Page 123 of The Impossible Fortune

‘You’ll get your twenty grand.’

‘And your wife? We’re not going to kill her either?’

This time Danny doesn’t look at Ron.

‘That’s off too.’

‘But do I still get twenty grand for her too? I’ve done a lot of planning.’

‘Sure, sure. You’ll get the full fifty, but don’t kill either of them.’

Easy day’s work. ‘Thanks, Danny. Alpha 4, thanks, Alpha 4.’

Danny now risks a glance at Ron. Ron nods again, letting him know the conversation was acceptable. So he was going to kill Suzi too? Of course he was. Ron will never be able to lose the image of Suzi, with her bruised eye, her nose and cheek starting to swell and shine. That’s what this animal standing in front of him had done. Of course he would kill her. That’s what animals do.

With his steroid-built muscles and cocaine-funded suits, Danny had always looked to Ron like a child’s drawing of a man. He recognizes now that Danny himself was the child who had done the drawing. He had turned himself into someone that would never have to face his own weakness and vulnerability, who ran from all the things that turn real little boys into real men. In front of Ron was a wholly fake man, an absence of anything real or true. But a man whoseactions had real-life consequences. That bruised eye was real, even if the fist behind it had been constructed from bravado and thin air.

‘Happy?’ Danny asks.

‘You were going to kill Suzi too?’ Ron asks.

‘That’s how it works,’ Danny says. ‘Law of the jungle.’

‘You grew up in Kent,’ says Ron. ‘You chose your own law. You hired someone to kill my son, and you hired the same man to kill my daughter?’

‘And now I’m swapping them both for killing you,’ says Danny. ‘The Bitcoin, please.’

Ron pushes himself up from the armchair and heads for the bedroom. At first Jason hadn’t even told him about Suzi. Hadn’t wanted to upset an old man. Didn’t think Ron could protect her. But Ron is an old lion, and old lions will always protect their young. Whatever it might take. Jason took him and Kendrick to see Suzi first thing this morning. They talked, the whole Ritchie family. They talked; they cried.

From the moment Ron had seen the photograph of Suzi, he knew he would sacrifice anything to save his daughter. And that’s exactly what he is about to do. The greatest sacrifice of all.

Ron pushes open the bedroom door, and three armed police officers in bulletproof vests and helmets run, screaming, into the room.

‘Armed police, armed police, drop your weapon, drop your weapon!’

He hears the commotion continue as Pauline gives him a hug.

‘You did great,’ says Pauline. ‘I’m proud of you.’

Ron looks back through the open doorway.

Danny Lloyd, after his full and frank confession, is lying on the ground being handcuffed. Connie Johnson had delivered him, just as she had promised. What happens next to the money, God only knows, and who killed Holly Lewis remains a mystery, but, just for now, Ron’s job is done.

One of the armed officers removes his helmet and gives Ron a thumbs-up.

DCI Chris Hudson. Ron has missed the big lunk.

‘Thanks, Chrissy boy,’ says Ron. ‘Nice gun.’

It’s important to have principles, it really is, but, Ron reflects, as he sees Danny being led away, face contorted in anger, he knows he did the right thing. He, Suzi and Jason had talked about it and talked about it. He and Connie had talked about it and talked about it. How to stop this man who had hit his wife.

In the end it was Kendrick. He’d overheard a conversation Ron and Jason had with Chris and Donna, and he, as so often with Kendrick, had an opinion on it, and in the end Ron had picked up the phone to DCI Chris Hudson, because they had all reached the same conclusion.

Thereareworse crimes than grassing.

THE NEXT SIX WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS

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