The Foster Child

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘I was . . .’ I’m lost for words. I’ve been caught, there’s no point in lying. ‘I was looking for ideas where Ellie might be.’

  ‘And you thought you’d find them in my room?’

  ‘I found this.’ I hold out the pictures. ‘Why would you have these?’

  ‘I found them in Naomi’s bag.’

  ‘You’re lying.’ I point at the apple-shaped sticky notes. ‘Those are the Post-its that Hannah Gilbert was threatened with.’

  ‘It wasn’t a threat,’ Mary snaps, and her face colours as she realised what she’s said. ‘Ellie wrote them. She told me what they said.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ I shoot back. ‘They were in your handwriting. The police already have them.’

  It’s a bold lie, but she’s only fifteen and it works.

  ‘So what?’ She sets her jaw defiantly. ‘It hardly proves anything.’

  ‘They’ve also got the note you sent her pretending to be Mr Hawker and telling her to go to the flats that night.’

  ‘Ha! You screwed up there, Imogen. I took that note back, there’s no way the police could have it.’

  ‘And there’s no way you could have taken it back if you weren’t in the flat when Hannah died,’ I reply, bile rising in my throat at the idea. This girl is evil. Not Ellie; her foster sister, Mary.

  Tears well up in Mary’s eyes, but I’m having none of it. Not from a girl who has all but admitted murder.

  ‘Where’s Ellie?’ I demand in a voice so confident I surprise myself.

  Mary’s eyes glint. ‘How should I know?’

  ‘The police will be here any minute to talk to your mother about where Ellie might have taken Lily. I suggest you start thinking.’

  Mary turns to walk out of the room, but I catch her arm. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’ll refuse to say anything,’ Mary threatens. ‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll keep my mouth shut and you’ll never find her in time.’

  Shit. I believe she would do just that, and either one or both of the missing children are in danger.

  ‘Take me to them,’ I demand. ‘Take me to them and I won’t tell the police what I know about Hannah Gilbert.’

  Mary seems to consider this, then nods.

  ‘Fine,’ she agrees. ‘Let’s go.’

  97

  Imogen

  ‘It didn’t start out how you think,’ Mary tells me.

  We are in my car, having fled the house without saying a word to Sarah, who is still in the kitchen on the PC. At the top of the road we pass a police car turning in. Mary barely glances at it.

  ‘I never planned for it to go this far. If you want to look for someone to blame, blame the adults.’ She glares.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ I reply darkly. ‘Me included. But what I want to know is how exactly you came up with the idea to convince an entire town that an eleven-year-old girl was capable of witchcraft.’

  The little bitch actually looks as though she is proud of herself.

  ‘I just wanted to cause a bit of trouble, make Mum and Dad see what the endless stream of broken children was doing to our family.’ She shrugs. ‘Some of the things I even tried to pin on Billy at first, but Mum got it into her head that Ellie was doing them because she was so quiet and weird. She was kind of afraid of Ellie, I think, because of how strange she was. Then when I sent those notes to Ms Gilbert and stuck the Post-its in Ellie’s bag – that’s when it really all began. Gilbert turned up at our house, ranting to Mum about Ellie knowing things she shouldn’t, something about her threatening Gilbert about an exam. Which is bloody ridiculous when you think about it. I mean, I knew all about her and Mr Hawker, and I’m not frigging psychic. People think because we wear school uniform we must be stupid, but we’re teenagers, we’re not blind.’

  ‘How did Ellie know I was pregnant?’

  ‘I told her. You were puking everywhere when you came to our house that day, and I saw folic acid pills in your handbag. Mum takes them constantly, even though she knows she’s barren.’

  The callous words send a shudder through me. I remember that first day, how I hadn’t even realised that Mary was paying attention to me, how I thought I was assessing her. I only even had those tablets in my bag to keep Dan happy.

  ‘Anyway,’ she continues, preening like a peacock now. ‘Some of the stuff Gilbert said made Mum all weird. She was pretty convincing, about Ellie being strange and different, maybe even dangerous. I guessed she was just trying to lay the tracks for if Ellie squealed on her and Hawker, but it gave me an idea. If Mum and Dad thought the foster kids were dangerous, maybe they’d think it was more trouble than it was worth to have more.’

