The Final Child Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for The Final Child

  Also by Fran Dorricott and available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Leave us a Review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Jillian

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for The Final Child

  “The Final Child is such an elegant, well thought-through thriller. It takes the idea of victim and turns it on its head and breaks your heart in the process. I was sucked in for the first half and then whipped through the second half with my heart in my mouth. A fantastic follow-up to After the Eclipse.”

  SOPHIE DRAPER, author of Magpie

  “This beautifully-written novel is haunting and heartbreaking, disturbing and bittersweet. You won’t be able to put it down!”

  ROZ WATKINS, author of The Devil’s Dice

  “Yet another stunning thriller from Fran Dorricott. I couldn’t turn the pages quick enough.”

  JO JAKEMAN, author of Sticks and Stones

  “Fran’s writing just gets better and this novel is expertly plotted to keep you turning those pages all night. Parts of this are inevitably heartbreaking, others are full of hope. If you love your crime fiction pacey, well written and full of suspense this is perfect for you.”

  ALEX CAAN, author of The Unbroken

  Also by Fran Dorricott and available from Titan Books

  After the Eclipse

  LEAVE US A REVIEW

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  The Final Child

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785657900

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785657917

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition: September 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © Fran Dorricott 2021. All rights reserved.

  Fran Dorricott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  This book is dedicated to my family.

  Thank you for everything.

  I love you all.

  “Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

  Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

  1994

  3 July

  Michael (6) and Jeremy (4) Taylor are abducted from their bedroom in Lincoln in the middle of the night.

  18 July

  Michael’s body is recovered near Saint Mary’s Christian Centre, Edmonton Lane, Lincoln.

  6 October

  Jeremy’s body is recovered on the grounds of Foremark Reservoir, Derbyshire.

  1995

  21 June

  George (7) and Jacob (7) Evans are abducted from Sheffield.

  17 July

  George’s body is recovered on the banks of the River Derwent, Derbyshire.

  1996

  5 July

  Morgan (9) and Paul (5) Bailey are abducted from Chesterfield.

  1997

  24 June

  Morgan Bailey’s body is recovered in Abbey Park, Leicester. She has only recently died.

  2 August

  Charlotte (8) and Hazel (6) Davies are abducted from Leicester.

  1998

  3 June

  Randeep (9) and Jaswinder (7) Singh are abducted from Burton-on-Trent.

  13 October

  Alex (9) and Jillian (7) Chambers are abducted from Little Merton, Derbyshire.

  31 October

  Jillian stumbles out of the Moorway woodland. She is alone.

  Jillian

  EVERYTHING WAS SCREAMING. HER legs, her ears. Her blood. The air was so cold even her skin was screaming, her muscles so tense she could hardly move. But she had to run. She’d lost so much time already.

  The woods were thick, the path invisible through the tangles and the thorny bushes. The way she had come looked identical to this. She stumbled, driving her lungs to breathe, her legs to hold her just a while longer. Her head was throbbing, bleeding and scabbing over from where she’d fallen. She could feel the blood getting cold, welding a patch of hurt onto her skull.

  She pushed harder still, her legs trembling with the effort as she reached a narrow gap in the trees. She was panting, could taste rusty bile in her throat. Her lungs ached. The sun had barely risen and the sky was tinged with amber through the tops of the trees, but the rain that fell was cold and hard.

  Big, fat droplets of water landed on her frozen skin, soaking her to the bone. She couldn’t feel them anymore. It had been raining all night. She’d woken in an icy puddle of leaves, forced herself to move even though it hurt. Her whole body was caked in freezing mud. She couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. She recalled terror and wading through water so cold it stole her breath, an ocean of black muck waiting on the other side to pull her down. All she knew now was the belly-cramping fear of the dark place behind her. But at least she was standing, moving, going, going…

  She stopped at the bottom of a small slope. Just for a second. Just to catch her breath. There was no way around it; she would have to go up and over, or risk doubling back. She couldn’t do that. She didn’t know if she’d been followed. Glancing around, she felt like a rabbit caught in a snare. She’d seen one of those once. With Alex.

  Alex.

