Haven't They Grown(40)

‘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.’

‘Zan and I agree. And he might pick that skinny, beautiful woman to stalk because Flora no longer looked exactly the way she did before she had three kids – he could easily be that shallow, with his constant search for perfection – but what he definitely would never do is become obsessed with a plain-but-pleasant-looking, not-thin, frizzy-haired, grey-haired person.’

‘Never.’

‘But I’m sure Tilly was telling the truth, that’s the problem.’

‘She was,’ Zannah confirms. ‘Mum, put it on speaker. Aaand you have no idea what that means. Pass it here.’

She fiddles with my phone, then balances it on the arm-rest between us. ‘Speak, Dad,’ she orders.

‘Hello! Testing, testing.’

‘So lame. See, Mum, now we can both hear him. Dad, she said they’d always got on well, and Lewis helped her set up her own business, went above and beyond, came round at all hours of the day and night to provide support – but she didn’t think anything of it because he was helpful to everyone, he was just that kind of guy.’

‘He was,’ says Dom. ‘That’s true. He couldn’t stand for anything to fail, and that included his friends’ projects. Remember when I ran the marathon, Beth?’

‘What happened?’ asks Zan.

‘Lewis nearly fell out with me because I wouldn’t let him be my coach and personal trainer – even though he had a full-time job, wasn’t a sports coach and had never run a marathon himself. Still, he wanted to take time off work to make sure I succeeded and would barely take no for an answer. He couldn’t imagine me being able to do it without his help. I did, though, and he was genuinely happy for me.’

‘At the same time as banging on for months about how you’d have finished much faster if you’d let him coach you,’ I say.

‘Sounds like how he was with Tilly’s business,’ says Zan. ‘She thought, great, what a nice friend. Her business did well. The Braids moved. But he still kept turning up outside her house, after he’d moved to Florida – spying on her from his car. The first couple of times it happened, he made crap excuses – like, really crap. One time she found him in her back garden and he said he’d been passing and heard something that sounded suspicious, so he’d gone to investigate. Another time she found him asleep on a bench in her back garden. On his chest was guess what? A pair of Tilly’s silk pyjama bottoms that she’d left to dry on the washing line.’

‘And … all this happened after the Braids moved to Florida? When the Caters owned the house?’

‘Yeah, and when Lewis was working in America,’ I say. ‘Tilly, thinking it was all very odd, Googled him and found that he definitely had a job in Florida at the time … but he also kept making time to come back and … fall asleep in her garden clutching items of her clothing.’

‘It all came to a head after the silk pyjamas,’ Zannah tells Dom. ‘Tilly and her husband confronted him, told him they weren’t going to pretend to believe any more excuses, and he broke down in tears and admitted it. He cried, Tilly said. Wept buckets.’

‘What did he admit?’ asks Dom.

‘That he’d fallen in love with her!’ Zannah slurs. ‘He actually said that to her and her husband. Begged them never to tell anyone, especially not his wife, and swore blind that he’d never do it again. Which he didn’t. The silk-pyjama time was the last stalking episode.’

‘Zannah, you sound drunk. Beth, what’s wrong with her?’

‘Tilly gave her some booze.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Beth!’

‘Yeah, Mum.’ Zannah grins at me. ‘This happened on your watch. You tell her, Dad.’

‘Can you two come home now, please?’

‘Not immediately. Dom … is it possible that there are two sides to Lewis? What if the perfection-seeking side of him makes him miserable, with the pressure it piles on? Tilly’s dynamic, happy, relaxed. Doesn’t give a toss about a few grey hairs.’