The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  Hanny was descended from Norwegian stock. Baptised Johannes, he’d been Hanny since he was a child. He told her his grandfather had come to Durban on a steamer at the turn of the century. He’d fallen for a girl on the trip over and they decided to get married and settle there.

  “He had an amazing life. Just went off and did his own thing. Can you imagine? A Norwegian, who couldn’t speak a word of any other language, gets off a ship in Durban and seventy years later, here we are, dining in a fancy country club, all because of what he did.”

  Rachel encouraged him to recount the story. “He was lucky enough to be befriended by a very wealthy man, another Norwegian. He started as a truck driver then became his chauffeur and finally he looked after him when the old man was widowed and sick.

  “He left my grandad a nice legacy, so he started up his first jewellery store with a partner, a Dutch gem expert. They did well when Durban was expanding and there was a lot of money around. Then he bought out the business when his partner went back to Europe.”

  “And so it got handed down to you in due course?”

  “I took it over when my dad passed away, four years ago.” Hanny looked a little sheepish. “That’s the Peterson saga, three generations of boring jewellers!”

  Rachel enjoyed his company. It felt good to be with someone who obviously liked her for herself, and when he suggested meeting again, she happily accepted and they went out often over the next few weeks. Hanny never went further than a couple of goodnight kisses, somehow sensing that Rachel wasn’t yet ready for a physical relationship.

  He invited her to his home to meet his children. The twins, Catrine and Gregor, were three years old and Birgitta was a year younger. They had Scandinavian colouring, with fine features and blonde hair. They latched on to Rachel like a surrogate mother. She read the signs well enough, but her emotions were still concentrated on Nick and her unborn child.

  After several outings, she realised that Hanny’s feelings were more than just a casual affection, and decided to confide her story to him. They sat in the garden of his house above the harbour and she told him everything. About Nick, their relationship, the problems in Joburg, their falling out and her pregnancy. She was happy to have her child, even without a father. Finally, she told him that she didn’t think she would ever get over Nick. He was her first true love and the father of her child. Rachel liked everything to be clear, no misunderstandings.

  Hanny said nothing for a while, then he took her hands. “Rachel. That was a different life. It’s over, but you will always have the memory of it because of your child. You need to concentrate on your new life now and not dwell on the past. I’m flattered that you confided in me and I wouldn’t wish you to be any different than you are. I don’t expect you to forget Nick. I’d be disappointed if you did. You can’t change your true feelings. It’s not in your nature.”

  They continued to go out together and Rachel saw that Hanny didn’t seem to be troubled by her story. It was true, he wasn’t bothered by it. He was falling in love with her, but he knew that he had to handle the situation very carefully.

  In February he invited her to a St. Valentine’s dinner at the club. As usual, he picked her up at her parents’ house, wearing his black tie and dinner jacket. He was a fine looking man. A true Norwegian, just under six feet, slim and upright, very fair hair and blue eyes.

  After dinner they danced a couple of waltzes then went outside to walk around the beautifully manicured gardens, admiring the varied colours of the many tropical plants and flowers, and breathing in their heady fragrance. Hanny plucked up his courage. Pulling her closer to him, he said, “Rachel, you must know what I feel for you.”

  Even though she’d been half expecting this, she was flustered. “I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.”

  “That’s impossible. You are the cleverest, most charming and lovely woman I’ve ever met. My feeling for you isn’t pity. I’m in love with you and I want you to be my wife and I want your child to be our child. We both know that it’s the best solution.”

  Rachel said nothing. She liked Hanny and could probably get to love him. He was a good man and a loving father to his children. But she knew she couldn’t feel the passion for him that she’d felt for Nick.

  He went on. “I already have three lovely children and I know how much kids need a mother and a father. It doesn’t seem right that my family should lack a mother, whilst yours will lack a father.” He paused, waiting to see if he’d said too much.

  “Do you think that Catrine and Greg would take easily to having their mother’s position usurped? And Birgitta, she’s still very young and vulnerable.”

