The Concierge

by Gerard Gilbert

  The smell of cigar smoke can still take him by surprise, though, in the way that smells can – bypassing all the defences that the mind can deploy and plunging him straight back into Mooreland’s proximity. Mooreland and his big fat cigars, plumes of smoke filling the house with their residual stink.

  He knew it for what it was. For a time at least it meant good things – sweets, chocolates, bottles of cider consumed without his mother’s knowledge. The close, friendly attention of this high-spirited man, with his muzzy chuckle, leg-pinching and funny nicknames for everybody. His nickname for Harry was ‘Kimbo’. Legs akimbo. Ha-ha-ha-ha.

  And now here it was, in black and white, in the Eastern Daily Press, which was as good as the Bible for his mum.

  “Excuse me…” A couple in their thirties, she wearing a Barbour coat, he holding a dog on a lead, as if this was genuinely a country pub, ask if they could share his table. Drinkers are coming back inside now, the pub filling up. Instinctively Harry drains the last of his pint. “No, please. I’m just off anyway.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It’s an early start for Switzerland. Max orders an Uber to pick him up at five, leaving Rachel sleeping on her front and gently snoring, her naked back visible from where the duvet has been pulled aside.

  There hadn’t been any sex last night, despite Max’s kneadling, caressing and insistent good humour, but in the end he was just glad to not be exiled to the spare room. This is the way it should be. He makes a mental note to get Fi to book a really romantic restaurant for them for when he gets back from Geneva. It could be a double celebration.

  The car arrives on time and makes good progress through the almost empty London streets; up over the Westway, down the Marylebone Road and through Whitechapel towards Canary Wharf. Simon texts to say he’s ‘lashed’ and that he hasn’t been to bed, but looking forward to a full afternoon on the slopes. He has a ‘doxie’ with him. Harry also texts to say he’s en route. The plane takes off at seven.

  In the small executive departure lounge Simon looks wired, a skinny red-headed girl dressed in party clothes looks thoroughly bemused – as if she’d taken Simon’s talk of taking his private jet to Switzerland as a mere boast, whereas the plentiful lines of Charlie had been enough to string her along for the night.

  “We really flying then?” she says in an estuarine accent. Max thinks she looks like a small frightened rabbit.

  “Yes, my dear, we’re really flying. Why else did we go all the way to Edmonton and fetch your passport?” Simon is squinting into his mobile as he says this. “Let’s hope my trades work so we can afford this little jolly.”

  The girl looks non-plussed, but politely proffers a hand to Max.

  “I’m Rhiannon by the way,” she says.

  “Thank God you said that – I knew it began with an R,” says Simon, but the girl shows no sign of being offended.

  “You’re a one,” she says.

  Thankfully Simon remains fully engaged with Rhiannon during the entire flight to Geneva. The Saudi has emailed to bring forward their meeting, so it’s going to be business before pleasure and from the airport they are to take a taxi straight to the bank where their pink baby is sitting, all snug and secure in a safety-deposit box.

  The Saudi wants to meet at the hotel at seven, and they are to bring the diamond with them. “He’s not going to come to the bank… that’s not how these people work,” says Max, when Harry objects. “It’ll be fine. I’ve arranged to take the diamond out at five, and we put it in this.” Max lifts the briefcase with a handcuff dangling from its side. He’d bought it from a specialist shop in Mayfair one day last week, particularly attracted by the biometric lock that meant it could only be opened using Max’s fingerprint. Simon had burst out laughing when he saw it, much to Max’s annoyance.

  “Put it this way, anyone wants the diamond they’re going to have to hack my arm off to get it,” he says.

  “Better not make it your wanking arm,” guffaws Simon. “Or at the very least they’ll have to chop off your finger to use as a key.”

  Max looks out of the window as Lyon passes somewhere down below. He looks happier than he has in weeks, thinks Harry. He can sense a deal – the deal – the one that is going to set them on their way.

