Reynolds had said he would get back to Hussein after speaking to Crawford. He could genuinely say that he had nothing to report. He began walking north, towards the Ritz. His phone rang; he answered. A quavering voice seemed to say, ‘It’s Quinn here.’
Reynolds stopped dead. He stood motionless at the junction of St James’s Street and Jermyn Street until the man repeated himself.
‘Quinn,’ said the voice again. ‘Charles Quinn – father of George. Am I speaking with Detective Inspector Raymond?’
Reynolds didn’t correct the caller. He was practically gasping with the shock of that near miss. The voice was very patrician. More so than George Quinn’s voice, from what he could recall of that.
‘I’m so sorry to trouble you,’ Charles Quinn continued. ‘I called the Yard and they gave me Vicky’s number at the unit – Victoria Clifford, I mean. She wasn’t picking up, so I got back onto the Yard, and they gave me your number. Do you have a minute?’
28
In his workshop off Bond Street, Almond finished a phone call and lit a Silk Cut. It had been a very horrible conversation. The Arab had been talking about how he wanted a classic cut. ‘Yes, Tiffany cut,’ Almond had said. ‘No, classic,’ the Arab had shouted, ‘like I told you before two weeks ago.’ Two weeks ago he had said Tiffany, which was in any case the same as classic. The Arab had then proposed another meeting, but Almond did not want to see this man again. The Arab had suggested eleven o’clock on Thursday, so proving he was not a high-roller. Nobody in Mayfair got up before lunchtime; and he ought to be sending someone, not coming himself.
But then, if he’d been one of the High Net Worths he wouldn’t have been calling Peter Almond, as Almond himself knew perfectly well.
The Arab had wanted ‘a truly unique piece’, and he did not believe Almond understood this. Almond assured him that he did, at which the Arab’s agitation had increased. ‘You are always contradict!’
Almond checked his messages. The copper had called again. He would be knocking on the door soon, with a search warrant in his back pocket. Almond was tired, and his wife’s parents were coming round for dinner. He put his cigarette in the ashtray, leant forward on his high stool, folded his arms on the workbench and rested his head on his arms. Squinting along the top of the bench, he could see a page from one of the luxury magazines he was sent on an almost daily basis, never having asked for any of them. He read the headline, ‘Where olden is golden …’ Next to it was an Antwerp street guide, two platinum bands, a pair of pliers, and then, on white paper, a spread of small material: a little landscape of crystal. From his peculiar vantage point, Almond admired the way these shards handled the light from the lamp above – handled it collectively, a joint effort. Almond closed his eyes. The phone rang again. He was beginning to hate that phone. He sat up; picked up his cigarette, made sure it wasn’t the copper again, and answered the call. He heard a man breathing, an unfit man by the sound of it. Then the voice: cockney with a hint of theatricality, the sound of a pub in the background.
‘Peter?’
Not a copper, but Cooper. Ali Baba himself. It was the second time he’d called since their meeting of a week before.
‘Peter? How are you?’
‘Fine. And I haven’t got long to talk, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m fine as well thanks, Peter. Now this stone …’
‘I’ve told you about that.’
‘But the position has changed, Peter. I’m now willing to let you have it at a considerable discount. Say, thirty-three.’
‘It’s not my kind of goods. I’ve told you that.’
‘But I fail to see why. It’s a lovely stone, you told me that yourself. We both know it’s really forty grand’s worth.’
Almond said, ‘As I explained, I want to draw a line under that whole business. It’s a certificated stone. You’ll have no trouble realising a decent price.’
‘The same would go for you, wouldn’t it? In actual fact, Peter?’
Almond’s head was crowded with things he couldn’t say: the killing of the boy Holden had rattled him badly, and he imagined it must be playing a part in Cooper’s jumpiness. Almond would be re-cutting the stone that had been his own in-kind wages, but Cooper did not have that option, and he had to realise the value quickly. Almond had to get rid of Cooper, but then again he didn’t want Cooper to turn threatening. Cooper had enough on Almond to see him put away for many years. Trying for something conciliatory, he said, ‘Where are you keeping the stone?’ But that was wrong. He had only kindled false hope in Cooper.
