Perfect Little Children Read online

  I open the driver’s door again, get in and close my eyes. Next thing I know, I’m waking up with a sharp pain down one side of my neck. How long was I asleep for? Shit. I guess that’s what happens when you get up at five a.m. after sleeping for less than three hours. What if Flora had come back and caught me in her car? She’s going to have to come and get it at some point.

  I pull my phone out of my bag. I’ve only missed twenty minutes. Not too long, but still, what if . . .

  It occurs to me for the first time since this started that I might be in danger. I force myself to laugh out loud. Don’t be ridiculous, Beth. Danger? Seriously?

  I try to feel lighthearted and brazen about it, and fail. People who are hiding something will sometimes go to extremes in order to protect their secrets. Indulging my curiosity is one thing, but Zannah and Ben need a mother who hasn’t been strangled in a car by an assassin sent from Florida. Or maybe there are more affordable hit men for hire in Huntingdon, who knows?

  The trouble is, it’s not only curiosity. On Saturday morning, when I saw Flora, I thought that something was badly wrong. Now, two days later, I know something must be. Because of everything that’s happened, because she ran away from me. And there are children involved . . .

  Before I can think it through any further, there’s a sharp knock on the window next to my head. It’s a woman I’ve never seen before.

  I open the car door, my heart hammering, and get out. She’s a few inches taller than me—with thin, straight dark hair, chin length, cut in an angular style. “Would you care to explain yourself?” she says in an accent I can’t place. Italian, maybe.

  “Pardon?” I stammer.

  “What are you doing sitting in my car? How did you get in?”

  “It was unlocked. It’s . . . it’s not your car.”

  “Not mine?” She produces a set of keys from her pocket and dangles them in front of me. She slams the driver’s door, locks the car, then unlocks it again. “This is not my car, you think?”

  “This is Flora Braid’s car.”

  “Who?”

  “Flora Braid,” I say with more confidence than I feel.

  There’s nothing this woman can do to me. This is a busy car park. There are people all around us. She wouldn’t risk it.

  “Are you all right?” she asks me.

  “Who are you? Where do you live?”

  “Where do I live?” she laughs. “Who are you, and why were you in my car?” She shakes her head, waving one hand dismissively. “I don’t even care. Just go away from me. Get some help.”

  “Do you live on Wyddial Lane? At number 16?”

  She looks surprised. “How do you know this? Have you . . . are you following me?”

  “Is your name Jeanette Cater?”

  “You have no right to ask me one single thing. You get into my car without permission, and then you think you can bombard me with question after question? What is this about? What do you want?”

  “Answer me and I’ll tell you. Is your name Jeanette Cater?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Are you satisfied now?”

  I’m not. But I’m not scared anymore. “Why did you say ‘Who?’ when I mentioned Flora Braid?” I ask her.

  “Because I do not know who you mean! And if I don’t get an explanation—”

  “Surely you remember Flora Braid. She’s the woman who sold you your house. Lewis and Flora Braid.”

  Jeanette Cater nods. “So, this is true,” she says after a few moments. “I had forgotten the name.”

  I don’t believe her.

  “Flora was in this car park less than an hour ago,” I tell her. “She was on her way back to her car, this car, the one you’re saying is yours, when she saw me and ran away. What did she do: send you to collect it for her because she’s too scared to face me? She also lied to me on the phone last night—pretended she was in Florida when in fact she was in her house on Wyddial Lane, probably.”

  “Please.” Jeanette Cater puts out a hand to stop me. “This is insanity, what is happening here. This is my car. I am the only person who drives it apart from my husband. Flora Braid has never driven it. I can promise you this.”

  “That’s a lie. I saw her drive it through the gates of 16 Wyddial Lane on Saturday morning. I saw her.”

  “I’m sorry for you, but you are seeing things that do not happen, in that case. Good-bye.” She nods formally, evidently hoping this dismissal will cause me to walk away. That’s when I notice it, when she stops talking and stands completely still: the green jacket with large lapels, and two-line checks designed to have a sort of double-vision effect. Black trousers, black boots with square heels . . .

