Page 70 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

‘Mr Noakes,’ says Ibrahim, ‘what aren’t we going to like?’

‘Again,’ says Davey Noakes, ‘I don’t come out of this wonderfully, but there we are.

It was my idea to pay Holly and Nick in Bitcoin.

I’d been paid some for some amphetamine in Amsterdam and accepted it as a novelty.

I’d just started reading about it and thought, “Why not?” Holly and Nick agreed to the deal, for much the same reason as I did.

Why not chance your arm? It was only twenty grand, and everyone could afford to lose it, if it came to that. ’

‘But now it’s worth three hundred and fifty million,’ says Joanna. ‘And very few people could afford to lose that?’

Davey nods. ‘You’re quite right. It has become a bigger and bigger deal as the years have gone by.’

‘Enough to kill for, in fact,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Which is where we came in.’

‘Three hundred and fifty million is more than enough to kill for,’ agrees Davey. ‘But I’m afraid that Holly and Nick’s Bitcoin is not worth quite as much as that.’

‘How do you mean?’ asks Paul.

Davey gives a big sigh. ‘The Bitcoin I got paid in, all those years ago –’

‘The amphetamine Bitcoin?’ prompts Joyce.

‘The amphetamine Bitcoin,’ confirms Davey. ‘After I agreed the deal with Holly and Nick, and I realized that all I actually had in my possession was a piece of paper with a string of numbers and letters on it –’

‘And so?’ says Ibrahim.

‘So I got to thinking that Holly and Nick wouldn’t really know any different,’ says Davey. ‘And so I took another piece of paper. And I just wrote some numbers and letters on that instead.’

Elizabeth is shaking her head. ‘And that’s what was in Holly and Nick’s safe? Not Bitcoin at all?’

‘Afraid so,’ says Davey. ‘Just an old piece of paper with random letters and numbers on it. It looked the real deal, I made sure of that, but if they’d ever tried to cash it out, it’d be worth the square root of bugger all.’

‘Oh, Davey,’ says Joyce.

‘I know,’ says Davey. ‘I know. I thought there was no risk.

Thought the whole thing would be a fad. I cashed out the real Bitcoin over the years, at various price peaks, and did very nicely thank you out of it, but I was aware that my little twenty-grand con was growing and growing into a bigger and bigger con as the years went by.

‘When it reached two hundred grand, I thought perhaps I should come clean, you know? Tell Holly and Nick there had been a mistake, slip them the two hundred grand? But I like a gamble, I can’t deny it.’

‘I like a gamble too,’ says Ibrahim.

‘I kept thinking it’ll go down again, it’ll go down again, but it didn’t, and by the time the value had passed into the millions, I thought, all right, it’s not a fad, but I’m damned if I’m going to fork out millions to compensate Holly and Nick for a perfectly innocent scam.’

‘So what was the plan?’ Joanna asks.

‘No plan,’ says Davey. ‘None of it mattered, as long as Holly and Nick decided not to cash out. I’d done sterling work over the years persuading one or other of them that the time wasn’t right. They trusted me, you see?’

‘And then two weeks ago,’ says Elizabeth, ‘in walk Holly and Nick, finally agreeing that the time was right.’

Davey nods. ‘The money was too much to ignore, I suppose. It was always going to happen. My only hope of getting out of trouble had been to die before it did. After the two of them had left, I called my accountant in for a stocktake. My money’s scattered here, there and everywhere, and I just wanted to check what it amounted to. ’

‘I did that with my pension,’ says Joyce. ‘There was an advert and you can put it all in one place. It does add up.’

Davey nods. ‘My money amounted to around thirty-one million pounds.’

‘Okay,’ says Joyce. ‘That’s … okay.’

‘Nothing like enough to compensate Holly and Nick. Holly rang me, told me she wanted to meet, and I thought, here we go.’

‘You were going to tell her?’ asks Paul.

Davey nods. ‘I was all ready to come clean, and then she tells me about the car bomb –’

‘And events overtook you,’ says Ibrahim.

‘That’s a nice way of putting it,’ agrees Davey.

‘So the piece of paper we took from the safe this afternoon?’ says Elizabeth.

‘Completely worthless,’ says Davey. ‘I’m ever so sorry.’