‘I have it on me right now. You gave me the sling, remember. I have it on me at all times. I can bring it round straight away. Be there in an hour, if you like.’
‘No. You mustn’t do that, but a word of advice: get yourself a deposit box in a bank, and put it in there. I have to go now. Goodbye, Cooper.’
He hung up. He would have liked to have heard a civilised ‘Good evening’ from the other end, but there had been nothing. His advice about the stone had been genuine. Cooper did not have the physical authority to walk around with it on him. Almond would be willing to bet he wasn’t above taking it out in a public place to examine it, half hoping to be noticed in possession of such a valuable item. From what he knew of the man he didn’t have a great deal else to show for his undoubted skill at … what was it called? Léger de main.
29
Reynolds and Clifford were on the train north, and sitting in standard class, which meant earplugs were required. The youth on the opposite side of the aisle had just eaten a bag of crisps. When he was about halfway through the bag, Clifford had given him a look, and he had then tried to eat them more quietly, which only resulted in his eating them more loudly. He had now embarked on his second bag of crisps. It was 11.15 a.m., for heaven’s sake. Reynolds, sitting opposite, was reading Dead Souls by Gogol. Re-reading it, he said. He was doing his homework. He was the kind of man, like Quinn, who took refuge in work from personal troubles. A murder detective was lucky in that way: whatever personal matter he neglected was less important than the professional matter in hand. She believed there must be something wrong with Reynolds’ ‘relationship’, otherwise how would he be able to head out of London at such short notice? She watched him read until he looked up at her and frowned; he then smiled. Well, better late than never.
‘Where are we?’ she said, looking out at the wide, frosted fields that seemed to have been accompanying them since London.
‘About ten minutes from Peterborough,’ he said. He was presumably an expert on this line, since it connected London with his birthplace. He went back to his book. His skin stood up well to the low winter sun that was flashing through the windows, his hair not quite so well.
Reynolds was coming close to dangerous information, and it was all her own fault. She thought back to last evening. She had just got in from Down Street, poured herself a glass of the discounted Cava, admitted the cat, and logged on to her emails. There had been another from Dorothy Carter who was now, in effect, hitting Victoria over the head with olive branches. She hadn’t dropped the pub quiz idea … and she and the Spouse Mouse would be spending Christmas in London with her mother in Islington, so perhaps they could get together, after which proposition there were three question marks where none was required.
The next one was from Rachel Reade. A long screed about some promising car-boot sale that would involve getting up at dawn and travelling to somewhere near Saffron Walden. She had immediately clicked the email shut; and at that moment the one from Charles Quinn had arrived.
Darling Vicky,
I do hope you are well, and keeping safe, because, as you know, I think you may be in danger from the same lunatic who took a shot at my boy. I’ve been on to the hospital again and could get nothing coherent from them. Fobbed off with, ‘No news is good news, Mr Quinn,’ or some such banality. Vicky darling, I called you at the Yard, who gave me the number of the Unit. No reply. Went back to the Yard and they gave me the number
of your new colleague in the Unit, Rawlins (is it?). Got through to him anyhow, said he was in Jermyn Street (a man after George’s heart!) and we had a quick word. Or not so quick. I had a lot of questions, and so did he, and the upshot was that this fellow Rawlins invited himself up here, in a roundabout, gauche sort of way. He suggested this weekend. That is, tomorrow. He certainly doesn’t seem over-burdened with social obligations, but then nor am I, and I thought: why not? But when I’d put the phone down I wondered what I was letting myself in for. You’ll have guessed what I’m coming to: do you want to come up with this chap? Do say yes. I suppose he’ll be asking you the same question. Said he would be doing anyway. Let me know by phone. Land line! Since I turn this bloody thing off after 8 p.m. and go and sit next to the fire (and the drinks cabinet).
