Stolen Child (36 page)

Dear Joy,

Your email has been brought to my attention. DNA testing is a very sophisticated tool for establishing identity and I wish I could give you a different answer.

Using tests on sixteen different areas on the DNA molecules submitted for Mr David Dowling and Mr Joey O’Sullivan, we have established a definitive profile on both. They are father and son.

Unfortunately, in the case of your own DNA molecule, the results were incompatible. No relationship could be established between you and Mr David Dowling or between you and Mr Joey O’Sullivan.

I am sorry to have to break this news to you as I have established from your correspondence that you had hoped for a different result. But I’m afraid you must take the result as definitive and capable of standing up in a court of law.

On a personal note, this sounds like a complex situation and I hope you have people around you who can help you come to terms with the changes taking place in your life.

With my best regards,

Jon Sutton

Managing Director

T.R.A.C.E. Laboratories Inc.

The seats in Danny’s Boxster are heated. Joy wriggles deep into the passenger seat and opens a packet of Rolos, leans over and places one on his tongue. She remembers an old advertisement she used to watch on television. Something about loving someone enough to give them your last Rolo. Her mother used to chant it when she gave her a treat.
Do you love me enough to give me your last Polo, Rolo, jelly bean, jelly baby?

‘Where to?’ Danny shouts and she shouts back, ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road all the way home.’

Danny doesn’t want to go home. Home is misery. His father wants to sell the Boxster. Boom is over, he’s told Danny. The Celtic Tiger has become a dead dodo and no one’s buying or selling houses in Ireland, Spain or Timbuktu.

‘He can go take a fucking jump to himself,’ says Danny. ‘No one’s taking my car. Let him sell her fucking jewellery if he wants to lighten his load.’

His anger has been burning slowly ever since she got into the car but he can hardly expect her sympathy. Her, of all people.

‘A car is
nothing.
’ She has to yell above the music. ‘I’ve to give back my father.’

For some reason he thinks this is hilarious and she laughs along with him until her sides ache. ‘I’ve to give back my gran and my half-brother and my house and my friends and my identity,’ she shouts. ‘Beat that.’

He drives through the wide wrought-iron gates of Phoenix Park. The zoo is here. She used to visit it with her so-called grandfather and Tessa whenever her so-called mother brought her to Dublin for a visit.

‘My granddad and step-grandmother,’ she shouts. ‘I’ve got to give them back as well. My mother doesn’t count. Or does she?’

‘Does she what?’ Danny accelerates along a wide, straight road.

‘Does she count as a give-back, seeing as how she’s dead?’

‘Guess not. I wish I got to shaft my family. My old man’s turned the heat off in the swimming pool. Swear to Christ, it’s like a fucking icebox.’

‘Tough shit, Danny Boy.’

The car is powerful but small, only two seats. She wishes it was summer time so that Danny could open the roof and allow all the anger contained inside it to escape. Anger frightens her. She has tried to keep it under control since the press conference. Six stitches in her forehead. Her poor war-torn, scarred forehead. She had a fringe cut to hide them but they throb tightly when Danny turns the volume higher on the stereo.

Joy wants silence, not noise. She no longer wants to listen to voices talking reassuringly about grave miscarriages of justice and heads rolling. When silence settles she can hear her father’s heart beating far too fast. She hears her grandmother’s anxiety gnawing her chest. And Joey…what can she hear when she thinks about Joey? Chains breaking, sundering forever the links that once bound them together.

He sat for ages in her room today. Someone should have objected. He is not her brother and he was sitting with her on her bed. They could have done anything, kissed, even done
it
and that would have been all right. No incest involved. No even a molecule. He told her she would always be part of his family. No matter what DNA decreed, she was bound to them by love. On the night of the party,
she wanted to kiss him. She remembers that crazy delirious longing to press her body close to his, closer than a brother and sister ever ought to be. It made sense at last, but all she wants is to turn back time. To be tortured and anxious because she was in love with her half-brother, and it felt half wrong, half right. Now, it’s
all
right, and that’s the most terrible truth.

‘You must meet your real parents,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sooner or later. They’re not to blame for what happened.’

‘Do you believe our father knew?’ She hated asking him that question but Joey, like her, believes the truth. Only one person knew and she will never have to confess her crime.

