by Anna Romer
Abby tapped her fingers on a faded headline, WIGMORE SISTERS STILL MISSING. She scanned the page then turned and looked at him, her face flushed, her eyes bright. ‘Their names, their ages, the dates. It matches everything in the diary page. It’s them, Tom. It’s Frankie and Lilly.’
• • •
We sat side by side at the table, poring over the well-thumbed scrapbook. Whoever had collated the newspaper clippings had gone to a lot of trouble to follow the Wigmore case. For three years, any article mentioning the sisters – and for the first year there were a lot – had been cut out and pasted in.
The last article was from 1950, a single sentence, almost an afterthought, a quote from one of the investigating officers stating that the girls were almost certainly dead. We read them all, and then returned to the beginning and started going through them again.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday, 31st March 1948
SISTERS MISSING
Police are investigating the disappearance of two girls believed missing since Good Friday. Nine-year-old Lilly Wigmore and her sister Frances, 11, were last seen outside their home on Stanley Street, Concord, on Friday morning. Their mother, Mrs L Wigmore, widowed since 1942 when her husband was killed in North Africa, is a laundress at the Repatriation General Hospital. Mrs Wigmore left home at 6 am that day for her early shift. She last saw the girls when they lingered at the fence to wave her goodbye.
‘They insisted on wearing their best frocks that day, and seemed very chirpy,’ Mrs Wigmore told police. ‘Which was unusual, as Easter is traditionally a sad time for us. It’s when the girls lost their father.’
Lilly is described as tall for her age at 5 ft. 3 in., solid build, with mousy hair cut short with a fringe, and blue eyes. Frances is slim with long brown hair and hazel eyes, and is of average height. Police urge anyone with information regarding the girls to come forward.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday, 23rd September 1948
LITTLE HOPE FOR SISTERS
Six months after the disappearance of nine-year-old Lilly Wigmore and her sister Frances Wigmore, 12, little hope is held for the girls’ safe return. The sisters were last seen outside their home on Stanley Street on Good Friday.
‘They’re sensible girls,’ their mother Mrs Wigmore said this morning. ‘They’d have come home by now if they could. Something has happened to them.’
The Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday, 20th July 1949
MOTHER’S PLEA FOR WIGMORE GIRLS
More than a year after the disappearance of Sydney sisters Frances and Lilly Wigmore, the girls’ mother, war widow Mrs L Wigmore, has come forward with a plea for witnesses who may know anything about the girls’ whereabouts. The sisters, brunette Frances, who would now be 12, and blonde Lilly, now 10, were last seen outside their Concord home in 1948.
‘I’m not giving up hope,’ Mrs Wigmore told the Herald yesterday. ‘Everyone’s forgotten, but I know my girls are out there. Every night I leave my porch light burning so they can find their way home.’
I slumped back in the chair. ‘Their mother might not have given up hope, but everyone else thought they were dead. Meanwhile they were alive and well upstairs. At least, until Frankie’s diary entry in 1949.’
Tom scratched his whiskery jaw. ‘Ravensong’s a long way from Sydney. It’s a good eight- to ten-hour drive. Probably longer back then. Were they taken randomly, or was it planned? None of the reports mentioned a ransom. And if there wasn’t one, why were they kept alive?’
‘More importantly, what became of them?’
‘You think he killed them?’
‘God, I hope not.’
But even as I spoke the words, my heart sank. What other outcome could there have been? The dark bloodstain on the bed was enough to convince me of that. We could be trapped here forever, Frankie had written. Unless he gets bored and decides to kill us. I hugged myself, my face hot. How could I bear not knowing? Going to the window, I shoved it open. Cold night air gushed in. A moth fluttered drunkenly, and when I tried to shoo it outside, it zigzagged away and got lost in the shadows of the room. Leaving the window open, I returned to the table.
‘You said there’s internet?’
Tom glanced at the window. ‘It’s a cloudless night. We might get lucky.’ Hauling himself out of the chair, he reached for his crutches. ‘Over here.’
