The Impossible Fortune, page 20
‘Excuse me?’
Connie senses she is in trouble, and doesn’t much like it. She doesn’t get in trouble very much these days, and can usually shoot or talk her way out of it. Sure, she’s just been in prison for the best part of a year, but being in prison isn’t the same as being in trouble. It’s an admin issue. Ibrahim looks cross.
‘It was her idea,’ says Connie. ‘I encouraged her, the way you told me to. I helped – I passed on the benefit of my wisdom.’
‘You let her plan an armed robbery?’ says Ibrahim.
‘When you say it like that, it sounds bad,’ says Connie. ‘But it was actually a good idea.’
‘So good you’ve brought her round to my home to escape the police?’
‘Plans sometimes go wrong,’ says Connie. ‘I told Tia that too.’
‘She did tell me that,’ says Tia. At least someone is sticking up for Connie. Tia robs a warehouse, Ibrahim refuses to hide her, but it’s Connie who’s the bad girl? Everything’s tied up in knots. It’s like an upside-down world.
‘Were you going to share in the proceeds?’ Ibrahim asks her. She knows she’s not supposed to say yes, but of course she was going to share in the proceeds. What sort of a question is that?
‘It hadn’t been discussed,’ says Connie.
‘You let an eighteen-year-old girl, who still carries a school satchel, rob a warehouse with a gun?’ says Ibrahim.
‘You should have seen her in prison,’ says Connie. ‘She really fitted in.’
‘I imagine she was terrified,’ says Ibrahim. ‘After all the work we’ve done. After all the chaos of your own life? You chose to continue the cycle? To turn Tia into you?’
‘I didn’t know who else to turn her into,’ says Connie. ‘I’m the only example I’ve got.’
Ibrahim shakes his head. ‘No, no. Not true. You’re not stupid. You understand the world better than most. I think you just liked the power.’
‘Ibrahim,’ says Connie. But she doesn’t know where to go next. He’s not cross any more; he’s something else. But what? She tilts her head towards him, and really studies him.
‘I’m sad, Connie,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You’ve made me sad. Feel free to shoot your way out of that particular problem if you wish.’
‘How do I …’ Connie is at a loss. ‘I don’t want to make you sad. With me. How do I make you not sad?’
‘You could say sorry,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But not until you feel sorry.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Connie. And she is. So this is what being sorry feels like. Ibrahim told her she would find out one day, and she hadn’t believed him. She hopes it doesn’t last long.
‘Not to me,’ says Ibrahim. ‘To Tia. While you still can.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ says Tia. ‘Honestly.’
Connie turns to Tia. She didn’t do a bad job, all in all. Smuggling two guns past security isn’t easy. She should have known about the lorry, but she didn’t panic. She’ll get away with it too. And next time she’ll know better. The first time Connie sold drugs to a stranger, the boy ran off without paying, and Connie took a beating from her boss. She never made the same mistake again. She made other mistakes, sure, that’s how you learn, but you should never make the same mistake twice. A case in point is that that first boss tried to hand out another beating a few months later, and Connie left him in hospital with bullets in both legs. The moral being, learn from your mistakes. Everything Connie had become could be traced back to that first mistake, how she responded. ‘What happened’ is never what defines you in life; ‘What you did next’ is what defines you. And what Tia does next will define her. If she can brush herself down, this one job will be the beginning of a long and lucrative career. A fine life of crime and everything that comes with it. It’s all in Tia’s grasp. That could be her future, and who wouldn’t want that as a future? Connie looks at Tia, curling up on Ibrahim’s armchair. She thinks of herself at the same age. Back when it all began.
Ibrahim puts his hand on Tia’s arm. They could be grandad and granddaughter, the two of them. What does that make her?
‘I’m sorry, Tia,’ says Connie.
Tia looks at her, then looks at Ibrahim. Tia looks scared for some reason. Ibrahim walks over and puts an arm around Connie’s shoulders. He looks scared too. Why do they both look scared?
Connie hears an unfamiliar noise and realizes she is crying.
‘We will hide her,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And then we will help her.’
Connie would like that. Would like to do something good. It might stop her crying.
