Trust him? Right.
‘If the cheque hasn’t come through by then, you’ll have to find another way to get the cash,’ he added. He stood, hands in pockets, body language maddeningly relaxed. ‘Still heard nothing from the police?’
‘No. Not since they spoke to my wife.’
‘You can use her name, Bram. Fiona. Fi, did you call her?’
‘I can use her name, yes, but I’d prefer you not to.’
‘Oh, well, in that case,’ he sneered.
I ignored this. ‘Listen, the alibi you mentioned?’
‘Yep. Half Moon, Clapham Junction.’
‘I need your full name and a number, just in case.’
‘Just say Mike. I’m there all the time, the bar staff’ll point them my way. We’re not mates, didn’t exchange numbers or anything gay, we just got talking, had a bit of a session.’
Though his instincts were right, it was infuriating to continue to be denied his full name. My investigations online into his and Wendy’s identities had yielded laughable results: you try googling ‘Mike South London’. And of the commercial cleaning companies I’d found in and around Beckenham, none had a permanent member of staff named Wendy. ‘Not a session, I had to be back in Alder Rise by seven for the boys.’
‘Fine. We had two pints between five thirty and six thirty, how’s that? We talked about the football. Nothing too deep. Can’t be expected to remember the details. I know one of the barmen there, he’ll vouch for us for a few quid.’
‘On the subject of money,’ I said, ‘if we do this, when it’s over, what’s my cut?’
He laughed, releasing streams of smoky breath into the cold air. ‘I wondered when you’d ask that.’
‘Well, tell me the answer then.’
He drew his face closer to mine, eyes baleful. ‘Your cut is your liberty, mate. Ten years, I reckon you’d get, minimum. And we all know killing a kid is the lowest of the low inside. Imagine ten years of being beaten up and buggered and God knows what else, a middle-aged child murderer in a cell with a twenty-year-old psycho. Or is it three to a cell these days? Sooner you than me.’
I sucked in my breath, my heart hammering.
‘Hit a nerve, have I?’ he taunted. ‘Just think of all the nerves they’ll be hitting inside, eh? They’ll be queuing outside your cell.’
I began to back away, as if from the Prince of Darkness himself.
‘Don’t worry about the money,’ he called. ‘We’ll send a little something your way on completion. Call it a finder’s fee.’
‘Fi’s Story’ > 01:46:26
No, I hadn’t introduced Toby to Bram. I hadn’t introduced him to anyone. I didn’t wish to parade him on the Trinity Avenue dinner party circuit and he, for his part, had no interest in the social structures of Alder Rise.
‘Why doesn’t he ever invite you to his place?’ Polly asked.
‘Reading between the lines, it’s not somewhere he thinks I’ll be impressed by,’ I said. ‘He downsized after his divorce, so I’m guessing it’s pretty modest.’
‘He’s not still married, is he?’
‘No, but if he is, I can hardly object, since I am as well.’
‘You’re separated,’ she corrected me. ‘Has Alison met him?’
‘No one has. It’s just a casual thing, Polly.’
‘Even so, to not know where he lives? Maybe you should ask his wife,’ she drawled.
It would not be the last time she would propose the married-man theory – and to be fair, Bram’s infidelities gave her good cause to question my judgement – but I chose to close my ears to the clanging of warning bells. I didn’t want to spend my time finding fault or preparing for the worst. Maybe such an attitude doesn’t fit well in our cynical world but I’m not going to apologize for trying.
Besides, I was busy at work and by then it was full steam ahead for half term and our weekend in Kent, which took a certain amount of planning. Having missed a summer holiday, Harry was so excited to be going away that he couldn’t sleep for most of the week before. It didn’t help that one night there was a police helicopter hovering over Alder Rise for hours on end. This is South London; it happens sometimes.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ I said, when he climbed into bed with me. ‘It’s just the police out catching criminals.’
‘How can they catch them in the dark?’ he asked.
I told him about an article I’d read about police helicopters’ thermal imaging cameras. You thought you were safe in your hiding place under the bushes, but you glowed bright white on the screens above.