After Joey had left, she sent a text to Danny.
Need to escape these prison walls. Bring a rope ladder and rescue a damsel in distress.
She sat back to await his reply. Katie never noticed her leaving the house. Danny parked around the corner and they were gone in a flash.

He parks the Boxster under trees. No street lighting here, just the two of them alone together. They listen to Wolfmother. She wants him to play something gentle but all his CDs are heavy metal. She steps outside and walks between the trees. The wind has ice on its breath. Poor Danny and his icebox swimming pool. Poor Danny and his Boxster. What on earth is she doing here with him?

She leans against the trunk of a tree and stares through the bare branches. Soon they will bud. Her mother stole her when she was a bud, almost straight out of Carla Kelly’s womb. The knowledge is a hard kernel rooting in her mind. Now that she has allowed it space, it can never be dislodged.

Danny puts his arms around her and pushes her back against the tree trunk. There are hundreds of trees. Maybe he
wants to do
it
to her against every one. She giggles but he stifles the sound with his mouth.

Over Danny’s shoulder she sees a sweep of headlights in the distance, a blue light revolving.

‘Fucking cops,’ says Danny, and hurries her back to his car.

‘Where are we going?’ she shouts.

‘Who cares?’ he yells. ‘Watch this panther go.’ The Boxster surges forward and slaps her against the seat, swerves her to one side when he turns corners.

‘I want to go back, Danny,’ she shouts above the music.

‘Where to?’ he shouts back. ‘You don’t belong anywhere.’

‘You bastard!’ She screams at him but he laughs and presses harder on the accelerator.

‘Slow down, Danny.’ She’s frightened now. The car sweeps between the trees. Branches whip against the windows as Danny turns this way and that, seeking a gate that will lead him from the park. The headlights frame a deer as it leaps from the darkness and bounds into their path.

‘
Fuck!
’ Danny tries to straighten the wheel but the car skids sleekly towards an embankment. She hears a thump, as if someone has smacked the back of her head with a hammer, and she is suspended for an instant in midair. The car settles back on the road with a gentle bounce that turns into a grinding crunch. Danny, scared and howling, holds the steering wheel so tightly that the guard who opens the door has to prise his fingers loose.

‘Are you determined to make an intolerable situation even more intolerable?’ demands her father when he arrives in A&E. ‘What will you do next? Hack out my heart?’

She can see by his face that he wants to embrace her and shake her at the same time. But he can do neither. Her leg is in a cast, hanging from a pulley and her head is still encased
in a block. Danny has a broken nose. Tough about the Boxster. Not much market value on scrap metal.

‘I won’t let you go,’ she whispers so that none of the others, her so-called foster mother with her concerned expression, and her social worker, who is really her jailer, can hear. ‘I can’t accept the truth.’

‘The truth?’ He speaks more quietly. ‘I wish I knew what the truth meant. We’ve all been living a lie for fifteen years but that doesn’t make what we had any less real or meaningful. I will always love you as my daughter. No matter what happens, nothing can change that.’

‘You could go to jail.’ The thought terrifies her but facing it is easier than holding it back.

‘I have a good defence team. The most important thing I need right now is for you to stay safe.’

‘Do you want me to meet
them
?’

‘You won’t hurt my feelings if you do.’

He is lying, of course. She loves him more than ever. He’s right about that never changing. Not on this side of the earth. But with her mother, Susanne Dowling, on the other side, so many things are clear now. Her possessiveness, smothering Joy. Her sudden rages when Joy refused to do things her way. Had she ever loved Joy? Was love possible when it was haunted by a deed too dreadful to confront?

Patricia has released a statement to the media, telling them that Joy’s injuries are minor and asking for privacy. At last Joy is moved to a ward with four beds. With everyone swirling around her and the injections, it’s difficult to remember who’s coming and going. She awakens once and there is someone standing by her bed. She’s like a ghost, pale face, trembling hands. She touches Joy’s forehead. Her fingers are cool and soothing.

‘Sleep tight, my darling child,’ she whispers.

Joy floats on the sound, swaying in a rainbow boat and everything is wonderful. Then the pain comes again and when she opens her eyes she knows she was dreaming because no one is there – and how could Clare Frazier possibly have known where to find her?

Dear Joy,

I cried for ages when I got your mail. It’s so cool that you’ve decided to keep in touch. But the crash! You could have been killed! My aunt is terribly upset. We all are. It’s a relief to know you only have a broken leg. I know that’s awful but you will get better. I broke my arm when I was ten and once I got the cast off it healed real fast.

