The Final Child

by Fran Dorricott

  She headed deeper into the woods. She was looking for the traps she knew her neighbour often laid for the foxes. She’d always turned a blind eye before, wondering if one day they might be helpful. She hoped she would be right.

  She knew she couldn’t guarantee that any of the police scent dogs – she was sure they’d use them – would find a trap, but she could make it more likely they wouldn’t notice them in the rain…

  There were a few spots she knew the farmer used, down beyond the lake and into the woodland that way, where the land was still private. It was the way the girl and her brother had run. Sure enough, she found a trap there, not even hidden. She gathered armfuls of the leafy ferns that grew nearby, gently kicked up patches of the mulchy leaves, until the trap was hard to spot. Satisfied, she smiled.

  She did this several times more, heading back towards the river and the roads, the way she had run last night when the children got out. All she needed was one accident. One police dog, caught in a trap because of the rain, the visibility. Then they’d call off any search until the weather improved, and it was set to storm up here on and off all week. She didn’t care if people came. But dogs… she knew she couldn’t fool them.

  By the time she was finished she was exhausted, but she didn’t care. She was filled with purpose. She didn’t know how long she would have to wait, but her gut told her they would come soon.

  When the police finally arrived, mercifully alone and with their dark coats dripping, their hats pulled low, Dana was ready. Showered, coffee in hand. Just a normal morning. Cautiously, she invited them inside. She was at her best, the perfect mother. A little frazzled, a little helpful, concerned and willing. They asked about Jack, were sympathetic when she told her story.

  He left me when my boys were small. Now there’s just us.

  They asked about Mouse. She told them he was at a martial arts trial class this morning at their old village hall, which was true. She’d arranged it perfectly. Afterwards he’d go to the little house to check on the boys, but they’d be out of it for a while yet. And then, eventually, she’d be able to join them. But Mouse was a big boy and he could take care of them until then.

  The police poked around – she let them. Wanted them to. It was vindicating, knowing that she was better. She had planned harder, for longer, and thought of everything. After the first pair of boys she’d learned how to do it perfectly. That was just patience. And this was the same.

  They never found it. They passed the bookcase, wandered down the back stairs, searched the rest of the empty basement. They did not notice that those rooms were perhaps just a few feet shorter than they should be; they did not see the hidden corridors and small rooms that required additional access around the edges of the house. Her perfect little rabbit warren.

  She was proud of the maze she had built with her own bare hands, starting the day she brought those first boys home. They hadn’t been right – maybe they hadn’t been brothers for long enough – but they had taught her how to do things. To be independent. To do what Jack had never done, and build a life.

  The policemen went out into the gardens, where the wind was blowing a gale. The distant shores of the lake were a turmoil of mud. All of this – it had been God’s will. Like it had been God’s will when she hadn’t chosen those other children, the ones the Lord showed were unsuitable, the one who woke up or failed her early tests. She knew that she would have been caught if she’d tried, and she always listened to her gut, that tingling of anticipation deep down in her belly. It had always been about trust.

  That feeling was why she had chosen the boy and the girl, the autumn pair. Their window, it had been fortune. Open just when she needed it, even though she’d not been planning to take any more until next year. Even their escape – the wind, the flooding – was a sign that things were destined to go her way. A lesser woman might have been afraid, but not Dana.

  That night, after the police had gone, she relished the silence. The whole, aching, haunted place was her own. She wandered each room, trailing every corridor with trembling fingers. It felt like she had spent her life building these walls, creating a home. And soon she would be back where she started, in the house she was glad Jack hadn’t convinced her to sell. The one she’d hung onto, just in case. The boys were there now, the whole tribe of them. She was fiercely proud of Mouse. Finally he had stepped up. Tomorrow, or the next day, she would be Mother again, but tonight…

  Tonight she lay in her bed, surrounded by familiar things. She inhaled the scents of the house, the dust and the polish and the lavender bedlinen. She breathed the darkness, and sent a prayer of thanks to Mary Brennan, the old lady who had left her this house when she’d died… There were some perks to the job.

