Stone Cold (11 page)

“Like what?” she asked.

I turned to Kinsella. “Like how come you’re working the night shift in a motel called the Kinsella Motel.”

Maria said to him, “You’d better explain that. If you want to tell him.”

Kinsella turned to me. It was as if Maria had given him permission to open up. “The motel belonged to my parents. They came from Michigan, Grand Rapids. I went to grade school there.” He talked in short sentences, sometimes pausing between them, like someone walking on thin ice, taking one step at a time. “My father was a manager in a hotel. Then he became ill, pleurisy, and he was told he could only be healthy in a warmer climate. So they came here and opened this motel. I used to come down here from San Francisco and visit them. Take them out on the yacht.” He stopped.

“They must have enjoyed that,” I said encouragingly. “Particularly the yacht’s name.”

“I owe my parents a lot. They sacrificed so that I could have a good education. Anyway, Dad died three years ago. Heart attack. My mother sold the motel to someone they knew well. She moved into a retirement home.”

“And the job here?”

He stopped. Evidently, he felt he had talked enough. “Go on, tell him,” Maria said encouragingly. I realized that she said this not because she wanted me to know, but she wanted him to tell his story out loud, to acknowledge it.

He went on, “As I said, this man who bought it was a friend of my parents. When I went bankrupt he told me I could come and do this job if I liked. So I did. A room goes with the job.”

Maria said, “And now he’s been hiding out and his wounds are beginning to heal. And soon he’s going to start teaching computer classes, aren’t you, Tom?”

He said, almost mumbling because he was contradicting her, “I told you, I’m not cut out to be a teacher.”

“I know that’s not what you were put on earth to do, but it’ll be a step up from this. It will get you back to thinking about IT again and getting back into that world. As I keep telling you. Now I’ve got to go home and get some sleep. I’ve got classes at nine o’clock tomorrow. Nice to meet you, David. Take it easy, Tom.” And she kissed him on the cheek and left.

Kinsella said to me, “She’s a school teacher. Lives around the corner, and drops in on me every now and again to keep me company for a little while. She’s got this idea that I could teach a class in basic information technology in her school.”

“Sounds as if it’s not a bad idea,” I said.

He turned back to his computer. I saw a good future for them. They would marry. He might get back on his career path and she would keep him on it, keep him from trying again to be something he should not try to be, teasing him and chastising him. They would play the same game for the rest of their lives. She would never entirely forgive him for not noticing her in high school, and probably not for Tina either, but she would love him. He was a lucky guy.

I thought I owed him something. I said, “Tom, I appreciate your telling me all this. Quite honestly I’m worried about something. This man from the inquiry agency who’s coming to see you at seven o’clock this morning, or men, because there could be more than one. They say they’re going to try to persuade you. I had a run-in with some people who are also trying to find out about the diamond. They were very nasty. I think I’ll hang around until they come.”

“You think I should be worried?”

“Perhaps. Or at least be ready to call the police. Anyway, it might be useful for you to have some back-up.”

He looked nervous. “All right, thanks.”

To tell the truth, I was anxious. This guy could indeed be nasty. He could be carrying. I didn’t have a gun.

While Tom went back to his computer screen, I picked up a brochure, and learned that Santa Monica has, as well as sunshine and long sandy beaches, six museums, more than ninety art galleries, and forty public art installations. Also that the Miles Memorial Playhouse on Lincoln Boulevard was showing an original musical called
The
Gamut
, and that the City Garage, another theatre, was playing Tennessee Williams’s
Small
Craft
Warning
.

Another brochure contained a map of the Los Angeles area showing the location of the homes of some movie stars, Leonard di Caprio, Warren Beatty, Jennifer Lopez, and a few others. I thought I might drop in on one or two of them. I could ask Warren Beatty whether it was true, as Joan Collins said, that he could keep it up all day and answer the phone in the middle.

I thought of Duncan Bridey and reflected that this diamond seemed to have the power to lead men astray. I closed my eyes and began to devise a song about this diamond. “
It’ll
tempt
you
and
taunt
you
/
Its
glitter
will
haunt
you
/
You’ll
find
yourself
going
where
a
man
shouldn’t
go
.”

I dozed off before I got any further, with my cheek rubbing uncomfortably against a torn bit of the plastic cover. I slept fitfully for a couple of hours. I woke after a while, tense, anxious, and ready to meet the persuader from the McIntyre Agency.

