Diamond Dust

by Peter Lovesey

  Diamond walked out and slammed the door.

  19

  At the end of the week, he went to see McGarvie again.

  ‘My wife’s letters.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘You said you’d return them.’

  ‘I did. And they’re here.’ McGarvie took some keys from his pocket.

  What kind of man keeps his desk locked all day? Diamond thought. It doesn’t demonstrate much trust in the rest of the team.

  Steph’s shoebox of old letters was pushed across the desk to him, together with a polythene bag filled with the invoices and assorted papers the search party had taken from her drawer.

  ‘I expect you want me to sign for these.’

  ‘If you please.’ The sarcasm fell flat. McGarvie actually had a chitty ready. ‘And there’s something else.’ He delved into the drawer again.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Diamond was handed another polythene bag containing a single brown envelope. He was amazed to see his name on it, just the word Peter – amazed because it was written in Steph’s hand.

  ‘You can open it.’

  ‘Seeing that it’s addressed to me, I should think so.’

  ‘I mean it’s safe to handle.’

  What did McGarvie think it was, then – a letter bomb? Steph taking revenge on her killer husband from beyond the grave?

  ‘We’ve carried out the necessary tests.’

  ‘Tests? What for?’

  ‘Prints. Handwriting.’

  ‘I mean why?’

  ‘You haven’t seen this letter before?’

  Diamond frowned. ‘Is that a trick question? No, I haven’t. Was it with the others?’

  ‘We found it in the biscuit tin.’

  His heart pumped faster. ‘What – the one the gun was buried in?’

  ‘That’s the only biscuit tin we’ve got.’

  So Steph had written him a message. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he said, outraged. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘You’d better read it.’

  Diamond unzipped the wrapper, took out the envelope and found a single sheet inside. In Steph’s tidy handwriting was written:

  My dear Peter,

  Just in case you find this before I have the pluck to tell you, I had to brave it out with the spiders in the loft to look for my old violin, which I’d promised to give to the shop since I haven’t played it for years – and I found the gun. It was a great shock, Pete. You know my feelings about guns. I left it there for a week, telling myself I would talk to you about it, and I kept putting it off not wanting to cause an upset while you were so stretched on this dreadful Carpenter case.

  I know you ‘11 insist the gun was there for some good reason, but the knowledge that a weapon that could kill someone is in our home has been preying on my nerves. Please try to understand. Rather than creating a scene and making us both feel guilty I decided to bury it and tell you when you ‘re not under so much strain.

  Your loving

  Steph

  He read it twice before asking McGarvie, ‘Why wasn’t I told about this?’

  ‘My decision.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘It could have been a forgery.’

  ‘Who would have forged a letter like this?’ His stomach lurched as the realisation struck him. ‘Me? You think I might have written it?’

  McGarvie gave a prim tug at his tie. ‘Quite possibly, as a diversionary tactic. I decided to have it tested for prints. And have a graphologist look at it. You’ll be relieved to know it’s genuine. And we found no trace of your prints.’

  ‘What do you mean: I’ll be “relieved to know”? I’ve never seen this before in my life.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘You could still have informed me when you found it’ ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you chose not to. Why?’

  ‘If you had forged the note, you’d be puzzled as to why we hadn’t produced it’

  ‘Nice,’ he said as the deviousness struck home. ‘You thought you could trap me into saying something about it when I wasn’t supposed to know it existed. Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.’

  ‘My priority is to get to the truth, Peter, not pander to your feelings. You know as well as I do that in major crimes it’s standard practice to keep back certain information.’

  He took a long, deep breath, trying to tell himself to stay cool this time. In McGarvie’s shoes, would he have played it the same way? He couldn’t be certain. The one sure thing was that the suspicion was real. It riled him that his so-called colleagues treated him as the major suspect. By now he should expect nothing else. He needed to put aside his anger and deal with the new evidence. And it was good news. It put him back on side, didn’t it?

