At seven twenty-two p.m., a neighbour walking past the house heard repeated screams coming from inside. He ran down the driveway and around the back of the house. The back door leading into the kitchen was wide open, and inside twenty-year-old Dennis Dawson was found screaming, cradling Grace Forster’s broken and bloodied body in the hallway. Mary Forster was lying face down at the entrance of the kitchen near her husband’s body. All three had been killed with a cricket bat, their skulls broken.
Molly Forster, the youngest daughter, was missing.
It’s just Vivian and me, in the studio. She’s sitting at the recording desk, the lamp illuminating the script laid out in front her. She suggested I sit next to her while she records the episode, but I said I’d make less noise if stood behind her, near the door.
It hits me with a cold sweat. The thing I dread. It was stupid of me to think I could control it. It begins as it always does, as a memory, fleeting, the sound of people singing Happy Birthday, and then it becomes a full-blown movie, one that I can neither stop watching, or stop playing.
Grace brought me here and told me to be quiet, and that she would come and get me. “Whatever you hear, whatever happens, don’t move. Promise me.” She was scared, I could tell. I promised, and she closed the door. I put my hands over my ears but I still heard the screams. I heard him run up the stairs and yell and shout and I heard Grace cry.
It’s so quiet now, everywhere. Quieter than it’s ever been. It’s as if the air has been sucked out of the house itself.
I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. He must be gone but I don’t understand why no one has come for me. I push apart the coats and squint at the thin sliver of light that is visible through the gap in the door. I tilt myself forward onto my knees and put a palm against the edge of the sliding white door. I move it slowly, and still crouching, crab like, I leave the wardrobe and I’m inside the bedroom.
I tiptoe softly on the thick carpet until I stand in front of Grace’s bedroom door, I put the palm of my hand against the white timber and whisper her name. There’s no one there.
Softly, as quietly as I can, I walk down the stairs, my hand brushing the wall, and even before I turn the corner I know that something monstrous has happened down there. At first, I don’t understand why Grace is on the floor but then I see the blood. It’s coming from her head. The wound is gaping.
I make a sound and Grace’s eyes open. She looks right at me.
“Run, Molly, run,” she whispers.
I scream for my mother but she does not come. I can’t stop screaming. I run to the kitchen and there is blood everywhere, and I see my mother, her head, it’s not right, her neck, there’s blood. There’s my dad, by the door. His eyes are open and staring at nothing.
I run down the hallway to the front door, and he’s there, standing in front of it, with the bloody cricket bat by his side.
“Ah, Molly, there you are.” He smiles and for one crazy moment I think maybe he just walked into our house and he’s going to help us. I want to tell him that Grace is hurt, that she needs a doctor, but there’s only a sob rising up in my throat. Then he lifts one arm high above his head, ready to strike me. I run back inside the house.
I must have cried out because Vivian's face hovers over mine. “Rachel? What’s wrong?” I recognise the studio. Then I remember. We’re recording the first episode of Missing Molly.
My face hurts. I think I hit something. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“Can’t do what?”
I sit up. I’m shaking. How long have I been like this? I can feel the edge of the nightmare trying to push its way back in. The door of the studio opens behind me.
“You’re all right, Rachel? What on earth’s happened? What are you doing on the floor?” Chris asks.
“She’s not feeling well,” Vivian says. She pushes him gently back out. “Give us a minute. We’ll come and see you in a bit. Everything is fine.”
She crouches next to me and helps me sit up. “It’s this room. It’s too claustrophobic. We have to keep the door open from now on. You okay, hon? Yeah? Good. Just take a breath. You’ll be okay, just relax.”
I get up from the floor and sit down on the chair. I put my head in my hands.
“You’re feeling better, Rach?”
“I’m sorry. I really am. I’m a complete fuck-up.”
“No, you’re not. It’s just that thing you get sometimes.”
“Oh, Vivian, what am I going to do?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Rachel. You just fainted, that’s all.”
I’ve dried my eyes and we go to see Chris, who asks me if I’m pregnant. I blush and Vivian stares at me, her lips forming a perfect O.
“No! Not at all! Nothing like that!”
“Well, in future, don’t skip breakfast. Get back to work. Get out of here. Both of you. And get me the first take, pronto.”
Thirteen
“There! See? What did I tell you!” Chris stands in the centre of the room, a copy of the Daily Telegraph in his hand. He brandishes it like it’s some kind of trophy.
“What’s that?” Perry asks.
“This, people, is what happens when you put your mind to it and come up with a good idea. This,” he slaps the paper with the back of his hand, “is a review of the first episode of Missing Molly.”
Vivian and I spring out of our chairs at the same time. She almost knocks me out of the way, her arm outstretched. Her face is already glowing with pride. I suspect mine is reflecting the fear I feel, but no one is looking at me.
