‘Yes. Flora’s French name at school was Jeanette.’
9
‘Great. We’re here,’ says Zannah, as we pull up on the street outside Kimbolton Prep School. ‘Now are you going to tell me why we’re here?’
Three nights – mainly sleepless, for me – have passed since I realised that of course Flora would change her name to Jeanette if she were going to change it at all. I’ve forced myself to do a full two days of massages, so as not to let clients down, and to prove to myself that I’m still an ordinary person with an ordinary life.
It’s ten in the morning. I’ve timed this trip, unlike my last visit to a school, to ensure that I won’t bump into any parents dropping off or picking up their children. I don’t want to see Flora, or Kevin Cater – or the woman who called herself Jeanette because, for some reason, I’m not allowed to know that Flora still lives in that house.
Today I’m not here to try and catch a glimpse of any of them; I’m here to find out about the people who live at 16 Wyddial Lane – as much as I can, which will be easier if they’re not here. I’m telling myself that if I approach the task ahead with the resolve of Lewis Braid on that day at the Corfu Hotel …
‘You can do it, Beth,’ I hear Lewis’s voice in my mind. He was brilliant at motivating people. Once, when I had a deadline at work that was nearly driving me to a nervous breakdown, he said, ‘Have you tried telling yourself that it’s the best fun ever and you’re loving every second of it? You’d be amazed how much that’ll change your attitude and the outcome.’
‘But I’m not loving it,’ I told him. ‘I hate it. It’s nearly impossible.’
‘So? Can you do nearly impossible things? Yes, of course you can. You love to do nearly impossible things.’ The following day he turned up at our flat with a sign he’d had made for me, saying, in capitals, ‘WE CAN DO NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE THINGS’. ‘I’m not leaving till it’s up on a wall,’ he said bossily. Would he be a great boss, or the worst in the world? It’s hard to know. Both, probably.
‘Er, Mother?’
‘Sorry, I was just …’
‘In a trance. I know. So, why are you so sure the Braid-slash-Cater kids go to this school?’
Excellent question. When I have to explain to Dom later why I let Zannah come with me when I should have made her stay at home and spend her pre-GCSE study leave revising, this is what I’ll tell him: she’s got a sharp mind and a powerful capacity to get to the heart of a problem. Nothing associated with school ever brings this out in her. Thinking about the Braid-slash-Cater problem does.
‘I know what type of school Lewis would pick for his kids,’ I tell her. ‘This type – of which this is the closest example to Wyddial Lane.’
‘But they might not be Lewis’s kids.’
‘I trust what I saw,’ I repeat my mantra. ‘I saw Thomas and Emily Braid, aged five and three. Or, at least … two children who looked so similar to them that they can only be Lewis and Flora’s.’
‘What school did other, older Thomas and Emily go to?’
‘Thomas had just started at King’s College School in Cambridge when we last saw them. Emily was signed up to go there too.’
‘Mum! Then that’s where we should be.’
‘I thought about it.’
‘And?’
‘Why would Flora have been in Huntingdon doing chores on a school-day morning? She wouldn’t. If Thomas – new Thomas – is at King’s, she’d drop him off, then do those chores in Cambridge. Bank, post office, nipping to a shop … whatever. Why would she drive to Huntingdon?’
‘Major logic fail,’ says Zan. ‘She could have gone to Huntingdon for a million reasons. Maybe she’s got a friend who works there and they were meeting for lunch, or—’
‘No. She was coming back to her car in the car park long before lunchtime.’
‘Coffee, then.’
‘It’s possible, but … I don’t know. I just figure: someone who’s in Huntingdon on a weekday morning is more likely to have a child here, at this school, than at a school in Cambridge. All other things being equal.’
‘Yeah, but all other things about this situation are so not equal, are they? All other things are, like, totally fucked.’
‘Zannah, stop swearing.’ I turn to face her. ‘I mean it. You need to behave properly. Not only to please me and Dad, but because you want to go out into the world as—’
‘Mum, stop trying to cram years of proper parenting into one little pep talk. You’re not a Mumsnet kind of mum, so don’t pretend you are.’
