Perfect Little Children

by Sophie Hannah

  “Never mind,” he says. He looks as if he does, though.

  “Why didn’t you like him?” I ask Rosemary.

  “It’s hard to describe, especially at a distance of so many years. But whenever he came here, I felt as if I was a guest in his house and not the other way around. Not even a guest, actually. More of a servant. He always had an air of being in charge, even in places where he shouldn’t have been. Even in my kitchen.”

  “He was always perfectly genial, as far as I recall,” Gerard defends the man who told him he’d never see his daughter or grandchildren again. “Life and soul of every gathering.”

  “But we couldn’t be ourselves around him, Ged. Not at all.”

  “I could.”

  “Well, I couldn’t,” says Rosemary in a shaky voice. “I always felt I needed to please and impress him, and that, if I didn’t, my relationship with Flora would suffer. I worked out, very early on, what kind of mother-in-law he would most want, and then I pretended to be that person.”

  “When I spoke to Lewis on the phone, I asked after Georgina,” I tell her. “I said, ‘How old is she now?’ Obviously, I had no idea she’d passed away. I said it in a ‘Wow, she must be nearly a teenager’ kind of way.”

  “Lewis won’t have liked that at all,” says Gerard Tillotson quietly. Something chimes at the back of my mind—some sort of alarm or warning—but it’s gone before I can grasp it.

  “What did he say?” asks Rosemary.

  “He told me Georgina was twelve,” I say. I know I’ve said enough, but I’m so furious with Lewis that I can’t control it, and the rest spills out: “There was no hint of distress or unease in his voice. He sounded his usual, upbeat, extrovert self, even though, it turns out, he was telling me the most outrageous lie: that his daughter who died when she was six months old is alive and well and living in Delray Beach, Florida.”

  12

  “Beth? It’s pitch black in here,” Dom complains.

  I’m in the bath, in the dark, with Kiehl’s Lavender, Sea Salts and Aloe Vera bath foam and a few extra drops of essential lavender oil added for good measure, to make the scent stronger. My face is covered with a stiff, dried mask: Zannah’s favorite—a blend of lavender and chamomile that comes as a powder. You have to add water and stir it into a paste.

  Some people believe that tea is the answer to stress, and others resort to alcohol. For me, it’s lavender.

  “You want to talk yet?” says Dom.

  I nod. I’m ready. It might be nearly midnight, but since getting back from Wokingham I’ve dealt with my work email inbox and had an hour or so to get my thoughts in order. The bath has helped hugely. I feel like I have a grip on things again. I’ve adjusted, digested all the new information.

  “Good.” Dom closes the door and locks it. Now we’re in total darkness.

  “Can I turn a light on?” he asks.

  “No. Your eyes’ll adjust in a minute.”

  He sits down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall. “We need to talk,” he says. “Seriously.”

  “I agree.”

  “Great. I’m glad.”

  I know what’s coming.

  “You need to drop this now. Completely. No more driving to far-away places, no more hanging around schools. And don’t turn this into ‘My husband doesn’t understand my point of view,’ because that’s not true. I do.”

  “I’ve literally never said those words, by the way.”

  “Zan told me what happened at Flora’s parents’ place. Something fucked up is going on with Lewis and Flora, big time, but it doesn’t affect us. By which I mean: it doesn’t need to, unless you keep your obsession stoked up. You’ve been lied to and fobbed off repeatedly—that means Flora and Lewis don’t want you to know what’s going on with them, they want you out of their lives. Let that happen—stop pursuing this—and we’ll never see or hear from the Braids again. And that’ll be brilliant, Beth. That’ll be the best possible outcome.”

  “For who?”

  “All of us. Me, you, Zan and Ben.”

  “And we’re the only people who matter?”

  “In this case, yes. No one’s having their life threatened or endangered, are they? Flora’s walking around, going about her normal business. She seems not to be in too terrible a state, apart from when she sees you stalking her.”

  “I’m not—”

  “So you heard her talking on the phone outside her house and she sounded upset—so what? These people haven’t been our friends for twelve years. Let them get on with their lives, whatever weirdness those lives might involve, and let’s us get on with ours. The alternative is what? Letting down more clients? Isn’t that going to harm your business? You’ve always been the one out of the two of us who cares about your job. Maybe you don’t anymore, but it’s not only about you.”

