Straight. Part 30

Very upset.'

I reached into my shirt pocket and drew out the print-out from the Wizard.

'Do you want to see?' I asked. 'Read there.'

After a hesitation he took the paper, sat back on the stool and read the entry: Antwerp say 5 of the first batch of rough are CZ.

Don't want to believe it.

Infinite sadness Priority 1.

Arrange meetings Ipswich?

Undecided. d.a.m.nation!

'Greville used to write his thoughts in a notebook,' I said. 'In there it says, "Infinite sadness is not to trust an old friend." '

'So what?'

'Since Greville died,' I said, 'someone has been trying to find his diamonds to steal them from me. That someone had to be someone who knew they were there to be found. Greville kept the fact that he'd bought them very quiet for security reasons. He didn't tell even his staff. But of course you yourself knew, as it was for you he bought them.'

He said again,'So what?'

'If you remember,' I said, still conversationally, 'someone broke into Greville's office after he died and stole things like an address book and an appointments diary. I began to think the thief had also stolen any other papers which might point to where the diamonds were, like letters or invoices But I know now there weren't any such papers to be found there, because Greville was full of distrust. lKlis distrust dated from the day the Antwerp cutters fold him five of his stones were cubic zirconia, which was about three weeks before he died.'

Pross Greville's friend, said nothing.

'Greville bought the diamonds' I went on, 'from a sightholder based in Antwerp who sent them by messenger to his London house. There he measured them and weighed them and signed for them. Then it would be reasonable to suppose that he showed them to you, his customer. Or showed you twenty-five of them, perhaps Then he sent that twenty-five back to Antwerp by the Euro-Securo couriers Five diamonds had mysteriously become cubic zirconia, and yes it was an entirely stupid thing to do, because the subst.i.tution was bound to be discovered almost at once, and you knew it would be. Had to be. I'd think you reckoned Greville would never believe it of you, but would swear the five stones had to have been swapped by someone in the couriers or the cutters in Antwerp, and he would collect the insurance in due course, and that would be that. You would be five diamonds to the good, and he would have lost nothing.'

'You can't prove it,' he said flatly.

'No, I can't prove it. But Greville was full of sorrow and distrust, and why should he be if he thought his stones had been taken by strangers?'

I looked with some of Greville's own sadness at Prospero Jenks. A likeable, entertaining genius whose feelings for my brother had been strong and long-lasting, whose regret at his death had been real.

'I'd think.' I said, 'that after your long friendship, after all the treasures he'd brought you, after the pink and green tourmaline, after your tremendous success, that he could hardly bear your treachery.'

'Stop it,' he said sharply. 'It's bad enough . . .

He shut his mouth tight and shook his head, and seemed to sag internally.

'He forgave me,' he said.

He must have thought I didn't believe him.

He said wretchedly, 'I wished I hadn't done it almost from the beginning, if you want to know. It was just an impulse. He left the diamonds here while he went off to do a bit of shopping, and I happened to have some rough CZ th;, right size in those drawers, as I often do, waiting for when I want special cutting, and I just...

exchanged them. Like you said. I didn't think he'd lose by it.'

'He knew, though,' I said. 'He knew you, and he knew a lot about thieves, being a magistrate. Another of the things he wrote was, "If laws are inconvenient, ignore them, they don't apply to you." '

'Stop it. Stop it. He forgave me.'

'When?'

'In Ipswich. I went to meet him there.'

I lifted my head. 'Ipswich. Orwell Hotel, P. 3.30 pm,'

I said.

'What? Yes.' He seemed unsurprised that I should know. He seemed to be looking inwards to an unendurable landscape.

'I saw him die,' he said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

'I saw the scaffolding fall on him,' he said.

He'd stunned me to silence.

'We talked in the hotel. In the lounge there. It was almost empty... then we walked down the street to where I'd left my car. We said goodbye. He crossed the road and walked on, and I watched him. I wanted him to look back and wave . . . but he didn't.'

Forgiveness was one thing, I thought, but friendship had gone. What did he expect? Absolution and comfort?

Perhaps Greville in time would have given those too, but I couldn't.

Prospero Jenks with painful memory said, 'Grey never knew what happened . . . There wasn't any warning.

Just a clanging noise and metal fa,'ling and men with it. Crashing down fast. It buried him. I couldn't see him... I ran across the road to pull him and there were bodies . . . and he . . . he . . . I thought he was dead already. His head was bleeding . . . there was a metal bar in his stomach and another had ripped into his leg . . . it was . . . I can't . . . I try to forget but I see it all the time.'

I waited and in a while he went on.

'I didn't move him. Couldn't. There was so much blood . . . and a man lying over his legs . . . and another man groaning. People came running... then the police . . . it was just chaos . . .'

He stopped again. and I said,'When the police came, why didn't you stay with Greville and help him? Why didn't you identify him to them, even?'

His genuine sorrow was flooded with a shaft of alarm. The dismay was momentary, and he shrugged it off.

'You knovw how it is.' He gave me a little-boy shamefaced look, muth the same as when he'd admitted to changing the stones. 'Don't get involved. I didn't want to be dragged in . . . I thought he was dead.'

