The Yellow Diamond

by Andrew Martin

  ‘The good news is: this unit’s not closing down,’ he said. ‘The bad news is: I’m your new boss.’

  He’d rehearsed that speech.

  ‘I know,’ said Victoria Clifford.

  Silence in the headquarters of the Super-Rich Unit.

  ‘The lift’s not working,’ said Reynolds.

  ‘I know,’ said Victoria Clifford, and feeling somehow like a little girl, she handed him the notebook and the two memory sticks. He blushed again; was palpably grateful, which he ought not to have been, not least because she’d taken the precaution of carefully slicing two of the pages from the notebook. He set down the laptop bag, and took out his laptop, which was no better than her own. He then found the kettle on the filing cabinet, but saw that it was just that: a kettle. No ‘tea and coffee making facilities’ as the Victoria hotels daintily had it. He began looking about. He wanted a coffee. It was very important to her that he should ask for one.

  ‘Since you’re now my personal assistant …’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy getting us both a coffee, would you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would.’

  She smiled at him, and he smiled too – laughed a bit, in fact. She walked over to the window. They sold takeaway teas and coffees in the Mini-Mart. Tea was seventy pence; coffee ninety. She would go over in a minute.

  ‘They do them in the place across the road,’ she said, ‘I’ll go over.’

  ‘You really don’t mind?’ he said, blushing again. He must learn not to be so pleased about his little victories. ‘No sugar, just milk please.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, and as she left the office, she saw that Reynolds was opening the notebook.

  9

  ‘This lovely embossed leather screen,’ Margaret heard herself saying, ‘is Spanish. It dates from the late nineteenth century, and each fold is decorated with three gardening scenes.’ She hardly ever mentioned the screen on her walking tours – it was badly scratched and probably not worth more than about a thousand pounds – but her mind was elsewhere. She was on auto-pilot. Margaret and her party – the Tuesday-afternoon walking tour – continued through into the ballroom, which usually drew a gasp, with the lovely satinwood sitting-out chairs all along each wall, and the two overmantle mirrors at each end. But the ballroom had not caused much of a stir on this occasion, and Margaret realised she’d forgotten to say that if you looked at yourself in one of the gilt ballroom mirrors, you’d see your reflection reflected in the other mirror, and so on into infinity. They were in the dining room by the time she realised, and she almost thought about taking everyone back so she could do it. But she would do it next time, on the next walking tour, which was to be held, for the first time, on a day other than Tuesday. It was to be held on the coming Friday.

  She would be pulling out all the stops for that, because it would be the last-ever walking tour of Gladwish Hall. The new owner had agreed to let Margaret have her swansong, but he obviously hadn’t wanted to wait until next Tuesday to be rid of her. It was abrupt to say the least, and it was such a shame. Gladwish was, if not the most beautiful, then certainly one of the largest Victorian country houses in the south of England, and with an unusually large estate for the county of Surrey: four hundred acres. The house had a whole page to itself in Pevsner’s guide to Surrey. The exterior was usually described (by Margaret) as ‘a seigneurial brand of revived Tudor’. Inside, the theme was Jacobean, and the oak panelling in the entrance hall and lobby was really very fine, as was the carved oak staircase, although she’d once had a man on the tour – an architectural historian, he said – who claimed it was only ‘pretty good’. This in the very week that Margaret had made a pilgrimage to the Jacobean house called Maybury Place in Sussex, to see the staircase that had inspired the one at Gladwish, according to Christopher Rye. Christopher Rye had written a little history of Gladwish Hall and the family, the Turners, who had owned the house until last year, and who had made their money in the railway boom of the eighteen-forties. Before that, the male Turners had all been doctors. People talked about the nouveaux riches today, but when you thought that in the eighteen-forties, directors of railway companies were considered the worst sort of opportunists …

  Mr Rye, like Margaret, lived in Camberley, which was the nearest town to Gladwish Hall. He was more against the new owner than Margaret was. It was the knocking down of half the maze that had been the last straw for Rye, whereas the lovely dovecote had been the benchmark for Margaret, and the new owner hadn’t touched that so far – and she didn’t mind too much what he was doing with the sunken garden, about which Mr Rye had written an anonymous letter to English Heritage (because Gladwish was Grade Two listed).

