by Ruth Wind
Tom Fiat had steam coming out of his ears as he whizzed around the lorry to catch up with me. Everyone in Scotland drives as if they're muttering "bastard" under their breath, anyway, and there's a reckless fatalism that can give even me a few moments of pause.
Still. It was a point of pride just now. I held to the lead.
Ahead loomed the narrowing lanes. Tom was about to kill someone. I let up on the gas, hugged the road to the left to let him pass and waved as he went by. His face was a dull red of fury, and I laughed to myself. No one ever expects a woman to drive the way I do.
But most women don't learn to drive from a world-class Formula One driver. My father, the legendary American Gordon Montague, is one of the most revered drivers on the planet at the moment, and I've no doubt the legend will live long after he kills himself in some spectacular wreck at Monaco or Barcelona. He'd like that, dying dramatically in some glamorous spot, mourned publicly by whatever young wife he happened to have picked up at the moment.
Dear old dad.
I was glad of the car, and wished, briefly, that he was with me. It's been a while since we'd had any time together. I was tempted to ask him to meet me in Glasgow after the Malaysian Grand Prix in Kuala Lampur, but I had a feeling he'd say no. Scotland makes him feel guilty.
As well it should.
Scotland is my mother's place, and I admired it now through her eyes—a countryside as calming as the wind blowing in my window. It was lambing season, and little balls frolicked in the fields among the more sedate sheep and the odd shaggy red cow. Trees bent halfway sideways belied the bucolic scene, showing what the winds are like around here, but on this bright day, I could even see the island of Arran in the distance, an uneven line of pale blue mountains on the horizon.
I'd opted to stay in a hotel rather than with a relative, even though there are several I could choose from in my mother's hometown. Which is actually the trouble. If I picked one, I'd hurt someone else's feelings. A hotel room is easier.
The job in Glasgow would start in a couple of days. My plan was to knock around Ayr and the seaside of my childhood, visit my aunts and cousins, make a stop to put flowers on my mother's grave, then head back to Glasgow for the assessment, maybe catch some shows or something.
Since I didn't know that giant diamond was stashed away in my bag, I stopped first at my grandmother's house. She lived on a well-kept street of what we'd call fourplexes. Row houses, they call them, and there are thousands and thousands of them all throughout the U.K., built right after the war.
That would be the war, World War II.
My grandmother lived on the end of her building. Her windows were polished, as were all the windows on the street, and red tulips had pushed their way up into the spring air. She'd no doubt been waiting for me—sitting with her next-door neighbor, Anna, and a blue budgie who sang to her from his perch—because she flung open the door. "Ma cher!" the elder Sylvie cried. "I am so happy to see you!"
I dashed up the narrow sidewalk to hug her. Tiny as a sparrow, her white hair now cut neatly around her sharply angled face, she was still a beauty at seventy-eight. She had nary a wrinkle. "Come in, ma poulette!" she cried. "Have you had your tea?"
"No, of course not! Not if I had a chance to have your coffee and some cake."
Over my shoulder, my grandmother glared. I turned to see a battered Mini crawling down the street. "Go on with you!" she cried, sounding more Scottish than French. "Nosy rats. They've been nosing around all day."
Paparazzi again. I was tempted to flip them off, but it would only give them what they were after—something to print in their trashy little journals. My hugging an old woman wouldn't do much for their circulation.
In the vestibule, she took my coat and led me into the tiny sitting room, where her best friend Anna waited. Slim and thoughtful, Anna had always been one of my favorites. She told wonderful stories of her girlhood and the Scotland that existed before the war, and she did not suffer fools lightly.
"Hello, Sylvie," she said. "We've just seen your father on television."
"Really." I settled in the place they made for me before the fire, feeling as pampered as a beloved princess. "Tell me all about it."
In the street outside the window, the beat-up Mini rolled by again. Something about the man behind the wheel was seedier or grimmer or something than the average—even average tabloid—photographer. I narrowed my eyes and stood up to watch him go by. He was very interested in my car.