  This woman I’ve never seen before is wearing the exact same outfit that Flora Braid was wearing when I saw her less than an hour ago.

  8

  Things can change a lot in hardly any time at all.

  My third visit to Wyddial Lane, the day after my encounters in a Huntingdon car park with Flora and the woman calling herself Jeanette Cater, is not furtive and illicit like the first two. It has been prearranged by my husband—the same Dominic Leeson who recently told me I mustn’t ever come back here in case Marilyn Oxley from number 14 calls the police.

  I remind him of this as we drive in through the open gates of Newnham House. He says in a resigned tone, “Forgetting about the Braids and the Caters is still my top option. But you won’t or can’t do that, so I thought I might as well try and sort it out.”

  Wouldn’t that be nice. Dom thinks that sorting out is what’s about to happen because he’s spoken to Kevin Cater, and they’ve made an agreement. Kevin Cater is listed in the phone directory, and therefore must be helpful and trustworthy. He sounded like a reasonable bloke, Dom said, and no part of their phone conversation failed to make sense. He’s expecting progress to be made today.

  I’m not sure what to expect, or that I want to know what we’re going to find inside this house.

  “This is what normal, sane people do,” says Dom. “If there’s a problem then they arrange to meet, they talk, they sort things out. They do not get into strangers’ unlocked cars without permission and fall asleep in them.”

  I sigh. “You keep going on about that as if it’s some terrible transgression.”

  “It is! It’s crossing a line. You can’t do things like that, Beth. It’s not good. If you carry on in that vein, anything could happen to you. I don’t want to worry every time you leave the house that —”

  “Dom. I sat. In. A car. You’re overreacting. Let’s not have the same argument we had last night. You win, okay? I’m not going to be making a habit of it. What if I say ‘I promise never again to enter a stranger’s car or touch their property without permission’?”

  “Then I’ll be very happy.” He exhales slowly. “Right. Good.”

  I haven’t actually said it. I only asked “What if?”

  We get out of the car. It’s strange to think I’m standing in the exact spot where the three of them stood on Saturday morning: Flora, Thomas and Emily.

  Dom presses the doorbell. A few seconds later it opens and a man appears. He’s wearing a blue-and-gray-checked shirt tucked into jeans, and white socks, no shoes. He looks at Dominic and me as if we’re a delivery that someone has left on his doorstep, which he now has to decide what to do with. He has a square face and mid-brown hair in a short, serious-businessman style.

  “Dominic and Beth Leeson?” he says, unsmiling.

  “Yes. Thanks so much for agreeing to see us at such short notice,” says Dom.

  “I agreed for Jeanette’s sake. She was disturbed by what happened in the car park yesterday.” He looks pointedly at me. “So . . . I’m hoping we can resolve the matter swiftly and avoid any further . . . incidents.”

  “That’s exactly what we want too,” Dom assures him. “The last thing Beth wants to do is upset your wife, Mr. Cater. If we can—”

  “I think you’d better call me Kevin. And let’s not have this conversation
on the doorstep.”

  “Of course not.”

  “What time is it?” Cater consults a watch that looks expensive. “Yes, it’s noon. All right, follow me. Close the door after you.”

  He takes us through a spotlit lobby that’s too sleek and professional-looking to be called an entrance hall. There’s nothing homely about it. It’s entirely white—like a nonslippery ice rink—and dotted with square pillars. We pass the entrance to an enormous kitchen with a concertina-style door that’s standing open. It’s made of padded white felt, with rows of silver studs marking out the lines along which it folds. I think it’s supposed to look stylish.

  There’s a hefty white rectangle of kitchen island with a ring of silver pans hanging from the ceiling above it, three beige sofas at the far end of the room, and a wooden table with at least twelve chairs around it, though it’s hard to be precise after a quick glance while walking past.