She arrived at seven o’clock on the dot. She had long chestnut hair, a pretty face with a pert nose, and she was wearing a t-shirt pulled tight over her lovely chest, with a light jacket over it, and slacks.

“Mr. Kinsella, I’m Angela LaSalle and I’m from the McIntyre Agency,” she said. “When you’re finished here, I wonder if I could take you to breakfast. There’s something I would like to talk to you about.”

She had a sweet, purring tone. Most men would find it difficult to refuse an offer made in that tone. Kinsella was apologetic and almost stuttering with embarrassment. “I’m afraid I’m very tired and when I leave here I go straight to bed.”

“I’m sure you’re tired, but—”

“Also, am I right in thinking that you want to talk about a diamond that I used to own?”

“Yes. But I’m sure we can talk about other things as well.” This with a smile. She’s really putting herself on the line, I thought.

“Well I’m afraid somebody is ahead of you,” he said, and nodded in my direction. I was sitting in the shadows and she had not noticed me. “He’s come all the way from England to ask me about the diamond. I’ve told him what I know.”

She turned to face me, and I was reminded of what I had missed for some time. I stood up and said, “Hello. I’m David Root.”

She was disconcerted but she said “Hi” to me and turned back to Kinsella. “Well, surely there’s no reason why you can’t tell me what you told Mr Root.”

“I didn’t tell him much,” he said. “I don’t know a lot. And I’m afraid I’m very tired now.”

“Well, maybe another time. Would you mind if I called you some time?” She looked at him with a winsome smile.

It would be pretty difficult for a man to say an absolute no to that. Kinsella mumbled, “Well all right, perhaps.”

I had been feeling tired, and stiff from dozing in an uncomfortable position, but I seemed to be getting a second wind. I said, “Angela, Mr Kinsella here is clearly very fatigued. You’re not going to persuade him of anything. Why not have breakfast with me instead?” She hesitated and I said, “You might persuade me to tell you something.”

She took a long look at me and then said, “OK.”

“I know a place next to my hotel,” I said. “They do a terrific breakfast.” I had never been there. “My car’s outside.”

“So is mine,” she said. “I’ll follow you.”

*

She ordered scrambled eggs, corn muffins, and coffee, and attacked them with enthusiasm. I had a stack of pancakes with bacon and maple syrup and a lot of coffee. After being up most of the night I needed the caffeine. She was smart enough not to mention the diamond right away. She asked why I was living in England and I told her about the army and about FHS.

She told me about herself. She came from Sacramento, where her father worked for the state government, that she had graduated from Stamford, and was now studying acting. She worked for McIntyre Investigations part-time to help pay for her acting school. “It sounded more interesting than waiting on tables,” she explained.

“Is it?”

“Yes. Sort of depressing, though. I wonder, aren’t there any faithful husbands around? And now I’m supposed to find out about the diamond. What are you going to tell me?” And she leaned across the table and looked into my eyes.

“What do you know?

“Almost nothing. McIntyre got a call from somebody asking him to find out where it came from. I don’t think he was giving it a very high priority. He sent me along because Kinsella apparently gave him the brush-off. He told me to do anything I can to find out where the diamond came from. I’m quite good at persuading people.”

“I’m sure you are. What are your instructions? Do anything you can? No limits?”

“I don’t know whether the McIntyre Agency has limits, but I do,” she said firmly.

“Look, I was also sent out to find out about this diamond. I’ve found out a little. But I can’t tell you what.”

She looked at me for a while, and then, evidently, decided it would be a waste of time pursuing this.

“All right,” she said. “Now, tell me, how did you get into this line of work?”

So I told her that I was only doing it on a temporary basis, and about the army and moving to England. As we were talking, I looked across the table at her and liked what I saw. I knew that she was looking at me and liking what she saw. She knew what I was feeling and she knew that I knew what she was feeling. It happens occasionally and it’s very nice when it does.

I was also thinking that we might reverse the usual course of events. You have dinner with a girl, and you like her, and if things go really well you end up having breakfast with her the next morning, having spent some of the intervening time in bed together. This time, if things worked out well, we would have breakfast together and if things went really well I would have dinner with her, having spent much of the intervening time in bed together. And that’s what happened.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I boarded a flight to London the next evening, travelling economy. The man next to me was chatty over dinner. As we manoeuvred our plastic knives and forks in the cramped space he said, “Travelling on business?” I said I was and he asked what business.

I said, “I’m a private investigator on the trail of a diamond. There’s a mystery about it.”

