Page 116 of The Impossible Fortune

‘You’re sure I can’t make you a cup of tea?’ Pauline asks.

‘Shh!’ says Ron. He told Pauline she shouldn’t be here, with what’s about to happen. But it’s her flat, and she’s Pauline, so she’s staying put. Ron has also told her that’s she’s not allowed to play bingo on her phone while he’s hiding, and, because of the prospect of gunfire, she has agreed.

They hear footsteps in the hallway. Ron motions to the bedroom.

‘Good luck, lover,’ says Pauline, and kisses him on the top of the head before slipping away to leave him there alone.

Ron wonders where the others are. They’ll be worried, he knows that. Ron’s phone is off, but Joyce has been ringing Pauline. Pauline has had to lie to her and tell her she doesn’t know where Ron is.

Ron didn’t like asking Pauline to lie, but Pauline said not to worry, and that she enjoyed it. He’s found a good one there.

The whole gang would be straight round if they knew where he was. And Elizabeth would blow her top if she knew what he was about to do.

They’d all blow their tops.

So much of what he’s about to do would upset them. But that’s okay. They weren’t just the Thursday Murder Club, were they? They were four people, with their own stories, and, right now, Ron has his own story to tell. The story of an old man who still wants to prove he can protect his family. Even if it kills him.

He hears what he has been waiting for, somebody picking the lock on Pauline’s front door. Ron closes his hand around a small piece of paper worth a quarter of a billion pounds. He slips it into the right-hand pocket of his jeans, before remembering himself, and transferring it to the left-hand pocket.

Somebody is now slowly pushing open the front door, and there are soft footsteps in the hallway. He thinks of the gang again. They’ll forgive him, he knows that. They might give him a hard time, but the four of them will work out who killed Holly, and everyone will be friends again. That’s if he makes it through.

Ron is blinded by the lights being switched on and finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ says Danny Lloyd.

Well, you got that right, thinks Ron.

67

Davey and Joyce bring in a tray each, and people take their teas and their coffees. Ibrahim is worried that if he drinks caffeine this late he will never sleep, and has asked for a nip of whisky in his, which should counterbalance it nicely.

‘Shall we begin?’ suggests Davey.

‘Please,’ says Elizabeth, now fully in charge. ‘What did you want to see Holly about? You see it looks suspicious? A meeting we didn’t know about, the day before she was murdered.’

‘I do see,’ says Davey. ‘But are you asking the right question?’

‘Usually, yes,’ says Elizabeth.

Paul – normally quite quiet, but then most people are normally quite quiet when in the company of the Thursday Murder Club – starts to raise his hand.

‘Paul,’ says Elizabeth, ‘you have something to say?’

‘It’s, mmm, it’s more of an observation,’ says Paul.

‘Paul is very observant,’ says Joyce. ‘You found my lost oven glove, didn’t you, Paul?’

‘I found it, Mum,’ says Joanna.

‘Well, Paul was there when it was found,’ says Joyce. ‘You don’t have to turn it intoCSI: Miami.’

Paul waits to see if they have finished, and it appears that for now they have, and so he continues. ‘Holly wasmany things, but she was never a pushover. And, Davey, I know you less well, but you seem fairly relaxed with who and what you are.’

‘Doesn’t he talk nice?’ says Davey.

Ibrahim agrees. With the sentiment, if not the grammar.

‘When Joanna found the footage of you, Davey, meeting Holly, there was an obvious question, the question Elizabeth asked. What did you, Davey, want to see Holly about?’