‘It’s just like your forensic pen. They use special light to see what we can’t see.’
‘They’re cleverer than the baddies,’ Harry said.
‘Much cleverer,’ I agreed.
Ironic though it may sound, as I lay in bed listening to the relentless staccato of those spinning blades I genuinely thought how awful it must be to be a fugitive from the law with all this new twenty-first century technology to contend with. There was nowhere the police couldn’t find you once they were on your tail. I even thought, briefly, Poor guy.
Well, I assumed it was a man.
Bram, Word document
There was one news report – and only one – that I haven’t needed to remember word for word, because I kept a printout. You’ll find it among my paltry last effects in the hotel room.
Parents mourn their ‘special sunbeam’
The funeral of the tragic victim of the Silver Road collision, Ellie Rutherford, took place today at St Luke’s Church, Norwood, with the ten-year-old girl’s mother released from hospital to say farewell to her beloved daughter.
Many mourners wore yellow, Ellie’s favourite colour, and a yellow-and-white floral arrangement was placed on her coffin. Tim Rutherford, who spoke at the service, described his daughter as ‘our special sunbeam’, a child who loved writing stories and singing and who was proud to have been voted class captain for her final year at primary school. ‘Ten years old is old enough for you to be able to see the wonderful adult she would have become,’ he said.
Ellie died a week ago following an incident in September when her mother’s car was run off the road by a speeding vehicle. As relatives and road victim groups called for increased manpower in the police investigation, the girl’s uncle, Justin Rutherford, said, ‘You would think they’d have a suspect in custody by now. The whole family is desperate knowing that this criminal is still on our roads, putting other children’s lives at risk.’
Detective Inspector Gavin Reynolds said, ‘Police work is often a painstaking process of elimination, but we are confident we will find the offending driver and discover exactly what caused this fatal collision. Our thoughts are with Ellie’s family today,’ he added.
Writing this, I can only assume the Rutherfords know my name by now. They certainly will by the time you read this. I can only assume they must be hoping I’ll rot in hell.
31
‘Fi’s Story’ > 01:49:06
There were four of us for the half-term weekend – Alison, Merle, Kirsty and me – each with two children, so we made an easy dozen. When I arrived on the Thursday, the light on the Channel already in silvery decline, Leo and Harry didn’t even bother taking off their coats, but merged yelling into the spill of children and dogs in the wide garden that edged the sands. They would spend most of their time outdoors, though we drew the line at camping: the coastal winds could be biting at night.
I found the women in the sitting room, wine open in front of the fire. Though this was our fifth year, it was the first since the breakdown of my marriage and I could hear the echo in the room of a sworn vow to avoid the subject. Fine with me, I decided. Any horror stories this weekend would be purely Halloween based.
‘Hello, all!’ I displayed my offering: artisan gin from the farmers’ market.
Alison jumped up to hug me hello. ‘Oh my God, that stuff is moonshine, it’ll turn us blind. Glasses, girls!’
‘I
’ll do it,’ Merle offered, taking the bottle from me and heading for the kitchen.
‘You’re shaking. Come on the sofa nearest the fire,’ Alison said. ‘We’ve put Daisy in charge of the kids. Eleven is old enough to report a murder, isn’t it?’
I laughed. It was all too easy to settle in the lamplit room, old stone walls shutting out the elements and the gin and tonics Merle distributed smothering any real-world tensions.
‘Please can we not talk about school applications this weekend,’ Kirsty said, a statement not a request. ‘If we do, I’ll spontaneously combust.’
‘Fine with me,’ Alison said. ‘If I had my way, children would stay in primary school for ever and it would never occur to them that we’re not always right about absolutely everything.’
‘That’s the joy of having boys,’ I said. ‘As I understand it, they do believe it for ever.’
‘Oh, and house prices as well,’ Merle said. ‘Can we not talk about that? I’ve reached saturation point.’
