Easy day’s work. ‘Thanks, Danny. Alpha 4, thanks, Alpha 4.’
Danny now risks a glance at Ron. Ron nods again, letting him know the conversation was acceptable. So he was going to kill Suzi too? Of course he was. Ron will never be able to lose the image of Suzi, with her bruised eye, her nose and cheek starting to swell and shine. That’s what this animal standing in front of him had done. Of course he would kill her. That’s what animals do.
With his steroid-built muscles and cocaine-funded suits, Danny had always looked to Ron like a child’s drawing of a man. He recognizes now that Danny himself was the child who had done the drawing. He had turned himself into someone that would never have to face his own weakness and vulnerability, who ran from all the things that turn real little boys into real men. In front of Ron was a wholly fake man, an absence of anything real or true. But a man whose actions had real-life consequences. That bruised eye was real, even if the fist behind it had been constructed from bravado and thin air.
‘Happy?’ Danny asks.
‘You were going to kill Suzi too?’ Ron asks.
‘That’s how it works,’ Danny says. ‘Law of the jungle.’
‘You grew up in Kent,’ says Ron. ‘You chose your own law. You hired someone to kill my son, and you hired the same man to kill my daughter?’
‘And now I’m swapping them both for killing you,’ says Danny. ‘The Bitcoin, please.’
Ron pushes himself up from the armchair and heads for the bedroom. At first Jason hadn’t even told him about Suzi. Hadn’t wanted to upset an old man. Didn’t think Ron could protect her. But Ron is an old lion, and old lions will always protect their young. Whatever it might take. Jason took him and Kendrick to see Suzi first thing this morning. They talked, the whole Ritchie family. They talked; they cried.
From the moment Ron had seen the photograph of Suzi, he knew he would sacrifice anything to save his daughter. And that’s exactly what he is about to do. The greatest sacrifice of all.
Ron pushes open the bedroom door, and three armed police officers in bulletproof vests and helmets run, screaming, into the room.
‘Armed police, armed police, drop your weapon, drop your weapon!’
He hears the commotion continue as Pauline gives him a hug.
‘You did great,’ says Pauline. ‘I’m proud of you.’
Ron looks back through the open doorway.
Danny Lloyd, after his full and frank confession, is lying on the ground being handcuffed. Connie Johnson had delivered him, just as she had promised. What happens next to the money, God only knows, and who killed Holly Lewis remains a mystery, but, just for now, Ron’s job is done.
One of the armed officers removes his helmet and gives Ron a thumbs-up.
DCI Chris Hudson. Ron has missed the big lunk.
‘Thanks, Chrissy boy,’ says Ron. ‘Nice gun.’
It’s important to have principles, it really is, but, Ron reflects, as he sees Danny being led away, face contorted in anger, he knows he did the right thing. He, Suzi and Jason had talked about it and talked about it. He and Connie had talked about it and talked about it. How to stop this man who had hit his wife.
In the end it was Kendrick. He’d overheard a conversation Ron and Jason had with Chris and Donna, and he, as so often with Kendrick, had an opinion on it, and in the end Ron had picked up the phone to DCI Chris Hudson, because they had all reached the same conclusion.
There are worse crimes than grassing.
THE NEXT SIX WEEKS AND FOUR DAYS
71
Even on a mild August evening the English Channel is choppy. The little cruiser meets each new crest with dread, and each new fall with relief. Lord Townes is glad he isn’t going far.
He’s not bad with boats; once had one of his own down at the Marina in Brighton. Eighty-footer, couple of sleeping cabins, hot tub on the aft deck. He’d taken it as far as Santander once, but at the last minute his proposed companion, a woman he’d got talking to at golf, had come down with flu and he’d made the crossing alone.
His boat was called Bonus 98, because that’s what paid for it.
This current craft belongs to an old pal, Leonard, who made several tens of millions in zinc derivatives and is currently in prison due to a misunderstanding over the tax that was subsequently due. Leonard is learning Mandarin to pass the time in prison, because China’s the future.
Gosh, the future, there’s a funny thought. How important the future is, until the day it isn’t.
Fate, luck, accident, whatever it is that tosses your life around like the Channel is tossing around the little cruiser. They say you can’t control it, but Robert must politely disagree. He knows a way.
The box Robert took from The Compound is safely stowed in the cabin of this little cruiser. His insurance has always been there.
The night is cloudless, which is a nice touch. The sky is a blue granite, and the sea a blood black. It is streaked with moonlight, twisting like a ribbon on the waves.
It was just the latest in a long line of fortune, the Bitcoin. When Holly and Nick had taken him into their confidence, Robert had kept a straight face and a professional air, but he felt saved. He could have screamed for joy. Something always turned up.
Just the commission on a deal of that size would have kept the hall running for years to come. Would have repopulated the place with cooks and gardeners and drivers. Would have seen Robert nicely through the next twenty years, and he could have popped his clogs in peace and everyone would have agreed what a jolly good chap he was. The portraits would have nodded to him as he walked through the warm house. ‘Skin of your teeth, old boy!’ they’d have said. ‘The Townes magic strikes again!’
He was born into an impossible fortune; all he had had to do was not waste it.
Something has always cropped up when Robert needed it most; he has grown used to it. The Bitcoin bonanza was simply the last cab on the rank. A place opening up at Oxford at the last minute, despite his appalling A-level results. The bank that wasn’t recruiting suddenly needing an extra pair of hands. His father dying young. A string of good fortune, upon which Holly and Nick’s visit was just the latest pearl to be threaded.
He became reacquainted with his old friend, optimism, read up all he could on Bitcoin, just to ensure he wouldn’t come across as a complete buffoon. Then he’d paid a visit to some old chums of his up in town, and they all seemed jolly pleased to see him, as well they might, with three hundred and fifty million under his watchful command. All seemed well with the world again. Lunch at someone’s club, little snooze on the train home and a taxi from the station, because why not?
And of course he checked the prices, checked and rechecked what his three per cent transaction fee might be worth. When he had last checked, it had been worth, and he had written this down, ten point five million. He went to bed smiling, and woke up to the news of Holly Lewis’s murder. He then rang Nick Silver, but to no avail. The man had gone missing, and so, it seemed, had the opportunity.
Robert goes into the cabin and switches off the engine. This is as good a place as any. He is far from shore, but Robert has been far from shore for a long time now. He takes the wooden box from the cabin and brings it out onto the deck. He sits on the bare boards and, with his feet dangling from the side of the boat, opens it. He thinks back again to the events of the last few weeks.