The Final Child

by Fran Dorricott

  I shook my head. Shrugged. I had no words.

  “We’ll need to carry out a full, formal investigation,” she said. “But it does look like there’s a connection here. The house is owned by a Dana Harper. Looks like everything is in that name, but we’re getting everything cross-referenced to a Dana Wood, like Mr Bowles said.”

  Harriet and Godfrey continued talking but I couldn’t focus. I thought about the gloves, the razors, the unused items that might seem innocuous in any other house. I tried to remember, running through the dreams in my head. But all I could see was that basement room. Was any of what I’d remembered real?

  “Is there a basement?” I blurted, interrupting Harriet and Godfrey. They both looked at me questioningly. “In the house. Is there a basement?”

  “They’re checking the perimeter now, but it doesn’t look like it.” Godfrey shook her head. “Should there be?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure, but I think… I think wherever we were taken, wherever she took us, had a – a basement or a storage shed or something…”

  Godfrey made a note, then pulled out her phone and sent a text message.

  I shivered.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Harriet and Godfrey looked at me again, pity and apology on their faces.

  “Erin…” Harriet whispered.

  I could see that they didn’t know whether I was asking about now, or then. And I didn’t know either.

  “Why would somebody do this to me, to Monica, to Jenny, now? Who would want to, if not her? And who killed her?”

  None of us had an answer.

  Godfrey’s lips twitched as she scanned the trees and the hedge and the coming and going of her colleagues.

  Then she said, “There’s a diary upstairs. We found it under the bed. I say diary, it’s more… ramblings. A notebook just filled with – they’re half unintelligible. But on the first page there’s what looks like a poem, dedicated to ‘My Lost Child’. Do you two know anything about that?”

  “Yes,” Harriet answered quickly. “Well, maybe. We think so. Adam Bowles told us that Dana lost a child, a boy who drowned in a lake.”

  Godfrey gestured back to the house. “The pages allude to something else. A brother. Do you know anything about him? Did Adam say anything to you?”

  I clenched my jaw. Harriet held my arm, her fingers digging into my skin. I thought about what Jenny Bowles had said. Siblings. It’s always siblings. Dana Wood was dead, but she had been abducting siblings for a reason, and with her gone who did that leave?

  The boy who had failed to save his brother. The boy who might want to finish what his mother had started.

  Her remaining son.

  Father

  MOTHER ALWAYS CHOSE THE worst ones. Some were better than others, of course. And sometimes it was fun to help her choose, like the time they’d been at the zoo and seen two little boys monkeying around. But Mother had long since stopped taking him with her when she went to hunt. More and more she left him home alone and came back having already decided.

  Sometimes she made decent decisions, he had to admit that much, but they were like a lapse in her awful judgement. Morgan was fine – at least for a while. He’d thought about trying to explain to Mother what it was he wanted, but in truth he didn’t know. And anyway, he couldn’t stomach talking to her for long enough to describe it.

  He found it funny that the news had started calling her the Father. Because they thought she looked after the children. He didn’t think what she did could be called looking after. If anything he was the one who fed them, who made sure they followed the rules. If anybody was the Father, it was him. And if it were up to him, he’d choose different kids.

  He liked that Morgan was quiet. Like him. And smart, too. She read books, and she had an arsenal of card games, which she taught him patiently. He liked that.

  Mother said she was pleased, that Morgan was a good fit. She called her Otter, because she was cute and loved to swim in the lake – on nice days they’d taken to letting some of the children outside, for fresh air, otherwise they got all pale and sickly, but they could only do it once they were sure they wouldn’t run.

  Morgan was a strong swimmer but she never went far from the house. Mouse knew it was because she thought her brother was buried near the lake – because that’s what he had told her. He’d even made a show of digging a grave where she could see him, because he knew she wouldn’t want to leave Paul if she tried to run. Of course her brother wasn’t worthy of being buried here, but she didn’t have to know that. And Peter needed leverage.

