The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘There’s no point in having money if you’re not willing to spend it on the things that matter. I assume that if I was literally penniless, the government would have to provide me with somewhere to live – a room in a B&B, a council flat, benefits. I wouldn’t starve.’

  ‘Your figures don’t add up,’ says Kit, a triumphant sneer on his face. He ought to know better. When have my figures ever not added up? Hysteria bubbles up inside me. My life might be falling apart but my accounting skills have survived intact. Yippee. ‘You’re talking about borrowing nine hundred grand, but this letter’s offering 1.2 million.’ Kit hits it again with the back of his hand. ‘Where’s the missing three hundred grand going to come from?’

  ‘The sale of Melrose Cottage,’ I tell him. ‘You talked about magicking up a buyer? That’s exactly what I’ve done. A firm buyer who won’t let us down, so that we can make a deal with Selina Gane straight away and know it won’t fall through.’

  ‘Who? You’re talking crap! You haven’t had time to find anyone. The house isn’t even on the market! Your mum and dad aren’t going to help you bankrupt yourself, that’s for sure – they’d drop dead from a unanimous heart attack if they heard what I’ve just heard. Fran and Anton haven’t got any money. Who’s your buyer, Connie? You’re fucking delusional!’

  ‘We’re going to sell Melrose Cottage to ourselves. To Nulli.’

  No reaction.

  I press on. ‘Nulli has a hundred and fifty grand in its account at the moment, give or take. Legally, it’s a separate entity from you and me, even though we own it. It can borrow money in its own right. This is how it works: Nulli buys Melrose for three hundred grand. I don’t know, maybe it could even pay a bit over the odds – three hundred and twenty, say, or three hundred and fifty. Yes, come to think of it, I think Nulli might be so impressed with our high-spec interior, it won’t be able to resist offering an extra fifty grand to see off the competition. The surveyor will be told that’s the price the vendor and buyer agreed on, and won’t think to question it – three hundred and fifty grand isn’t unthinkable for our house, with all the work we’ve done to it.’

  ‘The work I’ve done,’ Kit mutters.

  I’m not going to argue with him. It’s a fair point. ‘Nulli puts down a hundred grand toward Melrose, borrows two hundred and fifty,’ I say. ‘The fifty grand left in the company account would then cover the stamp duty on Melrose, legal costs, everything – there might even be some left over for salaries.’ You have to laugh, don’t you, Kit? Or else you cry. ‘Soon as Nulli owns Melrose, it puts it up for sale. Shouldn’t take too long to sell. Someone I went to school with will buy it, or one of Mum and Dad’s friends who wants to downsize now that their kids have left home. Meanwhile, we’ll have got a lump sum from selling our house – we’ll have three hundred and fifty grand in cash. We put down three hundred towards 11 Bentley Grove and borrow nine hundred. ‘No,’ I correct myself. ‘Sorry. We put down two ninety, borrow nine hundred and ten. The sixty we don’t put down from the sale of Melrose covers stamp duty, which’ll be colossal, and legal costs. Soon as Melrose sells to a genuine buyer, Nulli gets two hundred and ninety grand back, and ends up only sixty grand out of pocket. And it won’t really be out of pocket at all, because it’s us and we’re it – we’ll have made use of that sixty grand already. Apart from anything else, it’s a brilliant way of getting a huge amount of money out of the company tax-free.’

  Kit says nothing, doesn’t even blink. Perhaps he’s dead; I’ve shocked the life out of him.

  ‘At first I thought Nulli could buy 11 Bentley Grove, but that wouldn’t work,’ I say. ‘I need to move in, live there – I won’t find out anything if I’m not there. If Nulli owns the house and I live there, it becomes a taxable benefit in kind. Plus, a private bank wouldn’t lend Nulli anywhere near as much as it’d lend us, and it’d charge twice as much interest – the terms for commercial loans are much tougher than for personal mortgages. This way round, it’s perfect. Nulli buys Melrose, which we’re no longer living in, so it isn’t a taxable benefit – it’s an investment. We feed the bank some crap about maybe renting it out.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Kit bellows. ‘I don’t want to hear any more, just…stop.’

