I’m not expecting a reply, but eventually Dom says, ‘You don’t know Gerard Tillotson well enough to read his tone. His words make perfect sense in the context.’
‘The tone was unmistakeable. Whether he realises it or not, Gerard knows that Lewis cares more about image management and controlling everything than he does about his dead daughter. Who isn’t dead, I don’t think.’
‘We don’t know if she’s dead,’ says Dom. ‘And I don’t see how this gets us any further forward. All right, Lewis is a control freak – everyone who knows him probably agrees, including Flora’s dad – but so what? What’s that bringing to the table? As people say in all the boring meetings I have to go to, where the only things brought to the table are boring ones. And the table’s also boring.’
I smile, knowing the joke is meant as a peace-offering.
‘Lewis is a control freak,’ I say. ‘He cares about image-management and control. Exactly.’
‘Exactly what?’
‘The Tillotsons also said Georgina was born prematurely. She wasn’t robust, they said. She had various health complications. What if that wasn’t good enough for Lewis, to have a not-perfect child?’
Dom frowns. ‘That baby that came round to ours was fine-looking.’
‘But she had health complications from being premature.’ I think back, trying to remember the details. ‘I’m pretty sure Rosemary said she was going to need an operation of some sort. What if, for Lewis, that sort of imperfection was intolerable? He decided he’d rather pretend she was dead and just … get rid. He nicknamed her Chimpy because he didn’t see her as fully human, and they put her in some kind of home, or care, or with a foster family.’
‘That’s horrific.’ Dom grimaces. ‘No. That’s not what happened.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s too horrible. It’s not just Lewis, Beth. He might be capable of God only knows what, but what about Flora? Can you see her treating a child that way?’
‘Not unless forced to by Lewis, no. That’s why she was crying when she was speaking to Chimpy on the phone.’
‘You’re making me feel slightly sick,’ says Dom. ‘And … you’re making all this up, Beth. Sorry, but it’s morbid and depressing and there’s no reason to think any of it’s true.’
‘It would explain Peterborough too.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A city north of Cambridge.’
He gives me a look.
‘I heard Flora say “Peterborough” on the phone. Maybe that’s where Georgina is.’
‘Yes, because when you ring someone, you always randomly announce the name of the place where they are. If someone rang me now, they’d suddenly say “the A14” in the middle of the conversation for no reason.’
As if on cue, my phone starts to ring. I unzip my bag and pull it out. ‘Hello?’
‘Is that Beth Leeson?’
‘Speaking.’ I know the voice, but I can’t place it.
‘This is Louise. Lou Munday. We met when you came into the school.’
‘Of course, I remember you.’ I didn’t give her my mobile number. I gave her the landline.
‘Can we meet?’ she says. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
14
Dom wasn’t happy about handing over his car to me, once I’d dropped him at Huntingdon station.
‘Why am I the one who has to get trains and taxis home?’ he asked.
‘Please, Dom.’
‘I understand why you want to talk to this receptionist, but why do you need my car for that? Why can’t I just drop you at the school? I assume this Lou woman has a car – can’t she drop you at the station once the two of you have had your chat?’
‘I don’t know how it’s going to go. If the conversation ends badly, I’ll be in no position to ask favours by the end of it. I don’t want to risk being stranded,’ I told him, wondering if he’d see through the excuse.
I’m meeting Lou after school finishes for the day. That’s an hour from now. It means I can get to the car park well before that and be in position to catch another glimpse of Thomas Cater, and maybe Emily too, if she comes with whoever’s picking her brother up today. Dom’s car has tinted windows, making it unlikely that I’ll be noticed inside it, though there’s a chance that if Kevin Cater or ‘Jeanette’ turns up, they’ll recognise the car as the one that was parked on their driveway while they lied to us.
There’s nothing I can do about that. I’m not sure it matters, in any case. I’ll be there legitimately, to meet Lou, which I can say if anyone bangs on my window and gives me a hard time; I’ve been invited. Whether I’m watching or not, Thomas will have to walk out of the building and over to the car park area. No one will be able to stop me from seeing him. They’re hardly going to put a blanket over his head so that I can’t catch a glimpse of him.
Who is ‘they’?
Who will come to collect Thomas? I’ve got a strange kind of premonition in my mind, as I pull into the school car park, that I’m about to see Flora again. It doesn’t strike me as impossible. Either Lewis could have worked out a way to make a phone call seem as if it’s coming from America when it’s not, or he drove Flora straight to an airport after they made that call together. She could have flown at nine or nine thirty in the evening, Florida time, and landed before midday UK time. She’d probably be jet-lagged, but it would be just about possible for her to get to Thomas’s school by kick-out at three thirty.
I pick a parking space at the centre of a grid of white-painted rectangular boxes on the ground. As and when other cars arrive, they’ll have to park all around me, hemming me in. That will provide some cover.
I use my phone to send some basic, easy chore-emails while I wait for school to finish: yes, Ben can go and see a production of Len and Ezra, whatever that is, and I’m willing to pay £30 for him to do so; yes, I can confirm that I’m expecting Pam Swain for a back, neck and head massage on Monday and that, no, I definitely won’t need to cancel her again.
At three fifteen, other cars start to join me in the car park. I sit up straight in the driver’s seat when I see the silver Range Rover, which is one of the last to arrive, at three twenty-eight. I haven’t decided what I’ll do if it’s Flora. Will I get out of the car, walk over, try and talk to her? If I did, would she run away from me again?
It’s not her. It’s the woman who pretended to be Jeanette Cater. She steps out of the Range Rover, slams the door behind her, then walks briskly over to two other women, both younger than her, who are standing behind a larger group of waiting parents. Either Emily’s not with her or she’s waiting in the car. Today Not-Jeanette is wearing leopard-print leggings, a black V-neck jumper with a thick gold belt, and flat slip-on shoes that look as if they came from a child’s fancy-dress box: glittery and gold, with bows on them and no visible soles.
I lower my window an inch or so and take a few photos of her with my phone. They’re not great, but they’ll do. I edit the best one to enlarge her face. Ideally, I’d like a photo of Flora too, to show Lou Munday. I do a Google image search for Flora Braid, Flora Tillotson and Jeanette Cater, but each one yields only photos of people I’ve never seen before.