The Yellow Diamond

by Andrew Martin

  When he’d finished, she quickly took a black fancy notebook out of her black fancy handbag; she wrote something down, put the notebook back in the bag. She had enjoyed doing that, Reynolds could tell. She said, ‘Where did you talk to Dutta?’

  ‘In Claridge’s. You know that.’

  ‘Yes but where exactly?’

  ‘A sort of little, dark bar.’

  ‘The Fumoir,’ she said, looking over his shoulder at the people coming through the door of the Reading Room.

  ‘It’s all done out in purple.’

  ‘Aubergine.’ She leant over and adjusted one of his pocket flaps. ‘Keep that out,’ she said. ‘You could smoke in the Fumoir until about 2006. I used to go there with Quinn, but that was back in the eighties. The drinks were affordable and they had these tremendously good crisps. Well, cheese and onion. You didn’t even have to buy a drink. If it was pouring you’d go into Claridge’s and stand in front of the fire to get dry.’

  Samarin was now closer to them. All Reynolds could gather from his quiet remarks to the Englishwoman who’d collared him was that Gogol was evidently pronounced ‘Goggle’. About five people stood in a queue behind the Englishwoman, wanting to talk to Samarin. A waiter came up, and Reynolds exchanged his empty glass for a full one. A pamphlet was also put in his hand. It was half in Russian and half in English. The first page spoke of ‘our grateful thanks to Mr Andrei Samarin … the literary connection has always been the strongest bond between our two nations …’ And yet Plyushkin’s Gardeners were independent of either the Russian or British governments, so this was Samarin being a non-partisan goody-goody. He did not look very relaxed about it.

  ‘Look at the way he keeps his hand in his jacket pocket,’ Reynolds whispered to Clifford.

  ‘Suit-coat pocket,’ said Clifford.

  A gloomy-looking Russian with shaggy grey hair and beard had now taken possession of the lectern. He would be holding forth about Gogol. Just as everyone was supposed to be shutting up, Reynolds heard a tall young Russian woman saying very clearly, ‘Yes dear, we are going on. This is the pre-drinks in effect.’ The lecturer had heard this as well, and didn’t much like it. After very sombre thanks to Andrei Samarin, whereupon everyone looked at Samarin (much to his apparent distress) the lecturer began talking, in a depressed tone, not so much about the book Gogol had written

  as about the books he had not written – all the intended sequels to his masterpiece, Dead Souls, that had never appeared. It was heroic of Gogol to persist in trying to live in the world of his imagination, even when he had no imagination left. The speaker complained about the way Dead Souls was generally taken to be a comedy, but Reynolds hadn’t found it very funny when he’d read it. Because he remembered now that he had read it, years ago. It had seemed to him sub-Dickensian: a portrait of rackety and corrupt Tsarist Russia. But if you read it in Russian, it was no doubt as good as Dickens. There was something exceptionally Russian about Gogol, the speaker was suggesting. He had written in Russian, not French, which was the language of Russian literature at the time. Yes, he had considered Russian society horrific, but this seemed to be the hallmark of the Russian character: you didn’t much like Russia. Andrei Samarin was listening with his eyes closed, in a manner that suggested great satisfaction or great exhaustion. His left hand was out of his pocket, and Reynolds saw that the little finger stopped at the first knuckle. It made a poignant sight: the runt of the litter. It made the next finger look extremely long, which it was not.

  Reynolds could not believe the details of Gogol’s career could have any bearing on the shooting of Quinn, and when the speaker said, ‘I am going to read this passage in Russian …’ Reynolds drifted over to the second entrance, pushed open the door, and he was in a kind of vestibule. Another refugee from the speech was making a mobile-phone call. Reynolds saw further double doors, with a notice above: The Sackler Study. He entered a high-ceilinged room with one long table down the centre, reading lamps at intervals. He had half hoped to find some of Quinn’s fabled stationery lying next to a pile of the books he’d been engaged in reading. Then he saw a shelf next to the fireplace marked ‘Books Aside’. It denoted a dozen stacks of books, each with slips of paper protruding, upon which members had written their surnames. These were books they wanted kept back, not reshelved, so they could continue working from them. In the distorted handwriting familiar from the floppy book – and the same expensive black ink – Reynolds saw ‘Quinn’.