  Obediently, I wait in silence for him to be ready to tear me to pieces. He’s not an impulsive person, Kit. He’ll want to rehearse his attack first.

  Everyone in the restaurant is watching us and trying to pretend they’re not. I consider making a public announcement: Don’t bother with the subtlety. We’re beyond caring what anybody thinks of us.

  Suddenly, desperately, I want a Kir Royale. This is a Kir Royale sort of place. Why would anybody want to drink anything else, in this lime and purple velvet room with its soft lighting and river views?

  I can’t ask for a Kir Royale. It wouldn’t be right. Inappropriate. Crazy Connie.

  ‘Do you have any idea how fucked up this is?’ Kit says after a few minutes. He’s lowered his voice to a whisper; perhaps he does care about making a good impression, even now. I remind myself that I know nothing about him, nothing that matters. ‘You say, “We’ll have made use of that sixty grand already,” as if there’s a profit in this for us! Yeah, we’ll have made use of the sixty grand – hooray. We’ll have used it to buy a house we’ll lose within two to five years because we can’t afford it. And Nulli, that we’ve taken so long to build up and poured all our effort and energy into – Nulli’ll go down the tubes. By the time the sale of Melrose Cottage to a legitimate buyer completes, we’ll have had, what? Two, three months of not being able to pay anybody?’

  ‘You’re right,’ I cut him off. ‘Nulli will be a casualty of the plan, almost certainly. And we’ll lose both houses, Melrose Cottage and 11 Bentley Grove. On the plus side, if 11 Bentley Grove is repossessed, we might get some equity out of it, depending on what the bank sells it for. And when Nulli sells Melrose, even if it’s in the process of folding by then, that’s three hundred grand that’ll come back to us, minus the costs associated with going bankrupt.’

  ‘We’ll be left with nothing,’ says Kit, his voice leaden with misery. ‘That’s the one thing all people who go bankrupt have in common. Use your brain, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘I think you’re being too pessimistic,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll get something out of it. Remember, there are two houses to sell to generate funds.’ Time to be generous. Incentivise him. ‘You can have all of it,’ I say. ‘Everything we’re left with at the end of all this. I meant what I said: I don’t care if I end up poor and homeless.’ A voice in my head – my mother’s, probably – says, It’s all very well saying you don’t care. You should care.

  But I don’t.

  ‘I need to know the truth,’ I tell Kit. ‘I may never find out, but if I do, this is how it’s going to happen. This plan is the beginning of me maybe getting some answers to my questions.’

  1.2 million pounds. The most expensive answer in the history of the world.

  ‘If I say no, you’re going to divorce me, right?’ Kit says.

  I nod.

  ‘What happens to our marriage if I say yes?’

  ‘That depends. If I find out the truth, and the truth is that you’re not a liar, not a murderer…’ I shrug. ‘Maybe we can find a way back, but…’ I stop. It’s not fair to offer him false hope, even if it would further my cause. ‘I think our marriage is probably over either way,’ I say.

  ‘It’s what your average dimwit-on-the-street would call a “no-brainer”.’ Kit’s smile is shaky. ‘If my choice is between definitely losing the woman I love and only probably losing her, I’m going to have to opt for only probably.’ He stands up. ‘I’ll sign anything you want me to sign. Just say the word. You know where to find me.’

  18

  23/7/2010

  ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘Hello to you too.’ Charlie made a rude face at the phone. ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking. Where are you?’

  ‘Get hold of Ali
ce Fancourt, arrange to see her as soon as you can. Alice Bean, sorry – she’s dropped the Fancourt. Find out when she last saw Connie Bowskill and what—’

  ‘Who-oa, hang on a minute.’ This was the sort of conversation that demanded the accompaniment of a glass of wine: cold, white, bone dry. Charlie hit the pause button on the remote control, hauled herself up off the sofa and pulled the lounge curtains closed, or as near to closed as they’d go. They didn’t quite meet in the middle; she’d made a pig’s ear of hanging them. Liv had said, ‘Take them down and rehang them, then – properly’, but as far as Charlie was concerned, curtains fell into the category of things that only got one chance. So did sisters.

  She would never have admitted it to anybody, but she was pleased to be home – queen once more of a small, badly decorated terraced house, no longer an outsider in paradise. ‘Connie Bowskill knows Alice?’ she said, swallowing a yawn.

