“I understand.” I let the numbing warmth of the gin soothe my raw nerves, the tension between us easing. “I think I do, anyway. It must be so hard.”
Erin rewarded me with a tiny smile. She was flushed, I noticed, from the rum and the warmth. Maybe from something else, too.
“Can I ask you something?” She looked serious.
“Uh-oh.” I finished my drink. The alcohol was kicking in now. We were both swaying slightly with the music. It was some loose beat, a type of house music maybe. “But go on.”
“Why didn’t you go and physically try to talk to Jenny Bowles?” she asked, almost hesitantly. “You said the police wouldn’t give you any information, which I get. But, I would have thought you’d have really tried, if you wanted proof that they were connected to – us?”
I didn’t miss the word ‘us’. It was the first time she’d willingly identified herself as one of the children. But I couldn’t say anything, or risk losing her trust. I thought for a moment before speaking.
“At first… I didn’t know how big of a deal it was, or whether I was making it up. I’ve always been interested in siblings. When I first started writing the book at university I searched for other crimes, disappearances or runaways that were maybe connected. It was a weird hobby, but I found it soothing going through and discounting them as part of the pattern, as though I was double-checking everything. It frustrates me to think I might have even seen something about Oscar and Isaac at the time, but dismissed them because of their different surnames. I don’t know what made me think when I found that article…
“Anyway, about two years in I found these sisters who were listed as runaways, and I tried to get in touch with the parents. The girls were older, sixteen or so, and one had been found dead only half an hour or so before I got in touch. I didn’t know… The family were extremely upset, obviously. They thought somebody had leaked it to the press…
“I don’t blame them for being angry, but they threatened me.” I swallowed. “I was afraid. It felt like a sign that I should stop digging into things that had nothing to do with me. And then obviously that tutor told me my work was juvenile so…” I sighed. “I stopped. But when I found that article about Oscar and Isaac it felt like a different sort of sign. I saw their faces, the way they stood together in that picture the newspaper used, and I didn’t even realise they weren’t related by blood until I read the article. But Jenny really didn’t want to talk to me and I thought about that other family. I guess I talked myself out of it. That’s why I took the information to Godfrey before doing anything else.”
While I talked Erin listened intently.
“Oh,” she said, finally. Oh. As though everything we’d been through over the last few days could be summed up in that one word.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
She stared for a second, thoughtful, and then nodded.
“When did you decide to change your name?”
For a moment I thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she said, “When I woke up in that hospital I knew straight away that I wasn’t Jillian any more. Something in me had – fractured. We were always Alex and Jillian, Jillian and Alex. Without him, I couldn’t be me. The old me.” She sipped her drink sadly. “Erin is my middle name. I grew my hair, started wearing makeup as soon as Mum would let me. I tried other things, too, dresses and skirts and earrings, but those things just made me feel like more of an imposter. This way I’m me, but not me.”
She got up without saying any more, ordered more drinks. We didn’t talk after that. There was a feeling between us that was both cautious and reckless. The later it got the louder the music grew. I watched her fingers, the way she held her glass. Admired the dips of her collarbones when she leaned in closer. I smelled the perfume she had borrowed from my bathroom, musky and warm. I noticed things about her that I’d never noticed in anybody else.
We drank until the world swam. When we left the bar, staggering out into the freezing night, the moon was out, a broad half-circle that made our shadows twine together. The night air smelled like smoke and pine trees. Erin held my arm.
If I had been on my own I might have been afraid. There was a sensation, I felt, like a hand at the back of my neck. It was residual, the image of what had happened to Monica burned into my memory. But the alcohol numbed the feeling, and Erin was close, and the shadows stayed just that: shadows.
At my flat we finished the last of the gin and then moved onto brandy and amaretto, the dregs of liquor bottles I’d had for an age. From a time when I had more friends outside of work to drink with, from when Thomas used to come over and we’d hang out. I’d missed a Skype call from him earlier in the day, but I couldn’t face talking to him. I had no idea what I’d say. It would be hard, I thought, to tell him such important things over a connection that glitched and wavered. I didn’t want to have to repeat myself.
I didn’t want Erin to overhear.
Both of us were eager to forget. Erin leaned against me as we swayed to silence. She pressed her lips, slowly, to my throat. I felt my body react, the first instinct to pull away, but I didn’t want to. And when I didn’t move she did it again.
Then her hands were on my back, tracing the waist of my dress, her touch feather-light. I didn’t stop her as her fingers hovered on my hips. She waited.
I pulled her closer, until the lengths of our bodies were touching. I could feel her breath on my skin, hot and sweet with cherry alcohol.
She leaned into me. I felt one hand on my back, the other pressed against my thigh. The top of my leg. I loosed a breath that overflowed with want. She responded with a sigh of her own, and I knew in that moment I needed to make her do it again.
We tumbled into the spare bedroom. The futon was less comfortable than I remembered, but I didn’t care. Erin pressed me down into the blankets and sheets. Then she was on top of me, her weight comforting and wild at once, setting a roaring wave growing in my stomach, between my legs. Her lips were at my neck and my hands were in her hair, and the blankets I’d knitted tangled around our legs as we moved together.
