The King of Diamonds

by Simon Tolkien

  * * *

  At the end of the corridor Jacob reached round Osman and pushed open the half-closed door with his free hand, and then shoved Osman forwards into the bedroom. But Osman was ready and didn’t fall this time; instead he caught hold of one of the carved mahogany posts of his four-poster bed and then turned to face his adversary, who was standing in the doorway, holding the gun trained on his forehead. Behind Osman, his cat, Cara, who had been sleeping on the bed, opened her green eyes wide in surprise. She’d never seen her master pushed across a room before.

  ‘Open it,’ commanded Jacob, pointing with a quick sideways motion of the gun towards the oil painting hanging on the wall between the two matching wardrobes.

  ‘Open what?’ asked Osman, playing for time even though he knew perfectly well what Jacob was telling him to do. Jana had given him a detailed description of her gunpoint encounter with Jacob and his inability to get in the safe ten days earlier. God, what an idiot he’d been, Osman thought, cursing himself for his stupidity. He should have known Jacob would come back, just as he should have known neither Franz nor Macrae could be relied on for protection – instead of finding Jacob they had left him here defenceless to face this maniac on his own. Too late, Osman realized he should have hired guards or left Blackwater altogether until Jacob was caught. Now he was caught himself with no means of escape.

  ‘Open the fucking safe!’ Jacob repeated his demand with a snarl in his voice; and then, when Osman did not immediately comply, he turned the gun a fraction of an inch and fired through the window overlooking the courtyard, shattering the glass with the bullet. A wave of cold air blew into the room, and Osman’s legs gave way beneath him as, unseen, the cat disappeared under the bed.

  Slowly, Osman got back to his feet and took the picture down off the wall with shaking hands. He glanced across at Jacob and then twisted the knob, entering the coded numbers one by one until the steel door clicked and he pulled it open. Behind Osman, Jacob leaned forwards, looking in at the lines of small blue silk bags, each with a different tiny white number embroidered on its side, and, behind them on a shelf, taking up most of the space at the back of the safe, three thick, dark green, leather-bound books.

  ‘Get those out,’ ordered Jacob, pointing at the books. ‘Show them to me.’

  ‘They’re my accounts. That’s all – who I’ve sold to, who I’ve bought from, my expenses – nothing else,’ said Osman as he took out the ledgers. He put the first two down on the ground and then held out the third one, turning the pages for Jacob’s inspection, as if he really thought they might convince Jacob that he was indeed an innocent man.

  ‘How far do they go back?’ asked Jacob, looking up from the names and dates and the columns of figures recorded in red and black ink.

  ‘This one four years,’ said Osman. ‘But it’s not finished. The other two are five each.’

  ‘Fourteen years. And before that?’

  ‘I don’t have records before I came to England. It was the war, you know,’ said Osman. He made it sound like the war explained everything.

  ‘No, I don’t know. You’re lying,’ said Jacob, losing his temper as his frustration boiled over. He’d pinned all his hopes on the stupid safe, and it had yielded him nothing. Trave had been right about Blackwater Hall. There was nothing here – no evidence, no proof, nothing. Or at least nothing that he was going to find without Osman’s help. And that help would only be forthcoming if Osman really believed that Jacob would kill him if he didn’t talk. The bastard didn’t believe that at present – that much was obvious. Jacob had to convince him. That’s what he needed to do.

  ‘Get down on your knees,’ he ordered, stepping back and retraining the gun on Osman’s head.

  Osman saw the homicidal look in Jacob’s eyes and was filled with a mortal terror that he’d never felt before. He couldn’t be going to die. Not now when he’d finally got everything he’d ever wanted. He grabbed a handful of the silk bags from inside the safe and pulled open their drawstrings, spilling radiant diamonds of all sizes and colours and cuts into his hand, holding them out to Jacob.

  ‘Here, take them,’ he said. ‘There are more, lots more. I can sell them for you if you want. They’re worth millions, more than you can imagine.’

