by Shaun Baines
"What's this then?" Liz asked.
"My way of identifying an enemy. Eisha thinks we should keep track of the people in our lives and I agree. Be thankful. It's how I found you."
His daughter had opened up a whole new world to him. She was computer literate in ways he would never be, but slowly and surely, he had rummaged through the internet. It was like searching through a kitchen drawer for a spare battery. Daniel had been stunned at what was available, freely and legally. It had supplied the tools he needed to keep him safe.
"I was never going to leave something so important lying around," he said, "but it did allow me to unmask anyone who might be interested in it. The question is – why you?"
Liz's eyes travelled to the sink where the empty bottles of booze lay idle. "Because I didn't know how much you knew."
"I know you bought me like I was a side of beef," Daniel said, "and the man who sold me was Ranta Mustonen."
Liz backed away, bumping into the wall behind her. "How do you know his name?"
"That's the thing about secrets. Everybody knows them. You can close the curtains on them all you like, but they still shine through."
"How much do you know?" Liz asked, studying her hands.
When Daniel didn't answer, his mother sighed and dropped her head. "We couldn't have kids. Your father was beside himself. For a man with his reputation, he was ashamed. It looked bad and people were beginning to ask questions."
"So he called Mustonen?"
"We couldn't go through an adoption agency. People would figure out the truth." Liz swallowed a sob and regained her composure. "We had to go through the black market and Mustonen worked in that area."
"Where is he now?" Daniel asked.
Liz threw her hands in the air. "I don't know. I didn't want anything to do with him. Your Dad was ashamed. I was ashamed."
Daniel drank in the micro-signals flying off his mother like sparks. Some shone brightly and he knew them as the truth. Others fizzled to dark embers, drawing Daniel's curiosity. Were they lies? Or was Liz trying to hide something else? It was difficult to be certain.
He took a breath and calmed his racing nerves.
"Does Scott know?" Daniel asked. "That he's adopted?"
Liz buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. "Of course not. I didn't want either of you to know and you can't tell him."
"Why not? He deserves to know the truth."
"The truth brings nothing but pain," Liz shouted, her hands falling to her sides. "Surely you've figured that out by now."
He had and Daniel questioned his need to find Ranta Mustonen. It would only bring more hurt. Given no-one had seen Mustonen in years, it would be an uphill struggle and Daniel had more pressing matters to attend to.
And yet the Finn remained a phantom in his life, ever present, but intangible and out of reach.
"If I find out you're lying," Daniel said, "I'll come looking. I know where you live now."
"You'd threaten your own mother?" Liz asked and then flinched, seemingly realising the stupidity of her words. "You can look all you want, but I'm leaving."
"Leaving for where?"
The room seemed to close in on him and Daniel tugged on his collar.
"Look at this place," Liz said. "It's not worth staying for. You have your family. So I'm leaving and you'll never see me again."
"You've made it this far," Daniel said.
"Five minutes in your company and I was almost back on the booze."
Daniel smelled his mother's alcohol on his fingertips. Maybe it would be best if Liz did leave. They weren't related. She'd shown little interest in her granddaughter and yet Daniel had grown accustomed to her presence. She irritated him and she lied constantly, but because of his mother, he had learned more about his past.
And he still didn't know if she was telling the truth.
"I brought Jordan's painting with me," Daniel said. "You can give it back to him on your next therapy session."
Liz ran a finger up her throat to her chin. "I never really liked it."
"Or you could sell it for yourself. Put down a payment on a new flat. Start again."
She didn't smile or nod or thank him, but Daniel didn't expect her to.
"Do you know where Crash is now?" Daniel asked.
Liz's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"After you escaped, do you know where he went?"
Leaving the kitchen, Liz beckoned him to follow. "It's a small flat, but it has a separate utility room. Not that I can afford a washing machine."
Liz opened a door and stood to one side.
