Page 3 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

‘And if there’s security?’ Connie Johnson asks, taking a bite from her pain au chocolat.

‘Then you kill them?’ asks Tia.

Connie nods, thoughtfully. I mean, that doesn’t sound unreasonable. Not what she would do, but you can’t accuse Tia of not thinking things through. She’s trying to impress.

‘Or hold their family hostage?’ Tia adds, clearly hopeful she’s got the answer right.

This whole thing had been Ibrahim’s idea. Perhaps it hadn’t worked out exactly as he’d planned, but Connie could hardly be blamed for that now, could she?

While she was still in Darwell Prison, before the ‘unfortunate’ mistrial and her subsequent release, Ibrahim had made her a proposition.

‘You must give something back to society, Connie,’ he had said.

There was then a brief argument, during which Ibrahim had had to clarify that he didn’t mean giving back any actual money, or other property she might have come across in her long and fruitful career.

He had meant helping someone less fortunate than herself – ‘Again, not with money, don’t panic’ – and explained why he believed that Connie would make an excellent mentor to some of the younger inmates at Darwell.

‘Pass on some wisdom,’ Ibrahim said, ‘some life lessons.’ He promised it would do her good.

She knew Tia Malone from art class, where the youngster had been caught stealing glue. She approached her one lunchtime, and soon they were chatting. Ibrahim had been delighted at this development and predicted that Connie would find the relationship very rewarding.

‘Fifty grand for you,’ says Tia. ‘And fifty for me.’

Connie sips on her flat white. All in all she had done seven months on remand at Darwell, after that unfortunate business on Fairhaven Pier with the cocaine and the dead guys whose names she has forgotten.

It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As a result of her outside connections, she was the only woman in the whole prison with a Pilates machine and a Netflix subscription.

‘I could make fifty grand with one phone call,’ says Connie. ‘I don’t need to get involved in this.’

‘Please,’ says Tia, ‘I promise it’ll be fun. And you told me I had to dream my dream.’

True enough, she had told Tia that. In their very first session.

She liked Tia very much, liked her ambition.

Tia had started her life of crime stealing Rolexes from rich tourists in the West End.

There would be four of them on bicycles, weaving in and out of traffic, picking off targets.

Once threats had been made, and the Rolex stolen, they would disappear down side streets, and be back in the safety of Vauxhall before the first siren was heard.

Tia was the only girl in the gang, and always kept her mouth shut during the robberies to hide that fact.

Eventually the whole gang was caught after a Deliveroo driver, who must have been after a medal or something, followed them back to the estate and led the cops to their lock-up.

Even then, they rounded up three boys, and gave up their search after the fourth boy was nowhere to be seen.

‘A hundred grand though, Tia,’ says Connie. ‘What have I taught you? Surely you can dream bigger than that?’

Connie had to admit it, she was enjoying being a mentor. Tia continued the bike robberies for a while, three new boys in tow now, her human shield reassembled, but she soon had a revelation. The sort of revelation Connie admired.

That’s why they still meet up once a week, usually in Fairhaven’s newest vegan café, Mad about the Soy.

There are now more vegan cafés in Fairhaven than there are non-vegan cafés, but, relentless though the gentrification of the town is, Connie is delighted that the demand for cocaine remains robust.

‘Bigger than a hundred grand?’ Tia asks. In front of her, a coconut flapjack.

‘Tell me what you worked out,’ says Connie. ‘When you were doing the bike robberies?’

‘You know what I worked out,’ says Tia.

‘I know,’ says Connie. ‘But tell me.’

This was a technique she had stolen from Ibrahim. Ibrahim would get Connie to listen to herself. He knew where he wanted her to go, but she had to find her own way there. If you find your own way somewhere, you can go back whenever you choose. That was Ibrahim’s idea anyway, probably nonsense.

‘Someone would buy a Rolex in a shop,’ says Tia. ‘A jeweller’s in Knightsbridge that we kept an eye on. And then me and my friends would follow them, steal the watch and then sell it.’

‘And?’ says Connie, looking for more. It was annoying when Ibrahim did this, but it wasn’t annoying when she did it.

Ibrahim is at a wedding today. He sent her a photo.

Connie would love to get married. Perhaps she should do something about that?

What she really needs is a Tinder for criminals.

