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

Elizabeth stares at the photographs on her phone. A silver car, outside a very nice house. And something that shouldn’t be there. Then some close-ups. Some very convincing close-ups.

‘You believe me?’ Nick asks.

‘I believe you,’ says Elizabeth. Attached to the bottom of the car is a black box – the close-ups of which reveal what appears to be, in Elizabeth’s opinion, an alarmingly professional car bomb. ‘Might I ask how you even noticed it?’

‘Security,’ says Nick. ‘It’s my job. I was checking for trackers.’

‘So where is the bomb now?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Now?’ says Nick. ‘I left it just where it was. I couldn’t stick it in the recycling.’

‘You left it where it was? There is a live bomb still attached to your car?’

‘I had a wedding to go to,’ says Nick, motioning over his shoulder.

Elizabeth nods. ‘And if it should go off sometime today – bombs do, you know – you’ll be fine with it killing one of your neighbours?’

‘I live on Hampton Road,’ says Nick.

Elizabeth understands. Big houses, big grounds. If the bomb were to go off, the worst that would happen is that someone complained about the noise.

‘And also,’ says Nick, ‘you don’t know my neighbours.’

‘Tell me your story,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And then we’ll worry about the unexploded bomb.’

Nick starts to speak, but his brain stops him. He’s nervous, which excites Elizabeth a little. Nervous of whom ?

Elizabeth sits completely still, and waits. It can take a while, but, if you are still long enough, they come to you. Fitful babies, zooming kittens, men with secrets. With nothing to bounce off, their nervous energy eventually seems ridiculous to them, and across they trot.

‘We told only two people,’ says Nick.

‘Told only two people what?’ Elizabeth asks.

Nick puffs out his cheeks and looks over both shoulders.

‘Tell me everything,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But be quick: life is short. No offence intended.’

‘It started at uni,’ says Nick. ‘Paul and I had a –’

‘No,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Don’t start there. Start this week.’

‘To really understand –’ says Nick.

‘No,’ says Elizabeth, a little firmer this time.

You sometimes have to be firm with amateurs.

She had learned that with Joyce, though Joyce could pass for a professional these days.

‘Start with the headline and we can work backwards if I’m interested.

You have ten words, or I’m returning to the party.

Eventually they will play a song I recognize. ’

‘I’m out of my depth,’ says Nick.

‘That’s five words already,’ says Elizabeth, getting up.

Nick places a hand on her sleeve. ‘They want something we have.’

‘Well, that’s better,’ says Elizabeth, sitting down again. It turns out she didn’t die with Stephen. She lives. She closes her eyes in silent apology to her husband. I’m still here, darling. Still here, while you are gone. I suspect I should just make the best of it.

‘What is it that you have? That you told only two people about?’

‘A code,’ says Nick. ‘A six-digit code. I have one, and my business partner has one.’

‘Business partner’s name?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Holly,’ says Nick. ‘Holly Lewis.’

‘And people might want these codes that the two of you have?’

‘They would be very valuable, yep,’ says Nick. ‘Like, very valuable.’

‘And where is your code?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘In my head,’ says Nick.

‘Nowhere else?’

‘Locked in a solicitor’s office hundreds of miles away,’ says Nick. ‘If Holly or I die, the other one gets their code. But not even the solicitor knows what he’s got. The only place anyone could find it is up here.’

Nick indicates his head.

‘So someone wants to kill you for a code that exists only in your head? And a code that exists only in Holly’s head?’

‘Yes,’ says Nick. ‘I don’t know who else can help. I can’t have police near The Compound.’

‘The Compound?’ Elizabeth asks. The tale gets wilder. And yet.

‘Oh, Christ,’ says Nick. ‘It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud. You really have to let me start from the beginning. I own a company. A security company.’

‘A security company, I see,’ says Elizabeth. Well, this is interesting. There is very little in this world as dangerous as security.

‘We specialize in cold storage,’ says Nick. ‘Do you know what that is?’

Elizabeth does not, but she has to admit she likes the sound of it. ‘I’m guessing it’s not fridge-freezers?’

‘It’s not,’ says Nick. ‘Holly and I have something very valuable there, and earlier this week we told two people about it.’

‘I see,’ says Elizabeth.

‘And suddenly,’ says Nick, ‘there’s a bomb under my Lexus.’

‘The names of these two people?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Have you heard of Davey Noakes?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone called Davey,’ replies Elizabeth.

‘Ravey Davey, they called him. If you’d bought Ecstasy in the nineties, you’d have heard of him.’

‘I’ll ask Ron,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Then that game got more dangerous,’ says Nick. ‘And Davey turned his hand to high-end tech stuff instead.’

‘Legal high-end tech stuff?’ asks Elizabeth.

‘No,’ says Nick.

Good, thinks Elizabeth. ‘And the other name?’

‘Lord Townes,’ says Nick. ‘He’s a banker; we told him too.’

‘So you think one of those men planted a bomb under your car this morning?’

‘Has to be,’ says Nick. ‘They’re the only people who know what we’re hiding.’

The doors onto the terrace open once more, a blast of music escaping the party. Paul, Joanna’s new husband, steps out.

‘Nico, we thought you must be lying drunk under a hedge! Come on, we’re cutting the cake.’

Nick looks at Elizabeth. Elizabeth tilts her head in the direction of the door. ‘My friend Joyce ordered the cake. We’d best see it cut, or she’ll kill me before someone kills you.’

‘Can you come and see me though?’ Nick asks. ‘Tomorrow? Please. I’ll tell you exactly why one of those two wants to kill me.’

‘One of those three,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Three?’ asks Nick Silver.

‘Well, Davey Noakes knows what you’ve got hidden. Lord Townes knows what you’ve got hidden. But I assume your business partner, Holly Lewis, knows what you have hidden too? So I make that three.’

Nick gives her a long look.

‘Is she here with us today?’ says Elizabeth.

‘No,’ says Nick. ‘She didn’t want –’ He shakes his head. ‘No.’

Elizabeth shrugs.

‘Tomorrow, then,’ says Nick.

Tomorrow, then. That’s the problem with going out.

One thing leads to another, and you find yourself going out again.

Before you know it, real life creeps back in.

Elizabeth doesn’t want real life to creep back in.

Because the one thing Elizabeth knows about real life is that Stephen is not in it.

Everything in her body is telling her to say no.

But then a code and a bomb and three suspects? That doesn’t come along every day.

‘Tomorrow?’ says Nick.

‘Can’t wait,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Glad you’re feeling a bit better. Don’t you dare get killed by that bomb before I see you.’

‘I won’t – we’re all staying here tonight,’ says Nick, writing quickly on the back of a business card and handing it to her. ‘I know this sounds ridiculous, but could you memorize this and burn it?’

He certainly has read a lot of spy books, Elizabeth will give him that. She takes the card and watches Nick disappear back into the wedding.

The front of the business card reads NICK SILVER – COLD STORAGE SOLUTIONS. ABSOLUTE DISCRETION GUARANTEED . Well, there’s no such thing as ‘absolute’ discretion, Nick. On the back is an address and ‘1 p.m. tomorrow’.

Memorize it and burn it? Oh, she can do that all right.

Another star returns to her sky.

It’s baby steps, she knows that. Dipping her toe in the water. Codes and cold storage: it will probably lead to nothing. Even so, Elizabeth looks up to the stars and speaks to Stephen.

‘A drug dealer, a lord and a car bomb, dear? It seems that I’m needed again.’

She peers backs inside, where the music plays. She stands, then looks back up at Stephen.

‘Shall we dance?’