Chapter 85 Damon
Damon
As the vehicle pulls away from the crematorium, my grandmother orders the driver to roll up the partition.
Now it’s her and me alone together for the first time since I was a child.
She stares from the window as the vehicle makes its way through the open gates and along the road outside.
She pulls a small tin of tobacco from her purse and, without watching what she is doing, drops a pinch inside a rolling paper and creates the most perfectly symmetrical cigarette.
I’m tempted to ask her for one. She lights it with a disposable orange lighter which has a black-and-white image of the Pope on the side. She doesn’t unwind the window.
The sun’s bright rays do nothing to defrost her.
I don’t really know where to begin, but I must find a starting point because I don’t think she will.
She might’ve told me to get inside but she isn’t going to surrender what she knows that easily.
And I doubt that after today there will be any other opportunities to have this conversation.
‘What do I call you?’ I ask.
She takes a long, deep drag on the cigarette. ‘Nothing,’ she replies. ‘Because that’s what you mean to me.’
Her point is valid. We are nothing more than strangers, bound together by blood. The blood of others I’ve shed, like my dad’s.
‘Why did Dad admit to killing Daisy Barber?’ I ask.
‘Why do you reckon?’
‘He didn’t want me to be blamed for it.’ That’s the only reason I can think of.
‘If you know, then why are you asking?’
‘How did he find out I was responsible?’
‘I thought you said you can now remember everything?’
‘Not all of it, no.’
She eyes me cautiously. ‘If I tell you what you want to know, what’s in it for me?’
I think for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I don’t have much money . . .’
She offers a humourless laugh. ‘I’m eighty-two years old. What would I want with blood money?’
‘Then what?’
She leans closer to me. ‘I want the truth to come out. I want you to admit to the police what you did to that girl. Tell them what you are and clear my boy’s name.’
‘What good will that do?’
‘You took fifteen years of his life away from him. Then, when they set him free, you stole the rest of it. You owe him. An eye for an eye.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘I don’t care!’ she shouts, and she hits the armrest with her fist.
I look her squarely in the eye. She won’t be backing down.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell them.’
‘Tell them what?’
‘That I killed Daisy.’
She scans my face, searching for an almost hidden tell: a micro-expression that suggests I’m saying what she wants to hear.
‘Detective Sergeant Barney Flynn.’
‘Who?’
‘Type his name into your telephone.’
‘Why? Who is he?’
‘Do as I tell you.’
I find a news story about him in which he discusses a manslaughter trial in which the defendant was found guilty.
‘Where is he based now?’ she asks.
‘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.’