  Dana knew that soon this chapter of her life would be over. The thought wasn’t entirely unwelcome; she was tired.

  And ready to be safe again.

  Nobody could ever find out what she had done.

  THIRTY

  Erin

  EVERYTHING WAS WRONG. I looked at each of the items in the cabinet in turn, searching for anything else I recognised, but there wasn’t anything of Alex’s in there. I stared until I couldn’t stare any more, and then I tore myself away. I stumbled, tripping over my feet in an attempt to keep going.

  “Erin, we can’t touch anything!” Harriet shouted.

  “I won’t. I just…”

  I was still going. Harriet followed me, one step away from dragging me outside. But she was in shock, just like I was, and the house had to be empty. The layers of dust on everything were so thick I could taste them.

  “We need to do it together, then.” Harriet’s voice was faint. She looked about as sick as I still felt.

  The rest of the ground floor was as empty as the lounge and dining room. A small kitchen led out a back door and into a yard that was wild and overgrown with weeds.

  I needed to know more. I needed to know why.

  The house felt too empty to give answers. There was nothing here except the cabinet of morbid trophies, and I didn’t even know who they all belonged to. Harriet might. Distantly I knew I wanted to ask her, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about them – about the children – in this place. Sickness roiled in my belly at the thought of the ghosts living in that little glass box.

  I kept moving, driven onwards by the fiery anger burning up inside of me. Upstairs there was a small hallway, two bedrooms and a study. The bedrooms were sparse, the mattresses bare. The smaller bedroom had a double bed, and was decorated in shades of pale pink, with tepid, sun-bleached paisley curtains and two hideous faux-sheepskin rugs. Under the window there was a small set of shelves, bare but with streaks in the dust where something – or many uniform somethings – had once sat. Too identical to be books – videotapes maybe? There was nothing there now. There were no photos, no framed pictures, but I could see the spots on the walls where they had once hung.

  I stepped into the twin bedroom. This room was larger, and the first thing I noticed was the desk under the window that overlooked the garden. It was just an ordinary, cheap table, but that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was what sat on top: pools of wax that had melted off two pillar candles, red like blood. My body convulsed at the sight of them but I managed to steady myself.

  “Erin, come on,” Harriet said, trying to urge me away. “Let’s get outside – I don’t want to stay…” Then she noticed the candles too.

  “Somebody has been here,” she said, fear in her voice. “We need to go.”

  “They’re covered in dust,” I said, and I sounded more confident than I felt. “Look, there’s plenty on there. She’s not been here for a while.”

  Harriet backed out into the hallway, ignoring the two single beds pushed up against the walls to the left and the right, ignoring the entrance to the ensuite. But the door was open and my feet kept moving.

  Inside, sitting on the cistern, there was an unopened pack of single-use latex gloves, a row of nail brushes still in their packaging,
and a sealed bottle of rubbing alcohol. On the back of the sink sat packets of disposable razors, bin bags, bleach and duct tape, all new and unused.

  Bile rose in my throat, threatening to spill again. I swallowed it down.

  “Erin, please, stay with me.” Harriet appeared behind me, her red hair like a halo. “What did you find?”

  “It’s like a – kit,” I whispered. “For breaking into a house without leaving any evidence. But they’re all new. Unused. I think I’m going to be sick…”

  Wordlessly we headed back out into the hall. Harriet’s arm brushed mine and I flinched. I couldn’t bear the thought of being touched right now; the skin on my arms felt like it was on fire and I was desperate to scratch it.

  “This is useless,” I growled. “Fucking useless!”

  “Erin—” Harriet tried to calm me but that only made it worse. I wanted to scream, cry and throw things. Most of all I wanted to run out of this haunted place, but I knew I couldn’t until I’d seen it all. Just in case I never got another chance. Just in case the police missed something.

