“Maybe they’ll change their minds one day,” Dom says as we pull up outside turquoise-painted gates with a white sign on them: “Villa Agathi.” Flowers have been painted around the name. “If Kevin Cater and Yanina can overhear one conversation between Thomas and Emily and change their minds about everything after taking Lewis’s money for years . . .”
“But how will Thomas and Emily Braid ever hear their younger siblings’ account of the things the horrible man from America used to say to Mummy when he appeared? Even if they did, they might not change their minds. They’re believing what they want and need to believe because they loved Lewis. They adored him.”
I don’t believe Kevin and Yanina truly changed their minds, but I don’t want to say so. Not now. I can’t prove it’s a lie, and I couldn’t bear to hear Dom stick up for them. I’ll never believe that they suddenly realized, after being unaware for years, that they were involved in something appalling, and took immediate steps to get the children to safety. They must have known, and tolerated it. Then I turned up, and they saw that they’d failed to convince me there was no cause for concern. Lewis’s instructions were becoming ever more alarming and bizarre—Yanina dressing in Flora’s clothes, Flora having to be flown out to Florida without the children—and then a policeman turned up asking questions, and Kevin and Yanina’s convenient, lucrative gig started to feel more risky.
Then, maybe, they overheard Thomas and Emily talking and discovered that Lewis’s treatment of Flora was a little bit worse than even they’d imagined. But I can’t believe they cared, at that point. If their worry for the children’s safety was genuine, surely they’d have bundled Emily into the car, gone to fetch Thomas from school and gone straight to the police or social services.
There’s something that doesn’t convince me about them phoning the school and handing in formal notice, canceling Emily’s place. There was no need for them to do it, and it feels staged to me. Performative. So that they could claim, later, that they feared reprisals from Lewis to such an extent that they made a decision to take the children and flee to a different part of the country—which was what they did. Even if you did plan to escape, why think about giving notice to a school? Why not just go? Flora thinks they probably wanted to be upfront and end the relationship there and then, so that there would be no phone calls or inquiries the next day when Thomas didn’t turn up for registration in the morning. Perhaps that’s true. Flora will never ask Kevin or Yanina about it, or speak to them ever again, so there’s no way of knowing.
“Are we here?” Ben asks as Dom switches off the car’s engine. He stretches. “I’m tired.” Tired or not, he’s out of the car in seconds; Dom too. It’s an old family joke: when we all drive home from somewhere, Dom and Ben are usually inside the house and halfway through watching a football match by the time Zan and I drag ourselves out of the car.
I turn and prod her leg. Her eyes snap open. She blinks.
“We’re here,” I tell her. “Sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” she says, stuffing her phone and earphones into the bag on her lap. “I was thinking . . .”
“Come on, you two,” Dom calls out.
“What?” I ask Zannah.
She looks hesitant, then decides to go for it.
“Maybe I could try talking to Thomas and Emily Braid. I think I could maybe . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what I could do, but I’d like to give it a go. I’m the same age as them.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t want you involved.”
“And yet look where I am.” Zan nods toward the villa.
Damn. Why is she so good at winning arguments?
“They’d tell you horrible things about me, Zan. They’d call me a murderer. I don’t want you to have to deal with that.”
“I can deal with whatever they say, Mum. Seriously.” Looking out of the window, she adds casually, “I could also deal with you being a murderer as long as you only ever have one victim and that victim is Lewis Braid.”
Does she know? Is that possible, even though I haven’t told her?
“Shall I try and contact them, then?” She smiles innocently at me.
She knows.
I’ve no idea how I feel about that. My daughter knows I lied. My daughter knows what I did in Florida.
“Thomas and Emily Braid?” I say, playing for time.
Zannah nods. “I won’t mention it to Flora now, in case it doesn’t work. I just . . . I reckon I could convince anyone that having a mother is a great thing, not to be missed,” she says solemnly.
“Okay. You can try, if you want to.” My eyes prickle with tears. I blink them away.
As he’s speaking, the villa’s blue gates open and Flora appears, with Rosemary behind her. She waves at us. She’s smiling.
Acknowledgments
I am immensely grateful to the wonderful team at Hodder, especially Carolyn Mays—my dream editor and also, luckily for me, my real-life editor. Thanks to Peter Straus, the best agent in the world, and Matthew Turner, and all at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Thank you to my wonderful American publishers, William Morrow, and to my amazing film and TV agent, Will Peterson.
A huge thank you to Kate Jones and Faith Tilleray for all their practical help and support. Thank you to my family—Dan, Phoebe, Guy and Brewster, who get a thank you and a dedication this time. Thanks to Adele Geras and Chris Gribble for reading and commenting on an early version, and to Emily Winslow, whose editorial advice improved this novel immensely.
Special thanks to Chris Ferguson, from Twitter, who gave me some very useful information about youth divisions of football teams. Thank you to my Dream Author program members who are just the best in every way! And last but not least, thanks to all my readers who write and send lovely messages all the time. Knowing that you’re eagerly awaiting the next book makes me want to write it even more.
Also by Sophie Hannah
Little Face
The Truth-Teller’s Lie
The Wrong Mother
The Dead Lie Down
The Cradle in the Grave
The Other Woman’s House
Kind of Cruel
The Carrier
The Orphan Choir
Woman with a Secret
A Game for All the Family
Keep Her Safe
The Next to Die
How to Hold a Grudge
Hercule Poirot Mysteries
The Monogram Murders
Closed Casket
The Mystery of Three Quarters
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PERFECT LITTLE CHILDREN. Copyright © 2020 by Sophie Hannah. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published as Haven’t They Grown in the United Kingdom in January 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton.
Cover design by Elsie Lyons
Cover photographs © Rekha Garton/Arcangel; © Midiwaves/Shutterstock (texture); © Aleksei Zakirov/Shutterstock (texture); © Hatchapong Palurtchaivong/Shutterstock (rust on house); © Miloje/Shutterstock (texture)
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-297822-6
Version
12052019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-297820-2 (hardcover)
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-298850-8 (international edition)
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, M5H 4E3
www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida
Uttar Pradesh 201 301
www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com