Page 48 of Be My Traitor

Still, my mother wasn’t important right now. I was here to make contact with my sister.

A young girl opened the door. She had dark hair and dark brown eyes, but there was definitely something about her face shape that reminded me of our mother.

“Sir? Miss?” She looked panicked to see us standing on her doorstep. “Have I done something wrong? Am I being expelled?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Daisy,” I reassured her. “But could we come in and speak to your parents? I’ve got something I need to discuss with them in private.”

“O-okay. Mum! Dad! Mr Donatello and Miss Knight are here!” Daisy beckoned for us to come inside and led the way to the lounge where her mum was watching TV.

“Mr Donatello.” She stood up, looking confused. “Is everything all right? What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping I could have a word with you and your husband, Mrs May.”

“Is this about the bullying?” Mr May strode into the room. “It’s about time the school took it seriously. The number of times Daisy’s come home in floods of tears is ridiculous. We’ve been trying to tell her to toughen up, but she shouldn’t have to deal with that in the first place.”

“No, you’re right. She shouldn’t,” I said. “And we can discuss that in a moment, but I’ve got something else I need to talk to you about first. Would it be possible to have a chat without Daisy in the room?”

“I can go with Daisy,” Milly offered. “I can talk to her about the bullying.”

Mr and Mrs May exchanged a worried glance. “Okay. Daisy – why don’t you take Miss Knight to your room?”,

“Okay.” Daisy gestured to Milly to follow her and the two of them left. I shut the door behind them before going back to sit on the chair opposite Mr and Mrs May, who sat next to each other on the couch. Mr May took his wife’s hand and they both looked at me, concerned frowns wrinkling their faces.

“There’s no easy way to say it, so I’m just going to come right out with it,” I said. “Does Daisy know she’s adopted?”

Mrs May gasped, a hand fluttering up to cover her mouth.

“How did you know?” Mr May asked.

“Because she’s my sister,” I said.

“No! She can’t be!” Mrs May said. “When we adopted her, we were told she had no family. The agency said her parents had died in a car crash when she was a baby and there were no surviving relatives to take her in.”

“The agency may well have believed that to be true, but you were misinformed. Not only is Daisy’s mother very much alive, she was the one responsible for kidnapping my daughter last week.”

“I don’t understand. How can this be true?” Mr May said. “We used a very reputable agency. They thoroughly vet all the children they adopt out. They only deal with children from good backgrounds, children whose parents have died leaving them with no one to look after them.” He lowered his voice, even though there was no one to overhear. “You hear so many stories of children with terrible problems coming from mothers with drink and drug problems. The adoptions go horribly wrong. We wanted to make sure that our child would be perfect, just like Daisy.”

“I’m really sorry, but by the sound of it, the agency you used completely lied about what they do,” I told him. “My mother is a very disturbed individual who sold me to Penelope Donatello and, no doubt, sold Daisy to your agency.”

“Oh my goodness!” Mrs May looked like she might faint.

“I’m sorry, Mr Donatello, but I really cannot believe that what you’re saying is true,” Mr May said. “Do you have any proof to back up your allegations?”

“I do.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the documents Gabriel Knight had sent me. I passed them over to the Mays. “There’s a copy of Daisy’s and my birth certificates, naming my mother on both of them. My mother named her Lillian after our grandmother, but the agency changed her name. There’s a copy of the deed poll document there as well. If you need more evidence, I’m sure I can arrange for you to have a meeting with the investigators to go over everything, but there really isn’t any doubt. Daisy is my sister.”

The Mays perused the documents, looking paler by the minute as the truth of what I was telling them hit home.

“So what do we do now?” Mr May asked. “Daisy doesn’t know she’s adopted.”

“Obviously, I don’t want to do anything to upset your family,” I said. “If you don’t want to tell Daisy she’s adopted, I’ll respect that – for now. But she has a right to know she has a brother and I want to get to know my sister beyond her being one of my students. If you don’t want to tell her right now, I can wait. But sooner or later she’s going to find out the truth. Don’t you think it would be better for her to hear it from you rather than finding it out from someone else?”

Mr and Mrs May exchanged a glance.

“We always said we’d tell her when the time was right,” Mrs May said. “Maybe that time is now?”

“It might make the bullies back off if they know that Daisy’s brother is the head,” Mr May said. “All right. Let’s tell her the truth.”

She got up and went out of the room. I heard her calling up the stairs for Daisy and soon Daisy was sitting next to her parents while Milly came to sit in the chair next to me.

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