  Here it comes.

  “Today, Zannah should have been at home revising. Instead, she was sticking her nose into other people’s business and getting drunk. That can’t happen again, Beth.”

  “I agree. It was a one-off.”

  “Yeah, well, it should have been a none-off.” He sounds slightly mollified.

  “I’ve made a decision. I need one more day, and then I’ll stop. At that point I’ll have done all I can. I’ve already rescheduled all the clients I canceled. They’re all fine about it. Zannah’s got some revision sessions coming up at school, which she’ll go to. Our lives aren’t falling apart, Dom. We’re all fine.”

  “Right, and we’re going to stay fine—by accepting that other people’s lives are their business and their problem. I don’t agree that you need one more day.”

  I don’t care.

  “What will this extra day involve?”

  “I’m going to go to Huntingdon and try and talk to the police there.”

  “What?” Dom laughs. “Beth, no crime has been committed.”

  “I agree, there’s no proof of any crime.”

  “But you think there is one?”

  “I’ve no way of knowing, and no power to find out. I strongly suspect something is really horribly wrong. For all I know, it involves an element of crime. Generally, people don’t go to such extreme lengths to hide whatever they’re hiding unless it’s criminal. One person alone might be desperate to hide a shameful personal secret, but four? Lewis, Flora, Kevin Cater and the woman who told us she was Jeanette?”

  “Yeah, they’re four liars who all know each other. It’s hardly a huge underground network. And there’s absolutely no reason to suspect a criminal conspiracy. But . . . you’re not going to take my word for it, so let’s go and see the police. Maybe if you hear them say, ‘We don’t think there’s anything for us to investigate here,’ it’ll put your mind at rest.”

  “It won’t stop me wondering what’s going on. I don’t think anything could, apart from finding out the answer. But I need to know that I’ve done everything I possibly could to help Flora and . . . whoever those two kids were that I saw outside her house. And the two in Florida. All of them.”

  “You said the two kids you saw outside the Wyddial Lane house last Saturday looked normal and healthy,” says Dom.

  “They did.”

  “And it’s clear from Lewis’s Instagram that Thomas and Emily are doing great. So there’s no evidence that anyone’s harming any kids, is there?”

  “Dom, for God’s sake.”

  “What? What did I say?”

  I sit up and wash off the face mask. Once it’s all gone, I say, “How sure are you that those four children are fine—the two in England and the two in America? Really think about it, Dom. I heard Flora call the two little ones Thomas and Emily. They were outside Kevin Cater’s house, and Lou Munday at Kimbolton Prep School told me that those are the Cater kids’ names: Thomas and Emily. That means it’s likely to be them that I saw.”

  “I know all this.”

  “The two kids I saw were absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt Flora’s children. Like teenage Thomas and E
mily when they were little, they bore a strikingly strong resemblance to Flora. There’s no way they aren’t hers. So. Think about what that means.”

  Dom stands up. He walks over to the bathroom mirror and stares at himself. Eventually he says, “Flora had three children. One died. Then she had two more and called them the same names as the two children she already had.”

  “Except no one does that,” I say.

  “But she has.” Dom turns to face me. He looks confused. “If everything you’ve just said is true, that the younger two must be Flora’s, then that must be what happened.”

  “Must it? We’ve only seen pictures of teenage Thomas and Emily on the Internet. The people in those pictures could be actors hired by Lewis.”

  Dom snorts. “Beth. Come on, get a grip.”

  “What? You think that’s implausible? He pretended Flora was in Florida when she was in Cambridgeshire. He told me Georgina’s twelve. She’s not twelve—she’s dead.”

  “Is she? If Lewis can lie so easily, maybe Georgina’s alive. Maybe she’s Chimpy, and you heard Flora talking to her on Saturday.”

  “Maybe I did.” I’ve been thinking this myself. “All the options we’ve considered, all the ones we can possibly think of, are worrying, aren’t they? Let’s say all five kids are alive, but Lewis and Flora are telling Georgina’s grandparents that she’s dead. Or Georgina’s two younger siblings have the same Christian names as her two older ones, and meanwhile their parents are telling weird lies and enlisting their friends to do the same. Does any of that sound to you like a family in which the kids definitely aren’t at risk from the adults? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t to me. I want to say all this to the police. I think there’s something sinister going on that needs looking into.”