  Dom looks back, glares at me and beckons me to hurry up. He thinks I’m snooping and he doesn’t want our host to catch me in the act. I wonder if he’s noticed: every single thing I’ve seen so far inside this house could have been chosen by Lewis Braid. Or by the kind of interior designer he’d hire.

  Kevin Cater shows us in to a large, rectangular sitting room with unusually high caramel-colored skirting boards, ornate bronze radiators, a herringbone-patterned dark-wood floor, gold floor-length curtains and striped wallpaper: mustard alternating with fawn. Around the room, in a strictly rectangular arrangement, are sofas and chairs, all white, cream or gold, with wooden occasional tables dotted between them here and there.

  When I see the framed photographs on the walls, my breath catches in my throat. There are eight in total, and every single one is of a murmuration of many hundreds of birds against a sky. Sunset, broad daylight . . . the skies are all different, as is the shape made by the birds in each picture, but the theme is very much the same.

  When I knew him, Lewis Braid used to go wild with glee if he saw a murmuration. I didn’t know it was called that until he told me. He would stare and stare, and sometimes chase the birds, and swear loudly, more often than not, when they finally flew out of sight. “Isn’t that the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen?” he’d demand. Once he snapped at Flora for not bringing a camera to a picnic, as if she could have known that there would be a murmuration of starlings above our heads that day. Another time he leaped up and started flapping his arms like an idiot, yelling, “Why can’t I be a bird, flying in a beautiful, perfect flock in the moonlight?”

  Lewis Braid arranged for these photographs to be framed and hung on the walls of this room. How could it have been anyone else? Does anybody care as much as Lewis does about birds flying in large groups? I’ve never met anyone else who’s even mentioned a murmuration, let alone made a fuss about one.

  “Did you do up this room?” I ask Kevin Cater. It comes out harsher than I intended it to.

  “Beth . . .” Dom warns.

  “It’s all right,” says Cater. “Actually, we didn’t. We inherited it from the previous owners. Everything had been done so beautifully, with no expense spared. Jeanette and I hardly changed anything.”

  No. Lewis wouldn’t leave his murmuration pictures here for another family. He’d take them to Florida. He’d take them with him wherever he went.

  Kevin Cater’s eyes rest on me a little too long. A smile plays around his lips. It’s not a friendly one.

  “Take a seat,” he says. “I’ll go and track down Jeanette. In a house this size, it’s easier said than done.”

  Once he’s gone, I walk over to the door and close it.

  “Did you see the look he gave me before he left the room?” I ask Dom. “He was taunting me.”

  “What?”

  “He wanted me to get the message: ‘If I tell you I haven’t changed anything about this house, then you won’t be able to prove that the reason it still looks like Lewis Braid’s house is because it still is Lewis Braid’s house.’ He’s not a good guy, Dom. I don’t trust him.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Beth.”

  “And I don’t like him. Did you hear how he said, ‘Let’s not discuss this on the doorstep,’ when he was the one who started doing that, not us? And what about ‘What time is it? Ah, yes, it’s noon, so you can come in’—he virtually accused us of arriving rudely early, when it was easily five past twelve by the time we rang the bell. And he must have known that. If we’d been two minutes early, would he have made us wait outside? That was how it sounded.”

  “Beth, shut up. I mean it. He’s going to walk back in any second now.”

  “So? I’m not scared of him. Or fooled by him. Everything he’s said and done so far is an attempt to manipulate us and make us feel small.”

  “Shh. Keep your voice down.”

  “Why? Remember how huge his house is, like he just told us? He’s probably in another wing, miles away, and wouldn’t hear me if I screamed the place down.”

  Dom’s face is flushed. “I can’t be bothered to think of a way to put this tactfully, so I’m just going to say it. You’re sounding crazier by the minute. Manipulate us? Come on! The guy’s understandably pissed off because he’s having to waste his day proving to you that his wife is in fact his wife and not a woman who used to live here and who’s currently in Florida. If he’s falling a bit short of warm and friendly, that’s why.”

