Then I lied to Detective Steel. I didn’t aim for Lewis’s shoulder. I aimed for his head, and, even with my hand shaking violently, I must have aimed well. And maybe in a looser sense it was self-defence, but I’m never going to be able to think of it that way, knowing how much I wanted him dead, how deliberately I pointed the gun at the spot right between his eyes, willing the bullet through the air and into his warped brain.
And then I lied to Dom. And to Zannah and Ben. And I’ll never know their opinion of what I really did, whether they would praise me and say, ‘I’d have done the same’ or disapprove because I killed a man, deliberately, wanting him to die. Praying for it with every cell in my body, and feeling proud once it was done. That’s the truth, Emily.
‘Maybe they’ll change their minds one day,’ Dom says as we pull up outside turquoise-painted gates with a white sign on them: ‘Villa Agathi’. Flowers have been painted around the name. ‘If Kevin Cater and Yanina can overhear one conversation between Thomas and Emily and change their minds about everything after taking Lewis’s money for years …’
‘But how will Thomas and Emily Braid ever hear their younger siblings’ account of the things the horrible man from America used to say to Mummy when he appeared? Even if they did, they might not change their minds. They’re believing what they want and need to believe because they loved Lewis. They adored him.’
I don’t believe Kevin and Yanina truly changed their minds, but I don’t want to say so. Not now. I can’t prove it’s a lie, and I couldn’t bear to hear Dom stick up for them. I’ll never believe that they suddenly realised, after being unaware for years, that they were involved in something appalling, and took immediate steps to get the children to safety. They must have known, and tolerated it. Then I turned up, and they saw that they’d failed to convince me there was no cause for concern. Lewis’s instructions were becoming ever more alarming and bizarre – Yanina dressing in Flora’s clothes, Flora having to be flown out to Florida without the children – and then a policeman turned up asking questions, and Kevin and Yanina’s convenient, lucrative gig started to feel more risky.
Then, maybe, they overheard Thomas and Emily talking and discovered that Lewis’s treatment of Flora was a little bit worse than even they’d imagined. But I can’t believe they cared, at that point. If their worry for the children’s safety was genuine, surely they’d have bundled Emily into the car, gone to fetch Thomas from school and gone straight to the police or social services.
There’s something that doesn’t convince me about them ringing the school and handing in formal notice, cancelling Emily’s place. There was no need for them to do it, and it feels staged to me. Performative. So that they could claim, later, that they feared reprisals from Lewis to such an extent that they made a decision to take the children and flee to a different part of the country – which was what they did. Even if you did plan to escape, why think about giving notice to a school? Why not just go? Flora thinks they probably wanted to be upfront and end the relationship there and then, so that there would be no phone calls or enquiries the next day when Thomas didn’t turn up for registration in the morning. Perhaps that’s true. Flora will never ask Kevin or Yanina about it, or speak to them ever again, so there’s no way of knowing.
‘Are we here?’ Ben asks as Dom switches off the car’s engine. He stretches. ‘I’m tired.’ Tired or not, he’s out of the car in seconds; Dom too. It’s an old family joke: when we all drive home from somewhere, Dom and Ben are usually inside the house and halfway through watching a football match by the time Zan and I drag ourselves out of the car.
I turn and prod her leg. Her eyes snap open. She blinks.
‘We’re here,’ I tell her. ‘Sorry to wake you.’
‘You didn’t,’ she says, stuffing her phone and earphones into the bag on her lap. ‘I was thinking …’
‘Come on, you two,’ Dom calls out.
‘What?’ I ask Zannah.
She looks hesitant, then decides to go for it.
‘Maybe I could try talking to Thomas and Emily Braid. I think I could maybe … I don’t know. I don’t know what I could do, but I’d like to give it a go. I’m the same age as them.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want you involved.’
‘And yet look where I am.’ Zan nods towards the villa.
Damn. Why is she so good at winning arguments?
‘They’d tell you horrible things about me, Zan. They’d call me a murderer. I don’t want you to have to deal with that.’
‘I can deal with whatever they say, Mum. Seriously.’ Looking out of the window, she adds casually, ‘I could also deal with you being a murderer as long you only ever have one victim and that victim is Lewis Braid.’
Does she know? Is that possible, even though I haven’t told her?
‘Shall I try and contact them, then?’ She smiles innocently at me.
She knows.
I’ve no idea how I feel about that. My daughter knows I lied. My daughter knows what I did in Florida.
‘Thomas and Emily Braid?’ I say, playing for time.
Zannah nods. ‘I won’t mention it to Flora now, in case it doesn’t work. I just … I reckon I could convince anyone that having a mother is a great thing, not to be missed,’ she says solemnly.
‘Okay. You can try, if you want to.’ My eyes prickle with tears. I blink them away.
‘Er … hello?’ Dom leans into the car. ‘Did we come here so that Ben and I could stare at a wall, or …’
As he’s speaking, the villa’s blue gates open and Flora appears, with Rosemary behind her. She waves at us. She’s smiling.