The King of Diamonds

by Simon Tolkien

  But then Jacob made it worse. He said my uncle was involved with Franz, that they had killed his parents and other Jews for their diamonds, and that they’d killed Ethan too when he found out about Franz. He told me that they’d set up David to take the blame. And I didn’t believe him; I couldn’t believe him; I didn’t want to. Titus is my uncle. He brought me up; gave me a home. Without him I would have nothing. But then Jacob told me about a letter that Ethan had sent him from Munich just before his death saying he’d discovered something vitally important, and I remembered how Titus had got me to leave with Jana to go shopping before Ethan came back. Was he trying to get me out of the way? Is he part of a conspiracy? Could he be? I don’t know now. All I know is I have to find out.

  ‘I’ll skip the next bit,’ said Trave, looking up. ‘It’s just a list of names – German officials that Claes was involved with in Belgium. Jacob must have told Katya about them.’

  ‘There’s no proof in any of this, you know,’ said Vanessa, catching Trave’s eye. ‘Not against Titus.’

  Trave didn’t respond, just nodded, and then went back to the diary.

  Jacob said he had already tried to break into the house to find evidence but he’d got nowhere – Franz had been on to him as soon as he came through the window of Titus’s study. He told me it had to be someone on the inside looking. He said it was worth the risk because the proof was there. He was sure of it. Proof of what they’d done – to his and Ethan’s parents, to Ethan, to David. And I didn’t have to think before I agreed. It was easy. My life has a purpose again. And I’ll use this diary to record what I find. I’ll hide it when I’m not writing in it. In the old place. For the first time in as long as I can remember I am almost happy.

  Trave turned the page, going on to the next entry:

  August 20th:

  I was sick with stopping the drugs for two days but now I’m better. I closed the door and said goodbye but then I realized there was nothing to say goodbye to. These people I know in Oxford – they’re not my friends. And I don’t need friends because now I have my mission. I can’t bring Ethan back – I know that – but I can do something for him – I can bring him justice. And justice for David too, except I don’t want to think about that, about the way he looked at me when I gave evidence against him at the trial. I didn’t know, David. I didn’t know . . .

  ‘Go forward,’ interrupted Vanessa impatiently, sitting up. ‘Read what happened at Blackwater. I need to know.’

  Trave nodded, skimming across several pages and then started reading again:

  August 24th:

  I have begun the search and so far I have found nothing. I took Titus’s keyring and searched his desk but found only boring business letters and stationery. And today I phoned Jacob like we agreed and told him he must be patient. I will not call again until I have found something – it is too much of a risk. Still, I am sure my uncle has no idea of what I am about. He seems pleased to have me home; it’s as if he wants to believe I’m a reformed character. But he’s obviously got his doubts – says he’ll have to put some weight on my bones and colour in my cheeks before he takes me out into society which is fine with me. I’ve got better things to do than make small talk with bigwigs. I don’t know about Franz – he watches me, but then again he watches everyone. Who wouldn’t with secrets like he has! God, I hate him. And his sister too, muttering in Dutch over her stupid crucifix. I wonder what she knows . . .

  August 25th:

  Franz and Titus were arguing in the dining room. Titus has a girlfriend in Oxford, the wife of that policeman who put David away.

  Trave looked up and caught Vanessa’s eye and dropped his gaze immediately. His wife had seemed so familiar sitting across from him on the sofa like she used to do that he’d forgotten for a moment the great divide that now separated them from each other. He bit his lip and went back to the diary:

  Franz doesn’t like it; says a policeman’s wife is a bad choice. I wonder why! Of course Franz would hate any woman Titus brought home: everyone knows what he is but no one’s going to admit it. More lies. This house is built on them.

  August 28th:

  I hate Franz. I hate the way he watches me all the time, the way he sneers at me like he knows what I’m looking for and knows I won’t find anything. I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and I want to go back to Oxford and get fixed and forget, but I can’t do that either. I promised myself and I promised Jacob.

