The Money Star

by Jon Lymon

  “Look, I know how it looks. I’ve got a motive to steal, I was at the scene, but I was nothing to do with it. Honest. They were amateurs, no plan, no idea.”

  “You have a better plan?” Ramage asked.

  Remnant stalled for a second.

  “I’ve lived round here all my life. I’ve had time to think. I’ll admit it’s crossed my mind to do a job, but all sorts of thoughts cross a man’s mind. It’s those you act upon that count.”

  Ramage pulled a smile that didn’t include his eyes.

  “Well, we’ve both had long days, I think I’ll call it a night,” he said.

  He made his way to the door but halfway there stopped and turned, purely for dramatic effect, Remnant presumed.

  “You’re not planning to go off anywhere, no holidays abroad or trips to the moon?” Ramage asked.

  “I can check my calendar, but I’m pretty sure I’m stuck here until the day I die.”

  “Good, good, because I may well have more questions to ask. I’ll let myself out.”

  And seconds after that he was gone.

  Remnant breathed a sigh of relief, then slowly made his way to the kitchen where he angrily hacked the watermelon to shreds.

  6

  If only boilers were as reliable as Edgar. He arrived at Remnant’s flat the following day exactly when he’d promised at half-past one, tool bag in hand, and sporting stained navy blue overalls. Once inside number forty-eight, he brushed past the pyjama-wearing council tenant and headed straight for the boiler cupboard, knowing it was just outside the lounge as it was in his and every other flat in the blocks on Hatton Garden.

  Remnant knew Edgar would be wanting a cup of tea but asked anyway, and once he’d laid the mug on the coffee table near the lounge door he settled down to finish watching a slow documentary about swans.

  “I hear you had a visitor last night,” said Edgar, peering into the depths of the cupboard with a slim black torch.

  “Who told you that?”

  “I’ve just seen Gordon.”

  “I forgot to give them a statement, didn’t I?”

  “They’re hot on procedure, the police.”

  “I’d forgotten. What do you think I should do about DT accusing me of being part of the gang? He’s blaming me for not catching or unmasking the thieves.”

  Edgar emerged from the cupboard for a face full of tea and to switch the television over to a news channel.

  “I’d ignore it, if I were you. The more fuss you make, the more likely it is the police will think you’re trying to hide something. You know the way they work.”

  “I hardly know DT, yet he seems to have it in for me, like everyone else round here.”

  “Maybe he just said it in the heat of the moment.”

  “It’s not my fault his alarm never went off.” Remnant smiled at Edgar.

  “Nor mine, if that’s what you’re getting at. I told him it was old and needed replacing. Speaking of being old and needing replacing…”

  Edgar was running his tongue along his front teeth, trying to think of a solution that wouldn’t cost too much.

  “Look at that.” Remnant’s attention had turned to a news report of a riot somewhere sunny. “What have they got to riot about?’ he continued. “They might be unemployed, but they’re living in a nice hot country by the sea.”

  “You’re not the only one suffering, Sye. There’s millions out there with no jobs. No future. People older than you.”

  “You ain’t heard from any of your old colleagues about any jobs have you?”

  “Sorry, like I said, there’s not much about. And anyway the only jobs they’d know about would be in the Thames Valley. That’s not an easy place to get to from here, even with a car.”

  Remnant grimaced and saw Edgar shaking his head at the boiler.

  “If you could just keep it working until winter’s been and gone, that’d do me,” Remnant told him. “All I need is a few hours of heat a day.”

  He turned back to his television to see the newscaster smiling as she introduced the light item at the end of the bulletin.

  “And finally, it seems the internet is being gripped by asteroid fever.”

  A picture of a bright white light flashed up.

  “Blogger Joakim Onamoto claims this bright light is in fact the glare from an asteroid discovered by an American spacecraft. An asteroid he claims is made of pure diamond.”

  Remnant scoffed and was about to switch channels when Edgar snatched the remote and raised the volume.

  “What started as an internet rumour and suspected hoax has now snowballed into an online phenomenon, with diamond asteroids out-trending all other topics on the social networks. And space experts have done little to dispel the rumours.”

  An unattractive man, with a skin condition not suited to the extreme close-up he was being subjected to, spoke with grim clarity.

  “Given the vast number of asteroids in the solar system and the huge variety of elements from which they are made, it is entirely possible, nay, highly probable that at least one is made of diamond. We mustn’t forget that much of the Earth’s mineral resources were deposited on our planet by falling asteroids.”

  It took a lot to stop Edgar working, but this news item had him gripped. Remnant stared at his friend, unused to seeing him so entranced by a television programme.

  “What are you thinking, Edgar?”

  He stood there, open-mouthed.

  “I’ve fixed your boiler the best I can,” he said robotically. “It’s old. It needs replacing. I think it’s got one winter left in it.”

  “I know how it feels.”

  Edgar was still staring at the screen, even though the news had ended and they were onto the weather.

  “What’s up with you?” Remnant asked.

  Edgar frowned at Remnant. “There’s a massive diamond up there,” he said, pointing to the sky.

  “So they say. So what?”