  ‘If the note is genuine, then you know I didn’t use the gun.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  He spread his hands to emphasise the obvious. ‘Well, if Steph buried the gun herself, I couldn’t have shot her with it.’

  McGarvie shook his head. ‘It’s not so simple. She could have told you she’d buried it. She had every intention of telling you, just as she says in the note. It’s possible she told you on the day the Carpenter trial ended.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t.’

  ‘Then I ask myself how you reacted,’ McGarvie ploughed on, ignoring Diamond’s denial. ‘You’d certainly have dug the gun up. You may have had a blazing row about it, just as she feared. It could have been the reason she was murdered. No, hear me out. If you shot her yourself, you had a neat get-out. Bury the gun again, with the note as your alibi.’

  The blood pressure rocketed. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’

  ‘Would you?’

  He ignored that question and asked one of his own. ‘If we had a blazing row and I shot her in the heat of the moment, how is it she was killed in Royal Victoria Park?’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about the heat of the moment. This was a planned murder.’

  ‘What – to punish her for burying my gun?’

  ‘The motive has never been established.’

  Conversations with McGarvie were an incitement to violence. He bit back his resentment and tried all over again. ‘Have you heard any more from ballistics? It’s beginning to look as if mine wasn’t the murder weapon.’

  ‘They say they can’t prove the bullets were fired from that gun.’

  He held out his hands in appeal. ‘So?’

  ‘There’s still a good chance they were.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are points of similarity, but insufficient for legal proof. As you know, the bullets weren’t in the best condition. They may have been tampered with, prior to firing, to hamper the investigation.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By scratching the jacket, or scoring it with a file to distort the rifling. It suggests a professional gunman – or someone with a knowledge of weapons.’

  ‘Like an authorised shot?’

  The drooping lids of McGarvie’s eyes lifted a little, but he said nothing.

  ‘Is that their last word on the subject?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Trust the men in white coats to foul up. So it’s back to the drawing board, is it?’

  McGarvie said with an air of self-congratulation, ‘We’re going on Crimewatch.’

  ‘So you admit you’ve run into the sand?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s the right move at this stage. There must be more witnesses out there. After all, this happened in daylight, in the open, close to an enormous car park. We still haven’t traced that jogger.’

  Diamond had dismissed the jogger from his thoughts. This was the woman Warburton had claimed he spoke to at the scene.

  McGarvie added, as if Diamond had never seen Crimewatch, ‘They’ll do a reconstruction with actors. It’s worked in the past.’

  ‘And the best of British.’

  ‘And what about you?’ McGarvie said. ‘What have you learned?’

 
‘I’m not on the case.’

  ‘Get real, Peter. We know you’ve been out and about talking to snouts – or is that just a blind?’

  He wasn’t being provoked into passing on information until he judged the moment right. He’d handle Dixon-Bligh himself.

  ‘If I hear anything, you’ll be told.’ He almost said, You’ll be the first to know. There were limits.

  20

  No question. Harry looked every inch the aristocrat when, precisely at two, he strode up to the desk at the Dorchester with a porter in tow wheeling in his smart suitcase filled with telephone directories.

  ‘Sir John Mason. I made a reservation. You have my details.’

  ‘Yes, Sir John. One moment.’

  Harry glanced through his horn-rimmed frames at the staff behind the desk busy issuing keys and taking phone calls and printing out accounts. No chance of spotting the stoolie who had tipped him off. He’d be somewhere behind the scenes preparing medallions of venison with chestnuts.

  ‘We’ve got you down for one of the roof garden suites, Sir John.’

  ‘That’s what I asked for.’

  ‘Would you care to make a reservation for dinner?’

  ‘Tonight I shall dine out, thank you.’ True. Instead of sampling the haute cuisine of his fellow-conspirator he’d be grabbing a bacon sandwich at the airport cafe while he waited for his flight to Cork.

