It was hard to fight the instinct to search for his girls, but they were bait. He was sure he’d be caught and it was doubtful he’d escape again. He’d be no use to them in there, so he’d wait. But not forever. He made a promise to himself, and to them, that he wouldn’t rest until they were reunited. Ever.
Chapter Forty-six
“Right, young lady, time for bed.”
Abi clung to her mummy’s legs, unusual for a nine-year-old, but not for one who’d been through Abi’s difficult life.
“Would you like Daddy to take you up and tuck you in?”
Matthew stiffened. What would she say?
Clinging tighter, she hid her face. A barely detectable shake of her head caused Debbie to smile an apologetic smile. ‘Maybe next time,’ it said.
As Debbie disappeared with Abi, Charlotte raised her eyes. “Am I staying here tonight, Mum?”
Mandy held tight to her mug of coffee, shaking her head. “Not on a school night, love.”
Charlotte’s Cupid’s bow pouted sulkily. “We used to stay every night!”
“Well, that was before Uncle Matthew came home, wasn’t it!”
Charlotte played with saying ‘That’s not Uncle Matthew,’ but kept it in under a deeper scowl.
“Which means we need to leave, or you’ll be late for bed.” Leaning over she bade her farewells “Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad.” Hugging her brother, she kissed him on the cheek. “Say bye to Debs for me.”
Her Range Rover Evoque sped her to the river. Across the water she could see the business her clever brother had built with his partner as she keyed the code for the Penthouse.
“Can I watch a film to settle?” Charlotte’s puppy dog eyes begged.
“Have it on quietly, and don’t stay up too long. You hear me?”
Charlotte skipped off to her room overlooking the water. It was nice to be back home, really. Her own space with her own stuff, and she loved watching the boats as they scudded to and fro along the river.
“It would mean the world to Daddy if he could be close to you again. I know you were angry, sweetheart, but you must see how unwell Daddy’s been.”
“I didn’t believe it was Daddy at first,” Abi’s bright eyes told as she sat up in her bed.
“I know what you mean, my love. He was very troubled, wasn’t he?” Abi nodded. “But he’s getting better. I mean, he doesn’t remember much… of anything. But the old Matthew; the old Daddy, you can see him in there now, can’t you?”
Abi’s lips squashed together as she thought. Deliberation complete, she nodded hard, her head thrusting into her pillow on the final nod, ready for a peaceful sleep. As Debbie bid her goodnight, a smile crept onto Abi’s cherry lips. It stayed there all night.
£170.83, Matthew gleaned from his theft of the charity tin. “I’m rich!” he declared, smiling to himself at how far he’d come down (yet how much better this was than he had been.)
He chose everything from the same shop. It made sense. Everything in The Mountain Warehouse suited his purpose of blending in with any other hiker on the Avon Gorge—the same hikers you’d find in the city centre enjoying fine dining or afternoon tea on the waterfront. And of course, he could buy a tent.
Leaving the shop; tent, new clothes and cooking equipment stowed in a tall ruck-sack, he wore more new clothes and carried his old ones in a Mountain Warehouse carrier bag.
It was with surprising reluctance that he pitched his charity-bin castoffs into the nearest bin, the duffle coat especially. Its smart warmth had certainly saved his life. But it was too distinctive. And, Matthew considered, smoothing a palm over his tangled beard, so was this.
Joining the queue in a barber’s shop, Matthew had his beard shaved and his hair severely trimmed. As the old familiar face of the millionaire boat builder stared at him from beyond the mirror, Matthew stared and forced down the rage at the indignity.
Nodding along to the obligatory barber chat, Matthew looked away as the painful reminder of what he’d lost ripped him from the inside. “Soon,” he muttered under his breath, then smiled and nodded as the barber assumed his verbalised thought related to the ‘holiday’ chat he’d been burning Matthew’s ears with for half an hour. ‘Soon, we’ll all be back together,’ the thought hovered in his head.