It wasn't a utility room, merely an area too small to be used for anything else. Wallpaper hung from the walls and the lino curled at the corners. Sitting in the centre was Crash. His legs were bound, tied to a water pipe in the floor. He was bent over a tin bath filled with soapy water. By his side was a pile of dirty laundry. Crash scrubbed garments up and down a washboard, his strong arm working like a piston.
"He thought he could control me the way he'd controlled everyone else, but he was wrong," Liz said.
Daniel saw the bruises on Crash's face where Liz had dissuaded him of his foolish notion.
"Perhaps you are my mother, after all," he said.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The cliff tops at Marsden were a perilous affair, made more so by Daniel. He had sawn through the safety barrier preventing people straying too close to the edge. It was a moonless night and the darkness was all encompassing. In the distance, Souter Lighthouse blared a fog horn into the rising sea mist.
Daniel watched the dark waves, pulling his jacket tight to his chest. When his phone rang, he answered it without looking.
"Is she back yet?" he asked.
There was a brief pause. "No," Sophia said, "and I'm getting worried. She usually comes to the centre at least twice a week."
"What does Bronson say?"
"He usually makes a joke. The same one about bad pennies."
The fog horn howled in the distance.
"How are you getting on?" Daniel asked. "The pair of you. Is there anything I can do?"
He heard Sophia's sharp intake of breath. "That's the thing about couples, Daniel. There's only two of them in the relationship."
Picking up the saw he'd used to demolish the safety barrier, Daniel cast it to the rocks below. "Karin is a tough kid. I'll find her. I'll make sure she's okay."
"Listen, maybe you could come to dinner? With me and Bronson. We could – "
Daniel ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket. Inching along the cliff, he stopped when his toes hung over the edge.
"Looking for someone you know?"
The voice came from the darkness and Daniel sought it out.
Crash was bound to the bloody gurney that had previously belonged in the Room.
"I dropped a pig farmer off here earlier," he said, "but it looks like he's gone."
Crash strained against the leather straps across his chest. "Is that what you're going to do to me?"
"Not exactly." Daniel stepped from the cliff and stared along a slope behind them to the silhouette of a dead tree.
"No-one crosses the great Daytons, do they?" Crash asked. "My mother was like that. Never one for a kind word."
Daniel clicked off the brakes on the gurney's wheels. Gripping its handles, he turned to the tree.
"It drove me nuts. I mean, literally," Crash said.
"You're blaming the Sheriff for you kidnaping those kids?"
Daniel saw the whites of Crash's eyes through the night.
"No, I'm blaming her for my motorbike accident," Crash said. "I wanted to show her I was a grown-up."
"And you lost an arm because you weren't." Daniel tugged at the gurney, wincing at the squeak of its wheels as they turned. "Maybe she was strict because she loved you."
"It's a funny way of showing it."
Kids, Daniel thought. They always blamed the parents. Like Daniel had. He'd rebelled against his f
ather's tyranny and his mother's lies. And what had happened? He'd grown up to be exactly like them.
Crash was the same or he would have been if he hadn't met Daniel.
"You ever hear the story about Frenchie's boys?" he asked.
Crash smiled.
"That's what I thought," Daniel said. "He had slaves too. He worked them to death and then drowned them in barrels of piss. I know you never released anyone so what did you do with yours?"
"Will you let me go if I tell you?"
Daniel paused his ascent and considered the proposal long enough for it to seem plausible.
"I moved everyone around," Crash said. "It was like shuffling a deck of cards so when one of them disappeared for good, no-one was any the wiser. That's how I controlled the panic."
"Separate an animal from the herd and lead it to slaughter," Daniel said. "So what did you do with them?"
"I delivered a lot of meat and at my prices, there weren't a lot of questions."
Daniel's mouth watered and he swallowed his repulsion. With a heave, he got the gurney moving again and continued up the slope.
"You said you'd let me go," Crash said.
Daniel gasped between breaths. "Don't think I did, actually."
"You're as big a liar as the rest of them," Crash shouted. "You're just like my mother. Just like all the rest."
