After twenty-five minutes (including three minutes of ads), they look at each other, digesting the contents of the podcast.
Lottie says, ‘She wasn’t that convincing.’
‘She’s eighty-three. Her memory’s probably not that good,’ says Roddy, pondering the details of the interview with the old woman who claimed to have delivered a baby.
‘She was young when it happened,’ says Sienna. ‘And she swears the baby came at the beginning of July, which was just before the murder. You guys are just being ageist.’
‘But she could be making it up,’ says Roddy. ‘Everyone wants their five minutes of fame.’
‘Why would you want fame when you’re eighty-three?’ asks Sienna.
‘Who’s being ageist now?’
Sienna rolls her eyes at him.
Lottie taps two fingers against her lips as she stares out the window. ‘Let’s think about this. She’s called out to the manor house in the middle of the night. The girl giving birth is very posh and sobbing and freaked out. The man, who she says was definitely Lord Fitzhenry, is giving orders to another man and another young woman and being super bossy. When the baby is born, he takes it and refers to it as his son.’ Lottie turns to Roddy and he nods at her summary. She gets a nod from Sienna before continuing: ‘They tell the midwife the doctor is going to do the follow-up visits and they pay her off. She never hears anything more, but years later, when she is reading about the case, she realised it was like this Fitzhenry baby never existed. And that Francis Fitzhenry was brought up an only child. Thatisa weird scenario.’
‘Maybe they used the baby as a devil’s sacrifice,’ says Sienna. ‘It could all be part of the lead-up to the murder of Lord Eddy.’
Roddy and Lottie both frown.
‘If they worshipped the devil or something,’ she adds, shrugging.
‘If the baby died for some reason,’ says Roddy, ignoring Sienna, ‘there would have been a funeral. It would have been reported. I mean, wouldn’t the staff have known about it? It sounds like they were there.’
Lottie and Sienna are both on their phones, scrolling. After a minute Sienna says, ‘Can’t find anything about a baby in 1975. The story is a bit sus. Maybe she did make it up,’ she concedes. ‘I mean, like, it’s a coincidence that she says she moved to France a week later and never saw the English papers about the murder so she didn’t report the baby.’
‘But … she was very particular, wasn’t she?’ says Lottie. ‘I mean, she described the baby as being about nine pounds with a shock of dark hair and a beautiful face. Came into the world not making a sound.’
‘And she described details of the birthmark,’ says Sienna. ‘A pink crescent moon on his arm. That’s a totally weird thing to make up if she’s lying.’
Roddy is feeling slightly guilty that they are letting Sienna get involved in this. It’s probably not what Donna had in mind when she asked him to be a good male role model for her daughter.
‘What if therewasa baby born in the July.’ Lottie does a slow 360-degree swivel on the stool behind the counter. ‘David—Phyllida’s son; my father—was born in the July of nineteen seventy-five. Phyllida would have been about … twenty-nine when he was born.’ She closes her eyes, apparently calculating. ‘Yep, twenty-nine.’
‘So that means Phyllida and baby David were about the same age as Dorothea Stewart and the mystery baby,’ Sienna pronounces, pleased by this.
Lottie takes a deep breath. ‘Mary said Phyllida and David arrived here in Brookbank just before Phyllida turned thirty, and that David was about two months old. I think they lived in Sydney for a few weeks before that.’
‘Oh my god,’ says Sienna, grinning. ‘Diva.’
‘It’s not out of the question they might be the same people, is it?’ Lottie is looking at Roddy.
‘You think Phyllida is Dorothea?’ He frowns. ‘That she’s capable of murder? And what, she stole the Fitzhenry baby?’
‘Everyone’s capable of really terrible stuff,’ says Sienna. ‘Even your heroes. Look at JK Rowling.’
‘What did she do?’ asks Roddy.
‘Those stupid tweets about only women getting their periods,’ she says, clearly disgusted, although he’s not sure if the disgust is for him or JK Rowling.
‘Right.’ Roddy squints and says uncertainly, ‘And, that’s … not right?’
Sienna narrows her eyes. ‘She’s a total transphobicloser.’
Roddy rubs a finger and thumb across his eyebrows. He has a feeling he is way out of his depth. He is ancient and irrelevant but, still, he feels the need to provide some middle-aged perspective. ‘That’s not quite …murder, though, is it?’
She huffs.
