‘Well, you know Mum,’ says Joanna.
‘I do,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Joyce’s only motivation in life is your happiness. That’s a lot of pressure. Heaven knows what she might advise, terrified of saying the wrong thing, giving the wrong advice. So you don’t go to your mother. And, of course, you can’t go to your father.’
‘No,’ agrees Joanna.
‘Because he’s dead,’ adds Ibrahim. ‘He died.’
Joanna gives a genuine laugh. ‘I can’t believe you do this for a living.’
‘But your father would have given you the best advice,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Your father would have seen the truth?’
Joanna nods, her head on Ibrahim’s shoulder.
‘And I’m the next best thing,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Older, universally recognized as wise – ask anyone, they’ll tell you the same.’
Joanna starts laughing again. People often laugh at the most unlikely times, Ibrahim has noticed over the years.
‘So you have the question. Goodness, is it all too soon, is Paul the man for me? Do I ask my mother, who will panic, or do I ask my father, who will look into my eyes and see the truth? I ask my father, because I already know the truth, and I just need someone to say it out loud for me. Of course it is not too soon. You found love, and you knew it as surely as finding a diamond. Or finding a KitKat where one of the fingers is made entirely of chocolate, which actually happened to me once –’
‘Focus, Ibrahim,’ says Joanna.
‘When we have a dilemma’ – his KitKat story is true, by the way, but is maybe for another time – ‘we ask the person who will give us the answer we already know. And that’s why you asked me. Paul is wonderful, you are wonderful, today is wonderful.’
Their dance is coming to an end, as all dances must.
‘Who did you fall in love with?’ Joanna asks.
‘A boy called Marius,’ says Ibrahim. ‘He is dead too, like your dad.’
Joanna holds him tighter. ‘So that’s why you seem lonely. You’re waiting to see him again.’
‘I see him right now,’ says Ibrahim, and ‘Like a Prayer’ begins to fade out. ‘He sat with me at the wedding. I should go and see if Chris is badly injured.’
Joanna nods towards the circle of onlookers. ‘I think you’re going to be busy.’
Ibrahim looks too. A lot of women seem to be heading his way.
Joanna kisses Ibrahim on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’
Her place is immediately taken by Patrice. She extends her hands towards Ibrahim’s.
‘You really mustn’t feel obliged,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Obliged?’ says Patrice. ‘I had to elbow a bridesmaid out of the way.’
5
Elizabeth stares at the photographs on her phone. A silver car, outside a very nice house. And something that shouldn’t be there. Then some close-ups. Some very convincing close-ups.
‘You believe me?’ Nick asks.
‘I believe you,’ says Elizabeth. Attached to the bottom of the car is a black box – the close-ups of which reveal what appears to be, in Elizabeth’s opinion, an alarmingly professional car bomb. ‘Might I ask how you even noticed it?’
‘Security,’ says Nick. ‘It’s my job. I was checking for trackers.’
‘So where is the bomb now?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘Now?’ says Nick. ‘I left it just where it was. I couldn’t stick it in the recycling.’
‘You left it where it was? There is a live bomb still attached to your car?’
‘I had a wedding to go to,’ says Nick, motioning over his shoulder.
Elizabeth nods. ‘And if it should go off sometime today – bombs do, you know – you’ll be fine with it killing one of your neighbours?’
‘I live on Hampton Road,’ says Nick.
Elizabeth understands. Big houses, big grounds. If the bomb were to go off, the worst that would happen is that someone complained about the noise.
‘And also,’ says Nick, ‘you don’t know my neighbours.’
‘Tell me your story,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And then we’ll worry about the unexploded bomb.’
Nick starts to speak, but his brain stops him. He’s nervous, which excites Elizabeth a little. Nervous of whom?
Elizabeth sits completely still, and waits. It can take a while, but, if you are still long enough, they come to you. Fitful babies, zooming kittens, men with secrets. With nothing to bounce off, their nervous energy eventually seems ridiculous to them, and across they trot.
‘We told only two people,’ says Nick.
‘Told only two people what?’ Elizabeth asks.
Nick puffs out his cheeks and looks over both shoulders.
‘Tell me everything,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But be quick: life is short. No offence intended.’
‘It started at uni,’ says Nick. ‘Paul and I had a –’
‘No,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Don’t start there. Start this week.’
‘To really understand –’ says Nick.
‘No,’ says Elizabeth, a little firmer this time. You sometimes have to be firm with amateurs. She had learned that with Joyce, though Joyce could pass for a professional these days. ‘Start with the headline and we can work backwards if I’m interested. You have ten words, or I’m returning to the party. Eventually they will play a song I recognize.’
‘I’m out of my depth,’ says Nick.
‘That’s five words already,’ says Elizabeth, getting up.
Nick places a hand on her sleeve. ‘They want something we have.’
‘Well, that’s better,’ says Elizabeth, sitting down again. It turns out she didn’t die with Stephen. She lives. She closes her eyes in silent apology to her husband. I’m still here, darling. Still here, while you are gone. I suspect I should just make the best of it.
‘What is it that you have? That you told only two people about?’
‘A code,’ says Nick. ‘A six-digit code. I have one, and my business partner has one.’
‘Business partner’s name?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘Holly,’ says Nick. ‘Holly Lewis.’
‘And people might want these codes that the two of you have?’
‘They would be very valuable, yep,’ says Nick. ‘Like, very valuable.’
‘And where is your code?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘In my head,’ says Nick.
‘Nowhere else?’
‘Locked in a solicitor’s office hundreds of miles away,’ says Nick. ‘If Holly or I die, the other one gets their code. But not even the solicitor knows what he’s got. The only place anyone could find it is up here.’
Nick indicates his head.
‘So someone wants to kill you for a code that exists only in your head? And a code that exists only in Holly’s head?’
‘Yes,’ says Nick. ‘I don’t know who else can help. I can’t have police near The Compound.’
‘The Compound?’ Elizabeth asks. The tale gets wilder. And yet.
‘Oh, Christ,’ says Nick. ‘It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud. You really have to let me start from the beginning. I own a company. A security company.’
‘A security company, I see,’ says Elizabeth. Well, this is interesting. There is very little in this world as dangerous as security.
‘We specialize in cold storage,’ says Nick. ‘Do you know what that is?’
Elizabeth does not, but she has to admit she likes the sound of it. ‘I’m guessing it’s not fridge-freezers?’
‘It’s not,’ says Nick. ‘Holly and I have something very valuable there, and earlier this week we told two people about it.’
‘I see,’ says Elizabeth.
‘And suddenly,’ says Nick, ‘there’s a bomb under my Lexus.’
‘The names of these two people?’ says Elizabeth.
‘Have you heard of Davey Noakes?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone called Davey,’ replies Elizabeth.