Killer Diamonds

by Rebecca Chance

  She let out a long breath. There was no one here but her. Swiftly, she darted across the long expanse of the living room into the lavishly proportioned bedroom, crossing to the walk-in wardrobe opposite the bathroom. She had spent all of yesterday evening and all of this morning thinking of nothing but where the jewels Angel had stolen could be concealed.

  Nicole’s remarks to Angel last night had made it clear she had not yet taken the stolen gems to Amsterdam. They were still in Angel’s possession, which meant they were overwhelmingly likely to be in his apartment. It was possible he had a safe deposit box, but would someone who had stolen his grandmother’s jewellery proceed to do something as respectable as rent a box in a bank vault in which to store the stolen property? That seemed unlikely, especially as he would be holding on to the jewels for only a short time.

  The lights in the walk-in wardrobe were on motion sensors, clicking on as soon as she entered. Christine started pulling out the shallow built-in walnut drawers. She didn’t bother with the underwear drawer, as that was serviced regularly by the cleaners. All of Angel’s dirty clothes were posted down the generously sized chute concealed behind a cupboard door in the bathroom, landing in an industrial laundry basket in the basement labelled with his apartment number. The housekeepers sorted it twice weekly, separating hand wash, normal laundry and dry cleaning, ensuring everything was correctly treated and returned to Angel’s apartment, neatly placed in the correct drawer or hung in the appropriate section of the wardrobe.

  Christine concentrated on ties, belts, cufflinks and watches – the drawers the cleaning staff would have no reason to access. She had great hopes of one silk tie, rolled up and stacked perfectly like its counterparts in a display more typical of a luxury menswear boutique than a private home, but the crumpled black tissue paper inside its hollow centre did not contain anything. It was there to maintain the shape of the delicate fabric, not conceal a cluster of rings and pendants.

  Precious stones were bought as investments partly because they had the highest value to the lowest space requirements. Easily portable, they were a universal currency. But it meant hiding them was easy, too, and after Christine had gone up the walnut steps that slid from one side of the wardrobe to the other, allowing access to the top cupboards; after she had craned in to check out the back of each one; after she’d searched the side and top zip pockets of Angel’s Vuitton luggage, where a pouch of jewels could lie perfectly concealed – she’d often forgotten to empty those pockets out after trips herself, you never noticed anything in them – she still had nothing to show for it. She dropped to her knees and started going through the handmade shoes and boots lined up in pairs on the carpeted floor.

  Nothing inside the toes of the shoes. Nothing in the pockets of his heavy winter coats. She had ruled out the bathroom; it was too brightly lit to be a good hiding place. She did try his bedside table drawer, but felt foolish for even looking somewhere so obvious. The regular cleaning service meant there was no point searching under the mattress, down the sides of any upholstered furniture, or beneath sofa cushions.

  So, according to the checklist she had in her head, informed by a morning spent searching on Google for sneaky hiding place ideas, the next stop was the kitchen. Angel never had much food in the fridge – vodka, lemons, smoked salmon – but there was a huge freezer, and one of the suggestions online was to store jewellery in bags of frozen peas, jars of coffee, places thieves would be unlikely to look. As far as Christine knew, Angel had never cooked a day in his life, but there were definitely some items in the kitchen in which the rings and pendant could be concealed.

  She was pretty sure she was only looking for those three gems. The first thing she had done on arriving at work was to inspect all the other pieces that had been brought up for Toby’s benefit. They would need to be checked, discreetly, by a testing lab; everything to which Angel had had access would have to be verified.

  But in Christine’s expert opinion, the rest of the jewellery was genuine. Whoever had made the decision about which pieces to substitute – Angel, Nicole, or both of them in tandem – had been tactical. By the standards of this auction, the jewellery they had taken was not premium, no major pieces with a provenance so important they would be under the spotlight. Still, the stones were large enough that, even after being recut, they would have a collective value in the tens of millions. If anyone had asked Christine for a recommendation on what was best to steal from the sale, the rings and the pendant would have been high on her list.

