The Final Child

by Fran Dorricott

  “Right.” His voice broke again. “I’ll do anything. We can talk after – the police…”

  We agreed a time and place and I put the phone down.

  Erin appeared, hair in a towel, fresh tank top and clean jeans, her eyebrow raised in question.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Jenny’s son. I’ve arranged for us to meet him later. He’s in Derby—”

  “You arranged to meet him? Harriet, we don’t even know him. He could be anybody. I…” She blinked tears from her eyes furiously.

  “I was trying to help. I thought you’d want to talk to him, to make sure somebody asked about Oscar and Isaac.”

  “You should have talked to me first.” She pulled the towel from her hair and began to comb it angrily with her fingers. “How do you know it’s safe? It’s one thing to refuse protection while we’re here, together, but if we just go off anywhere with strangers—”

  “He’s talking to the police first,” I said. “He knew about me already. About the… the box in my flat. So I thought I might as well call. Erin, maybe we can learn something. Maybe it’ll help you to connect things? We can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

  Erin’s cheeks were pink with her building anger. She looked different than she did with makeup on, younger and more afraid. I guessed that was the point of all that eyeliner.

  “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I feel awful?”

  “He might say more than he would to the police,” I pressed. “Or maybe he’ll just give us something to go on. Something that makes sense to you that doesn’t to them?”

  “You want me to talk to him?”

  I thought of Adam’s reaction when I’d mentioned the Father. “I think maybe he’ll open up to you.”

  TWENTY EIGHT

  Harriet

  IN THE CAR ERIN didn’t look at me, just stared at the black screen of her phone as we headed back towards Derby to meet Adam. After a while she reached into her pockets, pulling out her cigarettes. Then let out a groan.

  “Fuck,” she said. “I lost my lighter.”

  “Borrow mine. It’s in the middle—”

  “It must be in the hotel. Or on the goddamn floor somewhere. I can’t fucking believe it.”

  “Hey, it’s not the end of the world…”

  “I really liked that bloody thing. I won’t find another one the same—”

  “Erin.” I glanced over at her. Her eyes were filled with tears. “It’s alright,” I soothed. “If this is too hard, or if Adam doesn’t want to talk to us, then we will leave. Okay?”

  She blew out a breath, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay?” I pushed.

  “Alright,” she said quietly.

  We arrived at our location soon afterwards, a McDonald’s on the outskirts of town. As we pulled into the car park Erin glanced up from her phone.

  “This is where we’re meeting him?”

  “What?” I fought a smile despite myself. Erin didn’t strike me as the anti-fast-food type. “You said you wanted to be safe. Where’s safer than McDonald’s?”

  Erin pulled a face.

  “I never would have guessed I’d catch you in a Maccies,” she muttered, then shrugged. “But I’m not gonna pass up the opportunity for some chicken nuggets.”

  “It’s not my usual go-to. But in all seriousness, they’ve got decent security. And it’ll be loud enough that we can talk privately.”

  Finally Erin gave me a small smile.

  “Whatever floats your boat.”

  Inside it was still quite busy despite being between the lunch and after-school flurries, but we managed to grab a booth so we could both see the door. I recognised Adam from his Facebook profile picture, and stood up to greet him. He was probably in his early thirties, green eyes and a strong jaw, but the exhaustion of the last few hours haunted him.

  “Hi Adam, I’m Harriet. This is Erin. She’s a—”

  “I’m Jillian,” she said, her jaw tense. “Chambers. Survivor. All that shit.”

  Adam froze. Like suddenly he came off autopilot and realised where he was. He sank into the booth, shell-shocked.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet us,” I said. “I’m sorry about your mother. Has there been any news?”

  He shook his head. “No. Nothing. They… I’m sorry, I’m such a mess. I left my husband at our hotel and I really – I want to get back. What do you think we can do to help Mum? You mentioned Oscar and Isaac before, and the police mentioned them again today but they were…. you know. Cagey. Can you tell me how they’re connected?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but that’s what I was talking to your mother about before she went missing. About what happened to them. Can I maybe ask you some questions?”

  Adam was deep in thought but he nodded. “Like I said, it was a long time ago… But the police asked me some stuff today. What do you want to know?”

  “What do you remember about the time around when they disappeared?”

  “When they ran away, you mean?”

  “Is that what you think happened?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. Mum said they ran away at first, but then… she changed her mind, I think. They were seen at a bus station though. And they’d ended up in big cities before.” He worried at his lip. “Do you really think… there’s a connection? To you?” This he directed at Erin. Until now she’d been toying with her half-empty chicken nugget box, refusing to look at either of us. Now she locked eyes with Adam.

  “Do you think it’s possible?” she asked.

  “I… I never thought about it until today.”

  “When they disappeared, was there anything weird going on at home?” I asked.

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t remember anything. Jonah – my brother – was often away at weekends because he did all sorts of sports. He ran cross country and played basketball. So I was home with Oscar and Isaac. Isaac was older than Oscar. He came to us first. He was moody; he’d had a really rough time. As soon as Oscar arrived they just clicked. Oscar used to follow him round everywhere. I think Isaac liked the attention, liked looking after him and feeling important. They were always colluding after that.”