  She choked back the sob that threatened to break free. She had to be silent, or as quiet as she could be as she ran through the ragged trees. What if somebody heard her? She wouldn’t be taken back. Not ever. It was t
oo late now. She’d come so far…

  Tears were on her cheeks and they were warm. Almost welcome. She let them fall as she blinked in the grey-gold light. A sudden snapping of twigs made her start, her heart thudding louder and louder, and she knew she couldn’t stay, not even to think of Alex. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t go on. She had to. Now.

  She bit her lip, steeling herself for the short climb, and then threw herself against the rain-sodden branches, the twigs that sliced and bruised her aching legs, that drew thin arcs of blood across her palms. Her short hair plastered to her forehead, she could hardly see, but she hauled herself up, up, up. Alice back up the rabbit hole.

  Then she was upright. Running. There was a path. A burst of laughter bubbled in her throat. The woods weren’t endless. The trees thinned, became grass and rocks and dusty white gravel. There was a Pay and Display machine. It was a car park.

  She froze as she saw the woman. Fought back the scream and the wild laughter that followed. But the woman was just a stranger, a jogger in trainers and a soaked t-shirt, dappled with sun and sweat and—

  The world began to sway. She fought to stay upright, but her legs were numb, locked and jelly at the same time. The jogger cried out, some words that she didn’t understand, couldn’t process.

  The ground rose up.

  “Alex,” she mumbled. “Alex.”

  ONE

  SEPTEMBER 2016

  Harriet

  I SAT WITH MY back to the window, listening to the rain lashing against the dark glass. Uncharacteristically, I’d left the curtains open earlier, too focused on my computer screen to close them, and now there was a draught. I’d been gazing at my notes and transcripts all evening, the cursor blinking at me stupidly. It was time to call it a night, but I couldn’t. It was like being able to see something out of the corner of my eye, but every time I shifted my head it disappeared.

  I contemplated my empty glass of red wine, the silt collecting just above the stem. My mouth tasted ashy. I scrolled back through my notes again, right back to the top. To where everything had started. With Michael and Jeremy Taylor. Six and four years old, stolen from their beds in 1994. The first known victims of the serial abductor known as the Father.

  My cousins.

  I’d written most of these pages years ago, diary-like bits of interviews with parents of the other children, names I remembered from my childhood like a death bell toll, rambling nonsense that had helped me to process what had happened to them. It had been a pet project, this book, a catharsis. The early chapters showed that – they weren’t for anybody else’s eyes. But recently a new challenge had arisen. And now I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what I believed any more.

  How did other people separate themselves from their own history enough to write about it?

  My aunt and uncle are worn out, I’d written. Tired from years of being asked the same questions.

  The lines on their faces are an echo of the suffering they carry deep in their hearts. To go on after the deaths of both of their sons, knowing they might never learn what exactly happened to them, has turned them into shades.

  My family talk about my cousins a lot. About prankster Michael and sensitive Jeremy. I’ve never asked questions before. But now I realise how much there is I still want to know.

  “You were only little when they were taken,” my aunt says when I tell her I want to write a book about Jem and Mikey. “Only four. The same age as my lovely Jem, but you seemed so much older. I wish you could remember him. I wish you could remember them both.”

  The thing is, I won’t ever forget them, even though I don’t remember. That’s how I know I need to write this book. Not just for me. Jeremy and Michael, and all of the other children, deserve to be remembered.

  Eventually I ask the question that’s been simmering inside me for a long while now: “Michael and Jeremy were the first pair of siblings to be taken by the Father. Did you ever think that was important?” My family talk about significance all the time – perhaps there might be some significance in this.

  “They were the first.” My aunt repeats my own phrase to me, as though this answers my question. “But it didn’t feel like a trial run. Or it if was, he was lucky. Everything was too – careful. Like it was all planned. Otherwise there would have been more evidence, wouldn’t there? But I’m sure it’s just easier for me to rationalise it that way, rather than think that it might have been my fault.”

  I’d first written these notes years ago, when I was at university and struggling to process my childhood. Now I thought about the way my aunt had spoken: it didn’t feel like a trial run. Sombre, resigned. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now I knew better.

  I’d let life get in the way. University, graduation, getting a job in the real world; I’d been ready to let this book go. But it was easier to see with hindsight that I might have missed something.

  I scrolled through the old interview chapters I’d typed. Nobody else had ever mentioned it before my aunt. Nobody had mentioned that the abductions felt practised, or that the longer the Father’s identity remained hidden the less likely it was that he was personally connected to any of the children he stole. That it might have always been, right from the very start, random.

