if trying to decide what to do. ‘I’m afraid Flora’s not here, if you came in the hope of finding her,’ he says eventually.
‘Oh – no, I know that. It’s not that. I was hoping to speak to you, actually. And Mrs Tillotson if she’s around.’ Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. Flora’s mum might be dead for all I know. ‘It’s quite important.’
If it were my child, I’d want to know. Whatever anyone feared or suspected, I’d rather be told so that I could try and sort it out, however old I was.
Gerard Tillotson says, ‘If you walk around the house, you will find – unsurprisingly – the back garden. At the far end of it is a little blue-painted structure. It used to be a shed, but my wife spruced it up and now calls it the summer house. You’ll find her inside it, surrounded by her dress-making equipment.’ He closes the door without a ‘goodbye’. Through the glass, I watch him walk back down the hall and disappear into a room.
What am I supposed to do now? Shouldn’t he be the one to go and get his wife? Would he have told me where I’d find her if he didn’t want me to seek her out?
I walk round the side of the house. The blue former shed is there, as described, at the end of a long, tapering back garden.There are white net curtains at its windows, with small orange and green flowers standing out like birthmarks, raising the skin of the gauzy fabric in lumps. I knock on the door and it opens immediately.
Rosemary Tillotson’s hair is as white as her husband’s. Unlike her husband, she is now heavier than she used to be. I see a large cream-coloured sewing machine behind her, a patchwork rug on the floor, and some peach-coloured fabric spread out on a table.
‘Oh!’ She smiles, as if I’m a rabbit that’s popped out of a hat. ‘This is a surprise. Can I help you?’
‘My name’s Beth Leeson. I’m … I used to be Flora’s best friend. You’ve met me before, ages ago.’
‘Flora’s …’ Her mouth moves, but nothing comes out. Then she looks past me, into her garden, and says, ‘Is Flora here?’
‘No, she’s not, though I’ve seen her a couple of times recently. I was hoping to talk to you and your husband about her, if that’s okay.’
Rosemary Tillotson frowns. ‘I’m not sure if it is. You can’t just come here. You can’t just …’ I’m preparing to defend myself when the angry words stop and Flora’s mother bursts into tears.
Twenty minutes later, Zannah and I are sitting in the Tillotsons’ long, narrow, bay-windowed lounge. The four of us are drinking tea from blue and white pottery mugs. I was in the car, ready to give up and drive back home, when Flora’s father tapped on the window and inclined his head to indicate that I should come back to the house. Since he had seen Zannah, I decided it would be strange if I didn’t bring her in with me.
‘I’d better tell you, and I hope you don’t take it personally, that your visit comes as rather a shock to us,’ he says now. ‘Foolishly, selfishly, quite reprehensibly, I decided that my wife would be better able to cope with the shock and to deal with you than I would be myself.’
Rosemary Tillotson hasn’t said a word to me since she had her crying fit. She’s sitting by her husband’s side on the sofa, red-eyed and mute. He has apologised four times so far for her distress, and I’ve apologised for causing it.
Something is very wrong here, and I wish I knew what it was – whether it’s the same something-wrong as at Newnham House. Are Gerard and Rosemary Tillotson, at this moment, gearing up to lie to me as thoroughly as Kevin Cater and Fake Jeanette did?
So far, I’ve seen this lounge, the hall and bottom of the stairs, the loo under the stairs and the kitchen. That’s the entire ground floor of the house. There are no photographs of Flora, Lewis or their children anywhere to be seen. Unusual for grandparents. My mum has photos of Zannah and Ben at every age plastered all over her house.
‘Perhaps you could tell us why you’re here?’ Gerard Tillotson asks.
I’d intended to tell them the whole story. That was before I knew that a visit from their daughter’s former best friend would prove so traumatic for them. With Rosemary’s blotchy