We only put out the first episode on Friday. I did my very best to make it unremarkable. I tried to persuade Vivian to stay away from making it too dramatic. “I know it’s not really any of my business,” I said, “but I think it would be good if we didn’t sensationalise things. Just keep to the facts.” She just laughed at me. And now, a few days later, we have our first review of the podcast. Chris still has the paper in his grip, his arm up high, out of Vivian's reach. She’s literally jumping up and down for it and we all crack-up laughing—or they do and I pretend to. But it must be good because Chris wouldn’t be teasing her like this if it wasn’t. Finally, he relents and hands it to her.
I lean to read over her shoulder, but it doesn’t matter. She reads it out loud.
“Missing Molly podcast review. Missing Molly has everything. A missing child, a family massacred for no apparent reason, a murderer so racked with guilt he took his own life.”
“Jeez,” Jenny mutters. “Won’t someone please think of the sponsors?”
Mike laughs out loud. Vivian resumes.
“Missing Molly is not for the faint of heart, but it’s as gripping as any murder mystery you might pick up at the airport bookshop. An investigative podcast that assigned itself the task of retracing the steps of twelve-year-old Molly, the first episode is off to a rocking start. It’s too soon to tell whether Missing Molly will emerge victorious from its challenge, but it’s well worth a listen.”
I don’t need to hear anymore. I wear an expression that I hope approximates delight and sit back down. I have to. My legs have turned to jelly. The people looking for me may not have picked up on the small item in the Metro, but I bet they’ll read about the podcast now.
“To this day, there has never been a confirmed sighting of Molly Forster. If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Molly Forster, please contact your local authorities, or alternatively, you can leave a message for the podcast producers on...” blah blah blah.
I close my eyes. I argued against the phone line, but Vivian insisted. Our dedicated phone number and message bank are ready to take your call. Anyone can leave a message if they have anything to pass on to us. And they can do it anonymously. It’s to be the last sentence at the end of each episode, and now, the Daily Telegraph, circulation one squillion, has published it.
When I open my eyes, the entire office is looking at me.
“What?” I ask.
“I said,
have you listened yet? This morning?” Chris asks.
“To what?”
“The hotline! You goose!” Vivian says.
To me, the word ‘hotline’ conjures up images of a dozen or more volunteers sitting by the phones, fielding the onslaught of calls from genuinely concerned individuals. The volunteers filter out the real ones in an ocean of possible sightings, ‘I saw a little girl that looked just like little Molly. She was wearing pink pyjamas, like on the telly’.
Hennessy did set up the Molly Hotline back then. So that I would be ‘returned to safety’ as soon as possible. Almost twelve years later, I am given another hotline. But no matter how good this podcast might be, it’s not going to generate a national emergency. There are plenty of other missing kids. What about them? There are children on the streets right now that no one is looking for. They’re just adrift. Forgotten. I should know. I’ve met a few of those myself.
I’ve checked the messages. Of course I’ve checked. Every day. Every two hours pretty much, sometimes more. I have the number stored in my ‘favourites’ and I check obsessively.
Grace Forster was a fucking slag, she was a fucking whore, and she deserved everything she got. They all did. Put that on your fucking podcast, you slag.
That was only hours after we released the first episode into the world. I was at home when I heard it and it made me ill. I had to run to the bathroom so Matt wouldn’t see me retch. It didn’t help that whoever left that message spoke in a low voice, as if they didn’t want to be heard.
We thought it might happen, trolls coming out of the woodworks. You invite people with information about a missing twelve-year-old to contact you, you’re going to get a bunch of crazies calling.
After I heard that I just hit delete, right away. Delete delete delete. I had to wash my hands afterwards, cleanse them from handling the phone that had delivered those disgusting words.
“No, yes—still nothing. I’ll keep checking,” I finally say.
It’s funny that they keep asking the same questions. Has anyone left a message about Molly? Anyone know anything? Somebody must know what happened to her! But there’s one thing they never ask.
Has Molly called?
They don’t even realise it, but they all think she’s dead.
Fourteen
“You’re ready for this meeting, Rach?” Chris asks. Vivian is already at the door of this office, ready for this production meeting. She’s beaming. I smile at her.
“Yes, give me one minute,” I say brightly. He and Vivian disappear into his office as I retrieve my mobile from my pocket and quickly hit the buttons.
You have no new messages.
I feel the tension in my chest release a little as I stand up and follow them. The time has come to shut this down.
Reddit.com is another one of those endless social media sites. Like all social media sites, it can descend into chaos at times, but it’s popular with podcast listeners and producers. Anyone can create a page—or a subreddit as they call it—about any topic, within reason, and anyone can join the conversation. If we hadn’t created a page for the podcast, and it had become popular, then someone else would have done it, and that person would be controlling everything. Who can post, what gets deleted, who gets banned.
So I did it. I created a subreddit called missing_molly. So that I could control the conversation.
Vivian and I sit across from Chris, each with our notepads at the ready. Chris swivels his computer screen towards us. “You’ve seen this?”
I squint, lean forward. We’re staring at the page. Chris taps the screen with an index finger, right on the latest post.
The one I put up last night.
