Haven't They Grown(57)



‘Yes. Oh! I might have a photo, from sports day.’ Lou rummages in her bag. ‘I’m terrified I’ll lose my phone and then all my pictures’ll be gone. I’ve got hundreds on there. Should back them up, really.’ When she pulls out her phone, a crumpled tissue and a hair clip fall out with it. She picks them up and stuffs them back in.

I sip my cold tea while she scrolls through her photos. ‘Here we are,’ she says eventually. ‘This is Jeanette.’ She passes the phone across the table to me.

It’s Flora. Her face is flushed and she’s wearing grey and blue trainers, grey jogging trousers and a red T-shirt. There are two women standing to her right, also wearing running gear. All three of them are smiling. Two of the smiles look natural and convincing. Flora’s is the odd one out: stiff and uncomfortable, as if it’s hurting her lips to make that shape.

‘That was after the mums’ race.’

‘This is Flora Braid,’ I say.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘That’s so odd,’ says Lou. ‘I wonder why she changed her name.’

Another peculiar aspect of this whole bizarre business has just struck me: many of the strangest details involve names. The Ukrainian nanny, Yanina, pretended her name was Jeanette. Either Flora’s doing the same in her dealings with her son’s school and her next-door neighbour, or else she really has changed her name to Jeanette Cater. And, since Thomas and Emily Braid can’t possibly have been frozen at the ages of five and three, then the Thomas and Emily I saw last Saturday in Hemingford Abbots must have been two different children – but their names are the same.

‘It doesn’t surprise me that Mr Cater and Yanina presented themselves to you as a married couple,’ Lou says. ‘I’ve often thought they seem like more of a unit than Mr and Mrs Cater do. I’m not saying there’s anything going on between them. They’ve never shown signs of being romantically involved, but they seem to be … together, somehow. Like, a pair.’

‘A pair but not a couple?’

‘Yes. There have been a few times when all three of them have been in school together – Mr and Mrs Cater and Yanina – and it’s as if Mr Cater and Yanina are the grown-ups and Mrs Cater’s a child, trailing along behind them. More in the same category as Thomas and Emily – like their older sister or something. And those three sort of cling together in a way that’s always struck me as a bit off.’

‘Which three? The Caters and Yanina?’

‘No. Mrs Cater and the two children.’

‘They cling together?’

‘Yes, it’s strange. Like she’s determined to protect them. She wraps her arms round them as if she’s terrified of the world on their behalf.’

‘My mind is reeling.’ Flora, terrified of the world? Terrified for her children? She never used to be. She was always very relaxed about …

About the other Thomas and Emily?

I can remember her taking the mickey out of the way her mum used to say, ‘Aren’t you worried about Thomas crawling upstairs?’ and ‘Aren’t you worried about Thomas sitting so near to where you’re cooking?’ Flora was a far less neurotic new mother than I was.

‘Have you ever heard any of them use the name Chimp, or Chimpy?’ I ask. ‘Flora, Kevin or the nanny? It might be a person’s nickname, or the name of a pet.’

Lou looks blank. She shakes her head.

‘What about Peterborough? Does that ring any bells?’

‘Not in connection with the people we’re talking about, no.’

‘Have you ever heard Flora … I’m going to call her Flora, since that’s who she is to me. Have you ever heard her say she’s very lucky?’ I’m not sure why I’m asking this, except that I’ve heard her say it twice: once on the phone outside Newnham House and once in the background, the first time Lewis rang.

‘No,’ says Lou. ‘She doesn’t look as if she thinks she’s lucky at all, though it’s clear they’ve got pots of money.’

‘That’s why you contacted me, isn’t it? You have a sense that something’s wrong in the Cater family?’

‘Yes, but … I kept telling myself that I must be wrong to think that. Since I’ve known Mrs Cater, she’s been clingy with her children, and reluctant to have conversations and interactions with anyone who isn’t her child.’

‘She was reluctant to talk to you?’

‘Always. She was painfully shy and wary. I used to think, “What on earth does she think I’m going to do to her?” I’m the school’s administrative manager, and we’re an all-one-big-family kind of school. I have a lot of contact with families – selling tickets to school shows, fielding people who’ve missed deadlines for trips but decide three weeks later that their child simply has to go. I could say the most harmless, straightforward things and Mrs Cater would mumble, “Ask my husband” or “Tell Yanina”, and then scurry off. As if she somehow … I don’t know. Didn’t want to be there. And I feel awful saying this about such a young child but Thomas’s behaviour ever since he joined the school has worried me. He’s such a solitary soul – always on his own, talking to himself as if he’s playing an endless imaginary game in his head, but he never seems lonely. He’s quite content with his invisible wall around him, but if any of the other children or a teacher tries to engage him he clams up.’ Lou winces. ‘He does this strange thing where he sort of presses himself up against the nearest wall and touches it with his hands.’

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