‘Holly first, then Nick,’ says Ron. ‘It’s always been that way round. Business cards, legal papers, all that. Ibrahim spotted it.’
‘Did he?’ says Connie, looking at the numbers again. ‘It’s definitely logical.’
‘Definitely logical,’ agrees Ron. ‘Stands to reason. You know Ibrahim.’
‘But …’ starts Connie, shaking her head. ‘If you’re going to go to all the trouble of having a code …’
Ron stops to think. ‘Why not add one little twist?’
Connie looks at him and nods. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Ibrahim was sure though,’ says Ron.
‘He’s always sure,’ says Connie. She’s right about that. ‘But what would you do, if you were Holly and Nick?’
‘Me? I’d swap them round,’ says Ron.
‘So would I,’ says Connie.
‘Either way,’ says Bill, ‘I’d rather not get stuck down here. It’d be a hell of a job to get us out. Fire service, probably police, maybe even TV when the word got out we were trapped. Lot of questions about what we’re doing.’
‘Is there food down here?’ Ron asks.
‘I’ve got a KitKat,’ says Bill. ‘I’ve had my lunch already.’
Connie and Ron look at each other. Ron gives a little nod.
‘Nick, then Holly,’ says Connie. ‘If we’re right, we’ve got three hundred and fifty million. If we’re wrong, we’re those Chilean miners.’
‘Good lads, those Chilean miners,’ says Bill.
Connie steps up to the safe. She says each number out loud as she presses the buttons. ‘Two, one, seven, four, nine, five …’
‘In fact, I think I ate the KitKat too,’ says Bill.
‘Four, one, six, six, one, seven.’
For a moment nothing happens. Deep, deep underground, in a place where no outside sound or light has ever reached, the ex-miner, the drug dealer and the man with the shaking fingers hold their breath. Ron looks at Bill; Connie looks at Ron. They all look at the safe door.
Ron shakes his head. ‘I think we’re –’
There are three quick beeps, and the safe springs open. Ron puts his hands on his knees in relief, as Connie reaches in and takes out a piece of paper. Ron rights himself, and she hands it to him.
‘That’s it?’ he asks.
Connie runs her finger along the paper. ‘See all those numbers and letters? That’s the key, it’s a sort of account number. Proves the Bitcoin’s yours.’
‘Seen it all now,’ says Bill. ‘Your pals are going to think you’re a hero, Ron, old son.’
‘I doubt that,’ says Ron.
‘You want me to send you back up?’
Ron looks at Connie. ‘You ready?’
Connie nods. ‘You?’
Ron lets out a deep, deep breath. ‘Not really, Connie. But here we are.’
63
Joyce
I’m watching Flog It! – it’s about antiques before you get any ideas – but I’m not really concentrating. Something very strange has happened, and none of us is quite sure what to do about it.
Ron and Connie had gone down into the mine to open the safe. We have the codes, at least we think we do, and we have the order of the codes, at least Ibrahim thinks we do, and we all felt he was due a win.
The rest of us stayed on the clifftop. Tia and Kendrick and I had an ice-cream from the van in the car park. We sat on a bench overlooking the English Channel. Tia had never had a chocolate flake in her ice-cream before, which I found very hard to believe. I asked if they didn’t have ice-cream vans where she grew up, and she said that they did have one, but the ice-cream man also used it to sell crack, and one day somebody shot him and set fire to the van, so I can see why her mother might not have been keen. The ice-cream man who lived in my village when I was little ended up in prison, but not for selling crack.
Different times.
Seagulls were circling in the sunshine. I do love their salty cries carrying on the breeze. It always lets me know I’m home.
There’s a lady on Flog It! who thinks her vase is an original Troika, but I’m certain I saw the same thing in IKEA in Croydon. Coopers Chase laid on a day trip there in the minibus. I had heard a lot about IKEA, but had never visited one, because you don’t without a car, do you? Anyway, it was everything I imagined and more. I lay on all the beds and sat in all the armchairs, and then in the end I bought a candle, and some meatballs in the café. It was a thoroughly good day out and I would recommend it.
Ah, it turns out the lady on television was right, and her vase was worth fourteen thousand pounds. That will teach me.
But I’m getting away from the point. Tia, Kendrick and I were on the bench. Elizabeth and Ibrahim were strolling up the coastal path, plotting something or other, and Jason and Bogdan were taking it in turns doing press-ups, and then discussing their press-ups with each other.
I was glad to have a bit of time alone with Kendrick and Tia, because I’m still not quite sure what they are both doing here, and I’m beginning to feel left out. Ever since the explosion it feels like something else is going on.
Something is happening with Kendrick, that much is certain. Jason has been looking rattled, which he never does. Even on Celebrity Watercolour Challenge you could tell he’d held his nerve. Thirty minutes to paint Corfe Castle? Rather you than me, Jason. Tia appeared with Connie Johnson, which can’t be a good sign, but seems a delight. Kendrick has clearly taken a shine to her, and I have too. The two of them both need somewhere to stay for a few days, and, if you can say one thing about Coopers Chase, it’s that it is a nice place to stay for a few days. If you ever feel in need of being looked after, come and pay us a visit. Tell them Joyce sent you.
The official line is that Ron’s daughter, Suzi, is away at a friend’s, and that Tia is the daughter of one of Connie’s old schoolmates, and needs a place to stay while her accommodation in Brighton has some building work done.
The woman on TV has just said she won’t sell the vase, and I believe her about as much as I believe those two stories.
I asked Kendrick if he was worried about his grandad being in the mine with a murderer. I should have phrased it a little better than that, but, you know Kendrick, he takes these things in his stride, and said that no one would dare kill his grandad, and I said Elizabeth would dare, and Kendrick said that his grandad versus Elizabeth would be like Iron Man versus the Black Widow, and I didn’t get the reference, but I got the gist and we had a good laugh about it.
But all the time I was thinking that Ron really had been gone for some while. I trust my friends, of course I do, but, you know, it’s Ron, isn’t it?
I saw Elizabeth and Ibrahim wandering back towards us, Elizabeth looking at her watch. She had said this was a bad idea from the start, and you could see her face was a combination of worry and annoyance, along with some happiness that she might be proved right. Elizabeth is capable of holding many emotions at once, while I prefer to concentrate on one at a time. Right at that moment my primary emotion was protectiveness towards the two children eating ice-creams with me.
Tia said she thought whoever killed Holly would try to kill all of us, because it really is an awful lot of money, and they’d proved they were happy to kill people before. I saw that she had a point. Then Kendrick said, ‘Do you know in Italy, ice-cream is called gelato?’ and I said I’d never been to Italy, but I’d seen it on television, and that I had been to France, if that was of interest, and Kendrick said it was of interest and what was the best thing about France, and I said I once found a shop that sold English food and bought some digestives, and he nodded as if that was a perfectly good answer because he’s very polite. Someone brought him up well, and I suspect it wasn’t his father.