay in England. Especially as she’d found herself a boyfriend she seemed keen on. Never did find out his name. They've broken up, however, although she wouldn’t discuss the details. Anyway, what with the mess the NHS is in, I can’t blame her. I just wish Australia wasn’t so far away.’
‘She’ll come back to visit, love. We can fly out to see her, too.’ Howard Cordwell reached over to grasp his wife’s hand. ‘Daniel, we’ll make sure you two get together again before she goes, don’t worry.’
He forced himself to speak. ‘When will she be off?’
‘Eighteenth of next month, she said. We’ll have a leaving party for her, of course. It can be a joint one. A send-off for Katie and a celebration of having you back.’
Dear God. There would be no getting out of it. He had no option but to agree, because if he didn’t, he risked hurting his mother and the rest of his newly found family and it was better for him to take the hurt. He glanced again at the scars on his mother’s wrists. She shouldn’t have to suffer another unhappy day in her life.
‘Your grandparents will be here soon, my love.’ His mother looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘They adored you, Daniel. Their first grandchild.’
‘I can't wait to meet them.’ He had no conscious memory of them, but they formed part of his newfound identity. He’d paint over the blank spaces in his life with fresh, vibrant colours, and in a short while, he’d get to fill in the hues where his grandparents should be.
His grandmother definitely exuded the colour of melted chocolate, he decided, when half an hour later he found himself looking into her brown eyes, so evocative of Katie. She was an older version of her daughter, all wide mouth and sassy confidence. ‘Daniel. I can’t believe it.’ She pulled back from the tight hug she’d wrapped Daniel in to look at him. ‘Do you remember us at all? No?’ as Daniel shook his head. ‘Well, you were so young, it’s not surprising. My God, look at you! So tall. So handsome.’