Perfect Little Children

by Sophie Hannah

  And now she has. And I did nothing.

  Because there’s nothing you could have done.

  Telling myself Thomas will be fine, I get out of the car and start to walk toward the school’s main entrance. Halfway there, I hear a voice calling my name.

  I turn. At first I can’t see where it might have come from. Then I spot Lou, in the driver’s seat of a red Ford Fiesta. I didn’t see her leave the building; she must have come out while I was watching Thomas. She gestures toward me, and I see that the passenger door is open.

  “Get in,” she mouths at me as I approach. She seems nervous, in a rush, as if we’ve just robbed a bank together and she’s driving the getaway car.

  I obey the order. Another incentive to make sure we part on friendly terms—I’m going to need her to drop me back here later so that I can drive home.

  Is it naive of me to trust her? What if she’s . . .

  No. That’s paranoid. She’s a school receptionist. What’s she going to do—pull over and whip out a knife in broad daylight?

  If someone wants me out of the way, presumably there are plenty of thugs for hire.

  If Dom knew that I was even thinking in this way . . . “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “The Gallery,” Lou says. “We can talk freely there.”

  * * *

  The Gallery turns out to be a crowded, homely café in Huntingdon, with square tables and a comforting smell of baked potatoes. Lou and I take the last available table. I tell her it’s my treat, whatever she wants to order, and thank her for being willing to talk to me, even though she’s the one who’s initiated the meeting.

  “How did you get my number?” I ask her once we have our cups of tea in front of us. “My mobile phone, I mean. When you asked for my details, I gave you the landline.”

  “You’ll think I’m a stalker.” She looks embarrassed. “I tried the landline and no one answered, so I googled you. I found your massage business Web site.”

  With a photograph of me smiling, in my white work tunic, and both my phone numbers, mobile and landline, as well as my work email.

  “Sorry,” says Lou unnecessarily.

  “Don’t be. You’re no more of a stalker than we all are these days. You could have saved yourself the bother, though, and spoken to me yesterday.”

  “I was too scared. I can’t believe I’m doing it now.” She shakes her head, as if at her own recklessness. “I could lose my job if I’m caught discussing families who are at the school. And I really need my job. My husband’s business had to fight an expensive legal battle last year that nearly cleaned us out.”

  “That sounds rough. So . . . what changed your mind? About speaking to me. Was it the police?”

  “Police?” Lou’s eyes widen.

  “Or social services? Has someone been to the school today, or rung up, asking about the Caters?” It’s probably too soon. PC Paul Pollard might do something, but it will take him at least a day or two to get around to it. And the likelihood is, he’ll do nothing.

  “No. Why would you think that?” Lou asks.

  “I’m trying to work out why you suddenly decided you want to talk to me. Enough to look me up online and call me. That’s a big change from yesterday. Did something happen?”

  Her eyes are flitting around, not settling anywhere. “Look, I need to know before this goes any further,” she says. “Are the police involved in whatever’s going on? Please tell me. Don’t lie.”

  I try not to be irritated by the suggestion that I would. Something I can’t put my finger on makes me think that being completely straight with her is going to be the most effective strategy.

  I take a long sip of my tea and start with my detour to Wyddial Lane last Saturday.

  As simply and clearly as I can, I tell her everything. By the time I’ve finished, she’s drunk all her tea. My cup’s still full, and cold.

  “And . . . you told all that to the police, everything you’ve just told me?”

  I nod.

  “Weren’t you embarrassed?”

  “Why would I be?”

  “It’s such a crazy-sounding story. It’s . . . I mean it’s outrageous.” She stresses the word. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I couldn’t sit there and say all that to the police.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve been outrageous,” I tell her. “Sometimes you have to do the things no one else would do to get a result. My husband only got his first job because I applied for it on his behalf. Without telling him.”

  “As his wife?”

  “No. Pretending to be him.”

  “Wow.”

