The Sunshine Cruise Company (33 page)

All of this has made Ethel a millionaire several times over as she enters her nineties.

Her trial had been something. She had been charged with armed robbery, assaulting a police officer, illegal possession of firearms, obtaining a false passport, criminal damage, GBH and obstructing the course of justice. When the judge looked up to see how these charges were being received he saw that Ethel was eating a sheet of paper with a biro shoved up each nostril. She answered all questions in song and twice attempted to strip naked in court. It took the jury just fifteen minutes to find her guilty and another three minutes to accept her plea for diminished responsibility on the grounds of insanity. With time spent on remand taken into account Ethel served seven months in a low-level psychiatric institute, which was the time it took her to write
IBFNO
, as all her team now referred to it in emails.

‘OK, then. Here we go!’ an underling says, handing Ethel the fresh Mimosa. ‘Are we good? Shall we drink and roll?’

‘Lead on, Macduff …’ Ethel replies cheerily.

Off they roll, down the corridor towards the set, where Ethel can already hear the laughter and applause of the audience, waiting to welcome her.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781448136384
Version 1.0

Published by William Heinemann 2015

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright © John Niven, 2015

John Niven has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by William Heinemann

William Heinemann

The Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

www.randomhouse.co.uk

William Heinemann is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at
global.penguinrandomhouse.com
.

This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780434023189