Chapter Forty-Eight
Kim had been taken into hospital for checks and they said she needed forty-eight hours. The police guard at her bed was a novelty. She got back to her flat two days after the violence at Edward’s house. Her mother rang as she opened the front door. ‘I cleaned it top to toe.’
‘Okay, Mum.’
‘You can’t just go missing.’
‘Busy with the police.’
‘Are they making progress with anything?’
‘Some.’
‘One step forwards, two steps back I suppose.’ As she heard the phrase, Kim stepped towards the kitchen.
‘You didn’t use the oven, Mum?’
‘Of course I did. There’s some chilli on the hob.’
‘Wait – you used the oven?’
‘Of course I did.’
Heart in mouth, Kim saw the casserole on the hob. God alive, had she cooked the chilli inside the oven? She slowly opened the oven door. The other casserole dish was still there, but she thought she could smell ashes …
What does a million quid smell like when it’s burnt?
She pulled out the pot. Placed it on the hob. Please Mum, she thought, don’t be the person who puts the oven on preheat even if you’re just using the stove. She lifted the lid.
The cash was intact. The smell of ashes was probably just her mum’s cooking.
She was so dazed by what had happened in Edward’s garden two nights earlier that she could do nothing but stare.
She was now certain that those awful customers, Tank and Fire, had lied about their relationship (the slap was the clue) and lied about the source of their money (in a cashless age, who sends a box of banknotes?).
The idea that they were both retiring to Devon having made enough to live off for the rest of their lives was crap.
They were buying her beautiful penthouse – she really did think of it as hers – to hide the cash they had made with their crimes.
Parachute meant drugs. A million pounds from drugs.
Kim knew what she had to do.