Page 83 of The Impossible Fortune
‘I didn’t know who else to turn her into,’ says Connie. ‘I’m the only example I’ve got.’
Ibrahim shakes his head. ‘No, no. Not true. You’re not stupid. You understand the world better than most. I think you just liked the power.’
‘Ibrahim,’ says Connie. But she doesn’t know where to go next. He’s not cross any more; he’s something else. But what? She tilts her head towards him, and really studies him.
‘I’m sad, Connie,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You’ve made me sad.Feel free to shoot your way out of that particular problem if you wish.’
‘How do I …’ Connie is at a loss. ‘I don’t want to make you sad. With me. How do I make you not sad?’
‘You could say sorry,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But not until you feel sorry.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Connie. And she is. So this is what being sorry feels like. Ibrahim told her she would find out one day, and she hadn’t believed him. She hopes it doesn’t last long.
‘Not to me,’ says Ibrahim. ‘To Tia. While you still can.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ says Tia. ‘Honestly.’
Connie turns to Tia. She didn’t do a bad job, all in all. Smuggling two guns past security isn’t easy. She should have known about the lorry, but she didn’t panic. She’ll get away with it too. And next time she’ll know better. The first time Connie sold drugs to a stranger, the boy ran off without paying, and Connie took a beating from her boss. She never made the same mistake again. She made other mistakes, sure, that’s how you learn, but you should never make the same mistake twice. A case in point is that that first boss tried to hand out another beating a few months later, and Connie left him in hospital with bullets in both legs. The moral being, learn from your mistakes. Everything Connie had become could be traced back to that first mistake, how she responded. ‘What happened’ is never what defines you in life; ‘What you did next’ is what defines you. And what Tia does next will define her. If she can brush herself down, this one job will be the beginning of a long and lucrative career. A fine life of crime and everythingthat comes with it. It’s all in Tia’s grasp. That could be her future, and who wouldn’t want that as a future? Connie looks at Tia, curling up on Ibrahim’s armchair. She thinks of herself at the same age. Back when it all began.
Ibrahim puts his hand on Tia’s arm. They could be grandad and granddaughter, the two of them. What does that make her?
‘I’m sorry, Tia,’ says Connie.
Tia looks at her, then looks at Ibrahim. Tia looks scared for some reason. Ibrahim walks over and puts an arm around Connie’s shoulders. He looks scared too. Why do they both look scared?
Connie hears an unfamiliar noise and realizes she is crying.
‘We will hide her,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And then we will help her.’
Connie would like that. Would like to do something good. It might stop her crying.
46
Jason Ritchie has made a few calls, and no one knows where Danny Lloyd is. He’s out of the country certainly. Good riddance.
Kendrick is staying: Jason had insisted on it. He’s in Jason’s living room, doing his homework. Maths. Jason offered to help, but Kendrick said, ‘Probably best if I do this one myself, Uncle Jason.’ Suzi is staying with friends for a couple of days. Jason insisted on that too.
He needs to keep them both safe from Danny Lloyd.
Suzi’s injuries are healing, the physical ones at least, but Jason must make sure that the story ends here. Danny will have to ride off into the sunset, and leave Suzi and Kendrick in peace. It’ll be easier said than done, Jason knows that. Danny is not a rational man. He has what passes for pride in men who grew up with pride denied to them.
He didn’t use to be that bad a guy, Danny. Always on the wrong side of the law, but Jason knows plenty of decent guys who’ve never done a decent day’s work in their lives. Sometimes that’s just where you grew up. Your dad’s an accountant, you become an accountant; your dad robs banks, you rob banks. Danny’s dad broke his back falling through the roof of the old Tesco building in Crawley years and years ago. Danny was never going to be an accountant. So he robbed shops and offices for a while. Wages, weeklytakings, anywhere there was a lot of cash and not much effort needed to take it. Then, when he had a bit of money behind him, it was drugs. Even easier money. That’s what he was up to when Suzi first met him. Walking around a nightclub with a wad of notes, big grin on his face. Jason liked him, Suzi fell in love with him, Ron always had his card marked.
But the cocaine had been what really did for Danny. It was often the case. Turned him from a half-decent guy you could have a laugh with at Christmas into a violent thug. There are a few people who deal cocaine and who never touch the stuff – Connie Johnson, there was an example – but that path was not for Danny Lloyd. And the more and more he took, the more and more unpredictable he became, the less fun Danny Lloyd was, and the more dangerous.
Kendrick came along, and Danny chilled for a couple of years. Bought himself some nice suits, a few trips to Morocco and the Middle East every year, making bigger and bigger connections, but he fell back into it, like his old dad on that rotten roof in Crawley, and money was the only thing he had left to break his fall.
A rational man would walk away from Suzi and Kendrick and cut his losses. Let them have that nice house in Coulsdon, buy Kendrick presents for his birthday and Christmas, and get on with his life. But that’s not Danny’s style.
Jason smiles to himself, because it’s not his style either. He’s seen Suzi’s injuries, and he knows he won’t let them stand. Danny Lloyd needs to be taught a lesson. It’s a question, Jason supposes, of who gets who first.
Kendrick wanders through to the kitchen. ‘Am I allowed orange squash?’
‘Are you normally allowed orange squash?’ Jason asks.
‘At home, no,’ says Kendrick. ‘Because of the sugar, but at Grandad’s, yes, because sugar never did him any harm.’
Ron. What would Ron make of all this? Jason has to protect him for as long as he can. Sort it all out before he even finds out.