  “They would all scream with delight if I told them that they had a new mother. You!”

  Two weeks later she surrendered. Hanny had played his cards well, but there was only one thing that counted. He loved her, and his children loved her. Her parents were relieved. Fatherless babies were still frowned upon in Durban. Hanny had saved the family’s reputation.

  They were married in a quiet family ceremony on March 10th. The Harringtons were an Irish catholic family, but the ceremony was held in the Peterson’s family church, the Bayhead Presbyterian. Her wedding gown was a primrose colour, loose and flowing to hide the slight baby bulge. Hanny thought she looked adorable. He was the happiest man on the planet.

  What an incredibly lucky woman I am, Rachel thought. Then, she fleetingly wondered where Nick was. What is he doing? Who is he with?

  TWO

  April, 1974

  Brighton, England

  “And our sixteenth contestant is Portugal. Please welcome Paulo de Carvalho, singing E depois do adeus, And after the Goodbye.”

  It was Saturday, April 6th, 1974 and in the Brighton Dome concert hall, British TV personality, Katie Boyle, was nearing the end of her presentation of the entrants in the nineteenth Eurovision Song Contest. After Portugal, only Italy’s performance remained to be viewed before the voting began.

  Portugal’s three points would earn them an equal fourteenth place. Well behind the twenty four points gained by Waterloo, which won the contest for Sweden and launched ABBA, an unknown rock band, on their glittering career. However, in Portugal, some of the viewers and listeners to the programme were disinterested in the result of the voting. They had more important matters to attend to.

  Lisbon, Portugal

  Late in the evening of April 24th, E depois do adeus was played on one of Portugal’s most popular radio stations. Then at quarter past midnight on the morning of April 25th, the presenter introduced a well loved song that had been banned by the dictator, Salazar, many years before. Grândola Vila Morena, written by the Portuguese folk singer, Zeca Afonso, had been branded subversive and suspected of promoting communist ideals. This was the first national performance of the song since its banishment.

  The two songs were heard by hundreds of thousands of listeners all over Portugal, but the combination was understood by only a few hundred. It set in motion a sequence of events that would cause the deaths of millions of people and upset the world balance for more than a quarter of a century.

  Prague, Czechoslovakia

  The white-haired man was reading in his apartment on Wenceslas Square when the telephone rang. It was after four in the morning, but he was waiting for the call.

  “Good morning, comrade. Vasco here.” The voice said, in Portuguese. “It’s done. You can come home.”

  “Vivo a revolução!” he replied and replaced the receiver.

  He poured himself a glass of white porto, drank a swallow then he dialled a local number.

  The phone was picked up immediately. “Sim?”

  “You can book the tickets, Alberto. We’re going back to Lisbon.”

  “At last,” said the bodyguard. “At last. Well done comrade Cunhal. Congratulations! Now it’s our turn to change things. Let’s get back and change history.”

  Lisbon, Portugal

  At five forty-five, Nick Martinez walked out
of the foyer of the Tivoli Hotel onto the Avenida de Liberdade in Lisbon. After a couple of stretching exercises on the front step, he turned right as he’d done almost every morning for the last three months and set off at a steady jog down the footpath between the main road and the lawns sprinkled with sweet smelling mimosa.

  It was still quite dark and the street lights were on, but the temperature was pleasant, no breeze and a slightly heavy atmosphere. The summer was on its way. Martinez breathed in the fragrant, warm air and adjusted his stride for a comfortable half hour run. He had a pretty full programme, but this early jog was an essential part of the rehab programme he’d been following since leaving South Africa. Being addictive, he’d had to replace unhealthy addictions with healthy ones. So, out with the booze and cigarettes and in with the running and the yoghourt.

  After the excesses of colonial style life in Johannesburg he was appreciating the lack of temptations in this simpler environment. He’d been helped out in this by having only two hundred dollars left in the world when he arrived in Lisbon and got the assignment with APA. His body was appreciating it too. Just over six feet and broad framed, his weight was now down to ninety kilos. He hadn’t needed to throw out many clothes, since he’d left most of his stuff behind when Rachel finally kicked him out last November.

