by Shaun Baines
Sophia didn't respond, but her silence was weighted.
Daniel couldn't deny the quiet accusation. It was his business to be selective. Who to help and who to hurt. He didn't feel guilty, no matter how hard Hannah and Rachel were crying.
"Those kids outside are the same as Rachel," Sophia said. "The same as Karin."
"They were all abducted?"
"No, but they all have something missing from them. They're all broken in the same way. At least, if they're here, I can keep them safe."
"Given how many kids have been kidnapped, I'd say you were failing." Daniel looked to Hannah as she consoled her friend. "I trust that girl more than I trust you and she doesn't like it here."
"Hannah thinks I'm too soft, but I don't think violence solves anything."
Daniel stroked the abrasions on his knuckles. "Then why come to me?"
"You saw what I do for a living," Sophia said. "I wear rubber gloves. The truth is I don't want to get my hands dirty."
"You can't smother the fighter out of someone. You can only control it."
"Hannah enjoys it too much," Sophia said. "She won't turn the other cheek, no matter how scarred it gets."
When Daniel's father returned from the scout hut, he'd brought with him the scoutmaster, Mr Aubrey. He was a round man in his sixties, who had volunteered his spare time to instruct boys in outdoor pursuits.
"We don't want you back," he had said to Daniel. "You don't belong with the others."
Ed Dayton shook Mr Aubrey by the shoulder.
"And you weren't good at it, either," the scoutmaster continued. "We were laughing at you behind your back."
The tears had welled in Daniel's eyes, even as he saw the same tears mirrored in Mr Aubrey.
Ed had leered at his son. "You belong with us," he'd said. "Now hit this guy so hard he sees stars."
Back among the hospital beds, Daniel stared at the struggling boiler. "Violence is not a weakness," he said. "Hurting people is difficult."
"They're just kids in pain. I don't blame Hannah for how she's turned out, but she needs to grow up."
"My Dad always said they should bring back national service," Daniel said. "Let the army deal with them."
"What's a street gang if not an army?" Sophia asked. "Listen, you might not like what I've done or how I've lied to you, but we still need your help. So will you find these missing kids or not?"
Rachel and Hannah had stopped crying. They huddled together, watching him through red eyes.
"Will you?" Hannah asked.
The rejected. The wasters. The waifs and strays. The names tumbled around Daniel's head, but he didn't know if they were his words or his father's. Working for the Daytons had given him structure and a sense of duty. So what if it was at the expense of his childhood?
Ed Dayton hadn't just bought Daniel from Ranta Mustonen. Daniel had been recruited to join his father's army and was all the better for it.
He cast his eyes around the expectant faces, feeling his shoulders drop.
"I don't belong with you," he said, leaving the room.
Chapter Thirty
Storming out of the scout hut, Daniel was met with dark clouds swirling over the Newcastle skyline. Traffic fumes and the distant cry of seagulls assaulted his senses. He stumbled and tripped over a stack of Styrofoam boxes.
Sophia rushed outside in time to see him splayed on the ground. "Be careful."
"It's no good telling me now, is it?" Daniel said with a snarl. "What is all this stuff?"
"Cleaning products," Sophia said. "Those toilets aren't cleaned with elbow grease."
She restacked the boxes until they reached waist height. "You don't have to help me, but please help these kids. I'm sorry if I misled you, - "
"I'm not as easily fooled as Bronson," Daniel said, interrupting, but even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. He'd been conned by this woman every step of the way and it rankled him.
"Is that what this is about?" Sophia asked. "Your friend?"
Daniel poked his tongue into his cheek, pointing at the boxes. "Why don't you get your bleach from the supermarket like everyone else?"
"Because everyone else has money," Sophia said. "This lot is dodgy. I get a delivery whenever they fall off the back of a lorry."
Despite the fresh air, or as close to fresh as Newcastle got, Daniel was feeling claustrophobic and he fished in a pocket for his van keys. Daniel didn't know where to go next, but getting out of Byker seemed like a good idea.
He was stopped by a bandaged hand on his arm.
