Page 7 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

Danny Lloyd has had guns pointed at him before, but never by a woman. It makes, he notes to himself now, very little difference. The gun is the thing. Well, the bullets inside the gun are the actual thing, aren’t they?

Keep the bullets inside the gun, that’s the trick.

It’s his gun, of course – where else on earth would Suzi have got a gun from? Her book club? There’s a loose brick in the changing room of the pool house, and she had obviously found it. There are four or five others scattered around, but he recognizes this one. A Beretta.

Will Suzi kill him? You couldn’t blame her if she did, but at the same time it would be overdramatic. Which would be just like her. It’s a toss-up. Perhaps she’ll kill him. Perhaps she’ll look away for a split-second, and he’ll grab the gun and make her pay.

Either way Danny recognizes their marriage is probably over this time.

‘I told you,’ Suzi says.

She had told him. Plenty of times. But women say a lot of things they don’t mean.

He can already see the swelling beginning to form around her left eye.

That’s going to be a nasty one. Most times she’d go and have a little cry, stay in the house for a couple of days, maybe put on a pair of sunglasses to take the boy to school. But not today. Who knows why?

‘Put it down, Suze,’ Danny says. ‘Let’s talk about it.’

Suzi shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to hear you’re sorry. Not this time.’

Fair enough. And anyway he’s not sorry.

‘And I don’t want to hear you won’t do it again, because you will.’

She’s right: he will do it again. He’d do it this very second if the gun wasn’t pointed at him.

The shock of the gun is subsiding, and now Danny feels his anger beginning to rise.

Who does Suzi think she is? Whose house does she think she’s in?

Who paid for the pool? Who pays for the holidays?

The school fees? What does she actually contribute?

There’s a thousand women who’d swap places with her.

He knows, because plenty of them ask to.

But here he is, and this is what he gets for his troubles.

‘Babe,’ says Danny, ‘I lost my temper. You know the stress I’m under.’

‘You’re under stress?’ she says. ‘I’ve had fifteen years of being beaten black and blue. Of hiding what you do to me. From our son, from my friends, from my family.’

The family. That’s the only thing that’s ever really worried Danny. The brother especially. Suzi’s brother would kill him if he found out. Would kill him, and could kill him. But Suzi knows that too, which is why she’s never told her brother.

‘I hear ya, babe, I promise I hear ya. Put the gun down: let’s get a takeaway and tone down the emotions.’

She’s not going to shoot him. Danny’s fairly sure about that.

The boy’s asleep upstairs. He’d hear. If she’d found the gun in the loft, which has a silencer, he’d be more worried.

A bullet from the Beretta would also make a hell of a mess.

It’d be all well and good dragging his body to the car and burying him somewhere, but sooner or later the police would come calling, and you’re not going to get every drop of blood out of their Habitat sofa.

No chance. That’s a crime scene she’d never clear up, and she’s been around long enough to know that.

‘You’re not going to shoot me,’ says Danny. Suzi’ll calm down. She always does. A few roses tomorrow, do a sad face at breakfast, maybe he could cry a little – that always seems to bring her round.

‘No, I’m not going to shoot you,’ she says. ‘You’re going to leave.’

He nods. Okay, this is more like it. She’s letting off steam. ‘Good idea, babe – give us both a chance to cool down.’

‘I don’t need to cool down,’ says Suzi. ‘I’m cool. You’re leaving right now, and you’re never coming back.’

Danny laughs at this. It’s actually nice to relieve a bit of the tension. ‘Babe, it’s my house.’

‘Whose name is it in, babe?’ she asks.

‘Your name,’ he says. ‘For tax purposes. And because I love you. But it’s my house, and you’re not about to shoot me. So why don’t I go and stay with Eddie for the night, and you can calm down, and we can pretend this never happened?’

She smiles. ‘I’ve pretended for so long, Danny.’

‘This ain’t like you, babe, come on.’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I haven’t been myself for years. I used to be strong, Dan.’

‘You’re still strong.’

‘I used to smile, do you remember? And now I only smile in public or in photographs.’

‘Then smile more,’ says Danny. ‘Don’t blame me if you’re not smiling.’

She smiles.

‘There you go,’ says Danny.

Now she starts laughing. ‘Do you know what I did before I got your gun?’

Danny doesn’t love her tone here. What if she’s done something stupid like call the police?

They wouldn’t need to be asked twice to search this place.

There’s the guns, couple of bags of coke here and there, fifty grand or so in cash, twenty or thirty passports.

Surely she wouldn’t? The police? She’s not from the sort of family who’d even know their number.

‘I packed you a little suitcase,’ she says.

