Adam staggered to his feet and sat in one of the kitchen chairs and she went to the sink to wet a towel with cold water. He took it and tried to staunch the flow of blood from his nose.
“I am making perfect sense, my dear Mme. Bishop. You’re just being a bit slow to catch on.” Francisco took another swig of the wine.
Like a flash of lightning, the truth finally burst into Jenny’s head. Everything the lawyer had told them was a lie. It was he who was planning to steal the Angolan Clan fortune. He was a crooked lawyer, a thief, just like Vogel. He was probably in league with Raffael and had lied about his death. He had told them the story to get inside the house. To attempt to steal the money and the diamonds. She suddenly felt better, finally knowing what was happening. This was something she could cope with. His tactics were to frighten them. Well, two could play at that game.
“I’ve had enough of this, Francisco. You can’t come barging into our house and behave like this. You’re deranged, or drunk or something. If you don’t get out, I’m calling Chief Inspector Espinoza.”
She picked up her mobile and looked for the policeman’s card. Francisco punched his fist down onto her hand, smashing the phone onto the floor. Shattering it into fragments.
Jenny looked at the remains of the mobile phone then at the lawyer’s smug expression. SMACK! She slapped him across the face with all the strength she had. “Don’t you dare behave like a vicious gangster in front of me and my friends. Now get out before we call the police.”
Francisco fell back against the table. He raised his hand as if to return the blow, then touched his fingers gently to the scarlet weal on his face. “Aren’t you a tough cookie, Jenny? Well, well, who’d have guessed?” He gave a grim smile. “I was trying to be nice to you, don’t you know how much I like you? Well, it’s too late for that now, it’s time to get serious.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a gun. A pistol with a plastic grip and frame and a metal barrel. “If anyone gives me trouble, I’ll shoot them. It’s really very simple, you misbehave, you get shot.”
“Stop acting like a bloody idiot, Francisco. This is not some kind of a children’s game. Put that stupid gun away before you hurt someone, and get out of here.” Jenny went to grab the weapon from his hand.
The lawyer held her away with one hand and pointed the gun at one of the wall cabinets. A loud blast rang out, followed by the sound of smashing china, and a round hole appeared in the wood. Jenny screamed and turned away from the pistol. An acrid smell filled the room.
“This is not a stupid gun, Jenny. It’s called a Sig Sauer P226 DAK, it cost me three hundred Euros and it kills people. Now get back, all of you and give me some space. He poked the gun into Jenny’s shoulder, then flashed it around the room, pointing it at each of the others in turn.
Jenny backed away from him, away from the weapon, and went to stand beside Leticia. She was rooted to the spot, trembling with shock and fear. Jenny put her arm around her shoulder to instill some calm into her. Neither of them had ever seen a handgun before, except on TV and in the movies, even less been threatened by one.
She wiped a hand across her brow, the hand she’d slapped the lawyer with, and noticed a faint perfumed aroma. Putting her fingers to her nose, a memory flashed through her mind. The hotel bedroom in Geneva. After the break-in, the smell of perfume. It was Hugo Boss aftershave, the same as at Charlie’s funeral. Could he have followed us to Geneva? What on earth’s going on here? She pulled Leticia closer, trying to convey a sense of composure.
Francisco picked up the house phone from the kitchen counter and listened for a moment. “Good.” He gestured at Adam. “Switch your mobile off and put it here.” He took Leticia’s mobile from his own pocket and laid it down on the table. He had already switched it off.
Adam didn’t move. He couldn’t believe this Spanish lawyer was in the house, waving a loaded pistol about. The only gun he had ever seen close up was a big, old service pistol in Hanny’s office drawer. He had come across it when he was a kid, looking for change to buy candy. This maniac was holding one that seemed a lot more dangerous. An ugly, square shape, like a weapon in an American gangster movie. It looked deadly. He was paralysed with fear.
Leticia tried to overcome her terror. She spoke in Spanish, desperately attempting to get through to the man. “Why are you doing this? We’re friends, there’s no need to threaten us. We’ve done nothing to hurt you. Put the gun away and tell us what this is about.”