In the grey light, Rachel appeared wraithlike. Her skin was translucent, her eyes watery and red.
"Why won't you help us?" she asked, her voice rasping.
"You don't need the likes of me here," Daniel said. "I only bring destruction."
Rachel sucked in a sob, clamping her lips shut, as if fearful it might escape. "Okay," she said.
Yanking ragged sleeves over her hands, Rachel shuffled toward the scout hut.
"Wait," Daniel said. "Why don't you go home?"
"I don't have one."
"Everyone has a place to go," Daniel said, wincing at the naivete of his words.
"It's just a house where I keep my things. It's not a home."
CARNAGE AT THE SCOUT HUT. That's what the headline had read on the front page of the Evening Chronicle. Daniel still had the article somewhere at Five Oaks, pressed neatly between two books he'd never read.
His father didn't appreciate literature, either, but Ed Dayton understood the role that families played in a young man's life.
"I can give you a lift home," Daniel said. "If you don't want to stay, we can pick up your things. I'll find you somewhere to stay. We'll find you a new home."
"I want to be with Hannah," Rachel said.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "This isn't a family. It's a collection of victims. At least let your parents know you're okay."
The resolve in Rachel's face softened. "I'm not staying."
"Okay," Daniel said, "but let's see what happens."
With a backwards glance at Sophia, they climbed into his van and left her behind.
Like Sophia on their fateful trip to Bon Bon Voyage, Rachel remained largely silent through the short journey, offering whispered directions the closer they came to her house. Perhaps it was his driving, Daniel thought and made an effort not to speed.
They left the Byker Wall, continuing on to a street facing the Newcastle Greyhound Stadium. Torn betting slips fluttered along the pavement, but the semi-detached houses were well-maintained with only a handful of boarded up windows.
"That's my house," Rachel said.
"Is that your Dad?" Daniel asked as they parked opposite.
The man in question hammered his fists against a blue door. The hinges rattled against the blows. He wore a black T-shirt stretched around the kind of neck that spoke of too many gym hours swallowing too many steroids. Even from this distance, Daniel saw thick veins wrapped like ivy around the man's bulging forearms.
Daniel squirmed in his seat. "Looks like he's lost his key."
"I don't have a Dad," Rachel said.
No-one answered the door, but Daniel wasn't surprised. Knocking that hard guaranteed it would remain shut.
"Wait here," he said and climbed out of the van. He crossed the street, his eyes burrowing into the back of the man's head.
"Problem?" Daniel asked.
The man turned and the scowl on his face radiated into a look of recognition. "What brings you here?" he asked.
Daniel groaned inwardly, but held out his hand. "How's it going, Butler? Your date not in?"
Butler had worked for Daniel's father, but all ties had been severed when he did time for GBH. There could be no connections between a Dayton and a jailbird. It was bad for business. From what Daniel remembered, Butler was a decent bloke, albeit liberal with his fists. He had aged since Daniel had last seen him, but whether that was a factor of time or prison food, it was difficult to tell.
&nb
sp; Jerking his thumb toward the door, Butler spat on the ground. "The bitch is in there, but she won't open the door. I don't like making repeated visits."
Some of the paint on the door had been dislodged by Butler's fists. It fell as blue snowflakes gathering in a pile by Daniel's feet.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
Butler reached into his back pocket and produced a card, offering it to Daniel.
Reading the inscription, he gave Butler an incredulous stare. "You're a bailiff?"
"I needed a job when I got out," Butler said. "I like it. Work my own hours and I get to throw my weight around."
Daniel scanned the outside of the house, from the flaky door to the roof with its missing tiles. "Taking money from poor people, eh?"
"Just like the old days," Butler said with a grin.
"And how much do they owe?"
"Three grand, but it's going up by the minute."
It was a lot to borrow for people living in such a shitty neighbourhood, Daniel thought.
Daniel looked to the tiny figure of Rachel curled up in the passenger seat of his van. "Did they say what they wanted the money for?" he asked.
