Page 127 of The Impossible Fortune

‘Other than that,’ says Elizabeth, ‘she has been a model citizen.’

‘And how did she come to your attention?’ the man asks.

‘She solved something,’ says Elizabeth, ‘which I had missed.’

‘Goodness,’ says the man.

‘More to the point,’ says Elizabeth, ‘if Tia had gone to school where you went to school, I suspect she would have had a very different start in life. So why don’t we give her that start now?’

‘Eighteen is a bit young,’ says the man.

‘Not too young for a little training though,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Send her off somewhere, give her a gun?’

‘I could bring my own?’ suggests Tia.

The man is thinking. ‘It would have to be off the books. The prison sentence rules out anything official.’

‘I think that would be altogether more fun,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Can I ask a question?’ says Tia.

The man indicates that indeed she may.

‘What actually is the job?’

‘A question I still ask myself,’ says the man. ‘After forty years in it.’

‘But is it legal?’ Tia asks.

‘A lot of the time, yes,’ says the man. ‘A good eighty per cent or so.’

‘What do you say?’ Elizabeth asks the man.

‘It’s irregular,’ says the man.

‘Just like us,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And that’s why you’re at the very top.’

‘The top of what?’ Tia asks.

‘Oh, the whole shooting match,’ says the man. ‘The whole thing. Tia, if I were to send you to Belize for three months, what would you say?’

‘I’d say, where’s Belize? And when do you want me to go?’ Tia replies.

74

Joyce

The photos from the wedding have just arrived. At first they were just on a memory stick for a computer and I told Joanna that I had no idea what use that was, and when would the actual photos I could hold in my hand arrive?

She said I could take the memory stick into Snappy Snaps and they would print them for me, but I doubted that very much. So Joanna said she would get them printed out for me, and that’s what’s arrived.

She told me to choose my favourites, and I said I wanted all of them, and she said, Mum, there’s over a thousand and some of them are practically identical, and I said I didn’t care and I wanted all of them. Seeing them now, in a big stack, I realize she was quite right. I was flicking through earlier, and there were ten photos of one of Paul’s aunties raising a drink to the camera. While I liked this particular auntie, I’m afraid those went straight in the bin. Please don’t tell Paul.

There was also another guest, an older colleague of Paul’s from the university, and she was wearing the same hat as me. I’m afraid those went in the bin too. It was bad enough she was waltzing around in it all day, I don’t need a permanent reminder.

Joanna looks so beautiful, and so happy. Which are often the same thing, aren’t they? I look very old in them, I can see that, but I look happy too. And if you can be that happy when you get to my age, you must have done something right.

There are lots of shots of Nick Silver pre-vomiting, fewer afterwards. They still haven’t found him. Davey Noakes has a plan to find him that involves drones, and Elizabeth has a plan that involves a new machine to do with DNA that she’s not allowed to tell me about but did.