Our House(103)

He must still be in the UK, then. Though bludgeoned by fatigue, her brain seems to know that a passport is required of UK citizens even for France or Ireland. Of course, he may have acquired a false one. If he can steal a house (half a house, technically), then he can buy illegal ID. The criminal underworld is his oyster, evidently, Toby his erstwhile travelling companion.

She experiences a rush of fury at the thought of Toby, which at least energizes her next spell of unpacking. Kitchen utensils, clothing, shoes, toys . . . on it goes. After an hour or so, she breaks to find something to eat and drink. There is nothing in the fridge, not even milk or water, just a bottle of red wine in the rack on the counter, and so she tries the top shelf of the cupboard where they keep pasta and other groceries. Instant noodles will do, or soup.

Immediately, her fingers find something flat and plastic. Behind the stocks of tinned tomatoes and crackers and teabags, there is a phone, a battered-looking Sony belonging to Bram, since it is definitely not hers, and with a charger lead attached. It’s dead, so she plugs it into the nearest socket, eats the crackers and drinks a glass of water while waiting for it to come to life.

When at last it responds, she finds herself looking at a home screen with neither passcode to crack nor contents to protect. No photos, no emails, no history of internet searches. There are, however, two text messages from an unnamed number. The first, dating from October and opened, reads, Uh oh, looks like someone’s getting her memory back . . . and links to an article about the Thornton Heath accident:

Road rage caused Silver Road crash, says victim





She knows who must have sent it even before she remembers those grotesque words in the car – ‘He ran another car off the road and it crashed . . . The kid died’ – and even before she opens the second message, sent earlier today and until now unread:

- Wtf going on with your phones? No answer from usual number. Fi on way back to London. Call ASAP.

Her anger returns in a torrent.

You’re obviously no use to anyone . . .

A younger, sexier model . . .

What kind of a dumb fuck . . .?

Almost immediately a new alert sounds and she sees that by opening the last message she has announced her presence – or Bram’s – to him.

- I know you’re there. Big problem, solicitor paid wrong account. Know anything about that?

She waits, breathless, for the next to land:

- No money, no passport – you know the deal. You have till Monday morning to sort this out or the evidence goes to the police.

No money, no passport? And yet Bram’s passport is here, in the flat. She can see the folder from where she’s standing. She was right then, there must have been a replacement one, procured by Toby and withheld until he’d received his pay-off. How cunning he has been – thought he had been. And yet he finds himself with nothing, because somehow Bram has triumphed, triumphed over all of them. And either he’s forgotten this second phone exists or he’s deliberately left it. Should she dispose of it? What is he expecting her to do?

Then she has a thought she hasn’t had before: this couldn’t have been . . . this couldn’t be Bram’s revenge for her having chosen Toby over him?

But no: Bram must have understood Toby’s interest in her was merely a pretence. She is ashamed to remember her own vanity that night Bram found Toby at Trinity Avenue: all her feminist faith, all her pride in her independence, and it comes down to the cavewoman excitement of two hunter-gatherers fighting over her.

Which it turns out they were not.

How pathetic she is. Homeless and defeated and debased.

As her eye rests on the bottle of wine, the phone starts to ring.


Lyon, 10.30 p.m.

He thought he would never sleep again, but in fact he passes out early and sleeps deeply that first night in Lyon, yanked to the surface only twice. The first time, the pea under his mattresses is a phone. The third phone, to be precise, the Sony Mike delivered to him at the office to replace the Samsung he’d smashed. He knows he never used it, but where did he leave it? In the office? In the flat?

Is there any way it could lead Mike to him here? No. His searches on Geneva and Lyon were made in the internet café in Croydon and his calls to Mike were from the pay-as-you-go, now sitting in the bottom of a bin at Victoria Station.

His eyes close.

His eyes open once more. There was that one text, wasn’t there? A link to a news piece about the Silver Road investigation. Is there any way that could lead the police to Mike?

Possibly. But maybe that would be no bad thing.


London, 10.30 p.m.

She declines five calls from him before sending a text of her own:

- Calm down. I’m at the flat.

- You fucking twat. Where’s the money?

- I have it, don’t worry. Mix up with account numbers. Come to flat and I’ll do the transfer while you’re here.

- Not sure flat is safe. Fi has been to house, had the police out.

- It’s clear. Police won’t come this late.

- You think?

- Come if you want the money. Your choice.





He must have driven like a bat out of hell because he arrives in minutes. When she presses the intercom button, he barks into it without waiting for a greeting: ‘Mike. Let me in.’

Mike? So Toby has been a fake right down to the name he fed her.