Free The Child Inside by Suzanne Bugler

year group; some of them have written about what they are doing now, and I can’t resist clicking on a few and having a read. I wonder if any of them remember their dead classmates, Vanessa and Annabel. I wonder if they ever give them a thought.
    And I think of those lives, cut off so very young.
    Suddenly I remember Vanessa’s brother, Simon. His name jumps into my head on a burst of adrenalin; I cannot believe I didn’t think of him before. I key in his name and there he is.
    Simon Reiber, of Sutton and Wright Associates, Fenchurch Street . . .
Simon Reiber, new partner at Sutton and Wright . . .
Simon Reiber, litigation expert, Sutton and Wright . . .
     
    Three entries. One person. It has to be him.
    I feel a sudden rush of euphoria. For some reason I was afraid that he would be dead too, or just vanished without a trace, but there he is, very much alive. I’m so pleased. So pleased and so very, very relieved.
    Vanessa’s little brother.
    I hardly knew him. I can’t even picture what he looked like, except that he was blonde like her, and tall and thin. Gangly, in fact. I remember him trying to mix records on his music deck at those parties like a DJ. And I remember that his face would turn scarlet if one of the girls teased him.
    ‘Oh, Simon, you’re so cute,’ crooned Fay.
    And Vanessa said, ‘He’s too young for you. Keep off!’
    I sit back in the chair, and I read his name, over and over. And I repeat it to myself. Simon Reiber, Simon Reiber. I scroll down the list, but there is nothing else, nothing to tell me anything else about him, just his professional listing. But I have no doubt that it is him. How could it not be?
    And now I remember the school that he went to: St Dunstan’s out near Oxshott. A few of the boys that Vanessa knew went there. I type in St Dunstan’s on the schools site and search for him. He was two years younger than Vanessa, I think, but he isn’t listed under his year group. I search through some of the other years, just in case, but find nothing. I do see a couple of other names that I think I recognize, but I can’t really be sure. And then I look at the school photographs, posted there by ex-pupils. And he is mentioned; there is photo of about fifteen boys wearing cagoules over their uniforms and standing in the rain in front of a coach. The caption underneath says Second-year geography field trip , and there are the various boys’ names (including his), written, I assume, in order. The photo is small, and not very clear. I zoom in as far as I can, but still their faces are tiny, peeping out from under their hoods, and blurred by the rain. The list of names suggests that he is the third one in from the right. I lean close to the screen and scrutinize the picture till my eyes hurt. The boy is pale, fine-boned and grinning. Yes, I think that it is him; I’m pretty sure of it. He’d have been twelve years old, thirteen at the most. I look at that smile, at that careless, boyish grin. His sister was alive still, then.
    I think of him, going about his boyish life, laughing, mucking around, with nothing more on his mind than any other boy of that age. And I think how horribly all that would have changed.
    And now I think of that old woman in Kew; I think of her sitting there in that small, claustrophobic sitting room, listening to my speech about how I knew Vanessa. I think of her impassiveness, of the distance in her cool blue eyes. I was so sure that she was Vanessa’s mother, yet why would she deny it, and how could she be so unmoved?
    But of course if she is Vanessa’s mother, she’ll be Simon’s mother, too. I need to know. I cannot let it go.

SIX
     
    I take her a gift this time. Just some chocolates that I pick up from one of those lovely shops by the station; hand-made truffles wrapped up in a cute little box with a bow. And it gives me a bit of confidence, coming out of that shop with my parcel tucked into its small paper bag with pink-ribbon handles. Today, I am