  “What if it’s another no-show,” says Harry. “We can’t keep going to and fro from the bank to the hotel. Someone will take notice and follow us. Especially with that bloody suitcase. Wouldn’t it be less conspicuous if you just put it in your coat pocket?”

  “Don’t worry, Harry. You worry too much.” This is true, thinks Harry. Every night this week he has woken up in his hotel room just off the Hammersmith roundabout and lain awake worrying about what he has now done. The house sale went through in a moment, thanks to something Max knew about called an attended exchange, and he had liquidated everything he owned and invested it in this tiny piece of pink carbon.

  He never thought he’d have a million pounds sitting in his bank, and sure enough it didn’t sit there for long, being wired to Dieter’s bank just two days later. Now it was a case of waiting, and by the end of the week he should have doubled his money.

  The manager who takes them down to the safety deposit room eyes Max’s suitcase with alarm, thinks Harry, or maybe he’s just projecting his own doubts. They look at the stone, which looks disappointingly small now, perhaps because they each know how much of them is invested in it. Max slips it in a leather pouch, pulls the drawstring and places it in the briefcase.

  “Can everyone please verify that the diamond is in the briefcase,” says Max solemnly.

  Harry wants to laugh, but the manager says, “Of course, monsieur. I can verify that the diamond is in the briefcase.”

  * * *

  The taxi ride to the hotel takes ten minutes but it feels like hours. At one point a motorcyclist overtakes the cab and pulls in sharply, causing the taxi driver to brake, before speeding off.

  “Thank God for that,” says Harry. “I thought we were being carjacked.”

  They’ve decided to take a room in the hotel rather than hang around in the lobby. Harry needs somewhere to stay, and Max’s flat is too small. Tomorrow, twice as rich as they are today, they will head off to Verbier, where Simon and Rhiannon will be waiting for them.

  “I have a message for you,” says the receptionist as Max and Harry sign in. It’s in a heavy cream envelope, expensively embossed and smelling of perfume. A woman’s perfume? Max opens it. Room 102 at 7pm is all that is written on it.

  “Can you tell me who has booked Room 102?” Max asks the receptionist, showing him the letter.

  “The whole of the first floor has been booked out,” the man says. “I am afraid I cannot tell you in whose name.”

  “Then that’s our man all right,” says Max.

  They have an hour to kill. Max orders a hamburger and chips from room service, but Harry feels too sick to eat. What if the Arab doesn’t like the diamond, or doesn’t want to pay the price that Max is setting? What if he only wants to pay three million instead of five million?

  Max is obviously agitated too, because he’s pacing the room. “I wish Rachel was here now,” he says. “We’d spend this hour having sex, and no offence, Harry, but you’re not my type.”

  “Nor you mine,” says Harry. Are they still having sex, he wonders? They have such a strange relationship. There’s a knock at the door and he jumps. It’s room service. He wants to phone Mary, involve her in his crazy adventure – how she would laugh, and be amazed. Outside their third-floor window, Geneva twinkles in the darkness. Two floors beneath are the people who will make them or break them. I am being over-dramatic, thinks Harry, as he watches Max eat his hamburger as if he was fucking Rachel. Greedily, blindly. Only twenty minutes has passed.

  * * *

  The first floor is quiet. They expected to be met by security as they got out of the lift, but no one is about. Max knocks on the door of room 102. Moments later it’s opened by a man with an earpiece and a suit that can
hardly contain his muscles. The security guard looks at them stonily and ushers them into a living room in pink damask.

  A huge bouquet of flowers sits on the sideboard, with the compliments of the hotel. A pair of double doors open and a young woman – the woman they had met in London – softly enters the room and offers her hand. Max takes it and bows, and Harry follows suit, trying not to remember the woman’s sardonic gaze when we first met.

  “My father is next door with my mother,” she says. “I am to show them the diamond. Please.”

  “Errr…” Max is looking at Harry, who instinctively shakes his head. The woman frowns. “The diamond… please. I am to show them.”

  “This is most irregular,” says Max. “We can show him ourselves.”

  “My father is with my mother,” the woman says again, as if that explained everything. She puts out her hand.