  And if she couldn’t locate them here, she could pull those items from the sale. God knew what explanation she would give to Vivienne, but that would be the only stumbling block. The absence of three minor items from the auction would cause no negative publicity. They could have been sold privately, or Vivienne could have changed her mind and decided to keep them after all; no one would care. Christine’s career and reputation would be safe, as they would not have been if her sharp eye hadn’t spotted the fakes.

  She was hurrying across the bedroom when she heard a key enter the front door lock, and she froze in her tracks, stopping so abruptly she almost lost her balance.

  Voices surged in as the door opened: loud, angry male voices. This wasn’t Angel returning for something he had forgotten. Shouting, scuffling, conflict, feet thudding, the door slamming shut behind the group. Christine ducked behind the open bedroom door, squinting gingerly through the chink; it was all she could do not to gasp in horror at what she saw. One man passed swiftly across the space, then two more, carrying something between them; a fraction later, she realized that it was a body, its legs trailing.

  ‘Drop him,’ said a voice.

  The body thudded to the living-room carpet. It was Angel. Christine recognized him by the mop of curly blond hair, the blue Helly Hansen warm-up jacket he wore to work out – not by his face, which, as far as she could see, was a pulpy mass of blood. It looked as if he had been punched square on the nose.

  ‘He’s making a fucking mess on the carpet,’ said one of the men who had dumped him, coming partially into view as he stepped closer to Angel.

  Angel was struggling to get up now, hauling himself to his hands and knees, blood spattering down from his broken nose. As had been observed, a red patch was increasingly smearing the white carpet.

  ‘Let him up?’ asked the man laconically.

  There was the sound of the window-seat cushions yielding as the person in charge sat down there.

  ‘Get a chair,’ he said. ‘Find a kitchen one, and put him in it.’

  The kitchen only had bar stools. Christine could hear, but not see, the third man heading for the open-plan dining area, hoisting up a dining chair and carrying it back to the living room. The man beside Angel reached down with a gloved hand, grabbed the back of his jacket collar and hauled him up like a kitten being picked up by the scruff of his neck, dumping him in the chair.

  To pick up a man who weighed twelve stone that easily, with one hand, was an impressive feat of strength. Christine realized not only how much trouble Angel was in, but the danger of being a witness to this. She shot a glance sideways to see whether she could crawl across the room and hide under the bed. She was concealed from view by the half-open door, and the carpet was thick enough to let her move silently, particularly with the noise in the living room as extra cover. But Angel’s whole apartment was decorated in too modern a style for her to hide in it successfully. There was no valance over the bed, just a fashionably bare space underneath, where a person lying would be immediately visible. The automatic motion-sensor lights of the walk-in wardrobe meant there were no dark corners into which she could tuck herself.

  No, Christine swiftly decided that she was best off staying where she was. Meanwhile, Angel was breathing so stertorously through his mouth that it was audible even through the crack of the door.

  ‘Jesus, fuckwit, tilt your head back!’ said one of the henchmen.

  ‘Nah, then the blood goes down the back of your throat,’ s
aid the other one. ‘Tastes rank.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, get him a towel or something!’ ordered the man in charge.

  The first henchman could be heard striding over the tiled floor of the kitchen in his heavy boots, banging cupboard doors in his search for a tea towel. He returned, dumping a hand towel in Angel’s lap. Angel dabbed gingerly at the blood, trying not to touch the broken cartilage.

  ‘Look, Ange, there’s no point pissing around,’ said the man on the sofa. ‘You owe me. You’ve got to pay up. And I don’t want any more fucking deeds to property in Switzerland that turn out to have some sort of lien or something on ‘em for Swiss taxes. Fuck me, I thought the whole point of fucking Switzerland was not paying taxes!’

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’

  Angel’s voice was thick and slurry. Christine realized that she couldn’t muster up a shred of sympathy for him, however. This was the man who had lied to her repeatedly, choked her, committed a theft for which she would have been blamed. She was positively delighted that someone had punched him in the face and broken his nose. If she hadn’t had to stay as quiet as a mouse to keep safe, she would have struggled against the impulse to laugh out loud.

