—
When I get home I tell Mark what I’ve done. The deal I’ve made for us. I know what should be coming; I brace myself for it. I know what I’ve done is insane, I know it’s dangerous, but I trust Eddie, I just do. And now that I know he’s not the one calling us and leaving messages, he doesn’t seem half so threatening.
But it doesn’t come. Mark doesn’t shout even though I can see he wants to. He stays calm. He lays it out.
“I know you were just thinking on the spot, and you took your chance while you could, but that’s when people make mistakes, Erin. If anyone sees thistransaction happening…If this Holli thing comes to anything, aren’t the intelligence services going to try to find as much CCTV of you as they can? We just need to be more careful. Sure, if this contact Eddie gives us works out, it’s fantastic. But if not, there’s no recourse if they rob us. There’s no getting out of it if DCI Foster is watching and sees any of this.”
He’s not saying anything I haven’t already thought through myself. “But, if Eddie’s contact robs us, then we’re no worse off, are we? If you want us to get rid of the diamonds, to just throw them out, then at least this way we stand a chance of making something from them? Right?”
He’s silent. When he speaks again, his tone is grim. “Erin, Eddie’s contact could kill you.”
“I know that, Mark, but do you really think that I would have made this deal with someone I genuinely believed would kill me? Give me some credit, please!”
He sighs. “You’re not necessarily the best judge of character, honey. You do tend to see the best in people, which isn’t always a good thing. I’m just saying we need to be far more careful than you are being. If the police managed to find footage of Holli in some tiny village in Turkey, then they can definitely manage zone one of London. You need to be more careful, honey. They’ll see the bank payments into your account from the Swiss account after Holli’s missing, they’ll see you in Hatton Garden trying to sell diamonds. And then the next week you’re back talking to more criminals? For all they know, meeting contacts, paying people off to recruit, maybe, who knows? It won’t look great.”
He’s talking like I’ve already been caught and sentenced somehow. Like I’m beyond help. He doesn’tseem to care about the money at all anymore. I need to explain it to him; he’s just not understanding.
“I know, Mark. I know all those things. And trust me, I am being as careful as it is possible to be. I know it’s terribly risky. I know it’s a gamble, but I am doing it for us. For both of us. And, I’m doing it for…” I almost say “our baby,” almost. But I stop myself. I can’t tell him about the baby now, can I? He already thinks I’m reckless. I can’t tell him I’m putting his unborn child at risk too.
Am I putting his child at risk? It’s the first time I’ve really thought about it that way. Fuck, maybe I am. I was sure I was doing this for all of us, but now I wonder. Maybe it is all just for me? That thought sucks the air straight out of me. I stand and stare at him. Empty. I feel my eyes fill. His face softens.
What he sees are tears of repentance, tears of remorse. But that’s not what these are. These are tears of confusion. My hot tears of confusion because I can’t tell anymore why I’m doing any of this.
31
Wednesday, September 28
Lottie
I suppose I’m on the wrong side of the table this time.
Sitting across from Charlotte McInroy, in her lovely family kitchen, I wonder what I am now. Less than a month ago I was just an average person, a civilian, someone with no angle. I belonged on the good side of the table, and on the other side were the bad people. Whether they were innately bad or just bad because of the choices they made was a subject of theoretical debate. But either way, they were different from me, different to the core. I was a normal person. Now it’s Lottie on the good side of the table.
But was I ever a normal person? Because I really haven’t changed that much inside, have I? I think the same way. I act the same way. I want what I want. I have only acted in line with the way I have always lived mylife. Was that all wrong? Am I all wrong? I have broken a lot of laws, not serious ones, I hope, but ones that mean I should definitely be in prison. Eddie got seven years just for money laundering; the thought makes me shudder.
Lottie is soft and bright and as smart as you’d expect Eddie Bishop’s daughter to be.
We do look similar.
She is the associate specialist emergency medicine doctor at Lewisham’s ER. She works long days but she’s happy to fit me in. I’m not sure I’d be quite so magnanimous in her place, but she wants to help. She’s a good person. She wants to do things the right way. Not like her dad.
I wonder suddenly in what inventive ways Mark and I will mess up our kids. If Mark will even want kids with me when I finally tell him. My hand falls down over my stomach and I leave it there, an extra barrier of skin, flesh, and bone to protect my unborn child from the outside world.
I spoke to Alexa yesterday evening after her IUI appointment. She may well be pregnant by now. She’ll have a test in two weeks’ time and we should find out. I know I shouldn’t have, but I told her about my baby. I somehow got caught up in her excitement and that’s when I told her my secret. I had to share it with someone. I’m eight weeks pregnant now. She told me I have to go and see a doctor, take folic acid, not eat soft cheese.
I have been taking folic acid since we got back from Geneva. It’s hidden at the back of the bathroom cupboard. But she’s right, I should go to the doctor. It’s important, Alexa insists. I tell her I’m too busy rightnow. Stuff has come up. I want to tell her what has come up too, but of course, I don’t. I can’t.
The rift between Mark and me is growing. I’ve been pushing him. I don’t want the diamonds to break our marriage.
“Are we a team?” he’d whispered to me in bed last night.
And I’d nodded, of course, but he shook his head. “Then I say we dump the diamonds.” His voice was tight. “We still have time to back out of this deal. The police might already be watching us, Erin. Who knows, you might be right, the plane people might already be watching us too. And now you want an East End crime syndicate to get involved with us as well. You’re being willfully stupid, Erin. You’re putting us both in danger. Keep your side of the deal with Eddie, sure, do his favor, but tell him you don’t need his help with the diamonds anymore.”
He’s right about one thing. Someone’s definitely watching us, I’m certain of it now. There have been two more silent phone messages this week already, and it’s not Eddie. Whether it’s something to do with the plane people or SO15, I don’t know. But someone is watching. Someone is sending a message.
It’s too late to back out of my deal with Eddie now, you can’t pull out of these kind of contracts, it doesn’t work that way, and Mark will thank me later, I know he will. So here I am. Fulfilling my end of the bargain. And thiswillwork.
Eddie’s daughter sips her tea thoughtfully as I set up the tripod and camera.