  “Alex is still gone,” I forged on. “Monica is still dead. Nobody knows where Jenny Bowles is – she’s probably dead, too. We’re no closer to finding the bloody answers, not really. We still don’t know why Dana Wood’s been doing any of this, or where she is now. Am I going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? Are you?”

  Harriet didn’t speak. She made to move towards me but I sidestepped, heading towards the only remaining door up here, presumably another bathroom.

  “Erin, fingerprints—”

  I attempted to stop myself, realising too late that she was right, that I was letting my emotions get the better of me, but the door was only loosely latched and when I leaned against the wood it started to open.

  It stuck halfway, scraping against a carpet, which was spongey and swollen like moss. A smell began to seep into the hall, strong enough that I gagged.

  “What the fuck…?”

  Harriet recoiled. I felt sick – but I didn’t stop. What if it was Jenny? Or worse.

  A little voice screamed something else in the back of my mind, something crazy: What if it’s Alex?

  I pushed the door harder. Something had made the carpet stick and there appeared to be a layer of duct tape stuck to the bottom of the door; it felt like pulling a stick over a rotten log.

  Harriet had her phone out.

  “Where the bloody hell are they?” she said.

  I shook my head. This door hadn’t been opened in a long time; I doubted anybody was going to jump out now. I took a deep breath and stepped into the gap, which was just wide enough for my body. Inside, the bathroom was cloaked in darkness, blackout blinds pulled low to block the weak sunlight.

  Everything was cast in shadow: the dark walls, the carpet, which was spotted with a patina of mould. The smell was stronger, but still I couldn’t place it. Something old, something…

  “Erin, what is—”

  I stepped fully inside, gingerly twisted so Harriet could join me. The dimness was deceptive and the room was bigger than it looked. There was a bathtub, old and small with clawed feet, and a shower on the wall above it. Duct tape lined the gaps at the window, the air vents near the ceiling, patches of shining, ominous grey.

  “Harriet…”

  She came up beside me.

  “We need to leave,” she said. She grabbed for me but I dodged her. “Now, Erin.”

  “No, not until—”

  Harriet tried to lunge for my arm again.

  “The police—”

  “Wait!” I yanked my arm back with such force that I stumbled, my trainers sinking into carpet which had once been so wet it had never fully recovered, the floor marshy and uneven.

  There was something in the tub. I felt vomit rise into my mouth and I reeled backwards. Harriet grabbed me, dragging me away from the swarm of colours and shapes that made the vague outline of a body.

  “Who is it?” I begged as we tumbled out into the hall. Harriet kept going. “Is it…?” Tears were on my cheeks. I was going to be sick.

  “I…” Harriet whispered. “I think it’s Dana Wood.”

  * * *

  Somehow we were downstairs, outside, and vaguely I was aware that I was shaking. I didn’t feel cold. I didn’t feel much of anything except swirling confusion that made the weak light feel watery and the trees seem to close in around me.

  I was hardly even aware of Harriet as she stood next to me. Detective Godfrey was somewhere in the house behind me. There were other people too, but I didn’t know who they were. Police. Crime scene people. I tried to focus but I couldn’t.

  Harriet looked as haunted as I’d ever seen her, her skin so pale she looked like a ghost.

  Without thinking I grabbed her hand and we walked away from the house until we reached the hedge at the front of the garden. We stood in silence for a moment. I cast my gaze towards the grey sky, watched as a small brown bird flew from tree to tree. As we stood, the numbness started to subside and I was left instead with a burning, itching feeling all up my arms and legs. I started to scratch but Harriet caught my hand.

  “Why do you do that?” she asked softly.

  I didn’t want to look at her but it was hard not to. Her freckles were stark, like a constellation of tiny stars.

  “Do what?”

  “Sometimes when you’re nervous you scratch your arms.”

  “It feels like my skin’s crawling.”