  ‘So that was when you started making it look as though Ellie was doing these things on purpose? Like she had some kind of power over people?’

  Mary laughs. ‘Yeah, though I never thought it would work.’ She motions left. ‘Turn here. The spiders – that really was a good touch. I knew Gilbert had a phobia – I saw her freaking out in the lunch hall one day – so I convinced Ellie that it would be a good idea to do her project on a different kind of pet; told her it would make her stand out as having tried a bit harder. And that’s all she wanted, poor Ellie.’ Mary smirks, and I have never wanted to strike someone more. ‘To try her best to fit in.’

  ‘So you planned from the start to put the spiders in Hannah’s desk?’

  ‘Mm-hm. I started off by catching them myself, right back when Ellie began the project. Figured I had a couple of weeks. But the little bastards kept escaping – either that or they were eating each other. I only had about ten at a time and I knew that wouldn’t be enough. Then I went on Reddit and found a bloke who actually sold them. There are some right nutters around these days. I used Mum’s PayPal – she’s too busy to even notice the money going missing. I never asked him how he got them to stop eating each other.’ She looks pensive. ‘Wish I had. I ordered fifty, then added some more in the day before. There were about seventy when I tipped them into the drawer. Some of them were already dead, but that didn’t matter too much. Still freaked Gilbert out. According to the kids in the class, there were thousands.’ She cackles. ‘And obviously she thought it was Ellie.’

  ‘And what about what happened to Tom Harris? That was you too?’

  Mary huffs impatiently. ‘It was all me. Don’t you get it? But it wasn’t me who accused Ellie. Never once did I try to pin the blame on her. That was the absolute beauty of the whole thing. That I never had to make it look like she was responsible. People just automatically assumed she was. Even when there was no way it could have been her! I mean, she was sitting in a room full of witnesses when those lights went out. Wicked bit of luck that they’d left the curtains closed – I never could have reached them myself.’ She looks pensive. ‘I didn’t think I’d hit her that hard though, that was weird. Oh . . .’ She clicks her fingers as though she’s just remembered something. ‘I lied about trying to frame Ellie, totally forgot. I dropped the scissors in her bag, the ones I’d used to cut that Naomi’s hair. And this, this is the best bit. She got rid of them. See, it wasn’t just the adults who believed Ellie could make things happen – I made her believe it herself. We even did an experiment, that bag of cans and stuff in my room. A few pieces of fishing wire attached to some cans and even a smart kid like Ellie thinks she’s got the power to knock things over with her mind. I mean, as a psychologist you must find that pretty fascinating, right?’

  I literally can’t believe what I’m hearing. She’s a fifteen-year-old girl, barely old enough to understand the consequences of what she’s done, the damage she’s caused, and yet here she is talking about the psychology of manipulation and mass hysteria. It’s as though the part of her brain that deals with empathy has been taken over by the part that wants to try out her experiments on live subjects. I wonder whether, for the first time in my life, I am engaged in conversation with a real psychopath.

  ‘And what about Hannah Gilbert?’ I ask quietly, ignoring Mary’s question. Because
the answer is yes, I do find it fascinating, and sickening. Fascinating that so many grown adults could be manipulated by such a young girl. And sickening that I was one of them.

  Mary’s eyes widen. ‘I didn’t mean for her to fall. Okay, so I was the one who got her there; I just wanted to freak her out a bit, make her think that Ellie was running around in the block of flats without being seen. I set up a recording of Ellie whispering Hannah’s name, played it in three different places from my old iPod and my phone. It was just a bit of fun. I put the radio on, messed with her a bit. Then she started freaking out, like her mind was totally playing tricks on her. I didn’t really expect that. Afterwards I realised that she had an overactive imagination – I mean, she was practically the one who came up with the whole Ellie-as-evil-devil-child thing. So I probably should have expected it.’ She shrugs, as though her teacher’s death is nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

  ‘But you didn’t push her?’