  She was in the morning room now, with what she called her ‘guests’, and she was pointing out the Turner family portraits. She hadn’t been able to find out if he – the new owner – would be present next Friday. It didn’t do to ask any of his staff because, after all, he was the owner of the house, and he could come and go in his helicopter or his fleet of black cars any time he wanted.

  Ten minutes later they were back in the entrance hall, where the tour started and finished. The dinner gong was located here, and Margaret always left that until the end. ‘It’s Burmese,’ she said. ‘As you can see, there are six gilded warriors on the face.’ She stopped herself saying, ‘Now would anyone like to bang it?’ because the half-dozen faces staring at her had an average age of about seventy-five, and it was the children who liked to bang the gong. She hoped there would be some children for the last tour. There were further family portraits in the hall, and a couple of questions were asked about them. And then came the inevitable: ‘Who’s the new owner?’

  ‘The new owner,’ said Margaret, ‘is a Russian gentleman: Mr Rostov.’

  ‘Is there a picture of him?’

  ‘Yes … well, not a painting, which is a shame because he has a lovely wife and three absolutely lovely children. But there is a photograph.’

  She walked over to the mahogany side cabinet and picked up a silver picture frame that held a photograph of a thick-set, cheerful-looking man in his early seventies. He had flyaway hair, and quite a red face. He wore jeans and a green T-shirt. ‘This is how he dresses,’ said Margaret, ‘always very informal.’ She hoped no one would ask for a close look at the photograph because there was a slogan written on the T-shirt, and it wasn’t in Russian. It said, ‘All this, and brains too!’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  As far as Margaret knew, Mr Rostov had once been in the KGB, which did not bode well for anyone who, like Margaret, read a lot of spy stories, but Mr Rostov had been perfectly polite, if a little distracted, on the two occasions they’d spoken, on both of which he’d asked her how she was. ‘And the kids?’ he’d asked in addition, even though Margaret’s ‘kids’ were in their thirties and long since moved away. When she’d asked him how he was, he’d replied, ‘Doing great. Hundred per cent!’ But her own reply might seem strange if she’d had to tell someone how she was in Russian. Also, she wasn’t absolutely sure that it was Rostov himself who had brought the Tuesday walking tours to an end. According to Mr Rye, he had been put up to it by Mr Rostov’s head of security, who was an Englishman called Porter, who’d been a major in the army.

  Margaret opened the big front door to let her guests out.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘rain.’

  It wasn’t just the rain, but also the mess made of the lovely terrace by the cement mixers and diggers … and all those big, black cars. On the whole, she would have liked Mr Rostov a lot more if she hadn’t seen the bin-liner full of discarded mobile phones in the stable yard, and if, perhaps, he had been more like his business partner.

  This other man was the senior partner. She believed that he had even more money, and certainly better taste, than Mr Rostov. She had seen him once, when he had come to Gladwish for the dinner Mr Rostov had held to celebrate his purchase of the house. That had been on a
Tuesday, and Margaret had heard a helicopter landing while she was leading the walking tour. Then two lorries – not vans but lorries – with ‘Fortnum & Mason’ written on the side had turned up, and they had brought the dinner. There were to be a hundred guests, and they had been gathering in the drawing room and the ballroom, but she had seen Mr Rostov’s business partner sitting alone in the library. She had left her handbag in the library, and the moment she entered the room, he had stood up and very nearly bowed at her. He had been so charming, and his English was almost perfect. He had been so beautifully dressed; he was handsome too, with distinguished grey hair and deep blue eyes. She also believed he was modest – in the way he’d been sitting alone in the library, and with just the one reading light switched on. Margaret had to admit it: she had rather a crush on Mr Andrei Samarin.

