Strange Sally Diamond

Like father, like son. Peter Geary and Steve Armstrong vanished. I guess that podcaster was taken seriously by the police after all.

I landed in Chicago as Dane Truskowski. Everything was so much easier for me than it was for Dad, thanks to the dark web and my inheritance. These masks are a blessing. I flew from city to city within the United States, but I think I’m going to stay here in Nutt, New Mexico. I grew a beard. I’ve bought a house. It’s way up a dirt track off a road that you wouldn’t know existed. It hasn’t been lived in for a while, but I’m fixing it up nicely.

When I’ve finished with the house, I’m going to build a barn behind it. Sound-proofing materials are available on Amazon, like most things, even shackles. I realize now that the only way to make that connection I seek is to take a woman and keep her until she submits. I’m prepared to wait. I won’t force her to love me. I haven’t found her yet. She won’t be a child. I’m not my father.

56 Sally

The country is in lockdown. Despite the two-kilometre limit on movement, Mark and I were called to the garda headquarters in Dublin twice.

The coronavirus has knocked most other stories off the news agenda so little has been said about the discovery of another child of Denise Norton and Conor Geary, or of my birth father’s death in New Zealand in 1985 and his links to the drowning of a boy called Rangi Parata and the abduction of Linda Weston. It is not yet public knowledge that Peter is the father of Linda Weston’s child, Amanda Heron, though there is an international search for him. New Zealand’s borders are closed. Peter never allowed us to take photographs of him but we spent hours at Dublin Airport going through CCTV footage from 22nd to 28th February. We found him in Terminal 2, in the departure lounge, but we couldn’t tell which gate he was going to. He disappeared into the throng. Nobody by the name of Steve, Stephen, Steven Armstrong or Peter Geary went through the airport that day. He must have had a different passport.

Some podcaster called Kate Ngata has contacted me via email. She and my niece, Amanda, are making a podcast series and are badgering me to contribute. Sue, my ex-best friend, has talked to her via Zoom apparently, and has told her how suspiciously Peter behaved when he was in the village. I don’t want to know Amanda Heron. My uncle and my brother have been so disappointing. I’m better off without family.

Aunt Christine doesn’t call at all since I ‘turned aggressive’ in her home. Stella is annoyed that I didn’t tell her anything about Peter.

‘Why didn’t you tell me who he was?’ she complained.

What’s the answer? I finally had someone who was mine. I loved him, I wanted to protect him and keep him to myself.

I couldn’t have known what he was capable of. The idea that a man could inherit a sickness like that from his father, from my father, and that I could welcome him into my home makes me want to scream all night long.

Linda Weston was twenty-seven years old when Amanda was born. I keep telling them that there’s no proof she was raped, no proof that she and Peter didn’t have a consensual relationship. She wasn’t murdered, she died of appendicitis. Mark told me to get a grip. Why had Peter disappeared? Why did he want us to keep everything quiet when he was here? Why did he travel on a false passport? I cling to the belief that he was innocent, in some way. I cling to my sanity.

Angela phones and texts me regularly but I rarely answer the phone, except when I need a new Valium prescription. I take quite a lot to stop me screaming. I also drink a lot.

I had to tell the guards about the money I gave to Peter. Mark was furious about it. He said I should have discussed with him what to do with the money. He thinks he was entitled to some of it, as it was he who had suffered the most. We argued over it. Margaret left that money to me. I haven’t spoken to him in weeks. Angela left a voicemail to say he had the virus and was in hospital. He’s very sick. No visitors allowed. I don’t care. I don’t want to see him.

Tina was wrong about everything. I was right to trust nobody. They all let me down in the end. Keeping secrets or telling secrets behind my back. I’m deaf again. I don’t speak to anyone and I pretend I don’t hear their whispering. This lockdown suits me very well. The village pub and the cafe are closed. So is Martha’s yoga studio. I’ve given up going to the Gala supermarket because every time I went in, Laura tried to chat to me. I’ve gone back to shopping in the Texaco. Everyone keeps two metres apart and there is no handshaking, never mind hugging. We all wear masks and I avoid eye contact where possible. The piano is still in pieces in the sitting room, a reminder of my heritage. I can’t get anyone to take it away.