‘A station in Bromley-by-Bow. London.’
‘I know where fucking Bromley is,’ she snaps. ‘Look it up. Is there a telephone number?’
‘Yes.’
‘Call it. You’re going to admit right now, in front of me, to what you did.’
‘I already told you I would.’
‘I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, son. So if you want to know anything else, you’ll call him now.’
I highlight the phone number on the website and call it. The twelve long rings it takes for them to answer are made more excruciating by the awkward silence in the car. ‘Can I speak to DS Barney Flynn please?’ I eventually ask.
The switchboard operator transfers me to another number. ‘It’s an answerphone,’ I tell my grandmother, and I’m about to hang up.
‘Leave a message,’ she says.
‘Saying what?’
‘Work it out.’
I’m put on the spot. ‘Hello, DS Flynn, my name is Damon Lister ... my dad was Ralf Lister, who was imprisoned for the killing of Daisy Barber. I wonder if you could call me back.’
‘Tell him why,’ my grandmother interjects.
‘Because I know my dad isn’t guilty,’ I add hastily. ‘I’m responsible for her death and he was trying to protect me.’
I leave my number, hang up and look at her with daggers as equally sharp as hers. ‘Happy?’
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she replies, feigning nonchalance. ‘So go on then. Ask away.’
Chapter 86
Damon
‘So what happened the day Daisy died?’ I ask.
‘Your mum came home early from work to find you burying a bloody T-shirt and jeans at the bottom of the wash bin,’ my grandmother recalls. ‘You tried to talk your way out of it like the born liar you are, claiming it was another one of your nosebleeds. But she didn’t believe you. Too much blood. Finally you broke down and admitted to what you did. Bobbi called Ralf, bawling, and we got to hers to find her pinning you up against the fridge. She was hysterical. It was only after Ralf dragged her off you that you told them you didn’t mean to hurt Daisy but that she didn’t like you in the way you liked her.’
I should want to fold in on myself in shame, but I don’t. I remain strangely collected.
‘It was your mum who wanted to call the police,’ she continues, ‘but your dad talked her out of it. Said he’d sort it out. That what goes around comes around, whatever that meant.’
I’m about to ask why he did that, when I answer my own question. I assume he never forgave himself for making me complicit in covering up the death of Callum Baird. He told mebefore he drove away, leaving me to get help, that he was supposed to protect me, not the other way around. I don’t mention this to my grandmother because I don’t know if she’s aware of what he did. Besides, she is satisfied with her own interpretation.
‘Told me it was his fault you turned out a wrong’un because you didn’t have no father figure around to set you straight,’ she continues. ‘Regretted he didn’t fight harder for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
She hesitates, as if she doesn’t want to continue this story. As if whatever she has to tell me might be something I want to hear.
‘What do you mean?’ I repeat.
‘He never wanted to give up on you even though he fucked it up for himself by getting into trouble with the law. He wasn’t a bad boy – not like you – but he served three years for kicking the shit out of that bloke your mum was seeing, the one who knocked you both about. Crushed a bunch of discs in his spine. Never walked properly again. Then later Ralf got done for robbing a corner shop when your mum went all looby loo and locked herself in the flat and couldn’t work or afford to keep a roof over your heads. The gun didn’t even have a bloody trigger, but they threw the book at him. He gave all he stole to Bobbi, and what’d he get for it? Her stopping him from seeing you when he was released. He begged her for access, threatened to go to court, wanted shared custody, but she wasn’t having any of it. She knew a court would never side with a criminal over a mum.’
For all these years, I’ve thought he gave up on me. Like so many other assumptions I’ve made, I was wrong.
‘What did Dad do after I admitted I’d hurt Daisy?’
