Our House

by Louise Candlish

  Fi nods.

  ‘We need to report Bram missing. Missing and in danger.’

  Geneva, 3 p.m.

  As he leaves the restaurant, the wine having done nothing to ease the ferment of nerves in his gut, he is unsettled by the presence of a man standing close to the lift controls, his head angled in query as he watches Bram’s approach. He is in his early thirties, lofty, rough-skinned, dressed in a dark-grey suit and well-polished shoes. Business traveller – or plainclothes policeman? A concerned member of the public who has seen an Interpol appeal containing Bram’s photograph?

  Bram considers bolting through the doors to the stairwell, but resists. No, calm down, act casual. Interpol appeal? There is self-preservation and then there are delusions of grandeur. Not unlike the sales career he has left behind, his survival is a matter of confidence trickery, and the person he most needs to trick is himself.

  Even so, when the lift operates normally, not a word spoken between its occupants and Bram deposited safely at the ground floor, the relief he feels is savage.

  Even so, when he slips into a pharmacy on his way back to the hotel, searching the aisles for a good pair of scissors, he glances over his shoulder more than once before he makes his selection and pays.

  21

  Bram, Word document

  For the next twenty-four hours, I heard nothing from Wendy and I wondered if I’d imagined what she’d said. What I’d said. Maybe she’d left before I woke up and I’d had that exchange in the kitchenette with an apparition – Lord knows that between Macbeth and me countless men have been so demented by guilt they’ve given their conscience voice and mistaken it for retribution.

  Better still, perhaps I’d never met her; she didn’t exist! But, no, that really was wishful thinking. There’d been a text from Rog in the morning, asking, Good night?, complete with the ‘lucky bugger’ subtext of a winking-face emoji. No doubt he’d told Alison I’d been on the pull. Definitely she’d told Fi. But Fi was the least of my worries, for once.

  Nothing happened, I texted back. No emojis.

  I didn’t go near the car – by now, I couldn’t even look at it – and as I took the train to and from work, I abused myself ceaselessly for not having stayed on the platform that morning of the conference and bitten the bullet of a commuter delay. What would a late start have been, or even a no-show, a job loss, compared to this inferno of misery?

  Then, on the Friday evening, a text came from her. I hadn’t been aware of having given her my phone number, but evidently she had it. Easy enough to discover by calling my office, I supposed, or even snooping while I slept. The message consisted of a link to a story on a Croydon news website:

  Reward offered in hunt for Silver Road crash driver

  A £10,000 reward for information has been offered by the husband of the Silver Road collision victim, a forty-two-year-old woman recovering from critical injuries sustained in the collision on Friday 16 September. The couple’s ten-year-old daughter was also severely injured in the incident.

  The police have yet to identify the other party in the collision and are keen to hear from motorists and pedestrians in the area at approximately 6 p.m., the time of the incident.

  A spokesperson for the victims’ family said: ‘Two innocent people have sustained terrible injuries as the result of a cold-blooded and cowardly act and we will do everything in our power to help the police find this criminal.’

  A £10,000 reward, Jesus. It was a bounty on my head.

  Or – have a beer, a cigarette, think – was it possible that the announcement of a reward was a useful development? Might it not bring unreliable witnesses and charlatans into the mix, both of which would waste police time?

  As I read the item a second time, searching each word for new meaning, my stomach heaved. It wasn’t the money – a sum that Wendy clearly expected me to improve on in my compensation of her – but a single word buried in the first paragraph:

  ‘Recovering’.

  It sounded as if the driver of the Fiat was now conscious and improving. It sounded as if she was now in a fit state to be interviewed by the police.

  I made no reply to Wendy. I wouldn’t have replied to her even if I hadn’t lost the use of my hands to uncontrollable shaking.

  ‘Fi’s Story’ > 01:21:40

  So I’d say it was probably only a few days before the guy from La Mouette got in touch, inviting me to have a drink with him the next Friday. I suggested a bar in Balham, striking distance for both of us but a safe enough distance from home turf to avoid any neighbourhood gossips spreading the word. Not that Bram had worried on that score, brazenly picking someone up in the most popular drinking hole in Alder Rise, but I had different standards.

