Page 29 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

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 connected to 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 say he didn’t murder Holly?’ Elizabeth reminds him.

‘A miner?’ says Ron. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Who got murdered?’ Kendrick asks.

‘No one, Kenny,’ says Ron.

‘A lady called Holly who’d hidden three hundred and fifty million pounds,’ says Pauline. ‘Honestly, Ronnie, he’s nine, not three.’

‘Where has she hidden it?’ Kendrick asks.

‘Ain’t that the question,’ says Ron. ‘In a safe somewhere. They reckon there’s codes.’

‘I like codes,’ says Kendrick.

‘You surprise me, Kenny,’ says Ron.

‘So, Ron,’ says Elizabeth, ‘Bill Benson will know where The Compound is. And I want him to tell you. Understand?’

‘Yes, boss,’ says Ron. I mean, it’s nice to see Elizabeth back at her fighting weight, but Ron had forgotten how rude she could be to him.

He’d negotiated in some of Britain’s largest ever industrial disputes.

And while, if he really thinks about it, he had almost always been unsuccessful, he knows he can handle an interview with a miner about a murder.

And, besides, maybe Ibrahim will come with him?

‘And the other name?’ Ibrahim asks. ‘Did you find out anything about Davey Noakes or Lord Townes?’

‘Nothing,’ says Elizabeth. ‘The SIM card was almost a write-off, so nothing on either of them. But we may have found someone much more interesting.’

‘Holly made a phone call immediately after leaving us,’ says Joyce.

‘Just before she died?’ Ibrahim asks.

‘Seconds before,’ says Elizabeth.

‘To a woman called Jill Usher,’ says Joyce. ‘In Manchester. She’s a teacher, like you, Paul …’

Joyce nods towards Paul. Ron knows she’s keen to include him.

‘I mean, I’m a professor of sociology, but, yes,’ agrees Paul.

‘A nursery-school teacher, thirty-five years old, three children. She looks very nice on Facebook. She did a walk for Alzheimer’s.’

‘So Joyce and I will be travelling to Manchester,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And in the meantime we need to redouble our efforts to find Nick Silver. I’ve had people looking into everything he does and everything he owns, and they can’t find a trace of him.

Paul, you really need to get your thinking cap on. Where might he go?’

‘Ibiza?’ Paul suggests.

Elizabeth shakes her head. ‘I’ve had all the ports and airports watched.’

‘Face it,’ says Pauline, ‘he’s probably dead.’

‘Who’s Nick Silver?’ Kendrick asks. ‘And is he really dead?’

‘Dead, God, no, he’s …’ Ron stops himself. ‘He’s also hidden all that money, and, yeah, he might be dead too.’

‘If he’s alive, he’ll be heading for the money sooner rather than later,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Hopefully Bill Benson will take care of that for us. Paul, you’re absolutely sure you don’t know?’

‘Not a clue,’ says Paul. ‘Somewhere secure, that’s all I know. Nick said if he ever told me, he’d have to kill me. Which, at the time, you know, I thought was a joke.’

‘Maybe it’s underground,’ says Kendrick. ‘That’s where I’d hide something.’

Everyone begins tucking into their food.

Ron looks around the table. It’s been a strange year, all in all. They’ve been waiting for Elizabeth to come back to them. It’s a funny old gang he finds himself surrounded by, and the force of Elizabeth’s personality is the glue that binds that gang together.

Paul is sitting next to Joyce, and Ron overhears him saying, ‘I see, and what happened next?’

Kendrick is deep in conversation with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth is nodding seriously. Kendrick might be the only person Elizabeth has ever treated as an equal.

Ibrahim looks happy: he is explaining something to Joanna, and Joanna is saying, ‘Yes, I’m not sure it’s exactly how that works, but you might be right.’

Ron puts his hand on Pauline’s and gives her a kiss on the cheek.

‘This is nice,’ he says. ‘Sorry to spring it on you.’

‘Life is sprung on us, Ronnie,’ says Pauline. ‘I like surprises.’

‘You wanna come and meet this miner with me tomorrow?’

Pauline shakes her head. ‘I’m doing the lunchtime news. Make-up never sleeps. Maybe take Ibrahim?’

Ron nods now. He will. Bill Benson a miner, eh? And in his late seventies? Must have worked in one of the Kent pits; Ron wonders if they’ve ever come across each other.

On the other side of the table, Elizabeth is showing Kendrick a picture of Stephen in a locket around her neck, and now Kendrick is nodding seriously.