‘Codes,’ says Ibrahim, trying to sound enigmatic.
‘Our solicitor has them,’ says Holly. ‘In case of our deaths.’
‘Then your solicitor would be a suspect?’ says Ibrahim.
‘He doesn’t know he has them,’ says Holly. ‘He just knows he has something to pass on if either of us were to die. He’s a nobody.’
‘So if Nick is dead, you’d get his code?’ Ron asks. Ibrahim is glad that Ron has said this. Holly was not at the wedding; Holly seems to be the only person who might profit from Nick’s death; and, Elizabeth is right, she doesn’t seem to be worried that whoever placed the bomb under Nick’s car might do the same to hers. And might the reason for that be because she was the one who planted it?
‘He’s not dead,’ says Holly. ‘We’ll find him together.’
And then what, Holly Lewis? thinks Ibrahim.
‘I don’t wish to be morbid,’ says Joyce, ‘but who gets the codes if you both die? Who does this solicitor pass the codes to then?’
Holly turns on Joyce. ‘Why are you asking me that?’
Joyce has been taken by surprise. ‘I just … I’m ever so sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. I just wondered.’
‘No,’ says Holly. ‘Why are you asking me that? And not one of your friends?’
‘I just …’ says Joyce, ‘I just thought I hadn’t said anything for a while. I was trying to be useful.’
‘You were being useful, Joyce,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Holly is under a lot of stress. I’m sure she didn’t mean to snap.’
‘So who would get the codes?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ says Holly, who seems to be regaining some composure. ‘No idea.’
If you were to ask Ibrahim, who likes nothing better than cracking the codes of the mind, he would say she’s lying. Quite why, though, he couldn’t tell you.
‘Well, if you really don’t know,’ says Elizabeth, ‘the two of you should start to think about writing your codes down somewhere safe and sound, so someone you trust could find them if you do die.’
‘Might be too late for Nick,’ says Ron. ‘You could just tell me your code if you like though?’
‘No one is going to die,’ says Holly. ‘And, if you’ll excuse me, I might call it a night. I’ve told you everything I can. You’ve got my number if Nick gets in touch.’
‘Of course,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You’ve been very kind indeed to come to see us.’
Holly stands and swings her bag over her shoulder. Ibrahim sees that Joyce feels guilty about the weight of the brownies. That’s what happens when you bake hungover, Joyce.
Holly gives stiff handshakes to Elizabeth and Ibrahim, and then refuses hugs from Joyce and Ron. She walks towards the exit, listing under the weight of the bag. The gang watch her go, waiting for her to be out of earshot.
‘I knew that’s what cold storage was,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Somebody is after that Bitcoin,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And is willing to kill for it,’ says Ibrahim.
‘But Holly was right,’ says Joyce.
‘Right about what, Joyce?’ Elizabeth doesn’t like her train of thought being broken.
‘Why try to kill Nick if you don’t know his code? Why plant a bomb under his car? If it was me, I’d kidnap him and then torture him.’
‘You used to be such an innocent woman, Joyce,’ says Ibrahim.
‘No, she didn’t,’ says Ron, and raises his wine glass to her.
‘If you wanted to steal the money,’ says Joyce, ‘you wouldn’t try to kill him. You’d try to get his code.’
‘Unless killing him was a way to get his code,’ says Elizabeth.
Exactly what Ibrahim had been thinking. They are all on the same page.
‘The solicitor,’ says Ron, taking his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘That’s clever. It’s always the solicitors, isn’t it? I bet it’s the same guy who did my first divorce.’
Okay, so maybe Ron isn’t on the same page.
‘I’d better head home,’ says Ron. ‘Pauline’s looking after Kendrick. I’ll leave you to catch the solicitor.’
‘Ron, not all solicitors are evil,’ says Joyce. ‘If Holly kills Nick, Holly has Nick’s code handed to her.’
‘Worth three hundred and fifty million pounds,’ says Ibrahim. ‘That’s quite the motive.’
‘Wait, Holly planted the car bomb?’ says Ron, struggling with his jacket, then realizing the sleeve is inside-out. ‘The morning of the wedding?’
‘I did wonder why she wasn’t there,’ says Joyce. ‘They’re all supposed to be friends. But you wouldn’t come to a wedding if you’d just planted a car bomb under the best man’s Volvo?’
‘Lexus, Joyce,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But precisely.’
‘And now,’ says Elizabeth, ‘having failed, Holly is asking our help in finding Nick Silver.’
‘Or delivering him to her,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Surely, if Nick’s code was secret,’ says Elizabeth, ‘it wouldn’t make sense for Davey Noakes to plant the bomb. Or for Lord Townes to plant the bomb.’
Joyce nods. ‘Holly Lewis planted the bomb.’
Ron isn’t buying it. ‘I bet it was the sol–’
They feel the explosion before they hear the noise. A rush of wind that knocks them from their seats. And then the noises, a huge thunderclap, followed by rolling booms. The night sky outside is lit by intense orange flames. Elizabeth is first to her feet, and moves as fast as she can to the door and into the heat now filling the evening air. Residents are peering out of windows, and they are all peering at the same thing. The remains of a car, blown apart in the overspill visitors’ car park. And Elizabeth knows just which visitor it will be. Joyce and Ibrahim are close behind her, Ron lagging a little. The heat becomes unbearable as she reaches the remains of what was Holly’s Volkswagen Beetle.
The pain as Elizabeth moves ever closer is becoming unbearable, but Elizabeth feels pain differently now. Unbearable is the norm.
‘Get back!’ shouts Ibrahim. ‘She’s dead!’
I know she’s dead, thinks Elizabeth. I can see she’s dead. It would have been instant – that’s something at least.
‘You can’t save her, Elizabeth,’ shouts Joyce.
I’m not trying to save her. I’m trying to solve a murder.
And then she spots it, already starting to melt into the frame of the car.
Holly’s mobile phone. Wrapping her scarf around it, she throws the scalding hot phone clear. The phone is destroyed, but, if she got there in time, the SIM card will have survived. There’s always something useful.
So they were trying to kill Holly Lewis too?
Elizabeth knows what Nick has told her and she knows what Holly has told her. Perhaps the phone will tell a different story? She needs information. About The Compound. About Davey Noakes. About Lord Townes.
Somebody is willing to kill for all that money. But who?
20
Paul Brett emerges from under the water, and Joanna smiles at her handsome husband.
Joanna and Paul are drinking the promised Champagne in the promised hot tub, on the terrace of an ‘Executive Lodge’ nestled in the woodland grounds of a grand country-house hotel. Those grounds are so big that, while the hot tub is in north Dorset, the breakfast buffet is in south Somerset.
‘Are you worried though?’ Joanna asks. ‘About Nick?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Paul. ‘Not really my world, all that.’
Joyce had rung Joanna an hour or so ago and, after a lengthy diversion into porcelain cats, had told her about the bomb under Nick’s car.
‘He’ll text me any minute,’ says Paul. ‘It’ll be a training exercise or something. Testing for weaknesses in their system.’
‘In The Compound?’ Joanna asks. ‘I’m not really sure I know what it is?’
‘Cold storage,’ says Paul. ‘Instead of storing secrets on computers, where hackers can get to them, you stick them in a safe room underground that’s impossible to rob. It’s very popular.’