Perfect Little Children

by Sophie Hannah

  If Lewis’s colleague is ten minutes late, doesn’t that mean he is too? Maybe the colleague is supposed to be there already, before him.

  He puts his phone back in his pocket, turning slightly. I duck down lower. Having him see me is one thing; being caught eavesdropping is another.

  That could happen. He could, at this moment, be striding toward my hiding place.

  All I can do is wait, crouch and pray. Time passes. No one appears. Once I think it’s safe, I stand up and rub the small of my back.

  The steps are empty. There’s no sign of Lewis anywhere in the car park. He must have gone inside.

  Damn.

  Though it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Talking inside beats talking in a car park, assuming he agrees to see me. And if he refuses, I’ll know for certain that I’m on the right track. A Lewis Braid with no guilty conscience would come bounding out of his office to greet an old friend.

  VersaNova’s lobby is covered, bottom to top, in glossy veined stone of an indeterminate noncolor. At its center is a reception desk made of the same stone that looks as if it has grown up out of the floor. Three receptionists are lined up behind the desk, looking like hopeful contestants in a game show with a ludicrously high budget. Above their heads, there’s a large silver plaque embedded in the wall, bearing VersaNova Techologies’ logo.

  Two of the receptionists are smiling too hard at me. I walk over to the third. She looks the least suspiciously radiant. “I’d like to speak to Lewis Braid,” I tell her. “I just saw him arrive.” On her name badge it says “Wayna Skinner” and, beneath that, “I make sure to want from a feeling of abundance.”

  As I suspected: yoga, green tea and affirmations.

  I can’t see the badge of the receptionist on the far left—it’s too far away—but the one in the middle, Lisa Pearce, has some words of wisdom on her badge too: “Failure only lasts forever if I’m too scared to try again.” I might suggest they introduce similar badges at Bankside Park: “Camilla Hosmer. Lies, false accusations and sporadic racism keep me looking young.”

  I think about what Lewis said on the phone about having a favorite life coach. Was it his idea to pin inspiring messages to the company’s receptionists? It wouldn’t surprise me, though the Lewis I knew had no time at all for new-age nonsense. America might have changed him, I suppose, or he might be cynically playing the corporate game. I wonder if he’ll be willing to miss Daily Responses in order to talk to me.

  “Do you have an appointment with Dr. Braid?” Wayna Skinner asks me.

  “No.”

  “Then you’ll need to make one. He doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.”

  “Can you tell him Beth Leeson is here? I think he’ll see me. Tell him I’ve come all the way from England, in response to his invitation the other night. I’m an old friend.”

  “Oh, I see. Awesome. Let me see what I can do for you.” She picks up the phone. “Martha? It’s Wayna. There’s a lady here to see Dr. Braid. A Beth Leeson. She’s an old friend he invited over. Thank you.”

  I wish I could witness the moment of Martha telling Lewis I’m here: downstairs, in his building. What will he think? How will he react?

  “I sure will. Thank you, Martha.” Wayna hangs up the phone. “He’ll see you. Please stand in front of the camera and I’ll take a photo for your pass.”

  “Camera?”

  “Up there. Can I see your ID? Passport?”

  Luckily I still have it in my bag, from the airport. I trust my own ability to look after my handbag more than I trust any hotel safe.

  With her friendly smile fixed in place, Wayna stares at my passport photograph and me for longer than anyone in an airport ever has. “My hair was different then,” I tell her.

  Finally she places a laminated pass in my hands with excessive care, as if she’s granting me access to the country’s nuclear codes. The photograph VersaNova’s camera has taken of me from on high makes my head look huge and my body tiny and tapering.

  “Take the elevator up to five and Martha will meet you there,” she says. “Have a great visit!”

  The elevator is good company. It lets rip with an exuberant, prerecorded “Level! Five!” as we come to a stop. The doors open and I step out into a beige-carpeted reception area. There are two sets of white double doors and four orange leather chairs lined up against one wall, but no Martha. I’m wondering if I ought to do anything apart from wait when one of the doors swings open.

