The Impossible Fortune

Ron recalls being in the West Midlands in the 1970s. He had words with a police officer at the picket line, and Ron noticed a photographer nearby. He goaded the officer into hitting him, thinking it would make a good photo. Ron’s head was hard, but the officer had one of those new aluminum truncheons, not wood, and he followed his initial blow to Ron’s head with a half dozen more. The press photos would be spectacular, Ron thought, as a group of officers tossed him in the back of a van and sped away. When they got out, the group aimed kicks at his stomach and testicles, then abandoned Ron in a muddy ditch. He wept with the pain of three broken ribs. Today, the morning after Joanna’s wedding, his hangover feels just as bad. Ibrahim is there with him while his girlfriend, Pauline, makes breakfast. Ron’s son, Jason, arrives, and Ron assumes they can lounge around all day. Then his grandson, Kendrick, runs in, and Ron realizes that he will have to drag himself off the bathroom floor instead.

Braving Elizabeth’s displeasure, Joyce enters a café to buy a flapjack. She knows Elizabeth has a mental schedule of how the morning should go, and that schedule doesn’t include a bakery, but Joyce doesn’t care. She buys a flapjack for herself, and one for Elizabeth—knowing that Elizabeth will get hungry, though she’d never admit it now—and sees Elizabeth’s look of annoyance. She allows Elizabeth to “take charge” for a while. Elizabeth tells Joyce what Nick told her at the wedding, and Joyce realizes this is what made Elizabeth perk up. They arrive at the address on Nick’s card, but they can find no way in.

Connie and Tia plan their heist, and a young man in a suit sits down at the next booth. He’s watching a loud video on his phone, and Connie suggests that he put in headphones. He tells her off. Tia has taken a job at the warehouse she intends to rob so she can learn the ins and outs. When Ibrahim walks in to meet Connie, she introduces him to Tia. He’s pleased to see the “good influence” Connie has. Tia leaves, and Connie and Ibrahim head toward the door, but she motions for him to go ahead. She quickly sits down with the man in the suit and digs her gun into his groin; she tells him to put in headphones the next time an old woman tells him to. He wets his pants. Connie rejoins Ibrahim at the pie case, and he wonders if he’s missed anything important. She assures him he has not.

Donna should be enjoying her day off, but because her partner, Chris, was sent to firearms training, she’s stuck doing “extra duties” because Prince Edward is coming to town. She gets a call from Elizabeth, who wants to report a break-in. Elizabeth gives Donna the address and abruptly hangs up, reminding Donna of the way Elizabeth used to be.

Lord Townes’s barns are collapsing. The estate used to be huge and well-funded, but it has gotten smaller and poorer with each generation. He thinks back on his unexpected meeting with Holly and Nick, and he wonders if the family fortunes are about to change.

Elizabeth and Joyce survey the wreckage of Nick’s office. Elizabeth wonders if it was a burglary or a kidnapping that took place. Elizabeth tells Donna not to tell the police, except for Chris. Elizabeth shares the bare bones of what she knows, then she asks Joyce to ask Paul if Holly will have dinner with them that evening. Elizabeth spots a file with her name written on it tucked neatly behind a radiator. It contains a Post-it note that says, “Help me, Elizabeth. You’ll work out how” (71). She shows Joyce, and they leave. Elizabeth is surprised to find she’s suddenly ravenous. Just then, Joyce produces the flapjack she bought for Elizabeth. They call Ron and ask him to pick them up from Hampton Road.

Kendrick is playing with Legos while Ron and Jason talk. Jason says that Danny left Suzi, and she asked him to look after Kendrick for a day or two. Ron feels something isn’t “right” about this story, and when he asks Kendrick questions, he can sense the boy is also lying. Ron figures that something very bad has happened. He feels very loved that his family wants to protect him, but it also makes him feel old and weak. Ron asks Kendrick if he wants to stay for a couple of days, and he does. Ron gets a message from Joyce, and he assumes she’s just waking up with her own hangover and wants someone to bring her soup and painkillers. He reads the message and rushes to meet Joyce and Elizabeth. He still feels terrible, but he’s alive and loved and ready for trouble.

Elizabeth spots Nick’s home with his car parked in front. Joyce updates Ron: The plan is to remove the bomb from Nick’s car and take it with them. An old friend of Elizabeth’s has agreed to look at it, and she’s sure it’ll be quite safe at Coopers Chase. However, when they get inside the grounds and check the car, the bomb is gone.

Joanna is halfway up a climbing wall, watching Paul at the top. It’s her own fault that she’s here, as, on their first date, she claimed to love climbing; now she’s stuck. When he descends, he tells her that he knew she wasn’t a climber because of her fingernails. Joanna thinks the “little lies” like this are part of the fun of dating; it’s the “big lies […] you have to be careful of” (83), and Joanna hasn’t told Paul any big lies. She wonders if he’s told any big lies of his own. When they get down, Joanna checks her phone and tells Paul that Joyce wants Holly’s number.

Joyce and Elizabeth go to see Elizabeth’s old friend, Jasper, about the bomb. He is a former spy, like Elizabeth. Jasper looks at the photographs Nick gave Elizabeth and says the bomb is real and plenty big enough to kill. Joyce comments on the cat tchotchkes around Jasper’s home, but he says he hates them. Joyce asks if he could make them some tea, but Jasper says he has no tea or mugs. Joyce suggests buying some at the charity shop down the road and keeping a box of teabags in the cupboard. She feels bad for Jasper. He clearly doesn’t know how to dress or what to do with himself. Joyce plans to come back so he won’t feel so lonely, and she gives Jasper a hug.