  ‘No! What kind of person do you think I am? She went all weird, started running around like a lunatic even when I was nowhere near her. Tripped down the stairs and still carried on trying to run away. Nuttier than a squirrel’s poo, as my dad would say.’

  I feel a wave of nausea overcome me. The pounding at the front of my head has intensified – it’s stopping me thinking clearly and all I want to do is close my eyes and go to sleep. Not that I think I’ll ever be able to sleep again.

  ‘So what now?’ I ask, my voice a weary sigh. ‘What happens now, Mary? What’s your plan?’

  She shrugs, and for a minute she looks every inch the fifteen-year-old girl she is. ‘I dunno. You were lying about keeping this to yourself, weren’t you? I can’t just promise it won’t happen again and we can forget about it and move on with our lives.’

  ‘No, you’re right about that,’ I agree.

  ‘Will I go to prison?’ Her face is shadowed with fear, and for a fraction of a second I actually feel sorry for her. Has she got any idea of how wrong what she has done really is? Or has she convinced herself, as she tried to convince me, that it is everyone else’s fault?

  ‘I don’t know what will happen to you,’ I answer truthfully. Aside from Hannah’s death, which Mary swears was an accident, all the other things that have happened have been relatively minor. What she did to Naomi could possibly be classed as grievous bodily harm – but it’s only her word against mine, and any good solicitor would warn her not to say a thing. The truth is, she will probably get away with all the pain she’s caused. I put a hand to my head to try and stop the pain. ‘I’ll take you home and speak to your mother about all of this. Then we’ll decide what to do.’

  ‘And what about Ellie?’ Mary’s tone has changed to one of innocent bystander, and I feel my heart plummet.

  ‘What about her, Mary?’

  ‘What’s going to happen to her? If she hurts the baby?’

  I fight to push down my fear. ‘You just said Ellie’s got nothing to do with what’s been happening. Why would she hurt the baby?’

  Mary smiles, a smile that freezes the blood in my veins. ‘Because I asked her to.’

  98

  Imogen

  ‘Where is she, Mary? Do you even know?’ Listening to her confession, I have almost forgotten where we are going, and why. Now the need to find Ellie and the baby smashes through me.

  ‘She’s at the flats. The ones where Gilbert died.’

  99

  Imogen

  The first thing I see when I pull up at the abandoned flats where Hannah Gilbert lost her life is the flames.

  ‘Call the fire brigade,’ I shout at Mary, who is still sitting in the passenger seat, frozen in fear. ‘Do it now, or Ellie will die!’

  I bolt across the grass, but I can’t seem to move fast enough. It’s like one of those dreams where I’m trying to run away from the bad guy but my legs just freeze. Still I keep running towards the place that I am certain is going to claim another life.

  The fire is tearing through the block of flats with the unbridled fury of a monstrous beast. The heat is almost unbearable, and black smoke claws at my throat and lungs, while the flames roar around me, pounding in my ears. If I carry on, surely I’m going to die. People don’t run into burning buildings and survive – they run away from them if they want to live. But the thought of leaving Ellie alone, frightened and abandoned, is worse than the thought of dying in here. Maybe this is what I came back to Gaunt to do. To die here next to poor sad Ellie Atkinson.

  Upstairs I fall to my knees and crawl along the hallway. The smoke is less dense down here, but still my lungs burn with the effort, and more than once I have to stop, to rest my head against the wall. When I come to the flat Mary had described on the way here, the one where Hannah and Evan Hawker would meet to conduct their illicit affair, I grasp the door handle, praying that it is the right one, and push with all my might. I fall sprawling into the hallway beyond and scrabble to kick the door closed behind me. There is less smoke in here; I can see the entire open-plan flat. It is empty.

  ‘Ellie?’ My voice comes out as no more than a croak. I crawl into the bedroom: empty. And then I see it, the only place big enough for a child to hide. Using the last of my strength, I throw myself towards the wardrobe, grasp the handle and pull it open. The little girl sits huddled in the bottom, looking smaller than ever, as though she has shrunk into the wardrobe itself. Her eyes are squeezed tightly closed and tears run down her cheeks. I try to lift her, but she is like a dead weight in my arms, and we both collapse against the wardrobe floor, where we lie half in and half out.

