The Talisman

by Lynda La Plante

  Chapter Eleven

  Alex sat with Dora in the office. He had taken a while to come back to her with his analysis of the club’s accounts. She was slightly afraid of him – he spoke so quietly, and was obviously nervous himself. He made it brief – the gambling part of the club was badly run. They had just a few poker games, private sessions, which could be opened up into a much more ambitious operation, a much bigger money earner. First, she should put in a roulette wheel.

  ‘Well, I know that, darlin’, but if you’ve got a partner that plays your own tables, forget it. I did have one for a while, but I had to close it right down.’

  Alex waited for her to calm down. ‘Johnny’s boozing and gambling away all the profits, right? Well, you’re his partner, and I’m telling you the accounts indicate you could double the earnings on this place. But you’ve got to off-load your husband first.’

  Dora threw up her hands and said she was working on it, but there was only so much she could do.

  ‘What’s his share worth, Dora, twenty-five grand? That’s being generous. You could buy him out. This place is leased, you don’t even own the building – all you got is the licence, the lease and the fixtures and fittings.’

  He had her full attention now. She listened, sipping at her water. ‘I’ve not got that kind of money, Alex. You should know, you’ve got the books, for Chrissake.’

  Alex stared at her and his eyes frightened her, they were so expressionless. ‘First you have to have a legal document stating what the partnership is worth, how much cash. That I can do for you.’

  Alex was making notes on a small slip of paper, and he said that rather than go for the highest estimate she had to go for the lowest. ‘Forty thousand, you want the place insured for that, all legal, just so should anyone ask you know exactly how much you want if someone offers to buy you out . . .’

  Alex continued, she had to make Johnny sign another document making her a legal partner, the papers she had at the moment would not really stand up to scrutiny.

  ‘I’ll sack that bloody lawyer of mine, he’s useless. He was supposed to do it.’

  Again Alex waited patiently for her to calm down, then in his steady, low voice he went on. ‘The papers must be verified by a good company, a known company. There must be someone who works for some big law firm among your customers – use him, use his company. Legal, it has to be legal.’

  Dora hesitated. She knew everything Alex had said was true, but there had to be a catch. ‘Okay, come on, out with it. Why are you doing all this?’

  ‘I took a fall for Johnny, years ago, but what did he do for me? A few words here and there with some prison barons, but he never came to see me, never asked how I was. I don’t owe Johnny anything – so listen carefully. I’ve found out Johnny owes money all over town, even at Harry Driver’s. He plays for high stakes, likes poker sessions . . . he’s also hooked on the booze. You an’ me, Dora, we’ll pull a sting, one that’ll leave you owning the club outright.’

  Dora’s jaw dropped. There he sat, like a big oaf, and yet he talked as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

  Taking his time, Alex outlined the plan, and Dora didn’t interrupt once. When he had finished she sat chewing her lips for a moment. ‘What do you get out of it?’

  Alex smiled, lifted his hands in a casual gesture. ‘I’ll run the place for a nice wage. Better than sittin’ on me backside in Harry Driver’s sweatshops.’

  Alex was already packing his briefcase. Dora sighed. ‘All right, let’s do it.’

  Alex gave her one of his strange smiles. ‘That’s a clever girl.’

  Edward knew exactly the scam he and BB would pull to make them rich. It was far-fetched, requiring a lot of time and hard labour. It would take at least four years. This was summer 1947, and Edward had been in South Africa almost a year. Under Edward’s instructions, BB had purchased four ‘dead’ mines. He already owned five non-productive mines, all lying dormant. He questioned Edward as to why he was to buy still more, but as always there was no reply. BB had grown accustomed to the mask-like expression Edward used when he didn’t wish to discuss something. He could be jovial, even laughing, but as soon as BB pushed for information his eyes went blank. It was chilling, this ability to switch moods so rapidly. At times BB felt afraid of him, but his usual good humour and friendship touched the old man, and he eventually stopped probing.

