32
Reynolds had spent much of Sunday morning lying under the Alpine. He now seemed sure there had been no tampering, but that the car had certainly been driven over rough roads. He then had a long bath.
All this time, the old man had been reading the Sunday papers. As for as Clifford could see, he took all of them – just as though it were necessary for him to keep his finger on the pulse of the world. He also took the local papers during the week. They were delivered by a man in a small van, an emissary of the local supermarket, and very much in the mould of Lowther, the mechanic of the previous day. Throughout all this, the key to George’s bedroom remained in her pocket, and nobody asked after it. At 2.30, the old man summoned a taxi. From her bedroom window, Victoria watched Reynolds climb into it beneath a black sky. She put the key back in the door, descended the stairs and joined Reynolds in the taxi, which was driven by an East European. (A Pole, going by the flag sticker on his dashboard.) The old man stood at the doorway to see them off, waving like a six-year-old. The taxi turned around on the cracked stones of the farmyard, then Reynolds said, ‘Hold on, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush.’
Clifford said, ‘It’s not worth going back in for it, buy another.’
But Reynolds went back into the house – and stayed in it for a good while.
‘How many places can a toothbrush be?’ she demanded of the driver, but she required no answer, as the Pole seemed to instinctively know. When Reynolds re-emerged, he was carrying the green floppy book that had been in Quinn’s room. As the taxi drove towards the gate of the property, Reynolds stowed the floppy book in his bag. Victoria considered saying, ‘I think you’ll find that’s completely blank,’ but that might connect her with the locking of the room – if Reynolds was aware that it had ever been locked. Instead, she said, ‘That’s one of George’s floppies.’
‘I know,’ said Reynolds. ‘As I was coming out of the bathroom, the old man was at one of the doors in the corridor. He had it open. He said, he thought he’d lost the key or something, but now the key was in the door.’
Reynolds was eyeing Clifford.
She said, ‘Is this leading anywhere?’
‘I asked if I could take a quick look around.’
‘And what did you see?’
‘Nothing much, except the notebook – the Smythson floppy book or whatever it’s called. He said I could take it away.’
Had Reynolds seen what was in the wardrobe? She couldn’t ask.
On the train they paid the upgrade for first class. Clifford insisted.
She said, ‘Let’s see the floppy book, then.’
Reynolds produced it from his bag. ‘At first sight, it seemed blank,’ he said.
It proved to be blank at second sight as well.
‘Oh well,’ said Clifford, but then Reynolds produced a slip of paper from his pocket: a cutting from a newspaper.
‘Found this in one of the novels by the bed,’ he said. ‘I think it’s from the Yorkshire Evening Press,’ he mused infuriatingly as he read it over, apparently for the very first time. Then he said, ‘If I’d known about this, I’d have asked the taxi to drive over there.’
At this, she snatched the cutting from his hand.
It was dated Friday 21 November:
The sister of Joseph Caldwell has thanked the police for their ‘relentless efforts’ to find the missing pensioner. Mrs Betty Caldwell said the most likely scenario was that Mr Caldwell, 87, had slipped into a gulley while walking on the Moors, or fallen into the swollen river Riccal. ‘That was Joe. He was so fit for his age, and he would go wandering off onto the Moors.’
Mr Caldwell, a lifelong Quaker and peace campaigner, who lives alone at Carlton High Top, near Helmsley, was last seen by neighbours on the morning of Saturday 15 November. Mrs Caldwell also wished to thank ‘the many well-wishers who have been in touch with all their kind thoughts and prayers’.
‘I remember now from a hiking trip with school,’ said Reynolds. ‘There’s Carlton, then there’s Carlton High Top a little way off. Carlton HT. It’s too small to come up on Google.’
Victoria handed the cutting back. She had been wrong about the meaning of ‘Carlton HT’. She said so. Reynolds’ phone chimed, indicating receipt of a text. He read the text, in the same infuriating way as he’d read the cutting.
‘Anna Samarina,’ he said eventually. ‘She and her father have invited me round to her house for drinks.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘She’s sorry for the short notice, I hope.’
‘If she is,’ said Reynolds, re-pocketing his phone, ‘she doesn’t say so.’
