Our House(99)

They say all confessions are self-serving, don’t they? Well, hers was no exception. And, hand on heart, she can recall only a couple of lines in the whole interview that were outright lies.

*

She wonders sometimes why it was Merle she phoned that night and not Alison. It couldn’t have been simply because she’d seen her during the day, accepted her help in battling the Vaughans, in contacting solicitors and police and hospitals. Or that she’d said, when Fi had left, ‘Phone me if there’s anything I can do. Anything.’

I owe you.

Had she actually said that, in a whisper, or had Fi’s ears conjured it on the breeze?

Because Merle owed her all right. And now she has repaid her debt with interest. In the aftermath of it all, when Fi’s mind had been clogged and useless, Merle’s worked with clarity and verve.

It was Merle’s idea for her to get in touch with the makers of The Victim. The police had been progressing so torturously in their attempts to prove that the fraud was linked to the collision and other crimes, their questions for Fi probing so little, that it was messing with her mind. It was making her think they were withholding what they knew, lulling her into a false sense of security before staging their ambush.

‘There needs to be a statement out there,’ Merle said. ‘What you knew and when. We need to establish you as the injured party before anyone thinks to suggest otherwise.’

Fi had found the idea terrifying. ‘Why would I draw attention to myself like that? Those stories on The Victim get followed up in the Mail, all over the internet.’

‘Exactly. Why draw attention to yourself if you’re in any way at fault? This is public service, virtually an act of charity.’

She is a born strategist, Merle.

There’s a game Fi plays when she can’t sleep: she tries to remember her last moment of innocence, of ignorance – because they were, in the end, the same. The day is not in doubt: Friday, 13 January, of course, when she discovered Lucy Vaughan in her house, her furniture, her belongings, her rights, replaced by a stranger’s. But when precisely that day? Not when she heard about Challoner’s open house, nor when it emerged that Bram had a female accomplice, nor even when David announced the transfer of title deeds from the Lawsons to the Vaughans. No, it was in the evening, after she’d decamped to Merle’s house and Toby had arrived, and he was holding her, comforting her, listening to their story, the three of them cursing Bram and discussing where he might be hiding. Over the course of the afternoon, her last sense of possession of him had disintegrated, but Toby was there, Toby was her rock.

She’d forgotten that rock forms over many years, not in a matter of months.

Leaving Merle’s house that evening: that was probably the moment. Walking down the path, not allowing herself to turn towards her own beloved property, to see the lights blazing through old glass for the new owners.

Yes, she was still ignorant, still innocent, when she followed Toby to his car. She was like Leo’s old favourite Jemima Puddleduck, when she followed the fox to his kitchen, witlessly carrying the herbs to be used for her own stuffing.





50


Friday, 13 January 2017

London, 8.30 p.m.

She’s in Toby’s Toyota in the passenger seat and they’ve reached the junction with the Parade, but for some reason he’s turning left, not right, which isn’t the way around the park towards Baby Deco.

‘So, where do you think he is?’ Toby says, his tone so tense she glances up, startled. His jaw is set very tight, his shoulders clenched. Like Merle, he’s feeling the fury she can’t yet feel. She wants to capture his left hand in her right one, lace her fingers through his, but both his hands are busy at the wheel.

‘He could be anywhere,’ she says. ‘He’ll know the police will want to speak to him. At least they will once they have the evidence he’s acted criminally.’ She remembers the circumspection of the two officers, how they stopped well short of agreeing there’d been any wrongdoing. And the solicitor, Graham Jenson, was adamant that he had followed his clients’ instructions to the letter. There is going to be nothing swift about this process, no justice guaranteed.

‘There’ll be evidence, all right,’ Toby says, with a conviction bordering on viciousness. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

Her mind lags, her powers of reason are delayed, and she’s still stuck on ‘why?’ If Bram needed money in a hurry, why didn’t he make his case to her? Why didn’t he give her the chance to buy him out of his share of the house? And even once he’d convinced himself to act alone, wouldn’t the easier deception have been an application to re-mortgage and release equity, not sell the place outright?

The oncoming headlights are unnaturally clean in the dark, as if the air is purer than usual, and she stares into the dazzle. There is no music or radio on in the car and she can hear Toby breathing beside her.

She remembers a work event, a discussion about dignitaries from overseas. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your drinks thing? With the people from Singapore?’

He does not answer, but only repeats his earlier question: ‘Where else could he be?’

‘I’ve told you, I have no idea. Where are you going? Aren’t you taking me to the flat?’

‘In a while. Think, Fi.’