  ‘Very good, sir. And would you care to order a newspaper for tomorrow morning?’

  ‘ The Times’ An uncollected paper outside the door was better than a ‘do not disturb’ sign at keeping the staff away.

  ‘Jules will take you to your suite and show you how the key works. Enjoy your stay with us.’

  ‘I intend to.’

  He followed Jules to the lift and up to the roof garden level.

  ‘Are you staying long, sir?’ Jules asked.

  Under an hour, if the Arabs are up to the job, he thought privately. ‘Just the week.’

  ‘London has so much to offer this time of year.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. Is the hotel busy?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Full of wealthy foreigners, I expect.’

  ‘Quite a few visitors, yes.’

  He hoped Jules might throw in a mention of the Kuwaiti Royal Family, but you don’t get everything you wish for. And they didn’t pass any white-robed gentlemen in the walk from the lift to the door of the suite.

  He was shown how to use the plastic key and they entered a light, luxurious sitting room with original paintings on the walls. Jules hoisted the suitcase onto a stand and switched on the TV. A message flashed up saying ‘Welcome to the Dorchester, Sir John Mason,’ and giving a rundown of the facilities. Jules showed how the curtains worked and opened the doors to the bedroom and bathroom. Harry tipped him two pounds.

  Alone in the suite, he took out his mobile and called Zahir.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ He gave the name of the suite.

  So professional. Nothing more was said. He switched off and put on a pair of polythene gloves he’d thoughtfully brought with him, collected some tissues from the bathroom and busied himself wiping the suitcase to remove any prints of his own. His part in the scam was nearly over, thanks be to Allah. He looked at the time.

  The doorbell buzzed. He opened it.

  A woman in hotel uniform carrying a bunch of flowers. ‘I’m Mary the housekeeper, just checking you have everything you require, Sir John.’

  Everything except my dusky friends, he thought. ‘I’m quite content, thank you.’

  ‘May I change your flowers?’

  He hadn’t even noticed the lilies on the coffee table. ‘If you’re quick. I’m expecting visitors.’

  She fussed with the vase and left with yesterday’s blooms. Harry looked at his watch again.

  Ten more minutes passed. ‘Shortly after, Zahir will knock. You will admit him, and Ibrahim, and your job will be over.’

  Bloody long ‘shortly after’.

  He stood by the sliding windows and looked across the roof garden and noticed a movement behind one of the taller shrubs. First he thought it must be a bird or a cat. Then another movement showed it was larger.

  Someone was out there.

  The hairs straightened on the back of his neck. He backed away from the window, waited a few seconds and then took another look. The same figure ducked out of sight behind a bush, but not before Harry noticed he was cradling something that looked horribly like a submachine-gun. There was another movement at the edge of Harry’s vision. Two of them at least. He had an impression of black uniforms.

  Police marksmen.

  Jesus.

  He swung away from the window, back out of sight against the wall. It didn’t take rocket science to work out that it was an ambush and he was cornered. They’d have men in the corridor as well, waiting to pick up the others if they hadn’t nicked them already.

  Hold on, he thought. They won’t bust us until after the crime is committed. They’ll let Rhadi bring the Hatton Garden man in here and they’ll delay until the moment the diamonds are snatched.

  They’ll need to time it right.

  The place must be bugged.

  A listening device is so small you can hide it anywhere. There wasn’t time for him to make a proper search.

  His eyes darted left and right and lighted on the flowers the woman had brought in. Was she really a hotel employee? He stepped closer. Those enormous lilies could hide a microtransmitter with ease. The police couldn’t have known in advance which suite would be used, so it was a cool move. He bent closer and examined the flower arrangement without touching anything.

  The bug was there all right, lodged in the side of one of the spike-shaped buds.

  He picked up the entire arrangement in its vase and carried it to the bedroom, placed it on the floor of the wardrobe and gently slid the door across. Then he returned to the main room, shutting the bedroom door after him.