The disappearance of a man called Caldwell was an utter mystery, but this invitation … It was about right, thought Victoria, which was to say that it was something she had envisaged. She turned to look through the window. There was nothing to see in the rolling darkness.
‘The Fens,’ explained Reynolds, after a while.
It was an intermediate space between the seemingly opposite poles of Mayfair millionaires and an elderly, northern Quaker who loved the Moors.
33
Cooper came out of The Whistling Man at a fair old lick. He’d had a few; it was half past ten, and he wanted to be in time for a curry at the Calcutta Star, which stopped taking orders at eleven on a Sunday. The lamb rogan josh, he’d go for. That was the speciality of the house. It was a shame that his Good Food Guide was more or less surplus to requirements in his own locality, but the Star, was, he believed, among the top ten Indian restaurants in East London, and the house white was a tolerable drop. They knew him there, and they had a photograph of him doing his routine with the steel rings. ‘You see any holes or gaps in that ring?’ he’d ask. ‘Well, what about the one in the middle?’ That could make him laugh even now, even after forty years. It was like the egg in the bag. ‘Can you feel the egg in the bag? No? Not feeling well, then?’
Cooper had good reason to believe it was Mission Accomplished. He’d found a buyer for the stone. He’d only be getting twenty but he’d be getting it in cash. The buyer was called Mark. He was a scruffy bloke, but quite well spoken; definitely a university product. Well, everyone was a university product these days. Put it like this: he’d seemed to know what he was looking at when he looked at the stone. And what he was looking at was forty grand’s worth, so Cooper did not believe the deal would fall through. Mark needed a few days to raise the cash, and he’d be calling before the end of the week. It had been the landlord, Benson, who had made the introductions. Benson was dodgy. He’d run the Whistler as a lock-in for years, and he had strippers on the weekends. Cooper didn’t like the place, but it had become the nearest pub to his house, since the Hope had become flats and the Oak had become a William Hill’s. Benson, Cooper thought, could learn a few things from a walk around Mayfair. It wasn’t all about money. Not having three giant TVs blaring out football or pop music – that was just a question of taste.
But Benson had his uses, and Cooper had asked him at the bar if he knew anyone who might be interested in buying an item of jewellery, and he’d simply pointed at Mark, who’d been sitting with a good-looking woman. Cooper had been about to go straight over, but Benson had said, ‘Let me have a word first.’ He’d come back to the bar and said, ‘He’s all yours.’ Mark had introduced the woman – Yvonne – and they’d all shaken hands, very formal. Mark had said, ‘Apparently you’re a magician.’ Cooper had produced his pack of cards and showed them some things. ‘That’s very nice,’ Mark had said. Then they’d talked about websites. When Cooper said he didn’t have one, Mark had shaken his head for a long time. He could put him in touch with someone who’d set him up with a very professional site for a couple of hundred quid. Then Mark had gone off to the gents, and the woman, Yvonne, had said, ‘Can you make him disappear?’ which Cooper had found a bit alarming, but then she’d said, ‘I’m only kidding. Do you want a drink?’ It went against the grain to let a woman he’d only just met buy him a drin
k, so Cooper had bought her one: white wine spritzer, and a pint of Guinness for Mark.
Mark had certainly been a bit different when he’d come back from the gents. More businesslike, let’s put it like that. The two of them had gone into the backyard but there’d been a couple of smokers there, so they’d gone out into the dark back street. They’d stood next to a garage that had said, ‘Keep Clear. Garage in Constant Use.’ But of course there hadn’t been a soul about, and there was still undisturbed snow in the street. Cooper had shown him the stone, breathing fast and not really able to speak. ‘It’s all right, man, relax,’ Mark had said. And he had inspected the stone. That was the moment of maximum danger, because he could have done a runner with it there and then, but he’d handed it back, saying, ‘I’m not going to ask where you got it from. I suppose you want cash.’ They’d agreed on twenty-five and gone back inside.