  However, things began to change after BB received a letter from his son Richard, who was living in England. He went to Edward’s room and found him sitting at the microscope on his makeshift desk, as usual, surrounded by hundreds of test tubes and stacks of notes and files. BB coughed and waited for Edward to give him a nod that it was all right to speak.

  ‘Just got a letter from Richard. He’s doing quite well, working for De Veer’s in Hatton Garden. He says he’ll be coming over quite soon . . . Edward? I said I got a letter. You met Richard at the Simpsons’, didn’t you?’

  Edward dropped his pencil, moved the microscope aside and rubbed his eyes. He held out his hand for the letter, and read it while BB wandered around the room looking at the hundreds of sample phials filled with sand and rock, all neatly tagged. Edward shook his head in disgust, the contents of the letter infuriated him. ‘He’s asking for more money! What does he want another house for?’

  BB stared at one of the ampoules, taking it out of its wooden rack.

  ‘Don’t touch anything, BB.’

  Poor BB jumped nervously and immediately replaced the thin glass tube. Edward continued, ‘You should let him earn his own money if he’s got such a good job. What’s he coming to you with his hand out for?’

  BB straightened his tie, stood with legs apart. ‘He’s my son, that’s why. Look, I think I’ll take a little trip into town, all right with you? Anything you want? Zelda’s got bobotie for your dinner.’

  Edward was already back at work, squinting intently through the microscope, and he didn’t answer. After shuffling his feet for a moment BB departed. Edward worked on, and when Zelda brought him a supper tray he looked at his watch and was startled at how late it was. ‘BB not back yet, Zelda? He called at all?’

  She shook her head, then went to the window and lifted the blind. The old Bentley could be heard churning up the gravel outside. She let the blind drop. ‘I made you a nice melktert for your pudding . . . Eh, eh, he’s home, boss, and he drunk. He cut right across the flowerbeds again.’

  She rolled her way out and padded along the landing as the front door crashed shut, making all Edward’s glass tubes shiver. Edward pushed his supper tray aside and marched out on to the landing. He looked over the banister and yelled, ‘Where in God’s name have you been?’ He started down the stairs. ‘Most important, did you tell anyone I was here? Look at you, you’re a mess, you wonder why I don’t tell you anything? This is the reason! You’re pissed out of your mind, for Chrissake, you could ruin everything.’

  Swaying and blinking, BB puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’ve just had a couple at the Pretoria Club, and why not? You sit here all day, all night. I don’t know what the hell is going on in my own house. All you get me to do is buy up useless mines . . . So I went to a soccer match. Good game, Cape Coloureds played well. You know, man, those Bantu fellas kick the ball around like the devil. Mind you . . .’

  Edward interrupted him. ‘You tell anyone about my presence here? Did you? Well, did you?’ BB burped and gave Edward a shifty look. Edward reached out and pulled BB to him. BB was wearing his best suit, and Edward picked up his silk tie. BB eased it away from him and tried to straighten it, but he stumbled and fell into a chair. ‘No one knows, I have told no one, man, but I had a little business to do. I’m not a damned prisoner, for Chrissakes, man!’

  Edward snapped that he was until he was told differently. ‘This is part of the plan, BB, and if you foul it up now how can I trust you later on?’

  The old man looked crestfallen and Edward pulled up a chair. He gave a little wink to show he wasn’t angry any more. BB rub
bed his head until what little hair he had left stood on end.

  ‘Okay,’ said Edward, ‘this is what you do. Might work well . . . You cable Richard, tell him to get a flight over. When we get the dates I’ll tell you more, but get him out here.’

  Edward walked out, and BB padded after him, pleading like a child. ‘Tell me, tell me what you’ve got up your sleeve. You make me feel so useless. I want to help you, man, you said you needed me?’

  Edward turned, put his arm around BB’s shoulders and led him into the study. He decided that perhaps it was time to let BB in on part of the plan. ‘Okay, sit down, look around. See these samples . . . I’m going to need a hundred times this amount. Maybe Richard’s coming will be more than useful, I’ve got to get into one of the major companies.’