  I look at my uncle and I can’t believe he could be involved. He’s always been kind to me; he often treats me like I’m his daughter. But if Franz is guilty then perhaps he is too. I have to know one way or the other. There’s a safe in Titus’s bedroom behind a picture. Yesterday I saw it open. I was out in the corridor and Titus had his back to me. He didn’t see me. I know he didn’t. And I went in there afterwards while he and Franz and Jana were downstairs eating lunch. I said I wasn’t hungry. That much was true. I tried all the different number combinations – every birthday, every important date I could think of, forwards and backwards, but nothing worked. I need to see him open it. That’s my only chance.

  August 30th:

  Twice now I’ve risked everything and come away with nothing, and I can’t do this any more. I know I can’t. Yesterday I lay under Titus’s bed for hours and he didn’t go near the safe – not once – but today I was lying there in the dust half asleep, daydreaming of Ethan, and suddenly Titus came in and went straight to the picture. I pushed up the counterpane and looked, but he was between me and the safe and I couldn’t see the numbers when he opened it. My heart was beating so hard and I was so frightened, and he looked round once and I thought he’d seen me, but then he left. And afterwards my legs were shaking so bad I could hardly make it out of the room. It’s so hard and I am so alone. I wish Ethan was here to tell me what to do because I don’t know about my uncle any more. Maybe he had nothing to do with killing Ethan; maybe Jacob’s got it wrong. Maybe it’s all Franz, but I can’t get into his bedroom. He keeps it locked. Day and night.

  ‘I told you,’ said Vanessa, nodding. ‘It’s not Titus; it’s Claes and his weird sister who are the guilty ones. But Katya must have found something. Otherwise they wouldn’t have killed her. Can’t you find what it was? It must be in there somewhere.’

  Trave turned several pages and suddenly looked excited. ‘Here it is,’ he said, and began reading again:

  September 2nd:

  This has been the longest day of my life. I found what I was looking for and then I lost it because I was a fool, and now I am a prisoner here in my own room. And I will die here. I know I will. And be forgotten. Like Ethan. Unless maybe someone finds this record after I am dead. I must write down everything that’s happened while I remember, while I can still write. Thank God they don’t know about my diary. I don’t think they even suspect that it exists.

  I was sitting here this morning in despair, and I took out a letter-writing pad from the top drawer of my desk to write a letter to Jacob to say it was over, because I’d gone as far as I could and found nothing. And the sun was shining down on me so brightly – it was like it was mocking me, except it wasn’t. I looked down out of the glare and it was showing me the outline of someone’s writing on the first page of the pad. And straight away I knew it was Ethan’s – even though the writing was only a faint indentation. I recognized his big, bold letters, and it was like he was speaking to me, like he’s been listening when I talk to him at night.

  ‘Dearest Katya, I’ve just got back. I need to see you. Meet me at the boathouse at five. Ethan.’ That was what he’d written. I looked at it and then I realized what it was. It was the note he must have written to me when he arrived back from West Germany on the day he died, or rather a copy of it that he had made unintentionally when his words indented through the thin paper as he wrote. I know what happened now. He must have come up to my room looking for me as soon as he got back, and then, when he didn’t find me, he took the pad out of the drawer to write the note, and when
he was done, he put it back where he’d found it. And it’s been there ever since, waiting for me – Ethan’s message to me from beyond the grave.

  And I knew straight away what happened afterwards too. Franz found the note taped to my door and he realized his opportunity. He tore off the top of the note and then used the bottom half to lure David out to the boathouse. So simple and yet so ingenious. And the plan worked beautifully. Ethan’s dead and David’s in prison serving a life sentence for something he never did.