  “Lewis.”

  “Beth! It’s really you! Is Dom with you?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “You should have brought the whole family. What a treat it is to see you!” He strides over and wraps me in a hug. I think about resisting, even as I hug him back. In his best moments, this was what was great about spending time with Lewis. He could make you feel as if you were his favorite treat in a way that no one else could.

  “Maybe some other time,” I say. “I came alone because . . . I’m not on holiday. This isn’t a fun trip for me.”

  “Isn’t it?” Lewis laughs. “So you’re here to work? Great! Our latest prototype needs to be ready for market in five months. Want to help with that?”

  “I want some answers. Ones that are true.” I try to say this hopefully, as if I believe he’s going to help me.

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place. I’m always happy to give true answers to true questions. But let’s hold this Q and A in my office, where we can have some privacy—in case this turns out to be like the drinking games we used to play. Remember those? Share a sordid secret or down one more shot.”

  Something about his manner makes me wonder if he’s prepared for this. Did he expect that one day I’d come here and appeal directly to him? Did he take steps to make sure I soon ran out of other options, relishing the prospect of using his charm to turn Beth-the-problem into Beth-who’s-no-threat-at-all?

  I laugh and try to look impressed and amused, knowing that’s what he wants. I need to choose my words carefully—to make this The Beth Leeson Show, directed by me and not Lewis, unlike every other interaction I’ve ever had with him.

  “I haven’t brought any alcohol with me, but we could maybe play a variant of that game,” I say as I follow him along a gleaming white corridor.

  “Without the best bit? How would that work? Would there be any refreshments at all? I’ve got the wherewithal to make us some beautiful mint tea in my office.”

  “Great. So the new game can be sordid-secret swapping,” I say smoothly. “We can drink mint tea and swap secrets.” It’s not as hard to talk like this as it would be to anyone who wasn’t Lewis. I’d forgotten this about him: in order for a conversation with him to work, you often had to imitate his manner, and you hoped no one heard you doing it.

  “I refuse to believe you have any sordid secrets, Beth.” We’ve stopped. He opens a door and gestures for me to go in.

  “Maybe not sordid, but I do have secrets,” I say, staying where I am, in the corridor. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “I don’t think so. Imagine that.” Lewis looks serious suddenly. “Imagine having none at all. Wouldn’t that be horrible?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Nothing that you’d mind everyone knowing about you, nothing that you keep just for you and maybe a few trusted friends? I’d hate it.”

  Don’t ask him to tell you his secret. Not yet. It’s too soon.

  “Am I your trusted friend?” I say instead.

  A grin spreads across his face. “I could slip easily into people-pleasing mode and say yes, but you said you wanted true answers, so. I don’t know, Beth. You and Dom disappeared from my life in kind of a weird way. What was that all about? Flora would never tell me. She wanted me to believe we’d all drifted apart but I don’t think that’s what happened, is it?”

  “No.”

  “No. I told Flora I didn’t believe that story, so she made up a better one, hoping I’d like it more: some nonsense about you cutting up a photo of our
children.”

  “That’s true. I did. But I don’t think that’s why our friendship ended.”

  “It’s true?” Lewis laughs. He looks delighted—as if it’s the best news he’s heard in a long time. He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. The doors at the far end of the corridor open and two women appear. Lewis waves in their direction without really looking at them, then gestures again through his open office door. “Come on in,” he says. “I haven’t got long, but I want you all to myself for the time we do have. Something tells me you and I are going to have fun today.”

  20

  There’s a framed photograph on Lewis’s desk: of him, Thomas and Emily sitting outside a beachfront restaurant, under a green-and-white-striped awning. All three of them have lobsters in front of them and they’re all laughing.

  “No Flora?” I say, pointing to it. “No Georgina?”