  “So there weren’t any fights that you knew of?” Erin repeated. “No reason they’d run away?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But they’d done it before, both separately at their previous foster homes, and Isaac ran away from his bio parents. They did manage to get kicked out of school, right before. I can’t remember exactly what happened. I think Isaac stuck up for Oscar when some other kids were bullying him and it got out of hand, but I remember it being really awkward.”

  “Awkward how?”

  “Mum had to take them to work with her when she couldn’t get a babysitter. I remember her being angry because there was no support at the school for struggling students but they just dug their heels in and refused to help. Fixated on Isaac lashing out instead of dealing with the problem, I guess. And Mum had this cleaning service where she’d go clean people’s houses, but it was very bitty. A day here, two hours there. Never consistent. So it was hard to find a sitter with such short notice.”

  “Do you remember any of the places your mum took them?” I asked. “I know it’s a long time ago.”

  But Adam was nodding. “There were loads over that couple of weeks, mostly regulars up near Stanshope. There was this one huge farm that had a bunch of collies. Oscar and Isaac were both obsessed with the dogs and wouldn’t stop talking about them for days afterwards. And there was this fancy house nearby to that one. I remember them telling me that they got in trouble for running off and making friends with a gardener. And a big old place in the middle of nowhere, a small manor type house. Dove something, like the river.”

  Erin and I exchanged a glance. There were a lot of old abandoned houses around there, some derelict and left to ruin, houses with big grounds and a lot of privacy. The buildings were too expensive to keep and too precious to sell, and often they w
ere left to rot like haunted relics. It wasn’t far from where Erin was found. Was it possible that’s where the Father had seen them, at one of these places? Chosen them then?

  “The last one… Are you sure it was Dove something? That it was up in that direction?” Erin asked, her brows furrowed.

  “Yeah. I remember Dana Wood who owned it, because Mum used to talk all the time about how pointless those trips were. Dana paid Mum to clean but the house was always spotless. We used to call her Neat-Freak Wood – behind her back, obviously. Some rich lady left the house and a bunch of money to her in her will – she was a carer or something – and I think she thought that it would be rude to let Mum see an untidy house, especially because she’d seen where Dana lived before, which wasn’t nearly so posh. Actually, Mum took me there one time when I was off school sick. That was just a regular house – she never even sold it when she moved, I don’t think. She didn’t need to.”

  “Where was that?” I asked.

  “She lived in Elby before, same as us, right down at the end of Elgin Road. Basically in the fields. Nice little house, but a bit out of the way.”

  “So, your mum took the boys up to the big house, this manor. And then your brothers ran away and – disappeared. Do you think you could find the address of the bigger house for us?”

  I could almost feel Erin vibrating, her leg bouncing under the table. She’d pushed her left sleeve up and was scratching at her arm rhythmically. The skin was red and blotchy.

  “Yeah. Uh, probably. I’m not sure. Mum used to keep meticulous records but it depends if I can find them. I think she kept all of her old invoices, though. She never throws anything away.” Adam’s expression shifted. “It’s weird, actually. I asked her about taking the boys to Dana’s once after it happened, because I thought maybe Dana might’ve said something that made the boys run away. Mum shut me right down, like it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard, but it is possible.”

  “Why did you think she’d have upset them?” Erin asked. Her face was very pale now. “Did she upset people a lot?”

  “Not really. But we knew we were meant to be nice to Dana if we ever saw her, just in case we upset her. I wondered if maybe Oscar had said something and she’d said something back. She could be quite scary.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Uh, well, Mum told me she had two sons, and one of them drowned in a lake or something. She was really touchy about it.”

  Erin had gone quiet. I reached under the table to rest my hand on her leg, and she grabbed it tight. I was sure we were both thinking the same thing. Two sons. One dead…

  “After that Oscar and Isaac left, and Mum packed up the cleaning business when they were gone. She did fundraising and stuff instead. I don’t see how any of this helps. That was all over twenty years ago. Mum’s gone now…” Adam’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think – I’m going to go. But I sent you my number…? I’ll let you know if I find that address.”

  We watched him leave. Erin was trembling, still gripping my hand.

  “Those houses…” she whispered.

  “The police searched them. Talked to everybody.”

  “They could have missed something.”

  “Yes.”

  “But…” Shock made us both numb. “I don’t understand how it all fits together… Maybe she had a husband? Could he be the Father?”

  “Adam didn’t mention one. Maybe the husband left?”

  I tried to think it all through. “It couldn’t be her, though. Right?”

  But even as I said the words I knew that there was a sickening amount of sense in this crazy, blossoming theory. The Father – the name had come from the media. What proof did any of us have that this killer was a man…?

  I thought about what we knew. Or thought we knew. Erin was probably drugged, and it made sense that other children had been too – or at least one from each pair.

  Erin’s dad had seen somebody who might have been small at the window that night. He couldn’t tell if it was the children playing, or if he’d seen somebody else. But the abductions happened through open windows, so whoever took the children couldn’t have been huge.