Chapter Forty-seven
She seemed too big for the swings, but her huge grin as Matthew pushed her as hard as he could said otherwise. She didn’t say much but her giggling echoed around the playground.
“Shall I go on the climbing frame?” she asked already running towards it.
“Yeah!” Matthew ran over too, but he was definitely too big to join in. “Where do you want to go after this, sweetheart?” he asked, the words sticking in his throat. He didn’t quite understand why. There was love for her, he felt sure. She even looked like him (well why wouldn’t she?). There was no denying she was easy to like, but he felt completely out of his depth. He couldn’t remember a time he had ever been in the company of a child.
Her unease was understandable. It was his fault, not hers.
“McDonald's? Mum never lets me!”
Seizing the opportunity, Matthew grinned. “It can be our little secret then, can’t it?”
As they walked back to the car, Matthew gazed down at her pretty blonde hair, his hand jolted to stroke it but slipped back into his pocket when he couldn’t be sure it was the right thing. So it was with utter delight he received her delicate hand when she took his on the way into McDonald's.
They sat on silly character chairs doing word-searches with crayons eating too many fries and burgers. Forcing in the last mouthful of chocolate thick shake, Matthew knew the onion rings had been a mistake.
“Can we do this again one day?” Abi peered into his eyes.
Squeezing her hand, he said, “We can do this whenever you like. And anything else you’d like to do as well.” He was a natural. Love burst from him in her acceptance of him and he could really believe he’d been there all her life.
“What about Disney Land?”
Matthew’s mouth arched in imitation of his high brows. “Well, I guess. I’ll look into it.”
“You got us tickets for Christmas, but we couldn’t use them.” Her face flushed at the hint of accusation. “Mummy phoned, and they changed them.”
“Well, definitely then. Disney Land, hey. That sounds fantastic!”
“We’ll need to use them soon though. They said they could be used until the end of the year and it’s nearly Christmas again!”
Matthew started. “Not really, Abi! It’s not even October yet. You’ve only just gone back to school.
“It’s half-term next week, and then after that there’s only half more until Christmas, and that will fly by.”
“You’ve given this some thought, I can see. Good girl.” Taking both her little hands in his, he looked deep into her eyes. “We will go to Disney Land, I promise. But you know what my memory is like. Please, please remind me; tell Mummy if I don’t get things moving, okay?”
Abi nodded, but there would be no need. There was nothing wrong with Matthew’s memory. Nothing at all.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, princess.”
“Sorry.”
“What for?”
“For being mean to you when you came home. It was Nanna and Grandpa. They were cross with you and I felt that way too. But I’m not cross anymore, and neither are they.”
Matthew smiled. “That’s good to know.”
“I’m sorry I said you weren’t my daddy.” Eyes pooling with tears, her choked voice touched him. “I know you are, really.” And as she threw her arms around him, her heart broke into huge sobs. “I love you, Daddy. So much. I really missed you.”
As the other patrons stared at the raucous emotion disturbing their fast food feast, Matthew nuzzled her head. “I love you too, Abs,” he blubbed. “I love you too.”
It was a relief to be in the warm. The tent had been plenty in the milder months, but now it was inhum
ane. He’d paid occasional fees at local campsites and had kept on top of his personal hygiene. But as the weather turned colder, he had decided he had kept out of the way for long enough. It was time to strike.
Staring at the screen in the umpteenth cyber-café he’d visited that week, Matthew was worried he would run out of money before ever completing a successful search.
Forays into phone shops had proved difficult when his personal details didn’t come up for any addresses he could name. The pattern so far, once he’d given up on having his own phone, had been to pay for an hour or two out of the charity theft he’d managed to eke out over the weeks and months, along with some food and drink in a café. Time and again he had typed in things as ideas had struck, and when they’d proved fruitless, he’d struggled for another idea.
It was a fools’ approach. Too much of the time was spent thinking and not enough time searching the web. Today he would implement a different plan. He had already made a list of things to try having done his thinking in his igloo/tent.