Crash hated his mother as Daniel had hated his father. He hoped Eisha wouldn't end up the same way.
"Wait. What about this?" Crash asked. "Why don't I tell you something about my mother?"
But his daughter was different, Daniel thought. She wasn't rebelling. She had accepted her role and because of that, they'd found Crash. Daniel wanted her to be ordinary, but wishes didn't always come true. Kids fight back when they're forced to be something they're not.
"Are you listening to me?" Crash asked, wriggling against his bonds.
That didn't mean Daniel was going to encourage her. Soon, the gurney would disappear into a swelling tide, taking Crash with it. He would renovate the Room, sanitising its history from his daughter's mind. If she enjoyed being there so much, it would become a play area, though Daniel doubted she would use it.
Once normalised, its appeal would be lost on a girl like Eisha.
Daniel dragged the gurney up the slope, leaving tramlines in the grass. "I'm not an executioner," he said to Crash. "I gave the farmer a choice. Jump or be pushed. He chose to jump."
"But you would have pushed him if he hadn't?" Crash asked.
They reached the tree and Daniel locked the gurney brakes, pausing for breath. "Probably."
He tightened the straps around Crash's ankles, tightened them around his waist, but loosened the one around his chest and freed his arm.
"Hold this." Daniel lowered a tree branch, forcing it into Crash's hand. "I'm releasing the brakes now."
Crash quickly grabbed the branch as Daniel set the gurney loose. It rolled down the slope, jerking to a stop when the tension was reached.
"What are you doing?" Crash asked.
"You can let go," Daniel said, "and do us all a favour or you can hold on until morning. I'm sure you'll be discovered. It's usually by a dogwalker, isn't it?"
Crash peered down the slope to the emptiness of the North Sea. "I might only have one arm, but it's pretty strong."
"I thought you might say that." Daniel retrieved a memory stick from his pocket. It hung like a locket on a necklace and he placed it over Crash's head. "This was my daughter's idea. She's prepared a database of all your victims with contact details and witness statements."
He took out a marker pen and waved it in front of Crash. "But this idea was mine."
Clamping his hand around Crash's jaw, Daniel secured him to the gurney while he wrote the word 'kidnapper' on his forehead. "Just so there's no confusion."
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" Crash said, lacing each word with venom. "You know nothing."
"I know I'm going home to bed," Daniel said.
His van was in an unlit car park a quarter of a mile away. If he hurried, he might make the chip shop before it closed. Tomorrow was another day, but his mission wasn't over. Daniel still hadn't found Karin, Sophia's fake daughter. She was safe. He was sure of it, but Sophia remained worried and now that she appeared to be part of the family, thanks to Bronson, Daniel wanted to fulfil his contract.
"See you in another life, mate," Daniel said.
Crash began laughing. "Another life? That's what you had before you were kidnapped, right?"
Daniel turned his back on the car park, focusing his attention on Crash.
"What do you know about it?" he asked.
"That's what my mother used to say when I was a kid," Crash said between giggles. "If I didn't behave, I'd be given to a family – a bad family – who would know what to do with the likes of me. Someone like the Daytons."
"My bad family," Daniel whispered.
"The Sheriff worked for Ranta Mustonen, or did once. He was a kidnapper extraordinaire, but he ran an illegal adoption racket."
"You're lying," Daniel said.
"My mother wanted a fresh start in England," Crash said. "Mustonen granted her wish, but the price was a little baby called Daniel. He'd been bought by your parents and like a twisted midwife, she had to deliver him."
"From where?" Daniel shouted. "Deliver him from where?"
His loud voice startled seagulls sleeping in the cliffs. They screeched into the air and whirled about Daniel's head.
"I don't know," Crash said. "Mustonen kept all the details to himself. The Sheriff was just the wheels."
"How do you know this? The Sheriff would never tell anyone anything."
Crash snorted. "She said, we were one and the same. She told me as a warning so I wouldn't repeat her mistakes."