Afterwards we curled together. The room was dressed in moonlight. It made Erin’s hair look like liquid gold. I wanted to kiss her again, but her eyes were closed and I couldn’t disturb her. She looked peaceful.
I lay for a while in the darkness, Erin’s head resting against my shoulder, and felt the weight of dread start to ease back in.
ON THE NIGHT
Jillian
“YOU HAVE TO RUN.”
Jillian replayed Randeep’s words over in her head. She was shaking but she didn’t feel afraid any more, only numb and empty. Like she wasn’t even there. The walls of the well were slick with rain and slippery green moss, but the stones were big and they stuck out, and they were both good climbers. It was deep enough to hide them but she didn’t know for how long. It wasn’t far enough from the house but neither of them could run any more, not yet.
“Jilly, we need to go,” Alex whispered. He was right. If they stayed here much longer they’d freeze. It was raining, every drop of icy water like a needlepoint. Their borrowed pyjamas were dirty and soaked.
Alex held her close. He smelled a little of sweat and panic, and Jillian was almost glad for his buzzing terror because it made her remember: they had escaped, they’d made it this far, which meant they could get home.
“I’m tired,” she mumbled. She could hardly see Alex’s face except for the weak moonlight. “I don’t want to run any more.”
“Jilly we have to go. We can’t end up like Jas.”
Jillian thought of Randeep again. How he had helped them to escape. He said he couldn’t leave without his sister – but it wasn’t too late for them. He told them how his sister had tried to run, two days before Jillian and Alex came. And he hadn’t been allowed to see her again.
They all knew she was dead, but Jillian had been too scared to tell him that she’d seen Jas on her first night in the basement. Or rather, they’d seen her bod
y, lit by candlelight. It was a warning. They would have to run, better and harder and faster than Jaswinder had.
“This house is crazy,” Randeep had said. “It gets to you. You’re meant to be part of the family. You’ll eat cake until you feel sick. And then you’ll get angry, or somebody will, and the basement won’t be good enough any more, and one of you will end up dead. Because you weren’t a Good Fit. And then two more children will turn up, and it’ll happen all over again. Nobody is good enough.”
“I don’t think we should leave yet,” Jillian whispered into the close darkness of the well. “If Jas… We can’t do the same as her…”
“Jilly, we can’t stay here. We’ll freeze. As long as we’re moving, that’s what’s important. Let’s GO.”
He helped her out first, her nails scrabbling against dirt and stone and grass. She waited. She was smaller than her brother and she could jump back into Alex’s arms if she heard anything.
She counted to a hundred. It was clear. There was nobody here in these woods except the two of them. Then she reached down to help Alex out. He was heavy, his body grown after a long, hot summer. He was only two years older than her, but right now that felt like years she’d never see. Her whole body was shaking with cold and exhaustion.
Now they were out of the confined space of the well, Jillian’s heart started to pound and sick terror seeped into every millimetre of her. Alex grabbed her hand and they began to run. They didn’t know where they were going. Just away.
The trees slashed at their faces, their legs, as they left behind the house and the lake. They knew somebody had drowned there years ago; it was a story they’d heard more than once. Death was everywhere. Jilly stumbled and let out a yelp, her ankle twisting on the slick grass. Alex panicked, yanking her to her feet and pulling hard.
“Come on!” he hissed.
The wind picked up. It sounded like a scream. Jillian tried to run faster but her ankle hurt. Alex pulled her again. Her bare feet ripped on twigs and the crackle of autumn leaves.
“Jilly, come on!”
“I can’t, Alex, I can’t.” She was sobbing now. They ran so hard their breath was hitched and Jillian felt panic in every bit of her explode into something breathless, a dragon, no a monster, that threatened to take her vision too. The woodland floor was jagged and dark, treacherous with hidden dips and skids and—
And then Jillian fell again. Alex yanked her arm so hard the socket was like a firework and she saw stars.
“I can’t run any more,” she cried. “Alex, I can’t.”
“Come on, you idiot, get up—”
There was that screaming sound again. It made Jillian’s bones turn to water. She screeched and scrambled to her feet. It wasn’t the wind, it wasn’t a monster. It was human – and that was worse.
They splashed through a river, the water up to their waists. It was swollen with the rain, sucking and pulling at their clothes. The mud on either side was trying to bury them alive. Alex gripped her hand tight, and when they tumbled onto the banks Jillian had to spit a mouthful of silty water into the dirt. Alex yanked her back up, and on they went, the trees still closing in around them.
* * *
They came eventually to the edge of a slope that led down through trees and leaves, steep and scary. Alex slammed into her back as she skidded to a halt. We have to go, we have to go. We have to GO. But she didn’t want to. She couldn’t. She looked at Alex, his white face streaked with mud.
“I can’t,” Jillian whispered. “I’ll fall. My ankle—”
She wanted to cry. She wanted Alex to hug her, like he’d done when they were very small. But his face now wasn’t the face she knew. It was all points and hollows, his mouth open and panting. He was so cold, not like the warm, solid presence she always felt.
“You’ve got to go,” he said. His eyes cleared. “Jilly, you’ve got to go down.”