  I can’t tell if she’s impressed or repelled. “I’d shown him the advert and he’d said, ‘There’s no way I’d get that. I’m too inexperienced.’ And he was right, he wouldn’t have got it, because he’s not the sort of person who’d really sell himself in the bold way I could tell that particular company wanted. It was obvious from their ad. So I wrote an application letter basically saying ‘I’m brilliant and you won’t find better’—more subtly than that. It was a great letter, if I say so myself—witty, charming, but it made the point: ‘I’m the best you’ll get.’ And he got the job!”

  “You’re very different from me,” says Lou. “I feel terrible for being here.”

  “Then why are you?”

  She stares into her empty teacup. I’m starting to feel the first prickle of impatience when she says, “If I talk to you about the Caters, will you swear never to tell anyone that the information came from me?”

  “I can’t promise to tell nobody,” I say. “If the police do end up looking into it and they come back to me with—”

  “I don’t mean the police. If there’s an official investigation, that’s different.”

  “I promise that whatever you tell me won’t lead to you losing your job. You can trust me. I’m not going to land you in any trouble.”

  She nods. “Yesterday, you asked me about Jeanette Cater’s accent, or your daughter did.”

  I wait.

  “Jeanette Cater—the woman I know by that name—has an English accent. Like yours.”

  I show her the photo I took in the car park of the other woman. “Then who’s this?”

  “Yanina. She’s the Caters’ nanny. I don’t know her last name. I think she’s Ukrainian.”

  “And the woman you know as Jeanette—does she look a lot like Thomas, facially?”

  “Yes. Oh! I might have a photo, from sports day.” Lou rummages in her bag. “I’m terrified I’ll lose my phone and then all my pictures’ll be gone. I’ve got hundreds on there. Should back them up, really.” When she pulls out her phone, a crumpled tissue and a hair clip fall out with it. She picks them up and stuffs them back in.

  I sip my cold tea while she scrolls through her photos. “Here we are,” she says eventually. “This is Jeanette.” She passes the phone across the table to me.

  It’s Flora. Her face is flushed and she’s wearing gray and blue running shoes, gray sweatpants and a red T-shirt. There are two women standing to her right, also wearing running gear. All three of them are smiling. Two of the smiles look natural and convincing. Flora’s is the odd one out: stiff and uncomfortable, as if it’s hurting her lips to make that shape.

  “That was after the mums’ race.”

  “This is Flora Braid,” I say.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “That’s so odd,” says Lou. “I wonder why she changed her name.”

  Another peculiar aspect of this whole bizarre business has just struck me: many of the strangest details involve names. The Ukrainian nanny, Yanina, pretended her name was Jeanette. Either Flora’s doing the same in her dealings with her son’s school and her next-door neighbor, or else she really has changed her name to Jeanette Cater. And, since Thomas and Emily Braid can’t possibly have been frozen at the ages of five and three, then the Thomas and Emily I saw last Saturday in Hemingford Abbots must have been two different
children—but their names are the same.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that Mr. Cater and Yanina presented themselves to you as a married couple,” Lou says. “I’ve often thought they seem like more of a unit than Mr. and Mrs. Cater do. I’m not saying there’s anything going on between them. They’ve never shown signs of being romantically involved, but they seem to be . . . together, somehow. Like, a pair.”

  “A pair but not a couple?”

  “Yes. There have been a few times when all three of them have been in school together—Mr. and Mrs. Cater and Yanina—and it’s as if Mr. Cater and Yanina are the grown-ups and Mrs. Cater’s a child, trailing along behind them. More in the same category as Thomas and Emily—like their older sister or something. And those three sort of cling together in a way that’s always struck me as a bit off.”

  “Which three? The Caters and Yanina?”

  “No. Mrs. Cater and the two children.”

  “They cling together?”

  “Yes, it’s strange. Like she’s determined to protect them. She wraps her arms around them as if she’s terrified of the world on their behalf.”

  My mind is reeling. Flora, terrified of the world? Terrified for her children? She never used to be. She was always very relaxed about . . .

