The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  He stopped, took out a handkerchief, blew his nose and took a deep breath. “They’re both still there with Suzie. They get on just great together. I flew to London last night and on to Geneva early this morning.”

  “I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine how painful it was for all of you.”

  Leticia added her condolences. Then she paused. “But why did you come to Geneva when your father is just passed away?”

  “Because he asked me to come. He told us all about his work in Portugal with Charlie and Olivier and about the Revolution of the Carnations. Everything about Angola, Henriques, the guerrilla wars, about Cunhal and his bodyguard, Alberto. I’ve never heard such a story in my entire life. It was like reading a book on African colonial history. Then he told us about the Angolan Clan and their thirty years of incredible business. And of course, he wanted me to take over from him, so I came straight here for the meeting.”

  “Except it seems that there is no meeting. What’s happened to Laurent and Raffael?”

  “I haven’t got a clue. I don’t know how to get in touch with Raffael, but I emailed Laurent to arrange for the completion and I got a reply saying he wanted to do it in Geneva this week and he’d confirm the details later. I naturally assumed that he’d be here for the meeting.”

  “That reminds me,” Jenny said. “I sent emails to each partner about Charlie’s funeral and I got a reply from Nick and Laurent, so who answered my mail to Nick?”

  “My mother did. My father asked her to and I agreed. He had already sent a message to Charlie and Laurent about the completion of our deal and about the annual meeting just as if everything was normal. He didn’t want anyone to know how sick he was. Then when my mom and I came over to see him, it started to get very complicated. And when we got your message about Charlie’s accident, things went from bad to worse. He felt he couldn’t tell you about his illness or about me when Charlie had just died.

  “He was sick and he was emotional and he didn’t know what to do for the best. He was upset over everything. He didn’t know how to handle it, so we decided that it was best for me to come and explain everything to you myself.”

  “But you couldn’t have come from Florida to Charlie’s funeral in such a short time, it’s not possible.” Jenny’s forebodings were returning. Some things didn’t seem to add up.

  “I wasn’t in Florida then. I left at the end of February to go to New York and London because I had contracts to finalise to sell a thousand diamonds by the end of March. I was flying backwards and forwards for the whole month. And when I called my mother that day from London and she told me that they’d received your email, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that Charlie was dead and Nick was dying. That’s the two main partners gone! She told me my father’s opinion and we both agreed it was the best solution. So I took the flight that night from London to Malaga for the funeral the next morning and went back to London that afternoon and on to Florida to see my parents again.”

  “But why didn’t you tell us all this at the funeral? You didn’t even mention Nick, or Laurent, or the Angolan Clan. We had no idea who you were until you told us your story today.”

  “Jenny, when I got to Marbella, I honestly didn’t have the nerve to tell you. It was your father-in-law’s funeral and you and Leticia were very upset. I just didn’t think the funeral was the right time to tell you all this. And what do you want me to say? Sorry Charlie’s dead. By the way, Nick will be too in a few days. And how do you do, I’m the son he never had.”

  “So you haven’t told Laurent, either?”

  “Just the same. My father didn’t want any of his friends to know that he was dying, nor that the man they’d been dealing with was his own son. And after he heard about Charlie, there was no way he was going to upset them any further. Soon enough to tell Laurent about Nick and myself when I arrived for this meeting. It’s very difficult to do these things from a distance, he couldn’t face it and neither could I.”

  “I understand very well, Adam, we have the same trouble to tell everyone who we are,” Leticia said sympathetically.

  “Well, now that Mr. Schneider has vouched for me, you know it’s all true. I’m sorry for the subterfuge, but it hasn’t been a very easy time for me.”

  “Nor for us either.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant for all of us, for everybody. My mom, Nick, Hanny, Charlie, and of course, you two as well. I know that, I’m really very sorry.”

  Adam asked cautiously about Leticia’s involvement. Without blushing this time, she proudly told him that Emilio was Charlie’s offspring. Adam was delighted at the news. “So the Angolan Clan has you two as partners and there’s a new life to celebrate. It’s about time.”

  Just then, there was a knock on the door and Mr. Schneider came in.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but the bank closes between 12:15 and 14:00. If you haven’t finished your meeting I can reserve the room for you again later.”

  Jenny said, “There’s a very good café around the corner. Why don’t we go there for some lunch and continue at two o’ clock?”

  “I’ll call home first. Just to see if everything is fine, I’m sure Emilio is missing me.” Leticia took her mobile phone from her handbag.

  Adam excused himself, he’d wait for them at the door. He too pulled out his mobile phone and walked to the elevator.

  Remembering the absence of the accountant, Jenny made a call to the IDD office, but the phone rang out unanswered. She tried Gloria’s number with the same result, then folded up her mobile, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  After her five minute call, Leticia said, “I think we have to go home tomorrow. My mother says Emilio is upset with me to leave him so long.”

  “That’s fine. I think we’re both ready to go home. We’ll stick to the flights we’ve booked for tomorrow and you’ll be in time to put Emilio to bed.”

  “We’ll have to wait ‘til next trip for the shops in Rue du Marché. What a shame.”

