The Impossible Fortune

Ron and Connie ride down in the lift to the Compound. Ron says that Elizabeth believes the guilty party will surface once they have the Bitcoin. Connie tells Ron that he can “still back out” (287), but he says it’s too late now.

Joanna sits on a Zoom and watches the Compound CCTV at the same time. She wonders how well she really does know Paul and why she hasn’t seen fit to tell him about Jeremy’s call yet. Joanna thinks again about Holly’s choice not to attend the wedding because it was on a weekday, and she wonders if maybe Holly was planning to visit the Compound that day.

Bill tells Ron and Connie that they must get it right; otherwise, all sorts of alarms will sound. The group wasn’t sure what order the codes should go in, but Ibrahim remembers Holly saying that it was “Always Holly and Nick” (290), in that order, so that’s what they have decided on. However, when Ron tries to type in the numbers, his fingers won’t work. That’s been happening a lot lately. Just as Connie’s about to enter the code for him, they consider that Nick and Holly might have added a twist. Maybe they’d do Nick’s numbers and then Holly’s, as a last protection. It works, and they find a little slip of paper with numbers and letters inside the safe. Connie asks if Ron is ready.

Joyce, Ibrahim, Elizabeth, Tia, and Kendrick all wait outside the Compound for Ron and Connie to return, but they never emerge. While Joyce, Tia, and Kendrick eat ice cream, Tia asks Kendrick if his dad ever hits his mom, and Kendrick says that he does. She gently asks about Kendrick’s fears. Joyce recognizes that she could have asked Kendrick these questions, but she was afraid to know the truth. Ibrahim has received a text from Ron, who says the codes were correct, and “the key was in their hands” (298). But neither he nor Connie has returned.

Joanna searches the CCTV footage for her wedding date. She thinks about the night before her wedding, how she couldn’t sleep. But when Joyce texted her early in the morning, saying that she couldn’t sleep, Joanna ignored the messages. She thinks she did this out of some desire to prove that she is a grown-up. Joanna knows she often pushes Joyce away to show that she’s more than Joyce’s daughter. She hasn’t been willing to accept Joyce’s unconditional love because Joanna doesn’t give the same kind of love to herself. She vows to do better.

When she spots Holly on the Compound’s CCTV, she calls Joyce instead and makes a concerted effort to compliment Joyce and to control her instinctual irritation. Joyce says that Ron and Connie are both missing after visiting the Compound, and Joanna goes to today’s CCTV. She sees Ron and Connie emerge from the building, embrace, and then walk away in different directions. Joanna and Paul say that they’re on their way to Coopers Chase so the group can go see Davey.

Elizabeth knows she’s not at the top of her game, but she feels lucky to be part of a team. She, Ibrahim, Joyce, Joanna, and Paul visit Davey. Joanna takes the lead in questioning him, but she is too direct; Elizabeth tries a different tone. She answers some of his questions, and he offers to make some tea.

Ron sits in darkness at Pauline’s. He knows he was followed, and when he hears footsteps in the hallway, he sends her to the bedroom. His friends will be angry with him for what he’s doing, but he has to prove that he can still protect his family. Someone picks the lock, and Danny walks in with a gun.

Elizabeth asks Davey why Holly went to see him. He explains that Nick and Holly had been partners for a long time, but they weren’t always friends. Holly visited Davey and told him that she’d planted a bomb under Nick’s car so she could keep the entire fortune. She didn’t know if the bomb had gone off yet, so he’d sent her home to wait. Meanwhile, he went to Nick’s house and removed the bomb from his car. He tried to find Nick to warn him about what Holly was doing, but he couldn’t. He wanted to give Holly a warning, so he put the bomb in her car with a note that said, “Play fair.” However, she must have set something heavy on top of the bomb that made it explode. Elizabeth suggests that Nick and Davey are in this plot together to keep all the money, and he says that there’s one problem with that theory.

DCI Varma is eating a sandwich and not solving Holly’s murder. There is practically no evidence, and she cannot find Nick. She should be excited to solve her final case, but she’s not.

Davey confesses that the “Bitcoin” with which he paid Holly and Nick 10 years ago was just a string of letters and numbers he wrote down on a piece of paper. He figured they wouldn’t know, and he thought cryptocurrency would be a fad, and no one would ever be the wiser. Instead, its supposed value went through the roof. As long as Holly and Nick never chose to cash out, it was fine, so he kept encouraging them to hold onto it a little longer. Holly revealed her plan to him and ended up dead. The code is worthless.