  And I realized something else, something terrible. Franz must have kept Ethan prisoner in the boathouse all through the afternoon waiting for David to come. He couldn’t have killed Ethan before or the time of death wouldn’t match. My darling was alive all day while I was out shopping. Shopping! I couldn’t bear it. I rushed out of the house. I needed to think. I ran through the woods to the boathouse. That was where Franz had to have kept him. Perhaps Ethan had found a way to leave me some note, some sign before he died. I searched in every corner, every cranny, every crevice, but there was nothing, and then I walked back down the path through the trees, back the way I’d come. Not once but twice. I went down on my hands and knees in the undergrowth but still there was nothing. Nothing at all. And so I went and sat in the boathouse, laying my head on the table where I’d sat with Ethan so many times before. I remembered the past and I forgot about time, and it was like Ethan was alive again, just beyond the reach of my arms. But then I heard voices outside on the steps and there was nowhere to hide when they opened the door.

  Trave paused, glancing up at Vanessa as he turned the page. She was wild-eyed, sitting forward on the edge of the sofa only inches away from him with her hands clasped tight together in front of her chest. There was nothing he could say to comfort her, and so with a heavy heart he turned back to the diary and resumed his reading.

  CHAPTER 28

  For ten days Jacob had holed up in the cheap hotel behind Paddington Station where he’d stayed once before, back in the days when he was travelling round the records offices of Europe digging into Claes’s murky past. They took cash in advance at reception and asked no questions, so he didn’t need to tell them any lies. Every day he read the newspaper reports on the Swain trial and listened to the radio and took long walks through the London parks, enjoying the biting cold air that kept him alert as he waited for the jury to reach their verdict on David Swain. And when it came, announced as the first item on the six o’clock news on Wednesday evening, he wasn’t surprised. Instead he was ready. He got up the next morning, hoisted his pack onto his back after breakfast, and took the train to Banbury. He didn’t think the police would be watching the station in Oxford, but there was no need to take the risk. And from Banbury he rode the bicycle that he’d bought in London slowly through the gathering fog, taking the back roads until he came to the far side of Blackwater Lake and found the rowing boat exactly where he’d left it, hidden in a grove of evergreen trees growing a little way back from the bank. His plan had been to avoid the village and the road that passed by the boathouse and the Hall, but the thick fog meant that he did not need to worry about observation. Instead he found it a hard task to navigate his way across the lake and ended up reaching the other side a hundred yards up from his target. Still, eventually he had the boat and the bicycle stowed away under the boathouse and set off through the woods with his torch.

  An hour later, standing hidden in the trees at the top of the drive, listening to the Bentley disappearing into the distance, Jacob allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. Claes’s departure was a piece of luck that he hadn’t been anticipating. Now Osman would be on his own, apart from the servants and Claes’s sister, and he had nothing to fear from them. He waited a few minutes and then, with his hand cradled round the butt of the gun in his pocket, stepped out into the fog.

  This time it wasn’t Jana but a maid in uniform who answered the door and asked him his business. Immediately Jacob forced his way past her, demanding to see the master of the house. The noise brought Osman into the hall. He quickly retreated back towards his study as soon as he recognized his visitor, but Jacob ran after him down the corridor and was through the door before Osman had the chance to lock himself in.

  With nowhere left to go, Osman sat down behind his desk, as if hoping that a little display of dignity might bring Jacob to this senses, although it didn’t help that the top drawer was missing, gone to the furniture maker for repair after Jacob had blasted a hole through it on his last visit.

  ‘How dare you come in here like this?’ Osman demanded, trying and failing to give the impression that he was in control of the situation.

  Jacob didn’t respond, just looked down with contempt at Osman like he was some kind of loathsome insect that he hadn’t yet decided how best to dispose of.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Osman. He was unmistakably nervous now – beads of sweat had begun to form in his hairline, and a twitch at the corner of his bottom lip indicated his growing anxiety.

  ‘I want justice – the kind they’re not handing out up in London,’ said Jacob, pointing to the headline of the Daily Telegraph, which was lying folded on the desk between them: ‘David Swain to hang for Blackwater murder.’

