have been looking into the Caters and the Braids fairly thoroughly, that’s all. You’ve said you think the Cater children must be Flora Braid’s because of the strong resemblance, and you think the photos of …’ He looks down at his notes ‘… groups of birds on the wall at number 16 have to belong to Lewis Braid. The registration number’s a way of knowing for sure who that car belongs to. I’m surprised you didn’t write it down.’
‘I don’t care who the car belongs to. Kevin Cater, Lewis – who cares? They’re both involved in this, either way.’
‘Got it.’ PC Pollard stands up and gives his upper lip one final rub. ‘Leave it with me. If anyone at the school thinks the Cater children are at risk, then, as I say, we might be able to get somewhere.’
Ten minutes later, Dom and I are sitting in his car outside the police station. ‘I think that went pretty well,’ he says. ‘Better than I expected. It’s a relief to hand it over to the professionals.’
Not for the first time in our twenty-three-year marriage, I wonder how two people can live happily side by side and sleep in the same bed every night – two people who would probably die for each other if necessary – and yet see the world in such profoundly different ways. I try to imagine how I might feel if I believed Paul Pollard was capable of resolving the problem. Why don’t I believe it? Maybe I should try to.
Dom starts the car and we pull out of the car park and set off for home. ‘Beth, I need to tell you something,’ he says. ‘I don’t think it means anything – beyond what we already know, that something messed up’s going on – but I wouldn’t feel fair keeping it from you. I was going to tell you last night, but then—’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Yesterday, all the Braids’ social media accounts disappeared. Every last one.’
‘What do you mean? Why would they disappear?’
‘It’d only happen if they’d been deliberately deleted by their owners.’
I swallow hard. ‘And … you didn’t think this was worth mentioning to PC Pollard?’
‘No,’ says Dom. ‘Because about three hours later, they all reappeared. I looked through them all – Lewis’s Instagram and Twitter, Thomas and Emily’s Twitter. Nothing looked different. All the stuff that had been there before was still there, so it’s not like they did it because they wanted to delete stuff. You don’t need to deactivate an account to delete individual posts anyway.’
‘How certain are you that nothing was different when the accounts reappeared?’
‘Not infallibly certain, but I’m pretty sure.’
‘I didn’t realise you were familiar enough with their social media accounts to know what was on them. I assumed you’d found them, had a quick look, then not looked again.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Dom smiles sheepishly. ‘You’re not the only one who’s curious.’
Of course. Who wouldn’t be curious? He’s just given himself away. ‘You’ve been downplaying your level of interest in the hope of getting me to ease off,’ I say.
He doesn’t deny it.
‘If you’re interested in how I feel about that? Not great. You could have saved me a few sleepless hours of wondering if I’m crazy because you, a normal person, just didn’t seem to care that much.’
‘You’re right. I’m—’
‘What time did all this happen, the social media stuff?’ I ask quickly, so that there’s no time for him to apologise. Probably soon I’ll forgive him for trying to manage me instead of communicating honestly, but not yet. Not for at least an hour.
‘I noticed the accounts were gone early yesterday – nine-ish. By noon they were back up.’
‘And then later that same day, Flora rings up, supposedly for a friendly, news-swapping chat? What does that tell you?’
Dom shakes his head with a shrug.
‘They’re panicking. Whoever’s running the show can’t decide on a strategy. First it’s “Disappear, delete everything”, then it’s “Act as normal as possible, ring up, pretend all’s well”. There’d have been no point telling Pollard about it because it’s not a direct lead to a crime.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘We’ll never hear from him again,’ I say. ‘If we chase him for updates, he’ll avoid us.’
‘I disagree,’ says Dom. ‘He’s going to do something, and he’ll let us know the upshot, once he has. But whether he does or not …’
‘What?’ From his tone, it sounds as if he’s about to make another attempt at managing me.
‘We’re agreed that we’re leaving this now, right? You and me. We