  Jacob looked down at the array of jewels glittering in Osman’s outstretched hand and felt like he was going to be sick. He thought of his family members, dying terrible deaths in unspeakable places just so Osman could get hold of these meaningless baubles of crystal carbon and call them his own. They enraged him, and he leant forward with his free hand and dashed the diamonds out of Osman’s hand onto the floor. They fell, scattering in all directions across the pale blue Axminster carpet, and such was Osman’s obsession with the jewels that he looked down at them for a moment in disbelief, unable to believe that a person could treat such beauty with such contempt. But then he looked back up into Jacob’s cold, angry eyes and remembered his situation.

  ‘Get down on your knees,’ Jacob commanded again.

  But Osman stood his ground: he knew what would happen when he knelt, and he wasn’t going to assist in his own death. He closed his eyes and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in for rescue, and, as if in direct response, the roar of a police siren rent the silence, followed by the sound of a car coming fast up the drive. And suddenly the fog outside was lit up by flashing blue lights. Doors were opening – car doors and the front door of the house, and several moments later a familiar voice shouted up at them from down below: ‘Come out, Jacob Mendel. We know you’re in there. Come out now.’

  Keeping his gun trained on Osman, Jacob crossed the room and looked quickly down into the courtyard through the shattered window. The fog had cleared a little, and in the lights he could just about make out the faces of the figures down below: the young detective who’d held him in his flat with Trave was the one who had shouted, and a few yards away on the other side of the fountain was a big burly man in police uniform whom Jacob didn’t recognize. Beyond them, two figures, who could only be Jana Claes and the maid who’d answered the door, were running away up the drive.

  ‘Fuck!’ Backing away from the window, Jacob vented his anger with a series of expletives, and then he noticed how Osman had risen up to his full height again, puffing out his chest like he had nothing left to fear, like he was back to being Titus Osman, the king of diamonds again. He laughed mirthlessly at Osman’s lack of understanding, realizing suddenly that the police were an opportunity for him, not Osman. They could be witnesses to Osman’s confession. Jacob was grateful for their arrival.

  ‘Get over by the window,’ he ordered, pressing the cold, hard muzzle of the gun against the back of Osman’s head to force him forward. Down below the two policemen were looking up at them through the mist.

  ‘Now tell them,’ ordered Jacob in a steely voice. ‘Tell them what you did. Tell them about my parents, about how you betrayed them to the Nazis, about how you sent them to Auschwitz on the cattle train. Tell them about my brother, about how you and Claes put a knife in his back. Tell them about Katya. Tell them, Titus. I’ll kill you if you don’t. I swear I will.’

  But Osman wasn’t listening. He thought of jumping, but it was too far and he was too frightened. ‘Help me,’ he shouted, not at Clayton but at the burly man standing behind him. ‘That’s what I pay you for.’

  Below, Wale backed away towards the police car without responding, leaving it to Clayton to do the talking. ‘Let him go,’ Clayton shouted up at Jacob. ‘Claes is dead. Isn’t that enough?’

  But Jacob wasn’t listening. All his attention was focused on the trembling man in front of him. ‘Confess,’ he demanded, thrusting the gun into the small of Osman’s back. ‘Confess and I’ll let you go.’

  ‘No,’ said Osman. ‘I’m an innocent man.’ He shouted out the words so that everyone could hear them: Jana and the servants on the other side of the courtyard; the policemen down below; and even Osman’s cat, who’d emerged from under the bed and now stood w
atching the man who was hurting her master over by the window, forcing him to cry out in pain. Suddenly Cara arched her back and launched herself through the air, hanging on to Jacob’s shoulder with her claws as she sank her teeth into his neck, and, shocked to the core by this utterly unexpected attack from behind, Jacob dropped the gun.

  Osman was onto the opportunity in an instant. Displaying an entirely unexpected athleticism for a man of his age, he dived to the ground, seized the gun in his hand, and rolled away towards the door.

  Jacob staggered back into the room, struggling to get a firm grip on the cat as she continued her assault, scratching at his face and neck. Finally he succeeded in getting both his hands around her squirming body and threw her against the far wall, from where she fell to the floor with a shriek and then disappeared back under her master’s bed.

