When all had seemed lost, Robert did what he was best at: he crossed his fingers and hoped for the best. Perhaps Nick Silver would reappear and all would be well? Perhaps Nick Silver wouldn’t reappear, and Robert might be the only person with the knowledge of what was in that cold storage unit? Perhaps the whole lot might be his if the cards fell in the right way, which they had done so often for Robert before. What would the family portraits say about that? Robert sauntering around with almost a cool half a billion?
But Nick Silver never reappeared.
Even now, bobbing alone, far out to sea, Robert looks around to see if salvation might be at hand. A stately white galleon welcoming him aboard with fine news from home. There was a galleon in Robert’s favourite book as a child. His mother read it to him before he had to leave. It was laden with treasure from the East Indies, and Robert would dream about it at night. You can’t help the habit of a lifetime, can you? Was that the last time he was happy? No, that’s not right, there had been plenty of happiness over the years, trips and friends and golf, but perhaps sitting on his mother’s knee at the age of seven was the last time he was truly himself.
He has led a charmed life, but he can’t say that he has enjoyed it. Who loved him? Robert can’t think of a soul. His mother perhaps, but wasn’t that a very long time ago? Life for Robert was just an endless succession of seeing what might happen next. He was incapable of making anything actually happen. You have to be real to make things happen, and Robert has known for a very long time that he is not real.
He never made anything but money. And then he lost that too.
He thinks again what life might have been like in an ordinary house in an ordinary town with ordinary parents. He will never know, but he wishes he could have found out.
Aut neca aut necare. Kill or be killed. Take a bit of initiative was probably the basic point, wasn’t it? Don’t always let life happen to you.
Robert opens the box and takes out the gun. It was his father’s; Robert had never been allowed to touch it. ‘I wouldn’t trust you with a gun,’ his father had said. ‘You’d probably blow your own head off.’
His father, who had bent the world to his will his whole life, had died of a heart attack in a sauna in Marrakesh. They had found him fat and naked, and it had taken four paramedics to move him. The sauna closed a few weeks later. Even in death he demanded attention.
Robert pushes himself to his feet and perches on the top railing of the deck. If he shoots himself from this angle, his body will topple backwards into the sea. No one will have to clear anything up and he won’t be any trouble.
He can just float away, and it will be like he was never here at all.
Or he could just ride the waves to France? Start a new life. Leave the house and the debts behind and trust in his luck? Luck? He’s probably had quite enough of that for one lifetime.
Robert raises the gun. His tongue finds a little crack in one of his upper teeth. It’s been there a while and he really should have gone to the dentist. He won’t need to now. No more cracks in his teeth, no more holes in the roof, no more bills on the mat.
He angles the gun towards his head and looks down the barrel. He smiles – his father would be furious.
As his finger puts pressure on the trigger, Robert’s eye catches something in the distance. He has to check again to make sure, but he sees it.
And what he sees are the broad white sails of a galleon. It is returning from the East Indies, laden with treasure.
72
‘Timothy Dalton?’ says Ron. ‘Timothy Dalton?’
‘Of course,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Isn’t he everyone’s favourite Bond?’
‘How are we even friends?’ Ron asks.
‘We both have a masculine energy,’ says Ibrahim. ‘We are like kings of the jungle. How is your rosehip tea?’
‘Delicious,’ says Ron, taking another sip from a china cup. ‘You’ve forgiven me for lying to everyone, then?’
‘Of course,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You used a worthless piece of paper to jail a violent man.’
‘Didn’t know it was worthless though,’ says Ron. ‘What if he’d killed me and ended up with three hundred and fifty mil?’
‘Then Connie would have killed him,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Though I’m glad it didn’t come to that. That would have been very difficult for me professionally.’
‘Would have been difficult for me too,’ says Ron. ‘Being shot dead.’
Ibrahim nods. ‘And Suzi is okay?’
‘Physically,’ says Ron. ‘Who knows apart from that? She’s made of tougher stuff than me. And she’s glad to have Kendrick back.’
‘I was proud of Connie,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I think Tia finally got through to her. Finally made her do something good. You weren’t ever worried that she was simply going to steal the money?’
‘Not for a second,’ says Ron. ‘I knew she wouldn’t.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ asks Ibrahim.
‘Because she told me why she wanted to help me,’ says Ron. ‘And I believed her.’
‘And why did she want to help?’ Ibrahim asks.
‘She wanted you to be proud of her,’ says Ron. ‘She wanted to show the great Ibrahim that she wasn’t worthless.’
‘For me?’ Ibrahim asks.
‘Uh huh,’ says Ron. ‘She said we could call in Chris and his gun pals. She even agreed to grass to make you happy.’
‘It did make me happy,’ says Ibrahim. ‘What a nice thing for her to do.’
‘There’s something I think you don’t realize, old son,’ says Ron. ‘And it upsets me, as your mate, that you don’t realize it.’
‘There is very little that I don’t realize, Ron,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I have a very clear and precise vision of myself and my world.’
‘Oh, you’re a bright lad, I’ll give you that.’ Ron takes another sip. ‘But I don’t think you realize that you’re loved.’
Neither man looks at the other.
‘Well, I …’ Ibrahim takes another sip too. ‘Love is a word that can be used to cover a great deal of ground. It can mean many, many things.’
‘Connie loves you,’ says Ron. ‘I love you, God help me. Joyce and Elizabeth love you. Kendrick does. I know it’s not the love you might have had in the past, your business that, but it’s love. You’re a very special man, Ibsy, and I’m proud I know you. And you’re loved.’
‘I would, I suppose, agree in part,’ begins Ibrahim. ‘I sense, at least, that at times people are glad to have me around. I can fuss, I do know that – don’t interrupt me, Ron, I know I do –’
‘No one’s interrupting you,’ says Ron.
Ibrahim continues, ‘But I can ring on Joyce’s doorbell and she’ll be happy to see me. Though I’m still fuming about Venezuela – it was a pure guess. And I know that you and I can sit and chat, and I haven’t really had that for so many years. Friendship, I would call it. A deep friendship allied to a deep care.’
‘I’ve only said I love you to three men in my life,’ says Ron, ‘Jason, Billy Bonds after West Ham won the cup final in 1980 and I saw him down Broadway Market, and now you. When Kendrick turns eighteen, he’ll be number four.’
‘And I can be helpful, I suppose,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I was helpful with the code. The right order, Holly, and then Nick.’
‘Couldn’t have done it without you,’ says Ron. ‘You got that bang on.’
Ron raises his delicate china cup, and Ibrahim raises his in return. Both men concentrate on sipping, neither wanting to speak next. Eventually the silence is broken.
‘Do you need me to say it in return?’ Ibrahim asks. ‘That I love you?’