“What does that mean?”

She opens her mouth and lets out a sigh, long and loud. “It’s a relief to say it after so many years. I’ve never said it before. Yes, I think Lewis murdered Georgina. The story he told you about me and the wine was a lie. Not the wine part—that was true. I did have a couple of glasses. By then, I needed at least a glass a night just to keep me from screaming and falling apart. I kept thinking ‘There must be something I can do’ but I had no idea what it might be. My husband hated me and one of our children, and had no intention of relenting. I couldn’t leave him. That would have meant leaving Thomas and Emily too—he’d never have let me take them away from him, I knew that. What I didn’t know was that he’d made a foolproof plan to take them away from me. Forever. And then make me suffer, forever. Killing Georgina was only stage one. There was plenty more to come.”

We stare at each other in silence. Now I see what she meant. To say, “That’s horrific,” or “That’s evil,” could never be enough.

“Tell me about the night Georgina died,” I say, though I’m not sure I can bear to hear it.

“I started to feel unusually sleepy. I felt so bad, I had to mention it to Lewis, who accused me of drinking too much. Now it seems so obvious that he drugged me, but it didn’t occur to me then. However grim things were between us, I wouldn’t have suspected he’d do that. I thought I must be coming down with something. Lewis told me to go to bed and said he’d look after the kids. I didn’t want to leave Georgina with him, but I could hardly keep my eyes open.”

“Did you fear he’d hurt her?”

“Not in the way he did. I thought I knew exactly what he’d do. It was what he’d been doing since she was born: being Wonder-Dad to the other two and ignoring Georgina completely. Since I’d told him I was pregnant with her, he’d shut out both of us as much as he could. The only time he turned on the charm was if he thought Thomas or Emily might notice something was wrong. He still wanted to preserve the illusion of the perfect family for them, so he’d make a point of being nice to me when we were all together, and sometimes he’d cuddle Georgina too, though he never looked at her. The second Thomas and Emily left the room, the act would end and the coldness would resume.”

I want to kill him. I’ve never had this feeling before, about anyone.

“I remember just before I fell asleep, worrying that he might leave Georgina unchanged and unfed,” says Flora. “She would always cry if she was hungry or uncomfortable, though, and there was nothing wrong with her lungs. She could scream loud enough to make your hair stand on end. But she never did, or if she did, it didn’t wake me, thanks to whatever Lewis put in my food. I know he drugged me. I know exactly how much I drank that night—two glasses of wine, same as most nights. There’s no way that would have knocked me out. If wine was all I’d had, I’d have woken up when Lewis came into my room and . . . stopped Georgina breathing.”

“I’m so sorry, Flora.”

“He probably used a pillow.” Her voice shakes. “I woke up in the middle of the night to find him shaking me and telling me the same lie you’ve already heard, the one he made me tell too: I drank too much wine, took Georgina up to bed, rolled over and smothered her to death by accident while in a drunken stupor. All a lie. When I dragged myself up to bed, she was still downstairs with Lewis. But he said my memory couldn’t be trusted, because I’d drunk so much. He sneered at me. Said how could I deny I’d taken her up with me when he’d seen me do it. Even if I had, I’d never have put her in bed with me, not when I felt as bad as I did. I’m not an idiot. I was a good mother.”

“I know you were. You don’t need to convince me. I’m on your side.”

“Now you are,” Flora mutters.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Her face twists, and I see how much she wishes she hadn’t said it. She takes her glass of water over to one of the gray sofas and sits down. “You didn’t know, and you couldn’t have rescued me and the kids even if you had. I couldn’t rescue us. It was crazy of me to think you might be able to, but I couldn’t stop hoping. I thought, ‘Surely she’ll suspect something’s wrong, and—’” She breaks off with a shrug. “I don’t know what I thought you could do, but I had to cling to something.”

“And I did nothing,” I say, my words falling like stones. “I decided you’d lost interest in me because suddenly you were rich, and I gave as good as I got—that’s how I thought of it. I saw you withdrawing from our friendship, took it personally and did the same. I’m so sorry, Flora.”

“You’re here now.” She almost smiles.

“I felt so guilty, too, for cutting Georgina out of the photo.”

“When I saw that, my first thought was that maybe you and Lewis . . . but then I told myself you’d never collude with him to hurt me. Then I remembered you’d had a miscarriage, and realized how hard it must have been for you to have me turn up with a baby I’d told you nothing about, and I forgave you immediately. I hope I said so.”

“You have now. We can’t change the past, Flora. We need to—”

“I so nearly didn’t send you our new address postcard when we moved to Wyddial Lane,” she talks over me, staring out through the window at the pool terrace. “Lewis told me not to. Thank God I did. I’m glad you found me eventually, even if there’s nothing we can do. You tried. That means something.”

Her mournful tone worries me. She sounds as if she’s given up.

“I’m still trying, Flora—present tense—but you need to tell me everything. You woke up, Georgina was dead, Lewis was saying you’d rolled over, drunk, and smothered her. What happened after that?”

“Threats. Lots and lots of threats. I wasn’t allowed to have you in my life anymore, or my parents. You and they were the people Lewis feared most. He knew that if I broke down and told anyone what a monster he was, it’d be them or you that I’d tell. You were easy to shake off. You disappeared as smoothly as if you’d helped draft Lewis’s master plan. My parents.” She flinches. “It was the second worst moment of my life, telling them our relationship was over. Lewis did the talking. He wasn’t fazed by it at all. It was just something that had to happen. The first of many things.”

“Tell me,” I say.

“There’s no point. It’s over.”

“What do you mean?” The words spill out of me in a panic.

I hear Lewis’s voice behind me. “You’ll see what she means if you turn around.”

26

He’s holding a gun. He points it first at Flora, then at me.

No. Please, no. This can’t be real.

“Hey, Beth,” he says casually, smiling the same way he did when he came out to greet me at VersaNova this morning. The suit and tie have gone. He’s wearing black tracksuit bottoms, brown boots, a black hoodie. Apart from the boots, he’s dressed like one of Ben’s friends.

Or like someone about to commit a crime, using the weapon in his hand.

“You didn’t think I’d have someone at the Marriott, ready to follow you wherever you went?” Lewis asks me. “I like to cover all bases. I’d have thought you might anticipate that.”

My mind feels as if it’s falling down and down and down. I don’t want it to land, don’t want to look at where it’s heading.

The gun can’t be real. Fake ones must be as easy to come by here as real ones.

Don’t think like that, idiot. Believe it’s real. Act like it’s real.

Flora hasn’t reacted to his arrival at all. She must have seen him come into the house behind me. Yet she didn’t show any shock, or even surprise. Suddenly, I understand why.

“You knew,” I say to her. “That’s why you started sounding like you’d given up. How did you know he was here?”

“She saw me from the window,” says Lewis, pointing to the glass part of the kitchen wall. “My wife is excellent at giving up, Beth. Yeah, you heard that right. My wife. She never married Kevin. She and I never divorced. And she might be known as Jeanette Cater when she’s hanging around Nowheresville, England, but legally her name’s still Flora Braid.” He balls his free hand into a fist, raises it and spreads his fingers wide. “Blows your mind, huh?”

My mind has been blown since I first saw Flora on Wyddial Lane with two children who seemed not to have aged in twelve years. I can’t say any of this. All I can do is think about the gun.