The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set

by Christopher Lowery

  They had just passed Saintes-Maries-de-la-mer, about forty nautical miles from Marseille, when his mobile rang. “Oui, Jean-Philippe?”

  “Two hundred kilos of pure heroin stuffed into the backs of fifty TV sets. A first for me, I’ve never seen that before. Really professional as a matter of fact.”

  “Have you asked for the arrest warrant?”

  “I’ve just emailed it to you now. You’re set to go. Good luck.”

  Treboux called to the pilot, “Let’s join them. It’s Happy Hour!”

  The pilot opened up the throttle and the twin Man engines propelled the craft forward, closing in rapidly on the unsuspecting Jeanneau.

  He printed off the warrant in the cabin then pulled out his 9mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 pistol and went back on deck, ready to make the arrests. This was the part of his job he enjoyed.

  Dublin, Republic of Ireland

  “Parfait! Perfect!” Esther Bonnard saw that her account with the Gaelic Bank of Belfast had been credited with Slater’s twenty-five thousand dollars. She had been running messages for Susan McCaffey all day to earn her keep and hadn’t had time to check until then. She immediately transferred the amount to her account in Guadeloupe, where it would be safer. Although the address she had given to the Irish bank was fictitious, she didn’t trust European banks any more. Esther had worked at Klein Fellay, a Geneva bank, for over a year and she knew how easily private information could end up in the wrong hands. She also knew how valuable such information could be.

  Her mobile had rung incessantly during the afternoon until she finally switched it off. She knew who was calling and wasn’t interested in talking to him. It was a prepaid phone, so there was no chance of her being located from any records filed with the network provider. She had already decided to get a new phone the next day.

  She checked her lipstick and went downstairs. Susan had asked her to help in the bar that night. Esther didn’t mind what she did, so long as she was paid accordingly.

  Malaga, Spain

  “Thanks for your explanation Mr Pickford, it clears up a number of points. I’ll tell DI Dewar how helpful you have been and I’m sure there will be no repercussions as far as you are concerned. After all you simply provided a service that you are established to deliver.”

  Espinoza rang off and considered what the EzeTracker boss had told him. Dudley’s background and previous requests for tracking pointed to a very sophisticated criminal. One who used other people to carry out his dirty work. Dewar’s response on the telephone had also told him a lot. He knew Dudley, otherwise he would not have quoted, ‘need to know basis’. There was obviously a dossier on the man and Dudley had simply confirmed the fact with his reply. Maybe deliberately, thought the Spaniard. He returned to his jigsaw puzzle and notes and summarised what he knew of Dudley from Pickford, Dewar and Coetzee’s comments as reported to Leo. The picture was taking shape but there were still a number of missing features.

  Nice, Côte d’Azur, France

  Harry Slater had called Esther a dozen times during the afternoon without success. He had transferred twenty-five thousand dollars to her account that morning, almost all the money he could find, but had received no word from her. She was supposed to have arranged the Leo Stewart business with the Zimbabwean money manager that morning. If she hadn’t, he hated to think of the consequences.

  He looked up the Geneva online phone book for the name she’d given him, Sebastien du Pasquier. There were five persons of that name, two with no professional details, a dentist, a teacher and a garage mechanic. No bankers or financial experts. His mind went numb. What a gullible amateur I am. Why didn’t I look it up before? He rehearsed a story to tell his partner. This wasn’t a time to panic. There had to be an explanation for the delay. He called her again then put the phone on vibrate in case she called while he was having dinner.

  Marbella, Spain

  Jenny was lying on her bed feeling sorry for herself, wondering what she’d done to deserve being dumped by Sam before they’d even become an ‘item’, when her mobile rang. It was Espinoza and he sounded excited.

  “We’ve had a breakthrough. It’s too complicated to tell you on the phone, so I’ll come around tomorrow morning to explain it to you. Is that alright?”

  “Of course, Pedro. Come whenever it suits you.”

  “You don’t sound your usual self, Jenny.”

  “I’m just a little tired, thanks. I’m sure I’ll feel much better tomorrow.”