Butler shrugged. "Can't remember. Personal reasons. Trouble with their daughter. She ran away or something." He hammered on the door again, sending more flakes spiralling into the air. "Hey, you wanna help kick this door down?"
"Bailiffs aren't allowed to do that," Daniel said.
"These are the forgotten people, mate. No-one cares what happens to them. Your Dad told me that."
But Daniel cared and he clenched his hand. For all the terror Rachel had endured, he was suddenly jealous of her. Rachel's mother was behind that door. A woman willing to face down a gorilla like Butler. Maybe she wasn't perfect, but she'd proven herself by dallying with a loan shark. That was all Daniel needed to know.
Butler raised a finger to the sky. "I've had an idea. Why don't we pour petrol through the letterbox? Set it alight? That'll get the old bitch out of the house."
Grabbing Butler's finger, Daniel forced it back. The crack of bone was lost in Butler's scream. Daniel yanked it left and right, building the noise into a melodic howl, as if he was conducting an orchestra.
Butler dropped to his knees, reaching in supplication to Daniel.
Footsteps clattered to a stop behind them. Rachel gasped for breath, her body trembling. She clutched at the space of her missing finger.
"What are you doing?" she shouted.
"You asked for my help," Daniel said. "This is what it looks like."
He hauled Butler to his feet and spun him in a circle. When he had gained enough momentum, Daniel hurled him into the door.
It collapsed under his weight. In the hallway beyond was a thin faced woman in her fifties.
"Your mother has lost everything to get you back home," Daniel said to Rachel. "You don’t have to stay, but the least you can do is say thank you."
Rachel traced her foot along the broken pavement. "You don't know what it was like."
A groan from the ground reminded Daniel of Butler's presence. The bailiff was attempting to stand. His eyes were glazed and a thin strand of saliva looped from his chin.
Daniel swung a fist, connecting with Butler's temple and there was no more groaning.
"Some people have it worse than you," Daniel said.
Rachel's mother finally came to the door. She looked to Rachel and wrung her hands.
Daniel detected the stench of alcohol on her and decided to wait by the van, as mother and daughter stood over Butler's body.
His phone sounded and Daniel pressed it to his ear. It took a beat to make sense of the shouting at the other end. When he did, the phone slipped from his grasp.
"Forget all of that nonsense," he shouted at Rachel, slapping the roof of his van. "It's not safe."
Chapter Thirty-One
Daniel forced his way through the traffic, his ancient vehicle juddering under the burden of speed. Stuck behind a delivery van, he slammed his hand on the steering wheel.
"Is everything okay?" Rachel asked.
Daniel glanced at her, appraising her through cool eyes. "Why did they take you?"
"I don't know." Rachel twisted in her seat. "They snatched me from my garden."
Daniel blared the horn. "That's a lie," he said. "You don't have a garden."
The delivery van indicated and swerved left into an estate. Daniel pressed hard on the accelerator, the engine howling in protest. They careened along a dual carriageway back to the scout hut.
Rachel moved to switch on the radio and Daniel flicked her finger away.
"What are you hiding?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"Are you ashamed? It wasn't your fault."
Her eyes glazed over. "I used to work in a shoe shop on Northumberland Street. It was a Saturday job and I was on my way home."
Daniel was suddenly blocked by an Audi doing the speed limit.
"An older girl stepped out in front of me. Stopped me on the street. I knew her from school. She knew I had a job. She wanted my wages."
"You were mugged?"
Rachel ran a finger around the lip of her collar. "The money was for my Mam. It paid for her booze. Some of it, anyway."
The glare of the Audi's brake lights deepened the shadows of Daniel's frown.
"How did the Motorheads get a hold of you?"
"I don't know," Rachel said. "I was thinking about my Mam, about my home and then this girl came out of nowhere. All I remember is sitting on top of her, my knuckles covered in blood and then some guy throwing me into the back of a van."
"You didn't cause your abduction," Daniel said. "No matter what you were doing at the time."
The Audi slipped into another lane, tired of being hounded by Daniel.
