The Final Child

by Fran Dorricott

“My daughter,” Mrs Chambers explained. Erin, Jillian. She’d changed her name. No wonder she’d been harder to find.

  Jillian waited expectantly, and when her mother didn’t introduce me I had to force myself to speak.

  “I’m Harriet. I’m here to talk to your mum about a book I’m writing,” I said. It came out colder than I’d intended it to, as though the effort of explaining myself had bled all of the emotion from my words. “I’m a writer.”

  Instantly Jillian’s expression closed up. She shook her head, shooting her mother a look I recognised as panic.

  “I was just about to tell your mum about the project,” I forged on. “I used to be a journalist. I’ve interviewed the other families, but my cousins—”

  “We’re not interested,” Jillian said.

  “Your mother wanted to hear me out. I wanted to tell her that I’d found something recently – that I think they might take another look at—”

  “Please, don’t. I’m not interested. Look, Mum, you do whatever you like, and I’ll see you later.”

  Jillian turned to leave, but just then Mrs Chambers began to cough again. She bent double, her face going very pale. Then she grasped at the shelf on the wall, knuckles going white, and leaned against it. But the shelf didn’t hold, and I watched in what felt like slow motion as it came away from the wall, her mug of tea tumbling to the floor.

  Mrs Chambers sagged, one hand going to her chest as she let out another strangled cough. Jillian froze. I rushed forward, grabbing Mrs Chambers’ elbow as gently as I could and guiding her to the sofa.

  “Mrs Chambers, I’m sorry – are you alright?”

  She looked like she was having trouble breathing. I glanced around the room, noticing a pack of tissues nearby along with a blue inhaler. I reached for it, and she nodded.

  She took the inhaler quickly, giving herself a few puffs before allowing herself to sink back into the cushions of the sofa. Jillian still hadn’t moved. Her eyes were glassy, her jaw tense as she’d watched it all unfold.

  Once Mrs Chambers had given herself a couple more puffs her cheeks began to flush pink again.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  She nodded.

  I left them in the lounge and headed towards the kitchen, where I fumbled through finding a glass and filling it with water. I searched the surfaces for something to mop up the spilled tea, the rhythms of helpfulness soothing the hammering of my heart.

  “Uh…”

  I turned around at the sound of a voice. Jillian stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her arms crossed defensively but her expression warmer now.

  “Thanks,” she said. “For – you know. Helping.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “She’s had a chest infection. She gets pretty wound up but I’ve never… I’ve never seen that happen before. I just froze.”

  “It’s okay,” I said again. I was calmer now. “No harm done. Is she alright?”

  Jillian nodded. “I think so.” She blew out a breath. “I’m sorry for overreacting before. I just… You’ve not been hanging around here recently, have you?”

  A look flickered in her eyes, like fear. I shook my head.

  “No. Tonight’s the first time I’ve met your mum. I’m sorry if I caused any of this. I just wanted to talk to her. She asked me to come round.”

  Jillian nodded but she seemed distracted.

  “I’ll take the water through and then I’ll go,” I said.

  Jillian followed me back into the lounge, where she took the tea towel I’d found to mop up the tea and laid it aside, finding instead some kitchen roll and a bottle of carpet cleaner. I gave Mrs Chambers her glass of water and she sipped at it.

  “I should get going,” I said. “But I would still like to talk to you when you’re feeling a bit better. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.” Mrs Chambers nodded. “Please. I want to tell you more about Alex. I’m going away soon though, on holiday. Maybe when I get back?”

  Jillian didn’t look at me as I left.

  Out on the street the air was cold, refreshing after the warm house. That had not gone according to plan. I was still looking for my car keys when I heard the front door open again behind me.

  It was Jillian. She stepped onto the path, arms folded again. She didn’t look much like the photos I’d seen of her as a child, when she’d been boyish, with her shorn hair and fine-boned, angular face, but I’d spent a long time studying all of the children and I could just about make out the resemblance: the same sharp jaw, the same eyes, clear and blue like the ocean.

