She laughs. ‘Er … no. Mum, no one calls us anything or teaches us anything at Bankside Park. We don’t learn shit.’ Normally this sort of statement would send me into a spiral of panic.
‘My French teacher gave us all French names. I wasÉlisabeth. I told Flora that, soon after we met. It came up when we were comparing notes about the schools we’d gone to, and she said, “We did that too.” I didn’t remember until now. Why didn’t I think of it as soon as Marilyn Oxley—’
‘Mum, slow down. You’re making no sense. So what if you and Flora both had … Oh.’ Zan’s eyes widen. ‘You mean …?’
‘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 mewhywe’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 attitudeandthe 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. Youloveto 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 sonotequal, are they? All other things are, like, totally fucked.’