  Five books. The Overcoat and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol; Dead Souls by Gogol; Russian Emigration: A Historical Survey; The Russian Diaspora and A Natural History of Siberia. He opened each, and scanned the indexes of those that had indexes. The Natural History of Siberia (a skimpy book for such a big place) did not have an index, and nor of course did the Gogol, being fiction. Towards the end of the final index he checked – that of The Russian Diaspora by a certain Michael Berg – something leapt out. It was under ‘S’:

  Sfinsk (Max Aktin writing as).

  Sfinsk/Aktin was represented by a single quote. This occurred in the midst of a dense passage giving the figures of emigration from Soviet Russia by Jews and others in the mid-seventies:

  It seems likely that the harshness of the quotas did not truly reflect Soviet priorities. It is possible they were by way of a bargaining chip, and yet an increase in the quotas was a prize never played for by the governments of Western Europe in their diplomatic games with the Kremlin.

  And there was a footnote. Michael Berg had written:

  This was the last word from Aktin on Soviet emigration. He was killed in a fire in his London flat later in the same year.

  Reynolds had to turn to the back of the book again to find the date of the quote: 2001, and it came from a magazine called Refusnik. He made a note of all the books Quinn had been reading, and stepped back into the Reading Room. Victoria Clifford was watching him as he re-entered. She looked annoyed that he’d been away. The speaker seemed to be winding up; Clifford was indicating the other double doors of the Reading Room.

  Anna Samarina stood there.

  The very tall young Russian woman, who’d said about ‘going on’, was making her way towards her. When she got there, the two kissed and whispered.

  Anna Samarina – and everyone else – was now applauding the speaker. Questions were being invited. Reynolds looked at Anna Samarina until she noticed him, which took about half a minute. She smiled, apparently delighted. He nodded at her, going red in the process – partly because he in turn was being watched by Victoria Clifford. There had been only one question for the speaker, and now the event was a drinks party. The tall young woman, and a new young woman, were speaking to Anna Samarina, who kept eyeing Reynolds.

  Under the eye of Clifford, he walked towards her.

  The new young woman – an American – was saying to Anna, ‘I totally love your father.’

  Anna Samarina smiled; she was holding a glass of champagne. Her tall friend was speaking Russian loudly into her phone.

  ‘Mr Blake Reynolds,’ said Anna, and they somehow both kissed on both cheeks. Her Russian accent had faded, he believed, since he had last spoken to her: it was now more a matter of Russian inflections. Her looks had not faded. As far as Reynolds was concerned, she might as well have stepped down off the top of the Christmas tree. She wore slipper-like shoes, a pair of black leggings beneath … well, it was a sort of white ballet skirt or tutu. On top she wore a white blouse and a black leather jacket. She wore no jewellery at all. She effortlessly transcended the strangeness of her outfit.

  She said, ‘How are you? You’re not in the clubs these days?’

  ‘I was transferred to a murder team.’

  ‘Lovely!’

  ‘And now I’m with a new unit.’

  It was impossible to tell whether she knew about the new unit, but he was sure that she did. The former head of it might have been investigating her crime, or crimes; and it had been in the papers.

  ‘When was the last time I sa
w you?’ she enquired.

  ‘I think …’

  ‘It was a white Christmas.’

  He frowned. It had certainly been winter.

  ‘For London, I mean – a sort of off-white.’

  Her tall friend was now speaking English into her phone. ‘It is what it is, darling!’ she was saying.

  Anna nodded towards the lectern. ‘In ten minutes there will be another speaker. He will be talking about Dostoevsky. I am told he is very interesting.’ She actually said ‘interestink’, but as a kind of joke.

  ‘But we are going, however,’ said the tall friend, who had finished her phone call.

  Anna did the introductions. ‘This is my good friend Detective Blake Reynolds. But what is it by now? What is your rank?’

  Detective Chief Inspector,’ he said, blushing. ‘Well, Acting Detective Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Anna as he shook hands with the tall girl, ‘we are all acting.’