46
Jason Ritchie has made a few calls, and no one knows where Danny Lloyd is. He’s out of the country certainly. Good riddance.
Kendrick is staying: Jason had insisted on it. He’s in Jason’s living room, doing his homework. Maths. Jason offered to help, but Kendrick said, ‘Probably best if I do this one myself, Uncle Jason.’ Suzi is staying with friends for a couple of days. Jason insisted on that too.
He needs to keep them both safe from Danny Lloyd.
Suzi’s injuries are healing, the physical ones at least, but Jason must make sure that the story ends here. Danny will have to ride off into the sunset, and leave Suzi and Kendrick in peace. It’ll be easier said than done, Jason knows that. Danny is not a rational man. He has what passes for pride in men who grew up with pride denied to them.
He didn’t use to be that bad a guy, Danny. Always on the wrong side of the law, but Jason knows plenty of decent guys who’ve never done a decent day’s work in their lives. Sometimes that’s just where you grew up. Your dad’s an accountant, you become an accountant; your dad robs banks, you rob banks. Danny’s dad broke his back falling through the roof of the old Tesco building in Crawley years and years ago. Danny was never going to be an accountant. So he robbed shops and offices for a while. Wages, weekly takings, anywhere there was a lot of cash and not much effort needed to take it. Then, when he had a bit of money behind him, it was drugs. Even easier money. That’s what he was up to when Suzi first met him. Walking around a nightclub with a wad of notes, big grin on his face. Jason liked him, Suzi fell in love with him, Ron always had his card marked.
But the cocaine had been what really did for Danny. It was often the case. Turned him from a half-decent guy you could have a laugh with at Christmas into a violent thug. There are a few people who deal cocaine and who never touch the stuff – Connie Johnson, there was an example – but that path was not for Danny Lloyd. And the more and more he took, the more and more unpredictable he became, the less fun Danny Lloyd was, and the more dangerous.
Kendrick came along, and Danny chilled for a couple of years. Bought himself some nice suits, a few trips to Morocco and the Middle East every year, making bigger and bigger connections, but he fell back into it, like his old dad on that rotten roof in Crawley, and money was the only thing he had left to break his fall.
A rational man would walk away from Suzi and Kendrick and cut his losses. Let them have that nice house in Coulsdon, buy Kendrick presents for his birthday and Christmas, and get on with his life. But that’s not Danny’s style.
Jason smiles to himself, because it’s not his style either. He’s seen Suzi’s injuries, and he knows he won’t let them stand. Danny Lloyd needs to be taught a lesson. It’s a question, Jason supposes, of who gets who first.
Kendrick wanders through to the kitchen. ‘Am I allowed orange squash?’
‘Are you normally allowed orange squash?’ Jason asks.
‘At home, no,’ says Kendrick. ‘Because of the sugar, but at Grandad’s, yes, because sugar never did him any harm.’
Ron. What would Ron make of all this? Jason has to protect him for as long as he can. Sort it all out before he even finds out.
Jason’s mind flashes back to his own childhood. Lying on the sofa with an orange squash and the telly. My God, what times. He wishes Kendrick nothing but what he had. A house full of noise and love and orange squash and TV.
‘Then I say you can,’ says Jason.
‘Do you have any?’ Kendrick asks.
‘No,’ says Jason. ‘I’m an adult, I don’t drink orange squash.’
‘You should,’ says Kendrick. ‘It has calcium. And also it’s good.’
He’s right, thinks Jason, he should drink orange squash, it’s good. His Ring doorbell sounds, so he looks on his phone. Amazon delivery.
Is he expecting something? Did he order that book he saw on Graham Norton? Must have. Jason wouldn’t mind going on Graham Norton, but Graham Norton wasn’t around when Jason was at his most famous. Still, he wouldn’t mind going on. Chatting to Margot Robbie and Mo Farah. The doorbell rings again.
‘Can I get it?’ Kendrick asks, and Jason starts to say yes before something stops him. Just an instinct.
‘No, you get back to your homework,’ says Jason. He looks at his phone again. The guy’s wearing an Amazon uniform and is carrying an Amazon package, but why not be safe? Jason presses the microphone on his screen.
‘Just leave it on the doorstep, mate,’ he says.