  I huffed out a sigh, watching as some more people came and went. Detective Godfrey appeared in the doorway, her shoulders hunched against the wind. She looked for us, nodded when she caught me staring, and then popped back inside.

  “It used to happen worse when I was a kid, but I got it under control – and then it didn’t bother me. Until recently.” I shrugged, realised Harriet was still holding my hand. I gave it a quick squeeze.

  She held on for another minute, and then folded her arms against the chill.

  “Do you think… it’s definitely her?” I asked.

  “I think so. I don’t know.”

  “It looked like… she’d been dead for a while.”

  “I’d guess it happened longer ago than the stalking started,” Harriet agreed. “Maybe she died in the tub, probably drowned given the mess of the carpet…” She avoided my eyes, picking at the skin on her hands. She was more affected by this than she let on. “Then, uh, I guess it was drained or it evaporated over time and she was left there. That might explain it. I bet the tub acted as a kind of natural shelter against the air, slowing down the decomposition, although all the science I know is from TV. But somebody didn’t want the smell to get out, hence all that tape on the walls and the window. It might be the person who’s been following you, who hurt – Monica.”

  I fought a shiver. Harriet took a deep breath, as if to settle her stomach.

  “So… where does that leave us?”

  “A copycat, probably.” She glanced up, and I realised just how afraid she was. More now than ever before.

  “A copycat?” I whispered. That felt worse, somehow. Like all of the rules had changed. “No,” I managed. “It can’t be… Not like that.”

  “If that’s her, Erin—”

  “What about the clues and signs and everything? The doll, the candles. Who else would do that?”

  Harriet didn’t move.

  “Somebody has been here,” she agreed. “The candles on the desk… Maybe there’ll be DNA on them or something. I’m just saying it can’t be her. If she’s dead she can’t exactly have been wandering around Arkney breaking into your house. What happened to those children might not have anything to do with what’s happening now. It might just be about you.”

  The words were like a slap in the face. I was pacing, I realised, and I stopped dead as a look of apology flashed across Harriet’s face.

  “Christ, Erin. I didn’t mean to say it like that… It’s just—”

  “Just what?” I blurted. “
You think this is my fault?”

  “No! Jesus Christ, Erin, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not thinking straight, okay? I’m fucking terrified. We just found another body, so I’m sorry if I’m a little foggy. I just wonder if it’s possible that there’s someone else behind this.”

  “What about the candles?” I snapped. “They triggered something inside me… some memory, something. They’re important.”

  “You make candles, Erin,” Harriet pointed out, but she had softened a bit. “You can buy them from anywhere. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

  “And the note? Why hurt Jenny if it’s about me? Why watch Molly? Leave gifts for Jaspreet?”

  “Maybe somebody is using what happened to get to you.”

  I fought the urge to cry. Maybe Harriet was right. I reached deep into my pocket for my cigarettes before remembering I still didn’t have a lighter. I didn’t want to ask Harriet for hers. I didn’t want to talk any more at all.

  I shivered in the chill wind, felt the first sprinkle of rain on my skin. I felt like he, she, whoever was watching me – even now.

  The front garden was small but the hedges were high and I started to feel claustrophobic. I stepped closer to Harriet, suddenly needing her warmth.

  She pulled me into a hug, but the sensation of being watched didn’t disappear. I closed my eyes tight, sucked in Harriet’s shampoo smell and the scent of the garden. It wasn’t possible, was it? That the man I’d been afraid of my whole life was a woman – and she was dead.

  I clung to Harriet. With my eyes closed all I could picture was the room from my dreams. A basement room. Alex somewhere I couldn’t see. I felt panic rising inside me and I snapped my eyes open.

  A wet stomping sound made me jump away and turn back to the house. Detective Godfrey was heading across the unkempt front lawn, her face a mask of concern.

  “How are you holding up?” she asked. It was different from the tone she’d used when she’d arrived, her car screaming into the driveway spewing gravel and dirt. She’d been angry, then, but now she looked tired. A bit confused.