Fi returns the phone to her. ‘All of this means nothing. They could be fakes. Phishing or something.’

‘Phishing?’

‘Yes, we had a whole talk about neighbourhood crime a few months ago at Merle’s house and the officer told us all about it. Fake emails and invoices look very convincing now. Even the experts can be taken in.’

Lucy gives an exasperated half smile. ‘They’re real, I promise you. It’s all real. The funds will have been transferred to your account by now.’

‘What funds?’

‘The money we paid for this house! I’m sorry, but I can’t go on repeating this, Mrs Lawson.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ Fi snaps. ‘I’m telling you you must have made a mistake. I’m telling you it’s not possible for you to have bought a house that was never for sale.’

‘But it was for sale, of course it was. Otherwise, we could never have bought it.’

Fi stares at Lucy, utterly disorientated. What she is saying, what she is doing, is complete lunacy and yet she doesn’t look like a madwoman. No, Lucy looks like a woman convinced that the person she is talking to is the deranged one.

‘Maybe you ought to phone your husband,’ Lucy says, finally.

Geneva, 1.30 p.m.

He lies on the bed in his hotel room, arms and legs twitching. The mattress is a good one, designed to absorb sleeplessness, passion, deepest nightmare, but it fails to ease agitation like his. Not even the two antidepressants he’s taken have subdued him. Perhaps it’s the planes making him crazy, the pitiless way they grind in and out, one after another, groaning under their own weight. More likely it’s the terror of what he’s done, the dawning understanding of all that he’s sacrificed.

Because it’s real now. The Swiss clock has struck. One thirty here, twelve thirty in London. He is now in body what he has been in his mind for weeks: a fugitive, a man cast adrift by his own hand. He realizes that he’s been hoping there’ll be, in some bleak way, relief, but now the time has come there is something bleaker: none. Only the same sickening brew of emotions he’s felt since leaving the house early this morning, somehow both grimly fatalistic and wired for survival.

Oh, God. Oh, Fi. Does she know yet? Someone will have seen, surely? Someone will have phoned her with the news. She might even be on her way to the house already.

He shuffles upright, his back against the headboard, and tries to find a focus in the room. The armchair is red leatherette, the desk black veneer. A return to a 1980s aesthetic, more unsettling than it has any right to be. He swings his legs over the side of the bed. The flooring is warm on bare feet; vinyl or something else man-made. Fi would know what the material is, she has a passion for interiors.

The thought causes a spasm of pain, a new breathlessness. He rises, seeking air – the room, on the fifth floor, is ablaze with central heating – but behind the complicated curtain arrangement the windows are sealed. Cars, white and black and silver, streak along the carriageways between hotel and airport building and, beyond, the mountains divide and shelter, their white peaks tinged peppermint blue. Trapped, he turns once more to face the room, thinking, unexpectedly, of his father. His fingers reach for the armchair, grip the seat-back. He does not remember the name of this hotel, which he chose for its nearness to the airport, but knows that it is as soulless a place as he deserves.

Because he’s sold his soul, that’s what he’s done. He’s sold his soul.

But not so long ago that he’s forgotten how it feels to have one.

2

March 2017

Welcome to the website of The Victim, the acclaimed crime podcast and winner of a National Documentary Podcast Listeners’ Award. Each episode tells the true story of a crime directly in the words of the victim. The Victim is not an investigation, but a privileged insight into an innocent person’s suffering. From stalking to identity theft, domestic abuse to property fraud, the experience of each victim is a terrifying journey that you are invited to share – and a cautionary tale for our times.

Brand new episode ‘Fi’s Story’ is available now! Listen here on the website or on one of multiple podcast apps. And don’t forget to tweet your theories as you listen using #VictimFi

Caution: contains strong language

Season Two, Episode Three: ‘Fi’s Story’ > 00:00:00

My name is Fiona Lawson and I’m forty-two years old. I can’t tell you where I live, only where I used to, because six weeks ago my husband sold our home without my knowledge or consent. I know I should say ‘allege’, that I should say it before everything, so how about this: I ‘allege’ that what I say in this interview is the truth. I mean, legal contracts don’t lie, do they? And his signature has been authenticated by the experts. Yes, the finer details of the crime are still to be revealed – including the identity of his accomplice – but as you can appreciate I’m still coming to terms with the central fact that I no longer have a home.

I no longer have a home!

Of course, once you’ve heard my story you’ll think I have no one to blame but myself – just like your audience will. I know how it works. They’ll all be on Twitter saying how clueless I am. And I get it. I listened to the whole of Season One and I did exactly that myself. There’s a thin line between a victim and a fool.