Bruno Crane
The Friend
I sit on the end of the bed in my rabbit-hutch sized room and smoke one of the ersatz Camels I brought with me.
God knows what’s in them: radioactive waste and tea leaves probably, but it helps me think.
I’m turning it over and over in my mind.
Everything I’ve experienced in the last twenty-four hours.
Something I saw. Something that didn’t make sense.
Something wrong. Someone who is doing a very good job of pretending.
And suddenly I’ve got it! I know who has the stuff.
The second I realise it, I know I’m right. It all makes a crazed kind of sense.
Look, I haven’t always been the brightest spark. I’m certainly not the quickest either. But I’m not an idiot, for all that Narracott tried to make me out to be one. I know what is happening here – what has happened. And I think this might be my chance, to claw back what is rightfully mine.
I pull out the pad of hotel letter paper.
I know you have it, I write. I know what you did. Nice bit of threat there, but nothing too specific in case it falls into the wrong hands. Half the gold for my silence. Then I think, cross it out. Best not to get greedy. Narracott got greedy and look where that got him.
One third of the gold for my silence, I write instead. Yes, that feels reasonable. That should do.
Now I just need to hang about until the rest of this place is asleep and push it under the door in question. Then: await the reply.