  “Thanks again,” she said.

  She glanced over my shoulder, as though she was looking for something – or someone. But the street was dark and empty behind me, limned with gold light from the street lamps. The shadows pooled. Jillian pulled her hoodie tighter around herself.

  “It’s okay. Like I said.”

  She turned to go again.

  “Jillian,” I said quickly. “If you change your mind, and you want to talk to me – for the book, or just because – then here’s my card. My number’s on the back.”

  It was an old business card; it still said journalist on it, even though it had been a while since I’d even tried to get something published. Insurance underwriter didn’t have the same ring to it. I held the card out to her, creased from my handbag, and she stared at it for a second before taking it.

  “My name is Erin,” she said. And then she went inside, closing the door swiftly behind her.

  * * *

  At home I flicked the kettle on. The flat was cold and sterile. I’d moved in six months ago but hadn’t bothered to decorate properly.

  The only thing I’d managed in the lounge was getting my photographs reframed to match the wooden shelves. My favourite picture of me and my brother Thomas sat on the mantel next to one of my cousins and my aunt and uncle taken a few months before Jem and Michael were abducted.

  The thought occurred to me as I poured a small glass of wine that I could put up some fairy lights easily enough. I could make the flat feel more me. I could knit something new, a nice throw or a blanket, as it had been months since I’d picked up my needles. Or I could go back to karate if I wanted to get out of the house more. But lately I’d been so focused on the book that I hadn’t wanted to do either.

  I didn’t want to write tonight, though. I knew that without talking properly to Jillian and her mother the rest of the pages would sit on my laptop gathering dust, just like they’d done five years ago, when I’d given up on it last time. Jillian had answers to questions I had been desperate to ask for a long time.

  I glanced up at the photo of Thomas and me. In it we both grinned, gap-toothed and wild. He’d moved to Australia two months ago and, what with one thing and another, I’d not spoken to him properly in three weeks, just mistimed Skype calls and short, messy emails. I missed him more than I thought possible.

  I sighed. I’d messaged him to tell him I was writing the book again – I knew he’d be supportive – but I hadn’t told him about what I’d found, or that I’d spoken to the police. I didn’t want to put too much weight behind my theory until I had more proof.

  It was for the same reason I was glad I hadn’t had a chance to explain myself to Jillian and her mother tonight, to tell them about my hunch. I wasn’t even sure how seriously the police were taking me. I’d done my research, but in the end all I had was what little I’d found on the internet, an old newspaper article, and a vague suspicion about a decades-old crime.

  My phone rang. I picked it up and set it on speaker.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “Hello, sweetheart. You sound tired. Are you alright?”

  I smiled. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.” I’d gone straight from the office to Mrs Chambers’ house, and it was only now that I realised I’d forgotten to eat dinner.

  I grabbed a microwave meal from the fridge and stabbed it mercilessly while my mother talked. It was probably time I started cooking again too. I’d
become lazy recently.

  “You really ought to come walking with me one weekend,” Mum said. “We hiked up Thorpe Cloud this time. The views are stunning. I think you’d like it. We could go to Dovedale. See the river. It would do you good. All that fresh air out there and you’re always stuck indoors—”

  “I like being indoors,” I muttered. “Besides, I’m too busy.”

  “You’ve been saying that for ages.” Mum sighed dramatically. “I know you work, but you’ve got your weekends. What are you filling them with anyway? Not that book again? You know how I feel about you bothering your aunt.”

  I felt myself ruffle but I refused to let her hear it. She had dealt with Michael and Jeremy’s deaths in the same way she had dealt with my father’s death and Thomas moving across the other side of the world: by throwing herself into her own life. Hiking, yoga, volunteering, the five adopted dogs she now doted on, holidays with friends and an army of boyfriends. My mother had a better social life than I did.

