24
Back in my hotel room, I sit down in the hard chair at the desk and stare at the number Lou has sent me. It doesn’t look familiar. It can’t be the same one Flora had twelve years ago. I think I’d probably recognise that number if it was in front of me, though I can’t call it to mind.
I key in the digits, press the dial button and wait for her to answer. Each of these stages feels as if it lasts an age. How many more stages will there be?
It doesn’t matter. However many there are, I’ll be here for them.
‘Hello?’
‘Flora, it’s me.’
‘I told you to leave me alone.’
‘I know. And I let you think I might. I should have been clearer. I can’t leave you alone until I’m sure that you and the children are safe. Flora, listen, this is important. I know you’re not okay. I knew it the second I saw you get out of that car outside your house in Hemingford Abbots. I knew when I saw the look of pure fear in your eyes in the car park in Huntingdon. I know you’ve lied to me and I understand why, but you’ve miscalculated here. You think if you lie convincingly enough, I’ll disappear, and you’re scared of what they’ll do to you if you don’t help to make me go away – I get that – but you need to believe me now. I’m not ever going to drop this. And when they see that I haven’t dropped it, they’ll blame you.’
I stop in case she wants to try and deny any of it. I hear her breathing.
She says nothing.
‘They’re not going to blame themselves, are they?’ I go on. ‘People like them never do. Lewis isn’t a good person. I think you know that better than anyone. I should have realised it long before I did. Kevin and Yanina aren’t good people either. But you are, Flora. You were my best friend for years. I know you want to help make sure Thomas and Emily aren’t harmed any more than they already have been.’
She doesn’t respond. All I can hear is her breathing.
‘I’ve spoken to people at Thomas’s school. The staff are worried about him.’ Only one member of staff, but Flora doesn’t need to know that. ‘They know there’s something wrong at home. Shall I tell you what I’ve been told? That you cling to Thomas and Emily as if you’re terrified something bad will happen to them.’
I hear a sob. It’s working. Keep going.
‘What do you think Lewis is going to do if you follow his instructions to the letter? Treat you well? When did he last treat you well, Flora? Not for a while, I don’t think. I’m right, aren’t I?’
Silence.
‘What will Kevin and Yanina do if you obey their orders? What will your reward be, for helping to get rid of nosy, pushy Beth? Will they suddenly treat you and the children kindly? Have they ever done that? You’ve obeyed orders for a long time, haven’t you, and where’s it got you? Nowhere.’
Where’s this approach getting me? I have no way of knowing, and no plan. I’m acting on instinct – saying anything I think of that feels true, praying I’m right. I can’t show any doubt if I want her to believe I can help her.
‘We’re going to do it differently from now on, Flora. You’re going to listen to me, not them. I want to help you and the children. I know I can help, but you have to talk to me and tell me the truth. And you need to understand that if you don’t do that, you won’t get to avoid your fear. The opposite. You’ll make the fear last longer. You’ll create more of it if you carry on lying and avoiding me. You know why? Because I’m not going to leave this alone. Whatever you’re all so terrified of, it’s going to happen. I’m going to find out. It’s only a question of when. It might take me a year, maybe two. Do you want to live in fear for that long? You can’t keep the secret forever. None of you can.
She’s letting me say all this – not shutting me down, not interrupting. That has to mean something.
‘When did someone last try to help you, Flora?’ I try to think of anything I can say that might flip that switch in her mind. ‘You know how persistent I’ve had to be. And I was your best friend for years. What if no one ever really tries to help you and the children again? What if I’m your only chance?’ Shit. That sounded too threatening. In a softer voice, I say, ‘There’s a better, more sensible choice you can make: you can tell me the truth right now and have an ally.’
‘Why does it matter to you?’ She’s crying. ‘Why can’t you forget about me, forget about all of us?’
‘Because there’s something badly wrong,’ I tell her. ‘The children – Thomas and Emily Cater – are being harmed somehow. I’m not sure how but I know it’s happening. Lewis is the driving force behind it. Lewis was and is always a driving force – that’s all he knows how to be. And you’re being harmed by it, whatever it is. Maybe that’s your choice – to stay in that house with those people and let them hurt you in whatever way they’re hurting you. Maybe you don’t want to be rescued, but how can you deny your children the help you know they need?’
‘You don’t know anything! You don’t understand!’
I wait a moment, then carry on as evenly as if her outburst hasn’t happened. ‘There’s a lot that I don’t understand. That’s true. I’ve worked out part of it, but not all. There are some things that still make no sense to me. Maybe you can explain them. If I’m going to help, I need to know what I’m dealing with. Why did Lewis make such a fuss about you feeding Georgina, the last time you all came to see us?’
‘What? What are you talking about?’ She sounds genuinely thrown off course by the question, as if I’ve asked her about a complicated algebra problem.
‘You must remember the last time we all got together. You found out that I’d cut up the photo you sent me of you, Lewis and the kids. We both knew we’d never see each other again, though we didn’t say it explicitly.’
‘I’d forgotten that you did that,’ Flora says quietly.
‘You forgot that I cut Georgina out of a photograph?’ I pause to consider this. It takes me a moment to realise what it means. ‘I suppose that’s possible, if you had a lot on your mind, and you did, didn’t you? You’d been distancing yourself from me for a while before that day. Months. Something else was going on in your life. It started around the time you got pregnant with Georgina. Maybe that was it, the thing that changed everything: the pregnancy. Whatever it was, there was something you couldn’t talk to me about and didn’t want me to find out. Bit by bit, you started to vanish from my life. You didn’t really want to come round that last time, did you?’
‘I remember it now,’ she says. ‘Lewis and Dom went to the pub.’
‘Yeah, for a bit. Then they came back, and they were in the kitchen, and we were in the lounge with all the children. Georgina was a tiny baby. She’d been asleep all afternoon. Then she started to stir and you picked her up to feed her. You seemed on edge – more than you’d ever been with Thomas or Emily. I assumed it was because of the tension between you and me. You’d just found out about the photo, and I thought that explained the atmosphere that you could cut with a knife. That wasn’t the explanation, though, was it? You and Lewis had brought the tension with you. He came into the room while you were feeding Georgina and yelled at you. I’d never heard him shout at you like that before. Other people, yes, but never you.