Page 4 of The Impossible Fortune
‘Thank you,’ says Nick.
‘Why have you come to me?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘And not, say, our good friends in the police force?’
‘I just …’ Nick starts. ‘I don’t want to tell the police, for all sorts of reasons, and I’d heard about you from Paul. Your reputation.’
‘I’m sure he has exaggerated it,’ says Elizabeth. One can forget that one has a reputation.
‘I just wondered,’ says Nick, looking at her with a fear she has seen so many times over the years. The fear of a man with a single foot over a cliff edge. ‘If I tell you everything, do you know someone who could help me?’
Elizabeth had been ready to say no to this wedding. To stay at home and read. To look over at Stephen’s chair. To punish herself. But she’d said yes instead. Something told her it was time to start again. She thought perhaps it was the prospect of seeing love at first hand, but, no, it was far better than that. It was a best man with a death threat.
Trouble is much like love: when the time is ready, it will find you. And so here she was at the wedding.
Does she know someone who could help him? Elizabeth looks at Nick, nods and takes his hand.
‘Mr Silver, I do.’
3
‘And if there’s security?’ Connie Johnson asks, taking a bite from her pain au chocolat.
‘Then you kill them?’ asks Tia.
Connie nods, thoughtfully. I mean, that doesn’t sound unreasonable. Not whatshewould do, but you can’t accuse Tia of not thinking things through. She’s trying to impress.
‘Or hold their family hostage?’ Tia adds, clearly hopeful she’s got the answer right.
This whole thing had been Ibrahim’s idea. Perhaps it hadn’t worked out exactly as he’d planned, but Connie could hardly be blamed for that now, could she?
While she was still in Darwell Prison, before the ‘unfortunate’ mistrial and her subsequent release, Ibrahim had made her a proposition. ‘You must give something back to society, Connie,’ he had said. There was then a brief argument, during which Ibrahim had had to clarify that he didn’t mean giving back any actual money, or other property she might have come across in her long and fruitful career. He had meant helping someone less fortunate than herself – ‘Again, not with money, don’t panic’ – and explained why he believed that Connie would make an excellent mentor to some of the younger inmates at Darwell. ‘Pass on some wisdom,’ Ibrahim said, ‘some life lessons.’ He promised it would do her good.
She knew Tia Malone from art class, where the youngster had been caught stealing glue. She approached her one lunchtime, and soon they were chatting. Ibrahim had been delighted at this development and predicted that Connie would find the relationship very rewarding.
‘Fifty grand for you,’ says Tia. ‘And fifty for me.’
Connie sips on her flat white. All in all she had done seven months on remand at Darwell, after that unfortunate business on Fairhaven Pier with the cocaine and the dead guys whose names she has forgotten. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As a result of her outside connections, she was the only woman in the whole prison with a Pilates machine and a Netflix subscription.
‘I could make fifty grand with one phone call,’ says Connie. ‘I don’t need to get involved in this.’
‘Please,’ says Tia, ‘I promise it’ll be fun. And you told me I had to dream my dream.’
True enough, she had told Tia that. In their very first session. She liked Tia very much, liked her ambition. Tia had started her life of crime stealing Rolexes from rich tourists in the West End. There would be four of them on bicycles, weaving in and out of traffic, picking off targets. Once threats had been made, and the Rolex stolen, they would disappear down side streets, and be back in the safety of Vauxhall before the first siren was heard. Tia was the only girl in the gang, and always kept her mouth shut during the robberies to hide that fact. Eventually the whole gang was caught after a Deliveroo driver, who must have been after a medal or something, followed them back to the estate and led the cops to their lock-up. Even then, they rounded upthree boys, and gave up their search after the fourth boy was nowhere to be seen.
‘A hundred grand though, Tia,’ says Connie. ‘What have I taught you? Surely you can dream bigger than that?’
Connie had to admit it, she was enjoying being a mentor. Tia continued the bike robberies for a while, three new boys in tow now, her human shield reassembled, but she soon had a revelation. The sort of revelation Connie admired.
That’s why they still meet up once a week, usually in Fairhaven’s newest vegan café, Mad about the Soy. There are now more vegan cafés in Fairhaven than there are non-vegan cafés, but, relentless though the gentrification of the town is, Connie is delighted that the demand for cocaine remains robust.
‘Bigger than a hundred grand?’ Tia asks. In front of her, a coconut flapjack.
‘Tell me what you worked out,’ says Connie. ‘When you were doing the bike robberies?’
‘You know what I worked out,’ says Tia.
‘I know,’ says Connie. ‘But tell me.’
This was a technique she had stolen from Ibrahim. Ibrahim would get Connie to listen to herself. He knew where he wanted her to go, but she had to find her own way there. If you find your own way somewhere, you can go back whenever you choose. That was Ibrahim’s idea anyway, probably nonsense.