Everyone could use their most recent mugshot.

‘And,’ says Tia, ‘we maybe did this fifteen, twenty times. Cycle up there, identify a target, rob them, take the risk, cycle back. Fifteen or twenty different robberies, fifteen or twenty different chances to get caught. Great cardio but high risk.’

‘So you thought?’ Ibrahim’s best mate, Ron, was in the photograph. Connie has promised not to kill him, despite his part in her arrest. We’ll see about that. Connie doesn’t let grudges go lightly. Sometimes she thinks that without the weight of all her grudges she might simply blow away.

Tia finishes off her coconut flapjack. ‘So I thought, well, they’ve all bought these watches from the same shop. So why don’t we just rob the shop instead? Rob all fifteen watches at once. The same reward but only one opportunity to get caught.’

Connie is nodding. There is a lot of rubbish talked about young people, but Tia is a clear and intelligent thinker. She is a doer, a grafter. She still has to make the final step though. Has to work it out for herself.

‘And the downsides to that approach?’ Honestly, sometimes she actually sounds like Ibrahim.

She was in a meeting last Tuesday where a cocaine importer had been shot in the leg, and Connie had found herself saying, ‘The pain is temporary, but the lesson the pain teaches you is forever.’ She hasn’t told Ibrahim this, because, although he would be proud to be quoted, he still disapproves of her business affairs.

‘More planning to do, better security to beat, a more thorough investigation after you’ve done it,’ says Tia. ‘But I like that. I like the planning. That’s the bit I enjoy.’

‘And it worked? The new plan?’

‘Like a dream,’ says Tia. ‘Until we got caught.’

‘But you would have got caught anyway?’ says Connie. ‘For something. At some point. Occupational hazard. Might as well get caught for something big. So go on. What have you learned? What’s your new plan?’

‘I’ve learned my lesson,’ says Tia. ‘This time, when the alarm goes off, I’ve got two minutes. Not a second more. Doesn’t matter if the crown jewels are in the next case, when the two minutes are up, I go.’

Connie nods. ‘That’s what you’ve learned?’

Tia looks at her, the same way that Connie has looked at Ibrahim countless times. Tia knows it’s a trick question. She knows that she should have learned something else, and she is bright enough to try to work out what.

‘So,’ says Tia, thinking on her feet. Or, actually thinking while sitting on an uncomfortable artisan stool. ‘I used to steal Rolexes one by one.’

‘Mmm hmm,’ says Connie.

‘And then I realized that they were all bought from the same shop, so I could just go to the shop and steal fifteen in one go.’

‘And so?’ A mother pushes a buggy past the window of the café and glances in.

What does she see, Connie wonders. A blonde woman in an expensive tracksuit, sitting with a black teenager, both just shooting the breeze.

She doesn’t know that Connie is actually changing Tia’s life, right here, right now.

‘And so …’ Tia plays for time.

‘I told you, Tia,’ says Connie, ‘dream your dream. A hundred grand is nothing.’

‘And so …’ says Tia again, her mind scrolling through answers, until, finally, it finds the right one. ‘Where do the shops get their Rolexes from?’

Bingo.

Tia is thinking this through. ‘The shop in Fairhaven I want to rob has fifteen Rolexes. But there’ll be a shop in Lewes with another fifteen. And a shop in Brighton with another fifteen. And they all came from somewhere.’

‘I mean, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ says Connie. She sees why Ibrahim takes such joy in his work. The feeling you have when you make a breakthrough.

Tia is nodding vigorously now, enjoying the work her brain is doing. ‘A warehouse, somewhere near the port – I can find out, I can find out. And we won’t make a hundred grand – we’ll make a million. In one go.’

‘Tough to rob a warehouse though,’ says Connie.

‘Tough to rob anything,’ says Tia. ‘So if you’re going to rob something –’

‘Make it something big,’ says Connie. ‘Okay, count me in.’

Tia beams, and pulls a notepad from her backpack. Connie looks at the backpack. She bets Tia has had it since school. Had taken it to her GCSEs, had swung it casually while talking to boys at bus stops. And now look at her.

‘First, we need a gang,’ Tia says, writing in her book. ‘People we can trust.’

What a glow Connie feels. She has to hand it to Ibrahim. When he’s right, he’s right.