“No, don’t worry. You’ve been really helpful, thanks.”
Gina’s phone went to voicemail yet again. Tom cursed. He tried to think things through. She usually has her phone on her but she’ll be in school so she’s probably turned it off. Maybe she’ll check it later. Okay, I’m wasting valuable time here. I’ve got to get things moving.
Tom dialled another number.
“Mr. Egon, it’s Tom Cotter here.”
“Hello, Mr. Cotter. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
“No, well…I’d like you to come and see me. I have items that may be of great interest to you.”
“Really? I haven’t heard about this from Mr. Sissouma,” he said, puzzled.
“That’s because they’re nothing to do with him. I would like you to come and verify these objects.”
“But what about Mr. Sissouma?” Egon said gravely.
“Don’t worry about him. If these objects are what I suspect they are, your visit will be very worthwhile.”
Gina arrived at P.J. Harpers and loitered outside, deciding what to do.
It’s too crazy, isn’t it?
Her phone rang. She ignored it – it was Tom yet again.
How many times is that? Five? Six? Look at how he’s behaving. What he did this morning. Yeah, I need to go in there.
The bell on the door rang out as Gina entered the jeweller’s. She stood nervously in the carpeted square surrounded on three sides by cabinets displaying seductively lit jewellery.
She approached the flash sales assistant in the sharp suit, who eyed her suspiciously.
“Hello,” she said, trying to sound as mature as possible.
“Can I help you?” he asked curtly.
“I’m hoping so.” She smiled stiffly. “I have some stones that I’d like you to look at, please.”
The sales assistant watched as Gina got out her fluffy purple pencil case and handed him the five objects.
He looked disapprovingly from the dull stones to the teenage girl. “Are you sure you need a jeweller’s? These look like something you’d buy from a seaside rock shop.”
“Please just look at them.”
“Sorry, I can’t help you. We’re busy. But thanks for calling,” he said sarcastically.
Gina surveyed the empty shop and narrowed her eyes. “Look, you obviously don’t know much. Could I talk to someone who does?”
The man seemed most put out.
“I’m not leaving until I see someone who actually knows their job,” she said, folding her arms and standing firm in the middle of the shop floor.
The man huffed and called out, “Mr. Fenton, there’s a girl here who’s refusing to leave the shop unless someone looks at some grubby old stones she’s got.”
An older man appeared from the back of the shop. “Is there a problem, Mr. Drake?”
“This girl wants us to check out these stones.” He rolled his eyes, whispering loudly, “She’s a total time-waster – look at the state of them.”
“Shouldn’t you be at school, young lady?” Mr. Fenton asked archly.
“It’s a teacher training day,” Gina replied.
“Then why are you in your uniform?”
“I forgot, didn’t I – turned up, wondered why the place was so quiet.” She pulled a gormless face. “Anyway, would you look at these stones for me?”
“Will you leave without any fuss if I do?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Come on, let’s see what we’ve got then.” Mr. Fenton spread the stones out on a black cloth and pulled a loupe out of his pocket, putting it to his eye. He picked up one of the stones with tweezers and examined it with the magnifying lens. He turned the stone slowly around before picking up the next one, then the next. He scrutinized each one without comment, but Gina noticed an almost imperceptible twitch of his mouth.
He lowered the loupe from his eye and proceeded to put one of the stones to his lips.
“Lovely and cold,” he whispered excitedly. “Gary, get the tester out.”
“Which one?” Gary Drake asked.
“The one that checks for thermal conductivity.”
“No!” he said incredulously.
“Yes! Now!”
“What are they? Please tell me.” Gina was practically dancing on the spot.
“Patience,” Mr. Fenton replied, placing the stones gently inside the little open box. He touched wires to each of the stones in turn, his eyes and grin getting wider with each reading.
Gina felt like she was about to burst. “Please tell me what they are.”
“What you have here, young lady,” Mr. Fenton announced, “are gem quality, blue rough diamonds. Quite extraordinary! In all my years of working in this shop I’ve never even seen a genuine blue diamond. They estimate that for every ten thousand diamonds mined only one will be of colour. These stones are extremely valuable.”
“But they just look like grubby cloudy stones,” Gary Drake protested.
“They’re uncut, Gary. This is what diamonds look like when they come out of the earth. You’ve only seen them all cut and polished and ready to sell to our customers. An expert diamond cutter could transform these stones into breathtaking gems.”
“They glow red, you know, when they’ve been under a UV light,” Gina said, giddy with excitement. “I looked it up on the internet but it just sounded too crazy that they could be diamonds.”
“Where did you get them from?” Mr. Fenton’s voice was suddenly stern.
Gina hesitated. “They…they were my dad’s.”
“And where did he get them from?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged.
Mr Fenton frowned. “This is all very unusual. I’m afraid I can’t let you walk out of here with these gems. I need to keep hold of them and you need to stay here while I make a phone call. I think you and your dad will have some questions to answer so we can get to the bottom of this.”
“You don’t understand! I’ve got to go. Please give me my stones back.”
“Didn’t you hear what Mr. Fenton said? You’ve got to stay, until we sort this out,” Gary Drake said, surreptitiously pushing a button under the counter.