Rachel wiped her eyes. "If I'd kept walking or given her the money, maybe they wouldn't have taken me."
They reached the scout hut and Daniel rolled the van to a stop while surveying the scene. Sophia's boxes were strewn around the car park, bottles of bleach gathering in corners like rats. The door to the hut hung off its hinges and someone's baseball cap lay discarded among the weeds.
"That's not how these things work," Daniel said to Rachel, silently wondering if he was wrong, "but you better stay with me, just in case."
They walked into the hut together and were met by the sound of sobbing. Tables were up-ended, their wonky legs splayed in the air. Posters warning of STD's were in crumpled rags on the floor.
Sophia wrapped her arms around as many teenagers she could hold while Hannah paced the floor in angry circles. Her gingerbread scar glowed red.
"Where the hell did you go?" Hannah asked, shoving him in the chest.
Daniel stood firm and she bounced backwards.
"What happened?" he asked.
Hannah kicked him in the shin and it was Daniel's turn to hobble backwards.
"You abducted me," she shouted, "but you got me believing you might be a good guy. Then you say you aren't going to help after all. You take Rachel away and I start thinking you've abducted her."
The pain in his leg spread like a crack in glass. Daniel urged himself not to rub it, but his shin really hurt.
Rachel crept out from behind him. "He took me home," she said, peering at his strained face. "I didn't want to go, but I'm glad I did. He was right."
Some of Hannah's anger dissipated. "How was your Mam?" she asked.
Rachel shrugged. "Drunk. The usual."
"How do you two know each other?" Daniel asked.
Hannah and Rachel linked arms. "We were abducted at the same time," they said as one.
Daniel glared at Rachel. "Hannah was the girl who tried to mug you?"
"We went into the warehouse together," Hannah said. "They tried strapping me to the chair, but I got loose. I jumped a fence."
She opened her hands to show scarred palms. They were like ordnance lines on a haphazard map. Daniel had seen something similar when a man he was chasing v
aulted a barbed wire fence. Together with the gingerbread man scar on her face, Hannah's life was being written on her flesh.
Sophia ushered the cowering teenagers through the door marked with an X. She glanced at Daniel over her shoulder before disappearing.
"So what happened?" Daniel asked.
Hannah's eyes grew steely. "We were attacked."
"Attacked by who?"
One poster remained on the wall. It spoke of stranger danger and Hannah yanked it down.
"They came back," she said, screwing it into a ball. The image of a man in sunglasses and trench coat crushed under her fingers. "The Motorheads."
Hannah produced her vaping pen and drew hard on its artificial smoke. "I don't know how they found us."
"Doesn't matter," Daniel said. "Looks like they stumbled onto a bigger gang. No wonder they came off worse."
"No-one threw a punch, except me," Hannah said.
"How many were taken?" Rachel asked.
"None." Hannah hurled the crunched poster at Daniel. "We were lucky."
"If someone rises against you, it's about them," he said. "Not about how you react."
"Do you honestly believe that? You of all people?" Hannah raised her fist, turning it in the light to show the blood congealing on her knuckles.
Daniel grabbed her hand, examining it carefully. With the pad of his thumb, he cleared away the stains, expecting to find a cut or laceration somewhere.
Her knuckles were uninjured. The blood didn't belong to Hannah.
"You fought them off? All of them?" Daniel asked, nipping the inside of his lip with his teeth. It was impossible to read the girl. He was a lie detector and Hannah either told the truth or kept quiet. There was nothing to detect.
"I don't understand you," Daniel said. "You could be anywhere. Why here?"
"The question is – why did you decide to leave?" Hannah asked.
God, she was annoying. His mind flashed to Eisha and wondered how he would feel if she grew up to be like Hannah.
"Sophia has been lying to me from the start," he said. "That's on me. She threw me the worried mother routine and I fell for it."
"It's not a routine," Hannah said.
"She claims she doesn't know where those kids are, but she does." Daniel reached into his pocket, producing the silver teddy bear he found at the warehouse. "This belongs to Sophia. She was there. She's a liar."