  ‘I don’t give a shit, Ange,’ the man was saying. ‘Whether you did or you didn’t know ain’t my concern – that’s getting my fucking whack. I was already pretty narked at having to sell off a sodding chalet in a foreign country before I even realized you owed fucking property taxes there, plus back interest on ‘em as well! Now I’m about a hundred grand short, what with the lawyer and all! It’s a bloody nightmare! Massive disrespect on your part! Massive!’

  ‘I’m sorry, George—’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck whether you’re sorry,’ George hissed.

  Some non-verbal command must have been given, as the man standing beside Angel walked around the chair, lifted one foot, placed it on the seat and tipped it back with considerable force. The chair, and Angel, smashed back onto the floor. Christine could only see the chair legs now, parallel to the carpet. Angel rolled to the side, groaning loudly.

  ‘See? I don’t give a fuck,’ George said. ‘I don’t give a tenth of a fuck. I just want my fucking money.’

  Some further instruction must have been issued, because the man who had knocked over the chair now applied the toe of his foot to Angel’s stomach. It wasn’t a full kick, but the pressure was enough to produce another groan from Angel. He jerked his legs, curling into a ball and moaning. By now Christine was flinching back. She closed her fingers round the handle of the bedroom door, ensuring it didn’t move.

  And then she thought: Shit. The jewels! They’re worth much, much more than Angel owes to George. What can that chalet in Verbier be worth – a few million at most? But if the jewels are here and Angel tells him where they are, what’s to stop George taking the lot?

  ‘Pick him up and put him on the chair again,’ George said, and the men righted the dining chair and heaved Angel’s limp body up, one on each side this time. Dead weight was harder to shift. Angel’s body sagged forward, and one of the men caught his jacket collar, pulling him straight; each of them pinned him by one shoulder against the back of the chair.

  ‘Fuck me, Ange, you posh boys can’t take a beating,’ George said, and both of the men sniggered. ‘One punch in the face, tip you over, Dunc here gives you a tap with his foot – not even a bloody kick – and you’re in pieces. You got to think about this when you borrow money you can’t pay back, mate. You got to think about whether you can take what’s coming your way. Dunc here’s a dab hand with an iron, know what I mean? Don’t use no starch, though.’

  Angel let out a wail, and Christine’s eyes widened in horror. If they pulled out an iron and started beating or burning Angel with it, she would have no choice but to stand here and listen, even if she closed her eyes not to watch. She imagined the smell of burning flesh, the sound of breaking bones, and shivered from head to toe. Sweat beaded on her skin, and she was honest enough to admit that it was as much fear for herself as for Angel, fear of what they would do to a witness if they caught her here . . .

  ‘I’ve got something,’ Angel was saying, his words blurred by the towel. He took it away and said again: ‘I’ve got something I can give you.’

  ‘Not a fucking chalet,’ George said very precisely. ‘Not a piece of fucking property. I want cash or as good as.’

  ‘As good as,’ Angel said, his s’s coming out sibilant because his nose was blocked with blood. ‘Jewellery. I’ve got jewellery. S’worth way more than what I owe you.’

  Christine was twisting frantically behind the door, trying to slide her hand into her jacket pocket to fish out her mobile phone. Could you text 999? She couldn’t ring them; the call would be heard straight away. She had no idea if a text to 999 would go through; she was pretty sure that they could trace the location of a text – or could they? Was that just something she’d seen in a spy film? But if she could silence her phone successfully, which was crucial, it was worth at least trying . . . and it didn’t escape her that while she was attempting to contact the police now that Vivienne’s jewels were in jeopardy, she hadn’t tried to do it while Angel was being beaten up.

  She had just enough room to operate the phone, typing in the code that would unlock it, and that, she knew, did not make any sound. She squinted at the screen, desperately trying to remember what happened when she hit the ‘Sound’ button at the top to silence it. Did the ringer just turn off? Or did it make a noise to show you that it wasn’t going to make a noise any more?

