Page 10 of The Impossible Fortune
‘Well, Davey Noakes knows what you’ve got hidden. Lord Townes knows what you’ve got hidden. But I assume your business partner, Holly Lewis, knows what you have hidden too? So I make that three.’
Nick gives her a long look.
‘Is she here with us today?’ says Elizabeth.
‘No,’ says Nick. ‘She didn’t want –’ He shakes his head. ‘No.’
Elizabeth shrugs.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ says Nick.
Tomorrow, then. That’s the problem with going out. One thing leads to another, and you find yourself going out again. Before you know it, real life creeps back in. Elizabeth doesn’t want real life to creep back in. Because the one thing Elizabeth knows about real life is thatStephen is not in it. Everything in her body is telling her to say no.
But then a code and a bomb and three suspects? That doesn’t come along every day.
‘Tomorrow?’ says Nick.
‘Can’t wait,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Glad you’re feeling a bit better. Don’t you dare get killed by that bomb before I see you.’
‘I won’t – we’re all staying here tonight,’ says Nick, writing quickly on the back of a business card and handing it to her. ‘I know this sounds ridiculous, but could you memorize this and burn it?’
He certainly has read a lot of spy books, Elizabeth will give him that. She takes the card and watches Nick disappear back into the wedding.
The front of the business card readsNICK SILVER – COLD STORAGE SOLUTIONS. ABSOLUTE DISCRETION GUARANTEED. Well, there’s no such thing as ‘absolute’ discretion, Nick. On the back is an address and ‘1 p.m. tomorrow’.
Memorize it and burn it? Oh, she can do that all right.
Another star returns to her sky.
It’s baby steps, she knows that. Dipping her toe in the water. Codes and cold storage: it will probably lead to nothing. Even so, Elizabeth looks up to the stars and speaks to Stephen.
‘A drug dealer, a lord and a car bomb, dear? It seems that I’m needed again.’
She peers backs inside, where the music plays. She stands, then looks back up at Stephen.
‘Shall we dance?’
6
Joyce
Well, that was just the most wonderful day. The most wonderful.
Mark from Robertsbridge Taxis just dropped us back home. Alan was beside himself. Gordon Playfair’s daughter, Karen, came and took him for a walk earlier, and she left him in front of ITV3, which is his favourite, but he’d still missed me. He wanted to go straight out for a walk, but there are baby foxes over by Tennyson Court, and they need a bit of peace and quiet to explore at night.
It’s nice to be missed though, isn’t it?
Joanna looked beautiful today. I mean she always looks beautiful, except for a few years in her mid-twenties when she did something with her hair, but she lit up the room. And it was a very big room.
I have a piece of the wedding cake in front of me. It’s a lemon and raspberry sponge. I had a slice at the wedding and it was delicious. Perhaps I should keep this slice as a memento of the day? That would be the right thing to do. If I eat it, that’s a minute or so of happiness; if I keep it, the happiness lasts a lifetime.
There was a ‘celebrant’, rather than a vicar, but she wasvery jolly, and I’m assured she has the same authority as an actual vicar. She was very good when I asked her about it at least, and she told me I could always Google the legalities of it if I was really worried. I did, of course, and it seems fine.
I’d been upset a few weeks ago, when Joanna talked about Gerry walking her down the aisle. I felt I’d let her down, and she told me that was nonsense, and surely it was Gerry’s fault for dying. She was trying to make me laugh, but she could see it hadn’t worked, so then she said that it washerfault for getting married ‘at her time in life’, and actually that did make me feel a bit better, because she was right. If she’d been married when she was twenty-six, like, say, Barbara from work’s daughter, then Gerry would have been there.
Though Barbara from work’s daughter got divorced last year, so the tables have turned now, haven’t they, Barbara?
Anyway, we still hadn’t solved the issue of who would walk Joanna down the aisle. I suggested Paul’s dad, because he is at least a dad, and he would be there at any rate, so no need for extra chairs. Joanna said that while he was certainlyadad, he was notherdad. Then I suggested Ibrahim, but she said I wouldn’t hear the last of it from Ron, which is true. So I started racking my brains some more, until I saw that Joanna was staring at me. Then she started laughing and I didn’t know what at, and I hate it when people are laughing and I don’t know what at, so I joined in. And then she said, ‘Mum,you’rewalking me down the aisle,’ and, well, then I stopped laughing, because mums don’t walk bridesdown the aisle; mums sit at the front, so everyone can look at them. I made this point.