  10

  The notebook was smaller than the one Quinn had given him in the dream, and whereas that might have been a sort of faded blue, this was red – expensive red leather with pale blue pages. There were little gold capitals on the front. Reynolds read out, ‘TOP SECRET’.

  ‘That is rather camp,’ said Clifford, looking up from whatever she had started typing on her return from the Mini-Mart. ‘He usually bought the one marked “Engagements”. Or sometimes “Wine Notes”.’

  ‘What did he do with the old ones?’

  ‘Don’t know. He’d have one on the go at any time. It’s from Smythson of course. One of their soft notebooks. They’re known as floppies.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Smythson’s.’

  ‘Smythson. No ‘s’. Have you never had a Smythson diary? Your partner – what’s her name?’

  ‘Caroline.’

  ‘Caroline. She should be buying you one every Christmas. They tell you things like when Glorious Goodwood starts.’

  ‘But this is not a diary.’

  ‘I’ve just told you what it is. Guess how much it cost.’

  ‘Seven hundred pounds.’

  ‘Now you’re just being silly. Sixty. It’s not A5, you know.’

  ‘I never said it was.’

  ‘It’s a format unique to Smythson. Every page is watermarked with the design of a feather.’

  ‘That’s useful,’ said Reynolds. The notebook was not very floppy, it seemed to Reynolds, and Clifford seemed to read his mind.

  ‘The true Smythson floppy is actually a bigger format,’ she said, ‘but he used to say they’d ruin his pockets. The official notebooks ruined his pockets as well. That’s partly why he never really wrote anything in them.’

  Reynolds tried to think of the rule that said a detective had to write in his detective’s notebook. He couldn’t.

  ‘He regarded them as a snare,’ Clifford continued. ‘He used to say that if any case rested on what you’d written in your notebook, then you weren’t going to win that case. But it didn’t work the other way. The opposing barrister could always trip you up on what was in the book. So Quinn stuck to the floppies. He would doodle in them, usually while smoking. He said it got his mind working, like dancing at Annabel’s.’

  ‘Why did you take it from the flat, just out of interest?’

  ‘To secure it.’

  And so saying, Clifford stopped typing, folded her arms and looked down, as if she’d gone on strike in protest at the question.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Reynolds.

  ‘Fine.’

  Unlike the book in his dream there appeared to be no useful information in this real-life version. It was blank except for the first five pages, which were crowded with a dense scribble: a jumble of words, mostly illegible, and some doodles. The largest of the doodles looked like a primitive drawing of a round-faced king wearing a crown. There was what looked like an elaborate ‘88’. There were letters that might have spelt, ‘SERG E I’, with gaps before and after the second ‘E’. There was what seemed like the word ‘Carlton’ followed by ‘HT’. There was also ‘Jenkins’ plainly enough, the surname of Quinn’s old boss in Art and Antiques. And there was the word ‘Sfinsk’, if that was a word.

  ‘What do you make of all this?’ Reynolds asked Clifford, who had started typing again, albeit slower, so that he wondered if she was one of these bipolar people. He took the book over to her desk, and began turning the early pages.

  She said, ‘It’s going to be very hard to say. He’d write almost unconsciously.’

  ‘You mean subconsciously?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘This looks like a fat king wearing a crown.’

  ‘Which it is obviously not,’ said Clifford.

  ‘Jenkins must be Hugh Jenkins.’

  ‘ … who’s been in a monastery near Venice for the past month, writing a thesis on some Renaissance painter. I managed to get him on the phone last night. He last spoke to Quinn in late October. They had a drink at the Athenaeum. Jenkins said they discussed private matters, not to do with any case.’

  ‘This looks like an eighty-eight,’ Reynolds said, pointing to the doodle.

  ‘It says B. B.’

  ‘Could be Barney Barnes?’

  ‘Yes, it could.’