  Mother thought the Taking Test – which was actually a series of small tests – was enough. She said she watched them for days, sometimes weeks, to make sure that if, say, somebody scared them, or hurt them, or if they fell, that one sibling would protect the other. Sometimes she engineered the circumstances, but other times she just watched. She said that she knew straight away from how they acted whether they were good enough, but she always waited for a Test moment to be sure. She followed them, made sure she could get to them easily, and then used the drugs to knock one of them out. Once, maybe twice, one of the children woke up and she abandoned them – but they wouldn’t remember her by morning, the liquid morphine saw to that.

  Peter disagreed with Mother about the testing being enough, though. It wasn’t as simple as that. Most of them, like Morgan, needed extra incentive to stay. He was tired of having to get rid of them too soon, simply because they tried to run. But that seemed to be unavoidable, no matter what tricks he used.

  “Mouse, you’re still unhappy,” Mother sighed. She sighed a lot when she wanted to be dramatic. She wanted him to care. As though somehow when he cared about her she had power over him again. He couldn’t bring himself to care. Instead he fed her crumbs of love, just enough to keep her from going completely mad.

  “I hate when you call me that,” he snapped. “For God’s sake, I’m not a little kid any more.”

  “You’ll always be my Mouse. Can’t you go and play?”

  That was the first day he’d slapped her. Right across the face with the back of his hand. He wasn’t sure what made him do it, only that he knew it would feel good afterwards. She shrank back from him, her expression flickering between fear and disgust.

  Fear won. But not by much.

  “Get out of my room,” he said, and his voice was solid ice.

  He’d stormed to the library after that. Morgan was always in there. She had special privileges, because she’d been in the house so long, but Peter still didn’t trust her. They all knew that Mother had only managed for so long because she was careful, and Morgan was making her less careful.

  He snuck into the library that afternoon so Morgan wouldn’t hear him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, maybe to catch her doing something bad, something he could punish her for. Then he could shut her back downstairs and Mother wouldn’t whine. But when he got to the library, Morgan was just sat on the floor by the fireplace, dust motes swirling and a book in her lap. She looked pretty. When he tried to kiss her – just a kiss – she’d kicked him.

  Rage took over. Boiled up inside him like molten lava, and he thought of Mother, the disgust on her face twisting Morgan’s features too. He gripped his hands around her neck and squeezed. She fought back, and he realised he liked that. He liked other things, too, pinching and poking and scratching. She cried, but stopped fighting after a while. She just lay there. That’s when he realised he was bored. Bored of her, and of this short chapter. He wanted somebody else. It was time for another pair.

  He went to get the insulin.

  Charlotte and Hazel came a couple of months later but he didn’t really like either of them. They were both so annoying. Mother had wanted to try two girls, to see if they might be more submissive. She liked Charlotte, but Peter couldn’t handle their collective incessant wailing. Randeep and Jaswinder were disappointing to say the least, but the brother-sister combination seemed to be a winner. Randeep was definite
ly protective, but of the wrong person.

  Peter was getting desperate, but Mother was worse. Some days Peter swore she’d gone entirely mad. She stayed out most nights after her shifts now she had deemed Peter was old enough to be in the house by himself, and sometimes she didn’t come home at all. She was waiting for a chance, the right chance.

  And it was chance that she found Alex and Jillian, on an especially warm October night. She told Peter she’d followed them expecting to come back again the next summer, but there was that open window, a sign from God above – and it was too good to pass up.

  The business with Jillian was unfortunate. Sometimes he liked the feisty girls for a change, but this time it had backfired. She’d pretended for over two weeks to be quiet like her brother, but it had been a ruse. They’d almost lost them both. How had they managed to get out? It had to have been Randeep. This was what came from keeping him after they’d found the others. Three children were too many. Peter had wanted to get rid of him but Mother insisted they wait.