  About the other Thomas and Emily?

  I can remember her thinking it funny the way her mum used to say, “Aren’t you worried about Thomas crawling upstairs?” and “Aren’t you worried about Thomas sitting so near where you’re cooking?” Flora was a far less neurotic new mother than I was.

  “Have you ever heard any of them use the name Chimp, or Chimpy?” I ask. “Flora, Kevin or the nanny? It might be a person’s nickname, or the name of a pet.”

  Lou looks blank. She shakes her head.

  “What about Peterborough? Does that ring any bells?”

  “Not in connection with the people we’re talking about, no.”

  “Have you ever heard Flora . . . I’m going to call her Flora, since that’s who she is to me. Have you ever heard her say she’s very lucky?” I’m not sure why I’m asking this, except that I’ve heard her say it twice: once on the phone outside Newnham House and once in the background, the first time Lewis rang.

  “No,” says Lou. “She doesn’t look as if she thinks she’s lucky at all, though it’s clear they’ve got pots of money.”

  “That’s why you contacted me, isn’t it? You have a sense that something’s wrong in the Cater family?”

  “Yes, but . . . I kept telling myself that I must be wrong to think that. Since I’ve known Mrs. Cater, she’s been clingy with her children, and reluctant to have conversations and interactions with anyone who isn’t her child.”

  “She was reluctant to talk to you?”

  “Always. She was painfully shy and wary. I used to think, ‘What on earth does she think I’m going to do to her?’ I’m the school’s administrative manager, and we’re an all-one-big-family kind of school. I have a lot of contact with families—selling tickets to school shows, fielding people who’ve missed deadlines for trips but decide three weeks later that their child simply has to go. I could say the most harmless, straightforward things and Mrs. Cater would mumble, ‘Ask my husband’ or ‘Tell Yanina,’ and then scurry off. As if she somehow . . . I don’t know. Didn’t want to be there. And I feel awful saying this about such a young child but Thomas’s behavior ever since he joined the school has worried me. He’s such a solitary soul—always on his own, talking to himself as if he’s playing an endless imaginary game in his head, but he never seems lonely. He’s quite content with his invisible wall around him, but if any of the other children or a teacher tries to engage him he clams up.” Lou winces. “He does this strange thing where he sort of presses himself up against the nearest wall and touches it with his hands.”

  “Is the school worried about him? Officially?”

  Lou’s face hardens. “Nobody apart from me will admit there’s a problem. We’re nonselective, so we’ve got our fair share of special needs kids, and not enough SEN teachers, so everyone’s determined to believe Thomas is just shy and eccentric. He’s not unhappy most of the time, and he’s manageable as long as you know to leave him to his own devices whenever possible. He’s bright and polite, doing well with his literacy, brilliant with numbers—and everyone thinks that means he’s doing fine. Shy is such an easy word, so they all trot it out, but it’s the wrong word for Thomas.” Lou sighs. “I don’t know what the right word is, though, so I’m in no position to convince anyone. And I’d never have dared say it before you turned up and seemed worried about the Caters too, but I’ll say it now: there’s something wrong in the Cater household.”

  I want to hug her, but I restrain myself.

  “The way Thomas presses himself against walls, and against his mother too. And Emily’s the same. She’s only been in with Mrs. Cater to collect Thomas a few times, but I’ve more than once seen the three of them move along the corridor like they’re glued together. Thomas is quite different with Mr. Cater and Yanina. He never goes anywhere near them.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I say.

  Lou’s eyes fill with tears. “Yet I’d decided to put my worries to one side. I told myself I was being over the top. I feel guilty now. But what could I do, when the head teacher and all the other teachers kept telling me everything was okay?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it. You must see hundreds of strange families. More strange ones than normal ones, I bet, if my kids’ school’s anything to go by. There are fifteen-year-olds there who have never watched a TV show because their parents think television is the work of the devil.”

  Lou smiles.

  “So is Thomas still in his first year at the school?”