Alison’s eyes went very wide. ‘That will be hard, but we can certainly try. First, though, can I just ask if anyone else has heard about the house on Alder Rise Road that’s just broken the three mil ceiling?’
‘Three million? Seriously?’
A familiar frisson of satisfaction sizzled between us: the only thing better than being a millionaire was being a millionaire without having lifted a finger.
(If that sounds smug and entitled, then just remember why I’m here talking to you now. There are no millions in my bank account, I can assure you.)
‘Was that an estate agent I saw at your place the other day?’ Kirsty asked me.
‘No, you must mean the Reeces’,’ I said. ‘I think they’ve changed agents.’
‘Theirs has been on the market for a while, hasn’t it?’ Alison said. ‘I wonder what the problem is?’
‘Sophie Reece told me they’ve turned down three low offers,’ Merle said. ‘They’re holding out for two point three.’
‘Where are they going, Sophie and Martin?’
‘Just to the other side of the park,’ I said. ‘A garden flat. They want to downsize.’
‘Downsize’ had to be one of the most feared words in the Alder Rise lexicon, associated as it was with divorce, empty-nesting, financial hardship – perhaps all three at once.
‘It will happen to us all sooner or later,’ Merle said, ‘and from what I’ve seen, when it’s time, you don’t fight it.’
She might have been talking about death.
‘Well, I can’t accept that,’ Alison said.
‘Funny, but I can. That must make me more middle-aged than you.’
Of course, Merle looked good enough to be able to make these remarks without a smidgen of self-doubt. Once upon a time, I might have had doubts enough for the two of us, but these days, what with my Pilates and the general overhaul involved when sleeping with someone new, it was different.
‘I agree with Merle. I dream of downsizing,’ Kirsty said. ‘Or at least my house with less stuff in it.’
‘Maybe that’s why you were the one who got burgled,’ Alison laughed. ‘They sensed your inner minimalist.’
‘Well, they won’t dare do it again, not with the nice yellow neighbourhood police signs up everywhere,’ Merle said. ‘They’re definitely working because there hasn’t been anything since.’
‘Fi’s car,’ Alison reminded her. ‘How long ago was that now?’
‘Almost a month,’ I complained. ‘We’re still waiting for the claim to be processed.’
‘The words “blood” and “stone” spring to mind,’ Kirsty said. ‘I told you we got nothing, didn’t I?’
‘And Carys said her son is still in dispute with the bank about her fraud,’ Alison said. ‘The police have said the money’s untraceable, so it’s down to whether or not the bank agrees to reimburse her.’
‘Bet they don’t!’
‘It’s almost reached the point where they’re more likely to pay out to the criminals than the victims,’ Alison said. ‘They probably have the unassailable human right not to be made to feel guilty.’
On it went. To the casual ear it was the same-old same-old, the relaxed banter of friends growing steadily tipsy, but I couldn’t help being sensitive to a new hairline fracture between the others and me. I was different now, single – or half single – a woman who had been humiliated and deceived. When they quizzed me about Toby, which they would soon enough, it would be with that vicarious relish that disguised real fear – fear of their own kingdoms crumbling. There but for the grace of God.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that critically. All three have been great friends to me. It’s just that I’m the odd one out and I see now that it was a process that began not when my house was stolen but when my trust in my husband was.
‘So, to get this straight,’ Alison said, ‘we’re not talking about schools, we’re not talking about property, we’re not talking about ageing . . .’
‘What is there left?’ Kirsty giggled. ‘Men?’
Here we go, I thought.
‘More gin?’ Alison’s eye swept the room’s surfaces, a searchlight exposing empty glasses.
In sloshed the rest of the gin. It wouldn’t be long before the bottles began to amass and we joked about how it might look to a child protection officer stumbling across us. Maybe when the kids were back inside waiting for their supper, occupying themselves as they had one year by lining up the empties and blowing across their tops. Making music out of their mothers’ ruin.
‘So, Fi, give us an update on your traffic expert . . .’
VictimFi
@alanaP Sounds like she’s as big a boozer as the ex.
