20
Friday, 13 January 2017
London, 2 p.m.
Lucy Vaughan’s husband David is a solid, fair-skinned man of about forty, his powers of leadership evident the moment he enters the house, his air of ownership. No sooner has he dissuaded Merle from phoning the police than he is making the calls he clearly thinks Lucy should have made the moment it became clear that allegations of a legal – and possibly financial – catastrophe have been made. If it angers him that neither his solicitor nor estate agent is immediately available, he does not show it. Colleagues of both proffer the ‘strange misunderstanding’ theory, he reports, and promise urgent returns of call.
‘Well, these are odd circumstances in which to meet,’ he says to Fi. Though his speech is self-assured, he regards her with perplexity, even caution.
‘They are,’ she says, unsmiling. It is remarkable how Merle’s presence has fortified her.
‘Mrs Lawson is a bit calmer now,’ Lucy tells him, as if to excuse Fi’s poor manners. ‘There was a scare about the whereabouts of her sons, but we’ve just found out they’re fine.’
That’s the working hypothesis then: it is Fi’s interpretation of events that is at fault and not the events themselves. She isn’t on top of arrangements, she gets confused. As it has been proven with the boys, so it will with the house – and Bram is not here to support her.
Merle, however, is. ‘Bram should have told Fi he was letting the boys miss school,’ she says. ‘Any mother would’ve had a nervous breakdown to discover that.’ She eyes Lucy sternly, as if she should be thoroughly ashamed of herself. ‘I’m guessing you don’t have children?’
‘Not yet,’ Lucy says.
‘Then you’ll have to take my word for it that there is no more terrifying a thought than their going missing. Now, I’m sure Fi is very grateful for the help you’ve given her in tracking them down, but we seem to have another mystery on our hands, don’t we?’ She blazes with intensity, never more charismatic than now, and Lucy gazes at her, spellbound. ‘You obviously understand that Fi disputes this claim about the house and would like you to leave. My suggestion is you do that while we locate Bram and all the paperwork that proves he and Fi are the owners, and then we can arrange a meeting to discuss this formally, perhaps on Monday at your solicitor’s office? In terms of your—’
‘Wait a minute,’ David interrupts sharply, breaking Merle’s hold. ‘We’re not going anywhere. This house was sold to us fair and square.’
‘I think you’ll find it wasn’t,’ Merle says.
‘And yet we’ve had all the verifications that completion took place this morning.’ He brandishes his phone and begins scrolling for the relevant emails, just as Lucy did earlier.
‘They must be fake,’ Merle says, just as Fi did. ‘Don’t click on any links, will you? They could trigger Trojan malware.’
‘Trojan malware? What on earth are you talking about? Look . . .’ As David hands her his phone, Merle scrutinizes the screen with scepticism before passing it to Fi. Though two of the messages are those from Bennett, Stafford & Co that Lucy has already shared, a third is from another conveyancing solicitor, Graham Jenson at Dixon Boyle & Co in Crystal Palace, who confirms receipt of the funds from Emma Gilchrist’s client account. It is dated 13 January and was sent just before 11 a.m.
‘Dixon Boyle are the Lawsons’ solicitors,’ David tells Merle, and a burning sensation starts to spread across Fi’s chest.
Merle, however, remains cool. ‘The Lawsons in quotation marks,’ she corrects him. ‘And I don’t see any proof of the transfer of deeds.’ Her manner is professional, as if the meeting is being monitored for official purposes and any time she fails to dispute an assertion of David’s, it will be entered into the record as fact.
‘That’s all done electronically,’ David says. ‘Perhaps it might be helpful if you check your bank account?’ he suggests to Fi.
‘If she doesn’t know anything about the sale, she’s hardly likely to have received the money,’ Merle points out, just short of scorn.
‘Sure, but just in case. We’d know the transaction definitely took place, even if she’s . . .’ He falters.
Forgotten, he means. That chronic attack of amnesia she’s suffering from. But when she sees an unusually colossal deposit among the debits for train tickets and groceries and school shoes she’ll think, Oh yes, I did sell my children’s home.
An iPad is produced, her bank’s website found, and it is all she can do to remember her customer ID and pin. At last, with David bearing down on her, she clears security.
‘Is it there?’
‘No.’ Both her own account and her joint account with Bram are untouched.
‘He has an individual account as well, does he?’ David persists.
‘Yes, but I don’t know the password for that. And his phone is out of service.’
Merle makes a fresh bid for command. ‘As I’ve been saying since I arrived, we need to get the police over here. If Bram’s phone’s out of action, there must be something wrong.’
‘A phone could be off for all sorts of reasons,’ David says.
‘Yes.’ Merle’s attention moves between the Vaughans and Fi. ‘But since Mrs Lawson knows nothing about this, don’t you think it’s possible that Mr Lawson doesn’t either? Maybe his identity has been stolen by mobsters, Fi. Maybe he was on to them in some way and they, I don’t know, retaliated.’
‘Mobsters?’ Fi echoes, a deeper new shock seizing her. ‘Retaliated?’
‘Yes, he could have been abducted or something. Perhaps he knew he was in danger and that’s why he arranged to keep the boys at his mother’s while you were away? Maybe he’s already involved the police and you’re under their protection without realizing it?’
‘That all sounds a bit melodramatic,’ David says. ‘You can’t just go around passing yourself off as other people in order to sell their property. You need passports, birth certificates, proper proof of ownership. Funds of this size are checked for money laundering – there are all sorts of hoops to jump through. I know because we’ve just done it.’
‘Even so, I can’t think of any better explanation,’ Merle says. ‘Can you?’
There is silence in the room, a collective sense of held breath. David glances at his wife, not yet ready to say the unsayable. Fi feels her face clenching as she struggles to keep from crying.
‘If you’re right, then this is horrific,’ Lucy says, finally.
‘It is horrific,’ Merle agrees. She turns to Fi with the air that while the Vaughans may have an interesting contribution to make, it is only Fi’s that matters. ‘If you want my opinion, Fi, we need to report an identity theft.’
Fi nods.
‘We need to report Bram missing. Missing and in danger.’
Geneva, 3 p.m.
As he leaves the restaurant, the wine having done nothing to ease the ferment of nerves in his gut, he is unsettled by the presence of a man standing close to the lift controls, his head angled in query as he watches Bram’s approach. He is in his early thirties, lofty, rough-skinned, dressed in a dark-grey suit and well-polished shoes. Business traveller – or plainclothes policeman? A concerned member of the public who has seen an Interpol appeal containing Bram’s photograph?
Bram considers bolting through the doors to the stairwell, but resists. No, calm down, act casual. Interpol appeal? There is self-preservation and then there are delusions of grandeur. Not unlike the sales career he has left behind, his survival is a matter of confidence trickery, and the person he most needs to trick is himself.
Even so, when the lift operates normally, not a word spoken between its occupants and Bram deposited safely at the ground floor, the relief he feels is savage.
Even so, when he slips into a pharmacy on his way back to the hotel, searching the aisles for a good pair of scissors, he glances over his shoulder more than once before he makes his selection and pays.