  “A massive, unprotected, undefended diamond worth untold money just waiting for someone to bring it home. There’s no alarm system. No guards. No police. No prison sentence for stealing it.”

  “That’s because it’s millions of miles away. What chance have I got of getting to the asteroid belt when I can’t even get to the bloody Thames Valley?”

  Edgar sighed. “That’s the problem with you, Sye. Always seeing the problems before the opportunities. You’re saying you can’t get there before spending time thinking of ways you could get there.” He rapidly packed his tool bag. “I need to go home,” he said

  “I think you need a lie down, mate. You’ve gone as pale as the picture of that asteroid. Thanks for sorting the boiler, though.”

  Edgar waved away the thanks as he always did.

  After seeing him out, Remnant slumped onto his shapeless sofa and stewed over Edgar’s parting comments.

  Like many men and women desirous of a better life, he did not sleep well that night. He was gripped by news broadcasts which saw fit to promote the asteroid story from the light item at the end in their afternoon bulletins, to third in the pecking order at tea time, to the main item at ten o’clock, all reflecting the mania that the picture on Onamoto’s website had provoked.

  Remnant ripped apart his thin curtains and examined the brown night sky over London, unable to discern whether it was clear or cloudy. And he gave himself a moment to think about what it would be like to get a slice of that diamond and bring it home. Give some to friends and sell the rest. Make it up with everyone he owed. No more IOUs.

  7

  Errol Haygue had the misfortune of being the inaugural chief of the USA’s Space Exploration Council (SEC), the successor to the recently disbanded NASA. He was the United States’ ‘go-to guy’ for all things space at a time when its budgets weren’t so much being cut or slashed, as totally annihilated.

  A veteran of three space shuttle missions in the Nineties, he was comfortably his nation’s most experienced space expert, yet it had been over a decade since
he’d left the Earth’s atmosphere. ‘Such a fate awaits men who find that age, experience and a desire for a bigger salary force them into soul-destroying managerial posts,’ he reasoned to his wife in a moment of reflection back at his New England ranch.

  He had no option but the desk job by the time the opportunity to take on one arose with the sudden demise of his predecessor, who had held the role of NASA Chief for twenty-one years during which he’d overseen the phasing out of the shuttles, the colonisation of Mars by ten thousand ‘specially selected’ individuals and families, and the near total collapse of government funding for anything space related.

  By the time Haygue settled in the power-exuding leather seat of office, NASA was no more and news of people emigrating to Mars was old news. The ships they travelled in were well designed and several incident and disaster free take-offs, journeys and landings in a row sent hacks who were waiting for front page stealing explosions and bodycounts scurrying elsewhere.

  Sensing that loss of interest would soon yield a similar result when it came to the scant funding that SEC received, Haygue suggested staging a crash or a death on board a flight to Mars to re-ignite public interest. It was then that he realised despite it saying ‘Chief’ on his office door and the long, triangular plaque on his wooden desk, there were bigger, more powerful chiefs who could and would veto his every decision. They didn’t work in the same building, or even the same city, but they were out there somewhere, ready to intervene and delay and question and procrastinate. And they certainly weren’t thinking that a staged crash or disaster was in the public interest.

  They were more concerned with the public interest that had been generated by Onamoto’s picture and the sheer number of blogs and comments about it. Haygue knew it was only a matter of time before his superiors ordered him to host a press conference to assassinate Onamoto’s character, ridicule his pictures and belittle those who believed in the existence of an asteroid made of diamond.

  All standing room at the briefing was taken within minutes of the seats going, seats which Haygue had ensured were the most uncomfortable in the building.

  He strode to his pedestal, flanked by attractive juniors, and framed on Remnant’s outdated square screen television by a pictorial rendition of the White House, the SEC logo, an important-looking but ultimately meaningless coat of arms and a plush flag of the United States with extra shiny red stripes.

  During his career, Haygue had developed an oratorical style specifically designed to heighten boredom. He deliberately droned, especially when revealing important information that the laws of the land required him to. There were no peaks in his tone, no patterns to his speech, merely relentless troughs. Many hacks had grown tired of his lack of personality, turning their attention to other stories and, in several cases, other careers. Some who decided to remain journalists took to making up stories and fabricating leads in order to avoid being assigned to a Haygue briefing. As a result, Haygue had virtually slipped off the radar.

  “Ladies and gentleman, I will keep this brief,” he droned, and many of the gathered journalists immediately recalled why they had always given these ‘occasions’ a wide berth. “As we all know, rumours have been circulating regarding the nature of these pictures.”

  The shot of the bright white light that had made Onamoto a household name brought forth gasps from the assembled press. Haygue shook his head at their over-reaction.

  “This is a shot taken from the Prospector mission to Jupiter,” he said, turning to the screen behind him. “It is a shot taken by a malfunctioning camera. As is this, this and this.” He toggled through three more almost identical pictures of a bright white light, then turned back to face the journalists, inadvertently triggering a storm of flash photography.

  An impatient Haygue squinted as journalists tried to intervene with questions, only to be shushed down and glared at by the assembled security.