  But what if we were wrong about Michael and Jeremy being first?

  I moved to stare at the piece of paper on my desk. The one that had drawn me back to the book, to the interviews, to the ghosts of children. Just a hunch. Was I imagining things? The similarities? Was I just seeing what I wanted to see?

  The rain continued to pound the glass. Even now I didn’t like curtains left undrawn at night. A hangover from my childhood. I hated the way darkness haunted the glass, turning it into a black mirror. I didn’t like unguarded open windows, either. They invited trouble.

  My mind buzzed. I got up and shut the curtains, poured myself another glass of wine. I opened up my web browser and, tongue between my teeth, began to type into the search bar.

  I’d made a decision. It didn’t matter if it was my imagination; it didn’t matter if it was a hunch. I would take my meagre information to somebody official. The police still involved with Jem and Michael’s case, perhaps. But tonight it was still just me and my thoughts.

  At some point I’d have to interview her, too, if I wanted to make another go at this book. She was the final child, after all. I couldn’t explain why the thought made me so nervous. Perhaps it was the idea of coming face to face with somebody who had survived what neither of my cousins had.

  Perhaps I was worried she might tell me more than I was ready to hear.

  TWO

  31 OCTOBER 2016

  Erin

  HALLOWEEN WAS JUST ANY other day. I got through it most years by spending the evening too drunk to think, but it was getting hard to find drinking buddies these days who didn’t have to get back to relieve a babysitter. It didn’t help that I’d let the anniversary creep up on me, or that I’d started a new job in the last year. I loved the office, loved the people, but they were mostly older, and I wasn’t sure what was worse: spending the evening alone in a club full of eighteen-year-olds or having dinner with Karen, who lived in the most suburban neighbourhood in Burton.

  I couldn’t face either, but especially not the hordes of kids who would no doubt be knocking on Karen’s door for fistfuls of chocolate. It would make me think of Alex, and that defeated the point of going there for dinner in the first place.

  Last year had been different. I’d had a girlfriend, and colleagues I could call on for a last-minute night out. But I hadn’t spoken to any of those colleagues since I left the job – abruptly, and without saying goodbye. I couldn’t figure out how to explain what had gone on there, why I’d needed to leave, without telling them who I was, so in the end I simply didn’t tell them. It was a clean, painful break.

  This morning I’d told myself I wasn’t going to let it get to me, but it had been a lie. I’d been jumpy and emotional all day, ignoring my des
k phone in case I burst into tears on the call. My office buddies avoided me; I could tell most of them were itching to ask me what was wrong but I’m sure my expression warned them off. At midday I opened a stock photo zip folder, and the first image showed a young brother and sister holding hands in the woods. I made it to the bathroom before I felt the tears start, and I stayed there until I felt like myself again.

  When I got back to my desk I buried myself in my latest design project, headphones in and blinkers on. I worked that way until long after everybody else went home, waiting until I was ushered out by the cleaners before I decided what to do next.

  Mum had offered to pay for a takeaway, but I didn’t think I could face that either. She would want to talk about Alex, about the anniversary; she’d want to tell me again how lucky it was that I came home. It’s what we’d done over two weeks earlier when we marked the abduction date, something my mum and dad had always done together as a way to honour Alex, before Dad died. We’d watched the appeal on TV, the detective chief superintendent on the news, marking the anniversary of the date my brother and I were taken, asking again for any information. Anything at all. Normally I did my best to help her make sense of things, but this year everything had snuck up on me and I just wanted to forget.

  As I left the office I was struck by how dark it was. The streets were so empty. My house would be cold, and lonely. I wasn’t ready to go home and sit alone. Instead I drove to the gym, which I just about remembered how to get to. It was the sort of membership that might as well have come with a stress ball and a bottle of wine – I hadn’t been in six months. But I stayed for two hours, working my way through every machine, twice, until my whole body ached and I couldn’t do any more. I showered slowly, brushed out my long hair and applied a comforting layer of makeup in the spotty mirror.

  And it was still too early to go home. I left the gym, ignoring the instinct to check behind me as I got into my car. It was silly. There wouldn’t be anybody there. Then I drove to town. It was my last resort.