  But writing this book had stopped being about catharsis the moment I started to suspect everybody had been wrong about Jem and Mikey. Now it was about facts.

  “Yes,” I said carefully. “But Auntie Sue is fine with me asking her questions. It’s not like I’m the only one, and I think I’ve actually got something here—”

  “Are you hoping to sell it?” Mum asked.

  “Well, maybe? I don’t know. Eventually, I hope. I’m not really doing it for the money or anything like that. It’s just—”

  “Because you know, sweetheart, those things are normally done on proposal, right? I’m worried that you’re wasting your life on this. Why don’t you set it aside like you did before? Get back into the journalism game if you want to write something. There’s no deadline on this, so no hurry. You could do with spending more time with your friends too, getting yourself a job you love, maybe meeting somebody…”

  The microwave pinged just in time to prevent me from saying something I’d regret. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t a deadline, that I wasn’t under commission in some news office any more; there was something burning inside of me that drove me onwards, and I knew I wouldn’t settle until it was done, even if that meant proving myself wrong. I’d taken a break once before and regretted it.

  “I just want to finish it,” I said, wishing now I’d just told her I was freelancing again. “Thomas would agree with me if I could get him to bloody well call me back. It’s his fault anyway. He’s always banging on about the boys. Both of you are. Is it any wonder I want to write about them?”

  “Of course he’d agree with you. He always does, and he always likes the things you write – even those daft unicorn stories you used to tell.”

  I snorted despite myself. Contrary to Mum’s memory, those stories had been Thomas’s creations. I’d always been more interested in the grisly side of life. Once, when I was nine or so, Thomas bought me a book about the Whitehall murders. We hid it from my mother. I had nightmares for weeks but it didn’t stop me poring through the whole thing with morbid excitement.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I made contact with Jillian Chambers and her mother today. I don’t know how receptive they will be, especially Jillian, but I’m proud of myself for reaching out. I’ve been putting it off for ages.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to leave her alone?” She said this gently, as though she thought I was pestering.

  “I can’t, Mum. It’s important. And honestly, she seemed a bit spooked tonight. I actually just want to make sure that she’s okay.”

  This was the truth. I was worried about her. Because Jillian Chambers had been afraid of something.

  FOUR

  4 NOVEMBER 2016

  Harriet

  A FEW DAYS LATER I called in sick at work. The sun was barely even up, the treetops sprinkled with bluish gold light as I climbed into my car, the windshield spidered with a patina of frost. I couldn’t stop thinking about the book, my hunch, about Jillian’s strange question about me hanging around, how unsettled she’d seemed. I hadn’t slept properly in three nights.

  I thought about the little I knew about Jillian. While drafting the early parts of the book I’d returned again and again to her and her brother, Alex. The survivor, and the last victim. All the information I had dried up after her abduction and then escape in 1998, even though it was in the news and in the press often enough. The original investigation had been huge – I remembered it vividly. Searches, information appeals, Crimestoppers and police interviews. It eclipsed everything, and like the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, people had never stopped talking about it.

  Jillian and Alex had vanished eighteen years ago, stolen from their beds just like my cousins, and eight other children. By the time Jillian was found she had been missing for over two weeks. And when she turned up with a concussion, a badly sprained ankle and cuts on her feet, and a severe case of hypothermia, but somehow miraculously alive, she had no idea what had happened to her brother, or how she’d managed to get away from her captor. She didn’t know where she was, or where she’d been held, and couldn’t remember anything that had happened to her.

  Since then, she had remained hidden from the public eye. She had never been interviewed by the press, so the information I had was limited to second-hand sources. When I was younger, I had been frustrated by this, the way she’d disappeared without giving any of us the answers we craved. But obviously it wasn’t that simple. She had been a child, scared and hurt, her memory either gone or locked up tight. Now I was frustrated by the journalists; I was angry about the newspaper and magazine articles that weren’t about the murdered and missing children but which instead gave space and time to him. The lure of the unknown, the unknowable.