  But now she was worried. Still in control, but definitely on edge. What happened if the girl led the police right back to them? The whole thing had been a mess from start to finish. Peter wished she’d never bothered to bring them home in the first place.

  But there was something about Alex…

  They’d found him in the woods not far from the house, his face tear-streaked, his pyjamas caked in so much mud you could hardly see what colour they were. They’d been looking for him for hours, and then, just like that, there he was.

  Peter thought he’d have to get rid of him then and there. But the boy had looked at Peter and grabbed his hand silently, holding onto it. He didn’t beg. He didn’t cry any more. He just looked at him and Peter swore he heard him think, Take me back to the house.

  There was some sadness deep down inside Alex that shone like metal and made Peter feel generous. So he decided to keep him.

  For the next few hours he half expected Alex to try to run, especially with his sister still out there somewhere. When one sibling ran there was usually a pretty strong chance the second one would bolt too. But Alex didn’t run. In fact, he followed Peter around like a little lost puppy. He watched silently as Peter and Mother packed up their things and cleaned the house from top to bottom. He didn’t scream or cry when Mother carried him out to the car, unlike Randeep, who made himself sick over it. And when they got to the other house – the one Peter only vaguely remembered, where it would be safest to stay until they were sure everything was settled – Alex asked a question.

  “Is this what you always do with them?”

  Them. Not us. It was a sense of kinship Peter hadn’t felt in forever. Alex asked other questions, too. Clever questions. How do you choose them? Why do you take two? What happens if my sister and the police find the house? Will your mother send them away? Did you used to live here? How far away are the neighbours? Do my parents know where I am? Not like Dad cares. He saw us, he saw your mother, and he just went right back to bed.

  Alex was smart, yet somehow gullible. Not naive so much as eager to believe. Peter kept the boys locked in the little bathroom for a few days, while Mother stayed at the big house. He took the larger bedroom, which had once been his mother’s, and he enjoyed the space. He talked to the boys from time to time, but mostly occupied himself with reading a few of the books he’d brought with him. But he couldn’t settle. Everything felt too tight here, cramped. Peter dreamed of the lake, of the wide open spaces, of the dusty library and the basement with its cool, damp smell and the twisty corridors Mother had built.

  Soon they could go back. But not until everything had blown over. Peter had no doubt that Mother would fix it all.

  And in the meantime Peter couldn’t allow himself to trust Alex too much. He’d been burned before. He knew he needed to test him, to see what his limits were. But he also knew he couldn’t push him, not like he’d done with Morgan. He’d have to lead him, coach him. Be gentle. Peter wasn’t used to being gentle.

  But somehow it worked. Alex and Peter talked through the bathroom door while Randeep snivelled and cried and refused to eat. Eventually Peter let Alex into the bedroom. He tied him to the bed, just with a bit of old rope. Alex could have untied himself, but he was busy asking questions. Peter lit his favourite red candles, the ones he’d brought from home. They reminded him of the church service when they’d said goodbye to Chris. Alex said the candles had scared his sister when Peter had lit them in the basement. It was an offering, that piece of information. The first step.

  For the next few days it felt like both of them were waiting for something to happen, but then it stopped feeling like living on a knife edge and it started to feel normal. Peter decided he wanted to keep the big bedroom. Mother wouldn’t argue. He knew he could convince her. It could be their space.

  After a week of the boys living on cheese sandwiches Mother finally came to the little house. She’d brought all of her tapes, her journals, her pictures, and purchased a new small TV. That’s when Peter knew they wouldn’t be going back to the big house, and the thought filled him with a nameless, twisting emotion. It was like sadness.

  Randeep was still locked in the bathroom. He had been since they’d arrived, since he’d let Alex and Jillian run away. Mother had said they needed to figure out what to do with him, but Peter had some ideas.

  Alex’s sister was on the news almost non-stop. She had somehow managed to survive the cold night, the rain that must have soaked her to the bone, the fall that Alex had described down that long, muddy slope. She was feisty, just like Peter had thought. He shouldn’t have underestimated her.

