Fighting Chance

by Shaun Baines

  "It was Hope," Angel said.

  "Well, silly Angel goes in to get it, but she tumbles. We had netting over the water to stop the kids falling in. Angel crashed right through it."

  "I was six," Angel said again.

  "George and I rushed outside to all hell breaking loose. Hope is standing by the pond, calm as you like, but this one," Eleanor said, pointing at Angel. "She's screaming and shouting. Her head's bobbing under the surface. She's caught in the net."

  Scott followed Eleanor's misty gaze to an empty plate at the end of the table. "She killed the only man I ever loved."

  Angel hovered by her seat, but didn't sit. Her eyes were wet and her hands trembled as she ran them through her blue hair. "It was an accident."

  Eleanor flapped her words away. "Dear George went to her aid. He doted on his girls. And he slipped, hitting his head off the concrete base. I remember how pink the water was and how the goldfish swam around his dead body. Odd how memories stay with you."

  The soup was stone cold. No-one was eating. Scott pushed his bowl away, like he had with his own memories and cast a sideways glance at Eleanor. She was polishing a spoon with a napkin, her fingertips whitening with the force.

  "I tried to remarry, to provide stability, but there wasn't room at the table." Eleanor inspected her reflection in the back of her cutlery. "And my daughter has been afraid of water ever since. Silly, isn't it? She can't even swim."

  "All I needed was for you to see me," Angel said, her face the colour of molten lead. "I'm every inch the woman my sister is, but you wouldn't let me crawl out from under her shadow. I'm as strong and as smart as any of you."

  Tapping his foot, Scott itched in his seat. It was partly down to his withdrawal, but mainly it was the Maguires. They were an irritant, to each other and to him. Scott had also been pitched against his sibling, but it was to their betterment, not their destruction. Angel was disintegrating and he guessed her sister hadn't fared much better.

  "And Hope has gone missing?" Scott asked.

  Angel ignored the question. Her eyes were glued to Eleanor's face. "You left me there. You left me in the water. My father floating beside me."

  Eleanor twirled gnarled fingers through her guard dog's hair. The Alsatian's lip curled in pleasure.

  "But now I have someone in my life who won't leave me," Angel said. She moved to Scott's shoulder, the back of her hand brushing his neck. He tried not to tense. There was a sweet scent to her that was too strong, as if she had eaten too many boiled sweets and the sucrose was seeping from her skin.

  Twisting in his seat, Scott took her hand and kissed it. "We're in this together," he said, sensing the weight of his phone in his pocket. It beeped and Scott dropped Angel's hand. There was a message from Monica.

  The package had finally arrived.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  There was a missed call from Bronson, but when Daniel tried to call him back, it went to voicemail.

  "Scott is working for the Maguires," Daniel said. "You're in danger. Get to Five Oaks as soon as you can."

  Disconnecting, he slowed his approach along the driveway. The doors to Five Oaks were open when he'd left instructions to keep them closed. The garden appeared empty, save for the brief flash of the vixen's tail as she scampered into the shrubs. There was no-one by the jetty. There was no-one strolling around the lake. The boat was moored by the shore. If his brother was at home, he wasn't outside.

  Daniel went inside, closing the doors with a gentle click and listened to the house. It rasped, like haunted houses did, but there were no other signs of life.

  "Is anybody here?" he shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls.

  Jogging up the wooden staircase, Daniel pivoted around the top post and down the landing to Eisha's room. Her bed was made. Her flat screen television was off. He checked her wardrobe and all her clothes were there. Her bedroom was undisturbed, except for the dolls. Eisha liked to line them up on her shelf, but they lay on the floor, like the re-enactment of a deadly battlefield.

  "Eisha?" Daniel shouted along the landing. "Eisha?"

  Not knowing where to go, he marched to the guest room where Lily and Panwar were staying. The door screeched as he entered. It wasn't a room he visited often. There was a king size bed and a duvet without a cover. An oil painting of a dark forest hung lopsided on the wall, neighbour to a dirty mirror. Someone had written 'Clean Me' on its surface. Lily's bag was by a chest of drawers, untouched. There was nothing of Panwar's clothing, but his laptop was on a desk in the corner, the on light pulsing red.