  He took out his mobile and called Zahir again.

  An agonising pause followed. Then Zahir’s terse voice asking: ‘What is it?’

  ‘Pull the plug.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s off. Cancelled. We’ve been shopped. Tell Rhadi, will you?’

  ‘We can’t do that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He doesn’t have a phone.’

  ‘Christ.’

  Harry switched off. Then he collected the flowers from the bedroom and replaced them on the table.

  His old friend Rhadi was going to walk into the trap. Surely those bastards could stop him.

  No, he thought. They’ll save their own skins and to hell with everyone else. Thick as thieves, the saying went. Thick as thieves, my arse.

  Think of a way out of this, Harry, he told himself. You’re a con man, the very best. You can save Rhadi and yourself.

  But it wouldn’t be easy, up here on the top floor with armed men outside and every exit covered.

  He made a rapid check of the rooms, looking for the ventilation shaft or the loft space he could use as an escape route. No such luck.

  Determined not to be downed, he told himself he wasn’t a goddamn escapologist anyway. He was a con artist. He’d do this his way. Sweet-talk his way to freedom.

  He sat on the sofa, removed his gloves and gave the matter some thought.

  Rhadi was going to arrive any minute with a Hatton Garden diamond merchant expecting to do business with a Kuwaiti prince. Or – far more likely – with a policeman posing as a Hatton Garden diamond merchant. The fuzz had obviously got advance information, so they would have planned this. They would send in one of their SO 19 people, armed and ready for combat. At a signal from him, police gunmen would burst in from all sides.

  Harry let out a long, nervous breath. He’d only agreed to do this because it didn’t involve violence.

  Every instinct urged him to get out now and plead ignorance and hope for leniency. Only his brain told him there was a better
way.

  The buzzer on the door sounded.

  He got up and looked through the little spyhole and saw Rhadi in the corridor with two men, one carrying a briefcase.

  He opened the door a fraction and peered out. Rhadi saw him and looked horrified. It should have been Ibrahim or Zahir who opened the door. Harry should have been out of the hotel and on his way to the airport.

  Harry said in the elegant accent he’d used when he was registering, ‘A slight hitch in the arrangement, gentlemen. The Prince isn’t here.’

  ‘Not here?’ Rhadi said in disbelief.

  ‘We had an appointment for three o’clock,’ the man with the briefcase said.

  ‘Yes. His Royal Highness went for a massage and isn’t back yet. You’re welcome to come in and wait.’

  ‘Who are you?’ the man with the briefcase asked.

  ‘Er – his secretary,’ Harry said. ‘Smith – Henry Smith.

  He’s only at the fitness centre. He shouldn’t be long.’

  Rhadi stared at him. This wasn’t in the script.

  ‘Won’t you all come in?’

  The man with the briefcase exchanged a glance with his bodyguard companion, who gave the matter some thought and then nodded. The bodyguard stepped ahead and did a rapid check of the other rooms.

  ‘Care for a drink?’ Harry offered.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘Why don’t we all sit down?’

  Harry’s mind was racing. He was certain these were policemen, and he was pretty sure the briefcase contained a video camera. There was an eyelet at one end that could easily be a hidden lens, and it was pointing at him. He said to Rhadi, ‘We’d better remind the Prince about this. He’s due at the Embassy at four. Why don’t you go to the fitness centre and speak to him?’

  ‘Can’t you phone?’ the bodyguard said.

  ‘You don’t phone a member of the royal family,’ Harry said with scorn. ‘Not when he’s in the same building.’

  ‘I’ll go and speak to him,’ Rhadi said, catching on at last.

  The police were as undecided as anyone. Their game plan was in disarray and they had no way of getting fresh instructions without blowing their cover.

  Rhadi was allowed to leave. If he had his wits about him, he’d bluff his way past the waiting policemen and go straight to the fitness centre and make his escape from there by a back exit. He was off Harry’s conscience.