  Barney Barnes was also ex-Met, also retired like Jenkins. Barnes had finished as a DI. Serious and Organised Crime – Flying Squad for most of his time. He was a big man, bursting out of shiny suits; an overt hardcase, who talked a lot about football. He was the opposite of Quinn, in other words.

  ‘Quinn spoke to Barnes early in October. It was about that,’ she said, pointing to one of the memory sticks.

  ‘How do we know they spoke?’

  ‘Barnes heard about the sweep. He got in touch.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning.’

  A Met-wide sweep had been put out, asking any officer who’d had dealings with Quinn in the weeks before the shooting to contact Lilley. But it seemed Barnes had come straight to Clifford. She indicated her screen. ‘He emailed that he’s happy to see you as soon as you like, so I’ve set up a meeting for Thursday.’

  ‘At La Gavroche, presumably?’ said Reynolds.

  ‘It’s going to be in The Audley. That’s a pub near the Connaught.’

  Clifford turned the pages of the notebook. ‘What you call the fat king is pretty obviously a diamond ring.’

  Reynolds indicated the word ‘Carlton’, followed by the ‘HT’. ‘What about that? The Carlton Club? Was Quinn a member?’

  ‘He was not.’

  Reynolds eyed her sceptically. From what he’d heard of the Carlton, it was the sort of place Quinn might very well be a member of.

  ‘Go and ask if you don’t believe me, but they won’t tell a DI. You’ll need a letter from Croft. If not a warrant.’

  Reynolds had to admit this was probably true. Then it came to him: ‘Carlton HT – must be Carlton House Terrace. It overlooks St James’s Park … which is where he was shot.’

  ‘I hope to God you think faster than you talk,’ Clifford said.

  ‘And why have you given me this?’ Reynolds asked, holding up the invitation.

  ‘You’re going to it,’ she said.

  ‘But the invitation is to Quinn.’

  Clifford held out her hand and Reynolds passed her the invitation which she had obviously lifted from Quinn’s flat, leaving behind on the mantlepiece the letter announcing that an invitation was imminent. She crossed out Quinn’s name and wrote in Reynolds’. ‘I’ve called them,’ she said. ‘I told them you’d be coming in Quinn’s place.’

  ‘What is The Society of Plyushkin’s Garden?’

  ‘A sort of literary salon. Are you going to look at the memory sticks now?’

  She eyed him until he went back to his own desk.

  ‘Start with the one on the left. It was sent round by forensics just before you arrived. It’s Quinn’s email inbox and outbox, taken from his laptop.’

  ‘Have you looked at it?’

  ‘I told you, it was sent just before you arrived. Lilley got first sight of it of course, and the fact that he’s letting us ha
ve a look means there can’t be anything material on it. By the way, have you noticed that he’s blocked the HOLMES file on the case?’

  Reynolds had done. He’d tried twice to log in and find out where Lilley had got to with his investigation. He’d probably be given the password if he asked nicely. It was a game quite often played by the fliers, forcing people to ask: ‘Can I have a look at your crime, please?’ The blocking might mean Lilley had something. More likely, it meant he’d got nothing and was trying to look like he’d stumbled on some matter of national security. A terrorist plot to take out senior Met men.

  ‘What about Quinn’s search history?’ Reynolds asked Clifford.

  ‘Evidently he did delete it.’

  ‘Can it be recovered?’

  ‘Apparently yes, if they spend about a million pounds. The other stick – the one on the right – was requested by Quinn from Flying Squad on 24 September. It’s the one he talked to Barnes about.’

  If it was from the Flying Squad, the memory stick must relate to a robbery of more than about ten grand in cash or goods. But why had Quinn wanted to speak to a retired rather than a serving officer about it?

  Reynolds uploaded the first memory stick.

  It seemed Clifford was right about the emails and she didn’t bother to look over Reynolds’ shoulder as he viewed them, possibly because she had already viewed them and then lied about it. She said from her desk: ‘Quinn never sent me an email in his life.’