  Jacob couldn’t see for a moment. Blood was spurting out from a line of cuts on his forehead, and he put up his hand to wipe it away. When he opened his eyes he found himself looking straight down the barrel of his own gun.

  ‘Don’t move. Don’t speak,’ said Osman. They were over by the bed, out of view of the people in the courtyard down below.

  ‘So you want to hear my confession, do you?’ he asked. His voice was a whisper. His head was inches from Jacob’s; it was almost as if he was kissing Jacob with his words, feeling for his fear with the gun. ‘You want to be my priest? You want to give me absolution for my sins?’

  Jacob looked at his adversary, saying nothing, waiting to hear the truth. Behind him the soft winter breeze blew into the white silk curtains through the remains of the broken window, and down below Adam Clayton took Franz Claes’s gun out of his pocket, looked at it a moment, steeling his courage to the sticking place, and then went up the steps and entered the house through the wide-open front door.

  ‘There’s a line I can hardly read here,’ said Trave. His forehead was furrowed with concentration as he held Katya’s little diary up to the light. ‘It’s smudged like she spilt something on the page, or maybe she was crying.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Vanessa, nearly beside herself with impatience. ‘Get on with it, Bill. Put me out of my misery, for Christ’s sake.’

  And Trave began to read again, slowly deciphering Katya’s scribbled words:

  My uncle was sitting at his desk with Ethan’s note in front of him. And he looked up at me and smiled and I knew the truth then once and for all. He didn’t need to admit it. I knew what he had done. To Ethan and to David and to Ethan’s parents and to all those Jews he didn’t save.

  ‘So you found something, little Katya,’ he said. He’d never called me that before. ‘A whisper from the past. But that’s all it is, you know. A whisper; a murmur on the breeze that nobody will ever hear.’ And he picked up the writing pad and threw it on the fire and I watched it burn. Burn my proof to ashes; my hope to dust.

  I looked at him and I spat in his face and he took out a silk handkerchief and wiped the spit away. He was still smiling, told me he was sorry it had come to this and even looked half-regretful when Franz took hold of me from behind and dragged me upstairs. I can still feel Franz’s cold hands on my body even now two hours later: killer’s hands they are, with no pity in them at all; no mercy. They’re going to kill me. I know they are. Just like they killed Ethan. So why don’t they get it over with? What are they waiting for?

  ‘They were waiting to get David Swain out of gaol; that’s what they were waiting for,’ said Trave, looking up. ‘So that they could set him up with the murder.’

  But Vanessa wasn’t listening. Her face had crumpled up, and her body shook with terrible sobs. Titus was a murderer and she was his accomplice. That was the truth. If she had gone to the police with what Katya had told her the girl would still be alive. She’d been Katya’s last chance, and yet she had done nothing, just left Katya to her fate.

  Titus had lied to her about everything – even perhaps about the existence of his dead wife and child, and she had believed him because she had wanted to; because she was flattered by his attention and wanted to be the new Mrs Osman, living the good life out at Blackwater Hall. Vanessa looked down at her hand and pulled Osman’s beautiful diamond ring from her finger and threw it away into a corner of the room. But it didn’t help; it didn’t change anything. The ring was still there, glittering by the skirting board, an indestructible symbol of her complicity, and she knew that she’d never stop feeling ashamed of herself until she was dead and buried and couldn’t feel anything any more.

  ‘You want to know why I betrayed your parents?’ asked Osman, staring into Jacob’s eyes.

  ‘Because they were Jews?’

  ‘No; they could have been Hindus for all I cared. Guess again.’

  ‘For their diamonds?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Osman. ‘You know the answer. Of course you do, but you don’t understand it. Look, look, where you threw them on the floor.’ Osman gestured with the gun down at the gemstones glittering like tiny stars all over the pale blue carpet at their feet.