All love,
Charlie
She had walked through to the kitchen in a fury. She had poured more Cava and regretted that it was too late not to admit the cat, which was slinking about her ankles in one of its rare ingratiating moods.
She pieced together the fatal sequence. She had left the office early, having despatched Reynolds to see Eugene Crawford. She had then taken the Tube home. She had checked for missed calls when she came out, and found one: from Croft, saying he ought to be able to arrange what she had asked; and she had taken that to be the only one. As she looked resentfully at her phone, it had rung again, and that had been Reynolds, dutifully asking if she would like to accompany him north. At least he had asked her, but even so, he’d stolen a march. And since she couldn’t stop him going, she would have to go herself, because he must not have a free hand up there. She had extracted a small revenge by asking him to go immediately to Berry Brothers in order to buy two bottles of their Extraordinary Claret and a bottle of champagne. It was unthinkable to turn up on Quinn senior’s doorstep without claret, and the champagne could be his birthday present. He would be ninety, she recalled, on Christmas Eve.
Clifford looked at her reflection in the carriage window. She wore what she considered her country clothes: tweeds – longish skirt and short, trim jacket. Charlie Quinn didn’t approve of a woman in trousers: not that this would have stopped him jumping on a woman in trousers any time up to fifteen years ago. She liked the flare of the jacket, and was proud that it still fitted after all these years. She eyed Reynolds, wondering how best to divert him. They’d already discussed Eugene Crawford, so …
‘What’s the plot of Dead Souls?’ she asked.
He immediately put down the book, which suggested he was glad of the distraction.
‘A serf, in mid-nineteenth-century Russia, was called a soul—’
‘If he was dead,’ Clifford put in.
‘If he was dead or alive. The landowners had to pay a tax for every serf. When a serf did die, the landlord still had to pay the tax on him—’
‘Sounds mad.’
‘Until the next census, when the number of the landlord’s serfs was counted again.’
‘I see.’
‘The main character,’ said Reynolds, ‘is called Chichikov, which is a funny name if you know Russian. He’s a sort of Everyman of the Russian middle class, and goes round buying the title, the nominal ownership, of hundreds of dead peasants. They’re worthless to the real owners, and Chichikov will have to pay the tax on them.’
‘So why does he do it?’
‘I haven’t got that far in the book.’
‘Well you’d better get on with it then, hadn’t you?’
‘But I’ve read about it on the internet. He does it so he can mortgage the dead souls, raise money against them, because by owning all those souls, he looks like a big landowner. He buys the souls off a variety of eccentric landlords, including a miser, a sort of ingratiating creep, and a bully. The miser’s called Plyushkin.’
‘He’s the one with the garden?’
‘Correct. That’s a famous passage – the description of this wild garden – do you want me to read you a bit?’
She thought about this for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. Then she asked, ‘Dead Souls is very important to Andrei Samarin?’
‘Anna says he reads it over and over again.’ Clifford noted the familiarity in that use of the girl’s first name. ‘She told me there’s a quality of innocence about Chichikov that he likes.’
‘But he’s a conman, isn’t he?’
‘I suppose so. But a fairly harmless one.’
Reynolds now stood, reached into the luggage rack. He brought down … now that was a better bag. Her waves of mental hatred directed towards the old bag must have registered.
Reynolds was taking out papers. Had he brought his entire Samarin file? But wait, he’d brought the floppy book. How on earth had he smuggled that out of the office? She was staring at it, so he said, ‘I thought we’d show it to Quinn’s dad. See what he makes of it.’
She thought it best to say nothing.
Reynolds was scrutinising the floppy book for the hundredth time. He was so damned dogged.
Peterborough station came and went: a revolting building. York station was better: airy and gracious, with a big Christmas tree in what she supposed was called the concourse. She stood around for about five minutes watching Reynolds’ bag whilst he decided another train would be better than the bus.