  They didn’t let Alex watch the news. Alex didn’t talk about his sister, but Peter suspected he thought she was dead. Why else would he have come back to the house like he did? That made it easier in some ways, and harder in others.

  It was hard to avoid the news, the interviews and reporters weighing in on Alex’s abduction and Jillian’s return, but Peter managed it. They only watched TV on Saturday mornings, for the cartoons, but Alex never complained.

  Long weeks went by before Peter felt ready. After two months, he started to relax, to leave the channel when the news came on. Mother was still worried that the truth would make Alex try to run. But Peter wondered something different. He wondered and he wondered, until finally there was a news recap on the abduction, and he let the younger boy watch.

  Alex’s wan face flickered with the light coming off the television, his golden curls wild like a crooked halo. When he saw his sister, grainy footage of her being carried by their father into a dark building with a cover over her face – a cover that slipped, just for a second – Alex flinched. And then he looked away.

  Peter recognised the emotion on his face. Anger. That same burning, white-hot anger Peter knew, hiding a hollowness beneath. The kind of fire that no water could douse.

  He knew then that Alex was ready to take his final test. It meant Peter could tie up the loose ends.

  He was excited.

  Because what happened next would determine how long Alex got to live.

  THIRTY ONE

  Harriet

  WHEN THE POLICE FINALLY let both of us go we headed back to the hotel. Neither of us wanted to be there – but then, I don’t think we wanted to be anywhere at all. We moved in a numb sort of silence. Too sick to eat much, but desperate for the oblivion of a couple of bottles of cheap supermarket wine. We didn’t talk about Dana Wood. About the cabinet full of trophies. About what had happened today, or in the past.

  We hardly talked at all, only brief words here and there. When we walked into the hotel room Erin stared at the TV with longing. But we knew what we’d see if we turned it on. News appeals, press. I wanted to ask Erin if she was okay, but I couldn’t. It was clear that neither of us were okay.

  She phoned her Mum, as I had done, and their conversation was so stilted, so filled with pauses, that I fled to the shower where I could try to sort through my thoughts. But no ma
tter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn’t wash away the image of that body in the bathtub, the sheer horror worming inside me. That person… She was responsible for Jem and Mikey’s deaths. She was a monster. And yet – I realised I was sorry. Sorry she was dead, sorry that we’d never get real justice, a chance to ask why, and sorry, too, that somebody had left her there alone. I scrubbed my skin harder; it felt like I might never be clean again.

  When I’d phoned my mum she’d been distraught.

  “You need to stop this,” she’d said. “It’s dangerous.”

  And all I could think was I know. I know, I know. I felt sick with it, my stomach swirling precariously. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself otherwise, I knew that I had got myself into this mess. And I knew I couldn’t stop now.

  Around eleven we finished off one of the bottles of wine. We were both exhausted, and the alcohol coated everything in a fuzzy layer. Erin curled up on the bed, still dressed in her leggings, her phone unplugged and face-down on the bedside table. She hadn’t even made it under the duvet before falling asleep.

  I drifted to my laptop. I trawled through the pages of the book, the ones that I had written in fits and starts over the last few days. They felt alive, practically crackling with electricity.

  Of course. They were about Erin.

  I scrolled, watching as the tone of the words I had written changed. At first Erin was Jillian; she was standoffish, reluctant to speak and sometimes a little hostile. But as I’d written what had happened to her, to us, over the last days, I realised that everything had changed. Jillian had become Erin. Had become something else, too.

  I continued reading, checking on Erin every now and then. Something felt like it was growing in my chest. Something like a scream. I’d texted Adam Bowles earlier to thank him and ask for more information, a name for Dana’s son. When he texted back his message was rambling and he seemed unsure. I tried to search for the name Adam offered, googling everything I could think of, but I got nothing. I didn’t even know if Adam had remembered it correctly.