  ‘Ellie?’ I shake the girl’s arms but get no response. She is completely catatonic. ‘Ellie, listen to me, we have to get out of here. Where is the baby? Where’s Lily?’

  At my words, she opens her eyes slowly, as though realising for the first time that I’m there. ‘We can’t get out of here,’ she says in a strange voice. ‘This is where we die. Just like them. Just like my family.’

  ‘No, Ellie,’ I say urgently. ‘I don’t want to die here. I’m not ready to die, and neither are you. This is not what your parents would have wanted. We have to find Lily and get out.’

  She looks so closely into my eyes, so deep inside me that I feel as though she is reading my very soul. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers at last. ‘I’m sorry, I caused all this, it was me.’

  ‘It wasn’t you, Ellie, none of it was you.’

  She shakes her head despondently. ‘It was; all along it was me.’

  ‘Do you know that?’ I ask. ‘Did you actually do those things? Did you actually start this fire? Or do you just feel as though you did? Just because you had those thoughts sometimes doesn’t mean you made anything happen. You don’t have the power to do that Ellie. You’re just a little girl.’

  ‘What about your baby?’ Ellie whispers. ‘You think I did that.’

  ‘No I don’t. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘You’re just saying that to get me to come with you. To save Lily.’

  ‘I promise you, Ellie, I’m not.’ My voice is pleading. ‘I always believed in you. I always believed you weren’t capable of doing those things. I just lost my way for a while, and I’m sorry.’

  Ellie looks around the room, as though she is just coming to her senses. ‘If that’s true, if what you’re saying is the truth and I didn’t cause all this, then who did?’

  I don’t have time to explain, and I don’t think Ellie will believe me if I try. ‘That doesn’t matter right now; we’ll talk about it later. What we’ve got to do now is get that baby out of here. We need to survive, to make sure we tell everyone that you’re not to blame. To make sure everyone knows. If you save the baby, you’ll be a hero.’

  Ellie shakes her head. ‘I don’t care what they think, it doesn’t matter. All I care is what you think. You’re the only one who believed in me, and if you stop believing in me, then there’s no point any more. There is no one else on my side.’

  ‘I’m on your side, Ellie,’ I pr
omise. I don’t want to explain about Mary here and now – the news of her manipulation will only upset Ellie further. This whole building is going to burn down if we don’t get out, and I still have no idea where the baby is. ‘Why do you think I came here? Why do you think I came into a burning building for you? I wouldn’t do that if I believed you were evil.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Ellie whispers. ‘It’s too late for all of us.’

  I shake my head in frustration, and my heart sinks as Ellie blurs in front of my eyes. The smoke is thickening.

  I have to make a choice. The only way I can save the baby is if Ellie tells me where she is; if she doesn’t, then all three of us are going to die. With a strength I didn’t even know I possessed, I scoop up the eleven-year-old girl and drag her across the room, shielding her eyes and nose from the thick smoke with my free arm.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ellie croaks and coughs up a lungful of smoke. ‘I can’t breathe. Where are you taking me?’

  ‘We are getting out of here,’ I say determinedly.

  ‘No!’ It’s supposed to be a shout but it’s barely a loud whisper. ‘Lily. She’s on the balcony. I didn’t want the smoke to get her.’

  The balcony. Why the hell didn’t I think of that? These flats all have what is grandly labelled a balcony but is little more than a glorified ledge – I used to see the inhabitants of the flats sitting out there in their dressing gowns having a cigarette when I was on my way to school. I drag Ellie towards the large double doors, which are hidden by a thick rotting curtain.

  The baby is in the far corner of the tiny balcony. I practically throw Ellie through the doors and greedily gulp in fresh air. When my legs allow me to stand again, I pluck Lily from the cushion on which Ellie has placed her and hug her close to my chest. The sound of sirens wails through the night and I sink to the floor again, my knees giving way in relief. We are going to be saved. If we just stay here, they will get to us.