  He was now turning towards the Alfama district, past Rossio station and back up the other side of the Avenida. His inherited Patek Phillipe watch, the only thing of value that he owned, told him it was six o’clock in Lisbon and eight in Johannesburg. So that was useful, even though he was about to leave the former and wasn’t going to the latter. His flight to Luanda was at nine thirty, but he had a few jobs to get done before going out to the airport. He listed them in his mind. Get the samples back from the assessor with his last data analysis. An hour with the hotel photocopy machine, cutting and pasting. Type up a one page report on the Remington. Then pack a quick bag and off to the airport. No sweat. He wasn’t going into the APA office this morning, his schedule was too tight.

  Loping across the soft grassy surface of the Parque Eduardo VII, the South African looked up at the Ritz Hotel, which he’d recently discovered had a magnificent wine cellar. Too bad I quit, he thought to himself. Picking up a sprint to cover the park he dropped back into jogging mode again. His black tee shirt was soaked through and he was on a high, oblivious to everything except his body. A final turn onto the Praça do Marquês do Pombal and at six ten he was heading back down to the Tivoli.

  The perspiration was dripping down his face and neck when he ran up the two flights of stairs in the hotel. His key was in his shorts pocket and he was back in his room at six fifteen, having neither seen nor spoken to anyone since he’d left it. The yoghurt, orange juice and fruit that he’d ordered were on the table with the Herald Tribune. He stripped off and did a few stretches and push ups before taking hot and cold showers, spending a couple of minutes luxuriating under the heavy flow of water beating down on his body.

  Nick towelled off and shaved then glanced at the headlines while he ate his breakfast and dressed. Navy double-breasted suit with flared trousers, wide collared white shirt and maroon tie. Putting his wallet into his jacket pocket, he paused and took out a photograph. The pretty, red-haired woman in the snapshot was wearing a blue halter top and shorts and standing in the surf on the edge of a beach. It was just a few months ago, but it seemed like a lifetime.

  What an asshole I turned out to be, he thought. Getting dumped by the girl I wanted to marry. Coming from Durban to Joburg was tough enough for her without having to put up with him behaving like a total prick. He’d been too wrapped up with his new job, his new so-called friends. He’d frightened Rachel off and he was paying for it now. Still, she’s young, and better off without a loser like me. She’s probably already found somebody else. He felt a momentary surge of jealousy and put the photograph back in his wallet.

  He looked in the mirror to straighten his tie and dusted off a few imaginary flecks from the shoulders of his jacket. The dark-haired, tanned, Latino reflection in the glass smiled back at him. Looking good, Nick. This is going to be a big day, a very big day.

  He had no idea how big it was going to be.

  At six thirty-five, Martinez picked up his briefcase and walked down the stairs and out the hotel exit. He had taken to keeping his key with him since a recent scene in reception when he had been accused of trying to get a different room key. This was due to his incomprehensible Portuguese which he insisted on trying out on the desk clerk. Ironically, Nick came from Portuguese origins, several generations ago and it was spoken in his family, but he hadn’t been brought up to speak it. It was considered by non-Portuguese speakers to be an ‘inferior language’. His full name was Nicolao Jorge Martinez, after his grandfather. And though he also spoke Afrikaans, his English had a softer than usual South African accent. This background was the reason that he’d gravitated from Joburg to Lisbon, of all European cities.

  Turning left out of the hotel, he headed up towards the Avenida Fontes Perreira de Melo, where the assessor had his small ground floor office. It was still dark, but he noticed that the city was unusually quiet. There was no traffic to be seen and he walked straight across the main Avenida without waiting for the light to change. He tried to remember if it was yet another religious holiday, but gave up on it.