  ‘They’re bits of rock. That’s all. They’re not alive,’ said Jacob. ‘Not like your victims were.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Osman. ‘You’re right. They’re not like flesh and blood; they don’t decay; they don’t rot. Diamonds are forever.’

  Osman smiled, and Jacob knew suddenly what was going to happen next. He thought of shouting but knew instinctively that he wouldn’t get the words out of his mouth before the bullet entered his head. Osman would be able to say it was in self-defence – everyone down below in the courtyard had already seen Jacob at the window threatening the owner of the house with a gun.

  ‘Do people mean nothing to you?’ Jacob asked, playing for time. ‘Katya was your flesh and blood. She was almost like your daughter . . .’

  ‘She was a fool. That’s what she was. Just like you. She couldn’t help herself: she had to peep through the keyhole; she had to go where she was forbidden – and for that there’s a price to pay; there’s always a price to pay. And you know what that price is, don’t you, Jacob?’ asked Osman. His voice was gentle, almost sad, but the gun was steady in his hand.

  Jacob knew what was coming. He closed his eyes, shutting out Osman’s hateful face, waiting to hear the gun’s explosion in his ears – the last sound that he would ever hear, but instead he heard a familiar voice shouting ‘Stop’ somewhere to his left. He opened his eyes and saw Adam Clayton standing in the doorway, holding Claes’s gun shaking in his hands.

  And then everything happened in a whirl of motion that neither Clayton nor Jacob could really unravel afterward. Jacob threw his body against Osman as Osman turned and fired at Clayton, missing the policeman by a hair’s breadth. And in response, without thinking, Clayton squeezed the trigger of Claes’s gun and killed Titus Osman with a bullet that passed through his heart and flew out through the already-broken window of the bedroom, embedding itself in a high branch of one of the tall pine trees at the top of Osman’s drive. It was the first time that Clayton had ever fired a gun, and afterwards he hoped it would be the last.

  ‘Give me the diary, Bill,’ said Vanessa, holding out her hand. ‘I need to see what happened in the end.’

  At first Trave resisted. He was frightened for Vanessa, frightened of what the last entries in the dead girl’s diary might do to her peace of mind now that she knew who Osman really was and what he had done. In his moment of vindication Trave felt no sense of triumph at all. He just wished that none of it had ever happened, but, as he’d realized long ago, that was his lot in life. Like all murder detectives he always arrived too late.

  Reluctantly he handed the diary over. Vanessa had more right to it than he did after what she had gone through to get it. He sensed that she wanted to be alone, and so he went upstairs to phone Creswell. Osman and Claes and Claes’s sister needed to be arrested before anyone else got hurt.

  He put his hand on his wife’s shoulder briefly as he passed behind the sofa, feeling that he had never loved her as
much as he did at that moment and yet had never been more powerless to make her happy.

  Once the door closed, Vanessa turned the pages quickly, looking for the entry for September 15th, the day of her encounter with Katya in the drawing room. She soon found it:

  September 15th:

  I cannot bear the pain any more. I feel like I’m going mad. I think it would be better to die than to carry on like this. But how? That’s the question. Perhaps I can steal the matches from Jana when she comes in to feed me and then we’ll die together, she and I. Burn until there’s nothing left. There would be justice in that. But I know that at the last moment I won’t be able to go through with it; I’ll draw back – I know I will. Why? Why, in God’s name, why? It’s not fear of death that stops me. I know that. It’s hope; hope for life. Hope is my curse. It always has been. I see that now. God, how much better I would be without it. How much . . .

  Vanessa realized that Katya must have written this entry earlier in the day, before she fought with Jana in her room and escaped downstairs, but none of those events was recorded in the diary. It was like that night had been a watershed. The entries on the pages that followed grew shorter, no longer a record of the days but rather sporadic thoughts and expressions of desperate emotion. Vanessa wondered whether Katya had worried about having the diary open too long at any one time, but it was more likely, she thought, that the girl had just run out of energy and perhaps at the end even hope. There was only one reference to Vanessa by name. It came two days later and consisted of only a few words, but they stabbed Vanessa to the heart with a pain that she felt would never go away: