Page 11 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

Tia has drawn up a plan of the warehouse complex in the back of what Connie realizes is a school exercise book. She is explaining the layout.

‘So the lorry goes through these gates; there are two security posts, ten yards apart. Once he’s through there, he drives thirty yards or so, then goes down this ramp to a sort of concrete apron and on to the loading-bay doors. Ninety seconds or so from start to finish.’

Connie is distracted. A man in a suit in his mid-twenties has sat down in the booth next to them and is watching a video on his phone. The whole café can hear it, but he seems oblivious. Connie holds up her finger to stop Tia for a moment. She turns to the man.

‘Could you use headphones, do you think?’

The man looks at her uncomprehendingly. ‘Uh?’

‘Headphones,’ repeats Connie, then points to her ears in case he needs further help. ‘It’s just everyone else can hear what you’re watching.’

‘Why don’t you mind your business?’ says the young man. ‘Or I’ll mind it for you.’

‘You don’t think it’s rude?’ Connie asks. She’s genuinely interested. The man is watching a video of a man laughing at a video of another man playing a video game.

‘I’m on lunch,’ says the young man, as if that’s an end to the matter.

Connie looks at him for a second, then nods. ‘Okay, I have a bit of business to do, so I’ll deal with you in a minute. If you want to keep listening without your headphones, go right ahead.’

‘I will,’ says the young man.

Connie turns back to Tia. One thing at a time. ‘Sorry, Tia, underground car park.’

‘Security grille will be open. Driver plus two security staff unload the watches – four or five minutes – the boxes are put on pallets and a fork lift takes them inside to a service corridor – that’s two minutes tops – and at the end of that service corridor there’s the vault.’

Connie follows Tia’s progress on the drawing. She’s doing well. The man on the video is now shrieking with laughter.

‘Once it’s in the vault,’ says Tia, ‘we can’t touch it.’

‘But it takes the same journey when it leaves the vault again?’ says Connie. ‘When the watches go out to the shops?’

‘In smaller batches though,’ says Tia. ‘If you want the maximum return, it’s in the nine minutes between the lorry arriving at the security gates and the boxes reaching the vault.’

The video at the next table is still breaking Connie’s concentration, but she takes her role as a mentor very seriously, and Tia needs her full attention. Ibrahim will be here for her own session in a few minutes. He’s already late, some sort of emergency, a sick friend.

‘So what are we doing?’ she asks. ‘Bribing the guards?’

Tia turns to another page in her school exercise book. There is a list of numbers.

‘What am I looking at?’ Connie asks.

‘This is what everyone at the complex gets paid,’ says Tia. ‘I’ve got all of them. The managing director – she gets the most, fair enough; the guards inside the vault – they’re on nice money; the driver gets nothing; the guards at the gate are on minimum wage.’

‘Got to pay guards well,’ says Connie. ‘Otherwise –’

‘Then, right down the bottom of the list, there’s the fork-lift driver, and the cleaners who look after the car park and the service corridor. Not even minimum wage once the agencies have taken their cut. Works out at eight fifty an hour.’

‘How did you get these salaries?’

‘The big ones you get from LinkedIn,’ says Tia.

A lot of cocaine dealers are now using LinkedIn, Connie has noticed; she keeps getting requests. ‘And the fork-lift driver and the cleaner?’

‘Well, I got them because I’m now one of the cleaners, and my mate Hassan is one of the fork-lift drivers.’ Tia takes an envelope from her bag and slides it across to Connie. ‘My pay-slip.’

‘This is very good, Tia, very good. You started working there yesterday?’ Connie asks.

‘Yep,’ says Tia. ‘I’m already one of the longest-serving cleaners.’

‘Do they search you on your way in?’

‘They did,’ says Tia. ‘But I hid a bit of coke in my pocket, for them to find. So now they just want to buy coke off me and no one’s going to worry too much about searching me.’

‘Where did you get the coke from?’ asks Connie. She always takes a professional interest.

‘Some guy from the 24-hour garage with one arm,’ says Tia.

‘Ah, Dan Hatfield,’ says Connie. She remembers when Dan Hatfield had two arms. The money he’d wasted on tattoos on that other arm.

‘So you’ve been scoping it out?’

‘Yep,’ says Tia. ‘I’m quite enjoying it. I’m going to miss it. There’s a shipment due on Tuesday, probably two hundred grand or so, if you can handle it?’

‘I can handle it,’ says Connie. You have to smile with the youngsters sometimes. Connie remembers when she thought two hundred grand was a lot of money. Gentler days in some ways.

‘Great,’ says Tia. ‘I’m going to smuggle in two guns and hide the –’

‘Good day, Connie,’ says Ibrahim. Tia closes the exercise book. ‘Please excuse my lateness.’

‘Ibrahim Arif, this is Tia,’ says Connie.

‘Ah, you are being mentored,’ says Ibrahim. ‘How are you finding it?’

‘Rewarding,’ says Tia.

‘She’s already doing a job,’ says Connie.

‘Oh, congratulations,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I knew Connie would be a good influence.’

‘Tia, I’ll leave you to it,’ says Connie, standing. ‘Why don’t I meet you at my lock-up next Tuesday if you can get out of work quickly enough?’

‘Will do,’ says Tia. ‘Very nice to meet you, Mr Arif.’

‘And you, Tia,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And very best of luck with the job.’

Connie takes Ibrahim’s elbow and starts to lead him out of the café.

She stops at the next booth, where the young man is now watching an anime cartoon of two eggs screaming at each other.

Connie motions for Ibrahim to go on without her for a second.

She sits down in the booth, takes out a gun from her handbag and points it at the man’s groin under the table. He looks up, slack-jawed.

‘I swear to God I will shoot you if you don’t switch your phone off. And when I’m in court I’ll tell them why I did it, and the judge and all twelve members of the jury will cheer and carry me out of the courtroom on their shoulders.’

With some panic the man switches off his video. Connie digs the gun into his groin.

‘I know it’s your lunch,’ says Connie. ‘But I need you to know that you are the worst man in the world, and I just wonder if, in future, you could wear headphones when an old woman tells you to?’

The young man nods, mutely. Connie notices a dark patch seep across his suit trousers.

‘Good lad,’ says Connie, and slips the gun back into her bag and rejoins Ibrahim, who is looking at meringues.

Connie takes his arm again.

‘What would you like to talk about this week, do you think?’ Ibrahim asks. ‘Have I missed anything interesting?’

‘You never miss anything,’ says Connie.

‘That’s very true,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I’m a hawk. Honestly, the size of these meringues.’