Cooper had then carried on drinking with Mark and Yvonne, and it had all been pretty convivial. Cooper had told them about his time on the cruise ships, and they’d talked about poker, which Mark seemed to play a lot of. After an hour or so of this, Mark asked Cooper to come outside again. He wanted to look at the stone again. This time Cooper hadn’t been so keen. Mark had said, ‘You’re going to have to trust me, man.’ This time, Cooper focused on another sign, in the yard next to the garages: ‘No Ball Games’. When did all dustbins become big green plastic things? He was from the era of metal dustbins, when the Argos on the High Street was Woolworths; when the big Wetherspoon’s pub was the Gaiety, where he’d performed a few times. Early doors in its last days. Average house about six. As he handed the stone back after this second inspection, Mark said, ‘I’m sorry, man, but I can only give you twenty.’
In view of the fact that this stone was probably tangled up with a murder, Cooper had agreed. This Mark chap had had two opportunities to make off with the stone, and he’d played the white man each time. They’d gone back inside for one more drink. Mark and Yvonne had then left the pub, after handshakes all round.
If he cut down the side of Matalan he’d be at the Star for quarter to eleven. Cooper heard the word ‘cunt’ and he was on the ground. He couldn’t assess what had happened, but he knew he couldn’t get up. And then he had an image in his mind of one of the liners he’d worked on; the entire district of Mayfair was on top of the ship, which was sailing away fast over a dark sea; and then he didn’t know anything at all.
34
Reynolds was glad to be back in Mayfair. He thought of it as an excitingly decadent medieval village, with the Ritz Hotel as the castle on the fringe. His whole life seemed to have moved to Mayfair, now that Caroline had vacated the flat, having taken half the furniture. She’d moved in with her sister, as a staging post on the way to Bob Ballantyne. Above the Ritz and its Union Flags – which indicated, not quite correctly, that this was a British village – the sky was dark blue and streaked with black. Afternoon and evening were fighting it out up there.
Victoria Clifford had discovered from a contact in the London Fire Brigade that the fire in which Max Aktin had been killed in 2001 had occurred in a street called Conduit Gardens, which was near Paddington Station. She had gone off to Paddington Library, confident that the coroner’s inquest would have been written up in a local paper. At least, that’s where she said she’d gone. Her last word had been to tell him to nip over to Jermyn Street and buy a new shirt before he went to see the Samarins, and he had taken the point and done so.
He had returned to Down Street, made a couple of calls, put on the blue suit and Quinn’s Crombie. He had walked up and down Bond Street, and then – since he couldn’t help noticing he was getting some appreciative glances from women – he’d walked up and down it again. He then headed west. In Berkeley Square he looked at some hundred-and-fifty-grand Bentleys in the car showroom. He would need one of these, and commensurate property, to follow through with any of the women who’d been eyeing him. A good suit was not enough.
He’d quit the Square to approach the Samarin house. But he had been asked for half past five, and he was ten minutes early. The Aston was parked outside as before, and had recovered its composure after his assault upon it. Reynolds knew now that this model was called a DB5. The copy of the Northumberland Guardian had gone from the car. Well, it had been cluttering up the pristine interior. That must mean Porter was in town. The door of the Samarin house opened behind him, and a mellow light spilled out. A tall, red-faced man emerged. He was broad but not fat: like a jump jockey. His face was long, and rather horse-like, with a lantern jaw. His hair, driven back, was light grey, as though burnt to ash by the redness of his face. He wore a tweed suit, well pressed but dead-looking. He suddenly unleashed something from his tweed pocket: a tweed cap. He put it on his head, setting it just right with two quick gestures.
Reynolds watched the man, as he moved towards the Aston. The man was staring back at Reynolds in the rearview as he put the Aston in gear. He pulled away, then he abruptly stopped the car, blocking the road and continuing to eye Reynolds in the rear-view. He had resented Reynolds looking at him. An Audi came up behind the Aston, and its bulk severed the eye contact between Reynolds and Porter, if that’s who it was. The Audi gave a blast on its horn, then a second blast, this one continuous. The door of the Aston opened, and Porter climbed out. He then stood next to his car, and resumed his staring at Reynolds. He took out his phone and proceeded, apparently, to check his text messages. The door of the Audi opened, and a woman began shouting abuse at Porter in heavily accented English. Eventually he jerked his head in the direction of the woman, and said, ‘I would advise you to reverse and turn around.’ He had a very upper-class delivery. He returned to checking his messages as the woman continued to shout. Eventually she did climb back into her car and performed a furious three-point turn. With no further glance towards
Reynolds, Porter then pocketed his phone, climbed back into the Aston, and roared off towards Berkeley Square. Reynolds turned towards the Samarin house. The door opened the moment he stood on the doorstep. It was a smiling, middle-aged woman who admitted him. He noticed that she wore a walkie-talkie on her hip. ‘Detective Inspector Reynolds? Please come in.’ She seemed to be French, and incredibly calm. Reynolds entered a wide marble hall. There was a tall Christmas tree, and a fireplace whose creamy stone mantle was decorated with dancing urchins and naked women. The woman took his coat and put it in a room off the hall.