  Daniel opened the computer and the screen glowed to life, populated with black and white images. They were grainy and shot from odd angles. He examined each one, his brow knitting together. The first few were of rooms that looked vaguely familiar. The next were taken outside. There was a lake and an island. There was a gravelled driveway with Victorian lampposts. His van was parked by the front of the house.

  He examined the last image and saw Eisha kneeling by her slide. In the background, her play swings wafted in the breeze. These weren't pictures, Daniel realised. This was live action captured on camera. Five Oaks was under surveillance.

  His eyes crawled over the image of his daughter. Now that he knew what he was looking at, he saw trees swaying and birds flitting by as black dots on a grey sky. And there was something else; something lurking next to his daughter.

  Daniel stumbled over his feet and rushed out of the room.

  The conservatory led into the garden. Daniel's fingers fumbled with the key. He wrestled with the stubborn handle, shaking the panes of glass above him. The lock broke and the door swung open. Daniel was greeted by a cool breeze and he leapt outside, skidding on wet grass.

  Eisha looked up as he ran toward her, hiding something behind her back. Her face paled and her mouth moved. Either her voice was lost on the wind or she was whispering to herself. Daniel closed in, but she sidestepped him, scuttling in the direction from which he'd come. Daniel was about to call her name, but she was too quick. Eisha vanished into the house, her summer dress trailing after her, like the disappearing tail of the vixen.

  Lying at the base of the yellow plastic slide, the shape by his feet was motionless. Eisha had used the slide twice before getting bored. The first time, she'd insisted he watched. On her second attempt, he pretended to take a call on his phone. Since then, it had collected leaves, but a recent addition had been made.

  Panwar lay dead, a gunshot to the chest. Blood soaked through a dressing gown that looked like it belonged to Daniel. His blank eyes stared at the clouds skating above. He wore a smile that didn't belong to him. It had been painted on in red, like the smile of Eisha's massacred doll.

  Dead people only talked on the autopsy table and Daniel filled in the gaps. Panwar was a computer geek or had been until he was killed. From the images on his laptop, it was clear he'd rigged the surveillance, but that wasn't what troubled Daniel and he chewed on a fingertip. Entrance to Five Oaks came by invitation. How Panwar must have laughed when Daniel had told him that. Because that's how he got in. The break-in at Lily's was a set-up and it was Daniel who had brought him home.

  Gurning into the sky, his fists clenched in a white grip. Daniel kicked Panwar's dead body, over and over until a sheen of sweat coated his spine. He grabbed a breath, turning to the house. From a first floor window, Eisha was watching him and he took off at a sprint.

  But the upper floor was clear. There was no sight or sound of her. Downstairs, he stalked through the kitchen, reception and storage rooms. Doors were opened and slammed shut. He entered the billiard room with its mahogany panelled walls and green baize tables. It smelled of cigar smoke, a ghostly reminder of days gone by. His father had used the room to entertain the Newcastle elite; judges, members of parliament and journalists. They sipped malt whisky from the bar and puffed on Montecristos. No-one had been in there since Ed had died and Daniel was about to leave when a musty breeze moved over his face. He looked to the panelled wall
and saw the shadow of a crack.

  The door to the wine cellar was open.

  Climbing down wooden steps warped with damp, his feet found the compacted earth of the floor. Latticed shelving held grimy bottles running both sides of the room. Cobwebs swung from flickering lights. Oak barrels housed rust coloured spirits. In the corner was a copper still bought from a Scottish laird down on his luck.

  At the far end of the cellar was another door, leading to a place no child should be.

  "Eisha? Are you in there?" Daniel asked.

  A muffled footstep answered his call and he opened the door to what his parents referred to as The Room.

  The walls were covered in soundproofing so thick a passing dignitary might select a favourite Chardonnay without hearing the screams for help. There was a water supply and drainage for waterboarding, an electricity supply for shock treatment and a four-foot-high tool chest containing everything from cudgels to razor blades. In the centre was a metal gurney with leather straps falling from its sides, looking like the boneless arms of a cadaver.