"What is it, dear?" Grandmother asked.
I shook my head, unwilling to worry them. "Just that photographer again."
But I wondered.
Chapter 3
KATERINA'S BLOOD, diamond with ruby inclusion; 83 karats; first recorded ownership: 1253, Romania. Supposedly cursed by a priest, to bring death to anyone who wishes to use it for greed.
—Legends and Lore of Famous Stones
I spent a solid 90 minutes with the two older women, feeling the tensions of work, life, everything just drain away. The coffee was bland, the cakes a little dry, but it was the company I wanted. After a while, however, the warmth and comfort of the sitting room made me feel sleepier and sleepier. I kissed them both and headed off.
I'd reserved a room in a hotel close to the top of the town. It turned out to be an agreeable old house, with heavy paneling on the walls and pressed curtains at the windows of the foyer. The smell of meat and onions hung in the air from the restaurant/pub on the ground floor as I checked in. I'd have a nice shower then find something sustaining, which is never hard to find in Scotland. Honestly, with all the bakeries with their fluffy white breads and delicate cakes, with the brideys and bacon rolls, you'd think the whole country would be rolling around like little butterballs, but they're not. It's a sturdy population, plain-faced and direct, with dogs and people taking their exercise outside all the time.
In my plain, pleasing room, I tipped the busboy, a youth of maybe seventeen with a shaved head and a thick earring in his left lobe, and threw my suitcase on the bed. I kicked off my shoes, and started unbuttoning my blouse as I headed for the bathroom to start the shower. Another reason to have a room in a hotel. Showers have never particularly caught on in homes in Britain. It's better than it was when I was a child, but still a long way from the copious amounts of high pressure water you get in America.
As I shed my blouse, jet lag started kicking in again, thick along the back of my neck, weighting my eyelids, making my shoulders ache. I glanced at the clock: 6:17. To get on schedule, I would have to stay up until at least 9:30.
At the moment, it seemed impossible.
Steam curled out of the bathroom. I stripped as I went, leaving a trail from bed to bathroom. Sheer white blouse, bra, red leather skirt—I have a penchant for leather—panties. My skin felt sweaty and sticky, and the water was heaven. The toiletries were high-end, smelling of lavender. For one second, as the spray massaged my back, I thought with some pleasure of the possibility of my Continental, with his long, clean hands. Hands on my tired neck would be very nice indeed. He'd seemed charming enough, and it wouldn't be so bad to have a holiday affair, especially given the anniversary of my divorce.
But I didn't want to mix family into it. I'd chosen the Drover pub because no one I knew was likely to be there. It's not always possible, but I keep family and love life, as well as business and love life, strictly separated.
Business is obvious. It's too hard to work with someone you've slept with and dumped or been dumped by.
And the trouble with families is that they always hope you're going to settle down. That's not on my agenda. Tried marriage for three years, and really, not married is better. Men are too unreliable. I should have learned that from my father's example, but it took a bad marriage—with a man so much like my father they might have been clones; that is, handsome, charming, and completely incapable of fidelity—to drive the truth all the way home.
So I stood alone under the hot shower, washing the breath of hundreds of other
people from my long hair, scrubbing the layers of grime from my face.
Feeling better, I wrapped one towel around my head and another around my body. Stepping over the clothes on the floor, I unzipped my black carry-on to get out some lotion and deodorant, mentally trying to choose between jeans and a skirt to wear downstairs.
It took ten full seconds to sink in: this was not my bag.
It was an exact replica, which isn't so weird—how many black, wheeled carry-on models are there, after all?—but in the netted pocket where I keep my underwear, there were boxer shorts. Instead of my prized red leather pants, there was a stack of neatly folded T-shirts.
"Damn!"
I put my hand on the straps, lifted the edge of a blue shirt as if it were a false front, a little practical joke, and just below it, I'd find my own things. How could this have happened? I'd had it with me all the way from California!
But obviously, that wasn't true, or I wouldn't be looking at some man's things instead of my own.