  “It’s probably the anti-climax of recovering Leo after a stressful week. Goodnight, Jenny. Sleep well.”

  DAY TEN

  Tuesday, July 20, 2010

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Nice, Côte d’Azur, France

  “Who the hell can that be at this time of day?” It was eight thirty in the morning and the doorbell of the apartment in the swanky area of Mont Boron had just rung twice. Nicole Forrester and Harry Slater were having breakfast on their terrace and enjoying the bright, clear vista over the Vigier Park across to the sea. It was pleasantly warm and the smell of mimosa filled the air. Slater was as nervous as a cat, still wondering what was going on with Esther and Dudley. He had called them incessantly the previous day with no success. Deep inside he knew he’d been played for a fool, but he couldn’t admit it to his partner. She had the money and if he didn’t continue to keep up the pretence he would be out on his ear, flat broke in a country where he couldn’t even speak the language. He knew he was running out of time but he had no other option.

  “I’ll go.” He went to the door and was confronted by two gendarmes in uniform and two men in casual wear. A cold shiver ran down his spine. “Bonjour, Messieurs.” He realised his French would let him down and was about to call Nicole when one of the plain clothed men showed him his ID card.

  “I’m Inspector General Colombey of the DCJI and this is Police Commissioner Lefèbre. We have some questions for you. May we come in?”

  Nicole came to the door and pushed Slater aside. “What’s this about?” She blustered. “Why are you disturbing us at this hour in the morning? It’s a scandal, an abuse of power. You have no right ...”

  “Madame, I have every right to question you in connection with a crime we are investigating. You can either invite us in or you can come to the Commissariat and we can question you there. The choice is yours.”

  The dossier had arrived in Paris from Sydney the previous evening and Colombey immediately requested his superior officer to assign the case to him, as an international and not a local investigation. He had taken a late flight to Nice and organised the arrest team with the help of the Regional Commissioner. After spending the night at a local hotel he was up at five am and at eight he and the team were on their way to Mont Boron.

  The couple led them into the apartment, “Just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking,” Nicole whispered to him. “These flics know nothing.” The two detectives followed them in, leaving the policemen outside the door.

  “So, what’s so important that you threaten to arrest us and take us to the station?”

  Colombey ignored the jibe and addressed Slater. “I understand you’re a British citizen, Sir.”

  He moved uncomfortably on the chair. “That’s correct.”

  “And you, Madame. You’re French, I believe?”

  “Yes I am. What of it?”

  “May I see your passports?”

  Slater looked at Nicole but she avoided his eyes and said nothing. She went out of the room and returned with both passports, handed them to the policeman.

  “Harold William Slater. Is that your full name?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you know anyone by the name of Robin Little?”

  At this, Slater shivered as if he had a chill. “I don’t think so. Who is he?”

  Again Colombey ignored the question. “And you are Nicole Mireille Charpentier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was your married name Forrester?”

  “I’ve ha
d enough of this interrogation. I’m going to call my lawyer now.”

  “Please do so, Madame Forrester. In the meantime we are confiscating your passports, computers, laptops, iPads and phones and you are coming to the Commissariat to assist us in our enquiries. Your lawyer can meet us there.”

  Marseille, South of France

  “Nothing. They’ve told us nothing and I’m starting to think they don’t know anything.”

  “C’est du Bullshit! I don’t believe it. Yilmaz might know nothing but the agent must know who he was working for. You’re telling me Favre doesn’t know who his bosses are?”

  Superintendent Treboux and Lieutenant Grandville were in the offices of the French Customs Directorate in Marseille reviewing the interrogations of the two captives. The captain of the Jeanneau was a local seaman who had been hired by telephone by the hotel and they had released him after a few perfunctory questions.

  “He says he only had phone conversations and his contact told him nothing except his name, M Valentino.”

  “What about the phone records?”

  “We’ve traced the number he was calling but it’s led nowhere. It was a prepaid US number and it’s gone dead. We can’t get any further on that track. The only other related calls are to Yilmaz. ”

  “Emails?” Treboux was becoming irritated.