Daniel stomped through the grass, flattening the blades with his heavy feet.
"The Sheriff kidnapped me?" he asked the night. "She didn't want to work with me because she knew I'd discover the truth."
"You know why she wanted to start again?" Crash asked. "Because of her name. Lapsen Saalis, she was called. Apparently, she'd earned it over and over. She told Simon it meant child in Finnish, but it didn't. One night, when she'd done with punishing me for not cleaning my room, she told me it's true meaning. It meant child catcher. You get a nickname like that and you're over."
Daniel walked around the gurney, hoping for a better view of Crash's face, but it was too dark. He was hidden in shadow, but he didn't need his divining skills to get at the truth. It was in Crash's words and in his tone. As much as it made his skin crawl, Daniel knew the Sheriff had carried him from the arms of his real parents into those of the Daytons.
"Will you let me go now?" Crash asked.
"Of course not."
"That's what I thought. So I'll hang around here until I'm discovered," Crash said, "and I might be sent to jail, but not before I tell the story of how Daniel Dayton isn't the man he pretends to be."
"Names are funny things, aren't they?" Daniel asked no-one in particular. "A lifetime to build and seconds to destroy."
"Unless you let me go," Crash said. "Then I'll take your secret to my grave."
Daniel shrugged. "Yes, I think you will."
He kicked out, his large foot connecting with the tree branch. It splintered, cracking in two.
"Help me," Crash said, waving the end of the branch above him. "Please."
The gurney rolled down the slope, slowly at first before gathering speed. Crash bounced along the grass, hurtling toward the cliff. He shouted and screamed, but he couldn't defy gravity. The seagulls followed, silent this time, delaying their approach until he reached the water. When he did, they'd perch on his drowning corpse and if he floated, they would feast.
Daniel was already heading to his van when he heard the splash.
Karin would have to wait, he thought. There was a bigger quarry to hunt. Together with Bronson and his daughter, they would study the information they had. His secr
et was out so Daniel would use it to his advantage. The Dayton name meant nothing to him. His own was all he cared about.
He'd tell everyone he'd been kidnapped as a baby and that he was looking for the man responsible.
No matter where he was in the world, Daniel would find Ranta Mustonen.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Karin couldn't remember how she'd got home, save for the first painful mile of staggering toward Newcastle city centre. She lived in a three-storey house surrounded by a small garden and security gates. There were no neighbouring houses. On one side was an abandoned cafe. On the other was an empty office belonging to a recruitment agency. Like the house, they both belonged to her father.
Morning sun streamed through her blinds and she turned in her bed, forgetting her injuries, but only for a second. Pain lit up her insides like an instant dawning of light.
Karin bit down on her lip and forced herself to open her eyes. The room was as it always was. White walls. White carpet. A large double bed. She owned shelves of DVD's, computer games and CD's. The consoles and machinery she needed to play them were the latest money could buy. Her body was too damaged to move and Karin decided to lie there until the pain subsided. Entertainment would have to wait.
Guests were not allowed in her house. She didn't want her friends to see how she lived. Their parents existed on benefits. Her friends existed on what they could steal. They would never understand how a privileged child like Karin could go so bad. It had been difficult enough to secure an equal footing amongst her friends without having to explain she was anything but.
Karin thought of all she'd endured over the past few weeks. Abuse. Torture. Humiliation. There had been moments when she thought of giving up, of giving in, but there was an intractable part of her character that wasn't for sale.
She shifted under her blankets, a scent of lavender rising as she moved. Karin hoped her fellow captives had made it home safely. Adrian was probably dead and she didn't know how to feel about that. She hoped Crash was, though. And those two sadistic guards. If she'd had the strength, she would have made sure of it.
She rolled onto her side, wincing as a pain shot through her chest. Karin stared at the ivory hairbrush on her bedside cabinet. On its back was a carved image of a tower and her mind went to the last time she'd spoken to her father.