  “Well, I don’t know,” says Max, but he has already laid the briefcase on the back of a sofa, and is pressing his fingertip against the biometric lock. The woman, Harry realises, is staring at him.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “I’m, ah, well,” he manages to say. Max hands her the pouch with the diamond in it.

  “One moment,” she says, and steps through the double-doors that lead into the adjoining room.

  Their hearts are both beating hard. They look around. The security guard is gone, they are alone.

  “What the fuck?” says Harry.

  “I know, most irregular,” is all that Max can say. They wait, standing where the woman had left them, in the middle of the room, which Harry realises smells of the same perfume as the letter.

  “How long do we give them?” he asks.

  “We can’t just barge in there,” says Max, who is reddening from his neck upwards. Harry too feels flushed. “It might scupper the whole deal. Just wait.”

  More minutes pass. Max goes over to the front door, opens and peers down the corridor. No one is there, not even the security guard. Where did he go?

  “I don’t like this,” says Max, whose face is puce now.

  Harry goes over to the double doors and knocks gently. No reply. He waits and then again, more loudly this time. He puts his ear to the door, and hears voices. He listens, and realises that it’s coming from a television. He opens the door. The room is empty. He opens another door, which leads on to a bedroom, which is also empty. The bedroom door to what turns out to be room 103 is unlocked. The lights are on but it’s as room service left it that morning, with another enormous bouquet of flowers on the central table. Room 104 and Room 105 are the same.

  “Shit… shit… shit,” says Harry. “We’ve been robbed.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “So, you’re saying that you went to the room of this Arab woman to sell her a diamond and she stole it.” The female police inspector is probably in her late forties, with deep lines etched around hazel eyes that have seen too much. This is the fourth stranger to whom Max has unfolded his story in the past – he looks at his watch again – four hours and twenty three minutes, and he has to admit that it becomes ever more fabulous and unlikely each time he repeats it.

  “That’s correct – correct and totally true,” he says. “Except our arrangement was with her father with whom I have had several dealings in the past, and it was his daughter – who I have met once before – who opened the door and took the diamond, supposedly to show her father, who was in the next door room.”

  The inspector’s eyebrows rise up involuntarily, not for the first time while she has been taking his statement. He can see what she’s thinking – that he’s just a fool who’s been very irresponsible with a valuable possession; she must see it ten times a day. “Is the diamond insured?” she asks, without looking up from her computer keyboard.

  “Yes, but no,” says Max, a note of despair entering his voice for the first time since the theft. “We won’t be covered for taking the diamond out of the vault and giving it to a stranger in a hotel room, let’s put it that way.” He has another thought. “And, no, this is not an insurance scam.”

  The inspector’s mouth moves fractionally into a half-smile. “The thought never crossed my mind.” She speaks perfect, French-accented English, far more fluent that the harassed male colleague who had originally interviewed them after they were escorted to the gendarmerie HQ. He didn’t seem to be able to make head nor tail of their story, and eventually stomped off muttering to himself, in search of someone who spoke better English.

  Harry had continued opening all the doors on the first floor of the hotel, shouting and swearing like a drunk on his third bottle of vodka, but Max could already see that they had been the victims of a beautifully – yes, he has to admire it – simple sting. With a strange calm, he called the lift and descended to the lobby. The receptionist quickly called the duty manager, whose face seemed to retreat into itself as Max told him what had happened.

  He kept jabbing on the computer keyboard and saying, “The Saudi party is booked for two more nights.” He then phoned upstairs, but received no answer.

  “The Saudi party,” he kept repeating, like a spell to ward off evil spirits. He pulled himself together. “They must have gone out.”

  Max had slapped his own forehead in exasperation. “What are you talking about? They were never there. Did you actually see them check in?”

  “Please, one moment, monsieur,” the man said, returning to the computer. “I have only been on duty for two hours. Gregoire!” he had called to a young man who has been checking in another guest. “Venez ici.” The manager had a rapid word in Gregoire’s ear. “My colleague is going to check the rooms.”