The button set off a clanking sound. Gina looked to the front of the shop and saw metal grates starting to roll down over the windows and doorway of the jeweller’s.
She leaned right over the counter, her feet off the ground, and grabbed the stones out of the box.
“No you don’t!” Gary Drake said, seizing her by her school jumper. Gina wriggled like a fish on a hook until she’d managed to slip out from his grip, leaving the jumper in Drake’s clenched hands. She grabbed her bag and ran to the door, the grates now nearing the ground. Drake jumped over the counter after her. She swung the door open and dropped down onto her stomach, sliding under the clanking metal that was only centimetres above her. She pulled her feet clear just as the grates clanged to the ground, trapping the furious assistant behind them.
“Raise the grates, Mr. Fenton,” she heard Drake cry as she sprinted away.
Gina sat on the park bench, catching her breath, deep in thought. She looked at her phone, waiting for it to ring. She didn’t have to wait long.
Seeing Tom’s name appear, she muttered, “I’m ready for you.”
“Hi, Gina, you’ve answered at last.” Tom sounded so relieved. “How you doing?”
“Fine,” she said coolly. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m great.”
“I’ve only just noticed you’ve left me a load of messages – anything wrong?” She feigned innocence.
“No, not really. It’s just that Danny was telling me about that weird thing in the fish tank. You know, those stones glowing red.”
“Aah…” She sounded bored.
“Have you got them? How many were there?”
“How many should there be?”
“What? How should I know?” He sounded rattled. “I’d love to see them.”
“Why?”
“Really? I never knew that.” Her words dripped with an unveiled sarcasm.
“Oh,” he said cheerfully, “there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Gina.”
“Actually, I know more than you think.”
“What do you mean by that?” he said with a nervous laugh.
She ignored his question. “Why do you think those blue stones would glow blood-red?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Well, should I tell you then?”
“Yeah, sure. If you’ve got a theory.”
“It’s called phosphorescence. It’s a physical property of the stones which means they’ve reacted to the UV light that you put in to get rid of the algae. If those stones are exposed to ultraviolet light they will start to glow, but only after the light has been turned off. Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, wow! You seem very well informed, Gina.”
“It’s amazing what you can find out from the internet. But listen, it gets even more interesting, because any old stones can’t do this. Only very special stones.”
“Well, I wouldn’t get carried away. I doubt there’s much special about stones in a fish tank, but I’d like to see them all the same. I have a mate who could look at them for us and tell us exactly what they are. He’s probably more reliable than the internet.”
“Thanks, Uncle Tom, but we don’t need your mate. You see, I’ve been to a jeweller’s, got them checked out myself, and can you guess what they told me?”
“No,” Tom said tensely.
“Oh, come on now, Uncle Tom, I want you to guess,” she said in a sing-song voice. “What do you think those stones are?”
“Really, Gina, just tell me. I don’t know.”
“Hard luck, if you won’t even guess then I’m not telling you. Bye.”
“Gina!” he jumped in. “Don’t hang up. Okay, I’ll guess. It’s a stupid, random guess but I suppose, if you’re saying that they’re very special…well, I suppose you could be talking about something like diamonds?”
“Wow! Well done! What a great guess. You’re so clever, Uncle Tom,” she said with bite. “Yes, the jeweller said that those cloudy, dirty blue stones from the bottom of Danny’s fish tank are rough diamonds. He got very excited actually, said that those unimpressive-looking stones are worth a fortune. How about that then?”
“They’re mine!” Tom blurted out.
“I don’t think so,” Gina retorted. “They belong to my dad.”
“No! He stole them from me and I want them back.”
“Have you been looking for them, all this time? Is that what this has all been about? Going through my dad’s things, digging up his allotment, taking his shed apart? And what about the day of Dad’s funeral, when our house was broken into and everything turned upside down – you organized that, didn’t you, Uncle Tom?”
He didn’t deny it; instead he said, “I only want what’s mine, Gina. You just need to hand over the stones to me.”
“No! I’m not going to do that.” She ended the call defiantly.
Declan put the shopping bags down on the pavement to answer his phone.
“Hi, Gina, what are you doing using your mobile at school. You bad girl.”
“I’m not in school. Is Tom in work?”
“No, he hasn’t been in all day. Even Kylie doesn’t know where he is.”
“Where are you? It doesn’t sound like the warehouse.”
“No, Kylie said it would be okay to take a late lunch so I could help Mrs. Mac and Bridie do their weekly shop. We’re just outside Mrs. Mac’s. I’m unloading the car and then I’ll head back to work.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Bridie drove; she nearly killed us.”
“Listen, Declan, I’ve found five blue diamonds – rough, uncut diamonds.”
“What? Where?”
“You’re not going to believe this, but they were in Danny’s fish tank, just lying there, all this time, with all the other stones on the bottom of the tank.”
“Come off it! That’s crazy. Are you sure they’re diamonds?”
“Yeah, a hundred per cent. I’ve had them checked out. But it’s Tom. Tom’s involved. He knows about them; he wants them. He’s just phoned me – he says they belong to him and that my dad stole them from him. But that’s crap, isn’t it? My dad wouldn’t do that.”