  “In that particular photo?” says Lewis. He moves over to inspect it more closely. “I’ve never seen either of them, and I work next to that photo most days of my life. But let me know if you spot something I’ve missed. Mint tea? Once I’ve made it, I’ll take the photo out of its frame and you can cut it up if you like. It’s okay, I’ve got plenty more.” He grins to make it clear he’s joking.

  “You didn’t want a reminder of all four of them on your desk?”

  “I’m fascinated by these questions.” Lewis arranges white square mugs in square saucers at the drinks station beneath his huge, metal-framed window. “I change the picture all the time,” he says. He sounds gleeful. If he wishes I hadn’t turned up in his new American life, he’s doing an excellent job of concealing it. “This week it’s Thomas and Emily’s turn in the frame. Everyone gets a turn. Just like, at home, I change my colleague picture regularly. On the mantelpiece in the living room, I currently have a framed photo of Aaron and David from Marketing.”

  I laugh. I think it’s convincing.

  “So, when does the secret-swapping start?” Lewis asks, handing me my tea.

  “Soon as you like. I’ll go first. I cut up a family photo Flora sent me—one that came with a Christmas card. Actually, I didn’t cut it up completely. I just cut Georgina out of it.”

  I watch Lewis’s face to see if anything changes when I mention her name. It doesn’t. All I see is intense curiosity and relish, no discomfort or guilt. No sadness either.

  “Go on,” says Lewis. “I’m intrigued.”

  “I’d have thought you’d be disgusted, or furious,” I say. “Georgina was only a tiny baby. I cut her out of a photograph of your family. She fell on the floor.”

  “So what?” Lewis chuckles. “This was more than ten years ago. Whatever you did, you did it to a piece of paper, not to my daughter. I’d love to know why, though.” He walks over to his desk, sits behind it, then uses it as a footstool, putting his feet up on a pile of glossy brochures.

  I try to focus on his face, not the soles of his shoes. “When I saw the picture, I realized Flora had been pregnant and had a baby, and not told me. I took that as evidence of how little I mattered to her. The photo she sent was the first I knew of Georgina’s existence. I was upset, and I overreacted. Then I felt terrible about it. Flora found out I’d done it, which didn’t help our friendship, but that wasn’t the cause of the rift between us. That was something else.”

  “Was it a rift? Is that what it was?” asks Lewis. “A rift sounds dramatic and exciting. You’re telling me a rift happened and I missed it? I’ll be honest: I always thought the root cause was envy.”

  “Because you suddenly had money? No. For a long time I thought it was the money that had changed things between us, but I was wrong.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “That’s what I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

  “Well . . . let’s see.” He smiles conspiratorially, as if we’re both enjoying the game. “I’ve never cut up any photographs of your children.”

  “You know what I want you to tell me, Lewis.”

  His face changes. The smile is gone. Now he’s staring at me earnestly, with sympathy in his eyes. “I think I do,” he says. “I think you want a story that explains why you’ve seen Flora in England recently. The thing is, Beth, you can’t have. Flora hasn’t been in England. She’s been here, with her family. I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t her.”

  “Maybe I saw the woman who lives there now,” I say.

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Jeanette Cater?”

  “I can’t remember her name, if it’s even the same family that we sold to.”

  “Don’t you remember Kevin and Jeanette Cater?”

  “Kevin Cater . . . Yes, I think that is who we sold to.”

  “You used to work with him.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “He worked at CEMA while you and Flora were there.”

  “Did he?” Lewis looks mildly interested in this coincidence. “You could be right, but I didn’t know him. Flora might have. Beth, are you all right? You’re starting to worry me.”

  “I’m fine. Do you have a current photo of Georgina? I’d like to see one.”

  “Not with me, no.”

  “None on your phone?”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “Do you know about Georgina?” Lewis asks. “I suppose you might have found out if you’ve been scouring the UK in search of Flora.”

  “What’s there to know?”

  “That she died,” Lewis says simply. “Which . . . you knew. Okay. Did Flora’s parents tell you?”

  “Why did you lie to me? I asked you how old she was now and you said twelve.”