“Feche sua boca, cadela! Shut your mouth, bitch!” He shouted in Portuguese. “I said mobile off, Peterson, now!” He raised the pistol and pointed it at his head.
Leticia gasped with shock at this obscene outburst in her native tongue. She fell back against the counter, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock and fear. Adam pulled out his mobile phone, his trembling hands fumbling to switch it off, then placed it on the table.
“That’s better!” He took another swallow of the wine.
Now, Jenny realised that it was the lawyer who had interfered with the house phone and probably the outside electricity. He must have been in the house, downstairs in the machine room. He must have a key! Despite her rising panic, she tried to talk to him quietly and calmly to find out what was going on. “Francisco, you’re a lawyer, you haven’t been trained to hurt people but to help them. We’ve done nothing to harm you, why are you threatening us?” Be sensible, reasonable. She was shutting her mind to the dreadful thoughts that were closing in on her. She didn’t want to let them in.
“You’re partly right, Jenny. You and Leticia haven’t harmed me, unlike your father-in-law and his cronies. As a matter of fact, I have nothing against you, but because of this useless prick, my ‘reward’ for three years work will be half of what it should be.”
“He’s talking about the delay in the sale of the remaining diamonds. He’s after the money, it’s quite clear.” Adam had come to the same conclusion as Jenny. Despite his fear, he looked disgustedly at the lawyer. “Just an amateur bloody crook, trying to steal our money.”
Francisco smashed his pistol across Adam’s face, knocking him off the chair onto the floor again. The women screamed and went to help him, but were pushed back by the lawyer.
Adam sat up and shook his head, his hands to his face. Blood was running from a cut on his forehead and a red gash on his cheek. His left eye was starting to close up and his cheekbone felt as if it was broken. He tried to push aside the pain and fear and adopt a tone of bravado. “Is that the best you can do? Women and children are your usual victims, I suppose.” He staggered back to his feet and leaned against the counter.
Francisco lifted the weapon again then thought better of it and pushed him onto the bench seat. Leticia sat down next to him, dabbing the blood from his face with the wet towel.
“You stupid Irish bastard, I’m not stealing from anybody, I’m reclaiming what’s mine. It’s you lot who are the thieves. It’s not your money in the first place, it’s money that was stolen. You think people died making that money so that you could steal it? Think again!” He poured himself another glass of wine and sat at the table, waiting for his words to sink in.
Jenny tried to analyse his words. He knows about Charlie and Nick, and that Adam was born Irish. He knows about the money, the people who died, the sale of the remaining diamonds. But how? She looked blankly at the other two.
She tried a new tack. “You’re wasting your time trying to steal from us. There’s nothing here in the house to steal. Just leave now and we’ll forget the whole thing.”
“Thanks for the advice, but no thanks. I’m not some dumb-ass Spanish lawyer. I know exactly where the money is and how to get it and you’re going to help me.”
“You’re saying that you’re not who you pretend to be, is that it?”
“Well the first thing you can do is stop calling me Francisco. It’s been over a year now and I’m pissed off with it.”
“So, what’s your real name?”
&n
bsp; The lawyer swigged his wine again. “I was baptised Raymundo Jesus Melo d’Almeida, after my father’s brother, Henriques. Does that ring a bell?”
Oh my God! Henriques was the owner of the mine in Angola, the one who had a brother. He’s Sergio’s son! Jenny sat down beside the other two, racking her brains to try to understand this new twist. Adam looked at her vacantly, he couldn’t remember who Henriques was, but Leticia was staring at the man in amazement. The truth was dawning on her too.
He said to her, in Portuguese. “Entende agora? You understand now?”
“So you’re Angolan, like me?” Leticia replied in Portuguese. She had finally found some kind of link that might help them deal with this monster.
“Não sejas tão estúpido, cadela! Don’t be a stupid bitch!” He switched back to English. “Neither of us is Angolan. We were both lucky enough to get out of that hell-hole thirty years ago. Except your family got to Portugal and found work and we ended up starving in Brazil. Big difference! So now you’re a first-class Portuguese and I’m a second-class Brazilian”
She tried to remain calm. “But now you can change that. If you want a share of money from the diamonds, why don’t we just talk and arrange things? There’s no need to hurt us.”
