Page 47 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)
Jason Ritchie has made a few calls, and no one knows where Danny Lloyd is. He’s out of the country certainly. Good riddance.
Kendrick is staying: Jason had insisted on it. He’s in Jason’s living room, doing his homework. Maths. Jason offered to help, but Kendrick said, ‘Probably best if I do this one myself, Uncle Jason.’ Suzi is staying with friends for a couple of days. Jason insisted on that too.
He needs to keep them both safe from Danny Lloyd.
Suzi’s injuries are healing, the physical ones at least, but Jason must make sure that the story ends here.
Danny will have to ride off into the sunset, and leave Suzi and Kendrick in peace.
It’ll be easier said than done, Jason knows that.
Danny is not a rational man. He has what passes for pride in men who grew up with pride denied to them.
He didn’t use to be that bad a guy, Danny.
Always on the wrong side of the law, but Jason knows plenty of decent guys who’ve never done a decent day’s work in their lives.
Sometimes that’s just where you grew up.
Your dad’s an accountant, you become an accountant; your dad robs banks, you rob banks.
Danny’s dad broke his back falling through the roof of the old Tesco building in Crawley years and years ago.
Danny was never going to be an accountant.
So he robbed shops and offices for a while.
Wages, weekly takings, anywhere there was a lot of cash and not much effort needed to take it.
Then, when he had a bit of money behind him, it was drugs.
Even easier money. That’s what he was up to when Suzi first met him.
Walking around a nightclub with a wad of notes, big grin on his face.
Jason liked him, Suzi fell in love with him, Ron always had his card marked.
But the cocaine had been what really did for Danny.
It was often the case. Turned him from a half-decent guy you could have a laugh with at Christmas into a violent thug.
There are a few people who deal cocaine and who never touch the stuff – Connie Johnson, there was an example – but that path was not for Danny Lloyd.
And the more and more he took, the more and more unpredictable he became, the less fun Danny Lloyd was, and the more dangerous.
Kendrick came along, and Danny chilled for a couple of years.
Bought himself some nice suits, a few trips to Morocco and the Middle East every year, making bigger and bigger connections, but he fell back into it, like his old dad on that rotten roof in Crawley, and money was the only thing he had left to break his fall.
A rational man would walk away from Suzi and Kendrick and cut his losses. Let them have that nice house in Coulsdon, buy Kendrick presents for his birthday and Christmas, and get on with his life. But that’s not Danny’s style.
Jason smiles to himself, because it’s not his style either. He’s seen Suzi’s injuries, and he knows he won’t let them stand. Danny Lloyd needs to be taught a lesson. It’s a question, Jason supposes, of who gets who first.
Kendrick wanders through to the kitchen. ‘Am I allowed orange squash?’
‘Are you normally allowed orange squash?’ Jason asks.
‘At home, no,’ says Kendrick. ‘Because of the sugar, but at Grandad’s, yes, because sugar never did him any harm.’
Ron. What would Ron make of all this? Jason has to protect him for as long as he can. Sort it all out before he even finds out.
Jason’s mind flashes back to his own childhood. Lying on the sofa with an orange squash and the telly. My God, what times. He wishes Kendrick nothing but what he had. A house full of noise and love and orange squash and TV.
‘Then I say you can,’ says Jason.
‘Do you have any?’ Kendrick asks.
‘No,’ says Jason. ‘I’m an adult, I don’t drink orange squash.’
‘You should,’ says Kendrick. ‘It has calcium. And also it’s good.’
He’s right, thinks Jason, he should drink orange squash, it’s good. His Ring doorbell sounds, so he looks on his phone. Amazon delivery.
Is he expecting something? Did he order that book he saw on Graham Norton? Must have. Jason wouldn’t mind going on Graham Norton, but Graham Norton wasn’t around when Jason was at his most famous. Still, he wouldn’t mind going on. Chatting to Margot Robbie and Mo Farah. The doorbell rings again.
‘Can I get it?’ Kendrick asks, and Jason starts to say yes before something stops him. Just an instinct.
‘No, you get back to your homework,’ says Jason. He looks at his phone again. The guy’s wearing an Amazon uniform and is carrying an Amazon package, but why not be safe? Jason presses the microphone on his screen.
‘Just leave it on the doorstep, mate,’ he says.
The delivery driver doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Needs signing for.’
Jason looks at the package on the screen. Looks pretty small. Must be that book. They had a Formula One driver on. He was sitting next to Cher. ‘Forget it, mate. Just got out of the bath.’
The man pauses for a moment. This is the point a real Amazon driver goes back to his car or van. But he doesn’t. Instead he reaches into a bag.
Jason runs into the living room, scoops up Kendrick and is out of the back window before the first bullet thuds through his front door.
Danny Lloyd has made the first move.