He led me to a cramped alcove of the library where he kept his laptop, and connected it to a satellite modem. I didn’t expect to find much, but when I typed the girls’ names into the browser, a long list of links came up. I clicked on a few, and a clearer picture of the case began to form.
In 1953, five years after the sisters’ disappearance, fourteen-year-old Lilly Wigmore returned home alone. She could not tell detectives what had become of Frankie or even if her sister was still alive. Lilly simply said that a man had kept them in his house as prisoners. She did not know the man’s name, nor could she identify him or the house in any way. She claimed she’d never seen his face.
Tom tapped the screen. ‘Frankie said they saw him most days. After five years, Lilly would have known him really well.’
I looked up. ‘Why would she protect him?’
‘Especially if he killed her sister.’
I stayed quiet a moment, thinking. ‘I wonder if she’s still alive.’
I refined my search to ‘Lilly Wigmore’ and followed another half-dozen links, but there was nothing current. I took into account that she might have married and changed her name, but all references to her cut off in 1954, as though soon after arriving home she’d vanished off the face of the planet. Again.
I clicked on a link from a website documenting unsolved Australian crimes. Here I found the transcript of an interview with a retired police inspector. The interview, conducted by Professor Markham from the University of South Australia for a thesis, took place in 1966, thirteen years after Lilly Wigmore arrived home.
Professor Markham: Inspector, back in 1953, you were the first to interview Lilly Wigmore about her ordeal. What were your impressions of the girl?
Inspector Upshaw: Lilly was clearly traumatised. She sat wide-eyed through our questioning, and appeared not to hear half of it. Even the child psychologists we called in couldn’t get anything from her. She claimed not to know what had happened to Frankie, and was unable to identify her abductor in any way.
Aside from some minor cuts and scrapes and nasty bruising, she appeared to have been well looked after during her time in captivity. Her hair had grown to her waist, but she was healthy and seemed acquainted with recent news events. Doctors who performed medical examinations were satisfied Lilly hadn’t been physically abused in any way. But the same couldn’t be said for her emotional state. It was as though she had completely shut down.
Professor Markham: Could Lilly explain where she’d been for five years? Did she give a location?
Inspector Upshaw: Again, we don’t know much about that. In early June of 1953 a neighbour reported a young girl loitering in Stanley Street, Concord. The girl told local police who she was, and that she wanted to see her mother. But her mother was dead. In 1951, Mrs Wigmore died of pneumonia at the age of thirty-eight, leaving Lilly without any relatives. Lilly was fostered by a professional woman by the name of Mrs O’Grady, who got to know Lilly while counselling her. Mrs O’Grady and her husband were dedicated to raising Lilly as their own.
Professor Markham: What about Frankie Wigmore?
Inspector Upshaw: For a year or so following Lilly’s return to Sydney, police issued media pleas for Frankie Wigmore to come forward, but she never did. After that there were one or two appeals for information leading to her whereabouts. But by then most of us believed that Frankie was dead.
Professor Markham: Is that why Mrs O’Grady withdrew Lilly from the public eye?
Inspector Upshaw: When Lilly showed up in 1953, the press went into a frenzy. For a while it was a big story. The O’Grady fam
ily was bombarded by requests for interviews with Lilly.
But not all the attention was positive and soon other questions started flying. Who was Lilly protecting? Was her sister dead? Had Lilly witnessed a murder? And if so, why did Lilly refuse to help police locate and catch her sister’s killer? Why was she so reluctant to give evidence, or at least speak in more depth of her ordeal? Then the naysayers chipped in: Had Lilly and her sister really been abducted as she claimed, or had they simply run away?
Mrs O’Grady got up in arms about the media’s treatment of Lilly. She’d had already lost her parents, and her sister’s whereabouts were unknown. Now her grief was being publicly picked over by the media. Certain reporters began throwing around accusations, suggesting that young Lilly herself was somehow responsible for the disappearance of her sister. Then one day the O’Gradys disappeared, taking Lilly with them. Even the federal police were unable to trace them, or at least that’s what they claimed in ongoing press releases.
