‘You’re right,’ says Tilly. ‘No one would go to those lengths to avoid maybe having to have a coffee for half an hour with an old friend they’d rather not see.’
Zannah says to Tilly, ‘You said before that maybe Lewis’s wife is weird too, because Lewis is weird. Didn’t you know Flora, when they lived here?’
‘No. That was one of the weirdest things about Lewis: his wife, whom he worshipped – but no one ever saw her! It was the talk of the WLRC.’
‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Sorry. Wyddial Lane Residents’ Committee. We all decided Lewis’s wife was a hermit who never left the house. Lewis was very sociable – came to every meeting and every drinks do, sometimes with his kids – but never invited anyone over to his place.Ever. Normally, that would make you unpopular – very keen on proper turn-taking, is the WLRC; drives me crackers! Sometimes I can’t face hosting a party for forty people! So shoot me! – but everyone loved Lewis because he’d make every party a success. He was a one-man show – and a brilliant one, too. And he’d always arrive laden down with booze and cakes and treats. But … yeah. We all wondered about the invisible wife. He talked about her non-stop but it was almost as if …’
‘As if he wanted to make her feel like a presence in spite of her absence?’ I suggest.
Tilly slaps me on the arm with the back of her hand. ‘That’s itprecisely. That very thing.’
‘Even if she didn’t come to events, people must have seen her, though.’
‘Yeah. One or two did report having seen a dark-haired woman driving out through the gates but that was about the extent of it. And, actually, it’s maybe unfair to label Lewis an oddball sinceshemight well have been the weird recluse, and he was covering for her, trying to present a show of normal family life, but even if that was the case, what he did later …’
‘What did he do?’ Zannah asks. I notice that her glass is full. Last time I glanced at it, it was empty. I pick up the Rubis bottle and move it away from her.
‘If I tell you, you must never tell anyone. Swear on all you hold dear. I’ve never told anyone on Wyddial Lane. Only Justin, my husband.’
Zan and I promise not to tell anybody.
Tilly leans in conspiratorially. ‘Hestalkedme. Obsessed with me, he was. Lewis Braid, perfect husband and dad, turned into an honest-to-God creepy stalker.’
‘What?What?’ says Dom, when I come to the bit about Lewis stalking Tilly. ‘I simply don’t believe that. Sorry. No way!’ His protests are so loud that I have to hold my phone away from my ear. Zannah and I are in the car in a service station car park on the A14. I’d been fobbing Dom off all day with quick, jolly ‘All fine! Talk later!’ replies. I would have waited until we got home to tell him all this, except I’ve changed the plan again. Driving home isn’t next on my agenda any more.
‘Why don’t you believe it?’ I ask him.
‘I mean …’ I hear something crunch in the background at his end, and picture him at the kitchen table, eating an apple. ‘I just don’t.’
‘I want to hear why. It’ll confirm what Zan and I think. Spit it out. Don’t worry about being ungallant.’
‘You said she had frizzy hair, brown streaked with grey?’
‘The essence of frizzy! So frizzy, you could barely see the individual strands of hair. If she’s ever used conditioner, I’d be surprised.’
‘Did she have a pretty face?’
‘She had a pleasant face, I’d say.’
‘Thin? Fat?’
‘Neither. Maybe about like Mrs Adlard.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Dominic,’ I say flatly.
‘What?’
‘Mrs Adlard is Ben’s form tutor.’
‘Oh, her. Right. So, not thin.’
‘But not fat either. Like, maybe a size 14.’
‘Lewis would think that was fat,’ Dom says without missing a beat. I give Zan a thumbs-up sign. One more subscriber to our opinion; we must be right. ‘If Lewis was going to stalk a woman, he’d pick a skinny, beautiful one. Someone who looked like Flora used to look before she had three kids.’