@NJBurton @alanaP Wonder what he’s doing back home?
@alanaP @NJBurton Party time in the bird’s nest! Did you notice they joked about kids being murdered?
@NJBurton @alanaP Don’t! The house thing is enough to cope with without someone dying.
Bram, Word document
Survival, however temporary, owed a lot to compartmentalization, and I was becoming adept at sealing every last edge and corner of those compartments. The alternative was to lose my mind, take myself to the psychiatric ward, or to Waterloo Bridge, whichever happened to be closer. Even as Rav arrived with a colleague from Challoner’s to set up for the open day, I was picturing my own body falling, watching its unstoppable trajectory into the river, the greedy swallow of the water. And the spectators to this suicide: did people call for help any more or did they just film death on their phones and tweet it?
‘I’ve had a lot of interest,’ Rav said, and I feigned enthusiasm as he reported several booked appointments and more still to be confirmed.
‘They all know not to talk to other agents, right?’ My latest fear: a viewer who had seen the Reeces’ house would discuss this lower asking price, use it to negotiate with them. Sophie Reece would come around to discuss the situation with Fi. ‘I think you must have the wrong end of the stick,’ Fi would say, her brow creasing in that bemused way I used to find so cute. She hated discord between neighbours, went out of her way to protect the status quo. ‘Trust me, I think I’d know,’ she’d say, and Sophie would agree, there must have been a misunderstanding.
More usefully, the Reeces had a second home in France and went there every school holiday without fail. Unless I was very unlucky, they were away from the street exactly when I needed them to be.
‘Your wife’s not going to be here today?’ Rav said.
‘No, she’s away with the kids for a long weekend. Women and children only.’ The idea of that group of women spending three days drinking and putting the world to rights was an unsettling one – then again, it was hardly the most unsettling thing on my mind. If they had any notion of what I was doing now, a marital atrocity so heinous it made adultery seem like charity . . .
‘You drew the short straw then, eh?’ Rav’s assistant said. She was busy with a spectacular arrangement of lilies for the hall table
, their green stems were forked like antlers, pink mouths ready to seduce all who entered.
*
As Rav had promised, there were several interested parties, too many to recall individually but not enough to cause congestion. I skulked in the shadows, concentrating on not smoking, throwing ghostly smiles to anyone who approached.
‘You have a gorgeous house,’ they said, one after another. ‘Are you definitely in the catchment for Alder Rise Primary?’
‘Yes, and the Two Brewers,’ I said, but the joke fell flat, possibly because I looked so convincingly like a man in need of rehab.
Finally, as the last candidates of the day toured, I allowed myself a cigarette at the bottom of the garden, sitting on the edge of the playhouse deck. The ground was hardening with the first cold, curling golden leaves waiting to be kicked and crunched by the kids. It had been soft underfoot that night in July when my luck had finally expired. Nature had issued no helpful warning when Fi crept down the garden path towards us.
Oh Fi. No woman deserved less what she had coming.
‘That went very well,’ Rav said, when the doors were closed. ‘I’m confident we’ll have requests for second viewings after the weekend, if not our first offers.’
I fetched us beers from the fridge; playing the game was easier with alcohol – even this game. ‘How can they even afford this sort of price?’ I asked. ‘They can’t all have big banking jobs.’
‘They’re selling a flat or a cottage in Battersea or Clapham or Brixton. Maybe two. But you’re looking for a purchaser who isn’t selling as well, I know.’
‘Yes, we’d prefer not to be caught in a chain. We need this done quickly.’
‘That will be our priority. There’s often an inheritance floating around, so let’s see if we can’t find one of those.’
Which made me think of Fi – again – and her determination that the house should be inherited by Leo and Harry, and for a moment the fact of my standing here with the aim of selling their home from under them struck me as scientifically impossible, utterly severed from reality. Some karmic interconnectedness would stop this from proceeding: no one would make an offer, however low the price, and then I’d have done Mike’s bidding without inflicting any real damage. He and Wendy would slink from my life and into some other sucker’s.
Our House Page 18