  ‘Alice is her homeopath,’ said Simon. ‘I need to know when she last saw her, what Connie said, if she’s got any idea where Connie is now.’

  ‘At the risk of sounding selfish, what does that list of needs have to do with me? I was watching a DVD.’ So far it was brilliant. Orphan. It featured a psychotic adoptee protagonist called Esther who seemed intent on killing all her siblings. Charlie identified with her hugely, though she suspected that wasn’t the reaction the director had been hoping for.

  ‘I can’t talk to Alice, can I?’ Simon said impatiently.

  ‘You both have mouths and ears, last time I checked. You mean you don’t want to talk to her.’ Charlie poured herself a glass of wine, glad he wasn’t there in person to see her smile. The smile faded as it occurred to her that his not wanting to speak to Alice could be interpreted in a range of ways: dislike, embarrassment, an aversion to revisiting the past. Any of those would be okay, Charlie thought, putting the wine back in the fridge. Searing unrequited love – the kind that knows it would be magnified to greater agony by confrontation with its object. No. Ridiculous. It was clear from his tone that Alice was a means to an end. Connie Bowskill was the one he was interested in now. And no, Charlie told herself firmly – not in that way.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to Alice, no,’ said Simon.

  Neither did Charlie, but she knew what would happen if she refused: he would overcome his reluctance and do what he had to do to get the information he wanted. This was her opportunity to prevent a reunion. ‘Fine, I’ll do it. Where are you?’

  ‘In Cambridge still.’

  ‘Are you coming home?’

  ‘No. I’m going to Bracknell to talk to Kit Bowskill’s parents.’

  ‘Now? It’ll be midnight by the time you get there.’

  ‘They’re expecting me first thing in the morning. I’ll camp in my car outside their house.’ Anticipating her objection, he said, ‘There’s no point me coming back just to spend a few hours in bed. I wouldn’t sleep anyway.’

  As if there was nothing to do in bed apart from sleep.

  ‘So…’ He was going too fast for her. ‘Kit Bowskill gave you his parents’ phone number?’ Why would he do that? Why would Simon ask for it?

  ‘Directory Enquiries did. There was only one Bowskill in Bracknell – N for Nigel.’

  ‘But…you met Kit Bowskill?’

  ‘Yeah. Asked him three times what caused the rift between him and his folks. First two times he dodged the question. It was his third answer that convinced me he’s hiding something that matters. He gave me what sounded on the face of it like a full answer, but it was all psycho-babble – used a lot of words to distract me, so I wouldn’t notice he was telling me nothing. He said his mum and dad wouldn’t “rally round”, wouldn’t be a family to Connie when she needed them. That could mean almost anything.’

  ‘Might he have decided it was none of your business?’ Charlie asked. She could understand Kit Bowskill’s disinclination to discuss a traumatically severed relationship with a brusque detective he’d never met before.

  ‘No. He was scared.’ After a pause, Simon added, ‘He’s the bad guy. Don’t ask me to prove it because I can’t. Yet.’

  ‘You don’t even know there is a bad guy.’

  ‘He told me Connie doesn’t want to speak to me – she’s angry with me for going away without telling her. Does that sound likely?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘I was angry with you earlier, when you set off to Cambridge without telling me. I could have come with you.’

  ‘What if he’s killed her too, and that’s the reason she isn’t answering her phone?’

  ‘Pure invention, Simon.’

  ‘How many people do you know who cut their parents out of their lives?’

  ‘You’re obsessed with Kit Bowskill’s bloody parents,’ Charlie grumbled.

  ‘From now on, it’s my guiding principle: any time I’ve got two people saying different things and I don’t know which to believe, if one of them’s disowned the two people who brought them into this world, I’m going to believe the other one.’

  ‘That’s…really absurd.’ Charlie laughed and took a sip of her drink.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Wow – what a convincing argument.’

  ‘Every day of my life I think about my mum dying – every single day. I think about how free I’d feel. And then I realise she’ll probably live for another thirty years.’