Professor Markham: But the public was keen to know the truth. Perhaps they even deserved to know?
Inspector Upshaw: I’m sure Mrs O’Grady would disagree with you on that, Professor. As I see it, we all have the God-given right to protect our families from public scrutiny. Young Lilly had been to hell and back, and the O’Gradys were determined to shelter this traumatised young girl at all costs.
On the same website I found another photo, taken three years before the sisters disappeared. Lilly would have been six, with a cap of fair hair and a chubby face that gazed dreamily beyond the camera. Frankie couldn’t have been more different. She was about eight in the photo, with a sharp elfin face framed by unruly dark hair. She glared at the camera, her disdain for the photographer – and possibly the world at large – clear in her eyes.
I printed out any pages with new information, and we returned to the table. ‘We’ve got a ton of material, but we’re still no closer to answers. We need to find that diary.’
‘You’re sure it’s not hidden in their room?’
‘I checked and rechecked. Under the pillow, in the trunk. There were no slits in the mattress, nothing but dust under the bed. No loose floorboards, no hidden cavities.’
Tom was quiet for a while, then he looked up. ‘Aside from Frankie, only two other people could have known about this – Lilly and the kidnapper. And since we can’t find Lilly, and Frankie is most likely dead . . .’
‘Maybe we can find him. But how?’
‘Lilly and Frankie lived here for five years. That’s a long time.’
‘You think our guy owned the place?’
‘It makes sense. Why would he risk keeping them here if there was a chance the owner might show?’
‘So we need a list of previous owners. In particular, between 1948 and 1953, which we might be able to source through the Land Titles registry—’
Tom looked thoughtful. He dug in his pocket and threw a small key on the table. ‘Ravensong’s contract of sale is in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. Grab it for me, would you?’
Pompous grouch that he was, I could have hugged him. ‘Yeah, boss.’
On my way along the corridor, I rubbed my eyes. It was almost midnight. It seemed a lifetime had passed since I’d discovered Frankie’s handwritten page. Dust clung to my face and clothes. My eyes burned from fatigue, but my brain had never felt more alert, more on track. The story of the Wigmore sisters had taken hold of me, compelled me to know what became of them. And Frankie’s words had touched a nerve. I knew how it felt to be trapped. I knew the taste of stale air in a room that seemed to shrink with every inhalation. And I knew how the past could become an inescapable prison, regardless of how many years or decades went by. But if I could discover Frankie’s fate, somehow set her free, then maybe I could slip through the bars and fly away too.
Collecting the documents, I returned to the library.
Tom was pale. He wasn’t taking any painkillers, insisting that they clouded his head too much to write. He must be hurting and looked as wilted as I felt. But as he bent over the contract he perked up, tapping his finger on the page with a murmur of triumph. ‘That’s him, Ravensong’s previous owner.’
I leaned in to read the name. ‘Joe Corbin. I wonder if he’s local.’
‘You grew up here. Does the name ring a bell for you?’
I shook my head. ‘Never heard of him. But my brother might have. Duncan makes it his business to know everyone.’
13
Lil was late. Only ten minutes, but she hated letting the women down.
The Kurrajong Players was an all-female drama group. Most of its members were former residents of the Northern Tablelands Women’s Refuge. From humble beginnings, the Kurrajong Players now put on a yearly production – always musicals, dear to Lil’s heart – mostly sponsored by local businesses. Two years ago their version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe won rave reviews, as had last year’s Pirates of Penzance. Best of all, their efforts garnered a tidy profit.
Lil made her apologies and got down to business.
Gundara Hospital was in urgent need of modernisation, and the women were keen to make a decent contribution. The building really needed a full-scale renovation – way beyond the scope of an amateur drama group – but Lil could dream.
Twenty years ago, she had retired as the women’s refuge coordinator. She hadn’t realised until then how much her work had meant to her. Seeing the women arrive in tears, broken and despairing, often with little ones clinging to them. And then watching so many of them recover their lives and even blossom. It had given Lil’s life purpose.
