Page 53 of The Impossible Fortune

‘After you, Mr Noakes.’

‘Much obliged, Mr Benson.’

They each press their thumbprints in turn on a pad, then scan their retinas, and the door to the vault opens. A small room, containing a couple of hundred safes. God knows what was in them, but Davey bets a lot of them contain either a fortune or a prison sentence.

The meeting with Holly and Nick had been on the Tuesday. He’d had a day or so to think things through, certainly. To work out his next move.

And then the phone call came. And that was a real stroke of luck for Davey Noakes.

28

Here they all are, then.

‘Joanna,’ says Pauline, ‘you’ve always got the loveliest shoes.’

‘Thank you,’ says Joanna. ‘May I say the same about your earrings?’

‘Yes,’ says Joyce, taking off her coat. ‘You always have the loveliest earrings, Pauline, I don’t have the lobes for them. And my feet are too wide for shoes.’

‘Not all shoes, Mum,’ says Joanna. ‘You’re wearing shoes.’

‘No, of course not all shoes,’ says Joyce. ‘The sort of shoes I would like. Of course not all shoes, Joanna.’

‘Why don’t dogs wear shoes?’ Kendrick asks.

‘You took your bleedin’ time,’ says Ron to Elizabeth, as she joins them at the table. Ron’s flat is now fit to bursting. Just how he likes it.

‘Joyce made me pack cats in boxes,’ says Elizabeth, and glares over at Joyce, also now taking her seat.

‘Cats don’t wear shoes,’ says Kendrick. ‘The only animals that wear shoes are horses.’

Ibrahim leans over to Kendrick. ‘Though you might say “shoo” to a cat!’

‘That’s a really terrific joke, Uncle Ibrahim,’ says Kendrick.

Ron looks around the table. This is the stuff, isn’t it?

This morning, when Ron had said goodbye to Ibrahim and was heading back to his flat, something made him turn around. He couldn’t have told you what it was. Why did Ron challenge the chairman of the National Coal Board to an arm wrestle on live television in 1978? Sometimes you just follow your instincts, don’t you?

What he saw when he turned was Ibrahim, standing exactly where he had left him. He was looking one way and then the other, deciding what to do next.

Ron walked back down the hill, as if he’d forgotten something. Ibrahim, lost in thought, didn’t notice him until the last moment.

‘Ib,’ Ron had said, ‘forgot to mention it but Pauline wanted you to come round for dinner this evening. I told her, late notice, he’ll be busy, but if I don’t ask you, I’ll be for it.’

‘Well, I was …’ Ibrahim started. ‘I had a thing, but I suppose nothing that can’t be put off. If you think Pauline would be offended?’

‘You know women,’ said Ron.

‘Up to a point,’ said Ibrahim.

Pauline had understood, approved even, and suggested that Joanna and Paul might like to come over too. Elizabeth and Joyce have just returned, apparently with information about Holly’s murder. Kendrick’s back from a walk with Alan, which might make talking about Holly a bit tricky. But you never knew with Kendrick.

‘Two names for you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Donna has given me a number for a man named Bill Benson, aged seventy-seven and with an address in Fairhaven. Might be connectedto The Compound. The limited biographical information we have suggests he is a former miner, so, Ron, might we leave him with you?’

‘God’s own people, miners,’ says Ron.

‘Though if he knows what’s locked up in The Compound, who’s to sayhedidn’t murder Holly?’ Elizabeth reminds him.