The little train to Malton was a nasty, hot, bus-like thing, full of people who seemed to be competing to sound as northern and lugubrious as possible. First class didn’t seem to be available. She paid careful attention to her fellow passengers, as she had done on the big train.
Reynolds said, ‘What’s he like, Charles Quinn?’
‘A sexist snob.’
‘I thought you liked him.’
‘Did I say I didn’t?’
‘He was in the City, wasn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘He owned a small bank.’
They looked out of the window, at horse riders emerging from some woods, steam coming from all their mouths. They looked as if they’d been up to no good.
Reynolds said, ‘He’ll probably ask me if I’m related to the Reynolds of Helmsley Castle.’
‘And are you?’
‘That’s just a for-instance.’
He explained about what he called the County Set. He said, ‘Some of the least northern people of all live in the north, you know.’
Clifford then decided to phone Charles Quinn, telling him they’d be at his place soon, in a taxi from the station. But when he picked up, he wasn’t having that. He said, ‘Darling, I’ll come and collect you,’ which she took to mean that he himself would take a taxi to the station and accompany them back in it, chivalrously and pointlessly incurring two fares where only one needed to be paid.
But when they got to Malton station – which reminded her of a ruined monastery – he had the Alpine, or whatever it was called, in the short-stay car park. He had actually driven it himself to the station – at the age of eighty-nine. The introductions were now taking place all around the pretty, green car.
‘You must call me Charlie,’ the old man instructed Reynolds, who had limply come back with, ‘Yes, and please call me Blake.’ The old man had kissed Victoria on both cheeks twice, and then held her out for inspection, as it were. ‘You’re looking so pretty, darling.’ He then had the incredible gall to refer the matter to Reynolds: ‘Isn’t she, Blake?’ Reynolds of course just went red.
The old man was very stylish, in an unfathomable sort of way: fawn tweed coat, and narrow, deliberately too-short black velvet trousers with elastic-sided suede boots. Yes, suede boots at his age. He was like one of those cooks who just throw some leftovers together. They might dust with flour; old man Quinn dusted with fag ash. Well, the fag ash was only implied now, since his heart scare. This was his true talent, the gift bestowed by Eton and Oxford: the ability to dress. He’d been pretty useless at everything else.
Reynolds, Clifford noticed, kept giving worried glances at the car, then back at Quinn, trying to work out how the one could have arrived wit
h the other. It wasn’t that the car was new; it was old, like old man Quinn, dating, Clifford thought, from the seventies. But that had been an irresponsible decade and the car could still presumably go like a rocket.
Reynolds was now putting the bags in the boot, shyly indicating the bottles: ‘These are for you.’ She had hoped that would be done on entering the house, giving her time to slip away. She would be slipping away in any case. The men seemed to want her to sit in the front, but that, she thought, would be the old lady role. She would be perfectly happy on the little back seat, and it really was little, almost residual.
Charlie Quinn seemed to drive perfectly well through the centre of the town, but when he rested his hand for any length of time on the gear lever, his hand trembled. He was asking about the case his son had been working on. He said, ‘I only hope you haven’t been followed because the house is very remote.’ Clifford observed Reynolds looking at the passing streets, noting, she supposed, the absence of the super-rich, and signs in the window such as ‘Two for One’, or (even with Christmas coming on) ‘Sale’.
They came onto an ‘A’ road. At 2.30 p.m. the day was closing down, and light rain had started. Dark hills came into view. ‘The Howardian Hills,’ Reynolds explained, turning round to her. ‘The Moors are just to the north.’ He was proud of his own county. She could tell he was also worried about the old man’s driving. They were doing seventy now, and the old man had stopped talking; he was concentrating harder than ought to have been necessary. What was he trying to prove? Perhaps his own vigour, as contrasted with his debilitated, bisexual son.
The Yellow Diamond Page 16