  As they walked across the lobby a smartly dressed man emerged from one of the elevators. He handed in an identity badge at the reception desk, then went to the main doors.

  “I don’t believe it. It’s Patrice!” Leticia grabbed Jenny’s arm and they walked towards him.

  At the sound of her voice the man turned towards them. It was the French banker. His face registered confusion, his eyes darting left and right. Then regaining his composure he came towards them with a broad smile. “Good heavens. What are you two doing here?” He embraced both women. “I didn’t know you were coming to our bank.”

  Jenny’s mind was working overtime. Another coincidence? Maybe! She squeezed Leticia’s hand to warn her. “Hello, Patrice. We had no idea it was your bank. We’ve finished our business and we’re checking out some banks in Geneva, just in case we need one.”

  “There’s one on every corner. Just like bodegas in Spain!” Leticia had caught on.

  Adam came back into the lobby, pushing his phone into his pocket. “There’s a taxi outside for a Mr. Moncrieff.”

  “Thanks, it’s for me. I’m just off to the airport,” Patrice answered. Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. No more explanations necessary. She introduced Adam as a family friend as they walked out to the street.

  Patrice embraced the women again. “I’m sorry I have to rush off. I look forward to seeing you back in Marbella. Let’s have lunch together next week.” He climbed into the taxi and they watched it drive off.

  “Small world, isn’t it?” Adam said. The women exchanged glances and didn’t reply. Leticia was beginning to share Jenny’s mistrust of too many coincidences.

  During lunch, they managed to clarify the rest of Adam’s story. He told them that Nick had called his lawyer over and had made a will. He left a substantial legacy to Suzie and the balance of his estate, including the apartment, to his son. Perversely, he also left the Cadillac to him, and the Jaguar to Suzie. His lawyer contacted Mr. Schneider at Klein, Fellay and completed the paperwork
requested by the banker and Nick signed it. He gave Adam a key, with details of his safety deposit boxes in Miami and Geneva. It seemed he had adopted the same stratagem as Charlie to cover up the trail.

  Adam visited the Florida bank and found the second key for Klein, Fellay. He had now been down to the vault and had the third key for the box at Ramseyer, Haldemann & Company.

  “It’s just like our puzzle, but we didn’t have such good explanations from Charlie.”

  “He set this system up cleverly. You need two signatures for the Angolan Clan account at Klein, Fellay and two keys for the safety deposit box at Ramseyer, Haldemann. Nobody can access the box alone. This is Nick’s master key and you must have Charlie’s.” He pulled out a leather pouch from a buttoned, inside pocket of his jacket and removed a large flat key, identical to the one Leticia had in her handbag but with a green rubber band instead of yellow. “Laurent and Raffael each had a secondary key, so you needed the two masters, or one master and one other. Nick and Charlie would lend each other their key when necessary.”

  “That’s what we worked out, four keys, but only two types.” Jenny frowned, “But I still don’t understand. What’s in that box?”

  “That’s where the diamonds are. Klein, Fellay is just a dupe, the bank account is there, but not the diamonds. Now we can access that box too.”

  “I’m getting confused. So you haven’t already sold the diamonds? But you put up that guarantee and agreed to sell them by the end of March.”

  “Jenny, I have sold them. I finalised my contracts when I was in Europe and the US in March. But everything got delayed because of Nick’s condition, so I missed the date by a few days. Then when I emailed Laurent to arrange delivery, he replied that he would do it with me in Geneva this week. I’ve got the buyers calling me every day and I can’t deliver. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “And Laurent isn’t here. In fact, only we are here and we are the new partners.” Leticia sighed with frustration. “Where are Laurent and Raffael?”

  “And Vogel. Where is he?” Jenny said. Where was the accountant, where was Gloria, where were the other partners? What was Patrice doing there?

  There were too many coincidences and too many unanswered questions for Jenny. She didn’t like not knowing things and it was worrying her.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Friday 25th April, 2008

  Malaga, Spain

  Chief Inspector Pedro Espinoza drank the rest of his café solo and said to the young woman standing next to him. “Look, Laura. Wouldn’t it be easier if your mother came to see me herself? I know she doesn’t want to meet me in the house or her flat, but we could see each other somewhere else. This is not a bad place to meet.” He waved his hand around the tiny bodega in central Malaga. They had just had a lunch of tapas, with a glass of Ribuero del Duero, spoiled only by the tongue-lashing he’d received from his daughter, while she told him why her mother wouldn’t talk to him.

  “Dad, you’re not listening to me and that’s why Mamá won’t talk to you. Because you don’t listen to her, either. You’re so bloody tied up in your murders and robberies that you don’t have the time or the patience to listen to anyone except your pals in the force.”

  Espinoza winced at the severity of his daughter’s scolding. The worst part of it was that she was right. Since he had been promoted to Chief Inspector his job had taken over his life. He had fallen out of love with his wife and fallen in love with catching villains. Soledad had left him six months ago after he had worked four straight days on a murder case and never bothered to come home. Sleeping in the office was not conducive to a happy marriage.

