Haven't They Grown(67)

‘Weird question. They’d probably think I suddenly panicked and was worried about failing.’

‘Right. So if you told them that was why, they’d believe you without a second thought. They wouldn’t question it. Just like, if Lewis is hanging around outside Tilly’s house in his car when he should be in Florida, what’s the obvious explanation there? If you keep turning up outside someone’s house, and lie about why when they ask what you’re doing there … well, it looks as if you might be an obsessive stalker, doesn’t it?’

‘So?’

She’s impatient for the conclusion, but I’m not quite there yet. ‘Lewis Braid is the father of Thomas and Emily Cater. They have his eyes, just like older Thomas and Emily do. Flora was with him when she rang me last week. That means he’s still around, still involved in whatever’s going on at Newnham House.’ I raise my hand to stop Zannah asking questions before I’ve finished. ‘But he’s not supposed to be. Think about the lies he and Flora have told me: Georgina’s twelve and doing great; they have no young children, only the three they had when they moved to America, where they now live; they have no connection with Hemingford Abbots any more.’

‘I don’t get it, Mum.’

‘Tilly kept finding Lewis loitering outside her house. Then she found him in her back garden clutching her silk pyjamas, at which point he declared his obsessive love for her. She and her husband had a word with him, he promised faithfully to stop, and he did – he never bothered them again.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Stalkers don’t just stop, Zan. Someone as determined and driven as Lewis Braid wouldn’t have given up so easily. Nor would he pick Tilly to obsess over. She isn’t his type. So why would he pretend to stalk her and be in love with her?’

‘I don’t think he would,’ says Zannah. ‘You can’t be sure—’

‘I’m sure,’ I cut her off. ‘Think about what Tilly told us: the pyjamas in the back garden and the crying and admitting it all – that came later. The first thing, she said, was that she noticed Lewis outside her house a few times. I assumed she meant he was lurking in her front garden near the house – number 3 doesn’t have any gates, so that’s possible – but she didn’t say that. She said “outside my house”. That could mean that she was in her front garden or on her driveway and she saw Lewis in his car, parked where we parked when we went to Wyddial Lane.’

‘If she just saw him in a car on the street, she wouldn’t assume he was in love with her.’ Zan rolls her eyes.

‘No, but if she spotted him more than once, she might think, “Why does he keep turning up? I thought the Braids had moved to America.” And think about what kind of person Tilly is. She said the first few times she confronted Lewis, he made crap excuses for being there. That probably means she trotted enthusiastically up to his car, knocked on the window, said, “Hi, Lewis! What are you doing back? I thought you’d moved to America.” And he was forced to lie.

‘I’ve been to Wyddial Lane three times now. It’s a silent, mind-your-own-business sort of place. Everyone’s hiding behind their high walls and gates, not watching what’s happening on the road. I’d bet everything I own that no one except Tilly on that street would rush up to a parked car and cheerfully demand to know the business of the person sitting inside it. Marilyn Oxley at number 14 is nosy and observant enough, but she’s also keen on keeping her distance. You should have seen the effort I had to put in to persuade her to leave her house and come and talk to me through the gate. Anyone would have thought I was waving a bomb around or something.’

‘Okay, so Tilly saw Lewis parked outside her house, and she went and tried to chat to him,’ says Zannah. ‘She asked him what he was doing there, and he made crap excuses. I still don’t get it.’

Silvia picks this moment to wander over to our table. ‘You ladies want more rolls? More coffee?’

‘No thanks,’ I say.

‘They are very good, though?’

‘Sublime, as always.’

‘Ah, you are very kind to me!’ She wanders away. Mercifully, there’s been no singing so far today.

I say to Zannah, ‘Lewis would have known his excuses for being there weren’t remotely plausible. That will have bothered him. He’ll have worried that he’d made Tilly suspicious. If the lie that he and Flora desperately want the world to believe is that they’re living in Florida, done with Wyddial Lane, and a different family now owns their old house, a family that has nothing to do with them—’

‘I get it!’ Zannah flaps her hands. ‘So he starts acting like more of a stalker to Tilly and gets caught with her PJs in the garden deliberately.’

‘Yes. If he arranges it so that she “finds out”’ – I make air quotes with my fingers – ‘that he’s been stalking her, and then breaks down and sobs and says he loves her wildly, then his crap excuses are no longer suspicious. Suddenly, there’s an explanation that looks obvious.’

‘And it explains why he then stopped stalking her: because he never wanted to or really did in the first place. Wait: that only works if you’re right about Tilly first spotting him in his car on the street, not in her garden.’