She and Reynolds climbed a gracious staircase, looking down on the Christmas tree, which was decorated with Victorian-looking toys: miniature rocking horses ascended and descended. On the landing, Reynolds was aware of quiet Russian speech from a room out of sight. The woman opened double doors, and there – in what Reynolds supposed was the drawing room – stood Andrei Samarin. The room was huge, with floor-to-ceiling sash windows. It might have been an art gallery, right down to chairs that looked not meant for sitting on, and paintings at regular intervals: mainly geometric, foreign-looking modern art, but also some English-looking landscapes. The furniture, too, was a harmonious combination of eighteenth-century and modern, or that’s how it struck Reynolds: a theme of yellow, white and gold; couches rather than sofas, a soft, golden light from a modern chandelier, a fire burning in the marble fireplace.
On a gilded and ornate table sat an Apple laptop with the screen lifted up. It was showing cricket. Must be on iPlayer, thought Reynolds. England were playing in Australia but it was too early in the day for live action. Samarin was shaking Reynolds’ hand. His shoes, Reynolds noticed, were like – or actually were – black velvet slippers. He wore rather narrow green trousers, a pink shirt and a light-brown tweed jacket. His watch was a gold antique. Andrei Samarin was a slight, dapper man. He might have been a retired dancer. Seeing that Reynolds was looking at the laptop, Samarin said, ‘The wicket’s flat, you know. It is not doing anything.’
The probable French woman had departed, but another, younger woman was in the room. She was closing the shutters, and the light of t
he room was becoming softer, possibly as a result of something she had done a moment before.
‘You like cricket, Mr Samarin?’ Reynolds asked.
‘Please call me Andrei. I don’t know. I’m trying to familiarise myself with it; then I will decide.’ A silence fell. Eventually, Samarin said, ‘A man was here earlier. He was trying to interest me in some cigars. As you can see, he succeeded.’ He indicated a wooden box of cigars, open on another table. ‘Would you like one?’
Reynolds thought of the Gifts and Hospitality Register. That couldn’t be shrugged off as easily as his detective’s notebook. He’d accepted a cigar on Friday; it mustn’t look as though a cigar was his Achilles heel. ‘I won’t, thank you very much.’
Samarin seemed to be relieved. His left hand could remain in the pocket of his jacket, where it had been more or less since Reynolds’ arrival.
As a sort of test, to see whether the name of Porter would be divulged, Reynolds asked, ‘Was it the man who just left?’ Samarin frowned. ‘A man in an Aston Martin,’ said Reynolds. ‘I was wondering if he’d brought the cigars.’
Samarin shook his head. ‘He is nothing to do with cigars.’
Another silence.
‘To speak frankly,’ said Samarin, ‘Anna is in the bath. She will be here shortly. What will you have to drink?’
Reynolds realised the woman who’d been shutting the blinds was also waiting for his response. ‘Anything that’s going,’ said Reynolds, and Samarin looked at him in a way he could not fathom. Reynolds found himself feeling lonely in the company of this man.
‘Wine?’ said Samarin, after a while.
‘A glass of white wine then, please, thank you.’
Samarin spoke Russian to the woman in the corner. He turned back to Reynolds. He said, ‘Please – sit.’ Reynolds sat down on a white couch. A book lay on the couch, an antique in itself, but there was a bookmark in it. The book was in Russian, with only lettering on the cover. Samarin remained standing. Reynolds was picturing Anna Samarina in the bath.
The Yellow Diamond Page 18