300 Days of Sun

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Authors: Deborah Lawrenson
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carefully for anything that could explain what the letter meant—­I found some adoption papers. I couldn’t believe it. I was two years old when Roy and Sue became my legal parents. What’s more, the papers were in Spanish. I couldn’t understand what was going on.”
    â€œAny other family that you could ask?”
    â€œWe weren’t big on family. Roy had fallen out with his family over the company he kept, and hers had never liked him. There wasn’t anyone to ask about it. I went mental for a while. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I was so angry that they never told me . . . who doesn’t tell their child they are adopted? Maybe years and years ago, but not nowadays.” He raised his palms in despair. “So I decided to get myself over to Spain and see if I could find out anything about my real parents. It was all I could think of to do.”
    His eyes were almost black.
    â€œThe address on the adoption papers was an agency in Malaga, but it no longer existed. I went back time after time, asking all the older ­people I could find in the area whether they had ever heard of it, and no one had. Then, one old dear in the next building told me she used to know someone who worked there, who had been very kind when her cat got injured, took it to the vet, paid for it . . . Anyway, to cut to the chase, she put me in touch with this woman, and I managed to meet her. She was very nervous, but I think she really was a nice woman, and she did want to help. She said she’d left the adoption agency when she found out it wasn’t all above the line. Most of it was, but
some wasn’t.
    â€œI got out the papers and showed them to her. She studied them and went a bit shaky. She said she remembered my case and she hadn’t been happy about it. I asked how she could remember one case that far back, and she said it was because it was the first one she had questioned.”
    â€œQuestioned in what way?”
    â€œShe was told to put on the form that my birth parents were Spanish, from a specific village down the coast, but she knew that wasn’t true. She’d overheard the agency director talking about the two-­year-­old boy who had been brought from Portugal. A place was mentioned, somewhere called Horta das Rochas. And she knew that there was some kind of deal brokered with a man called Jackson. She found out later he was a small-­time criminal based on the Algarve.”
    â€œShe didn’t contact the police?”
    â€œI think she was scared. She claimed she didn’t know Terry Jackson was dodgy until some time after the adoption had gone through. Perhaps she found out other bits and pieces it was better to keep quiet about. Malaga has a reputation, you know. But she definitely felt guilty about it when I came along. Made me swear on my life never to give her name.”
    I bit my lip. “To rewind a little bit,” I said gently. “You said that child abductions have been happening here for a long time. Are you saying what I think you are?”
    He nodded.
    â€œIt’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” I said.
    â€œThat’s what I want to find out. There were several child abductions linked to Vale Navio in the early nineties. There might have been more that never made the news. I knew that was where Terry Jackson worked because I remembered him talking about it when he came to see my dad. He used to go on about it all the time, boasting about the money he was making there. It kind of became a family catchphrase. If anyone did a sweet deal or came into money, we called it ‘Vale Navio.’ ”
    â€œHow many other ­people have you told?”
    â€œNo one.”
    We sat quietly for a while.
    â€œWhy ‘Nathan Emberlin’?”
    â€œBecause that was the name I had when I arrived at the adoption agency in Malaga, the name on the papers when the agency handed me over, supposedly all nice

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