Think. Where could it have been mixed up? It could have happened when I pulled the bag out of the overhead bin. Not likely. I wedged it next to the right-hand wall, and took it down from the same spot.
Where else then? At security. I suppose I could have grabbed the wrong bag off the belt.
Except my shoes were in the bin right next to it.
Which left the van I used to get to the airport. I thought back to the other passengers, wondering which one might be opening my bag with the same sinking feeling I had right now.
There were three men. One was too fat to wear these clothes, one was a college boy and one was a pin-striped, red-tie business man who'd smelled of my father's Armani cologne. He might wear silk boxers, but I didn't see him in a turquoise linen shirt. I fingered it with admiration. Silk and linen, gorgeously cut. I'd like to see the man who'd wear this.
Probably not the van, then. Maybe it was the security check point. But I hadn't paid any attention to who was around me there. I'd been running late.
"Damn!" I said again.
I didn't want to wear my dirty plane-ride clothes. I wanted something that smelled clean. I wanted my nightgown to sleep in. My other shoes.
But there wasn't anything I could do, except track down the owner of the case and try to work out an exchange. In the meantime, I'd have to go shopping in the morning.
I found a tag in a small pocket on the outside of the bag. Same place mine was, of course. The handwriting was hard to read, spidery and European. I couldn't make out the name, which was smeared, but there was a telephone number, in Paris.
Paris. Dialing the numbers gave me a jolt of body memory, one of those electric moments that are stored God knows where, in cells all over your arms or back or collarbone or ankles. This particular memory, dialing Paris numbers, had been imprinted during my seventeenth year, when I'd dialed the number of a man, a Parisian who'd stolen my heart with a single kiss.
So I thought I was just projecting when the recorded voice on the other end sounded exactly like the voice of that very man, Paul Maigny. In French he said, "Hello, thank you for calling, please leave a message."
Startled, I hung up. Stared at the phone, the card in a hand that had suddenly begun to tremble violently.
It couldn't be Paul, of course. Only someone who sounded like him. Paul still lived in Paris—my father, his best friend, had recently spent a week with him—but I would have known if he'd been on that plane. With a slight shake of my head, I picked up the receiver and dialed again. Again the voice shocked me.
And again, before I could decide what to do, I hung up.
There are some voices you do not forget. Your mother. Your best friend. Your spouse. I was not mistaken about this one, either. Those elegant vowels, the slight rasp.
I scowled.
It had been almost five years since I'd heard Paul's voice—since the day of my wedding, as a matter of fact, when I'd told him never to speak to me again. And he was likely in my mind because the island of Arran, lying backward on the sea like a man, made me think of him. Still.
It couldn't be his case on my bed. I knew it wasn't his handwriting, which was an elegant, sprawling hand I'd seen thousands of times.
I was just imagining things.
Firmly, I dialed the number a third time. When the voice mail picked up, I left my name and the telephone number of the hotel on the voice mail of the stranger in Paris, who no doubt had my bag and felt as bewildered as I did. In case he'd left a message for me, I next dialed my home voice mail box. No messages.
So there I was, damp in my towels, with a hot date in an hour. The stranger's bag was open on the bed. I did what any red-blooded woman would do: I looked through it. Maybe there would be something I could wear.
A scent of laundry and man rose from it, entirely alien from the smell of my own packing. I wondered, briefly, if the stranger would go through my things. I thought of thongs and red leather pants—when you have a job as stuffy as mine, you've got to take your pleasure where you can find it—and a little sense of discomfort rippled through me.
Beyond the gorgeous turquoise silk and linen shirt, there was a black, zipped shaving kit, three silk T-shirts, a pair of black trousers, black socks, a pair of well-worn jeans, swimming trunks, the aforementioned boxers. A pair of walking sandals were sealed in a plastic bag. A little sand gathered in the corner. He'd been on the beach.
My stomach growled and it hit me again that I was starving. Which brought home the fact that I still I didn't have anything to wear.
