Strange Sally Diamond

Still, she was dogged. I didn’t know whether she would take my word for anything I’d said. She could ask to see my father’s birth certificate. But I knew from my job that you could obtain almost anything on the dark web, including a fake birth certificate. She did not seem to be in any way suspicious of me, but was it a lure? Was she feigning concern that I was also an abductee? Did she suspect that I was Irish and that I was Amanda’s father? If I did engage with her, she was sure to ask me to take a DNA test, and that would be harder to avoid. I thought about going to the dark web to look for a new passport for myself, under a different name, a different nationality. I downloaded the Tor search engine, and spent the rest of the day searching through sites, shocked by what was on sale. Some users warned that the FBI were all over the dark web, but their focus was on drugs, guns and people trafficking.

I assumed that I would get an apologetic response from Kate the next day after New Zealand had woken up. And I did get a response, but it wasn’t as apologetic as I had hoped, and it came almost five weeks later, weeks in which I barely slept and lost my appetite.

Dear Mr Armstrong

I am sorry to hear you are going through medical issues and I wish you a speedy recovery. I hope you don’t mind, but I have just a few very simple questions for you. Where and when in New Zealand were you born? Do you know the name of the hospital? That information would be really helpful to my enquiries.

Ngā mihi

Kate

She didn’t address any of my assurances. She may still have thought that I was an abductee, but the curtness of the email convinced me otherwise. I didn’t reply.

I went to the dark web and looked into getting myself a new identity. It was way more expensive than I had guessed, NZ$170k or €100k. I could just about afford it, if I could get some kind of a loan from Sally, but I would have nothing left. I couldn’t sell up in Wellington from Ireland, not without attracting attention. And how would I explain to Sally why I needed money?

All this time, Sally was going about her business. Mark came for dinner twice a week. She desperately wanted me to get to know her friends, particularly her adoptive mother’s sister, Christine. I shut down every time she brought it up.

Mark continued to ask inconvenient questions. He was very keen that we all go to the guards and that I should come clean about everything, at least everything he knew. I knew it was only a matter of time before he alerted them himself.

The day after I got the email from Kate asking for my birth details, I asked Sally if she could lend me a sum of money. I didn’t even have to name the sum because she started talking about Dad’s house in Dublin, how she had inherited it and sold it. She said I was due half of the proceeds. It annoyed me that she’d been sitting on this money all along and hadn’t said anything. I was astounded to find that my share of the house was worth over a million euro. More than enough to start over somewhere else and to buy my new identity.

I made sure to get the money in cryptocurrency. As soon as it was transferred, I left Carricksheedy, telling her I was going travelling for a week or two. I left before she got up that morning in order to avoid what I knew was a final farewell. I stayed in a good hotel in Dublin. My new passport, along with my California driving licence and social security number, was delivered there by courier within four days. This time I was American and my name was Dane Truskowski. I flew to London without incident. In Heathrow, I looked at all the destinations on the flight board. I posted my parcel. I texted a farewell to Sally. Where could I go from here? Anywhere.

54 Sally

I couldn’t tell Martha what had happened. She pulled my hands from my hair and asked if I was injured and I said no. I admitted to having had a shock. She made me a cup of tea and tried to put her arm around me. I went to the piano and tried to play a little Einaudi but my fingers refused to cooperate.

‘I loved him,’ was all I could say.

‘Who?’

‘Peter.’

I gripped the mug with trembling hands.

‘The weird guy who’s been staying with you?’

‘He’s not weird. You don’t –’

‘Was he your boyfriend? I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘No!’ I shouted at her. ‘He was not my boyfriend. And he’s not weird.’

‘Sally, calm down.’

‘Why do you think he’s weird? Why must you judge everyone according to your own smug, perfect life? You thought I was weird until you got to know me. You didn’t even know Peter. How dare you, Martha?’