  The Father – as the press had named him – had abducted twelve children between 1994 and 1998, starting with my cousins. He took siblings, always in pairs, often boys but not always, right from their beds while their parents slept peacefully down the hall. The abductions happened in the summer or early autumn. The children always shared a bedroom, disappearing like ghosts out of their window, as if Peter Pan had reached in and taken them. They never seemed to have put up a fight. Those that were found had been injected with insulin, their deaths quick, and they were always wearing new pyjamas.

  Jillian Chambers was the only person who could tell the truth about what happened – and she couldn’t remember it. I realised now how hard this must have been. To cope she seemed to have done her best to disappear from the world, to become as little like that angular, boyish-looking girl she had been as possible. To vanish, just like her brother.

  Even now the thought of what had happened to Alex Chambers filled me with dreadful fascination. The same as it always had whenever the Father took another pair of siblings while I was growing up. Thomas and I hadn’t really been aware of the details, but it was hard not to notice the way parents at school did that apologetic sidestep whenever they saw my mum and dad, the way people looked at my aunt and uncle if we went out for Sunday lunch and they were recognised.

  My aunt and uncle had been lucky – if you could call it that – to be able to bury both of their sons. Some of the children who were taken were never found. Auntie Sue always held a little prayer circle in her garden when another pair of siblings were taken.

  The abduction I remembered most vividly was during the summer of 1997. Charlotte and Hazel Davies had been abducted on 2 August, not six weeks after Morgan Bailey’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in a park in Leicester. She’d been missing for eleven months.

  I was seven years old. It was the first time I was really aware of what was happening. The news of the girls’ disappearance, the lack of new police leads, made headlines right up until Princess Diana’s tragic death later that month. Afterwards too. More children missing, more children gone.

  My aunt held a prayer circle a few days after the girls were taken. She made hot tea and baked a sponge cake for her church congregation and we all ate and drank solemn
ly in the garden, wilting under the sun while praying for the girls’ recovery. For their bodies to be found, at least, so their family could bury them.

  I’ll never forget the hot, itchy material of my dress, sweat on my back, how Thomas and I had been planning to play in Sue and Greg’s fountain to cool off but our parents had stopped us. We needed to be serious for a while. We had both sulked, refusing to say amen to my aunt’s prayers because we still didn’t really understand, then, what it all meant.

  Foolishly – and just for a moment each time – over the months that followed I would often be plagued with fear over whether mine and Thomas’s sulks had been the reason neither Charlotte nor Hazel were ever found. Even though I knew that was ridiculous, the thought still bothered me from time to time.

  I’d been thinking about it again when my phone rang at eight o’clock this morning. It was Molly Evans. I felt a surge of excitement at seeing her name, already contemplating the possibility of an excuse to miss work at some point.

  “Hello, Harriet love.” Molly’s voice still sounded exactly the same, even after five years. She spoke so quickly it was hard to keep up. “I’m sorry to call out of the blue, and so early. I was thinking about you last night, and that book of yours. I just wondered… are you still working on it?”

  “Yes,” I blurted quickly. “Actually, I am. In fact, I was going to give you a call. I have a few more questions.”

  “Oh that’s good. That’s really good. I’d love to talk some more. Well, I’m actually calling this morning because – I had this thought last night. There’s going to be a memorial at the weekend. I know your aunt and uncle don’t usually bother but I wondered if you might want to come?”

  “I—”

  “And then I thought, well why don’t you invite her round to tea? So that’s why I’m really ringing. Do you want to pop round sometime? I can give you the details of the memorial if you’re free this week… And I can answer your questions, too, two birds one stone and all that. Oh and I have some more lovely pictures of the twins.”

  “That would be great,” I said earnestly. I checked my watch. It still wasn’t too late to claim I wasn’t feeling well and get out of the whole day of work. I wasn’t the only one who’d ever taken a sneaky Friday off, after all. “Is this afternoon too soon?”