  It was a horror chamber. Whenever his parents argued or the police were at the front door, he came to The Room, pressing one ear to the soundproofing and clamping a hand over the other. It was his sanctuary and later, his training room.

  Eisha stood with her back to the tool chest, brushing her hands down her dress.

  "You shouldn't be in here," Daniel said. "This place is for grown-ups."

  "Like you?"

  "For grown-ups like me and I don't want you to be like me."

  "But I am and I like it here."

  The words cut into his heart, but Eisha wasn't exactly like him. There was a darker level to her he didn't understand. The way she broke into his bedroom and how she was primed for violence. It took Daniel years to feel the ease she displayed so cheerfully. He suffered from nightmares in a way he didn't believe his daughter did.

  "Why did you do it?" he asked.

  "There was a man," Eisha said. "He took Auntie Lily. I was in the trees, but I saw him."

  "Are you alright?"

  Eisha nodded. "But he chased Uncle Panwar into the garden. He had a gun. There was a noise and Uncle Panwar fell down."

  While Daniel was putting Marvin out of his misery, his home had been raided. Daniel beat a fist on his chest. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. He checked his phone, but there was no reply from Bronson. He tapped out a text message ordering him to hurry up. Bronson knew where Scott lived. Daniel's brother wasn't going to see another day.

  But right now, he had another problem.

  "That doesn't answer my question, young lady. You know what I'm talking about. Why did you do that to Panwar?"

  Eisha tucked her hair behind her ears and for a second, she looked like a child. "He was sad. At the end. It made me feel bad. I wanted him to be happy."

  "Sad? He was dead," Daniel said, trying to control the tension in his voice. "You painted a clown's smile on a dead man's face. What with? Lipstick?"

  Her eyes roamed the room, settling on a coil of barbed wire.

  "Where did you get it from?" Daniel asked.

  Shrugging, she leaned against the toolbox and folded her arms. It didn't take a lie detector like Daniel to see she was hiding something. He pushed her aside and looked through the drawers. Eisha offered no resistance, but kicked out at the gurney, its leather strap arms flapping in protest.

  Inside one drawer was a selection of cleavers, stiletto knives and scalpels. The next drawer held nails and screws, like most tool boxes did, though these were caked in dried blood. When he opened the third drawer, Daniel ended his search. It was empty, or almost empty.

  Eisha tried to close it, heedless of Daniel's fingers, but he held firm. His daughter had a toy chest in her room, but this was a toy chest of a different kind. This was Eisha's hiding place. The lipstick was there, something called Pink Kiss, a shade he knew Lily sometimes wore.

  He found a brass key. "Is this how you get in and out of my bedroom?"

  "There are two Daddy," she said. "One for me. One for you."

  At least, he wasn't going mad, he thought. There was a mouldering piece of fruit he guessed was from Lily's house and the tie he had knotted to the gatepost in the cemetery. Daniel poked a thin, plastic bag with his finger, realising too late it contained dog shit from his father's defiled grave.

  He may not be going mad, but his daughter's future seemed uncertain.

  "I don't know what's wrong with you," Daniel said. "I think we need help."

  His head was crammed with questions, like birds trapped in a burning building. Was this Eisha's way of keeping loved ones close? In a drawer used to house torture equipment? What about Panwar? Was he dead or simply dying when she painted his face?

  He remembered a phrase Lily had used and Eisha's gruesome toolbox made sense. Where Daniel's body had been branded by the scars of his existence, his 'souvenirs of a violent life,' Eisha hoarded hers in a toolbox, too young to wear them on her skin.

  But why? Why had she done that to Panwar?

  Eisha laid a hand on his arm. "I'm your daughter. That's all."

  She held her other hand behind her back.

  "What are you hiding?" Daniel asked. He expected Eisha to protest, but she offered her prize freely.

  "I took it when Panwar was in the shower," she said. "I thought he was my friend."

  It was a memory stick, black and sleek. Daniel held it between his thumb and forefinger. He swallowed and ran his tongue over his teeth. There was a name tab on the side and written along it was Daniel's name.