  ‘I want justice for my father and mother and for my brother and Katya and for all the other men, women, and children that you and Claes have murdered in the last twenty years. That’s what I want,’ Jacob went on, banging his fist down on the desk to emphasize the name of each of the dead victims.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ said Osman in a shaky voice, shrinking into the back of his chair in the face of this verbal onslaught. ‘I swear it. David Swain killed your brother and Katya, and I tried to save your parents but I couldn’t. I saved you. Don’t you understand that? You wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. But why? Why did you save me, Titus?’ asked Jacob, leaning forward so that his face was only a few inches from Osman’s. ‘Come on, tell me. Spit it out: you know the answer. So that my parents would trust you when their turn came to try and escape across the border. That’s why. So they’d bring you all their precious diamonds and make you the diamond king. That’s all they were to you: the chance for more loot.’

  Jacob could no longer contain his anger. He lunged at Osman, taking hold of his enemy by the lapels of his Savile Row suit, and the fine cloth tore in Jacob’s hands as he dragged Osman out from behind the desk and over towards the door. Osman was too shocked at first to struggle; and then, when he began to resist, Jacob threw him down on the carpet, took the gun out of his pocket, and pointed it at Osman’s head.

  ‘Get up,’ he ordered, speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll kill you. I swear I will, if you don’t give me what I want.’

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Osman. It was the second time he’d asked Jacob the question, but now there was desperation in his voice: he’d lost control of his breathing and was panting as he spoke. And he seemed to have hurt himself as he fell: he held both his hands behind his back at the base of his spine as he got to his feet and stood swaying backwards and forwards in the doorway.

  ‘Proof,’ said Jacob. ‘That’s what I want. Proof of what you’ve done, so all the world can see you for what you are: a thief and a cold-blooded killer, not some big-hearted philanthropist.’

  ‘But there is no proof,’ said Osman, reaching out to touch Jacob’s arm in a gesture of supplication. ‘You’ve got to believe me: I’m an innocent man.’

  ‘Stop lying. I can’t stand to hear it,’ shouted Jacob, brandishing his gun. With his free hand he pushed Osman away, back through the half-open door, and then immediately came up behind him in the corridor outside, forcing the gun into the small of Osman’s back. It was the place where Osman had hurt himself when he fell, and he cried out in sudden pain.

  ‘You’re the least innocent man in the whole wide world,’ said Jacob, hissing the information into Osman’s ear. ‘Now get upstairs. Or I’ll do that again; only it’
ll be worse this time.’

  Osman was shaking from head to toe, but he obeyed the order, shuffling forward into the hall and up the stairs. At the top, Jacob directed him to the left, and they carried on their strange procession down the corridor to Osman’s bedroom. There was no sign of either Jana or the parlour maid or any of the other servants, and Osman wondered whether they had all fled the house, leaving him to deal with Jacob on his own. He’d been listening hard for the sound of the returning Bentley outside, but he’d heard nothing. ‘I won’t be long,’ Franz had said. So where was he now? And where were the police when he needed them?

  Concentrating his mind, Trave resumed his reading of Katya’s diary:

  Franz looked me in the eye and straight away I knew he knew. It was my fault. I realized what I’d done: like a fool I’d left the writing pad open on my desk when I ran out of the house, and he must have been watching me; he or his foul sister. She was there too, standing behind him on the steps with a smirk on her ugly white face like she was enjoying what was happening, like she wanted to see me suffer. I didn’t struggle. What was the point? I know Franz; I know what he’d like to do to me with his hands if he got the chance. I know what he did to Ethan with that knife. I wasn’t going to give him an excuse.

  I told him that I wanted to see my uncle; that I wanted to tell Titus what I’d found. I was playing my last card but it was like Franz knew what I’d been going to say. He said: ‘Certainly.’ Just that, and gave a little bow of his head and a wave of his hand like he was being polite, treating me like I was some kind of lady who needed to go first out the door. I wanted to run but I could hardly walk, and Jana was in front of me anyway so there was no way I could have escaped. Franz was behind my back. He wasn’t touching me, but I could feel his cold breath on the back of my neck while we walked through the woods and across the lawn back to the house. Back to my uncle waiting in his study.