“I think you’re missing the point.” Adam sat up straight, his mind clear. “He doesn’t want a share, he wants it all. Right, Raymundo?”
“It’s Ray, actually, and yes that’s right, it’s only fair. Those diamonds were mined by my father and we got nothing and you’ve got everything. If it wasn’t for him, you’d be scavenging to survive like we were for thirty years in Rio.”
“So how did you end up in Brazil?” Jenny tried to get him to continue talking. Let him tell his story. Play for time.
“You couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmare, Jenny. We had to flee from Angola after Henriques was killed. The soldiers came, the rebels came, Cunhal’s people came. My parents had to run for their lives, with two kids. I was just a year old and my sister was three.
“It took us weeks of running and hiding before we found a boat for Rio, and my mom got so sick she never recovered. She died before I was two. We starved for thirty years. My father couldn’t work and we had nothing. When I was eighteen I had four jobs and we were still starving.” He took another drink. “You people have no fucking idea of the real world.”
Jenny was cursing her lack of attention, there had been so many clues she had missed. I’ve got to keep him talking. Let him get it all off his chest. Finish his story. She said, “So, how did you become a lawyer? Come to Spain and work for José Luis?”
“You must be joking! Me, a lawyer?” He laughed cynically. “Just because that senile idiot José Luis was fooled by my diplomas, it doesn’t make me a lawyer. The man’s a moron, he doesn’t even know how to check a CV.”
“You mean all that business about Berkeley and Washington and New York?”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. I’ve never even been to school. I read a few books about international law and taxes, it’s not complicated. The rest of my story was total rubbish. I arrived in Malaga a year ago and José Luis was stupid enough to hire me. Then I was able to get into Charlie’s house last year when he was sick. Pretty clever, eh?”
“So you found out everything about the diamond business?”
“You mean the Angolan Clan? Of course. I read it on his computer at the house. It’s actually an interesting story, but just a high class robbery in the end. And the office files told me all about the bastard he had with his housekeeper. Disgusting old pervert.”
Leticia gasped and took Jenny’s hand, looking at her helplessly. Where did this creature come from? How do we get away from him?
Jenny squeezed her hand. The man was a monster, but if all he wanted was money they must be able to work it out. She kept on trying to make him talk, to placate him. “So what happened in Brazil? Why did you come here to Spain?”
“When my dad was almost sixty, he got a job with a company that was set up to process rough diamonds. He got me a place in the company, helping out. “After I’d made a little money I went off to the States. Just drifting around. That’s where I got the Spanish passport. Friend of mine called Francisco, everybody called him Paco. Fell down a crevice, poor sod.
“Then I called home and my sister told me my dad had had a heart attack, so I went back. They’d fired him from his job. He told me they’d been getting rough diamonds from a company called International Diamond Dealers, IDD. He was convinced they were pre-war Angolan diamonds, like the ones he’d mined.”
“But why didn’t he say something to his company, or to IDD?”
“And get fired from the only job he’d had for thirty years? Don’t be so bloody naïve. Anyway, I found it out myself. I looked IDD up on Google. Do you know Google? It’s amazing. I found the IDD directors, Charlie Bishop and Nick Martinez. Bingo!”
“How did you know the names?”
“I didn’t. But my dad remembered Henriques telling him about three guys who were going to save their bacon, Olivier, Charlie and Nick. Too big a coincidence to be wrong.”
“So you came to claim your family’s inheritance.” Against her better judgment, Jenny found herself starting to sympathise with the Angolan.
“First I had to read a few books and save up some money. I got a job in a casino and looked after my sister and my dad. He took a long time to die. He weighed nothing at the end. I couldn’t even afford a headstone for him. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Shit!”
He swigged from his glass. “Two years ago, I was ready. I worked the winter season in Haute Nendaz, near Geneva, then came down to Malaga. Just in time, almost too late.”
“But how did you know José Luis was Charlie’s lawyer?”
