She swivels the screen round. I read out the number, slowly and carefully: ‘£34,287,961.’
‘Bloody hell,’ says Em.
Next, Charli grabs Davy’s laptop and puts in the same sort code and account number, then consults the sheet Ben Westcott sent me and enters Davy’s code.
We hear a littleblipnoise, a friendly one. She’s in on both devices and they’ve lit up – one knows she’s Charli, one thinks she’s Davy. Now she can transfer the money anywhere she likes. Open Sesame. She gives a sigh of revolting satisfaction.
‘Ten years of work, of course, ten years of sucking up to proper scumbags, but it’s a decent amount.’
‘And twenty per cent of that is … nearly seven million quid,’ Em says.
Charli looks blank. ‘So what?’
‘We’re splitting the money eighty–twenty.’
‘Ah. Yes. Probably a slight tweak in that plan, now that I’m in.’ Charli smiles.
‘Oh, what a surprise,’ says Em. Charli merely shrugs.
I have one more question I need to hear Charli answer. ‘Was it worth it?’
‘Was what worth it?’
‘Killing your husband.’
‘Ex-husband. And for this amount of money? I’d have been mad not to. Frankly, I’d have done it pro bono, but earning a lifetime of comfort makes it the single best decision of my life so far. Yes, it’s worth it.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘It’s about to be worth killing the three of you, too. Gun, Alfie.’
Alfie looks a bit baffled. ‘I thought you said we weren’t—’
‘Gun.’
He digs in his holster and hands over the pistol. This one isn’t the kind of antiquated revolver Davy was waggling around from the corner armchair a week or two ago. This one is snub-nosed but massive, and looks like it’ll be a lot better at finding our vital organs.
‘Cute move filming us as we arrived,’ says Charli, ‘but it won’t do you any good.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ll be out of the country before anyone sees the footage. When the police get here, within about half an hour, they’re going to find a house full of wonders. They’ll find me shrieking on the gravel because I walked in on a scene of total carnage. They’ll find your bodies, the dreadful squatters who killed my darling husband and stayed squatting here after the police left. Last of all, they’ll find Alfie, my faithful bodyguard, who went in first to secure the place and was overpowered by you thugs.’
‘What?’ This is the first full sentence Alfie has said for a while. It’s also the last thing he says, because Charli levels the pistol at him and pulls the trigger.
Alfie falls backwards, into a reproduction bust of a different Caesar, which shatters beneath him, and slumps to the ground, propped up by the wall. He looks down at his chest, then up at her, with a little outrage.
‘Sorry, Alf. You’d have done the same to me within about twenty minutes of the money transferring.’ Charli covers the three of us with the gun.
‘And now the three of you, who attacked my poor innocent security man as he swept the premises. He fired, but even after he wounded you, you wrestled the gun off him and killed him before succumbing to your injuries. Or maybe you turned on each other. It’s going to be a dreadfully unpleasant room to walk into. But privacy has its costs. And when my funds are all safely in my own …’ Here Charli glances at the laptop. ‘Wait, what?’
From where I’m sitting, I can just about see Davy’s screen,where the value on the account has changed. The top line now reads: ACC BALANCE: £0.11 GBP.
Charli’s head swivels round. ‘What have you done?’
Then it changes again: ACC BALANCE: £265,754,932 GBP.
Her face is now as grey as Alfie’s.