  Edward tried to explain to BB in simple terms what he had been working on at Cambridge – Walter’s initial hopes of a breakthrough in assimilating tests for minerals taken from the surface of the land. He made no mention, of course, that the experiment was instigated by Walter. ‘My theory was that, by testing the minerals, I could say without doubt whether or not the ground had the right amount of mineral deposits – that it would produce diamonds, gold, semi-precious stones even. This would bypass the vast expense of drilling equipment and initial layout of . . .’

  Edward couldn’t finish as BB roared with laughter, shaking his head. ‘Well, man, that’s a tall order, and pretty nigh impossible. For one, the diamonds can be found on the surface of a productive mine, or close to water, you don’t have to dig, boy. The land is littered with diamonds, opals; washing plants are what you have to set up, wash for ’em. It’s the building of the water plants that takes the initial cash, and then it’s wash, gallons . . . you find a glimmer of a fissure all hell breaks loose, and when it’s dried up your luck is out, like mine, finished. Left with thousands of worthless acres.’

  Edward was whistling, impatient for BB to wind down. But BB continued, ‘You’ve got to have blasting licences, the machinery alone would set you back half a million, you can’t move in mining on a few hundred thousand, unless you get a strike . . . an’ I know of men who have kicked, kicked the ground and turned over jars the size of eggs, diamonds big as my fists in the old days, but you’ll never find those again. Land that can be had cheap is drying up.’

  Edward banged on the side of his chair and BB glared.

  ‘You haven’t listened to me. Do you think I would be going to all this trouble if I was trying for a goddamn strike? I know what sort of cash we have – you have – and I know how much we would need to even attempt a mining venture. That is not my concern. I am going to prove that dead, known mines can be productive.’

  Again BB guffawed with laughter. ‘You’ll need more than a theory, son, and I’m telling you straight, you’ll never be able to prove it for years, years.’

  Finally losing his patience, Edward jumped up and paced the room. He snapped, ‘I never said my theory was proved, but what if I could prove it? What if I could, for example, guarantee that your dead mines were actually alive?’ He sat down on the edge of his chair. BB pursed his lips. He could see Edward’s excitement.

  ‘Take it one step further – what if, after I had stated that I could guarantee your mines would produce again, this statement were leaked to the press? Not by any old sod, but by a scientist actually working in, for example, the De Veer labs, thereby giving credence to the experiment? What if, after that statement, your mine did produce again? Any mine, come to think of it, that had been a dead zone for years. What do you think would happen then?’

  ‘You’d have a bloody stampede, man, for your services! You know, lad, if there was even so much as a suspicion that there’s diamonds in this area . . . We have to be bloody careful, any findings of valuable minerals . . . Jesus, I start to open up my places, my mines, that costs in itself. You’re looking at machinery that’ll cost at least ten thousand, you have to show we are actually working, that work is in progress . . . No mine in production is without washing plants, and everyone knows it is the only way diamonds are generally discovered. The workers cost nothing but a few rand and a good meal a day so that’s not much outlay, and they are so thick they wouldn’t know what the hell we were up to. But everything, everything we set up, needs money. See, you rarely find diamonds just by turning gravel over, so we need diggers, then we got to make an elaborate show of security – no productive mine is without security, wouldn’t look right.’

  BB strutted across the room, chomping on his cigar, his face shining.

  Edward smiled. ‘It’d be an elaborate charade, but it would mean that your dead mines would become valuable assets overnight, wouldn’t you agree? Even more of a proposition if you were forced by bankruptcy to sell in auction all the mines that had recently been discovered to be productive again. You with me?’

  BB dragged on his cigar. Slowly, it was dawning on him why Edward had made him acquire more defunct mines.

  ‘The banks have already loaned out enough to open the mines. Now we start borrowing more and more, until they call in the loans and you are forced to sell – forced just when it is made public that they are rich! Rich, BB!’

  ‘Jesus Christ, man, you’ll never get away with it! The De Veer company would never allow it, that’s if you can ever get a job in one of their labs in the first place. There’s no certainty, and even if you did, and say it was De Veer’s, they’d be over your shoulder like hawks.’