I don’t know what she means because I’ve never looked at Mumsnet. Actually, maybe that’s what she means.
‘Do you want to come in with me?’ I nod in the direction of the school.
‘Sure – but to do what? No school’s going to answer questions about its pupils from someone who just walked in off the street.’
‘Which is why we can’t ask questions. We have to pretend to know already. What’s tricky is working out what we’re going to pretend to know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, let’s go. I’ve got an idea. Your job is to stand behind me and smile, looking like the respectable daughter of a respectable mum. And no swearing. First we need to grab something from the boot that might belong to a five-year-old boy.’ My car’s boot operates as a kind of storage cupboard-cum-dustbin. There’s plenty in it to choose from.
Five minutes later, armed with a pale blue drawstring sports bag with a pair of socks inside it, Zannah and I are standing at the reception desk of Kimbolton Prep School. I press the buzzer and wait, rehearsing what I’m about to say.
A woman appears. She’s young and elegant, with short hair, a long slender neck and lovely earrings: small round pearls that look real, with solid silver flower shapes behind them. She reminds me of a swan, and looks friendly enough. ‘Can I help you?’ she says.
‘Yes, I hope so,’ I say with a smile. ‘I’m a friend of Jeanette Cater’s. She left this in my car boot …’ – I wave the bag in the air – ‘and I don’t have time to go to her house now and drop it off, so I thought … would it be okay to leave it with you?’
‘Sure. No problem at all.’
I fight the urge to say, ‘So you know Jeanette Cater, then? Her son is here, at this school?’
The receptionist reaches for a pad and pen that are over on the other side of the desk. ‘Let me write down your details, just so I can tell Jeanette what happened.’
Shit.
‘Beth Leeson,’ says Zannah cheerfully, while I’m frantically trying to think of a fake name I can give. Too late now. ‘Oh – sorry, that’s my mum. She’s Beth Leeson. I’m Zannah.’
I try to look unflustered. Zan’s probably right: better not to lie. Besides, if the receptionist hands Jeanette Cater a random sports bag later and tells her it was brought in by a person whose name she doesn’t recognise and who claims to be her friend, it’s going to be pretty obvious who’s behind it – especially when Jeanette asks for a physical description of this mysterious woman. My hair is half brown and half blonde at the moment; for months I’ve been too busy with clients and their problems – both physical and emotional – to get it sorted out.
Zan must have worked this out long before I did: I’ve been lied to, and I’m taking steps to find out why, and what’s really going on. I’m not ashamed of any of my actions and, by doing this, I’m letting Jeanette Cater know that I’m not.
It’s funny how quickly my thinking patterns have adjusted to all the unknowns. When I think about ‘Jeanette’, there’s a shadowy person in my mind who might be either Flora or the woman with the foreign accent. When I think about ‘Thomas and Emily’, sometimes they’re the two photogenic teenagers on Lewis’s Instagram and other times they’re the two small children I saw getting out of the silver Range Rover last Saturday.
The receptionist writes down ‘Beth Leeson’. ‘Phone number?’ she asks me.
‘Jeanette has my number.’
‘Oh – ha, yes. Sorry! I’m so used to taking full details from people. Tell you what, though … if you could just let me have your number, just in case?’
Zannah recites our home number, and the receptionist writes it on the pad. When she looks up, I see uncertainty in her eyes. ‘And you’re Jeanette’s … friend?’ she says, as if this is an outlandish concept.
‘Yes.’
Two spots of red have appeared on her otherwise white cheeks. She holds out her hand awkwardly to take the sports bag from me. She’s gone from friendly and confident to nervous in the space of seconds. Why? ‘What’s your name?’ I ask her.
‘Lou Munday,’ she says quickly. ‘Rhymes with the famous song, “Blue Monday”! Haha. My husband says that’s one of the reasons he married me.’ She’s still on edge, but trying to hide it.
I pass her the bag.
We say our goodbyes, and Zannah and I are halfway to the door when she calls after us, ‘Thanks again! I’ll give this to Jeanette later when she comes to collect Thomas.’
I freeze. Zannah and I exchange a look.
Thomas. Not Toby.