  "Can I keep the rest of my treasure?" Eisha asked.

  Daniel slipped the memory stick into his pocket, stealing it from his thieving daughter. Whatever was wrong with Eisha wasn't her fault. Daniel had to remember that. She was his daughter and the fault lay with him.

  "Maybe," he said.

  There was too much to do. Lily was in danger. Daniel needed to find her, but while Panwar lay exposed in the garden, there was greater danger at Five Oaks. The memory stick would have to wait. As would Eisha's tool chest.

  Daniel reached for a roll of plastic sheeting. "We've got work to do."

  Chapter Forty-Four

  "What have you done, Sprout?" Monica shouted, snatching the gun from his hand.

  Sprout bumped into a sideboard and jostling a jam jar holding Monica's flowers. There was no water, just a festering inch of jam and the petals were drying to dust.

  They were in the front room of her home with a sagging sofa covered in a patchwork quilt. The floor was bare and littered with cereal bowls encrusted with the scabs of cornflakes. Dregs of tea curdled inside scattered mugs.

  Lily stood in the corner, straddling a pile of takeaway cartons. "I don't understand what I'm doing here."

  She had met Monica once before at her marriage to Ed Dayton. The wedding had been held at Lumley Castle in Durham. Monica was the princess and Ed was her knight in shining armour. Monica had regaled Lily with details of her upcoming honeymoon. Lily remembered staring at the back of Monica's head as she turned and tottered into a crowd of well-wishers, willing her to fall from her ridiculous heels. Lily's own honeymoon had been cancelled by Scott so he could negotiate a shipment of Albanian hashish and Monica had known that.

  Monica's new home smelled of sweat and stale food. Mould crawled along the ceiling and the air was cold.

  Pacing the room, Monica supported her pregnant stomach with Sprout's gun in her hand. "She looks terrified. What did you do to her? Did you touch her?"

  "Of course not," Sprout said. "I wouldn't do that to you."

  "After everything that happened, I thought you'd gone away," Lily said to Monica. "Where have you been?"

  Sprout twitched and held his chin high. "She's been with me. I look after her now."

  "Don't listen to that idiot," Monica said.

  Next door, Mrs Clearby turned on some music. The rousing march of a brass band reverberated through the walls. Rallying trumpets caused the
dirty cereal bowls to dance.

  "Why are you always getting at me?" Sprout asked. "I thought you loved me."

  Coughing into her hand, Lily inched around Monica. "I'm not a Dayton anymore. I have nothing to do with this. Please just let me go."

  "You are part of this," Monica said with a sly smile. "It takes more than divorce papers and a change of address to escape this life. Be quiet. Your boyfriend will be here soon enough."

  The muffled brass band stopped between tracks. The pause felt prolonged and Lily listened to her thudding heart in the silence. A new track began, a requiem of melancholy notes and Lily tried to ignore it. "I think Panwar planned this," she said.

  "Who the hell is Panwar? I'm talking about Daniel." Monica ground her heel into the floor. "It's always about Daniel. He has something we want. Now we have something he wants."

  Lily's cheeks flushed. "Daniel doesn't want me."

  "I know that feeling." Sprout flicked the jar holding his flowers. Brown petals fluttered to the sideboard and he swept them into his hand. With nowhere to put them, he sprinkled them into his pocket, patting them through his tracksuit. "But I finally found someone who did want me. A box of hash browns. That's all it took. And then I met Scott and it was over."

  The fetid air was claustrophobic. "What do you mean? Scott?" Lily asked.

  "That's the father," Sprout said, his mouth twisting as he spat out the words.

  "He's alive?" The colour leached from Lily's face. She grew light-headed and braced her hand against the wall. "He's the father?"

  Rubbing the gun over her stomach, Monica's face glistened with pride. "My due date is next week."

  "Nine months," Lily said to herself. Her hand went to her own stomach, but hers was flat and empty, save for the sickness threatening to launch up her throat.

  "How long have you been divorced?" Monica asked. "By my reckoning, we conceived around the time you signed the papers. When one door closes, another one opens, eh?"