“Too much for you?” asks Ian.
Bogdan shakes his head. “No, not too much for me; I can do the job. I just think that if you fire Tony, maybe he kills you.”
Ian nods. “I know. But you let me worry about that. And tomorrow the job’s all yours.”
“If you’re alive, okay,” says Bogdan.
“Good lad,” says Ian. Time to go. He shakes Bogdan’s hand and turns his mind to telling Tony Curran the bad news.
There’s a consultation meeting down at Coopers Chase, and he has to listen to what all the old people have to say. Nod politely, wear a tie, call them by their first names. People lap that sort of thing up.
He’s invited Tony along, so he can fire him straight afterward. Out in the open air, with witnesses nearby.
There is a 10 percent chance that Tony will kill him on the spot. But that means there is a 90 percent chance that he won’t, and given how much money it will make Ian, he is comfortable with those odds. Risk and reward.
As he heads outside, he hears a tinny horn beeping, and sees a woman on a mobility scooter furiously pointing at his Range Rover with a cane.
I was there first, love, thinks Ian as he steps into the car. What is wrong with some people?
As he drives, he listens to a motivational audiobook calledKill or Be Killed: Using the Lessons of the Battlefield in the Boardroom. Apparently it was written by someone in the Israeli special forces; it was recommended to him by one of the personal trainers at the Virgin Active gym in Tunbridge Wells. Ian isn’t certain if the personal trainer himself is Israeli, but he looks like he’s there or thereabouts.
As the midday sun fails to force its way through the illegally tinted windows of the Range Rover, Ian starts to think about Tony Curran again. They’ve been good for each other over the years, Ian and Tony. Ian would buy up big tattered and tired old houses. Tony would gut them, divide them up, put in the ramps and the handrails, and on they’d go to the next one. The care home business boomed, and Ian built his fortune. He kept a few, he sold a few, he bought a few more.
Ian takes a smoothie from the Range Rover’s icebox. The icebox had notcome standard. A mechanic in Faversham had fitted it for him while he was gold-plating the glove box.
It is Ian’s regular smoothie. Some raspberries, a fistful of spinach, Icelandic yogurt (Finnish, if they are out of Icelandic), spirulina, wheatgrass, acerola cherry powder, chlorella, kelp, acai extract, cocoa nibs, zinc, beetroot essence, chia seeds, mango zest, and ginger. It is his own invention, and he calls it Keep It Simple.
He checks his watch. About ten minutes until he gets to Coopers Chase. Get the meeting done and then break the news to Tony. This morning he had tried to buy a stab-proof vest, but the same-day delivery option had been unavailable. Why does he pay for Amazon Prime? They must think he’s a fool.
He’s sure it will be fine, though. And great news that Bogdan’s on board to take over. A seamless transition. And cheaper, of course, which is the whole point.
Ian had worked out very early on that he needed to take his business upmarket if he wanted to make real money. The worst thing for his business was when clients died. There was admin, rooms would be left idle as new clients were found, and, worst of all, you’d have to deal with families. Now, the richer a client was, by and large the longer they would live. Also, the richer they were, the less often their family would visit, as they tended to live in London, or New York, or Santiago. So Ian moved upmarket, transforming his business Autumn Sunset Care Homes into Home from Home Independent Living, concentrating on fewer and bigger properties. Tony Curran hadn’t blinked an eye. What Tony didn’t know he would quickly learn, and no wet room, electronic key card, or communal barbecue pit could faze him. It seemed a shame to let him go, really, but there it was.
Ian passes the wooden bus stop on his right and turns in to the entrance to Coopers Chase. As so often, he follows a delivery van over the cattle grid and is stuck behind it all the way up the long driveway. Taking in the view on the way, he shakes his head. So many llamas. You live and learn.
Ian parks, making sure his parking permit is correctly and prominentlydisplayed on the left-hand side of his windscreen, with permit number and expiration date clearly showing. He has been in all sorts of scrapes with all sorts of authorities over the years, and the only two that have ever truly rattled him are the Russian Import Tax Investigation Authority and the Coopers Chase Parking Committee.
Worth it, though. Whatever money he had made before, Coopers Chase had been another league entirely. Ian and Tony had both known it. A waterfall of money—which, of course, was the source of today’s problem.
Coopers Chase. Twelve acres of beautiful countryside, with permission to build up to four hundred retirement flats. Nothing there but an empty convent and someone’s sheep up on the hill.
An old friend of his had bought the land off a priest a few years before, then suddenly needed some quick cash to fight off extradition proceedings due to a misunderstanding. Ian did the sums and realized this was a leap worth taking. But Tony had done the sums too, and decided to make a leap of his own. Which is why Tony Curran now owns 25 percent of everything that he built at Coopers Chase. Ian had felt compelled to agree to the terms because Tony had never been anything but loyal to him, and also because Tony had made it clear he would break both of Ian’s arms if he refused. Ian had seen Tony break people’s arms before, and so they were now partners.
Not for long, though. Surely Tony knew it couldn’t last? Anyone can build a luxury apartment, really—strip to the waist, listen to Magic FM, dig out some foundations or shout at a bricklayer. Easy work. But not everyone has the vision tooverseesomeone building luxury apartments. With the new development about to start, what better time for Tony to learn his true value?
Ian feels emboldened. Kill or be killed.
He gets out of the car, and as he blinks into the sudden glare of the sun, he just catches the aftertaste of beetroot essence that was one of the key obstacles to him launching Keep It Simple as a commercial proposition. He could leave the beetroot essence out, but it was essential to pancreatic health.
Sunglasses on. And so to business. Ian is not planning on dying today.
6.
Ron Ritchie is having none of it. He is jabbing a practiced finger at a copy of his lease. He knows it looks good—it always does—but Ron can feel his finger shaking, and the lease shaking. He waves the lease in the air to hide the shakes. His voice has lost none of its power, though.
“Now, here’s a quote. And it’s your words, Mr. Ventham, not my words. ‘Coopers Chase Holding Investments reserve the right to develop further residential possibilities on the site, inconsultationwith current residents.’”
Ron’s big frame hints at the physical power he must once have had. The chassis is all still there, like a bull-nosed truck rusting in a field. His face, wide and open, is ready at a second’s notice to be outraged or incredulous, or whatever else might be required. Whatever might help.
