The Money Stones

by Ian St. James

  I replayed some of Hallsworth's arguments. 'Look at it this way. Who loses? If you turn the project down Pepalasis doesn't get his money and he's wasted a hell of a lot of time for nothing. He must be damned sure he can prove it's viable.'

  'Crap! Either way I lose. Suppose there's some evidence, I tell Harry to go ahead. On little more than a qualified guess. Then we strike out. Mine proves a dud. What happens? My name stinks. Right? On the other hand I can't test properly, so I tell Harry to cop out. Then your Greek raises the wind elsewhere and hits a bonanza. Result? My name stinks again. No, I'm sorry, Mike. No way. Count me out!'

  He meant it. Jean brought coffee and I did my soothing best to persuade him to change his mind, but he was sucking. And still sticking when Hallsworth phoned. I reported the state of play and he promised to get tough with Pepalasis and call back. McNeil and I waited in silence.

  Hallsworth was back within half an hour. 'I've put an idea to Ari and he's bought it. Let's simplify things. If you actually discover diamonds and bring them back, the deal goes ahead. Fix a figure. Say a hundred grand's worth, or whatever McNeil thinks reasonable. Actual diamonds. Makes it easier all round.'

  'And Pepalasis agreed?'

  'As a final concession. But Mike, he's at the absolute limit.'

  'I'll call you back. Where can I reach you?'

  'Don't worry. I'll call you. In about an hour. Give you time to check it out with Harry Smithers.'

  I told McNeil about the new proposals. 'Takes the pressure off you,' I pointed out. 'Pepalasis puts his proof where his mouth is.'

  McNeil turned purple. 'I'm going to tell you a few things about mining diamonds,' he snarled, jabbing a finger at me. 'It's not your subject, so I won't bore the pants off you with a goddamned lecture, but it's time you learned the facts of life. To start with, have you got any idea of the diamond content of diamond ore?'

  I squirmed. 'Kirk, is this necessary?'

  'Necessary!' he roared. 'I'll say it's damn well necessary. Because it strikes me you think we're going on a bloody picnic. The average content of diamond rich ore is something like one part in twenty million. Get it? One in twenty million. Can you imagine -'

  'But surely-?'

  'Jesus! Grant me patience. Will you listen? In two thousand years of mining about a hundred and.thirty tons of diamonds have been recovered. That's all. And to get it about three thousand million tons of rocks, sand and gravel have been sorted. Begin to get the picture?'

  'Of course, I understand -'

  'Understand!' His roar rattled the windows. 'You don't understand a pick from your prick. But you bloody well will. Listen, looking for diamonds is hard and I'll tell you why. For a start they aren't found in the rocks in which they were formed, like most minerals. So you've got three types of deposit. Alluvial, conglomerate rock and volcanic pipes. All alluvials are derived from undisclosed pipes. Pipes whose mouths are covered with more recent strata - maybe the result of geological upheaval at some time - follow me?'

  I nodded and remained silent, thinking that if I didn't add fuel to his temper he'd burn himself out.

  'For instance,' he said, his voice dropping to a level which would at least let them get back to work again in Grosvenor Square. 'Diamonds have been found in the States. Not many, but some, and all over. But there aren't any pipes there. So how'd they get there? Most geologists will tell you that they were carried down by ice-age glaciers from Canada. That's possible. Pipes have been discovered in Canada. But none worth mining. So you see the next problem? Finding kimberlite pipes doesn't guarantee finding diamonds. Christ, I've known pipes as barren as a doctored cat. So our Greek's pipes prove nothing. It's just a starting point, that's all.'

  'So you make tests?' I suggested.

  'Tests!' he slammed a fist on the desk top. 'Damn right we make tests. Magnetic tests. Gravitational tests. Electrical tests. Radioactive tests. How many tests d'you want, for God's sake?'

  'You're the teacher.'

  He scowled, still angry. 'And after testing we sink shafts.

  And boreholes. Shafts for shallow tests - boreholes deeper. Some go down as far as seven thousand metres! And d'you know what a borehole costs?' Anything from fifty to a hundred quid a metre. You're the accountant - you work it out. And while you're doing it, remember this. Even the oil boys, with all their muscles and experience, reckon to drill twenty dry holes for every one that strikes oil.'