  “Don’t bother, I’ve already done it.” Harry had appeared at his side at this moment, his sweat-covered face a blotchy pink.

  “The whole floor is completely empty,” he said. “It was a set-up. Get them to call the police at once, Max. Fucking hell…”

  “And you don’t know the name of this woman,” says the female inspector back at the police station. She looks like she wants to smile again – never give a sucker an even break, she is probably thinking.

  “Like I said, I wasn’t dealing with her, but her father.”

  “Ah, yes.” Just a moment. The woman stands up and opens the door, putting her head around the opening to talk with a colleague in rapid-fire French. Max recognises the word embassy. She returns, holding a sheet of paper.

  “We have been in touch with the embassy here in Geneva and they say that the Saudi’s e-mail account has been hacked. Neither he, nor anyone in his employ, booked those rooms at the hotel.”

  “Ha! Brilliant!” Max shouts. “Then it must be his daughter who is hacking his e-mails. His password is probably even her name. It seems to me that you are bound to bring her in for questioning.”

  “Ah, yes, that is the other thing,” the woman says. “The lady in question goes by the name of Aafia…”

  “Brilliant, she has a name,” shouts Max.

  “Yes, but she also has diplomatic immunity.”

  * * *

  They return to London in a daze, Harry with a hole in the pit of his stomach as he realises that he has returned to square one in life. How could they have been so stupid, or greedy? Simon has lent them his plane and a floor at his house in Islington for Max and Rachel to stay. Harry books into a hotel near Victoria Station using the company credit card.

  The British police duly take their statements, and the insurance company agrees to a meeting, while not offering any hope of recompense after they had acted so rashly with the diamond. And, yes, Aafia has diplomatic immunity.

  The only lead that comes their way in these dismal days, which they spend in the offices of Forward-Max Capital LLP, comes when, on a whim, Harry e-mails Mary to tell her what’s happened. Perhaps there might be a story in it. Mary phones him almost at once, and they arrange to meet in the pub. A different pub this time. She’ll come to Harry’s office. She’s interested to see it, she says.

  T
he Market Tavern on Shepherd’s Market is large enough not to be too crowded on a Wednesday evening after work. In the upstairs room they find a corner where it’s quiet enough to talk, Harry having ordered a pint of Kronenberg for himself and a large sauvignon blanc for Mary.

  “God, Harry, I’m so sorry… no, really,” she says as they settle in. Mary seems friendly and concerned enough, but he senses she’s being a little guarded. Or is that just him, now that he knows she’s not interested? Outside it’s still light just about, the clocks go forward that weekend.

  “We’ve been idiots,” he says. “Tell me all about the Saudis.”

  “God, where do you want me to start?”

  “Where do you want to start?”

  A great gale of laughter comes from across the room where five or six young men and women are seated – office workers by the look of them.

  “Do you know anything about our Saudi gentleman and his daughter?”

  “Quite a lot actually, or at least about the father, and it’s all quite interesting,” says Mary, taking a thirsty gulp of her wine. “Ooh, that’s nice.”

  “Go on,” says Harry, taking a nervous swig of his pint, and leaning in so that can better hear what Mary is saying, the group of office workers having steadily turned up their volume.

  “Well, in many ways he’s like your Donald Trump”

  “My Donald Trump?”

  “Sorry... I only assumed…” says Mary with a mischievous half-smile. “Anyway, he made his second fortune buying and selling real estate in 1980s America. His first fortune was as a sub-contractor for the Bin Ladens...”

  “The Bin Ladens? Now you’re really confusing me. He was some sort of terrorist?”

  “You’re thinking of Osama Bin Laden... Osama was the black sheep of the family. The Bin Ladens were a family-run construction firm who built most of Saudi Arabia – its roads, cities and royal palaces. They even rebuilt Mecca. So your man was a sub-contractor for the Bin Ladens during the 1970s oil boom, and then decided to move to America and try his luck there. And like President Trump, he dealt in real estate – anything from golf courses and shopping malls to Manhattan tower blocks.”