Page 121 of The Impossible Fortune

Ron puts his hand in his pocket and closes his fingers around a piece of paper worth three hundred and fifty million quid.

Danny Lloyd is sweating. Mainly because he has clearly taken an awful lot of cocaine.

A man who hates you, high on cocaine, pointing a gun at your face. Even for a West Ham fan this is uncomfortable territory.

‘Come to pick on a man for once, have you, Danny?’ Ron asks.

‘Shut up, Ron,’ says Danny. ‘And give me the Bitcoin.’

‘The Bitcoin?’ Ron asks.

‘The Bitcoin,’ repeats Danny. ‘You’re about to learn the oldest rule in the criminal’s book, Ron. Never trust Connie Johnson. She was on the phone to me as soon as you hatched your plan. You really thought she was going to share the money with you?’

Ron shrugs. ‘No, I knew she wasn’t.’

‘We were having a good laugh about you this afternoon,’ says Danny.

‘Well, it’s good to laugh, isn’t it?’ says Ron. ‘That’s important.’

‘Give me the piece of paper, Ron,’ says Danny.

‘If I give you the piece of paper, you’ll kill me,’ says Ron.

‘Maybe I won’t,’ says Danny. ‘It’s a lot of money.’

‘What’s she paying you?’ says Ron.

‘A lot,’ says Danny.

‘I’m flattered,’ says Ron. ‘But she’s not paying you to nick the Bitcoin off me; she could have just taken it off me this afternoon. She’s paying you to kill me.’

‘Same difference to me,’ says Danny. ‘Business and pleasure, to be honest. You’ve never liked me, eh, Ron?’

‘Has anyone?’ Ron asks. ‘You got any friends who don’t work for you? What a weak, angry little man you are. I’ve had a lifetime of people like you.’

‘The Bitcoin,’ says Danny.

‘What’s in it for me?’ says Ron.

‘Nothing,’ says Danny.

‘Jesus, Danny, you’re stupid as well as weak. If you’re going to kill me, I got no incentive to tell you where the Bitcoin is, do I? That’s basic stuff, old son.’

Ron looks at his son-in-law. This handsome, pathetic man. This muscled weakling his daughter fell in love with. My God, kids are nothing but trouble.

‘So,’ says Ron, ‘we negotiate. You give me what I want; I tell you where the Bitcoin is. Then you can kill me.’

Danny is sniffing and sweating. The gun is shaking slightly, but Ron knows that Danny has used guns before. When he pulls the trigger, he won’t miss.

Danny nods. ‘What do you want?’

‘Couple of things,’ says Ron. ‘You never see Suzi again. And no lawyer’s letters, anything like that either. You leave her be.’

‘Done,’ says Danny. ‘Pleasure, in fact.’

Ron had once pulled a cracker with this man at Christmas.

‘Next,’ says Ron, ‘you never see Kendrick again. Even when you’re an old man in prison somewhere, you let him grow into a real man.’