Haven't They Grown(53)

‘What?’ From his tone, it sounds as if he’s about to make another attempt at managing me.

‘We’re agreed that we’re leaving this now, right? You and me. We take no further action. We don’t even look at Lewis’s Instagram. For us – apart from gratefully receiving any updates PC Pollard chooses to give us – this ends here. Yes?’

Bearing in mind his views about the benefits of avoiding a hard ‘no’, I say, ‘I can’t give you an unconditional guarantee that I’m not going to look at Lewis’s Instagram and Twitter again. I’m sorry.’

‘And if I ask you to promise that’s all you’ll do? No more than that?’

‘I could make that promise and then end up breaking it because of … something I can’t foresee at this precise moment. Like: more and worse sinister shit happens, and PC Pollard turns out to be useless.’

‘You don’t have to be the person who deals with every problem in the world, Beth.’

‘Really?’ I snap. ‘Just remind me what global problems you’re dealing with, currently?’

‘I’m dealing with trying to keep our family in one piece.’

‘That’s so unnecessarily dramatic! Our family’s fine. Stop reciting lines you’ve heard in bad films that have nothing to do with our situation.’

Dom takes a deep breath and goes on. ‘I’m trying to make sure that Zannah passes her exams, that you and I continue to do our jobs and earn money, that our life stays on track. I’m sorry if that doesn’t feel like an ambitious enough project for you.’

‘I care about our family as much as you do, Dom. And I know we’re okay and will remain okay. Caring about your own family doesn’t have to mean turning a blind eye to something terrible that’s happening in another family. I know it’s not my job to make sure the Caters’ kids are safe. It’s Pollard’s job. And if he does it … great.’

Dom says nothing. He doesn’t like any of my answers. Not one bit.

Gerard Tillotson’s words come back to me: ‘Lewis won’t have liked that at all’.

By the time we turn onto the A14, I’ve worked out what it means – why it snagged in my mind as sounding strange at the time, though I couldn’t work out what the significance was.

I say to Dom, ‘When Zannah and I were at the Tillotsons’ house, he said something weird – Flora’s dad.’

Nothing. No response.

‘I told him I’d asked Lewis on the phone how old Georgina was now, in a “doesn’t time fly” sort of way, and he said, “Lewis won’t have liked that at all.” As soon as he said it, I thought, “No, that’s wrong, there’s something off about it,” but then the conversation moved on and I forgot about it until just now.’

‘Doesn’t sound strange to me,’ says Dom. ‘If one of your kids is dead and you’ve decided to pretend they’re still alive – though God knows why you would, but anyway – you’re hardly going to welcome being asked about them and having to spout a load of bullshit to maintain the fa?ade, are you?’

‘You didn’t hear how Flora’s dad said it. It wasn’t like “Lewis will have found that deeply uncomfortable or upsetting”, it was more … wry and knowing. “Lewis won’t have liked that at all.” Almost as if he was thinking that, for Lewis, it would be more of a PR or image failure. Someone’s seen through the image he was hoping to project and that’s a disaster for his ego. Or maybe it was “Lewis will have hated to learn that something he thought he’d got under control had escaped his control.” Either way, trust me, it wasn’t Lewis’s grief that Gerard was thinking about.’

I’m not expecting a reply, but eventually Dom says, ‘You don’t know Gerard Tillotson well enough to read his tone. His words make perfect sense in the context.’

‘The tone was unmistakeable. Whether he realises it or not, Gerard knows that Lewis cares more about image management and controlling everything than he does about his dead daughter. Who isn’t dead, I don’t think.’

‘We don’t know if she’s dead,’ says Dom. ‘And I don’t see how this gets us any further forward. All right, Lewis is a control freak – everyone who knows him probably agrees, including Flora’s dad – but so what? What’s that bringing to the table? As people say in all the boring meetings I have to go to, where the only things brought to the table are boring ones. And the table’s also boring.’

I smile, knowing the joke is meant as a peace-offering.

‘Lewis is a control freak,’ I say. ‘He cares about image-management and control. Exactly.’

‘Exactly what?’

‘The Tillotsons also said Georgina was born prematurely. She wasn’t robust, they said. She had various health complications. What if that wasn’t good enough for Lewis, to have a not-perfect child?’

Dom frowns. ‘That baby that came round to ours was fine-looking.’

‘But she had health complications from being premature.’ I think back, trying to remember the details. ‘I’m pretty sure Rosemary said she was going to need an operation of some sort. What if, for Lewis, that sort of imperfection was intolerable? He decided he’d rather pretend she was dead and just … get rid. He nicknamed her Chimpy because he didn’t see her as fully human, and they put her in some kind of home, or care, or with a foster family.’