Luca shakes his head. ‘I don’t know the Afghans. Don’t want to know them – that’s your job.’
‘OK,’ says Mitch. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m certain,’ says Luca. ‘I don’t need that sort of trouble. Why you asking?’
‘One of them has come over,’ says Mitch.
‘Over here?’
‘Yep.’
‘But they never come over here?’
‘I know,’ says Mitch. ‘They want to meet us.’
‘RIP, us,’ says Luca. ‘What do they want?’
‘We’ll find out, I guess,’ says Mitch. ‘But it’ll be easier if we find the heroin before they show up. And it’s not in this lock-up.’
‘How much do we know about this Garth guy? The Canadian?’
‘Not enough,’ says Mitch. ‘We know about the wife. She’s enough all by herself.’
Mitch feels the weight of the watch in his pocket. That’ll make a nice welcome present for Hanif. If he’s going to be killed, he’s going to be killed, but the watch won’t do any harm.
And, besides, perhaps there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for Hanif flying thousands of miles to meet him.
Mitch follows Luca out of the garage, and into the wintry, seaside air.
The two men both give a merry wave to the police officers watching them from high up on the hill.
Samantha Barnes is giving a lecture to the Petworth Women’s Institute next week. Fakes and forgeries, and how to spot when you are being conned. It’s all too easy these days.
She has lots of good facts lined up.
The key thing, if you are buying a piece by Banksy, for example, is that it needs a certificate of authenticity from an organization named the Pest Control Office. The certificate of authenticity will have one half of a ten-pound note stapled to it. That organization keeps the other half of the ten-pound note. If your piece does not have this, it’s a fake. Do not, under any circumstances, buy it.
It is a clever system of authentication, and Samantha herself has spent this afternoon cutting up fake tenners and stapling them to fake headed paper to replicate it for the Banksys she prints in the loft. If her buyers really, truly wanted to look into it, they would discover the fakery, but who, having just spent ten thousand pounds on a signed Banksy with a legitimate authentication certificate, would want to look into it any more deeply? Just get it framed and up in your living room, where your friends can see it and coo. And when it comes to reselling, hopefully the next owner won’t look too closely either. It was ever thus. If anyone complained, she would give them their money back, but, thus far, having sold many thousands of Banksys, Picassos, Lowrys, Hirsts and Emins, not a single complaint has arisen, other than the time a delivery man threw a Kandinsky over someone’s garden wall. Full refund.
It’s a victimless crime. As is the one that she and Garth are about to commit.
She is waiting for Garth to return, and for their plan to fall into place. The lunch at Coopers Chase had changed everything. Everything.
To think they almost didn’t go. That she’d had to persuade Garth that it might be worthwhile. ‘Lunch? With nearly dead people?’ But she’d persuaded him and they were both glad she had. In the car on the way home Garth had said, ‘When you’re right, you’re right, babe.’
Samantha understands that, from the outside, their relationship might look peculiar. The very proper English lady, and the silent, hirsute, Canadian mountain, twenty years her junior. But from the moment he had pointed his gun at her they both knew it was love. What a path of fire they have walked ever since. Samantha with her wit and skill, Garth with his brains and menace. Sometimes she looks at their bank accounts and laughs out loud. Charities in the surrounding area have done very well out of them, though Samantha knows that’s a sticking plaster. It’s not like she pays any tax, so it’s the least she can do. Whenever she sends another donation to another local cause, Garth rolls his eyes and calls her a sentimentalist. Garth gives money to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and nothing else. Last year he gave them seven hundred thousand pounds.
Samantha is thinking of her next move.
She hadn’t thought much of Mitch Maxwell and Luca Buttaci. They must be good at what they do, she supposes, drug smuggling being a very competitive business, but she doesn’t trust them to find the heroin. Elizabeth. She’ll be the one. She and her merry band. And when they find it, Samantha and Garth will be waiting. Nina had already let slip about the lock-up garage. That’s where they’ll start. Garth is out looking today. Elizabeth Best knows where it is, the professor from the university knows where it is, and it won’t take Garth too long to find out either. The box may not be there, but she bets something will be, some clue to follow, something that the old lady had missed. Had Mitch and Luca picked up on the lock-up? If so they’ll be on the trail too, and, once they find it, they’ll be tearing it apart to find their heroin. Garth will make sure they win this particular game. Garth never lets her down.