Now he smiles. He can play this game. ‘Okay, Suze, I get the message. But I’ll be back in the morning, and we can have a proper talk. Kiss and make up.’

She shakes her head. ‘You’re going for good. Everyone’s told me for years, and I made excuses, but I’m out. I’m a big girl, Danny, but I’m not bringing up my son in a house ruled by a bully. You’ve broken me, but I won’t let you break him.’

‘You’re tired,’ says Danny.

‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I am.’

‘Put the gun down. I’ll get my case, get my head down somewhere, and everything’ll be better in the morning.

’ Arsenal are on telly tonight: he can go to the pub and watch the match.

Teach her a lesson tomorrow. She’s usually good as gold, apart from the waterworks, but he’s not going to let this stand, is he?

She’ll pay for it in the morning. The two of them can take the kid off to school, play happy families, and then he can remind her who’s in charge.

He hasn’t noticed up to now that she has her phone in her left hand. I mean, he’s been concentrating on the gun, hasn’t he? He notices now, because she raises the phone to her swollen eye.

‘Babe …’

He hears the click of a selfie being taken.

‘What’s that?’ says Danny. ‘Evidence? The police’ll love that.’

She shakes her head and presses another button on her phone.

‘How far are we from Fairhaven?’ she asks.

‘What?’

‘From Fairhaven, Danny, what do you think? If someone was angry and driving fast. Twenty minutes?’

‘What’s in Fairhaven?’ Danny asks.

‘My brother,’ she says. ‘I just sent him the photo.’

The brother. Jason Ritchie. She finally did it.

‘Your case is by the front door. I’m only giving you the chance to disappear because I don’t want Jason going to prison for ripping you to pieces. If I ever see you again, or if Kendrick ever sees you again – or if anything ever happens to either of us – you’re a dead man.’

Kendrick. Danny should take his son with him, shouldn’t he?

Really break her heart. But he doesn’t like Kendrick.

And Kendrick doesn’t like him. He’d be cutting off his nose to spite his face.

He’ll get a plane over to Portugal; he knows people there.

Bit of sunshine. The gun is still pointed at him.

She’ll regret this: Danny will make sure of that.

Give him a couple of days, and he can have someone do a number on Jason, and then do a number on her.

Bury them both so deep you’d never know they existed.

And Kendrick? He can go and live with his grandad.

He can keep that dumb lefty Ron company when his two kids have been killed. Danny smiles.

There are footsteps on the stairs. Danny turns and sees Kendrick. Kendrick is looking at his mum, who has a gun in her hand.

‘Is that a real gun?’ Kendrick asks.

‘It’s just a toy,’ says his mum.

‘So you’re playing a game?’ Kendrick asks.

‘Just a game,’ says Suzi.

‘It’s real,’ says Danny. ‘Because your mum is a psycho. You’re both psychos.’

‘It’s not real,’ says Suzi. ‘None of this is real.’

‘I think I am neurodivergent though,’ says Kendrick, walking down the stairs. ‘One of the teachers said. Does your eye hurt?’

‘It does, Kenny,’ says Suzi. ‘But the pain will go when Daddy goes.’

‘Is Daddy going?’

His mum nods.

‘When is he coming back?’

‘He’s not coming back, Kenny,’ says his mum.

Kendrick looks at his dad, then back at his mum. ‘Do you promise?’

‘I promise.’

Kendrick nods.

Danny can actually see upsides here. A bit of freedom. He’ll be a single man, officially single. He’ll be back to claim the house, of course, and the rest of his assets, maybe even go to both funerals, Suzi’s and Jason’s, but a few months in Portugal will do him the world of good.

‘Just go, Danny,’ says Suzi. ‘Before Jason gets here.’

‘Is Uncle Jason coming?’ Kendrick asks.

‘He’ll be here any minute,’ says his mum.

‘Can I stay up and see him? Pleeease?’

‘Just this once,’ says his mum. ‘Special occasion.’

She walks Danny into the hallway and gestures to his case with the gun.

‘Is there a passport in there?’ he asks.

‘A couple,’ she says.

‘I’ll be back,’ says Danny. ‘And I’ll kill you, and I’ll kill Jason.’

‘We’ll see,’ says Suzi.

Danny sees Suzi move to put her arm around Kendrick. But Kendrick puts his arm around his mum first. Always thick as thieves, those two; it makes him sick.

He picks up the case and opens the front door. His front door. I mean, you never know with life, do you? One minute you’re sitting there looking at tanning machines online, the next you’re being forced out of your own home at gunpoint. There are surprises around every corner.

As Suzi and Jason Ritchie will find out very soon.