  “Really? If you think that, then you can’t possibly understand . . .”

  “What?” Dom asks in a whisper. “What don’t I understand?”

  “You keep saying you agree that everything that’s happened is bizarre, but if you really thought that, you’d know that Kevin and Jeanette Cater have to be involved in it, whatever it is. She was wearing the same clothes.”

  The door opens. Kevin Cater walks in, followed by the woman I first met yesterday in the car park in Huntingdon. She’s wearing a knee-length black pleated skirt with a red and black leopard-print top and black slip-on pumps.

  She’s taller than Flora, who’s the same height as me. The black trousers she had on yesterday were probably much too short for her legs, but the black boots hid the problem. Convenient for her.

  Pleasantries are exchanged by everyone apart from me. The woman offers us drinks; Dom and I both say no. He adds a “Thank you.” As I listen to the small talk they’re all using to ward off the moment when things might turn awkward, I wonder if Dom has noticed that the Kevin who has returned to the room is considerably friendlier than the one who left it a few minutes ago.

  It’s all a show.

  “So, Beth,” says the woman eventually. Is she Jeanette? Didn’t Marilyn Oxley tell me that Jeanette Cater had wavy hair, like Flora? This woman’s hair is ruler-straight. I wish I could remember exactly what Marilyn said. Not that it matters. Hair can be artificially straightened. “We should talk about what happened yesterday. I . . . perhaps I did not react to you in the best way. I am afraid I was very shocked to find you in my car.”

  I swallow the urge to tell her it’s not her car, it’s Flora’s. Instead, I say, “I understand. May I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where were you on Saturday morning, and where was your car?”

  “I went out, with the children, early, to do some shopping. We arrived back at about nine thirty, I think, or just after.”

  Her getting the time right means nothing. Marilyn Oxley could have told her what time I returned to Wyddial Lane, or Flora, if she saw me there. I don’t think she did, but I can’t absolutely rule it out.

  “In the silver Range Rover?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your accent from?”

  “Beth!” Dom barks at me.

  “It’s okay,” Jeanette says. “The Ukraine. I was born there and grew up there.”

  “With a name like Jeanette?”

  “Actually, that is what I named myself when I moved to England.” She smiles at Dominic. “My real name is a full-of-mouth for a
n English person to say, so . . .” She shrugs.

  “I’m so sorry about the interrogation,” Dom gushes, determined to ingratiate himself. “I’m assuming you know the, er, situation?”

  “Kevin told me what happened, yes.” To me, she says, “You were here on Saturday and you saw me with my children. You mistook me for your friend.”

  “That’s right,” says Dom. Kevin Cater nods.

  I say nothing, determined not to agree with her version of what happened.

  “How old are your children?” I ask.

  “Five and three years old.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Toby and Emma.”

  I have the same feeling I had in the car park in Huntingdon: the ground falling away beneath me. Those weren’t the names I heard. They weren’t the names she called out and it wasn’t her who did the calling. Toby and Emma, Thomas and Emily—just similar enough to make me think I could have misheard.

  Right, Kevin?

  I’ll never think that. I don’t trust these people. I trust myself: what I saw and heard.

  “Which is the older one?” I ask.

  “Toby. He is five. Would you like to see a photograph of them?”

  “Is that necessary?” Kevin Cater asks.

  “No,” says Dom, at the same time as I say, “Yes, please.”

  “It’s all right, Kevin.” His wife lays a hand on his shoulder as she leaves the room. Kevin takes the opportunity to tell us again how big the house is, which leads to a discussion—one in which I play no part—about whether having too much space can actually be as inconvenient as having too little, if not more so.

  Jeanette returns with a photograph in a frame and brings it over to me. I want to scream.

  “Well?” says Dom impatiently. “Beth?”

  I pass the photograph to him. He holds it close to his face, then at a distance.

  “Right, well!” He laughs. He sounds relieved. “These children are not Thomas and Emily Braid, I think we can safely say. Not as they are now and not as they were at three and five.”