  “Unless . . .” I can tell from this halfhearted start that Dom knows the point he’s about to make is a weak one. “My friend Anthony at university had the same first name as all his brothers: John. They were all known by their middle names, but—”

  “Great. You can tell Huntingdon police that. I’ll tell them Flora’s two youngest kids are known by the names Thomas and Emily, which is what I heard her call them—the same names her first two were known by.”

  “Shouldn’t you also be contacting the police in Delray Beach, Florida, if you think the original Thomas and Emily might also be at risk?”

  “Huntingdon police can do that, assuming they agree with me.”

  “Christ, Beth.” Dom covers his face with his hands. “Is that what you’re hoping will happen? It won’t. The police aren’t going to lift a finger, however weird it all is. The most they’ll do is send in social services.”

  “Fine. That’s good enough for me.”

  Liar.

  No matter what I tell Dom, nothing will be good enough for me unless and until I have the answers I need.

  I say, “Flora’s dad said that she and Lewis probably don’t want anything to do with me now, just like they don’t want Flora’s parents in their lives anymore. If that were true, if that’s all that’s happening here, why wouldn’t Lewis have said so on the phone? He was very direct when he cut off Flora’s parents. Why not say to me, ‘Sorry, Beth, we’ve moved on, you’re pretty much a stranger now, we don’t have to answer any of your questions, good-bye’? Why would it be any harder to say that to me than to Gerard and Rosemary?”

  “It wouldn’t. But a more diplomatic brush-off is always easier, and most friends would take the hint. Whereas parents need to be told more firmly. They don’t let their kids go so easily.”

  “Maybe. But Flora’s reaction in the car park was hardly diplomatic. There was no ‘Oh, Beth, how lovely to see you after all these years—must dash now but let’s catch up sometime.’ Running away in terror is pretty undiplomatic.”

  “True,” Dom concedes.

  “And Lewis telling us we must come to Florida, and Kevin Cater inviting us around to his house, answering our questions . . . Showing us that picture of two kids I’d never seen before, lying about Thomas and Emily’s names. He could have given us a polite version of, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve no idea what your wife is on about. Now please leave me alone.’ Do you want to know what I think?”

  Dom sighs heavily. “Beth, I do, but . . . this has to end. For us, our being part of it.”

  “I know. I know it does. I just . . .” I close my eyes and inhale deeply. Come on, lavender. Work your magic. “This isn’t a criticism, but I don’t understand how you’re not as curious as I am. Don’t you want to understand it, whatever it is?”

  “Not at the expense of our lives, no. Also, to an extent, I think I already do understand it. Not the finer details, maybe, but the more general explanation ‘Lewis Braid is a massive weirdo’ works for me. And I really don’t believe anyone’s in danger, Beth. I think Lewis is bizarre enough to have invented some mad reason to call his youngest kids after his oldest kids.”

  “Why did Flora run away from me?” I stand up, grab a towel and wrap it around me. I was planning to wash my hair, but the plan had a built-in loophole: that I knew I wouldn’t bother in the end. I hate washing my hair. It’s the annoying chore that looms in the shadows at the end of every nice long bath, potentially ruining it.

  “I don’t know why Flora ran away.” Dom sighs.

  “To avoid talking to me, clearly. But why? She must have been scared I’d ask something or scared to tell me something, scared I’d find out whatever the secret is. Maybe she thought I’d found out already, maybe Marilyn Oxley told her I’d been asking about the Caters and Thomas and Emily. If the secret is something eccentric but harmless, her fear makes no sense.”

  “Maybe she was scared of you. Just you. Nothing to do with her secret.”

  My heart twists. He can’t know.

  “Why would she be?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  I turn away. I wish I could be indignant, but I can’t. I’ve wondered the same thing myself. Though if Flora’s scared of me because of what I did twelve years ago, that would be an absurd overreaction. She can’t imagine that I’d . . .

  “Beth, I’m sorry.” Dom’s voice cuts into my thoughts. “That was below the belt. There’s nothing scary about you.”