Danny asks Ron for the code and tells him never to trust Connie, indicating that he and Connie made a deal to steal the Bitcoin from Ron. Ron says he will hand over the Bitcoin, but Danny must give him what he wants in exchange. He wants Danny to call off the hits on Jason and Suzi, and to promise to go away forever. Ron tells Danny to call the killer and put the call on speaker; if he’s convinced the call is legitimate, he’ll give Danny the code. Danny does it, and Ron is convinced. Ron thinks that he would do anything to protect his family. He acts as though he’s going to the bedroom to get the code, and when he opens the door, armed officers swarm out and arrest Danny. Connie has helped Ron double-cross Danny, despite the bad blood between them.

Lord Townes is on a boat in the middle of the English Channel. He has the box he took from his safe, which contains his father’s gun. He thinks about how something has always come along whenever he thought his luck had run out, and his string of good fortune, he thought, would continue after Nick and Holly’s visit. His 3% fee would provide him with enough capital to keep the estate running until after his death, and then it would be someone else’s problem. As Townes takes the gun out, he looks around, hoping to see a friendly ship speeding out to bring him good news. He angles the gun toward himself and thinks that his father would be angry with him. Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, he sees a ship in the distance.

Ron and Ibrahim are having tea. Ron says he knew Connie wouldn’t betray them because she wanted Ibrahim to be proud of her. Ron tells Ibrahim that he is loved, though it makes them both feel awkward. Ron says that Connie, Joyce, Elizabeth, Kendrick, and Ron all love him. Ibrahim is grateful for his friendships, and he understands why Ron needed to protect his family because Ibrahim feels the same way about protecting his friends. Ron asks where Tia is, and Ibrahim says Elizabeth took her to lunch.

Elizabeth explains to an unnamed man how Tia came to her attention. She claims that, if Tia had been born with the resources they had, she would have had a very different start in life; Elizabeth wants her to have that start now. The man says 18 is a bit young, but Elizabeth says he can give her a “little training,” maybe a gun. Tia asks what this job is, and the man will not specify. She asks if it’s legal, and he says yes, 80% of the time. He asks what Tia would say if he were to send her to Belize. She’d ask where Belize is and agrees.

Joyce looks through Joanna’s wedding photos. She thinks she looks old but happy. DCI Varma suspects that Lord Townes, who has disappeared, is responsible for Holly’s death. Joyce thinks about how they were all staring at and contemplating the bomb the night Holly was killed, but that’s not the real story. The real story, she writes, is a scared boy in pajamas, his mom trying to keep him safe, and his grandad protecting them both. That’s real life, what’s really important. In the end, Joyce isn’t sure whose story this is and decides it’s a story about life’s quieter things, the individuals and relationships from which it’s easy to become distracted. She thinks about Suzi, Jasper, and Lord Townes, and she decides it’s really their story, not a tale about bombs and secrets and codes. She’s going to see Jasper tomorrow.

Paul gets a call from Jeremy, and Joanna pretends to have forgotten that she’d taken his call previously. Paul wonders if Joanna doubted his innocence or questioned their decision to get married so quickly. Joanna rejects both ideas. Paul admits that he had concerns the morning of their wedding, and he had spoken to Ibrahim. Ibrahim told Paul that he was marrying up and that Joanna has “good genes.” They agree not to keep any more secrets from each other. However, when Paul tells her about concert tickets he’s bought for a band she’s convinced him they both love, Joanna lies and says the concert is the day of Joyce’s glaucoma operation—Joanna and Joyce once told Paul that Joyce had glaucoma to hide the fact that they were talking about him. It’s not lying, Joanna thinks, it’s her “good genes.”

Nick has been lying low at a roadside Travelodge for over eight weeks. He has faith that Elizabeth will find him when it is safe for him to emerge, and he’s certain Davey tried to kill him. He wishes the Bitcoin had never come into their lives, as it ruined his friendship with Holly and made her greedy. Nick doesn’t want more money; he wants what Paul has: a satisfying job, a wife he loves, a purpose. He turns on the radio and hears a song that Paul has dedicated to “Nico,” whom Paul is “looking forward to seeing […] tomorrow” (351). Nick immediately calls Paul, who tells him it’s safe to resurface. Paul tells Nick that Holly is dead, and he has good news and bad news about the money.