  The tall girl was called Eva.

  Reynolds asked Anna, ‘Will your father be speaking?’

  ‘Now what do you think? Does he ever speak?’ and she was smiling because her father had come up alongside Reynolds.

  He had been followed by a line of people who wanted to speak to him, but he was shaking Reynolds’ hand.

  ‘I was extremely distressed to hear about George Quinn,’ said Andrei Samarin. ‘I knew him a little, and I admired him a good deal. Recovery is not out of the question, I understand?’

  Reynolds said something like, ‘So I believe.’

  ‘And now you have stepped into his shoes?’ Anna Samarina put in, so she did know. ‘Papochka can lend you a bodyguard or two,’ she added.

  Samarin was frowning at his daughter.

  ‘They come with or without Ray-Bans,’ she said, accepting more champagne.

  Reynolds asked her father, ‘Where did you meet Quinn, Mr Samarin?’

  ‘Is that an official question?’ the tall girl put in, and Samarin eyed her for a moment.

  ‘I don’t quite recall. Some place like this,’ Samarin said eventually.

  ‘Gatherings of the intelligentsia,’ said Anna, but in the Russian way, with a strong ‘g’.

  Just then they all overheard a woman saying, ‘Wow, your Van Kleef is amazing.’

  Samarin shook his head and smiled.

  ‘Frieze Art Fair?’ said Anna. ‘Serpentine Party? No. A Russian art … evenink at Christie’s. One of – what? – three occasions last year when you attended a social event, Papochka.’

  ‘We are ready to go,’ repeated the tall Russian girl. She was very insistent on this.

  ‘Where to?’ Samarin asked his daughter.

  It was the tall girl who answered. ‘That is up in the air, Andriusha. It is a movable feast.’

  Anna explained to Reynolds, ‘She collects English expressions. It is very annoying.’

  She then kissed her father, saying, ‘Don’t worry, Papochka, I will not be driving.’

  Samarin was then taken away by all the people who wanted to speak to him.

  ‘It is all right for him,’ said Eva. ‘He is driven everywhere.’

  ‘So am I and so are you,’ Anna pointed out. But she added, for Reynolds’ benefit, ‘I sometimes go on the Tube these days. It’s very cool.’

  Eva finished her champagne. She said something to Anna half in Russian and half in English. Anna said, ‘In fact, Papochka can drive.’

  ‘Really?’ said Eva. ‘That is contrary to popular belief.’

  ‘He bought his licence fair and square in Petersburg. And he has an electrical car, amongst others.’

  ‘He has gone green?’ suggested Eva.

  ‘Literally. He’ll be riding a bike next.’

  Reynolds asked Anna. ‘Does your father drive around in the electrical car?’

  ‘No, because there is only room in it for his driver.’

  Eva’s phone rang. In the act of answering, she sort of swirled herself into an exaggerated listening position. Anna Samarina walked over to say something to her father. He was still being besieged but, as his daughter, she had the right to an immediate audience. They both looked back at Reynolds; then the other people closed around Samarin again. Eva was standing next to Reynolds, eyeing him with dislike. You’d almost think she was the one who’d stolen the yellow diamond. Her phone rang yet again, and she answered, ‘Da!’ She was made for that phone, and vice versa. This time she spoke entirely in Russian, stepping away from Reynolds … to be replaced by Victoria Clifford.

  ‘They’re going,’ said Reynolds. ‘They’ve been going for some time.’

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘On.’

  ‘Try to go with them. But remember the Special Demonstration Squad.’

  That was an undercover Met unit, some of whose members had slept with women they were investigating. Reynolds eyed Clifford, wondering: is she jealous? But she was the one urging him on.

  ‘What about you?’ Reynolds asked Clifford.

  ‘I’m going off straight away to read Dead Souls.’ She finished her champagne and gave him the real answer. ‘It might surprise you to know that I have a date.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me at all.’

  ‘Yes it does.’

  In fact, it did. He had thought they would go off together after the event, drink a glass of wine on expenses while discussing the Samarins and their possible involvement in the shooting of Quinn.