Ibrahim, Elizabeth, Joyce, and Ron are at dinner with Holly, who is brusque and pointedly asks Elizabeth about finding Nick. She also explains what is meant by “cold storage” and describes the Compound as a big vault with safes lining the walls, each one the size of a shoebox. Holly explains that for one of their company’s first jobs, they accepted 5,000 Bitcoin as payment. That Bitcoin, worth 20,000 pounds then, is now worth around 350 million pounds. Nick never wanted to sell until about a week ago, so they went to Davey and Lord Townes for advice. Holly cannot access the Bitcoin without Nick, and vice versa, and there’s a lawyer who has both codes. If one dies, the other gets their code, which means Holly would stand to profit from Nick’s death. Holly excuses herself and asks them to get in touch if they hear from Nick. The friends discuss her motives until they hear an enormous explosion. They rush outside to find that Holly’s car has exploded into flame. Elizabeth sneaks up and bats away Holly’s cell phone. It is melty, and she has to snatch it with her scarf, but she hopes the SIM card survived the blast.

When Joanna asks Paul if he’s worried about Nick, he says that it’s not really his “world, all that” (101). Joanna brings up Nick’s business, and Paul says everyone has secrets. He’s been cagey about giving her answers about his friendship with Holly. Paul’s phone buzzes, and it’s a text that seems to be from Nick, telling Paul that he’s safe but he must lie low for a while. Paul responds, asking if he can call, but the texter declines. Paul points out to Joanna that Nick never calls him “Paul”; they always call each other by nicknames. Paul suspects the texter isn’t Nick. He asks a question that only Nick would know, and the person deflects, refusing to answer.

The police arrive at what remains of Holly’s car. Elizabeth tells DCI Varma and another officer that Holly had dinner with them. DCI Varma quickly grows frustrated. She asks about Holly’s phone, but Elizabeth says that phones melt. Kendrick and Pauline are there too, as Kendrick was scared by the noise. They head back to Ron’s apartment for hot chocolate.

Ron and Donna’s boyfriend, Bogdan, are sitting in Davey’s garden. The butler brings a tray with three beers and a gun. Davey confirms that Holly did come to see him, and Ron tells him that she was killed last night. Ron says they know that Holly and Nick came to see Davey about their Bitcoin. Davey understands that they think he might be responsible for Holly’s death, but he says their theory doesn’t hold water because Davey is the one who paid them in Bitcoin, and he could’ve stolen it back from them at any time. He’s also insulted that they would think he killed Holly in such a messy way, but he says that if Ron tells him who else Holly and Nick spoke to, he’ll let it go. Ron says it was a banker, and Davey guesses it was Lord Townes. He encourages them to consider whether Nick is really dead.

Joanna and Paul are on their way to Coopers Chase. Joanna still cannot get a read on Paul’s feelings about Holly. Paul owns five percent of Nick’s company, yet he has no idea how much it’s worth; Joanna finds that odd. He tells her she can ask him anything, about anything, that he has no secrets.

Danny is in Portugal. He knows it won’t be easy to murder Suzi without becoming a suspect, but it’ll be easier to have Jason killed. Danny lies low because he doesn’t want word getting out that he’s here.

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron agree that the messages Paul received did not come from Nick. Elizabeth asks if he’s aware that Nick and Holly have 350 million pounds in Bitcoin in the Compound, finding it hard to believe that Nick never said a word about this. She insinuates that Paul must know something, and Joanna very sternly advises against the implication. When his friends depart, Ibrahim feels very alone.

Joyce and Elizabeth return to Jasper’s so he can inspect Holly’s SIM card. He discovers that Holly made a call one minute before her car exploded. Jasper gives Elizabeth the phone number, and Elizabeth asks another friend to trace it. Joyce suggests she help Jasper box up some of the cats. He’s kept them because he doesn’t want to offend the people who gave them to him, but he realizes now that all those people are dead. Elizabeth wants to go see the person Holly called—a “J Usher”—but Joyce goes to the kitchen to look for empty boxes. She is touched by the sight of three new mugs and three teabags laid out. Joyce reenters the living room and insists that she and Elizabeth are going to help pack up his cats.

Davey greets Bill Benson, the security guard at the Compound. Davey respected Holly and Nick’s choice to accept Bitcoin before anyone knew how it would work. Davey met with Holly and Nick on Tuesday, and then he’d had a day or two to figure out what to do next. Then, he got a phone call, which “was the real stroke of luck” for him (137).

Joanna, Paul, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Elizabeth arrive at Ron’s and join Ron, Pauline, and Kendrick for dinner. That morning, Ron saw Ibrahim looking a little lost, so he made up a story about Pauline asking him to dinner. Elizabeth wants Ron to work on Bill, the security guard at the Compound. Elizabeth also reports that Holly called a woman named Jill Usher before she died. Ron looks around at his “gang” and feels glad.

Joyce writes that tomorrow, she and Elizabeth will meet Jill Usher. Elizabeth has told Jill that they are researchers who have found something exciting about her family. Ron will meet with Bill. Jason is coming to pick up Kendrick tomorrow, and Joyce thinks Elizabeth enjoyed helping Jasper.