Joyce pays by tapping her mobile phone on a small handset. Somehow that takes money out of her bank account and gives it to Anything with a Pulse. Ron still refuses to pay with anything other than cash, and now the only places in Fairhaven where he can actually buy anything are the bookmakers and the pubs. Which is fine by Ron.
Elizabeth strides away with purpose the moment Joyce reaches her, as if to say, ‘We have two minutes of flapjack time to make up for now, Joyce.’ Joyce happily trots along behind her. You just have to understand each other’s rhythms, don’t you? Time to let Elizabeth take charge for a bit.
‘Do you have an address?’ Joyce asks.
‘8b Templar Street,’ says Elizabeth, still not looking round. ‘It’s just off the front.’
‘And that’s where Nick Silver is?’ Joyce notices Elizabeth’s pace drop slightly, and she allows Joyce alongside. The flapjack break is forgotten, as she knew it would be.
‘It is,’ says Elizabeth. ‘He asked me to meet him there.’
‘And did he ask me to meet him too?’ Joyce asks.
‘We come as a team,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And is he in some sort of trouble?’ asks Joyce, having to step around a seagull that is refusing to move.
‘Someone wants to kill him,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Someone wants to kill him?’ Joyce asks. ‘When did you find that out?’
‘Yesterday,’ says Elizabeth. ‘He came to see me on the terrace. They planted a bomb under his car.’
‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘It was supposed to be a wedding.’
Elizabeth shrugs. ‘An awful lot of murders start at weddings, Joyce.’
‘I did think you perked up a bit during the reception,’ says Joyce. ‘I should have known killing was involved.’
They take a right turn into Ontario Street, a row of lovely three-storey cream stucco-fronted houses, with the sea a wide wall of grey-blue at the end of the road.
‘He says he has information,’ says Elizabeth.
Joyce nods. ‘I know we all played Trivial Pursuit one night, and he was very good at that.’
They take a left onto Templar Street, a narrow road flanked by the back walls of big houses and lined with recycling bins. The sort of street where a busy town keeps its mess and its secrets. Even the seagulls are keeping their distance.
They pass a lamp post to which two rusted bicycle frames are chained, and Elizabeth and Joyce look up at a shoddily built two-storey office building. There are boards nailed over the upper windows. It has a bright blue door on which the number 8 is daubed in white paint.
‘It’s very urban, isn’t it?’ says Joyce. ‘Very gritty. Are you sure it’s the right place?’
Elizabeth waves her hands in the air, and Joyce sees a camera tilt in response to the movement. ‘I suspect it might be.’
Beside the door is an entry pad with two buzzers. The bottom one has been ripped out, and the top one has a sticker reading DO NOT PRESS.
Elizabeth presses it.
They wait, and Joyce strains to hear any sound from within. Nothing.
Elizabeth presses it again, and is met, again, with silence.
‘Joyce,’ she says, ‘go down that side passage and see if there’s any way we can break in.’
Joyce holds the bottom of her coat tight to herself and inches down a narrow, musty alleyway running alongside the building. There are no doors, and just two windows on the upper floor, both covered by solid metal grilles. At the end of the alleyway is a high wall topped with barbed wire, so there is no access to the back. She does notice something interesting, however. She makes her way back to Elizabeth. Elizabeth is running a slim metal file around the edges of the front door.
‘Locked up tight,’ Elizabeth says, removing the file. No wonder he called it The Compound.
‘No way in down there either,’ says Joyce. ‘But there’s a heating vent poking out of the wall.’
‘Are you suggesting one of us climbs through a heating vent?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘No,’ says Joyce. ‘You don’t always have to be facetious with me. But there was steam coming out of it. So either someone is in there, or has been in there very recently.’
‘Very good, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And Nick Silver was expecting you at one on the dot?’
‘He was,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And someone really put a bomb under his car?’
‘Fairly thrilling, isn’t it,’ says Elizabeth, ‘in its own way?’
‘Don’t say that, Elizabeth,’ says Joyce. ‘He’s family.’
‘Joyce, your son-in-law’s best man is not family,’ says Elizabeth.
‘You choose your family these days,’ says Joyce. ‘I saw that on Instagram. We should be cautious and come back another time, shouldn’t we?’
‘We should,’ agrees Elizabeth.
‘But we won’t?’
‘We won’t,’ says Elizabeth.
‘Then how do we get in?’ Joyce asks.
Elizabeth scans the upper floors of the building. Then takes out her phone.
11
Tia has drawn up a plan of the warehouse complex in the back of what Connie realizes is a school exercise book. She is explaining the layout.
‘So the lorry goes through these gates; there are two security posts, ten yards apart. Once he’s through there, he drives thirty yards or so, then goes down this ramp to a sort of concrete apron and on to the loading-bay doors. Ninety seconds or so from start to finish.’
Connie is distracted. A man in a suit in his mid-twenties has sat down in the booth next to them and is watching a video on his phone. The whole café can hear it, but he seems oblivious. Connie holds up her finger to stop Tia for a moment. She turns to the man.
‘Could you use headphones, do you think?’
The man looks at her uncomprehendingly. ‘Uh?’
‘Headphones,’ repeats Connie, then points to her ears in case he needs further help. ‘It’s just everyone else can hear what you’re watching.’
‘Why don’t you mind your business?’ says the young man. ‘Or I’ll mind it for you.’
‘You don’t think it’s rude?’ Connie asks. She’s genuinely interested. The man is watching a video of a man laughing at a video of another man playing a video game.
‘I’m on lunch,’ says the young man, as if that’s an end to the matter.
Connie looks at him for a second, then nods. ‘Okay, I have a bit of business to do, so I’ll deal with you in a minute. If you want to keep listening without your headphones, go right ahead.’
‘I will,’ says the young man.
Connie turns back to Tia. One thing at a time. ‘Sorry, Tia, underground car park.’
‘Security grille will be open. Driver plus two security staff unload the watches – four or five minutes – the boxes are put on pallets and a fork lift takes them inside to a service corridor – that’s two minutes tops – and at the end of that service corridor there’s the vault.’
Connie follows Tia’s progress on the drawing. She’s doing well. The man on the video is now shrieking with laughter.
‘Once it’s in the vault,’ says Tia, ‘we can’t touch it.’
‘But it takes the same journey when it leaves the vault again?’ says Connie. ‘When the watches go out to the shops?’
‘In smaller batches though,’ says Tia. ‘If you want the maximum return, it’s in the nine minutes between the lorry arriving at the security gates and the boxes reaching the vault.’
The video at the next table is still breaking Connie’s concentration, but she takes her role as a mentor very seriously, and Tia needs her full attention. Ibrahim will be here for her own session in a few minutes. He’s already late, some sort of emergency, a sick friend.