‘How could I get forget?We were penniless, homeless, remember?’
‘Well, the truth is,’ her father replied, faltering, ‘that I didn’tgive them absolutely everything.I kept a little something back for myself, in case I ever got out of this hole.’
‘I might have known,’ Emilia spat back, outraged.‘We were living off handouts, begging for food, and you had a stash tucked away all the time?’
‘I couldn’t let them take it all away, could I?Anyway, the point is that the police never found it, they never even knew about it, which means you can have it now, all of it.’
‘So what are we talking?’Emilia said dryly, gathering her composure.‘What is this little nest egg?’
‘£100,000 in gold,’ came his earnest response.
Emilia snorted with laughter, the image too preposterous for words.
‘What do you think this is?’she replied, smirking.‘The Italian Job?’
‘Laugh if you want to,’ Ernesto replied, coughing away his irritation.‘But it’s the truth.’
‘And where is this crock of gold?’Emilia said, failing to suppress a smile.‘The end of the rainbow?Or maybe it’s in one of the vaults at Gringotts?’
‘Nothing so exciting.It’s at Louisa’s house.’
Immediately, Emilia’s smile faded, anger flaring at the name of one of her father’s mistresses.
‘I see.And how do you know she hasn’t spent it already?’
‘Because she doesn’t know it’s there.’
Emilia stared at her father for a moment, wrongfooted.
‘What do you mean she—’
‘I mean I concealed it in her basement just days before I was arrested,’ Ernesto interrupted impatiently.‘There was no way I was going to tell her about it.It would have been gone long ago if I had …’
‘No honour amongst thieves, I suppose.’
‘The point is, Emilia, that it’s still there.And it belongs to us.Or more specifically it belongs to you.I have no need of it now, I can’t buy myself out of this one …’
He patted his ribs dolefully, as if revealing his diseased lungs.
‘And I know I can trust you to spend it wisely, set the family up for good.’
‘You’re giving us a hundred grand, just like that?’Emilia replied, disbelieving.
‘Every penny of it.Honestly, I wish I’d done it years ago.I was never going to get out of here, whatever the lawyers may have promised.But it won’t be easy.Louisa cannot know about this, she would take it from us, from you—’
‘Why don’t you just wait until she’s out the house, then send your “associates” in to get it?’Emilia asked bitterly.
‘Because Louisa never bloodygoesout.She’s a recluse, a hoarder, an alcoholic—’
‘I can see now why you were attracted to her,’ Emilia replied wryly, but her father seemed not to hear.
‘She lives in a rough part of town, hardly steps foot outside her bloody fortress and even if she did, I couldn’t risk getting the old crew involved.If anything went wrong, if she surprised them or something, well, I don’t know what they’d do to her …’
For once, Emilia had no comeback.Shedidn’t need to be told how callous, how sadistic her father’s associates could be.
‘I want you to have the money, but it can’t be at Louisa’s expense.I owe her that at least.’
‘So what amIsupposed to do?’Emilia demanded, troubled.‘Burgle her house?Sneak inside in the dead of night?’