  “Nothing. None sent and none received from anyone in connection with the merchandise except Yilmaz. It’s the same with the captain’s phone and emails. It’s a dead end. This is a very sophisticated operation. Looks like it was set up in two halves; the receiving end here and the sending end over there.”

  “And never the twain shall meet. Fuck!”

  “There’s one possible loose end, but I don’t know where it fits.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Favre says he had some conversations with another man, someone he’s done business with before, not drugs, but he wouldn’t tell me much about it.”

  “And?”

  “We’ve checked the calls and it’s another dead prepaid US number. There’s no trail there either.” Treboux looked impatient, so he continued, “He never learned the man’s name but he was certain it was an Englishman.”

  “Why was he so sure?”

  “Favre lived in London for a while and he said the man spoke with a posh accent. You know, when they speak French as if it’s just an English dialect.”

  “And that’s all we’ve got?”

  “One last thing. The second man told Favre to queer the pitch. He had to tell the other contact that the deal was off, so they could squeeze more commission for him. After that they just cut him off and he didn’t know who the purchaser was, nor how to contact him. Then we turned up and they pissed off to try to get to Spain.”

  Treboux’s mind was spinning. The informer’s original call to the DDGGI in Montreuil had been recorded and although the voice was slightly distorted it had been identified as an English speaker. The email had also been written by a non-French person. Now there was an Englishman who had told the agent ‘to queer the pitch’. It had to be the same person. He set the transaction up then pulled it down and presumably raked in his commission without delivering the merchandise. Treboux was impressed and infuriated by the realisation. Once again he was no nearer to identifying the top dogs and would have to make do with the messenger boys.

  Despite repeated interrogations of the two captives and many costly man hours trying to identify the mysterious English informant and track the merchandise back to its origins, Treboux was still left with only the low-hanging fruit. Favre and Yilmaz would have to pay for the crimes of the organisers, as was so often the case. Lord Arthur Dudley had been right. He and Jolidon had left no evidence of their involvement in the heroin transaction and been well paid into the bargain.

  Dublin, Republic of Ireland

  Esther Rousseau, née Bonnard, was in her room at the pub, revising the emails she’d prepared. With some luck they might bring her more than the measly fifty thousand dollars she’d earned from the aborted abduction. She now knew, from the online South African news reports, that the late Sergeant Nwosu had been blamed for the murders and therefore Dudley and his partners, including her, were in the clear. However Leo Stewart had disappeared and she wondered if Jenny Bishop, whom she hated like a venomous snake, had been involved in the débacle.

  Esther knew Ray would have been proud of her plan to get some of his money back; it was clever and audacious, like him. After his disappearance two years ago she didn’t go back to Switzerland from Ireland; it was too dangerous. She returned to France under her maiden name, staying as far as she could from the capital, in Nice, on the south coast. But she never forgot the diamonds; she was still determined to get her share, Ray’s share. Her first step was to find a way to cultivate a friendship with Claude Jolidon, at Ramseyer, Haldemann in Geneva. He was the guardian of the diamonds and, as she had learned from d’Almeida, he was also an inveterate gambler at Divonne Casino. She signed up with an agency specialising in casino employees and her looks and sharp brain quickly earned her a job at the Casino d’Azur in Cannes. From there she networked her way through to Jolidon. A quick visit to Geneva had cemented their relationship. She was adept at appealing to people of all sexual inclinations and always felt safer with gay men than heterosexuals who had only one thing in mind from the moment they saw her.

  The decision to take the casino job turned out to be a monumental piece of good fortune. In July 2009, Nicole Charpentier, a French woman newly arrived from Australia came to work at the casino. Nicole was a status seeker and she deliberately let slip to Esther that she had come into a lot of insurance money when her husband, Tony Forrester, had died in an accident in Australia. Money was a great motivator with Esther and she began to socialise with Nicole and her partner, Harry Slater. Casual ‘girl talk’ in the casino and loose chatter after a few glasses of wine revealed that she had stolen Tony from another woman, Emma Stewart, in Rwanda. The name immediately rang a bell with Esther and she remembered from her investigation of Jenny Bishop that Emma was her sister. The penny dropped when Nicole told her ‘confidentially’ that with Tony’s help, Emma had illegally adopted a Rwandan child and smuggled him into the UK.