At her retirement party, many of the women had returned to shower her with thanks. So much warmth and love, she had been too overcome by emotion to say what she really felt. That helping ‘her girls’, as she’d called them, was the least she could have done. That she was the one who owed thanks to them for saving her.
After retiring, she had returned to the refuge as a volunteer. She’d grown close to the new coordinator, Diane. Close enough to consider her a friend, which for Lil was a first. She had shied away from friendship over the years. Joe was all she needed. But there was something about Diane Abernathy that brought Lil out of her shell. Diane was a large woman with a frizz of carroty hair and a friendly nature. When she boomed out a laugh at the most inopportune times, it proved infectious. Lil often found herself swallowing giggles at board meetings or wiping her eyes in church, all thanks to Diane. Lil credited that laugh with startling many of the women out of the doldrums, helping them to find joy in the ridiculous, in the mundane. In things that might otherwise depress them.
‘Lil?’
She blinked. There were ten other women in the room, and all eyes were on her. Diane, who had spoken, wore a quizzical expression. ‘Off with the fairies again, Lil?’
Lil ignored the remark and took out her clipboard. ‘As I was saying, I think it should be another musical. Only this year, something more challenging. If we’re serious about raising the money we need for the hospital, then I don’t think Gilbert and Sullivan is going to cut it.’
‘But the turn-up last year was brilliant,’ Diane said. ‘Who doesn’t love a good Gilbert ’n’ Sullivan?’
Lil looked around the room. There were a couple of frowns, one or two hesitant smiles. All eyes were wide. A small woman at the back of the room, her narrow face bruised purple after a recent run-in with her boyfriend’s fist, looked worried.
Lil took a breath. There were some talented vocalists in the group who had proved their skills at last year’s performance. But she was being too ambitious. Pushing them too hard. Proving skills was one thing, wowing an audience enough to create a publicity buzz was entirely another.
‘I know this’ll seem daunting to most of you, but I think we should raise the bar. Test ourselves.’ She nodded at another volunteer. ‘Claire, how would you feel about doing the lead again?’
The young Aboriginal woman had arrived at the shelter four years ago, so downtrodden
and self-conscious that she’d barely been able to utter a word. It had taken a great deal of time and love to draw her out of that protective shell. She’d vanished for a while, and Diane had worried about her. But Claire had turned up again, a changed woman. She’d found a job she loved in a tiny rural school that catered for Aboriginal children, and was on a quest to help others the way the shelter had helped her. Then she’d surprised everyone by offering to sing the lead at last year’s performance. To their delight, she had the voice of an angel.
Claire flushed. ‘I’d feel better if you sang it, Lil.’
Lil shook her head, ignoring the skipped heartbeat. ‘I don’t sing, love. But the lead role would be perfect for you.’
The younger woman smiled shyly. ‘What’ve you got in mind?’
‘Yes, Lil.’ Diane sounded impatient despite her smile. ‘We’re all chafing at the bit to know what you’re planning. Come on, spill the beans.’
Lil took a breath. ‘Anyone familiar with Les Miserables?’
Silence. Then Diane let out a whistle. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘It would draw the crowds.’
Claire raised a hand, then let it drop back on her knee. ‘I know it, Lil. Um . . . There’s a lot of blokes in it, isn’t there?’
‘Not to mention a cast of thousands,’ Diane said.
Lil had anticipated this. ‘You’re right, Claire. A lot of blokes. A lot of parts to sing, full stop. Whole choirs, in fact. But the solo songs are beautiful. They tell the story well enough without the choral groups. If we trim the story back to its bones, we might just pull it off.’
A tall red-haired woman, Fiona, raised her hand. ‘Bones?’
Lil smiled. No one had given her an outright no. At least not yet. She sat taller in her chair. ‘It’s the story of a man who gets a second chance. But when times get tough, he blows it. He’s a crook, you see. Then one day he meets this old fella who shows him there’s another way. So the crook chooses a different path. A better path. And in the end finds he’s created a life of meaning.’ Lil looked around at the women’s faces. ‘Sound familiar?’