  The assessor’s office was two blocks up the street in a smart new office building that, like everything else in Lisbon, wasn’t quite finished. Nick wondered vaguely how the guy could afford the rent, but given the last ten years’ enormous increase in oil and mineral exploration and production in the Portuguese African colonies, he supposed that he had more than enough work to make a living.

  Martinez arrived at the door of the office and pushed. The door was locked, the lights were out, there was nobody there. He checked his watch. It was six forty-three precisely. The man had promised to be there by then, to do business before his flight departure to Angola. There was no doorbell, so he rattled the handle noisily. When there was no response, he rapped on the glass panel with his knuckles. Hell, the guy knows I need the stuff this morning. What’s his name again? Afonso, that’s it.

  He banged on the door again and shouted, “Afonso, it’s Nick Martinez. Open up.”

  He knocked and shouted until a light appeared in the back of the office. He waited for the Portuguese to open the door. Instead, Afonso approached the glass panel and gestured for him to go away. He was mouthing something, seemingly in Portuguese. Nick couldn’t make it out. He was getting mad. He wasn’t going to let some obscure Portuguese religious holiday destroy his plans for the day. He knocked and gesticulated until finally Afonso motioned to him to stop and began to fumble with the locks and bolts on the door.

  Martinez’s naturally good humour returned and he stepped back with relief. The door opened an inch. “Bom dia, Afonso. I suppose it’s a holiday, but if you’ll just give me my stuff, you can lock up again and take the day off.” He didn’t want to upset the Portuguese when he had the most important samples in his office with the analysis.

  The man didn’t reply. He poked his head out of the door, looked up and down the street, then at Martinez. “Senhor nao sabe? Don’t you know?” He asked in a whisper.

  “Afonso, you know I don’t talk your lingo and I have to get ready to fly off to Luanda in a couple of hours. Will you please just give me my stuff and I’ll leave you in peace?”

  Afonso came up so close to him that he could smell the breakfast coffee on his breath. “Senhor not understand. Portugal has revolution today.”

  Martinez’s brown eyes widened. He stared at the Portuguese, who was already locking and bolting the door again. As if in a dream, he turned and looked around him. The sun was just coming up and he noticed for the first time a group of soldiers with rifles outside the doors of the Banco Atlantico. Another group was marching down the Avenida. He heard shouting from the park behind him and the blunt shapes of three steel-grey tanks came into view, turr
ets open and soldiers standing with machine guns at the ready. Crowds of cheering people were climbing up onto the tanks. The women were kissing the soldiers and offering them red carnations from the bunches in their hands.

  He turned back to the office door and saw Afonso looking out at him through the glass panel. “Oh, Fuck!” he said.

  It was the morning of Thursday, April twenty fifth, 1974.

  THREE

  September, 1974

  Near Ambrizete, North-western Angola

  “Congratulations, Sergio, you have a fine, healthy son. Three kilos eighty exactly.” The midwife picked up the newborn baby boy from the kitchen scale and placed him carefully into his father’s hands.

  Sergio Melo d’Almeida beamed with delight, kissed the woman and gave a loud hoot of happiness. He gazed through the pebble-thick lenses of his spectacles at the naked infant. The child was screaming at the top of his lungs and squirming so much that he held him tightly for fear of dropping him onto the sisal covered floor.

  “How is Elvira? Can I see her? Is she OK?” His wife was in the bedroom upstairs to the kitchen where they were standing. The cottage was really nothing more than a two up, two down terrace apartment, one of the six that his father had built for the senior workers when the mine became operational, ten years before.

  “She’s upstairs with Manuela, sleeping. She’s in good health, just very tired after so many hours in labour. It’s best to let her rest for a while. No working for two weeks at least.” Elvira was the accountant in the business, so Sergio was going to have to replace her for a while by doubling his own work load. Sociedade Mineira de Angola, The Angolan Mining Company, was a family affair and there weren’t many office-trained people to share the load.

  The midwife wrapped a cotton wrap around the baby then went back upstairs to Elvira. Sergio walked along to the offices to show off his latest offspring to his brother, Henriques.