Page 50 of The Impossible Fortune

‘He’s staying today as well?’ Ibrahim asks. It is always a delight to spend time with Ron’s grandson, but something is amiss there.

‘I asked if he could stay until Sunday,’ says Ron. ‘Going home to his mum in the morning.’

Just his mum. Ibrahim tucks that observation away.

The meeting is at an end. Ibrahim flattens the creases on his trousers before getting up. Lots to think about.

What do they know? Holly Lewis is dead, and if Nick Silver isn’t dead too something very peculiar is happening with his phone. A huge sum of money is buried somewhere nearby, and there are two six-digit codes needed to claim it.

That should be enough to be getting on with, shouldn’t it? He’ll enjoy thinking about the codes, that’s for certain.

Still, Ibrahim feels at a slight loss. Elizabeth and Joyce are heading off together. He could probably join them if he really wanted to, but one doesn’t like to ask. Ron has Pauline, Joanna has Paul, even Alan has Kendrick. Ibrahim feels a long day is stretching ahead of him, and wonders how he might fill the empty hours.

Murders are all well and good, but who doeshehave?

26

Joyce sits on a dining-room chair, stared at, once again, by the many, many porcelain cats.

They are back in Purley. Joyce bets that not many people go to Purley twice in two days. I mean, some people live there or work there, so they’ll be back and forth all the time. But civilians like her? Twice? In two days? Joyce doubts it very much.

They’d walked past the British Heart Foundation shop on their way to Jasper’s. They really did have some nice mugs in there. Joyce thought perhaps she should buy a few for him, but decided it was too presumptuous. Give him time.

Elizabeth sits next to Jasper. He still wears his shirt and bow tie, but today has switched to corduroys, which is a step up. Elizabeth hands him the SIM card. ‘A little charred.’

‘I’ve seen worse,’ says Jasper, taking a phone from his pocket and inserting the SIM card. The phone is about twice the size of a regular phone, even Ibrahim’s new one, and is a sleek black with absolutely no markings.

‘That’s an unusual phone,’ says Joyce. ‘Joanna has a Samsung which she swears by.’

‘Can’t get one of these in a shop,’ says Jasper. ‘If you know what I mean?’

‘Jasper, of course she knows what you mean,’ says Elizabeth. ‘She knows you were a spy, stop showing off.’

‘You show off all you like, Jasper,’ says Joyce.

The screen of Jasper’s phone lights up. He starts to scroll.

‘Anything?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘It’s not ideal,’ says Jasper. ‘It’s not ideal. There’s bits and bobs.’

‘I like your trousers, Jasper,’ says Joyce. ‘They really suit you.’

‘I found them in the back of a magazine,’ says Jasper. ‘Elasticated. And fifteen pounds.’

‘We’re particularly interested in recent calls and texts,’ says Elizabeth. Joyce can see she is losing patience. Elizabeth has less interest in lonely men than Joyce does. ‘She died at around nine forty-five last night.’

‘Nine forty-five last night?’ Jasper asks.

‘Yes,’ says Joyce. ‘We’d been having dinner, I gave her some brownies, not my best.’

Brownies! Joyce should have baked some brownies for Jasper. But when would she have had the time? Everything has been such a rush since the wedding. But still, Joyce curses her thoughtlessness.

‘If she died at nine forty-five,’ says Jasper, ‘then I have a call you might be very interested in. Very interested indeed, I should say. On the interest scale, were it to be numbered one through ten, I might suggest a ten.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jasper,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Your friend Holly Lewis,’ says Jasper, enjoying the theatre, ‘who died at nine forty-five p.m., made her final phone call last night at nine forty-four p.m.’