  He slumped into a chair, red-faced and truculent, but drained of the hot blast of temper. 'So getting back to our tricky Greek,' he growled. 'We're to go to an island. Make no tests. Sink no shafts. Carry no instruments. And find ourselves some bloody diamonds.'

  'If we don't,' I pointed out tentatively, 'it's his loss.'

  Jean brought fresh coffee and I stuck, at it like a politician on the hustings. Accountants and bankers generally make bad salesmen but I read Dale Carnegie once, and maybe it helped. I plugged away with the argument that the only loser could be Pepalasis himself. And I tinkered up some compromise clauses of my own, lumbering the Greek not only with the expenses of the trip but a fifty thousand pound penalty if we came back empty-handed. Only a mad man or someone super confident would sign a deal like that. And when we phoned Smithers, with McNeil on an extension for a three-way conversation, Harry jibbed. Accepting my items but adding one of his own. If we were not to be allowed to take instruments, we would have to come back with diamonds and a general assessment from McNeil, before the money went in.

  Hallsworth phoned on the dot of twelve. I gave him the good news. And the bad. Then listened while he relayed it to Pepalasis in the background. Even McNeil, more than a yard from the phone, heard the explosion of temper at the other end. But Hallsworth could charm the birds from the trees when he chose and ten or twelve minutes later he had actually got agreement. Provided that we left on Saturday. We arranged for all parties to meet at the A.W.F. offices the next afternoon to sign the contracts, and then he hung up. I felt relieved and triumphant - and prepared to believe it when it happened. After which McNeil thawed out enough to stand me lunch at Scots to celebrate, and then he left in a cab for the City.

  I walked back from the restaurant in Mount Street, and was climbing the steps to the front door of the office when, quite suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck pricked. Odd feeling, the sensation you get when you look up expectedly and catch someone watching you. I stared back across the street. A postman, passers by, a female traffic warden. The normal scene. Dismissing it, I hurried up to the office, planning a busy afternoon with Jean. She was on an outside call when I buzzed, so I left the key down, which meant a light would show on her desk telling her that I wanted her when she finished.

  Idly I looked out of the window, lighting a cigarette, thinking what might crop up during my absence. And then I saw him. Medium height, brown hair, middle thirties. Getting into the passenger seat of the car parked fifty yards away. Pointing down Hill Street towards Berkeley Square. Facing our building. I knew I'd seen him before. Recently. And seconds later it came to me. The Dorchester lobby yesterday. And Trader Vic's on Tuesday when I had lunched with McNeil. Something twisted in my stomach and I sat staring out of the window, almost sweating with alarm. It was minutes before I got the nerves sufficiently under control to look for a rational explanation. Probably just someone else who worked in the area? There were dozens of half-familiar faces around the place. People who used the restaurants and bars locally. I grunted and turned away, telling myself to forget it before I ended up in the same stupid state as Pepalasis.

  If the car had driven away I'd have thought no more of it. Jean came in and we immersed ourselves in work until three-thirty when the office junior brought tea and Jean went back to the office to get a file. I looked out of the window. The car was still there. Complete with its two occupants.

  Jean returned as I reached a decision. 'I'm going out for a minute. Forgot to get cigarettes.'

  'I've got some. And a spare pack in my desk.'

  'Oh.' There was
nothing for it but to tell her. 'Look, I think someone's playing a joke on me. All very silly really. Come over to the window a minute, will you. No, not too close. See that car down there? The blue one? Well watch what happens when I go out. I'll only be ten minutes.'

  I walked quickly. Crossing to the south side of the street, passing the blue Fiat close enough to touch it, eyes straight ahead, resisting the urge to sneak a quick glance. Across South Audley Street into Park Lane, left fifty yards and into the tobacconist's. I paused, browsing through magazines, half hoping that the man I had recognised would follow me into the shop. Nothing. I moved round the racks to get a better view of the street outside. The usual scurry of pedestrians against a backcloth of red buses and black cabs. But no eyes peering curiously in through the plate glass window. I bought a newspaper and moved from the counter pretending to read an inside page. A woman bought some tissues. Followed by a man for cigarettes and a boy for chocolate. I reached for a magazine, thinking that I had walked too quickly, needing to allow time to pass, give him a chance to catch up. My eyes darted from the glossy page every time the door opened. A smartly dressed matron with blue rinsed hair, buying a road map of London and asking the whereabouts of the Tate in flat American. A thin man in a shiny suit buying cigarettes. Then a gap. Minutes passed, five, ten. Nothing. Except the probe of the assistant's eye hostile with suspicion.