The delivery driver doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Needs signing for.’
Jason looks at the package on the screen. Looks pretty small. Must be that book. They had a Formula One driver on. He was sitting next to Cher. ‘Forget it, mate. Just got out of the bath.’
The man pauses for a moment. This is the point a real Amazon driver goes back to his car or van. But he doesn’t. Instead he reaches into a bag.
Jason runs into the living room, scoops up Kendrick and is out of the back window before the first bullet thuds through his front door.
Danny Lloyd has made the first move.
47
Kendrick is not stupid.
If they know where Uncle Jason lives, who’s to say they don’t know where Grandad lives too?
That’s why they have to go to Ibrahim’s. They are rushing over now. Uncle Jason and his grandad are each holding one of his hands. His grandad’s hand is shaking, but Kendrick has felt that before. Whenever it shakes too much, Kendrick squeezes it, because he never wants Grandad to worry that his hands shake.
He has never felt Uncle Jason’s hand shake before though. That’s new.
‘All good, Kenny?’ says Grandad, out of breath. ‘You all good?’
‘I am,’ confirms Kendrick, because that’s what you have to say sometimes.
Ever since he saw his mum with the gun and the bruises, life has been speeding up in a way that is making Kendrick feel uncomfortable. He keeps finding pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but no one will show him the picture on the front of the box. Kendrick likes information, and at the moment he doesn’t have enough of it.
‘He was a diamond,’ says Uncle Jason. ‘A chip off the old block.’
Where is his mum? That’s the main thing he would like to know. Uncle Jason tells him that she is okay, and he trusts Uncle Jason, but he would like to see her. He would like to cuddle up on the sofa with her. They watch Friends together. His favourite is Phoebe, but Chandler is good too. He would like to be watching Friends now. Instead everyone is scared, and that makes Kendrick scared.
His grandad buzzes on the door of Ibrahim’s building. Uncle Jason is pretending not to look over his shoulder, but Kendrick notices most things.
The man who had rung on the doorbell, the man who Kendrick now suspects was not an Amazon delivery driver, had kept firing shots at them as Uncle Jason had carried him across the back garden, over a fence and into woodland. They had hidden for a while, and that bit was okay. It is fun to hide, and Kendrick is very good at it. He has hidden from his dad many times. All you have to do is be small and quiet.
There is a buzz and his grandad pushes open the door. Jason ushers Kendrick in behind his grandad. He will be safe here, Kendrick feels it. But what about Grandad and Uncle Jason? What if they go back out? Will they be safe?
‘Will we all be able to stay?’ he asks.
‘I’ll stay this evening,’ says his grandad. ‘Get you settled.’
Kendrick has always been aware of trouble – loud noises, late-night phone calls, raised voices – but he has always felt that the trouble was on the other side of a wall. On his side of the wall were his mum and his grandad, and school, and stickers, and lists you could learn, like all the countries of the world. If you concentrated on any of those things for long enough, the trouble on the other side of the wall went away, and everything was quiet again.
But now the wall is gone.
Uncle Ibrahim is there to meet them. Normally there is a smile and a hug, but he looks frightened too. He rushes the three of them in and closes the door behind them.
‘I need to warn you, Ron,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I have guests.’
They go into Ibrahim’s sitting room and there is a lady with blonde hair who looks like maybe a model or a wrestler, it’s hard to say, and another lady who is much younger, with her feet tucked up beneath her on a chair like his mum does sometimes.
‘You know Connie, of course?’ Ibrahim says to his grandad. It’s the blonde lady. Maybe she looks like a racing driver or someone on Britain’s Got Talent? Or maybe like a supply teacher you never see again. Kendrick is usually very good at working out what people look like, but this ‘Connie’ is proving elusive. What he can see is that she has been crying. A lot of adults are very upset at the moment, and Kendrick doesn’t like it one bit.
‘Connie,’ says his grandad. Kendrick senses that his grandad doesn’t like Connie.
‘Ron,’ says Connie. Kendrick senses that Connie doesn’t like his grandad.
‘Connie,’ says Uncle Jason. He doesn’t like her either.
‘Jason,’ says Connie. And now we have the full set. Kendrick needs some information.
