The white-haired man harrumphs in response.
I pick up my bag and make my way outside. Kimbolton Prep School. That has to be what Zan and Ben would call ‘a good shout’. There’s nowhere else nearby that looks like the sort of place Lewis Braid would choose for his child. And he always made all the important decisions.
Did Flora want to ring me yesterday or did he force her to, and then tell her when to end the call and that she mustn’t ring me back? Did he make her withhold her number so that I couldn’t phone her back later?
Dom didn’t originally want me to contact Lewis, but he couldn’t stop me, just like I couldn’t stop him from spending too much money on pub meals all those years ago, to support The Olde Jug’s new owners before they were our friends. That’s because neither one of us controls the other; we’re both free agents. Flora and Lewis, on the other hand …
What if he’s always manipulated her, and I just didn’t realise? So often she would say, ‘Lew-is’, as if she wished he would stop whatever he was doing. I interpreted it as her trying and failing to control him, but what if it was the other way round: him controlling her, keeping her alert and in check by demonstrating how far he was willing to go? Like the two-grand changing room …
When you’re young, you don’t seriously wonder whether your friends might be terrible people. You’re naive and optimistic; you assume anyone occupying the structural position of best friend must be a good person deep down.
What if Lewis isn’t? What if, as well as being an entertaining, outrageous and occasionally offensive weirdo, he’s also something much worse?
Or I might be getting stupidly carried away. There’s no way of knowing, not without an answer to the more immediate question: what are he and Flora so determined to hide, and how does it relate to all the bizarre things I’ve seen and heard? That’s the mystery – the one Dom can forget all about, apparently, and I can’t. At least we agree on one thing: the Braids are hiding something.
In my hurry to get to the library, I forgot to notice where I left my car, and I have to walk up and down the car park for a few minutes before I spot it. I’m reaching into my bag for my phone when I feel someone’s eyes on me.
I look up, and my phone slips from between my fingers. She’s standing directly in front of me, about ten feet ahead.
It’s Flora.
She must have been coming this way, then seen me and come to a standstill. Her eyes are wide with shock, and she’s lowering her arm, as if she’s been pointing at me, or pointing me out to somebody … but there’s no one with her. She’s alone.
She stares at me as if she’s never seen anything more terrifying. Feeling as if the ground I’m standing on is falling through space beneath my feet, I take a step towards her, opening my mouth to speak, but she’s already turning away, walking fast in the opposite direction. Running.
‘Flora! Wait!’
I think about chasing her, but there’s too much distance between us already and something’s nagging at the back of my mind, telling me I mustn’t go anywhere, not without …
My phone.
I dropped it. It made a crunching noise. The screen was already cracked; now it’s probably damaged beyond repair. In normal circumstances, I’d be feeling sick about the cost of a new phone.
Amazingly, it still works, though it looks like something anyone sensible would chuck in the bin. Dom has tried to call me four times. I send him a quick message saying, ‘Out for the day. Don’t worry, all fine!’ and end up with a small piece of glass in my forefinger. Parts of the screen are missing around the button at the bottom. I can see silver-grey innards. And more silver in front of me, now that I’ve turned round: Flora’s Range Rover, standing out glossily in a row of smaller, less shiny cars. I must have walked straight past it and not noticed – because I wasn’t looking out for it, not here.
To be strictly accurate, I suppose I should say, ‘A silver Range Rover’. I didn’t notice the number plate on Saturday, so there’s no way of knowing if this one is Flora’s.
It is. It’s her car. She was on her way back to it, walking across the car park, when she saw you and turned and ran.
A text arrives from Dom. ‘No clients today? Out where?’
‘I rearranged two appointments,’ I text back.
‘Why? What are you doing?’ is his response. Then, ‘When back?’
If I set off now, I could be back by noon. I send a reply saying, ‘Not sure when back yet, will keep you posted!’, put my smashed phone back in my bag and walk over to the silver Range Rover. The windows are tinted, making it hard to see what’s inside, though I can see the outlines of car seats.
I don’t know what makes me try the door. It opens with a soft and fluid thunking sound. I close it, then open it again. Thunk-thunk. My car doors make a much harsher noise. No one would leave a car like this unlocked. It must be worth at least fifty grand.
The answer comes to me straight away: she didn’t. Flora didn’t leave the car unlocked while she went and did whatever she had to do in Huntingdon. She unlocked it just now, thinking she was about to drive home, and then, in her shock at seeing me, she forgot to lock it again before running away.
I walk round to the other side of the car, open the door, get in and sit in the driver’s seat. If Flora wants to come back and ask me to get out, let her do that. I’ve got plenty to ask her; she can give me some answers and maybe then I’ll agree to move.
I open the glove compartment and find nothing useful, only the Range Rover’s official manual. I get out again, open the boot and see a black rucksack with green straps and zips, a pink and white duvet with white press-studs along one edge, a creased sheet of paper with some writing on it in large handwriting. This turns out to be a spelling test. There’s no name at the top, only the numbers one to five in the margin and the answers written in a child’s hand: ‘friend, school, house, father, shugar’. All have red ticks beside them apart from ‘shugar’. Next to it, the correct spelling of the word is written in smaller, adult handwriting.
Is this a test that Thomas Braid, or Thomas Cater, was set at school? My eyes linger on the words ‘house’ and ‘father’. There’s nothing here to identify who the Range Rover belongs to – no ‘Braid’ or ‘Cater’ written on anything. Also no mud, dirt, crisp crumbs, no empty biscuit packets. The boot looks as if it has been recently valeted, which is what I’d expect from a car belonging to the Braids. They used to hire carpet cleaners every two months when we all lived in rented flats in Newnham. Dominic used to rib Lewis about it. ‘You’re paying, out of your own pocket, to have a carpet professionally cleaned that’s still clean from the last time?’ he would say, and Lewis would shake his head and say, ‘You live in filth if you want to, mate. Some of us have higher standards.’
On the back seat, there’s a bunched-up navy-blue raincoat that would fit a woman of Flora’s size, and two child car seats. They’re not baby seats. They’re the kind that a five-year-old and a three-year-old would need.
Two car seats. Not three.
I’m not crazy. I didn’t imagine anything. This is all real.