  Charlie waited. Counted the seconds: one, two, three, four, five, six…

  ‘The point is, I wouldn’t ever say to her, “Sorry, you’re out of my life,”’ Simon went on. ‘Anyone with a heart knows how it’d make any parent feel to hear those words, anyone with the ability to empathise even a fraction…’ The breathing in between the words was louder than the words. Simon wouldn’t have been willing to have this conversation in person, Charlie guessed; only the distance made it possible for him. ‘No child should ever renounce its parents, not without a rock-solid reason,’ he said. ‘Not unless it’s life or death.’

  Charlie wasn’t sure she agreed, but she made a noise that would allow Simon to think she did. ‘If Kit Bowskill doesn’t want to tell you what happened, chances are his mum and dad won’t either,’ she said.

  ‘Risk I have to take.’

  Accept it, Zailer: he’s not coming home.

  Charlie carried her wine through to the lounge and flopped down on the sofa. Psychotic orphan Esther, fixed in place, scowled at her from the TV screen. ‘Even if the parents tell you what the rift was about, so what?’ she said. ‘How can it have anything to do with Connie seeing a dead woman on a property website? Assuming she saw any such thing. I’m still not convinced – I don’t care how many independent witnesses have come forward.’ Her camera was sitting on the sofa arm beside her. She put down her drink and picked it up. Since getting back from Spain, she’d kept it with her all the time – next to her side of the bed while she slept, on the bathroom windowsill while she was in the bath. She was addicted to looking at her photos of Los Delfines.

  ‘Independent,’ said Simon. ‘Interesting choice of word.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Charlie was staring at a tiny sweaty Domingo, leaning against the trunk of the upside-down lily tree.

  ‘Two people see the dead woman’s body on Roundthehouses: Connie Bowskill and Jackie Napier. No one else. Does it seem likely to you that the only two people to see this dead body on the website – for the brief half hour that it’s up there, before it’s replaced – happen to be these two people? Think of all the millions that might have seen it.’

  ‘Likely?’ Charlie made a ‘silent scream’ face. ‘Simon, we left likely behind several light years ago. None of this is likely. I still think it’s some kind of…bizarre practical joke. There’s absolutely no evidence – proper evidence, I’m talking about – that anyone’s been killed, hurt, anything. Oh, my God!’

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s hideous. It’s fucking hideous!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The face! In the mountain. It’s
so obvious now that I can see it: eyes, nose, mouth.’ Charlie pressed the zoom button on her camera. ‘I asked you if it was attractive – why didn’t you tell me it was a complete minger? It looks like Jabba the Hut from Star Wars.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can see it?’ Simon sounded irritated. ‘You’re at home.’

  ‘On my camera.’

  ‘There’s no way a photograph could—’

  ‘It’s that panoramic one, the one I took from the top terrace. Pool, barbecue, gardens, mountain – complete with ugly face.’

  ‘The face I saw wouldn’t show up in a photograph,’ said Simon.

  ‘Simon, I’m looking at a face here. How many faces can one mountain have?’

  ‘You can’t tell anything from a picture,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Did the face you saw look like Jabba the Hut from Star Wars?’

  There was a pause. Then Simon said, ‘If you didn’t see it first-hand, you can’t claim to have seen it – not on the basis of a tiny photo.’

  ‘To whom can I not claim that?’ Charlie teased him. ‘The Board of Mountain Face Classification? What does it matter if I see it too? Does it make you less special?’

  ‘No.’ He sounded confused by her question. ‘I wanted you to see it, but you didn’t. Seeing it in a photograph’s not the same.’

  ‘No, it’s different. But I can still see it.’

  ‘Not in the mountain.’

  Charlie held the phone at a distance and blew a raspberry into it – a long, loud one. When she put it next to her ear again, Simon was talking so quickly that she couldn’t follow what he was saying. Something about someone called Basil. ‘Slow down,’ she told him. ‘I missed the beginning of that. Start again.’

  ‘Basil Lambert-Wall,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Professor Sir, the one who lives on Bentley Grove, Selina Gane’s next-door neighbour. He said he’d seen Kit Bowskill before, remember, when I showed him a photo? Said Bowskill had fitted a burglar alarm for him?’

  Charlie remembered. ‘And then you went to the burglar alarm company, who said they didn’t recognise Bowskill and he didn’t work there.’