Our House(58)

‘How much?’ he demanded.

‘We agreed two point two.’

‘Undercutting the neighbour, good work. Accept any offer over two mil.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He didn’t move. One of my colleagues passed, a lunch bag from the sandwich bar next door in her hand. ‘Hi, Bram!’ she called.

Great. She knew my name even if I’d forgotten hers. And she’d seen me with Mike. Though he wore a black woollen hat low to the eyes, his bony facial features and brick-wall build were distinctive. (‘Yes, that was definitely the man I saw Bram with. They looked a bit shifty together, to be honest.’)

‘Look, Mike, you need to go. We can’t be seen together like this. Can you contact me in the usual way next time?’

He gave me a long look that said, You don’t give orders, I do. ‘Just make sure you keep on top of this agent, okay?’ he said, finally. ‘And we need the money from the car by the end of next week – I’m meeting a guy.’

‘What guy?’

‘Trust me, better if you don’t know.’

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.