Really sad news to share about Molly Forster!
Submitted 11 hours ago by friendofmolly
7 comments.
I hear Vivian gasp behind me and turn to look at her. She’s thrilled, I can tell. We were only on episode 1 and already people had stories to share about Molly. From a friendofmolly no less.
Chris clicks on the post heading. Vivian and I both stand and lean closer, our hands on the desk. Her eyes are wide, and I pretend to read the post for the first time.
I never used reddit before so be nice to me if I’m not doing it right. But I knew her, and she was my friend. I live in Canada, I don’t want to say where. Molly was in Canada but she called herself Melanie. We worked together at one of the Walmart supercenters there. I think it was 2011. We were both single then and we’d go to the pub after work and sometimes we’d stay there for hours, drinking gin and tonic. She started telling me stories, but I didn’t believe her. Stories like that her parents were dead, they died when she was really young, and her sister too. Her whole family had died. I thought it had been a car accident, you know? but I didn’t think she was telling the truth anyway because we all say things like that when we’re really pissed and we’re young. But one night she called me crying and slurring in the middle of the night and said that they all had been murdered, the whole family, and that her name was Molly Forster and her sister was called Grace and her dad was Jack and her mom was Mary and they’d all been murdered by some psycho, and she’d got away. I calmed her down and told her she just needed to get some sleep. That we could talk tomorrow after she’d slept it off. I went to her house the next morning and I thought she was asleep but she was dead. It was so horrible. She had taken pills, I don’t know what, and she killed herself. I didn’t know if her story was true until I heard about the podcast Missing Molly. So I’m really sorry for everybody, but Molly killed herself in 2011.
I’ve never set foot in Canada, but I figured that the further away from here the better. I could have gone further. I could have gone to Australia, but I’m already using that one for my neglectful father and evil stepmother. Anyway, surely Canada is far enough.
Vivian stares at the screen, her hand over her mouth.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“This is amazing,” Vivian says.
“It is, I agree. I guess.”
“How do you want to tackle this?” Chris asks, looking from Vivian to me, and back again.
I can already feel the relief washing over me as the words pour out. There’s a little voice in my head that whispers, it’s okay. It’s over.
“I guess we record a short episode, and we say that we found her and explain what happened to her, the poor girl,” I say, shaking my head again. “Maybe we can do a different podcast? It’s still a great idea, and people like it, it’s working, I mean we got a lot of attention for this one already. I found this website called sleuths or something,” I’m aware I’m rambling but I can’t help it. “Have you heard of it? People post about cold cases—”
“Will you stop talking for a second?” Vivian snaps. “You’re not making any sense. Why would we want to do a different podcast?”
“What do you mean, why? She’s dead!” I poke at the screen. “It says so, right there!”
“Actually, I’m more interested in the comments,” Chris says.
“The comments?” My chest contracts again, making it difficult to take a breath. I stare at the section below the post. I saw that first response last night, but it was on its own. I didn’t check for any comments after that. I didn’t think there would be any more, and that if there were, I assumed they’d be irrelevant.
That’s really sad, friendofmolly! Thank you for posting!
Submitted 7 hours ago by iamdore.
I’m a private detective and I was hired back in 2012 to look for Molly Forster. I didn’t find her exactly, but I got close to tracking her down and I know for a fact that she was in Spain in 2012 so she couldn’t have been committing suicide in 2011 in Canada.
Submitted 5 hours ago by anonymousfornow
OMG! That’s amazing! But if you knew where she was, why do you say you didn’t find her?
Submitted 5 hours ago by iamdore
You worked on finding her? That’s awesome!
Subm
itted 5 hours ago by crymeariver
The client decided to cancel the assignment at that point. I don’t want to say anything else.
Submitted 5 hours ago by anonymousfornow
Did you tell the podcast people? You should talk to them! There’s a number you can call, it’s on the website.
Submitted 4 hours ago by iamdore
I left a message already. Haven’t talked to anyone yet.
Submitted 4 hours ago by anonymousfornow
I ball my hands into fists and put them on my lap to stop them from shaking. There’s a trick that Barbara, my shrink, taught me, and it works most times. Breathe through your nose and concentrate on the feeling on your upper lip. Shut out all other sensations and concentrate on the air brushing the skin below your nostrils.
“Rachel?”
“Yes, Vivian?”
“I said, did you talk to that guy? He said he left a message.”
She looks confused. I just told everyone moments ago that there were no messages.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. I just checked, like I told you, ten minutes ago, and there were no new messages. I think it’s a prank. Why would he post on Reddit anyway? If he’s a private detective, wouldn’t he–”
But then it comes to me, tickling the back of my brain. I remember now, the disembodied voice.
You have two new messages.
It was horrible, hearing that bit of filth about Grace. It was so unexpected, so shocking, that I just pressed delete delete delete delete. I wanted it out of my head. I just forgot about the other one. I wonder if it’s gone too. Did I delete it at the same time?
Missing Molly Page 6