  Edward pulled his chair closer, so his knees were touching the old man’s. ‘I can do it, I know it! I can make the scam work, but it will take time, years. Each sample will have to be doctored by me, and when I’m through they will have thousands and thousands of samples. Now, when I begin to leak my work to the press – not from Pretoria, from right across Africa – the theory will have to be refuted. That will take time because I will have made up so many thousands of samples, and they will have to check them all before they can say my experiments are a load of crap . . . But by that time, we will already have sold, understand me? We coincide the leaks about your mines precisely with the banks foreclosing on their loans. You have no alternative but to sell, but by Christ you’ll kick up a storm, desperate not to sell . . .’

  BB couldn’t quite follow. ‘You fix each ampoule? That’s what you’re doing? What’re you using, chippings? Real stones?’

  Edward waved his hand around at the already tagged samples. He gave a wink, tapped his nose. ‘It will take me years to “gather” this lot, but I will gradually take them into the lab, the lab of a well-thought-of company with a big name. They will receive them carton by carton, so it will look like I’m working on each one, one at a time. They will have no idea I’ve doctored them, right? With me? I’ll need to be taking trips out to mines every day, and I need gold, diamonds and gems to grind and roughen. It will cost every penny you can borrow or beg. You will have to borrow more from the banks, do you understand?’

  BB’s brain began to tick. It was a wild, far-fetched scheme, but Edward’s enthusiasm was contagious. ‘You’ve got to get inside one of the major companies, the only way to pull it off, need them behind you.’

  Edward knew the old boy was hooked, and he grinned. ‘Richard will get me in, I know it. If he’s already working for De Veer’s he may be able to get me an introduction, added to which I have a first-class honours degree from Cambridge, plus my professor is sending me glowing reports – reports, BB, on my work at Cambridge, which is . . . the theory I’ve just told you. But I have to gain authenticity from one of the big companies. So, I want to get Richard out here, and fast.’

  ‘Consider it done – partner.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Johnny was shaving when Dora took in his coffee, put it down and asked him if he remembered one of those rich fellas from the other night, the one with the Greeks?

  ‘I dunno! What other night? What the hell are you talking about?’

  She sat on the edge of the bath and said that the reason she was asking wa
s she had been asked to set up a game in the club – a real private one for high stakes, on a Sunday when the place was closed.

  Johnny was immediately alert, she could see just by the way he continued shaving and said nothing.

  ‘Only that Sunday I gotta go to Brighton, it’s Hylda’s birthday party. You know Hylda, girl with the long blonde hair and the lisp . . . Well, she’s having her twenty-first, I can’t get out of it.’

  Johnny rinsed his face, patted it dry with the towel. ‘What you want me to do?’

  She told him the most important thing was that he didn’t even think about playing. These were big money boys with a lot of cash to throw around. ‘What you say, Johnny, you around Sunday?’

  He was so annoying she could have hit him. He combed his hair and said he might be, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘All right then, I’ll get Arnie in to see to it. I dunno, I don’t ask you to do much, but I would have thought you could at least show some interest. By the way, is it true you took cash out of the till again last night . . . Johnny, I’m talking to you.’

  He sprayed her cologne over himself and admired his new suit in the mirror.

  ‘Johnny, will you answer me?’

  He tossed her comb on to the bed and went out into the hall. ‘I hear yer! I hear yer, what else yer want from me? Any more bits of fucking paper yer want me ter sign? You can go stuff yourself! You got that ape Arnie counting out all the money I take out. So I owe yer a few quid, so fucking what, it’s my club. Anyone calls for me, tell ’em I’ve gone away, fend ’em off, will yer. And Sunday I’ll be there, I’ll be there.’

  She stopped him at the door and made him promise not to play, and then he slammed out. She dived for the phone. ‘Alex? Alex, he’s hooked, I know it. Can you set the game up, you sure? This Sunday, yeah, I’ll have it for you, I will, no problem.’

  Dora dressed quickly, went straight to the bank and made an arrangement to withdraw twenty-five thousand pounds, saying she would be in to collect it on Friday. Alex was waiting for her, and she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, then drove off in her little white sports car.