  It was surprisingly easy to get back in the game. Toby was such effortlessly good company. I told him about my job in homewares and he talked about his work as a data analyst for a think tank commissioned by the Department of Transport.

  ‘It’s not a study of inveterate speeders, is it?’ I laughed. ‘If so, you might want to interview my ex-husband. He’s had three tickets in the last eighteen months.’

  Toby grinned at me. ‘We’re interested in the exact opposite: why the average speed for a journey through central London has slowed so dramatically. You know it’s getting down towards eight miles an hour? Everyone agrees the congestion charge isn’t effective any more, so we’re working with a big engineering consultancy to put together a new strategy.’

  ‘It’s all the white vans, I suppose?’ I knew from my work that people expected same- or next-day delivery on even the cheapest, smallest items.

  ‘Partly.’ He described his team’s surveillance of freight vehicles and mini cabs, cycle lanes and construction projects, before apologizing for boring me. ‘I sometimes think talking about work should be against the law.’

  I lifted my wine glass. ‘I’ll drink to that.’ It was true I wasn’t looking to share career angst. I wasn’t looking to share lives. This was a physical attraction, the interesting conversation a delightful bonus. ‘Just tell me one thing: I’m not under surveillance, am I?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not the kind you mean, anyway.’

  We slept together that night. My flat was closer than his and so that was the natural venue. Also, I’m not totally irresponsible, I wouldn’t go back to a complete stranger’s place.

  ‘I really like you, Fi,’ he said before he left. ‘We should do this again.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. Obviously I’m simplifying it now, but it honestly was that uncomplicated. ‘I’ll phone you,’ I told him, because I was damned if I was going to revive the passive role of my twenties. I would drive this, if any driving were to be done, and I would decide whether or not there was. Which dated me right there, as Polly pointed out when we next talked on the phone.

  ‘ “Hard to get” doesn’t exist as a concept any more. Everyone is easy to get.’

  ‘What’s the protocol then?’ I asked.

  ‘The protocol is there is no protocol. You have to get your head around the fact that it’s not like when you and Bram were going out. Those were innocent times. People interacted differently.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘because telecommunications didn’t exist then, only semaphore and messengers on horseback.’

  ‘They didn’t exist – at least not the kind that tells you anything useful. I wouldn’t tell Bram about your congestion expert, by the way. If he thinks you’re interested in someone new, he’ll start chasing you again.’

  ‘It’s too late for that.’ I cut the conversation short then. There was nothing to be gained from another character assassination of Bram. He was the father of my children and, as the cliché went, I would always respect him for that.

  I would also need to monitor his fitness for the task. On my way home from the station an evening or two earlier, I’d seen him standing alone by the closed park gates, a wisp of blue smoke rising from a cigarette held by his side, and I’d felt genuinely quite disturbed. It wa
sn’t the smoking, it was the solitude, the way he was standing: helpless, shrinking, as if stranded by the encroaching tide.

  Hearts have muscle memory like any other and, I admit, mine squeezed at the sight of him.

  I’d phoned Alison. ‘Will you do me a favour? Call round ours this weekend, if you have time. Get Bram and the boys to go out with you or just get invited in for a cup of tea. See if everything’s okay with him – I don’t mean this woman you told me about, just generally. He seems a bit down. I need to know he’s in good spirits for the boys’ sakes, but I’m not sure I can judge any more.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Alison said.

  VictimFi

  @natashaBwriter Her problem is she’s too passive-aggressive with the ex – getting the friend to ask for her!

  @jesswhitehall68 @natashaBwriter Not sure I trust this Alison character either.

