Page 35 of The Impossible Fortune

‘What company?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘We never ask,’ says Holly. ‘That’s one of our selling points. We stored some bits and bobs for this company, and the yearly fee back then would have been twenty grand, something like that, and this company asked if we’d like to be paid in Bitcoin. And we talked about it, and I was interested in that sort of thing, and Nick was interested, so wesaid why not? We’ve got two hundred units in the vault, why not take a punt with one of them?’

‘When was this?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘2011, something like that,’ says Holly. ‘And the twenty thousand price worked out at about five thousand Bitcoin, give or take, and occasionally you’d read something or other about it, but, really, we forgot about it. We stopped dealing with this company –’

‘Went to prison, did they?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘Probably,’ says Holly. ‘Didn’t need our services any more, certainly. We had these five thousand Bitcoin, or a string of numbers that represented our ownership of the Bitcoin, literally written on a scrap of paper in one of our files.’

‘That’s how it works,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s a string of numbers, not a real coin. They call it a key.’

‘I know that,’ says Ibrahim.

‘Sounds like a racket,’ says Ron. ‘Numbers on a bit of paper.’

‘All money is just numbers written on pieces of paper,’ says Holly. ‘A couple of years in, things started to get interesting. And these Bitcoin, which were worth about four pounds each when we first got paid, were suddenly worth forty each, and we had two hundred thousand pounds on our hands. We discussed selling them there and then, but we’re both gamblers, so we said let’s keep hold of them. But we decided to use one of our safes at The Compound for the key. Lots of people store these keys online, but hackers steal Bitcoin, and, you know, that’s the whole point of the company, so we locked it away. Anyway, there waslots of toing and froing, the price was very volatile, but a couple of years later it went up to five hundred and fifty, and that single piece of paper was worth two point seven five million.’

Ron whistles through his teeth. ‘Still a racket though.’

‘I say at that point that we should sell,’ says Holly. ‘But Nick says we hold on. That’s how it’s always gone. One of us says sell, the other says hold on. As I said, it was very volatile, and sometimes it would lose half its value in a week, but the peaks were getting higher and higher. Knowing what we had locked away now, we agreed two things. We’d sell only when both of us wanted to, and we’d figure out a way to stop one of us from ripping off the other. So, from around 2016, there was no way that safe could be opened without authorization from both of us. Nick can’t open our unit without me, and I can’t open it without Nick. That’s what we agreed.’

‘The six-digit codes Elizabeth was telling us about?’ says Ron.

‘Sounds like Nick told you a lot,’ says Holly. ‘I hope he was right to trust you?’

‘Might I ask,’ says Elizabeth, ‘what its value is today? If it was worth nearly three million then, what is it worth now?’

‘Varies day to day,’ says Holly. ‘It had a big peak a few years ago, about seventy thousand a coin.’

‘That’s when I bought,’ says Joyce.

‘But within a year,’ says Holly, ‘it was back down at sixteen thousand.’

‘That’s when I sold,’ says Joyce.

‘But, again, whenever it collapsed, the peaks kept gettinghigher, and in 2024 it was up at around seventy-five thousand a coin. If we sold today, that key would be worth about three hundred and fifty million pounds.’

That quietens everyone down.

‘Why haven’t you sold?’ asks Ibrahim.

‘Nick kept saying we didn’t need to,’ says Holly. ‘He’d say the business is doing well, we have nice houses and nice cars. But he changed his mind earlier this week.’

‘Earlier this week?’ says Elizabeth.

‘We had a long lunch and Nick said, “It’s time,”’ says Holly.

‘So you sold?’ asks Joyce.

‘My shepherd’s pie’s on you,’ says Ron.

‘No,’ says Holly. ‘Although we agreed to cash out, selling hundreds of millions of pounds of Bitcoin in one go isn’t simple. So we started asking around, making it known we were looking to trade.’

Elizabeth looks thoughtful. ‘Nick and Holly suddenly very popular.’

‘Holly and Nick,’ says Holly. ‘Always Holly and Nick. “Nick and Holly” sound like a tiresome couple you meet on holiday.’