‘It’s okay, I understand,’ Adrienne interrupts. ‘Being responsible for a child for the rest of our lives is a massively scary thing. And you’re right to be cautious, we might not even get that far. But then we might be lucky. And think what it’ll mean if we are?’
Melissa waits for her pulse to stop racing before she replaces her hand in Adrienne’s.
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be better from now on.’
‘It’ll be amazing, babe.’ Adrienne’s beaming. ‘Trust me.’
Melissa wishes she could do that. But if she can’t trust herself or Damon, how can she trust anyone?
Chapter 43
Damon
The truth hits me like a punch to the face. It’s not me who killed a child, it’s my dad. This should feel like a weight lifted from my chest, but it doesn’t. Instead, it feels heavier.
All morning I have been leaving and returning to my phone as if hoping that if I go back to the story, the letters spelling out the name on the screen will magically rearrange themselves into something else. But each time I look, the words ‘Ralf’ and ‘Lister’ remain. I press against my damaged ribs with my fingertips to check I’m not seeing things, that my hallucinations haven’t expanded from reanimating the dead to rewriting the internet. The pain alters nothing. But I still don’t want to believe it. My father can’t be the only man in the world with that name. Or even the only man in the London area. Nine million people live in the capital; there must be more than one Ralf Lister.
And then I spot a photograph, one snapped by a determined photographer running alongside a prisoner transportation van as it left court. The flash has overexposed his face and he looks ghostly and startled. I haven’t seen Dad for almost two decades, but there’s no doubt it’s him. I read the accompanying story.
A man who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 13-year-old Daisy Barber has been sentenced to sixteen years in prison.
Ralf Lister, 39, from Lambeth, South London, admitted to killing the child then dumping her body on a disused industrial estate.
Pre-sentencing, Lister was described as a prolific career criminal with previous convictions for theft, aggravated assault, battery and robbery.
Justice Mrs Stacy Denton at the Old Bailey told electrician Lister that what he had done to the girl was ‘unforgivable’.
After sentencing, senior crown prosecutor Malcolm Davies of London CPS said: ‘While Lister pleaded guilty to manslaughter and saved Daisy’s family the further pain of a trial, he has never given a full and frank explanation of where, how or why she died. But the fact remains, he took their daughter. This sentence reflects the brutality of his crime.’
The victim’s mother, Sandra Barber, told reporters on the steps of the Old Bailey, ‘Nothing will bring back our darling girl. The cruelty of her loss is unbearable. We hope that he rots in prison, where he belongs.’
That man is my father. No matter how many times I tell myself this, it refuses to completely sink in. I need time to process this. Icall in sick to work again so I can spend all day familiarising myself with the case. I’ve barely been there recently, one day won’t make any difference. Dad was apparently adamant he hadn’t deliberately killed Daisy, and the police couldn’t prove murder. CCTV cameras caught him moving Daisy’s body from his car into the industrial estate, where he stripped her of her clothes and left her hidden behind an old outbuilding.
I want to believe Dad is innocent and that there’s been a huge miscarriage of justice, but I know there wasn’t. And if that’s not enough to poleaxe me, I discover something else in another online newspaper report.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the previous year, Lister was questioned, but not arrested, in relation to the murder of schoolboy Callum Baird. The case remains open.
I put my phone down on the bed and make my way to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Now I know this is why I keep seeing Callum. Dad likely killed him, and not me. But why have Callum and Daisy chosen me as their conduit?
I also have a terrible fear I know where Mum and that little boy she carries come into the story. That Dad somehow ended each of their lives, too.
Because my dad isn’t only a murderer. He’s a serial killer.
Chapter 44
Damon
I disappear down another online rabbit hole and stare at the mugshot of my dad that the police released to the media. It’s clearer than the one taken in the back of the prison van. We share the same oval-shaped eyes, clefts in our chins, slight bends in our noses and low hairlines. I close the page, worried that, from here on in, when I look in a mirror, all I’ll see is his reflection.
Dad’s past convictions tell me why his appearances in my childhood were so sporadic. Much of his time was spent behind bars. Mum must have thought she was doing the right thing by keeping this from me.
The noise of my ringing phone distracts me, but I don’t answer when I see it’s a withheld number. Instead, I think back to the elderly man hurling abuse at me on the landing of the flats where I once lived. Now I understand he was referring to my dad when he told me, ‘Bad apples never fall far from trees.’ Ralf Lister has made me guilty by association.
Everything is becoming a little out of focus. I put my phone back down on the bedside table and lie back. My hollow stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten at all today. But I’m tooexhausted to even order myself a Deliveroo. I must have drifted off to sleep again because I wake up later with a start, aware I have company. All four of my hallucinations are here in front of me, together for the first time. But there has been a sharp decline in their appearances, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.
Chunks of Mum’s hair have been burned to the scalp and the red marks and soot on her arms are now bright blisters that extend to her hands and face. Callum’s eyes are wide and panicked and he coughs as if he is choking on something. The boy Mum holds is so pale he is almost translucent. His fingertips have blackened as if dipped in ink. Daisy’s appearance remains so damaged, so grotesque, I want to cry when I look at her.
‘I’m so, so sorry for what he did,’ I say. ‘Please tell me how I can help you?’
