Page 48 of The New House

I take a picture of the lawyer’s letter with my phone and put the folder back on the bookshelf. It’s only then I notice a box file casually lying on the windowsill.

Birth certificate, passport, will, car title, house deeds. All of them right there for anyone to find. I take the deeds, and put everything else back. Another couple of minutes, and I’ll be out of here.

I flip open Felix’s laptop.

There’s just one more thing I have to do first.

chapter 30

stacey

The picnic was Millie’s idea. She suggested an afternoon at the Hurlingham Club: she and Stacey could bring Peter and Archie; Harper would come with her two little boys. No husbands: that way Felix couldn’t object to being excluded.

Stacey isn’t sure about Harper Conway. She’s only met the girl once, at the charity gala six weeks ago, and Harper got very drunk and didn’t exactly cover herself in glory. Stacey’s very careful about who she admits to her inner circle: she has to be. She’s been stung more than once by ‘friends’ selling stories about her to the tabloids. And Harper makes a living from social media: there’s no such thing as bad publicity for her.

But Millie has vouched for Harper. And the truth is Stacey could use some of the younger woman’s lustre rubbing off on her.

The same day she discovered Felix might lose his job, and quite possibly all their money, Stacey learned she was being bumped from theMorning Express Showto the breakfast slot instead. The network wanted to go in a different direction, her agent said. They didn’t feel she and Brendan had theright chemistry.

She’s being replaced by the Friday guest presenter, Zee Tobin. Zee is eleven years younger than Stacey and doesn’t have a fraction of her experience. She fluffs her lines and asks intervieweesif that makes you sadand she doesn’t poll nearly as well as Stacey with their loyalMorning Expressviewers: Zee’s numbers for relatability and likeability are way below hers. But the girl’s TikTok and Instagram followers are ten times bigger and the network’s chasing a younger demographic these days.

Zee’s also sleeping with Brendan – that must be thechemistrythe producers were talking about.

The network presented the move as a promotion to the ‘prestige’ morning slot, but it’s clear to everyone she’s being shunted sideways. As of September, she’ll be getting up at 3.30 a.m. five mornings a week while Zee sleeps in till seven and hoovers up all the lucrative sponsorships that come with hosting a mid-morning magazine show.

Stacey’s career isn’t over yet: there’s a Zoom meeting in the works with an agent in LA to discuss a possible move to one of the US networks. But when she tried to discuss it with Felix, he instantly shut her down.Are you insane? I’ll never get another job if I leave London!

Millie says she has to free herself from Felix. She says he’s an anchor weighing her down.

‘We’ve been lucky with the weather today,’ Harper comments now, as they walk past the croquet lawn to the open-air swimming pool. ‘The rain last night was insane. It took Kyle forever to get home after the Tube flooded again.’

‘That’s what happens when you pave over all the front gardens and dig iceberg basements so the water has nowhere to drain,’ Millie says.

Peter and Archie run on ahead with Harper’s two boys, Tyler and Lucas, and Millie quickens her pace to keep up with them. ‘Peter’s not a strong swimmer,’ she says, switching a straw shopper burdened with towels and sunscreen to the other hand. ‘I want to keep an eye on him. You guys can catch me up – I’ll grab us some sunloungers.’

Millie’s son is a good-looking boy – only to be expected with a mother who looks like Millie. His freckled face is wide and open, and his thatch of thick, honey-coloured hair flops endearingly into long-lashed tawny eyes. Stacey guesses he’s going to be a heartbreaker when he’s older.

Her own son is in the same school year as Peter, but he looks closer in age to Harper’s boys. Pale and gangly.Thin. Felix says Archie looks just like he did himself at that age, and her husband has certainly grown into a handsome, if saturnine, man, his face an arresting combination of sharp planes and tight angles. But it’s not just the way Archielooks. His whole demeanour is that of one of life’s victims. He was bullied at Asher Brook Primary and now the same thing’s happening at the expensive boarding school in Edinburgh that was supposed to be the making of him. She wishes he had a tenth of Peter Downton’s confidence.

She and Harper join Millie by the pool. All four boys have already stripped off and are in the water, shouting and splashing, Peter in the thick of them. He seems like a strong swimmer to Stacey.

She watches Millie’s boy haul himself out of the pool and dive-bomb back in, his tanned, muscular limbs in sharp contrast to Archie’s feeble spaghetti arms and scrawny white legs. The two young Conway brothers follow Peter’s lead, smacking into the water like bowling balls and drenching everything within a ten-foot radius. Only Archie hangs back from the ruckus, doggy-paddling at the shallow end.

‘What’shedoing here?’ Millie demands suddenly.

Stacey turns towards the clubhouse. Felix is striding alongside the pool towards them, his formal grey suit – why is he wearing a suit? It’s the weekend! – jarringly out of place amid the families in shorts and T-shirts and swimsuits.

Stacey puts her beach bag down on the nearest sunlounger. She deliberately didn’t tell her husband where she would be. ‘How did you find me?’ she asks.

Felix skirts a little girl nerving herself up to jump into the pool. ‘Phone,’ he says shortly.

‘Youtrackedher?’ Millie exclaims.

Felix ignores her. ‘You didn’t pick up when I called,’ he tells his wife.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t hear my phone—’

He takes her upper arm. ‘Never mind that now. I need to talk to you.’

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