Nothing came up for Morrissey. Nothing he could make fit to his life at any rate. So he’d tried Lewis, Debbie’s maiden name. It brought a school photo from Google images where she’d been tagged by an old school friend. The account it tagged was no longer available. The friend’s profile was closed to the public, and so far they hadn’t responded to Matthew’s friend request.
He now had accounts on all the major social media sites but none of them had heard of Debbie Lewis or Morrissey. Alongside the immense frustration was a grudging respect for the thoroughness of his enemy. His own social media presence had always been haphazard apart from a couple of sponsored pages for the business which Brian had been more enthusiastic about than himself, but now it was non-existent. It was like he’d never been born!
He’d thought of every possible name he could think of. Every job he’d ever known her have; where she went to college—where they both went; it was where they had met—nothing.
He was on the last suggestion on his list, which was to trawl through photos with the caveat of being from Cardiff, Debbie’s hometown. The search result offered more than double the entire population of Wales—seven million, four hundred and thirty thousand. There couldn’t be that many Debbie’s in the whole of the UK; maybe the world, let alone Cardiff!
Ploughing threw them was his only choice though. Page after page he peered at photos. They had her somewhere. Her name would be different perhaps, but surely they can’t have removed every image from the internet? That was impossible.
His eyes strained as hundreds upon hundreds of smiling Debbie’s flashed before his eyes. Why had they gone to so much trouble? What did he know that was such a threat to national security? He considered himself patriotic. They could surely have given him a chance.
He couldn’t think about that. All that mattered was keeping focussed on the pictures. If there was even a possibility he’d missed one he could never rest.
“Hi, sir. Your time’s nearly up. Would you like to buy more? We do a daily rate that might work out better for you.”
Matthew paused his gaze and blinked. Filling his view with the cyber-waiter’s well-groomed face, he answered. “Yeah, that. Give me the daily rate.”
Smiling, the waiter held out his hand. “If I could just have a swipe of your card?”
“I don’t have a card on me. I’ll pay cash.”
Awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other and glancing at senior colleagues whilst biting his bottom lip, he stammered his response. “I don’t think we can do that, sir. We don’t know how much it will be.”
“Thirty. Take that and give me the change when I’m done. Okay?”
The lip biting got worse. Fiddling with the end of his tie, his embarrassment was hard to watch. “I’ll just pay for another hour then. How much?”
Tension lifting at once, he beamed, “£10 including a coffee.”
“Great. Take this and bring me a double-shot latte, please.”
“We’re doing a ginger and nutmeg latte for the same price, would you like that, sir?” he offered, and then in answer to Matthew’s blank stare. “It’s Christmassy.”
Christmas! Was it really that time of year again. Moving his focus to his surroundings, the signs were undeniable: swirling Christmas Tree decal on the windows, garlands strung on the wooden beams above his head. Even his waiter was wearing a reindeer tie.
“Just the regular,” he snapped. He couldn’t be dealing with Christmas. A whole year away from his loved ones. He shook his head in despair.
But quickly, his frustration at the interruption and acknowledgement of the season turned to jubilation when Matthew resumed his attention to the Debbies. “Oh my god!” he cried.
“Sorry, sir, did you say something?”
“No, sorry. Carry on. Double-shot latte, okay?”
With an affirming nod, the waiter bustled away.
“There you are, my lovely!” Matthew sighed, an air of contentment filling his lungs.
It was her, unmistakably, but it had to be an old picture because her dad was beside her. Clicking ‘visit page’ Matthew was able to read how Bryn Lewis and his daughter, Debbie were accepting an award for his florist’s contribution to Butetown in bloom. Funny, Matthew thought. She didn’t mention that. She never even said they’d worked in the florists together.