  “It’s just an over-exposed shot. Nothing more, nothing less. So let’s stop all this talk of diamonds and asteroids.”

  “So what do you say to the scientists who say that there’s a hundred per cent chance of there being an asteroid made of diamond in the belt?” asked a voice from the throng.

  “If there is such a thing, no one’s found it yet, but we’ll keep our eyes open,” said Haygue, looking at someone else. He could see from the serious expressions on the gathered faces that they’d all been briefed to keep this story alive.

  “The camera that took the shots, that’s an expensive bit of kit to be malfunctioning, don’t you think?” Haygue recognised the voice as belonging to John Stock, the scourge of the latter ten years of his career. He was one of the few to bother turning up to all of his briefings, mostly to heckle and harass.

  Stock was an annoyingly boyish man who was at least a decade older than he looked. The writer of a spaceblog that Haygue could never remember the name of, (but he had Googled it once and was left unimpressed), Stock looked younger and younger every time Haygue saw him, and today was no exception.

  “A thorough investigation is underway, as you might expect, Stock. So I don’t have any hard and fast reasons why that camera malfunctioned.” Haygue said, watching Stock type something on his iPad.

  “Remind me again of the Prospector’s mission,” was Stock’s follow-up question.

  “Prospector is on a very important mission to help develop mankind’s understanding of the solar system’s most powerful planet,” said Haygue.

  “Why then does Onamoto’s most recent post, published as recently as half an hour ago, say that there is a Prospector II? With astronauts onboard? In the asteroid belt as we speak?”

  There was uproar in the briefing room, even from the security guards. Haygue glared at Stock who was loving being the centre of attention. “Astronauts on a mission to test the purity of the diamond asteroid,” Stock shouted.

  “There’s no truth whatsoever in these rumours,” Haygue yelled. “No truth in any of that crap Onamoto puts on his site. It’s all conjecture. There is no Prospector II.”

  The buzz in the room prevailed. Another voice brought calmness.

  “So what’s the latest with the first Prospector?”

  “The only Prospector,” Haygue corrected him.

  “We expecting any more film back?”

  “The Prospector will continue to send back pictures of Jupiter, for the next nine months.”

  “I look forward to seeing them,” said Stock, not totally ingenuinely, although some journalists laughed. “You said before that these pictures of the white light are several months old. Why were they not released sooner?”

  “Who’d be interested? Who’d publish them? Who wants to see a picture taken by a malfunctioning camera? When was the last time any of you attended a briefing of mine, apart from you Stock? I can assure you there is nothing in this. No diamond asteroid for you to worry about.”

  “Hey, it wouldn’t worry me any,” said Stock. “But I know a few people who’d be interested in checking out if there was any truth in the rumour. A few millionaires wanting to build spaceships to go take a look.”

  “Good luck to them, but they’re wasting their time. And you’re wasting mine.” Haygue looked set to leave.

  “So you can categorically state that no SEC mission is underway to the asteroid belt?” asked a female journalist from one of the financial papers.

  “We’re in a double dip recession, as you’ll know better than me. There aren’t the funds hanging around for us to launch a hunt for a diamond, should there be such a thing which we don’t believe there is.”

  “So you’d be happy for anyone with a ship to go on up and check that out for themselves?”

  “Be my guest. OK, thanks everyone. This one’s over.” Haygue gathered his papers and looked up to see Stock addressing the cameras and the journalists.

  “I don’t think this is over. I think anyone who believes in this rumour, who believes there’s something up there owes it to themselves to go check it out. Do
n’t let anyone talk you out of it.”

  “I think everyone gets the picture,” Haygue raged. “This one’s definitely over.”

  It was a line that brought forth many questions asked at the same time and same high volume by equally desperate journalists.

  Haygue ignored them all and walked out of the room with far less confidence than he’d had when entering it, knowing a summons to meet the powers that be would already be waiting in his inbox.

  8

  ‘This is the proudest day of my life, seeing my little daughter Chloe all grown up and walking down the aisle. I was delighted and surprised when she asked me to do her the honour of giving her away, because as some of you will know, I have not been…

  Remnant’s pen paused. Where to go next? Why rake up all that old stuff? What was the point? Most people who’d be at the wedding would know what he was like anyway.

  He was looking for a distraction and found one in a small rectangular card on which it had been far easier to write a message. In his best hand he had declared his availability to take part in any mission to the diamond asteroid. He could leave any time and would do anything required. He had underlined JCB digger experience twice, thinking that was as good as being an expert diamond miner, and everything was written in red slanted capitals.

  He grabbed his keys and descended the steps to street level. There was something palpable in the air, not just the loud thud thud and tsst tsst of a bass drum and hi-hat dominated tune emanating from a balcony higher up in Remnant’s block. The area felt alive and not a little dangerous. The capital’s jewellery quarter teetering on the edge of the City of London.

  Leather Lane market was full of browsers taking in the bargains, and early lunching office folk queuing at the stalls for haloumi wraps and spicy kebabs and cheese beans coleslaw filled to overflowing jacket potatoes and lumpy, stodgy burritos and multi-coloured salads.