Chapter 49 Damon
Damon
I recognise my dad immediately, despite not having seen him in God knows how long.
He’s in the aisle of a DIY store, loading a pallet of paint on to a shelf.
His hair has receded, leaving a fluffy tuft at the front and short-cropped patches across the top.
He is attempting to make up for it with a beard that hangs at least six centimetres from his chin.
His shirt sleeves are rolled up, and as he lifts four cans at a time, the purplish veins in and around his broad biceps snake down his tattooed arms. His shoulders are wide and his waist is narrow.
I guess that’s what a third of your life in prison does to your body if all there is to do is exercise.
Tracking him down has taken a lot of digging, and some dumb luck.
The police refused to tell me where he was, as did his former lawyer.
And there was no trace of him anywhere on social media.
So I lied when I contacted victim support services and pretended to be a relative of Daisy Barber, concerned that my niece’s killer had been released and was living within the local vicinity.
My dumb luck came in the form of the kind soul I drew for that call, whose empathy for my loss and outrage over my current situation inspired her to not only confirm that he was indeed living within fifty miles of the scene of Daisy’s death, in Basingstoke, but let slip he’d secured work at a DIY store three streets from a school.
Ten minutes of Google Maps triangulation and a confirming telephone call later, and I’d located him.
Now, I’m pretending to consider paint samples from a spectrum of colour cards, flicking through fifty shades of grey and black.
The colours mirror my mood. I keep stealing glances at Dad.
The tattoos scattered about his arms and hands seem faded and blurred.
I struggle to make them out from this distance.
I wonder what the designs are and if he’s the reason I’ve been inked too.
Many of mine were conscious choices, like the chorus to Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘Bobby Jean’ because it reminds me of a song Mum would play.
The semicolon on my wrist symbolises the number of times I could have ended my story with a full stop but carried on regardless.
The ensō symbolises how life is in a constant flux and that everything must eventually end.
There are others I found through surfing the internet or flicking through the tattooist’s portfolio, such as the girl hiding her face behind a white flower, a night sky with lightning bolts (despite my irrational fear of electrical storms), and the Grim Reaper hovering over a clock, whose hands are at ten minutes to six.
I’ve also included some of my own drawings that I don’t really understand the origins of.
Random stuff like a candle flame and a grid of random numbers.
I begin studying Dad’s mannerisms for shared traits. Do we walk the same? Are we both left-handed? Does he tug at his right earlobe when he’s deep in thought? Does he feel the same guilt I do for taking another life? I doubt it. Because I think he took three more.
Helena explained Dad had been released from prison on licence.
Jails were overcrowded and he’d been a model inmate.
So while he was technically still serving his sentence, it was now in the community instead of at His Majesty’s pleasure.
I was surprised to learn that no one had protested it until I learned Daisy Barber’s parents had died in the intervening years.
I assume no one tipped off the tabloids, otherwise I’d have found online long-lens shots of him passing a school or a playpark and a story reminding the public what a danger he was to every child in his radius.
A customer approaches him, and Dad’s smile catches me off guard.
It makes the dimples in his cheeks more visible.
Mine are the same, although my smiles are few and far between these days.
I’m conflicted as to how this should make me feel.
A few days ago, I was alone in the world.
Now, there is someone here I can relate physically to. Only, it’s a child killer.
Dad leads the woman into the next aisle along. I wonder how she might react if she knew what he’s done.
Anger begins to boil inside me. The same way I felt when that man in the car park was trying to kill me.
When Dad reappears I’m dwelling on what else we might share aside from our career prospects, which are unlikely to extend further than stacking shelves for a little above minimum wage.
I hate that I am a reflection of this man in so many ways. I also hate what he did and the aftershocks his behaviour has delivered, and still delivers.
He needs to know this.
He is a physically intimidating presence, and the relentless drumbeat of my heart echoes in my ears as I start towards him.
And then, from deep within, a confidence I didn’t know I possessed surges to the surface.
I stride over and he steps aside as I pick up one of the five-litre cans of emulsion he has stacked on a shelf.
He watches as I lift it above my head, turn and hurl it down the aisle away from us.
My throbbing ribs serve as a sharp reminder of what I’ve put myself through to get here today.
The lid bursts open upon impact and paint leaps out, covering the floor and splattering products on shelves in a sunburst of brilliant, silky white.
I turn to glare at him, and he stares back at me, bewildered by what’s happening. I know he has caught the rage in my eyes. Our eyes.
‘Oops,’ I say. ‘Sorry, Dad.’