  “It’s a very simple problem. The allowance you’re paying Mamá isn’t enough. It hardly covers her rent on the flat and she’s got no money to enjoy her life at all. She doesn’t say much to me but I know she’s broke and she can’t go looking for work at her age. It’s not fair and I feel really sorry for her. I even give her a few euros from my salary and I can’t afford to continue doing that. You have to sit together and work out a new deal, or she’ll have to go to the court and that’ll cause you all kinds of problems that neither of you need.”

  His arrangement with his estranged wife had been made amicably, shortly after she moved in with their daughter. Neither of them wanted, or could afford a divorce, for the moment. With the help of José Luis, they had agreed to a cooling off period, a trial separation. They had agreed on a percentage of his salary, enough for her to find a flat to rent and live on her own for a while, until they decided if they had any kind of a future together.

  In practise it hadn’t worked out like that. He had agreed to pay the mortgage on the house until they could sell it. But the property market was so lousy that he hadn’t had a single offer, except for one joker who’d offered ten percent less than the balance of the debt. The monthly payments to the bank and to Soledad were crippling him and he couldn’t see a way out.

  It’s insane, he thought to himself. We used to live comfortably together in a beautiful house and now we live seperately in a house and a flat and we can’t even get the formula right. She’s paying too much and I’m not earning enough.

  “Right,” he said. “I have to go to a conference in Holland this evening and I’ll be back on Sunday night. Can you ask your mother if she’ll please have lunch with me on Monday? I’m sure we can work things out over a glass of wine. I promise to be patient and listen and do whatever’s necessary. I don’t want her to have financial difficulties on my account.”

  He knew that the best way to help both Soledad and himself to avoid difficulties was for them to get back together again. Two people together could live more comfortably on one salary than two people apart. But it wasn’t the right time to suggest that. It wasn’t the right time to suggest anything. Laura was right, the time was right for only one thing. Just to listen.

  He kissed his daughter and they parted. He was returning to the house to pack a bag for his trip, she was going to the real estate broker’s office where she worked on a small salary and large commissions, which were becoming scarcer and scarcer as the economy faltered. It seemed that everyone was going to have to adjust to new economic conditions, including him.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Friday, 25th April, 2008

  Geneva, Switzerland

  After blowing his nose in a triumphant manner, Mr. Schneider produced a large file with the name, ANGOLAN CLAN, printed on the front. His three clients waited expectantly for his revelations. The other partners had still not arrived.

  He removed some sheets, closed it and pushed it aside. “I have here the latest statement of the account. In accordance with Mr. Bishop’s instructions, countersigned by Mr. Martinez,” here he looked apologetically at Adam, “we have liquidated all investments and the entire balance has been transferred to the current account, in US Dollars. It seems there was to be a general distribution this year, and Mr. Bishop wanted it to be as simple as possible.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Schneider. In fact, the partnership is to be dissolved this month.” Jenny paused. “The only problem is that we are missing two partners.”

  “I appreciate your dilemma. I’m disappointed not to see M. Bonneville and Sr. Pires da Silva. I was also expecting Herr Vogel to pass by. He collected a copy of all the statements to prepare the accounts for the meeting.”

  Jenny wondered again where Vogel was, with his up to date accounts. This was not looking good. Leticia could be right, she thought.

  Schneider continued, “All I can do is to provide you with the relevant information and since you can operate the account by your two signatures, I must accept whatever instructions you give me.” He pushed the statements towards them. “Here you have the current status of the account. Once again, it carries only the rubrique “Angolan Clan” and the account number. Another interesting story, I’m sure.

  “The statements show the last liquidations, running from January 1st to 31st March. The final balance, in dollars, is at the bott
om of the third page.”

  Jenny said. “Adam, come and sit over here, we’ll discover this together.”

  The first two pages listed the transactions executed since January and there were several more on the third page. The names of many well known companies appeared. The sales proceeds were recorded in various currencies then converted into dollars and interest had been added at 31st March. The balance printed on the bottom of the third page was twelve million three hundred and forty thousand dollars.

  Leticia and Jenny said nothing, just looked at the statements, then at each other.

  “Twelve million dollars! My God.” Adam’s share of this money, together with his inheritance of the five million dollars Mr. Schneider had shown him in Nick’s account that morning, meant he had become richer by about nine million dollars in the space of four hours. His head spun with the news, he was a very, very rich man. And this is without the proceeds of the last diamond sale, he thought to himself.

  Jenny was doing similar sums. Thirty per cent of that amount was over two million Euros. Their cash legacy from Charlie was now twenty million Euros. Her share was ten million; over eight million pounds. She’d learned the hard way that too little money was a bad thing, but too much was even worse. It can’t be right to come into such a fortune without earning it, she thought. Something is sure to go wrong. There’s just too much money involved. Once again she remembered Espinoza’s question. The motive was getting stronger.

  Leticia smiled contentedly. This meant that she and Emilio could travel in business class for the rest of their lives.

  Jenny tried to think pragmatically. There were still two partners missing. “I think,” she said, “that we need to discuss things together again in private.”

  “Of course. I’ll be in my office when you need me. Is there anything you would like?”