‘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.’
Only then does she understand that he is circling the roads of Alder Rise and its environs, physically patrolling for Bram. ‘He won’t be anywhere near here, that’s for sure. Toby, I know you’re trying to help and I’m really grateful, but I just want to get to the flat and rest for a couple of hours. My head is killing me.’
‘Your head.’ He sniggers unpleasantly. ‘Well, in that case . . .’
She frowns. Something is not right. It wasn’t right in Merle’s house, either, she realizes. It’s as if he’s raging not on her behalf, but on his own.
She rewinds. ‘How did you know something was wrong? Okay, I didn’t text you that I’d got back, but that’s no big deal. Definitely not enough for you to ditch a work event and come and find me.’ To go to the house and look for Bram, not her. Where the fuck is Bram? ‘What’s going on, Toby?’
He sighs, too impatient to explain, his eyes scanning the passing pedestrians with professional attention.
It doesn’t take long, even for a pulverized brain, to locate the only imaginable link. ‘Is this to do with your job? You know Bram from some work situation?’
He says nothing, lips sucked shut. She extracts from memory an image of the only occasion the two men met, when Bram was so threatening, unforgivably so, and Toby so controlled. Had he been a little too controlled? Like someone with training?
‘You don’t work for that think tank, do you? You work for the police. You’ve been investigating him. All this time, you’ve been investigating him. Is that why you’ve been seeing me? To get close to him.’ She flushes, unsure if the heat is from shock or shame. ‘Is it to do with this house situation? Do you work for the Fraud Office?’ As her brain misfires, her voice rises. ‘Couldn’t you have stopped this? Before the contracts were exchanged? Why didn’t you stop this?’
‘Stop asking questions,’ Toby snaps, ‘for fuck’s sake, shut up for half a minute, can’t you! You’re doing my head in with your whining.’
She gasps, shrinks against the seat as if thrown by force, but her alarmed response does nothing to dim his anger.
‘Seriously, you’re spewing out questions and not waiting for the answers. Calm down, Fi.’
She whimpers, ‘I can’t believe you’re speaking to me like this. You’re the one who—’
‘Just listen. If you want to know, I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to shut up and let me speak.’ He pauses, eyes fixed ahead, though they are sitting now in a queue of cars at a set of red lights, going nowhere. ‘I’m not a fraud investigator, I’m not a detective, I don’t work for the government or any other organization. There are no dignitaries waiting for me in town with a glass of fucking champagne!’
‘But you said your work was about traffic congestion. You said—’
‘Jesus Christ, I haven’t got time for this.’ He turns, sneering at her. ‘Read my lips: I made it up. Every word I said came from an article in the Standard. I couldn’t believe it when you believed me. I mean, how gullible are you? No wonder you’ve just been shafted the way you have. And that whole bird’s nest thing, what kind of a dumb fuck would do that with a guy like him? It wasn’t even his idea, it was yours!’
A shake is starting up in her arms, tears rising in her eyes. He’s a different man, he’s sharp and menacing, full of loathing.
He’s not on the side she thought he was on.
And now he’s through the lights and turning from the main road into a side street; he’s pulling over far from any streetlamp. She doesn’t know the road, has lost track of how far they’ve come, and there is no other traffic, no one passing on foot. The lit windows of the houses are set back from the road. Oh God. She scans the switches in front of her, searching for the door lock release.
‘Now,’ Toby says, unbuckling his seatbelt and drawing closer, ‘bleed though my heart does for you, I need to know where your husband is. I’m not interested in anything else, do you understand?’
She’s sure she’s located the switch, down there by the gearstick. If she reaches with her right hand before opening the door with her left . . .
But then she has the thought that immobilizes her once and for all, the worst thought of any: ‘Were you . . . Were you in on this house scam?’
Toby throws up his right hand, face enraged afresh, and she recoils once more. ‘I’m the one who’s been scammed! Where’s the money?’ The hand lands on her left shoulder, pins her painfully to the seat. ‘He’s told you, hasn’t he? He’s tried to hide it for you and your fucking rugrats. Are you joining him somewhere? Where? Where?’
She stares at him, terrified. ‘I know nothing whatsoever! The solicitor said the sale went through exactly as it was supposed to. He said—’
‘That’s bollocks!’ His voice explodes in the sealed car. ‘We spoke to them and they had an order from him to change the account at the last minute. So where the fuck is it? What other accounts do you two have?’
She thought she’d used every last drop of adrenaline, but a valve opens and thrusts her forward to take him on. ‘There are no other accounts, Toby. How on earth would I know where the money is, when I don’t know a single other thing about this mess? And if you are involved, you can’t seriously have expected to have a huge sum like that land in your account and just be able to start spending it? The Inland Revenue would want to know where it came from, probably the police too. It would never have worked, the money would have been seized. It still will be, half of it is mine, not his!’
Toby jeers at this. ‘If he’d used the account he was supposed to, it would never have been traced. We find him, we get the money.’
‘We? You mean—?’
‘Not you,’ he cuts in.
The fake Mrs Lawson. The impostor.
‘Who’s the woman?’ she demands.
‘You don’t need to know.’
‘I don’t need to know? It’s my house, Toby!’
‘Not any more, love.’
‘Who is she? What’s her name?’
‘Fiona Lawson,’ he says, smirking. ‘A slightly younger, sexier model, admittedly. Don’t take my word for it. Ask Bram, he’s the one who fucked her.’
At last he releases her shoulder from his grip and she can breathe freely. The pounding of her heart is louder than their voices.