Page 60 of The New House

I have a confession to make: I haven’t beenentirelyhonest with you.

I know, I know. But cut me a little slack: I wanted us to get to know each other before I hit you with the whole truth. And I think we’ve developed a bit of a rapport, don’t you? Come on, I know you’re warming to me.

[Laughter]

Don’t feel bad about it. I’ve gone out of my way to make you like me. And I’m very good at my job. If I’d ever been tried before a jury of my peers, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

First, I want to make it clear: I don’t have any deaths on my conscience. Despite what you’ve heard,I’mthe wronged party in all of this.

The night of the charity gala, that night when everyone met for the first time, a tragic series of events was set in motion. Until then, you just had six ordinary people linked only by a simple desire to sell their houses.

But something changed for everyone that night. Our lives got tangled together. We became part of each other’s stories – with disastrous consequences.

A small quirk of fate, and it could all have turned out so differently. Sometimes all it takes is for the wrong person to cross your path at the wrong time.

I’m not to blame for what happened that autumn. It took a perfect storm of circumstances: every single person involved in the drama played their part.

What if the estate agent had got stuck intraffic the day of the viewing and someone else had got their bid in first?

What if the mortgage broker hadn’t listened to her voicemail?

I can see you all sitting there smugly telling yourselvesyou’dnever have taken the law into your own hands, no matter what the provocation. You’re not capable of killing someone in cold blood, right?

Self-defence, maybe. Or to protect your family.

But nevermurder.

Granted, I was born without the lead boots you call conscience, so when the pressure is on, I can soar far above you.

It might have takenyoua little longer to shake off the shackles, but you’d have got there in the end. Trust me, your red lines aren’t where youthinkthey are.

You’ve no idea what you’d do until you’re put to the test. You could find out you’re a very different person from the one you’ve always imagined you are.

Who knows: maybe you’ll discover a heroism and self-sacrifice you never expected. One of the things that struck me after 9/11 was the extraordinary bravery and altruism of very ordinary people like the firefighters who kept going up the towers to what they knew was their likely deaths, or the passengers on Flight 93 who forced their doomed plane to crash in an empty Pennsylvania field to save those on the ground.

But there were theotherstoo, of course. The people no one likes to talk about.

The opportunists who capitalised on the grief and chaos of the moment by inventing dead fathers and husbands and brothers to claim compensation. The liars who pretended to have crawled out of the wreckage of the towers just to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Thieves who looted Rolex watches from the dead and dying.

So don’t pat yourself on the back and tell me you’d have behaved any differently in my shoes. You’re as likely to be a villain as a hero.

I’m going to tell you a secret, but first Ineed you to promise to put aside your assumptions aboutrightandwrong.

Can you do that?

Can you set aside your prejudices and your biases and be the jury I never had?

I told you right at the beginning I’m one of the good ones. One of thesafeones.

Well, that’s not strictly true.

chapter 37

tom

We have five days of relative calm after Stacey’s sudden appearance on our doorstep before the next crisis hits.

‘Fuck me,’ I exclaim, when the breaking news alert pops up on my screen.

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