  Suddenly the whole performance seemed absurd. I bought a couple of packs of cigarettes and left, continuing on round the block, back to Hill Street and up the steps to the office. Hurriedly I climbed the stairs to my own office, feeling incredibly stupid, embarrassed by my own behaviour.

  'You were longer than ten minutes,' Jean said, accusingly. 'Nearer twenty-five.'

  'Sorry.' I almost blushed as I sat behind my desk, anxious to resume work. 'Well? Who is he?' 'Who's who?'

  'The driver of that car. The man who followed you?'

  Eight

  Jean and I worked until six when I asked her out to dinner. I felt the need of company, and hers would be a bonus. Being followed had left me edgy, and I cursed Hallsworth for not letting me know his whereabouts, oddly sure that he would know what to do about it.

  While Jean went home to change I waited in the flat. She promised to be back in an hour but I allowed an hour and a half; efficiency personified in the office was one thing, a woman getting ready for an evening out - another.

  The car had gone. I watched from the fourth floor windows and wondered about it. About them - who they might be - what they wanted? If they were the burglars why hang about watching the building? If they were the men who attacked Pepalasis what did they want from me? I remembered Hallsworth's agitation. It had seemed ridiculous at the time. Now I wasn't so sure.

  Jean arrived at about eight. A cab door slammed in the street seconds before the door bell buzzed. The flat was fitted with a security lock and an intercom so I could open the front door from upstairs after identifying the caller. She looked stunning, more elegant than I'd ever seen her. We had a couple of drinks and then walked across to the Twenty-One Club to dine on the terrace.

  'You still haven't told me,' she said, 'who that man was?'

  'I don't know.'

  'But you said? Someone playing a joke?' Her blue eyes rounded with suspicion. 'Not that I believed you.'

  'Oh?'

  'Something's going on, isn't it? The burglary. Then that man Pepalasis in the office the other day - as nervous as a kitten. You're the boss of course, but -'

  There was no-one I liked more, trusted, more, who was more discreet, more loyal than Jean. So I filled in the gaps. About the missing map. Pepalasis being worked over. Even me staying at the Carlton Tower last night.

  'Mike, you've got to go to the police.'

  'Hallsworth's dead against it. Afraid that news of the Pepalasis project might get into general circulation.' I cheered up and tried to make light of it, as much for her benefit as mine. 'Anyway, if this thing's signed tomorrow and we go off to the island, no doubt it will be all sorted out.'

  I was glad to talk to her about it. You can't work closely with someone for four years and start having secrets. Not someone you like as much as I liked Jean. It doesn't work. And she was nobody's fool, and if she was going to be in charge while I was away, it seemed only fair to put her on her guard.

  We had a coffee and brandy, but when I suggested one for the road she shook her head. 'But you could twist my arm to have a coffee back at the flat.'

  I was surprised. It was past eleven and whenever we'd been out before she'd refused any suggestion of coming back afterwards.

  At Hill Street she fixed coffee while I poured brandy, fiddled with the hi-fi and considered our relationship. Dinner had been a tonic and I felt relaxed and unwound for the first time that day. And she looked especially beautiful. She had done her hair differently and the dress she wore had been exciting me all evening. The dress and the way she moved inside it. Rules seem damned silly at times and the urge to break one had never been stronger.

  She might have read my mind because she blushed when she spoke. 'Don't misinterpret this, but I've got a proposition to make. Suppose I stay here tonight? It seems silly not to. Trudging back to Fulham and turning round first thing in the morning.'

  I was delighted. Triumphant. The flat only had one bedroom and Jean knew it. The perfect ending to a pleasant evening. I moved closer on the sofa, an arm encircling her shoulders. When we kissed, her lips were soft and yielding and responding. But as it ended she pushed me away. 'You're doing it,', she said, eyes amused, her hands intercepting mine like Spitfires climbing to meet Messerschmitts.

  'So were you.'

  'I meant that you were misinterpreting.'

