I think I may be struggling a bit. I plan to sit in a quiet, phoneless room and do nothing but write this novel for the next two hours. Perhaps the odd bathroom break will be allowed.

Here's the last page I wrote, help welcome:

The Plan

“I still think we should move again first.” Dan said from the sofa as myself, Jess and Cara sat around the circular dining table in our latest borrowed house. There was no dining room in this one, it was smaller with a reasonable kitchen at the back of the house behind a tight hallway with a long living room running parallel to both. “Go to a major city and rob a bank with some gold bullion in it.”

“What would that achieve?” I challenged him. He seemed proud of knowing the word ‘bullion’.

“It’s gold.” He said as if that settled the matter.

“What, exactly would we do with this gold?” Cara asked, patience in her tone.

“Are you lot thick, or something?” Dan looked at us with incredulity. “It’s gold.” He repeated.

“I’m aware of what gold is, Dan.” Cara said, patience waning. “But we can’t go to the shops with a great big bar of gold. We need cash.”

“We can sell them for cash.” He shrugged.

“Two problems with that, Danny boy.” I began. “Firstly, who would we sell all this gold to? Second, if we’re just going to sell it for cash, why not just steal cash?”

“Firstly,” He mimicked my tone. “Some kind of rogue nation’s government. Second, because we can carry more money’s worth of gold than cash.”

“I’ll concede that second point, but I’m afraid there are huge holes in your first.”

“Like what?”

Cara, Jess and I all laughed, half through humour, half exasperation. Jess wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but she often saw the obvious that we overlook. Dan, on the other hand, was useless.

“I didn’t know you had contacts in rogue nations. Off to have a word with your boy down at the Ugandan embassy?” Cara mocked.

“There’ll be guys that want to buy it, surely?” Dan was on the defensive, probably seeing the holes in his idea for the first time.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll set you up a stall at the west African Sunday market.” I said with a smile at my dumb chum. “We can trade the gold for laundered cash and blood diamonds.”

Dan remained sullenly, and mercifully, silent throughout the remainder of the brainstorming session. Jess didn’t contribute much either and after a while drifted away to the kitchen. The faint smell of sizzling sausages soon drifted the other way. I did love that woman.

Cara and I eventually decided to move one last time. We didn’t want to hit a major job like this anywhere near where we’d lived and stole before. We decided that the best course of action would be to pack up all our belongings, few as they were, and spend a night and day putting distance between the area we’d haunted for years and our soon to be very hot behinds. We thought it best to attempt this job where nobody would possibly know us.

Who am I trying to fool saying we? Cara decided, I nodded along.