“But…but what the hell were they doing in the fish tank?”
“My dad bought the tank for Danny. He had it in the car on the day he died; he must have hidden them in there. He mustn’t have told anyone. But Tom’s been looking for them all this time. I know he has.”
“But where are they from?”
“I don’t know. My head’s spinning.”
There was silence. Declan’s brain was racing so fast he couldn’t speak.
“Declan, are you still there?” Gina asked.
“Yeah, sorry.” He sounded distracted.
“Did you find out anything about his expenses, from Kylie?” Gina asked anxiously.
“Yeah, she had spreadsheets for all his business expenses going back the six years that she’s worked there. She wasn’t happy, but she let me look at them. There wasn’t much on that day, just a payment for petrol. Nothing for any hotel and I checked through the whole of that week for hotel payments but there’s nothing recorded.”
Gina’s voice jumped on him. “Nothing! Are you sure?”
“Well, that’s what Kylie’s spreadsheets say.”
“Declan…” Her voice trembled. “He lied. Tom knows the truth about my dad and I’m going to make him tell me.”
“How?”
“I’ve got something now that he’s desperate to get his hands on, haven’t I?”
“Oh, please, Gina, don’t do anything stupid! Where are you now?”
“I’m in the park but I’m going to head home. I can’t get through to my mum. I want to get to the house before Danny. I need to keep Tom away from him. He terrified Danny this morning.”
“Listen, Gina,” Declan said gravely. “I need to make a phone call. I’ll get back to you in a minute.”
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“Someone who’ll know what to do.”
Bridie bustled up to Declan, observing his troubled eyes and furrowed brow.
“What’s wrong, Declan, darlin’? You look like you have the worries of the world on your shoulders. Deidre! Put the kettle on, will you, Declan’s not himself.”
Mrs. Mac came for a closer inspection. “Oh yes. Definitely not himself.”
Declan looked down at the two concerned pensioners. “Thank you, ladies, but I haven’t got time for tea,” he said, bounding into the house.
Declan chewed his nails, waiting for Stevie to pick up.
“Hello, Declan,” came the gravelly voice. “Any news for your Uncle Stevie?”
“Yes! You need to phone the police, now!”
The man guffawed down the phone. “Have you forgotten, lad? I am the police.”
“Yeah, I know…but I mean proper police,” Declan said. “We need police cars with their sirens blazing. We need to find Cotter and arrest him, right now, before Gina gets to him or he gets to her.”
“I feel a bit insulted, Declan. I’ve been a ‘proper’ policeman for twenty-five years. I’ve got more experience than most of the uniforms put together. Us plain-clothes are the real deal. You should show more respect.”
“Whatever!” Declan snapped. “Just arrest Cotter, will you?”
“There’s nothing I’d like to do more, but why?”
“How about if I told you what Cotter and Sissouma are smuggling in those sacks of cocoa beans.”
“Go on, I’m all ears.”
“It’s diamonds! Rough diamonds.”
“Diamonds, hey!” His usually sarcastic tone sparked with excitement. “Can you be sure of that?”
“O
h yeah, just wait until you hear what Gina’s found in the bottom of her brother’s fish tank,” Declan said triumphantly before launching into the tale of the glowing stones.
“Oh my God, lad, this is beautiful, just beautiful! I could kiss you!”
“This is what Sissouma was talking about when he said what his boss supplied induced great happiness but cost much more. I thought it must be drugs, but it’s diamonds.”
“It sure is,” Stevie said excitedly.
“Did you know about this already?” Declan asked, puzzled.
“I had my suspicions.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Find Cotter and arrest him before he gets to Gina. She’s got the diamonds. She’s talking about using them to get the truth out of Cotter.”
“The truth about what?”
“About her dad.”
“Well, she may not like what she hears. If Martin Wilson hid those stones, he must have been in it up to his neck. Where is she now?”
“Heading home.”
“We’ll use unmarked cars and keep an eye on her but I can’t arrest Cotter yet. I need to hold back and see how this plays out. I still haven’t got any solid evidence. I don’t want to blow my chance of nailing him.”
“But you can’t hold back. Cotter is dangerous. Look what he did to me.”
“He won’t touch her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Listen carefully, lad, because I need to explain to you what we’re dealing with here. Then maybe you’ll understand how important it is to get these bastards,” Stevie said ominously. “I’ve known something was going on since the day of Martin Wilson’s funeral. We had a tip-off from the Met that Sissouma was in the area. My colleagues down in London had him under low-level surveillance; they knew he was working for a dangerous man back in the Ivory Coast. They suspected he coordinated some kind of money-laundering operation but they hadn’t managed to get anything on him.
“I was assigned to tail him that day. I saw him outside the Wilsons’ house. I saw him get out of his car and nod to Cotter when he looked out of the upstairs window. A second later Gina Wilson looked out but Sissouma didn’t even notice her. It got me wondering what the connection was between the two men. So I started to take an interest in Cotter. I figured that with his warehouse business, shipments from the Ivory Coast and some kind of connection with Sissouma – Cotter was in a great position to get involved in smuggling something.”
Blood Tracks Page 23