  @richiechambers @jesswhitehall68 @natashaBwriter Can loverboy please do something about the new traffic system at Elephant & Castle #deathtrap

  22

  Bram, Word document

  That Saturday afternoon, the doorbell rang and from the hallway I saw two tall darkly-dressed figures through the stained glass. This is it, I thought, and fear tore through me so violently I lost my balance as I put out my hand to open the door, landing heavily against the frame. I wasn’t ready to explain, to understand, to atone. I was a mess.

  ‘Bram, look at your face! Who were you expecting? A Mafia hitman?’ Alison and Roger cackled at my expression. ‘We wondered if you and the boys wanted to come to the dog show in the park?’

  Incapacitated with relief, I was slow to respond. ‘Oh, right, is that today?’

  ‘It is. Rocky’s in the Handsomest Hound category. Come on, it’s not to be missed.’

  Previously, the prospect of watching the Osbornes’ arthritic Lab stagger around the ring and retreat, unplaced, into the arms of a flock of howling kids would not have floated my boat, but on this occasion I accepted gratefully and told Leo and Harry to put their jackets and trainers on. Did the police even make calls at the weekend? Well, if they did, I’d be out, buying myself one more day, one more night, with my boys.

  In the street, I had to turn my face away and consciously recalibrate before engaging with my companions. Next to their carefree state of being, their simple joy in dogs, I was a Martian.

  ‘Everything all right your end?’ Alison said as we walked, the kids scampering ahead. ‘You look a bit stressed.’

  ‘I’m fine. Just a bit worried about work,’ I said.

  ‘Well, don’t think about it. This is le weekend – and the prettiest bitches in Alder Rise await us.’

  A throng worthy of Glastonbury awaited too. A well-known actor had moved to the area, Alison said, and was one of the judges. Rog had got talking to him at the vet’s and now she had hopes of socializing together. I couldn’t spot him through the crush, though everyone else I’d ever met was in view: the whole of Trinity Avenue, familiar faces from the boys’ school, the pub, even the station platform. It was unseasonally warm again, the air a sickening soup of dog breath and the deep-fat frying of a pop-up churros stall. In the ring, puppies were being paraded and as the audience surged forwards I hung back slightly, Harry’s hand in mine, as if I’d developed a phobia of crowds. I felt the pain of a need for a drink like appendicitis.

  ‘Hello, Bram,’ said a voice behind me.

  I didn’t recognize it. Expecting another neighbourhood face, I prepared myself for the teasing and backslapping required of a local dad and yet even as I turned my body responded differently. Skin, muscles, internal organs: they all shrank as if to protect themselves from violent attack.

  It was him. The guy in the Toyota. At the time, I’d seen him only in profile glimpses, but there was no doubt about it, I recognized the angular bones of his skull, the jutting nose and flat-set ears, the hair shorn close to the scalp. His eyes were some indeterminate colour and yet the energy in his gaze was keen, almost rapacious.

  ‘How do you know my name?’ I said.

  He pushed out his lower lip, a facial shrug. ‘I hear you’ve had a visit from a mutual friend?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘Daddy? I can’t see!’ Over the bellow of the MC, Harry was clamouring for me to press closer to the ring. I’d lost sight of Leo.

  ‘Wait . . . will you?’ I held up an index finger to Skullface – one minute – and steered Harry closer to the Osbornes. Checking that Leo was within range, I asked Alison to keep an eye on them for five minutes.

  ‘This way.’ I led Skullface around the tattered edge of the crowd towards the café building, coming to a halt by the rear doors for the toilets.

  He rolled his eyes at the ‘Gents’ sign. ‘Bit of cottaging, Bram? Wouldn’t have thought you were the type.’

  He was every bit as loathsome as I’d imagined, as I’d prayed I’d never have to discover.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said. ‘How did you find me?’

  He shrugged, impatient with my questions. ‘I was talking about your visitor. Tuesday night, wasn’t it?’

  ‘If you mean Wendy, then yes, our paths crossed.’

  You have no idea, do you?

  Don’t be like that . . .

  ‘She told you she saw what went down?’ There was a note of relish in his voice. He was enjoying this, the sadistic bastard, the power of intercepting me on my home turf, where I’d thought I was safe. How had he known I lived in Alder Rise? Presumably from Wendy. Had he kept watch on my street or just turned up at the station and followed the crowd?