Kevin Cater lied. I now have proof, and it came from someone impartial, with no skin in the game. I should make a motivational sign like the one Lewis made for me, with ‘I trust myself’ emblazoned across it, and stick it on the wall in my treatment room. My clients would love it. Lots of them are keen on positive psychology and mindfulness and things like that.
Zan is ahead of me, walking back to reception. ‘Did you say Toby, Mrs Munday?’ she asks in her fake-sweet voice, the one she only uses on me when she wants me to spend serious money on her. ‘Jeanette’s son isn’t called Toby. He’s called Thomas.’
‘I know. I said Thomas.’ She looks confused.
‘And his sister’s not called Emma,’ I say.
‘No, she’s called Emily. I didn’t say anything about an Emma.’ The red spots on her cheeks are growing.
‘I know you didn’t. Can I tell you something that’s going to sound—’
‘Mum,’ says Zan curtly. She’s trying to warn me off.
‘No, I’m doing this,’ I say. ‘Mrs Munday—’
‘Please, call me Lou.’
‘I don’t know how well you know the Cater family … for example, do you know that Thomas and Emily have a younger sister called Georgina? A baby?’
‘We don’t know that’s true,’ says Zannah.
Lou Munday looks mystified. She says, ‘The Caters don’t have a baby called Georgina, or any baby at all. They just have Thomas and Emily.’
‘Just to check: we’re talking about Kevin and Jeanette Cater, who live at 16 Wyddial Lane, Hemingford Abbots?’
Lou has started to pluck at the skin of her neck with the fingers of her right hand. ‘I probably shouldn’t … I mean, I can’t. I can’t tell you where they live.’
‘I’ve just told you where they live: 16 Wyddial Lane, Hemingford Abbots. Is that right?’
She starts to mumble about safeguarding issues. It’s been a while since she looked me in the eye.
‘Does Jeanette Cater have a foreign accent?’ Zannah asks her.
‘A foreign … No, she … I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t—’
‘No? No foreign accent?’
‘Zan, wait. Lou, I’m really sorry about this. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, and obviously you don’t have to tell us anything else. We’ll leave in a minute, I promise. Before we go, though, I’d like to tell you something. Tell, not ask.’
Am I really going to do this? Is this a strategy, or a burst of recklessness I’ll regret?
‘I lied to you. I am Beth Leeson – that’s true – but the bag I gave you belongs to my son. It’s nothing to do with the Caters. I lied because … well, it’s a long story, but … I think there might be something wrong – I mean really, horribly wrong – in the Cater household. It would take too long to tell you everything so I’ll just say this: three days ago, Jeanette Cater, or, rather, a woman who introduced herself to me as Jeanette Cater, with a foreign accent, told me that her children were called Toby and Emma. Not Thomas and Emily. And … a few days before that, I saw a woman who is not Jeanette Cater, because she’s my old friend Flora Braid, getting out of a silver Range Rover and …’ I should probably stop there. The rest would sound too implausible.
Lou shakes her head. ‘I can’t talk to you,’ she says in a tight voice. ‘You need to leave.’
‘You have my phone number. Will you ring me later? I swear to you, whatever you tell me will go no further. No one will ever know you said anything at all.’
She shakes her head more vigorously. The pearl-flowers on her earlobes jiggle up and down.
‘I’m worried about the children. Thomas and Emily. I think you are too.’
That one hit home. Her eyes widen. She takes a step back and nearly trips over the sports bag, which she’s left on the floor. She picks it up and pushes it across the desk to me. ‘Please just go,’ she says.
10
The plan was to drive straight home after Kimbolton Prep School; the decision to ignore the plan was unanimous, which is why, for the third time in less than a week, I’m on Wyddial Lane. I turn the corner and pull over as soon as I’m clear, at the top end of the road. Hopefully Marilyn Oxley won’t see me, or the Caters.
Or Flora.
Zannah says, ‘If I pass my test when I’m seventeen, will you and Dad buy me a car? I want a Mini.’
‘Too expensive,’ I say. ‘But I’ll buy you driving lessons – which otherwise you won’t be able to afford—’
‘Cool.’
‘—if, and only if, you start revising properly for your GCSEs. Tomorrow, first thing.’