  We all have things we’d rather people didn’t find out about us. I don’t want to, though. Not anymore. “I need to show you something,” I say.

  * * *

  Dominic and I sit on opposite sides of our bed. Between us, lying on the duvet, is a cream envelope that I’ve dug out of an old handbag. The handwriting on the envelope is Flora’s.

  I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Not at the time, and not at any point since. “Don’t tell Zannah and Ben,” I say. “I’m not proud of this and I’d rather they didn’t know.”

  Dom nods.

  I pick up the envelope and shake its contents out onto the bed: a Christmas card with a picture of Santa Claus and his reindeers flying over a snowy mountain. And a photograph of the Braids, with a slit that’s been cut into it and a hole in the middle, where a small part’s been excised . . . and then, lying a few inches apart from the other two items, the cutting from the picture, the person whose absence has made the hole: a tiny baby wrapped in a pink and white blanket, eyes closed. Georgina Braid.

  I pick up the card and show Dom what’s written inside it: “To Dom, Beth, Zannah and Ben, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Lots of love from Lewis, Flora, Thomas, Emily and Georgina.” Followed by three kisses, as per Braid family card-writing tradition. A perfectly ordinary message.

  Georgina was two months old in the photograph. The last time the Braids came to visit us was February 2007, when Georgina was four months old, and two months before she died.

  If she died.

  Flora and I both knew that our friendship was over in February 2007, but we were pretending otherwise, to ourselves and to each other. Dominic had no idea. I don’t know what Lewis knew or didn’t know. I made a special fuss of baby Georgina, aware that not long ago I’d
deliberately taken a pair of scissors and cut her out of a happy family photograph.

  “Not my proudest moment,” I say to Dom.

  “You? Oh. I thought you were going to say that this was how it arrived—with Georgina cut out.”

  “No. I did it.”

  “Why?”

  I remember as if it happened earlier today, though it was twelve years ago: once removed from the photograph, Georgina landed on the kitchen floor. Seeing her lying there, so tiny and separated from her family, I felt immediately ashamed. What the hell was I doing? What if cutting a child out of a family photo was like sticking pins in a wax model of someone you hated? I would always be someone who had done that to a baby. I could never undo it, which made me feel weirdly doomed—as if, with one vicious, unjustifiable act, I had sealed my fate.

  That was my immediate reaction. Overreaction. A few minutes later I realized that all I’d done was cut up a photo, and what did it matter, really? Impulse control had never been my strong point and I knew I’d behaved pathetically, but it was hardly likely to harm Georgina Braid in real life.

  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to throw the Braids in the bin, after what I’d done already. I put the card and the pieces of the photograph back in the envelope, which I stuffed into the side pocket of my handbag. I told myself everything was fine, that no one would ever find out I’d done something so petty and spiteful.

  “Flora found out,” I tell Dom. It’s a relief to say it out loud. The horrible thing I’d done, and how bad it made me feel, was nothing compared with the shame I felt when Flora saw the evidence. Most people successfully hide the worst aspects of their characters from everyone they know, all their lives. I was unlucky.

  “She found out you cut Georgina out of the photo she sent you? Jesus, Beth. I don’t understand. At all.”

  “When the Braids came around for the last time . . . You probably won’t remember, but you and Lewis went out to the Granta for a pint.”

  Dom shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t remember.

  “I knew Flora was thinking the same as me: we both wished you hadn’t gone and left us alone—well, alone with the kids. We were chatting, trying to pretend everything was okay, but deep down we both knew it hadn’t been normal for a while between us, and then suddenly Thomas started wailing. He’d pulled the skin off a blister on his heel and it was bleeding. Flora handed Georgina to me and started rummaging around in her changing bag, looking for a plaster. She didn’t have one, but I knew I had one in my bag. I totally forgot, in that moment, that the cut-up picture was also in there. I sent Zan to look for the plaster. A few minutes later, back she came with all of that.” I nod down at the photo pieces and the card. “She gave it to Flora and said, ‘Look. This was in Mummy’s bag. Someone’s torn baby Georgina out of the photo.’ She had no idea what she was doing, obviously. She just thought it was a weird thing she’d found, and that we’d want to know about it. I could feel myself turning bright red. One look at my face told Flora who the guilty party was.”