‘Five more minutes, and I’ll get your son an iPhone,’ says Connie.
The warder thinks for a moment. ‘Ten minutes, and he wants an iPad.’
‘Thank you, Officer,’ says Connie and turns back to Ibrahim. ‘I’m so bored here, let’s do it. Give me everything you’ve got on Heather Garbutt. I’m still going to kill your friends, but until that happens let’s all agree to get along and have a bit of fun.’
Ibrahim nods. ‘You know you could just choose not to kill my friends, Connie?’
‘How do you mean?’ asks Connie, genuinely confused.
‘All that happened here is that they outsmarted you. Is that such a bad thing? They took advantage of your greed. Is your self-esteem so fragile that you can’t be outsmarted once in a while?’
Connie laughs. ‘But it’s my job, Ibrahim, it’s how I make my money. Surely you get that, you’re a bright man.’
‘Thank you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I once took an IQ test, and –’
‘Say I didn’t kill Ron and Bogdan,’ Connie cuts across. ‘Let’s workshop that. Every chancer in Fairhaven would think they can take me on. Do you know my company slogan?’
‘I wasn’t even aware you had one,’ says Ibrahim.
‘Immediate and brutal retaliation,’ says Connie.
‘That makes sense,’ admits Ibrahim. ‘Are there no ethical drug dealers?’
‘In Brighton there’s a fair-trade cocaine dealer. He gets all his wraps stamped and everything. Cocaine from family-run farms, no pesticides.’
‘Well, that seems like a start,’ says Ibrahim.
‘He still threw someone off a multi-storey car park for stealing money from him.’
‘Small steps,’ says Ibrahim. ‘You know, perhaps I could bring Ron in to see you? You might not want to kill him quite so much if you really got to know him.’ Ibrahim thinks this through for a moment. Actually, Ron often has the opposite effect on people.
Connie considers this. ‘You’re interesting. Would you like a job?’
‘I have a job,’ says Ibrahim. ‘I’m a psychiatrist.’
‘A proper job though?’ says Connie.
‘No, thank you,’ says Ibrahim. Though it would be fun to work for a crime organization. All that planning, smoky backrooms, men wearing sunglasses indoors.
‘Then would you like to be my psychiatrist?’
Ibrahim takes this in for a moment. That would actually be a lot of fun. And interesting. ‘What would you want from a psychiatrist, Connie? What do you think you need?’
Connie thinks. ‘Learn to exploit weaknesses in my enemies, I guess. How to manipulate juries, how to spot an undercover police officer?’
‘Umm …’
‘Why I always pick the wrong men?’
‘That’s more my sort of thing,’ says Ibrahim. ‘If someone asks for my help, I always start with one question. Are you happy?’
Connie thinks. ‘Well, I’m in prison.’
‘But that aside?’
‘I mean. Maybe I could be happier? You know, five per cent. I’m OK.’
‘I can help with that. Five per cent, ten, fifty, whatever it might be. That’s my job. I can’t fix you, but I can make you run a little better.’
‘You can’t fix me?’
‘Humans can’t be
‘Might be fun, mightn’t it?’ says Connie. ‘Unburden all my secrets. What do you charge? To buy suits like that?’
‘Sixty pounds an hour. Or less if someone can’t afford it.’
‘I’ll pay you two hundred an hour,’ says Connie.
‘No, it’s just sixty.’
‘If you charge less for someone who can’t afford it, then charge more for someone who can. You’re a businessman. How often can we meet?’
‘Once a week is best at first. And my schedule is pretty flexible.’
‘OK, I’ll sort it here. They lap this sort of thing up, mental health. And I’ll look into Heather Garbutt in the meantime. Girly chat, what’s your star sign, did you push a car off a cliff.’
‘Thank you. I shall look forward to speaking with you,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And seeing if I can persuade you not to murder Ron.’
‘Great,’ says Connie. ‘Let’s do Thursdays.’
‘Actually,’ says Ibrahim, ‘can we do Wednesdays? Thursdays are the one day I have something on.’
The last time Elizabeth had a bag and blindfold pulled from her head was in 1978. She was in the harshly lit administration block of a Hungarian abattoir, and was about to be questioned and tortured by a Russian Army general with a chest of bloodstained medals. As events transpired, there was to be no torture, as the General had left his tool bag in the car, and the car had driven off for the evening. So, in the end, she had got away with light bruising and an anecdote for dinner parties.
What had he wanted, the General? Elizabeth forgets. Something which no doubt seemed terribly important at the time. She knew people who had died for the blueprints to agricultural machinery. Very few things are so important you would risk your life for them, but all sorts of things are important enough to risk somebody else’s life.
As her blindfold is removed this time, there is no glare of strip lights, no grinning General and no blood-smeared filing cabinets. She is in a library, in a soft leather chair. The room is lit by candles, the kind Joyce buys. The man who removed her blindfold and uncuffed her has silently left the room and is out of her sight.