Jillian felt like time had slowed.
“Alex, help me,” she whispered.
And then he pushed her.
EXCERPT
Jillian & Alex Chambers
Abducted: Little Merton, 13 October 1998
“The kids were always thick as thieves,” Amanda Chambers told me over the phone when we spoke about Alex and Jillian. “Alex was obsessed with his sister from the moment she was born. He used to climb out of his cot and go and sleep next to her on the floor. We used to call it Alex Watch.”
“He was protective?”
“Oh yeah. They used to ride their bikes together on the street. Alex taught her how to ride, to skate, to play cards. I hardly had to get involved.” She laughed, and then went silent. “I probably ought to have paid more attention but I was happy that they were keeping out of trouble, out of the house.”
“Was Alex a quiet boy?”
“Yes, I suppose he was actually. They were both pretty quiet. Alex especially so, but he had such a smile. He was like an angel. Sometimes I find it hard to remember and I have to find old video or pictures of them together. But it’s never the same. Sure you see the dimple, but you don’t see what made him laugh. Whether he made himself laugh or not. He used to do that a lot. To make his sister howl with him. It was brilliant. It was how he made up for feeling like he had to carry the world, I think. He always wanted everything to be perfect, wanted everybody to be happy.”
“And Jillian?” I asked eventually. “What about her? Was she very worried about people being happy?”
“As a kid she was oblivious. She only cared about Alex. Now she pretends she doesn’t care what people think, but it’s not true. Things were complicated when they were little. I think Alex noticed more than she did, and he shielded her. Sometimes I just felt so guilty,” she said.
“About the children?”
“Yes. I think about it a lot, even now. I used to talk to my husband about it, before he died, but now I just think to myself… I should have paid more attention. I should have made sure that the windows stayed locked, told the kids more often not to mess with them. I told them, but I didn’t go and check every night. I didn’t make sure. We didn’t think it could happen again. Two in one year. It sounds awful, but we thought we were safe. And it felt, when they were gone, like all these dominoes had been lined up and that open window was the first nudge to send them all tumbling down.”
After this conversation I asked Amanda to meet with me, so we could talk through things some more. She agreed, but when I asked her if she thought her daughter might talk to me for the book she shut me down.
“No,” she said. “She doesn’t talk about her brother. I’m not sure she’ll ever be ready to do that. I think it’ll take something catastrophic to make her see that when we used to call her lucky it didn’t mean she hadn’t suffered. We didn’t mean it that way. But I think…” Amanda sighed. “I think we might have messed her up by telling her that. So, you can try but I doubt she’ll open up to you.”
TWENTY FOUR
10 NOVEMBER 2016
Erin
I WOKE EARLY TO an empty bed, my head muzzy with a hangover. The room was cold, the wind blowing outside. I gathered my senses and glanced around me. There was no evidence of our night together except the duvet and blankets that were bundled on my side of the bed, where I’d been tossing and turning.
The curtains were closed, the window firmly locked, and I got up to look outside. The morning was bright and cold. I knew in another life I would have felt guilty about sleeping with Harriet after what had happened to Monica, but instead I found that I felt better for it. Like a cleansing of ghosts. I ignored the little bleat of guilt at my own callousness; now wasn’t the time to let regret win. And besides, I liked Harriet.
I dressed in my pyjamas and then headed into the kitchen. Harriet wasn’t there. I made myself a coffee and then wandered down the hallway to her bedroom. The door was cracked and I poked my head through into the dim room. I heard the gentle stream of water from the shower and breathed a sigh.
I showered in the guest bathro
om and got dressed. When Harriet finally appeared her hair was still damp at the ends, her cheeks flushed, and it suited her. I crossed the room and lifted my hands to the sides of her face so I could kiss her firmly. She let out a little squeak of surprise, but much to my relief she didn’t pull away.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“Sorry. When you weren’t in bed I – I thought you’d done a runner,” I said.
She gave me a sheepish smile.
“Don’t be daft. Unless there’s a reason you think I’d abandon you here?”
Now it was my turn to be sheepish. The awkwardness was back; it felt a little like being a teenager again, so many thoughts and feelings about Harriet and Monica and Oscar and Isaac and Alex all swirling in my brain that I didn’t know how to feel.
“No. No reason.” Did she regret it? Was that why she’d been gone when I woke up?
She eyed me cautiously, then took a step back awkwardly.
“Look, about last night…”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “Really. Look, it’s my fault. Okay? I take full responsibility. I was a mess and I needed to let off some steam…”
“Responsibility?” Harriet turned back to me, her jaw firm. Not what I expected. “You say it like it shouldn’t have happened.”
“I thought you regretted it…?”
“Oh, god.” Harriet let out a grunt of frustration, then a laugh that sounded like a whole lot of relief. “Okay, look, let’s start again.”
“Alright.”
“I just wanted to make sure that I hadn’t… upset you?” Now I realised what the expression on her face meant. She was nervous.
“How?” I asked.
“I’ve never…” She worked her jaw, another flush creeping. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever. We’re too busy to be acting like teenagers, let’s just forget it—”
The Final Child Page 18