  ‘Can I ask who you’re having dinner with?’

  ‘I believe you just have done.’

  Anna Samarina came back, and put a rather steely grip on Reynolds’ elbow.

  ‘Come with,’ she said. This meant he was to follow her and Eva down the stairs. They began speaking in Russian, with glances back to Reynolds. Sometimes they broke into English. Reynolds heard the tall girl say, ‘I give you fair warning.’ He followed on, feeling spare; behind him, the Dostoevsky lecture had started. He was forty-three whereas Anna and her friend Eva were about twenty-five. He was English and they were Russian. He was a detective and one of them, at least, was a criminal. He was also beginning to think they were both coked up. It was not a very promising situation.

  23

  The party to which the Russians went on was like a determined attempt to recreate heaven … Or a long Georgian winter banquet on white tables in a hall lined with white fluted columns … Or Scrooge’s house when he’s visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. It was a white-and-gold scene, much of the gold being champagne, much of the white the tuxedoes of the men, who tended to wear them with distressed Levis.

  The name of the place was The Orangery. It was in Kensington Gardens, and Reynolds had vaguely heard of it as an expensive party venue. They had been driven from St James’s Square in a black four-by-four. The driver was called – or referred to as – Nicky, and he struck Reynolds as being too big a man to have that name. They had all sat in the back. The front passenger seat was for Nicky’s mobile phones. Was this the car that had raced towards Reynolds in the multi-millionaire back streets of Mayfair? It was impossible to say with black four-by-fours. They all looked the same.

  Reynolds asked Anna, ‘Your father is particularly keen on Gogol?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What are his favourite works?’

  ‘Of Gogol: The Overcoat, and especially Dead Souls.’

  Quinn had taken out both.

  ‘Why does he like that so much?’

  ‘The main character, Chichikov. He finds a kind of …’ and she said something in Russian.

  ‘I don’t speak Russian.’

  ‘No, thank God.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘Look it up, Acting Chief Inspector Blake Reynolds.’

  She wandered a little way off. Reynolds had somehow thought she would be swept into some private meeting, or placed on a white throne with suitors all around. But she was simply talking to some new Russian woman, albeit very fast, while knocking back champagne. He heard a R
ussian accent enquire, ‘Have you been to the Cotswolds?’ An American accent replied, ‘No, but I’ve been to the Lake District,’ and it seemed that would do instead. Then an English accent: ‘But the Russians were denied an aristocracy …’

  Anna returned to Reynolds. ‘She organised this event,’ she said, nodding towards the departing woman. ‘She is in fact an Events Organiser. How is your relationship going? I assume you are in a relationship.’

  The question was both exactly what he wanted, and exactly what he didn’t want. She was very radiant, even though only about five foot three. Being only five foot three she would be very easy to enclose or encompass.

  ‘Could be better,’ he said.

  ‘Clearly, it is your fault. You are married to the job.’

  They both watched the party for a while.

  She looked down at her glass, which was empty.

  ‘Excuse me, I want another. You can’t, I think, if you are on duty.’

  He could drink, but he would have to log his drinks, since this was very definitely a party, and very definitely not a cultural event.

  ‘You should eat something,’ he said. He indicated all the food, and she shook her head.

  ‘It is all icing and no cake. But thank you, doctor.’

  She drifted away again, looked back, smiled, drifted further.

  Reynolds himself wandered a little way through the room, hearing, ‘We get overcharged three times just for the accent,’ and, ‘I think it is the major cocktail city.’ After five minutes, Anna came back, having hooked up with tall Eva again. ‘We are keep on going,’ Anna said to Reynolds, in her put-on Russian.

  ‘Heading for undisclosed location,’ Eva added, in case Reynolds should think of accompanying them. ‘It is on need-to-know basis.’

  ‘Even I not know,’ said Anna, still in her comedy voice.

  As she was leaving, she said, ‘Come and see us. Papochka and me. You know where we live. Get into touch and we can talk over everything.’

  ‘I don’t know your number.’

  She told him. ‘Write it down in your policeman’s notebook.’