  The last coincidence was the one that clinched the story for her. One of the regular players at the casino was an old friend of Nicole’s. Dr Antoine Constance had worked with her in Rwanda. He was now a reconstructive surgeon at the nearby Clinique Saint Christophe. Like most men she met, he fell for her and often stayed late in the evening to buy her a drink and try to seduce her. With each drink Constance became more and more indiscreet and she learned a lot about him, including the profitable side line that paid for his losses at the gaming tables. She used her sexual favours to glean as much information as he could supply and also obtained from him a very valuable service which could prove useful to her in the future.

  His drunken, rambling narratives included a vital anecdote which confirmed Nicole’s story. He had been at the clinic in Rwanda and assisted at the birth of a boy called Leopold who disappeared at the time that Emma returned to the UK. Esther knew she was onto something. Something potentially very valuable.

  Emma’s son would now be fourteen years old, still a juvenile. From online research of UK law concerning juveniles she learned that he could be taken away from Emma if she had acted illegally. A plan began to form in her mind. She pulled together the various strands of the story into a scenario to make Jenny and her sister pay for Ray’s disappearance. She carried out constant surveillance on them, via Emma’s web page, her and Leo’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and through Claude Jolidon and other contacts she’d made in Switzerland. Then she began to plant the seeds for what she dreamed would blossom into a full-blown revenge on Jenny Bishop and her family.

  In November, Constance left the St Christophe and moved abroad. Esther knew the reason. He was about to be arrested for his involvement in a fraudulent passport scheme and had fled to South Africa to
escape punishment. She also knew he had changed his identity and was now known as Ernest Blethin.

  From her surveillance she then discovered that Emma was taking Leo to South Africa, where Constance, or Blethin, was in hiding. They were going to the World Cup in July, 2010. She had six months to prepare a plan to be executed in Johannesburg.

  Her first step was to start an affair with Harry Slater and that had been the easiest part. Ray had taught her tricks that would drive any man mad with desire and she had been an eager and adept pupil. After Slater had fallen head over heels for her, it was a simple task to get him involved in the scheme then to get Nicole’s agreement and more importantly, the funding. She was the one with the money.

  Lord Arthur Dudley was recommended to her by Claude Jolidon as a ‘facilitator’ and he was a hard nut to crack. Together they sketched out an abduction scenario to force Emma Stewart to pay a ransom which could only be financed by her sister. Before his disappearance, Ray had cornered Jenny Bishop in her house and recovered twelve million dollars from the Angolan Clan, but they hadn’t been permitted to enjoy it. Based upon her inside knowledge gained as Eric Schneider’s assistant, Esther knew the woman’s wealth must still be substantial. However Dudley had been unconvinced; until February, when Jolidon confirmed to her that the diamonds were still at Ramseyer, Haldemann and Jenny Bishop had both keys. Then the stakes became immensely high and he was immediately hooked.

  Dudley had lived up to his reputation in planning and implementing the strategy and she had been impressed by his professionalism, his decisiveness and his extensive knowledge and contacts. He was a truly amoral person, ready to sacrifice anything or anyone in the pursuit of his objective. Ray would have greatly admired him. If he had been younger and better looking, she mused, I might have been attracted to him as much as he was to me. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

  Under Dudley’s management they had assembled the abduction team and put the plan into operation. With Nwosu, Coetzee and Blethin in Johannesburg and Lambert, a friendly Englishman at Emma’s hotel, they had an abundance of talent, experience and local connections. Apart from a few minor hiccups the abduction had been highly successful and the plan was progressing well. Until someone, probably Jenny Bishop, she guessed, had somehow screwed it up and with it her chance of recovering Ray’s legacy.