You asked me to tell you about my family. There’s five of us, two cats and a dog. The other animals are twins but I’m forced to call them brothers. My dad’s a lawyer and my mum works in a health food shop. She believes brown rice and soya will save the world so I eat my Big Macs in a dark cave. My gran drinks gin and pretends not to, and worries all the time about my granddad’s heart. It’s weird, ‘cause she’s the one with the pacemaker. He’s nice and gives us chocolates on the sly. More visits to the dark cave!!

Aunt Carla lives by herself in an apartment and ghostwrites books. We thought she was going to get married in June but that’s over. Her fiancé was nice but he’s one of those guys who only notices children if he falls over them. Uncle Robert lives in Oz but he’s still here. I guess he’ll go back soon. I wish they were still married. But they’re not and Carla says that’s just the way the dice falls.

Your taste in music is cool. I also adore Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Kings of Leon. My favourite girl band is Sugababes. The twins have a band. Imagine knives on a
draining board – that’s sweet music compared to the noise they make.

Gotta go now. Time for Quorn on the cob. Yuk.

Stay cool.

Jessica.

The restaurant Robert had chosen was intimately lit and fragrant with promise. Sheen’s on the Green, where they had first met. Carla recognised the danger signals, his hand resting on hers for an instant longer than necessary, his eyes leading her back to other occasions, forcing her to remember…A dangerous business, straying into past territory.

‘A nightcap?’ he asked when he pulled up outside her apartment.

‘Why not?’ She was beyond caring, weary of it all: the waiting and anticipation, the hopes dashed.

She poured two brandies into glasses and sat down beside him. He lifted her hand and stroked her bare ring finger. ‘He’s a fool to let you go.’

‘He didn’t want to share me with my daughter.’

‘An arrogant fool.’

‘Will Sharon share you with her?’

‘She has no other option. I hope to bring Isobel to Melbourne for a holiday in the summer. I’d love you to come as well.’

‘Somehow, I think that would be stretching Sharon’s tolerance to breaking point.’

‘This whole business had been tougher than I thought,’ admitted Robert, who had been able to extend the date for his departure by an extra week when his son’s tonsillectomy was postponed. ‘I’d stay on indefinitely only for Sharon and the boys. I want to be there when Damian comes to after his operation. But that means I’m walking out on you and Isobel. Why won’t she accept the truth and agree to meet us?
Why?
’

‘You heard what Patricia said. Our daughter is terrified. Once she meets us, she can’t go back.’

‘But
we
can go back…at least for one night.’ Robert slid his arm around her shoulders.

‘Stop it, Robert. It’s not fair on Sharon or your sons.’

‘It’s crazy…but I still feel as if we’re married.’

‘Considering you’ve been married to Sharon for far longer than you were married to me, I’d say that’s just your imagination working overtime.’

‘I wish it was, Carla.’ He stood up and poured another brandy. ‘I’ll take a taxi back to Raine’s…unless…’

‘No, Robert.’

He sank heavily back into the sofa. ‘I hope to Christ that bastard is put away for life.’

‘You think he’ll be found guilty?’

‘How can it be otherwise? The case is cut and dried.’

‘But he was working on an oil rig when she was born—’

‘Jesus, Carla, what is this?’ Robert demanded. ‘He
stole
our daughter. Give me one rational explanation why you think he’s innocent of the crime that destroyed us…our relationship, the future we could have shared with our child…our children?’

‘I’ve met him, Robert. I’ve seen how he is with Joy…I sobel. Susanne Dowling faked the latter stages of her pregnancy. The first scans are genuine, which means there was a baby until she miscarried. I’m convinced he genuinely
believed Isobel was his daughter. But it doesn’t matter what I think, Robert. A jury will decide his guilt or innocence.’

‘Since when did you make this huge leap of faith?’ He folded his arms, his face hardening. She imagined him cross-examining a suspect, his blank yet demanding stare. ‘Have you any idea how defensive you become every time his name is mentioned? I’m beginning to wonder if you’re in love with him.’

His words ran like an electric shock through her. ‘That’s ridiculous. Just because I believe he’s innocent…how can you say such nonsense?’

‘I once filled your eyes, Carla. No one else knows you the way I do. Tread carefully. You’re walking a dangerous path.’