  “No. Second. He’s very young for his year, so when he started with us he’d only just turned four. Too young to start school, if you ask me.”

  I can’t remember Thomas Braid’s exact birthday but I know it’s in February. That wouldn’t be considered young relative to other pupils in his year group, or old—just average.

  “Did Flora ever chat to other mums? Was she friends with any of them?”

  “Never that I saw. She kept herself to herself. Some people are good at projecting an air of self-containment, aren’t they? Especially the dads.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say. “All dads turn into deaf-mute hermits at the school gates. My husband used to come back from collecting our kids in a mood of actual triumph if he’d managed to avoid being spoken to by any other parent.”

  “And those dads know where and how to stand so that no one will talk to them,” says Lou. “Mrs. Cater did too.”

  “Did?”

  “Does, I mean. Though, now that I think about it, she hasn’t been to drop-off or pick-up in ages. Or if she has, I haven’t spotted her.”

  “Has anyone else seen her? Recently, I mean?”

  “I haven’t asked them. We’re all so trained to mind our own business, aren’t we? It makes every aspect of life so much easier if we do.”

  “What’s your impression of Kevin Cater and Yanina?” I ask.

  “I don’t warm to him at all,” says Lou. “I think he’s got too much free time on his hands. No idea what work he does, if any. Which is unusual. With most parents, we find out quite quickly. It comes up in conversation. Mr. Cater can talk and talk—unlike his wife. Sometimes you can’t shut him up. That’s usually when he’s at his most pompous, finding fault with someone or something.”

  I roll the words “unlike his wife” around in my brain. They feel so odd. Is Flora really Kevin’s wife? If her relationship with Lewis is over, why was she in Florida with him last night? An equally unanswerable question is: why would Kevin and Flora pretend to be married if they aren’t?

  “If there’s ever a mix-up or misunderstanding in communications, Mr. Cater’s ready to pounce,” says Lou. “Instead of drawing attention to it nicely, he’ll write in indignantly, cc-ing everyone from the head teac
her to the chair of the board of governors. It’s like he’s just waiting to dump his disapproval all over us, you know?”

  “I didn’t warm to him either,” I tell her. “Before he lied to me, even. His manner was off-putting and unpleasant.”

  “Yes, it is, generally.”

  “What about Yanina?”

  “Hard to know what kind of person she is. Superficial, would be my guess. She’s friendly and smiley on the surface, but you can sort of tell it doesn’t go very deep. It’s more like she uses friendliness and charm as currency, to reach whatever her goal is at any given time. You know, the weirdest thing of all . . .” Lou breaks off with a shake of her head.

  “What?”

  “Everything you’ve told me: Mrs. Cater being the same person as your friend Flora, Yanina pretending to be Jeanette, the Toby and Emma lie, the older Thomas and Emily who live in Florida with their dad . . . it’s all so utterly creepy and beyond the bounds of normal behavior, but . . . no part of it shocks me. I don’t disbelieve any of it. It was sort of a relief when you told me all those things.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to work it out.”

  Next to us, a girl with blond curly hair in bunches starts to cry. Her mother leans across the table and says, “Jessica, you’ve already had one. You’re not having another. It’s bad for you.”

  Lou says, “I ought to find your story implausible from start to finish. I ought to be horrified, but . . . in a strange sort of way, everything you’ve told me feels right. All the suspicions I’ve had about the Caters and what might be going on . . . they’ve never been ordinary. I’ve never thought, ‘Oh, maybe Mr. Cater’s sleeping with the nanny and Mrs. Cater’s furious about it.’ I think I’ve always known, deep down, that something was really wrong, but not known that I knew it. Or not let myself know I knew it because it was too big and horrible. Does that make sense?”

  I nod.

  “But, like, at the same time, I don’t see how it can be true? I had no proof of anything. And if my intuition about it was so strong, how come none of my colleagues agreed with me that there was a problem?”

  “Intuition isn’t something most people have time for,” I say.