  And perhaps they might have been less afraid of a woman. They could have been persuaded to go with somebody who looked like a carer, especially if she had a uniform, latex gloves and all…

  If she was a carer, she might have been used to dealing with children, carrying dead weights too. I thought of the nurses I’d seen at the hospital when Dad was sick, constantly marching the halls, turning patients, lifting and helping to wash them… A lone carer would have to do all of that and more. And if she was a woman, she might be smaller, so getting in and out of windows wouldn’t have necessarily been hard. Especially not with one child compliant to help the other. And she might have access to drugs, something that could reliably knock out a small child. And the insulin…

  Erin jumped suddenly, knocking her coffee and nuggets back.

  “Shitting hell,” she swore. Then she lowered her voice, glancing around. “It’s what Jenny Bowles was talking about.”

  “What?”

  “Siblings. Protection. This woman had two children and she lost one. I wonder if… Could she have been taking children to replace her own? But like… as an audition? It comes back to the same question: What’s important about siblings? But then my mum… she mentioned that Dad thought Alex said he would protect me. And Jenny said the same thing. Siblings should protect each other. And Isaac liked to look after Oscar. And Alex always looked after me. Do you think Dana was looking for a child who would protect her remaining son? Or one to look up to him? A replacement child for the one she lost – and one who would, if she engineered it, also have lost a sibling? Maybe that’s why the children were never found together…”

  We sat for a moment in the afternoon light, the restaurant getting busier around us. My chest felt like it was filled with barbed wire. Was it possible that we had just figured it out? Could this person – this woman – be the one who had killed Jem and Mikey? The one Erin had escaped from when she was seven years old?

  THE FIRST TIME

  Mother

  LAST WEEK THE CLEANER’S babysitter had cancelled. Her boys weren’t meant to be off school but there had been an emergency… She’d brought them to the house without asking. They’d spent the afternoon running around in the garden in jackets that were just too small and jeans that showed their ankles while Jenny cleaned the big bathroom – the one without the leaking roof.

  Dana watched the boys run zig-zags on the lawn and felt a pang in her chest. The boys were adorable, so loving and protective of each other. It wasn’t fair. Jenny, the stupid cleaner, had children. So many of them. She fostered and adopted and she was happy. It wasn’t fair that Dana couldn’t have that.

  After Chris-Bear she’d tried so many things but each one fell through. The adoption agency said it could take years for anything to happen. Mouse didn’t have years. He was getting more and more withdrawn every day; he refused to speak to her most of the time, ate alone in his room. She struggled to even get him to school – had even considered trying to teach him at home.

  Jenny didn’t know how lucky she was.

  “Oh they drive me round the bend, duck,” she’d joked.

  How could she joke about such a thing?

  Dana would never joke about her children again. She thought about Bear. How sometimes she had resented him when he cried, even just that little bit. How Mouse was best when he needed her, when he was poorly and she could look after him. The rest of the time he was distant and horrid.

  She wanted to tell him she’d done the best by him that she could. Without Jack things had never been easy. Of course, she knew she’d probably driven him to suicide. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to say? But no. He was a selfish prick.

  She didn’t like to think about the way she had found him, hours after he disappeared into the basement. She really had thought he’d just left, so t
hat’s what she’d told the boys. But he hadn’t – or at least he hadn’t left the building. His spirit had stayed, and now he haunted everything. Especially Mouse. Maybe that’s why Bear had died. Maybe there was something evil inside her boy now.

  Mouse was like his father sometimes. She thought of the cat. Her son wasn’t happy. She wanted to give him another brother, one who needed Mouse as much as Mouse needed him. Then maybe he’d be happy again.

  Tonight she’d left work early and was driving aimlessly. She was trialling a new childminder, but suspected that Mouse wouldn’t like this one either. It was hard to find good ones who’d watch him for the hours Dana needed to fit around her job. Still, she’d make the most of it while she had one.

  She liked to drive around like this when she could. She found winding country lanes, driving with her lights off for the thrill. Sometimes she followed buses, just to see where they stopped. Anything to stay out of the house. That was how she’d ended up at the bus station tonight, just out to the side where trees lined the road.

  It was like God, or fate, had smiled down on her. She pulled in thinking she’d get a coffee, have a cigarette before driving to get Mouse at the agreed time – and there they were. Jenny’s boys. It was late. She’d finished work at around ten. Dana glanced backwards and forwards, looking for Jenny’s beat-up Honda. But the boys were alone. She thought of how she’d felt when she’d seen them playing last week. That jolt of longing.

  She wound down her window. They recognised her, of course. The smaller one looked frightened but the bigger one was in charge. He asked, bold as brass, if she’d drive them somewhere.

  “Where exactly are you going? Two boys, out here all alone – where’s your mum?”

  “She’s not our mum,” the big one said.

  “We want to go to Birmingham,” said the other.

  “Birmingham is a long way away.” Dana weighed up her options. It felt like a nudge, a push, even. They wanted her. They needed her. They were already frightened, and fear made children pliant. “What will you do when you get there?”