Our House(77)
And that was it. Though shocking enough to cause me to shake, the interview nonetheless confirmed my instinct that the police didn’t know enough – if much at all – to build a case against me, and I could only assume that any case they were putting together was against either the suspected thief of our car or someone associated with a different vehicle altogether.
No one was going to remember anything new about a routine evening two and a half months ago, were they? Was it really possible I was going to get to the finish line undetected? Or was the human mind the erratic weapon the Rutherfords prayed it was? (‘Wait, there was a car, I thought it was going to hit my wing mirror. Definitely an Audi. The guy had curly hair . . .’)
Turning off the television, I found that opening a second bottle of wine helped me err on the side of optimism (the fact that mixing alcohol with my new medication was strictly forbidden gave me no pause whatsoever).
Waking the next morning, however, I couldn’t get the image of little Ellie from my mind, that photo of her in her bottle-green school jumper. She was like the girls in Leo’s class, maybe not the golden one, the popular one, but smart, good-natured, probably a little shy until she was with her friends and then she was bolder, more confident.
Just a sweet kid like yours or mine.
‘Fi’s Story’ > 02:30:15
No, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t give the Silver Road accident a second thought. In my defence, the police officer who’d come to question me about the car had never contacted me again and I’d probably read of countless other accidents since, countless other misfortunes. They weren’t exactly in short supply last year, were they?
Not once did Bram mention the Rutherfords to me, no. It was only after everything came to a head in the New Year that I heard their name at all.
40
Bram, Word document
It was mind-boggling how far the conveyancing process could progress without the need for face-to-face contact with a lawyer. Graham Jenson of Dixon Boyle & Co in Crystal Palace was selected by Mike, of course, presumably for his lack of reputation for excellence (indeed, on the legal ratings website I looked at, Jenson did not score spectacularly in client satisfaction). Like Rav, he was not part of our conspiracy and so once again I was simply to proceed as if the sale were happening normally. I set up a new email address in the name of A and F Lawson, shared the password with my overlords, and gave my pay-as-you-go number to Jenson and his trainee.
By early December, I’d collated the required paperwork and proofs of ID, filled in all the questionnaires, and supplied a mortgage redemption figure, which would be paid automatically on completion. Documents were shuttled in and out of the Trinity Avenue filing cabinet as I came and went according to the bird’s nest schedule. (In the unlikely event that Fi would want to look up something I’d removed, I knew she would simply assume it had been misfiled.) To avoid having packages arrive at Trinity Avenue in the post – I already knew to my cost that Fi had no qualms about opening mail addressed to me; well, these were addressed to her too – we agreed that Wendy should pick them up from the solicitor’s receptionist in person, using her practised Fiona Lawson signature whenever called for. She would then hand-deliver them to me at the flat and wait for me to add the requisite information or co-authorization before returning them to the solicitor at the next opportunity. The few documents that required witnesses to our signatures were rerouted to Mike to add whichever fabricated names and professions he saw fit. In the meantime, Wendy supplied Jenson with details of the holding account that would feed the closing payment to whatever offshore alternative Mike had opened using his fabled dark web contacts.
All of which was both insanely risky and insanely easy – considerably easier than it would have been had none of the conspirators owned fifty per cent of the property. That was the genius of the scheme, I have to hand it to Mike.
Though the buyers’ queries were minimal, their mortgage company required an on-site valuation, a non-negotiable element that could be scheduled only for a weekday. Though not without its stresses, this was child’s play compared to the open house: I arranged to work from home and requested that the surveyor come at noon, so he’d be gone well before Fi or her mother could return with the boys after school. The street was quiet, but I had prepared an excuse about roof repairs should anyone approach me with questions.
By mid-December, draft contracts had been drawn up and sent to the buyers’ solicitor.
Good work, amigo, Mike texted me, and there was a disorientating moment when I completely forgot myself and experienced pleasure in his rare praise. Then the horror returned, more oppressive, more sanity-eroding than ever.
The drugs weren’t working yet, evidently.
‘Fi’s Story’ > 02:30:45
I know it’s going to sound like I was making concession after concession, but you have to remember I was engaged in real-politik here. I was not in a position to take a strictly ethical stance. What I took was a strictly maternal one and on that score I have no regrets.
Because Bram was right about Leo and Harry being happy. They were really happy. I even saw them being nice to each other, like proper brothers in a book – I mean, not quite Swallows and Amazons, but nice by their standards.
There was a cold snap in early December and Trinity Avenue was a picture of iced shrubbery and shimmering mists. Christmas was in the air, always my favourite time of year. Once home from school, the boys preferred to stay there, abandoning the garden for the living room, with its wood burner and burrows of fur throws. Seeing them snuggled up together, pink-cheeked and sleepy-eyed, I was convinced anew of the beauty of our bird’s nest. That half-witnessed skirmish with Toby was likely nothing compared to the conflict Bram and I would be exposing them to if we’d remained together.