Looking again, his head pounded. It didn’t say Debbie Lewis. More careful reading showed something else. It said ne Lewis. Before that it read Debbie Kennedy! Who? How could that be possible? The newspaper article was dated August 2007. That was when they got married. He’d known her for over a year before that and she never helped her dad in the florists.
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. No, this was impossible. Bryn had died not long after he and Debbie met. He certainly wasn’t winning awards for flower arranging! The government agency responsible for his torment couldn’t be that good. And why would they insert photos into the archives of The Western Telegraph to demonstrate Bryn’s resurrection? And why put it on page three hundred and seven of Google’s search? Not for him to find. Not to add to his confusion.
There had to be an explanation. Staring at the newspaper date, he squinted his eyes, desperately willing the solution to jump off the screen.
The date of the article didn’t have to indicate the date of the photo. But reading the words, he was sure Bryn was involved. They described him as ‘spritely’ after recovering from a cancer scare.
Bryn, alive all these years and Debbie never said? It couldn’t be. With the new revelation came new searches thick and fast. More relevant results filled the early search pages now, both for Bryn, and for Debbie Kennedy.
Matthew’s chest tightened as her face beamed at him from her Facebook page where she boasted nearly a thousand friends, a perusal of whom revealed no-one he recognised. No Matthew Morrissey, no Brian, Sue, Mandy, Alan nor Mary. No Marsden-Morrissey Marine, nothing in Bristol at all.
How could she have developed such a profile in such a short time? Debbie joined in January 2004 her information page enlightened him.
“Your latte, sir. Double shot.”
Matthew couldn’t answer. He couldn’t think. He could barely even breathe. The well groomed waiter left his coffee near him and sauntered away with a mumbled “How rude,” under his breath.
The tightening in Matthew’s chest grew worse. Heart attack was his first thought; and of the couple nudging each other as they stared at him. But two or three calming breaths reassured him it was just a budding panic attack. “Calm down. You haven’t got time for that.”
Breathing through the shock relieved the pain and he carefully refocused on the screen, pushing on with his grim research. There were hundreds of photos organised into albums: Kennedy family holiday; Chloe’s first day at big school; Christmas 2017.
Matthew’s quivering finger poised on the mouse button as his heart squeezed in his chest. Which should he torture himself with first? There was only one choice.
> His eyes struggled to allow the image into his head. Forcing himself to stare at the jolly pictures through a self-preserving squint, Matthew gritted his teeth. He hadn’t come this far to deny himself the truth.
A huge sigh fogged the screen as he allowed the pixels to assault him. It was a nice tree in a nice house. Not like their real home, but pleasant. A girl, a bit like Abi, but older, was grinning whilst placing decorations on the branches. There seemed to be a photo of each and every one. Who was she? Chloe, evidently, but who was that?
Searching for a distraction, his hand reached for the coffee cup. Taking an absent sip, Matthew clicked the right arrow, filling the screen with picture after picture of the smiling girl until one final shot saw the completed tree with its colourful fairy lights glowing.
One more click was a click too far. Flinching, wriggling back in his seat, the coffee pouring over the rim of his cup onto his lap spilled unnoticed. Matthew shook his head in disgust and disbelief.
Draped over a handsome rugby physique was his wife. She didn’t look bothered she’d lost Matthew. In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever seen her so happy. And Christmas ’17? How was that possible? Had they postponed celebrations to another day? A day when they knew he would be out of the way?
She had to be in on it. Why? The money? And where was Abi? The cup shook violently in his hand. Recognising the rage bubbling within, Matthew replaced it with slow care. Their daughter had nearly died, and all along Debbie was living a double life with an ape!
He was going to find her and demand answers. No-one was going to take his daughter from him after all they’d been through. No-one!
There was no address listed on the info page, of course there wasn’t, but she’d been a fool. Moving Day was handily labelled in one of the dozen or so albums. And there, pointing gleefully at a sign displaying the name of their new home, Bryn Haul, was Debbie and Mr Kennedy with face splitting grins on their conniving faces.
Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9) Page 25