  ‘In the safe,’ Angel was saying in the living room. ‘Jewels in the safe. Above the bed.’

  What? I didn’t even know he had a safe! Christine thought angrily. That bastard, pretending I was his girlfriend, convincing me he wanted to marry me but not telling me one bloody thing about his life, keeping so much secret. . .

  ‘Where is it, and what’s the combo?’ George barked.

  Angel started to speak. As he did so, Christine, hoping that everyone would be concentrating so hard on his words that they wouldn’t hear anything else, pressed the ‘Sound’ button.

  To her horror, it buzzed. A single buzz, but definitely loud enough to be audible in the living room. Apparently, her phone did not go straight from ‘Sound’ to ‘Mute’, but through ‘Vibrate’, which was completely ridiculous. Why would Samsung do that? If you wanted silence, you wanted it straight away, not with a buzz to let people know where you were!

  She held her breath, feeling her ribcage expand, her heart pounding as if it were beating at the hollow of her throat.

  Through the crack of the door jamb she saw movement, both the men holding Angel turning to look in the direction of the bedroom.

  ‘What was that?’ one of them said. ‘Sounded like a phone.’

  ‘You said there was no one else in here!’ George said to Angel. ‘If you’ve been pissing me around—’

  ‘No one,’ Angel croaked. ‘No one here.’

  ‘What the fuck was that then? The boys heard something! Go have a look, Dunc.’

  Christine’s palms were so sweaty that she was terrified she’d drop the phone. She was sure that if she didn’t press the screen again, no other sounds would issue from it – but what if someone rang her? It would buzz! She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that before. How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she just turned off the phone straight away? When she watched horror films with women being stalked and chased, she yelled advice and instructions at the screen – don’t go in the basement! Turn your phone off! Don’t just hit him once and run away – keep smashing his head in till you know he can’t get up! But it turned out that when she was plunged into a crisis herself, she could do no better than the panicking woman in the film . . .

  Dunc was crossing the living room, coming straight for her. Christine closed her eyes on the basis that if you couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see you. Her heart was hammering, sweat pooling in the small of her back. With everythin
g she had, she tried to make herself smaller, to squeeze even further back against the wall, so that Dunc wouldn’t think to look behind it.

  Dunc gave the door a shove as he entered, and Christine had to press her lips together to avoid letting out a rabbit squeak of total fear. There was enough clearance, however, so that although it bounced into her, it stopped against her face. She stood frozen, her nose pressed to the door, hearing him pause momentarily in the centre of the room, looking around. Then he walked over to the wardrobe, slid the doors open, and, finding nothing, strode back into the bedroom. His bomber jacket rustled as, presumably, he bent down to look under the bed and then straightened up again.

  ‘Where’s the safe?’ he asked. ‘There’s no one here.’

  Christine sagged with relief.

  ‘Was it that what buzzed?’ the other man called.

  ‘Nah, can’t’ve done. What is it, voice-activated? Hang on, though.’

  There was a pause, as Dunc thought it through.

  ‘It was coming from the corner, weren’t it?’ he said. ‘Over here, right? Let’s have a looksee –’

  And his footsteps thudded towards Christine, heavy and inexorable. In three seconds, two, the door would be pulled back; Dunc would be dragging her out. She swore she wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t cry. Her lips were pressed together again like glue, her eyes still shut. It was stupid, ridiculous, to keep them closed, as if this would save her, as if he somehow wouldn’t see her when the bedroom door was wrenched open –

  It made such an almighty crash as it opened that despite herself, Christine let out a tiny squeal of shock. The noise was as shattering as if Duncan had ripped the door off its hinges with his bare hands. And the crashing went on and on: splintering wood, shouting, repeated slamming – but Christine’s face would be pulp if this was Duncan ramming the door against her, her ribs smashed, and nothing had touched her, no one was dragging her out –