discussing it with Lewis, that it would be more effective to have her play the part of Jeanette Cater. The hope, the assumption, was that I’d then think she must have been the dark-haired woman I’d seen outside the house with the two children. She thought she and her partners in deception were going to deal with me easily, neutralise the threat, persuade me to doubt my own perceptions and believe the lies instead, believe that my mind was playing tricks on me. Lewis will have said to them all, ‘Don’t worry about Beth Leeson. We can handle her, as long as we all stick to the script.’
In the car park that day in Huntingdon, Yanina didn’t flinch. She played her part so convincingly, fully believing in her assured victory. She was the outraged, innocent car owner, shocked to find a stranger in her car. Except she wasn’t shocked at all. The four of them will have agreed that she should return to the car park dressed in Flora’s clothes, to make me think I was losing my mind. Yanina might not have known she’d find me inside the Range Rover, but she knew I’d be there.
They must all have been prepared for me to say, ‘Why are you wearing Flora’s clothes? I’ve just seen her wearing those same clothes. Don’t tell me I haven’t.’ Yanina was trusted, evidently, to be convincingly aghast and uncomprehending if I reacted in that way.
Lewis had no worries about Kevin and Yanina. That’s why they were allowed to invite me and Dominic to Newnham House. Flora, Lewis decided, was the only possible weak link, the one who couldn’t necessarily be trusted not to let something slip. Better to move her to a different country, to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, he knew he could trust Kevin and Yanina to take charge of all the lying that needed to be done in England, while he and Flora lied with a matching confidence and determination in America – determination to win, to make sure that what they’ve all hidden so successfully remains hidden.
The terrible secret. What could it be? If I’m right about everything I think I’ve worked out so far, then someone might be in prison … but who? And for what?
The crime involved, because it has to be a crime, must be worse than what Lewis and Flora told me – worse than Flora accidentally killing Georgina and disowning her family, worse than her and Lewis misleading the authorities about the cause of Georgina’s death. No one trying to hide their guilt would invent something more likely to land them in jail than the truth. Lewis Braid is hardly an ordinary person, but I can’t see any reason why even he would do that.
Which means the truth must represent a greater threat than the story he and Flora told me. And Kevin Cater and Yanina know exactly what it is. There’s no detail they don’t know. They’re not being deceived, like me, or even partially deceived. They’re fully informed and trusted participants in the deception. Whatever’s going on, they and Flora and Lewis are equal partners.
Great. Good luck convincing PC Pollard of all this, or anyone else who can do anything about it.
My stomach rumbles. I tell myself I can find the menu and order food any time. I don’t need to do it right now. There’s still so much I need to think through …
Flora in the background when Lewis first phoned me, saying that she was lucky. She wasn’t in Florida then. It was the day before I saw her in the car park in Huntingdon. Which means Lewis had a recording of her voice saying, ‘I’m lucky’, because there’s no way she was there with him in Delray Beach at the time.
Why would he have that on tape? It seems too much of a coincidence that he’d record her saying the very same words I heard her say outside Newnham House. Though a bigger question, maybe, is why she would arrive home on a Saturday morning and have that particular conversation while getting out of the car. If Flora needed to talk to someone and say not what I thought I heard her say at first but what I now believe I heard her say that day, then why wouldn’t she wait until she was …
My heart starts to thud as another answer slots into place.
Nobody’s in prison. No one at all.
Adrenaline combined with an empty stomach makes me feel