‘Blackmailer.’
I feel as if the ever-vigilant eyes of Marilyn Oxley are on me already. If they’re not now, they soon might be, even if I stay up this end of the street. She’s probably got a long-range camera fitted to her roof and a bank of screens in her front room – like security guards in films, who always fall asleep at the exact moment that a balaclava-clad psychopath tiptoes through all the rooms they’re supposed to be watching. Those movies need Marilyn Oxley; she wouldn’t miss a thing.
I don’t care if she sees me. I’m here to talk to other people, not her, and certainly not Kevin Cater and Fake Jeanette. I’m allowed to do that – or allowed to try, anyway. Today, my target is all the other houses. I need to find residents of Wyddial Lane that I haven’t already spoken to.
‘Can I come with you?’ Zannah asks. ‘Or will that make us look like Jehovah’s witnesses? They always go in pairs.’
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of anyone thinking you’re doing the Lord’s work,’ I say, eyeing her grey T-shirt, which has ‘Gang Sh*t’ printed on it in black. How did I not notice that before? ‘If you’re coming with, you’ll need to zip up your jacket,’ I tell her. ‘Did you have it zipped while we were talking to Lou Munday?’
‘Irrelevant, since that’s in the past.’ Zan snorts dismissively. ‘What, you think she’d have spilled everything she knows if I’d worn a Bambi T-shirt instead? Anyway, there’s an asterisk, so it’s not even a swear word. Which house shall we start with?’
‘Let’s just go door to door.’
‘Let’s definitely not do that. We should pick the ones that look most chilled.’
‘Chilled? Oh, you mean—’
‘Not refrigerated. Most of them look uptight and closed off – walls, fences, high gates. Kind of like luxurious prisons. There’s no way people who live in houses like that are going to invite two strangers in and start chatting to them, answering a load of weird questions.’
‘So shall we start with the only one up this end that doesn’t look like that?’ I point at it through the car window. On one of its gateless gateposts, there’s a sign saying ‘No. 3’. There’s a wall, but it’s low and crumbling. There’s nothing to suggest that its owners want to hide themselves from prying eyes.
‘Number 3 looks a
good shout,’ Zan agrees. ‘Especially as it’s got a wheelie bin at an angle outside its front door.’
‘Why? How’s that relevant?’
‘Think about it, Mother.’
We sit in silence for a few seconds. Then I say, ‘Thought. Still don’t know.’
‘It can’t be bin day, or everyone’s bins would be out on the pavement. Or a good few still would, at least – the ones belonging to people who aren’t yet back from work. All these houses have massive gardens, loads of space on either side. But number 3’s owners couldn’t be arsed to wheel the bin a few feet further and put it there, in that wooden bus-shelter type thing attached to the side of the house that’s probably a bin store. They’d rather make the least possible effort, and leave it at the top of the driveway, where it makes the house look worse to anyone who passes by. I mean, who cares, right? I wouldn’t either. There are bins in the world – deal with it.’
‘But that’s your point,’ I say, getting it at last.
‘Uh-huh. Number 3’s owners can’t be arsed with trivial shit. All their neighbours hate them for lowering the tone with their noticeable bin, and they don’t care. Maybe they also won’t care that it’s not the done thing to tell strangers about what secret, twisted things your neighbours get up to.’
‘Okay. Number 3 it is.’
I lock the car and we walk up the driveway. It’s a wide house, as enormous as all the others on Wyddial Lane, painted the colour of buttermilk, with a red-brick chimney attached to its front. Next to the front door there’s a sign that says ‘Low Brooms’.
I ring the bell and we wait. ‘We might have to wait a while,’ I mutter. ‘Getting to the front door in a house this size …’
It opens surprisingly quickly. A woman who looks around my age, wearing cut-off bleached-denim shorts and a pink long-sleeved top, smiles at me and Zan and says, ‘Please say something nice!’
Not the response I was expecting.
Her frizzy brown hair has streaks of grey in it. Round her neck, on a leather cord, she’s wearing a huge silver pendant that looks like a jellyfish, with a shiny dark green stone at its centre. ‘I like your pendant,’ I tell her, hoping that’s nice enough.
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