  I glared at him. ‘Clearly, and since she can’t have tailed both of us that night, she must have made a note of our registrations. Don’t ask me how she managed to get our personal details from them because I have no idea.’

  ‘Easy enough if you’re willing to spend the money,’ he said, dismissively. ‘You can pay for that sort of information online.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Never heard of the dark web, Bram? I would have thought it could be quite useful to you at this difficult time.’

  A baby’s cry started up, echoing from the back walls of the houses on Alder Rise Road, building in that commanding way that was so out of scale with its tiny form. Harry’s had been like that, swelling with fury if Fi or I failed to materialize fast enough.

  ‘She obviously wants money,’ I said, keeping my voice low as a café customer passed by, eyeing us. ‘More than £10,000, I think.’ It was an absurd sum, now that I said it out loud. This whole situation couldn’t be real. ‘I told her where to go and I suggest you do the same.’ I was aware that I was talking more and more roughly, blurring my consonants as if in response to his brutish manner.

  Whether unimpressed by the content or the delivery, he listened with open mockery. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. In fact, I’ve taken a more collaborative position.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘She’s not going away, Bram, and the sooner you face up to that the better. We’re better off sticking together.’

  A warning pulse started up in my neck. ‘I’m not sticking with anyone,’ I said. ‘You can do whatever you like to stop her from going to the police, but I’m not getting involved.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s that straightforward.’ There was a pause, a snapping of teeth, a bitter stare. Applause from the distant showring rose and fell, and then he said, in the lull, ‘We know about the ban.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your driving ban. You were only seven months into a twelve-month ban that day, weren’t you? A bit too eager to get back on the road, eh?’

  ‘But how . . .?’ I sucked air, unable to complete the question. How could he possibly know the status of my driver’s licence? Did he work for the DVLA? Or the police? Or was it as he had said, you could find out anything online if you were prepared to pay? ‘Forget it. I’m not interested in discussing it,’ I said. ‘I need to get back.’

/>   He actually rolled his eyes then. ‘You know what? I haven’t got time for this denial act. You need to get a bit more real about the trouble you’re in.’ As the announcement of a winner and an outbreak of cheering split the air, he dug into his pocket and withdrew a phone. ‘When you’re on your own, take a look at this and get in touch. Don’t use your regular mobile, all right?’

  ‘Wrong. I’m not taking a look at anything.’ But trying to reject his offering, a smeared old Samsung, proved difficult without getting into a scuffle and drawing attention to us and in the end I pocketed it, glaring at him as I did.

  ‘Don’t bin it,’ he said, reading my thoughts. ‘What’s on there, I guarantee you’ll want to see.’

  ‘I have to go,’ I said, trying to edge past him.

  He stepped aside. ‘Of course. Better get back to your kids. You never know what kind of scumbags might be lurking about the place.’

  ‘Fi’s Story’ > 01:25:19

  When Alison phoned, she had little to report in her assessment of Bram’s mental health.

  ‘He was a bit quiet, but nothing weird. Oh, he did disappear for a while early on, but it was total chaos, dogs and kids all over the place, so he might have just lost us.’

  I frowned. ‘Disappeared?’ Impossible not to flash back to the empty house, the open wine bottle, the steamed-up windows of the playhouse.

  ‘It wasn’t a big deal. Leo and Harry were with me the whole time.’

  I raised my eyebrows and pictured Alison doing the same: there was not a father in Alder Rise who would refuse a woman’s offer to keep an eye on his charges while he checked his email or gamed or simply stared into space. Merle once said, ‘Why do men find it so easy to accept help and women so hard? We need to reverse that.’

  We certainly did. ‘How long was he gone?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Twenty minutes, maybe? The puppies had finished and the Best Tricks were on. All collies, obviously. I started to think he must have gone home, but then he reappeared and bought all the kids churros, which was sweet of him.’