Grr. All I'd wanted was a little supper and a good night's sleep. The mix-up was a pain in the neck.
But let's get a grip here—it was not tragedy or disaster. It was only inconvenient. I keep some makeup in my purse, and the hair dryer in the bathroom would work fine for my wet head.
What I didn't have was deodorant. With only a slight flush of shame, I opened the man's shaving kit to see if he had any. There it was, a red roll-on that smelled pretty good.
There was also a white box. Jewelry, I thought—after all, jewels are my stock in trade—I opened it to see what taste he had on this level. Judging by the rest of it, it would be something understated. Probably gold, expensive.
It was expensive, all right.
For the second time in five minutes, my brain couldn't get itself around what my eyes were seeing. It wasn't a watch or a ring or even a tacky bracelet.
Pillowed in cotton batting was a jewel. A diamond.
A huge diamond.
My hands shook as I pulled it out. Not only was it huge, it was very rare and storied, this jewel. A jewel that was presumed to be lost. It was very old. Priceless.
It was even cursed.
Katerina's Blood.
Since I was one of only a handful of people who would recognize the astonishment of it at first sight, I was also convinced of one other thing.
The switch of bags was not an accident.
Chapter 4
Many stones are valued for their rarity; for example, the colored stones, rubies, sapphires and emeralds are rated on their scarcity. In spite of public perception, diamonds are not among the rare stones on the earth. They're plentiful the world over, and if it were not for a cartel controlling the distribution of these sparkling stones, the cost of diamonds would be much lower.
—Sylvie Montague, Ancient Jewels and the Modern World
Jewel geeks are an odd little club. We come to it in many ways, from many walks in life. My entry came through a trip to the British Museum when I was eleven, when a family friend took me to see the crown jewels. There I saw a collection of Indian Raj's jewels and was stung right through the chest. In that instant, I fell madly in love with the entire mythology and wonder of gems. I have been handling them, assessing them, admiring them in my work professionally for eight years, and have seen some spectacular beauties. My particular specialty—passion—is for ancient and antique jewels.
The Katerina made my heart race. I carried it to the window, as car
efully as if it were a baby bird, and held it up to the light.
Good grief.
The diamond was legendary, its history vague—very, very famous, but also elusive, changing hands with dizzying speed. I couldn't remember the exact weight off the top of my head, but I knew it was something over 80 karats. As a point of reference, the Hope Diamond is 43.
Katerina's Blood was cut in medieval times, so it wasn't the glittery, winking faceted one of more modern diamonds. It was what they call table cut, flat across the top, with two narrow facets along each side. Laid in a brooch, it was set in white gold, with a line of pigeon's blood rubies encircling it. The color was nearly crystal, clear without yellow or brown to mar it. In the diamond business, it would be a grade D, nearly as clear as glass.
But it was neither the size nor the extraordinary color that made this diamond so very, very famous and prized. It was a flaw.
Most diamonds have what are called inclusions—bits of other stones or dust or other flaws that mar the clarity of the jewel. Usually such flaws render diamonds much less valuable, but the "flaw" in Katerina's Blood was a ruby. It floated like a drop of blood in the center of the stone.
As long as I could remember, I'd heard of this possibility—and had often heard of the gem—but the reality was beyond even my wildest imaginings.
It was unbelievably beautiful. I could barely breathe with the wonder of it. One of the rarest, most storied jewels in the world. In my hand. All the history, all the people who'd held it, all the tragedies attached to it—
The phone rang. My reverence shattered so violently that I dropped the Katerina. It banged against my toe and bounced across the rug. The phone rang again. I grabbed the diamond and headed across the room with shaking hands, thinking it must be the person who had my—
Oh, God.
A foot from the table, I stopped. Clutched the jewel to my chest.
It had been Paul on that answering machine in Paris. Some coincidences in life I could buy—say, watching a movie then seeing an actor from it at a local restaurant, or maybe Halley's Comet streaking by on my birthday.