  'I'm easily confused. Besides I've only got the one bedroom.'

  'I've slept on sofas before.'

  'But I couldn't permit it. It would be unchivalrous.'

  'Thank you. Then I'll have the bed, and you can have the sofa.'

  I glared as she kissed me lightly and darted back out of reach. 'Complications,' she said shaking her head, slowly, sadly almost.

  Then the telephone rang. I got up and crossed to the bookcase, cursing the interruption. It was Sue.

  'Oh hello.' I started guiltily, my eyes finding Jean, wondering if she guessed who it was. Jean knew Sue, at least knew of her, from occasional messages left at the office, knew she'd stayed at the flat, at least guessed she'd been with me in North Wales.

  'I'm sorry it's late, darling,' Sue was saying. 'I've been working - didn't notice the time. I phoned earlier but you were out.'

  'Yes - dinner - er, how are you?'

  Jean smiled knowingly, blew a kiss, mouthed the word 'complications' and went into the bedroom. I ground my teeth as I watched her go.

  Sue prattled on for a minute or two before reaching the point. 'I was thinking of coming this weekend? Unless you're frightfully busy.'

  'I don't think I'll be here. The Pepalasis project.'

  'Oh, darling, how wonderful. Treasure Island at last. You must be thrilled out of your mind. Do you know where it is yet?'

  'No, and I don't think I will until we get there.' I was only half concentrating, my mind back in Barmouth and her telephone call to the Dorchester. It seemed such a silly, unnecessary lie.

  'Darling, is anything wrong?' Sue was asking. 'Are you worrying about anything?'

  Always damned questions. Forever, wanting to know. Once it had flattered me. Now it seemed a perpetual inquisition. I watched Jean emerge from the bedroom, toss sheets and blankets onto the sofa and disappear out to the lobby. Then I heard the hum of the lift door. I frowned, wondering why she was going downstairs when she was staying.

  I spent a few minutes finishing the one-sided telephone conversation. Sue was bubbling as usual, but my responses were flat and stilted. It wasn't just because Jean was in the flat, but ever since the Barmouth episode I had been plagued with memories of Bob Harrison's red face as he protested that no Ballantyne had ever served in Singapore - l
et alone died there. The discovery of her lies had helped me to decide to end a relationship which had spluttered on for a couple of years without really going anywhere. But not, I decided, over the telephone.

  She promised to call again in a fortnight and giggled her way to the finish. 'And send me a card. Or a least bring me back a parrot. And some pieces of eight.'

  I replaced the telephone as Jean returned, carrying a suitcase.

  'You planned to stay?' I was amazed, realising that the suggestion hadn't sprung from the mood of the moment.

  She blushed furiously, holding me at arm's length as I took the case from her. 'Mike, don't rush it, please. It's just that I knew something was wrong. Even before you told me.'

  'And you've come to protect me?'

  'And don't laugh either. But sometimes, two people together-'

  The phone rang again. Twelve-thirty at night and suddenly the whole blasted world had to speak to me!

  'Mr Townsend?' A man's voice, not one I recognised.

  'Yes-who's this?'

  'My name doesn't matter, Mr Townsend. Just a well wisher. With a proposition.'

  My night for propositions! I threw a quick glance at Jean, knowing whose I preferred. 'Look, who is this?'

  'Patience, Mr Townsend. And a chance to earn some money. Big money.'

  Something prompted me to wave at Jean, pointing to the telephone, then the bedroom, hoping she would understand. She left as I asked, 'Do you have any idea how late it is?'

  He chuckled. 'It's never too late to make money. A great deal of money.'

  I heard a click as Jean picked up the extension. I said, 'Look, whoever you are, I don't do business with people who withhold their names. Especially at this time of night. I suggest you telephone my secretary tomorrow to make an appointment, stating your business and -'

  Again the chuckle. 'Unless I'm much mistaken, your secretary has just joined us. Good evening, Miss Wilmslow.' A great gust of laughter this time, the sound distorting over the line, empty of humour and laced with cruelty. Once, as a kid, I'd seen a boy blind a kitten while making the same sound. 'But to get to the point, Mr Townsend. You have the location of an island. Know the place I mean? We'd like to know where it is. That's all. And we're prepared to pay generously for your help. Very generously. Maybe as much as a hundred thousand dollars.'