I ring number 43’s bell. The door is part glass, and through the leaded panes, I see a figure coming towards me along the hall. A tall man.
When he opens the door, I recognise him as Flora’s dad, Gerard Tillotson. Ged, his wife used to call him. His hair is white now and he’s thinner.
‘Mr Tillotson?’ I say with a tentative smile.
‘Hello? You’re not going to try and sell me anything, are you? Because I’m not buying – not today! Haha! I don’t need any more dishcloths or clothes pegs.’
I wonder if my two-tone hair has made him think I must be a gypsy. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ I say. ‘My name’s Beth Leeson. Perhaps you remember me?’
‘At my advanced age, I remember very little, my dear. Here’s my advice to you: don’t get old. There’s really not much to recommend it.’
‘I was at university with …’ I stop and clear my throat. ‘For a long time, I was best friends with Flora. Your daughter,’ I add unnecessarily. His memory might not be what it once was, but he’s likely to remember his only child.
‘Is Flora all right?’ he says quickly.
‘Um … yes, I … I’m not here with bad news or anything like that.’ As I say this, I wonder if it’s true. What if Gerard Tillotson thinks everything in Flora’s life is fine? Should I tell him that I don’t think it is? Would that be fair?
‘Ah. Well, that’s a relief.’ He looks down at his right shoulder, as if trying to decide what to do. ‘I’m afraid Flora’s not here, if you came in the hope of finding her,’ he says eventually.
‘Oh – no, I know that. It’s not that. I was hoping to speak to you, actually. And Mrs Tillotson if she’s around.’Shit.I shouldn’t have said that. Flora’s mum might be dead for all I know. ‘It’s quite important.’
If it were my child, I’d want to know. Whatever anyone feared or suspected, I’d rather be told so that I could try and sort it out, however old I was.
Gerard Tillotson says, ‘If you walk around the house, you will find – unsurprisingly – the back garden. At the far end of it is a little blue-painted structure. It used to be a shed, but my wife spruced it up and now calls it the summer house. You’ll find her inside it, surrounded by her dress-making equipment.’ He closes the door without a ‘goodbye’. Through the glass, I watch him walk back down the hall and disappear into a room.
What am I supposed to do now? Shouldn’t he be the one to go and get his wife? Would he have told me where I’d find her if he didn’t want me to seek her out?
I walk round the side of the house. The blue former shed is there, as described, at the end of a long, tapering back garden.There are white net curtains at its windows, with small orange and green flowers standing out like birthmarks, raising the skin of the gauzy fabric in lumps. I knock on the door and it opens immediately.
Rosemary Tillotson’s hair is as white as her husband’s. Unlike her husband, she is now heavier than she used to be. I see a large cream-coloured sewing machine behind her, a patchwork rug on the floor, and some peach-coloured fabric spread out on a table.
‘Oh!’ She smiles, as if I’m a rabbit that’s popped out of a hat. ‘This is a surprise. Can I help you?’
‘My name’s Beth Leeson. I’m … I used to be Flora’s best friend. You’ve met me before, ages ago.’
‘Flora’s …’ Her mouth moves, but nothing comes out. Then she looks past me, into her garden, and says, ‘Is Flora here?’
‘No, she’s not, though I’ve seen her a couple of times recently. I was hoping to talk to you and your husband about her, if that’s okay.’
Rosemary Tillotson frowns. ‘I’m not sure if it is. You can’t just come here. You can’t just …’ I’m preparing to defend myself when the angry words stop and Flora’s mother bursts into tears.
Twenty minutes later, Zannah and I are sitting in the Tillotsons’ long, narrow, bay-windowed lounge. The four of us are drinking tea from blue and white pottery mugs. I was in the car, ready to give up and drive back home, when Flora’s father tapped on the window and inclined his head to indicate that I should come back to the house. Since he had seen Zannah, I decided it would be strange if I didn’t bring her in with me.
‘I’d better tell you, and I hope you don’t take it personally, that your visit comes as rather a shock to us,’ he says now. ‘Foolishly, selfishly, quite reprehensibly, I decided that my wife would be better able to cope with the shock and to deal withyouthan I would be myself.’
Rosemary Tillotson hasn’t said a word to me since she had her crying fit. She’s sitting by her husband’s side on the sofa, red-eyed and mute. He has apologised four times so far for her distress, and I’ve apologised for causing it.
Something is very wrong here, and I wish I knew what it was – whether it’s the same something-wrong as at Newnham House. Are Gerard and Rosemary Tillotson, at this moment, gearing up to lie to me as thoroughly as Kevin Cater and Fake Jeanette did?
So far, I’ve seen this lounge, the hall and bottom of the stairs, the loo under the stairs and the kitchen. That’s the entire ground floor of the house. There are no photographs of Flora, Lewis or their children anywhere to be seen. Unusual for grandparents. My mum has photos of Zannah and Ben at every age plastered all over her house.
‘Perhaps you could tell us why you’re here?’ Gerard Tillotson asks.
I’d intended to tell them the whole story. That was before I knew that a visit from their daughter’s former best friend would prove so traumatic for them. With Rosemary’s blotchy face in front of me, I can’t bring myself to say that I saw two of her grandchildren last Saturday and they didn’t seem to have aged in twelve years. Before I reveal too much, I need to know why my turning up has made the Tillotsons so distraught.
‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known it’d upset you,’ I say. ‘It’s just that … when Flora and Lewis moved to Florida, they sold their house in Hemingford Abbots to a family called the Caters. I happened to drive past the house the other day, on my way to take my son to his football match, and I saw … well, I thought I saw Flora there, outside the house. And then I saw her again in Huntingdon and … the way she behaved made me worry that something was really wrong. I spoke to her briefly on the phone, and to Lewis, and they both said she wasn’t in England. According to them, she’s in Florida – which makes sense, because that’s where they live now, but I know what I saw and I can’t think—’
‘Do they?’ says Gerard. There’s a sharp edge to his voice. ‘Does Flora live in America?’