  “I didn’t want to discuss the death of my daughter with someone who’s not part of my life anymore. My aim was to get on to a new subject as swiftly as possible. I miscalculated, clearly, because now we’re having the conversation I didn’t want to have, only face-to-face.”

  No. He sounds so plausible, but it can’t be true. Or rather, what he’s told me so far might be true but he’s saying it to obscure the bigger truth, whatever that is. If he really had nothing to hide, why would he allow someone he hasn’t spoken to for twelve years to intrude into his morning with a barrage of strange questions? He wouldn’t. He’d ask me to leave.

  “I’m sorry Georgina died,” I say.

  “Thank you. Me too.” Lewis smiles sadly. “This game turned out to be less fun than I hoped it would be.”

  “Tell me the truth, Lewis. Please.”

  “I just have.”

  “The whole truth.” I’m not scared to push him further. What’s he going to do, leap out of his chair and punch me? I’m assuming he cares what the people in this building think of him and so wouldn’t risk it. “If you and Flora are still married, why are there no photos of her on your Instagram? Why is she living with Kevin Cater in your old house, and calling herself Jeanette? Whose are the two children that live in that house? They’re yours and Flora’s, aren’t they? So why are they living with Kevin Cater? I’ve seen them, Lewis. I know you’re their father.”

  “Are you lonely, Beth?”

  “No. I’m not lonely at all.”

  “Are you fulfilled?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve flown all the way from England to sit in my office and fire strange accusations at me. They do sound like accusations, whether that’s your intention or not—as if you’re a TV detective trying to crack a case. Which casts me in the role of ‘villain you’ve exposed, about to be locked up at Her Majesty’s pleasure.’ In fact, I’m someone who’s done nothing wrong and who used to be your friend. Whose third child died tragically many years ago, and who didn’t and doesn’t want to talk about that with someone he’s no longer close to. There’s nothing in my life that justifies a manic interrogation, so . . . this has to be about whatever’s going on with you. I’m wondering if you’re okay.”

  I decide to try a new tactic. “Tell me the truth, Lewis. I don’t much care what it is. Al
l I want is to know. People are trying to tell me I didn’t see something I know I saw, and I’ve had enough. At least confirm that it was Flora I saw, even if you won’t tell me anything else.”

  A flicker of impatience passes across his face. “Beth, I can take you to Flora right now if you like.”

  “She might be in Florida now, but she wasn’t the two times I saw her.”

  “Yes, she was.” Lewis raises one hand, finger pointed upward. “I’ve thought of a solution.

  “Can you tell me the exact dates and times of your alleged Flora sightings? There’s rarely a day that she doesn’t see someone—her friends, charity committee ladies, tennis club people. I can probably track down whoever she was with when you claim to have seen her in the UK.”

  “To provide an alibi, you mean?” An extremely well-paid one, no doubt. “I’m sure you could, but why would you? If you’re telling the truth and nothing suspicious is going on, why would you indulge my irrational obsession?”

  “The very question I’m asking myself at the moment.” Lewis smiles again. “Because you were once a good friend, I guess. As for something suspicious . . . even if Flora was in the UK, which she wasn’t, how is that suspicious? She has a passport. She’s allowed to travel.”

  “The two children living at 16 Wyddial Lane are called Thomas and Emily.”

  Lewis laughs. “Yeah, right. Of course they are.”

  “I heard Flora call them by those names. They look identical to . . .” I point at the photo on his desk. “To the way they looked at the same age. That’s how I know they’re yours.”

  “Wait, wait . . .” For the first time since I arrived, he looks as if he doesn’t know exactly what to say next. “Beth, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but . . . do you realize how unwell you sound?”

  “I might sound that way to someone else, who knew nothing, but it’s not how I sound to you. To you, I sound like someone who knows a bit too much. Whereas to me, I sound like someone who knows too little.”

  “This is verging on pathological now,” he says.

  “We could easily sort it out once and for all.”