Somewhere along the line, I thought, he was lying to me. Not about seeing the accident: his description of Greville's injuries had been piercingly accurate.

'Did you simply . . . drive off?' I asked bleakly.

'No, I couldn't. Not for ages. The police cordoned off the street and took endless statements. Something about criminal responsibility and insurance claims. But I couldn't help them. I didn't see why the scaffolding fell. I felt sick because of the blood . . . I sat in my car till they let us drive out. They'd taken Grev off in an ambulance before that . . . and the bar was still sticking out of his stomach . . .'

The memory was powerfully reviving his nausea.

'You knew by then that he was still alive,' I said.

He was shocked. 'How? How could I have known?'

'Ihey hadn't covered his face.'

'He was dying. Anyone could see. His head was dented . . . and bleeding . . .'

Dead men don't bleed, I thought, but didn't say it.

Prospero Jenks already looked about to throw up, and I wondered how many times he actually had, in the past eleven days.

Instead, I said, 'What did you talk about in the Orwell Hotel?'

He blinked. 'You know what.'

'He accused you of changing the stones.'

'Yes.' He swallowed. 'Well, I apologized. Said I was sorry. Which I was. He could see that. He said why did I do it when I was bound to be found out, but when I did it, it was an impulse, and I didn't think I'd be found out, like I told you.'

'What did he say?'

'He shook his head as if I were a baby. He was sad more than angry. I said I would give the diamonds back, of course, and I begged him to forgive me.'

'Which he did?'

'Yes, I told you. I asked if we could go on trading together. I mean, no one was as good as Grev at finding marvellous stones, and he always loved the things I made. It was good for both of us. I wanted to go back to that.'

Going back was one of life's impossibilities, I thought. Nothing was ever the same.

'Did Greville agree?' I asked.

'Yes. He said he had the diamonds with him but he had arrangements to make. He didn't say what. He said he would come here to the shop at the beginning of the week and I would give him his five stones and pay for the tear drops and stars. He wanted cash for them, and he was giving me a day or two to find the money.'

'He didn't usually want cash for things, did he? You sent a cheque for the spinel and rock crystal.'

'Yes, well...' Again the quick look of shame, 'He said cash in future, as he couldn't trust me. But you didn't know that.'

Greville certainly hadn't trusted him, and it sounded as if he'd said he had the diamonds with him when he knew they were at that moment on a boat crossing the North Sea. Had he said that, I wondered? Perhaps Prospero Jenks had misheard or misunderstood, but he'd definitely believed Greville had had the diamonds with him.

'If I give you those diamonds now, then that will be the end of it?' he said. 'I mean, as Grev had forgiven me, you won't go back on that and make a fuss, will you? Not the police... Grev wouldn't have wanted that, you know he wouldn't.'

I didn't answer. Greville would have to have balanced his betrayed old friendship against his respect for the law, and I supposed he wouldn't have had Prospero prosecuted, not for a first offence, admitted and regretted.

Prospero Jenks gave my silence a hopeful look, rose from his stool and crossed to the ranks of little drawers.

He pulled one open, took out several apparently unimportant packets and felt deep inside with a searching hand. He brought out a twist of white gauze fastened with a band of sticky tape and held it out for me.

'Five diamonds,' he said. 'Yours.'

I took the unimpressive little parcel which most resembled the muslin bag of herbs cooks put in stews, and weighed it in my hand. I certainly couldn't myself tell CZ from C and he could see the doubt in my face.

'Have them appraised,' he said with unjustified bitterness, and I said we would weigh them right there and then and he would write out the weight and sign it.

'Grey didn't . . .'

'More fool he. He should have done. But he trusted you. I don't.'

'Come on, Derek.' He was cajoling; but I was not Greville.

'No. Weigh them,' I said.

With a sigh and an exaggerated shrug he cut open the little bag when I handed it back to him, and on small fine scales weighed the contents.

It was the first time I'd actually seen what I'd been searching for, and they were unimposing, to say the least. Five dull-looking greyish pieces of crystal the size of large misshapen peas without a hint of the fire waiting within. I watched the weighing carefully and took them myself off the scales, wrapping them in a fresh square of gauze which Prospero handed me and fastening them safely with sticky tape.

'Satisfied?' he said with a touch of sarcasm, watching me stow the bouquet garni in my trouser pocket.

'No. Not really.'

'They're the genuine article,' he protested. He signed the p.aper on which he'd written their combined weight, and gave it to me. 'I wouldn't make that mistake again.'

He studied me. 'You're much harder than Grev.'

'I've reason to be.'

'What reason?'

'Several attempts at theft. Sundry a.s.saults.'

His mouth opened.

'Who else?' I said.

'But I've never... I didn't...' He wanted me to believe him. He leaned forward with earnestness. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

I sighed slightly. 'Greville hid the letters and invoices dealing with the diamonds because he distrusted someone in his office. Someone that he guessed was running to you with little snippets of information. Someone who would spy for you.'

'Nonsense.' His mouth seemed dry, however.

I pulled out of a pocket the microca.s.sette recorder and laid it on his workbench.