‘Everyone is being a bit rude to each other, Uncle Ibrahim,’ says Kendrick.
‘Well, your grandad helped to put Connie in prison,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And then Connie threatened to kill him.’
Okay. This is stuff Kendrick can work with, but there are still a few gaps. He looks at Connie. ‘Perhaps you deserved to be in prison? I’m Kendrick, by the way. This is my grandad.’
‘Nice to meet you, Kendrick,’ says Connie. ‘And, yes, you’re right, I probably did.’
‘And you shouldn’t say you’ll kill someone –’
‘It’s okay, Kenny,’ says his grandad.
‘No, he’s right,’ says Connie. ‘I was probably angry, Kenny. I’m Connie. Can I call you Kenny?’
‘Kendrick is better,’ says Kendrick. ‘It just flows better, doesn’t it?’
‘I was probably angry, Kendrick,’ she says. ‘I didn’t like going to prison.’
‘No,’ says Kendrick. ‘I’ve seen pictures about it.’
His grandad walks over to Ibrahim. ‘What’s she doing here?’
‘Meet Tia,’ says Ibrahim, and the other woman stands up. His grandad shakes her hand.
‘Nice to meet you, Tia,’ he says. ‘You a friend of Connie?’
‘More a student,’ says Tia. ‘I’m sorry someone shot at your grandson.’
‘I appreciate that, Tia,’ says Ron. ‘Nice sentiment.’
Tia then holds her hand out to him, and Kendrick shakes it. She smiles. ‘I love your name.’
Kendrick doesn’t know what to say to this new woman with the soft voice. He always knows what to say, but his brain is currently a complete blank. It must be the shock. Diving through the window, running across the garden, hiding in the woods.
‘Thank you too,’ says Kendrick. Thank you too? Thank you too? What does that mean?
‘Can I make everyone a cup of tea?’ says Ibrahim. Tia is back on her armchair. Her hair is so shiny. Kendrick is sure she uses conditioner. Sure of it. His mum does, so he knows.
‘Depends if Connie still wants to kill me,’ says Ron.
‘I’m prepared to let it go,’ says Connie.
‘Connie is in disgrace,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Doctor–patient confidentiality stops me saying why.’
‘Something to do with Tia?’ says his grandad. Isn’t that a lovely name when you hear it out loud? Tia. Like the ringing of a bell.
‘I can’t tell you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘But, yes.’
‘Why don’t we have a whisky?’ says Connie. Kendrick still can’t work out who or what she is. Someone who sells tickets at a circus?
‘Connie,’ says Kendrick, ‘can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course you can,’ says Connie. She really has been crying. She’s tried to cover it up, but you can never completely cover it up. Sometimes his mum comes and sleeps in his room – ‘Thought you might like some company, Kendrick’ – and every time she’s been crying. She never cries when she’s with him though, and Kendrick is very proud of that.
‘What do you do?’ Kendrick asks.
‘All sorts of things,’ says Connie. ‘A bit of this on a Monday, a bit of that on a Tuesday.’
Lots of things, he knew it. Ibrahim is pouring whisky from a decanter into some glasses.
‘Not for me, thank you, Uncle Ibrahim,’ says Kendrick.
Ibrahim nods. ‘A squash perhaps? I think I have some Sprite too.’
Kendrick looks over at Uncle Jason. ‘Uncle Jason, can I have a Sprite?’
‘Your mum said no sugar,’ says Uncle Jason.
‘She probably said don’t let anyone shoot at him either,’ says his grandad. ‘Let the boy have a Sprite.’
Uncle Jason nods at Ibrahim. This is all good. One, he gets a Sprite, and, two, his mum has given Uncle Jason instructions. Wherever she is, she’s still in charge.
‘Do you think I could get a Sprite too?’ says Tia.
‘Of course,’ says Ibrahim. ‘They’re in the kitchen. Make yourself at home.’
Well, well, well. Kendrick likes Sprite and Tia likes Sprite. What are the odds? Tia heads to the kitchen. Her hair is really swinging. It’s conditioner for sure.
‘Kendrick,’ says his grandad, ‘why don’t you go and help Tia in the kitchen – there’s going to be some boring grown-up talk in here for a while.’