He laughed out loud at this question. “Stupid woman. I just told you, you understand nothing about the real world. Have you ever heard of Gloria Smouha?”
Her hand went to her mouth. She looked at the others. What had happened to Gloria?
D’Almeida saw the name register. “Have you ever seen her?”
He was teasing her, playing some kind of a game. She shook her head.
“She’s forty-something, looks like a horse, but she’s a hell of a screw, never had it for bloody years. She fell madly in love with me. They mostly do.”
He’d said he’d stayed near Geneva. He knew where the IDD office was and he must have known about the keys. It was him who broke into our rooms. Everything suddenly fell into place. Gloria had betrayed them, for sex. Ray was an extremely clever man, a corrupt, brutal monster, but very clever. She had to find a way to play him along. But how?
She glanced at the stainless steel clock on the wall. It was twenty past ten. Her brain was calculating times, people. Laurent should be there by now. All he wants is the money. She tried to win some time. “Leticia’s right. I’m sure we could arrange some kind of a fair share. We can talk it through with the other partners. One of them’s coming here any minute.”
“Oh yes. Your friend Monsieur Bonneville is expected, n’estce-pas? Well, I’m sorry to inform you that he has been delayed, permanently delayed!”
The other three looked at each other blankly then back at d’Almeida. How did he know about Laurent coming down?
Jenny resisted the temptation to ask him anything more. “Stop trying to scare us, Ray, it won’t work. I just spoke to him a little while ago and he’ll be here any minute. Right, Leticia?”
“For sure he’s coming. He called us twice.” A spark of hope kindled in her mind, she’d almost forgotten that Laurent was on his way.
The Angolan reached into his jacket pocket and took out a BlackBerry phone. He put it to his mouth, speaking into it with a convincing French accent. “Oui, allo. Ici Laurent.” He looked at Jenny, grinning like a naughty schoolboy. “Sorry, Mme. Bishop, Laurent had a nasty accident, there’s a lot of it about. He definitely won’t be coming, ever.”
“What do mean, an acci
dent, you mean he’s dead? You murdered my friend, a sixty year old man? You cowardly piece of shit.” Adam jumped up and tried to grab the gun. D’Almeida held him off and kicked him in the groin. He fell to the floor again, doubled up, pain shooting through his body.
“I told you, he had an accident. Dangerous business, skiing in Verbier when there’s nobody around. For amateurs that is, not for professionals. The point is, I thought you had sold the diamonds like you were supposed to and the money was in the account. Bonneville was no longer necessary, just another complication. I don’t like complications.” He gave Adam a malicious stare. “And I don’t like people who don’t do what they promise.”
The women listened to this exchange in silent fear. The man that Jenny had talked to and invited to their house was not Laurent Bonneville, Charlie’s partner. It was the man who had killed him. This Angolan self-confessed murderer. Suddenly their lives had been invaded by robbery, brutality and now murder, and the murderer was standing in front of them, boasting of his crime. He’d set a trap for them and they had walked right into it, like lambs to the slaughter.
Jenny thought about what he’d just said. “Just removing a complication.” Who’s going to be next? She asked herself. What does he really want?
Adam had managed to pull himself up to the counter again. “OK, so you’re not just an amateur burglar, you’re also a bloody amateur murderer, you disgusting piece of African filth.”
D’Almeida grabbed him by the throat, the gun against his head. He stared into his eyes, looked around at the two women, then back to Adam. “Nobody who kills four men without getting caught could be considered an amateur. I’m a professional, and if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’ll make it five, happily.”
EIGHTY-SEVEN
Sunday, 27th April, 2008
Marbella, Spain
Espinoza was driving on the hard shoulder of the autopista past the Marbella Golf Club at over a hundred kilometres an hour. He could see the blinking, yellow lights of the emergency vehicles as he slowed down at the scene of the accident. There were cars all over the road and he’d heard on his radio that there were casualties. The rain was pouring so hard that visibility was almost zero. He assumed that was the cause of the crash. In any case traffic accidents weren’t in his jurisdiction and he couldn’t stop.
The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set Page 54