He grinned. “You’re pursuing a mysterious diamond. I see. I’m a CIA assassin on an assignment.”

“OK, I’ll come clean. I’m selling a software program,” I said.

“That’s better,” he said. “I’m in investments. Going to see some clients in London. Do you know London?”

I told him I had recently moved there, and we chatted about London while we finished our meal. Then I indicated that our conversation was at an end for a while, started reading a paperback novel I had bought at the airport, then turned off the reading light and went to sleep.

When I got to London I did not waste any time. I had scented the quarry and wanted to get on it. I went home, changed my clothes, telephoned Pierre Azamouth and made an appointment without any difficulty.

Hatton Garden is a street, but the name also refers to the few blocks around it, which are the centre of Britain’s diamond trade. They do not glitter. Old brick buildings, their time-worn colours fading, mingled with glass and steel, antique dingy with brutalist modern.

Pierre Azamouth’s office was in one of the dingy buildings, one floor up a creaking wooden staircase. The other three offices on this floor were also occupied by jewellery merchants of one kind or another.

He turned out to be a man in his sixties, balding, plump, with rosy cheeks, wearing a suit and tie with the tie skewed untidily. He sat at a battered-looking desk on which lay a telephone, a tray with a few papers in it, a copy of the magazine
The
Jeweller
, and an eye magnifier. There was no reception area. It was a far cry from the expensive elegance of Azamouth Frères in the Place Vendome. Nevertheless, he was presumably of the same family.

One of the Paris Azamouths had tried to warn me off and had then, or so I guessed, tipped off Bulganov’s thugs that I was on the trail. So I was going to tread warily here.

Pierre Azamouth rose from his chair to greet me, wheezing a little as he did so. “What can I do for you, Mr Root?” he asked. He spoke with a slight French accent.

“First of all, am I right in thinking you’re related to Azamouth Frères in Paris?” I asked.

“Related professionally,” he replied, which sounded odd.

“Oh. Well I’ve come to ask you about a diamond that they sold, and that you sold also.”

“You want to know about a diamond?” He spoke warily.

“Yes. A 32-carat blue diamond. That you sold to Tom Kinsella.”

“You seem well informed. Are you interested in buying it?”

“No, I’m afraid I’m not in a position to buy it. I want to know about it.” There seemed no point in disguising my mission. I had tried that at Azamouth Frères in Paris and made a fool of myself.

He paused. He was one of those cautious people who always pause before responding to a question or a statement. Then he said, “Mr Root, my relations with my clients are always confidential.”

“This is not about your relations with your client. It’s about the diamond itself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know where it comes from.”

He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. “Have you come to ask me that? Where it really comes from?”

I was a bit taken aback. “Well, yes.”

“Did Azamouth Frères send you?”

“No, certainly not. Why would you think that? I’m working for Fitzwilliam Harvey Security. We carry out inquiries. We have a client who wants to know where this diamond really comes from. He doesn’t believe it comes from Uzbekistan, as it’s supposed to.”

“What have you found out so far?”

“I’ve traced it back to you.”

“Starting where?

“Starting with its present owner, who lives in Switzerland. All the way to Tom Kinsella and to you. Also, I know a German called Otto Mollering sold it.”

“You went to Switzerland? And to California to see Tom Kinsella?”

“That’s right.”

“Your client must really be keen to know about it. He’s spent a lot of money on this project.” After another pause he said, “Mr Root, I’m in the business of selling diamonds. I don’t usually sell information.”

This statement contained two elements. He had used the word
sell
, which meant he would expect to be paid, and he said he didn’t
usually
sell information, which meant that he might this time. I said cautiously, “If you did give me this information, what kind of sum were you thinking of?”

“Well first of all, I haven’t been thinking about it at all, the subject has just come up. And secondly, I can’t tell you where the diamond really comes from because I don’t know.”

“Oh. Then what can you tell me?”

“I can’t tell you how to get in touch with Otto Mollering. All I can tell you is the name of the man who polished it and cut it. He must have got it directly from the owner. He should know where it comes from.”

“And you’d like to be paid for that piece of information.”

“It seems a lot of money is being spent. I don’t see why a little shouldn’t come my way.”

“So once again, what sort of price?”

“Mmm, I don’t know. Give me a while to think about it.” After a few moments he said, “Five hundred pounds seems reasonable. It’s what it cost you to go to California to see Tom Kinsella. Just the flight. That seems reasonable, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll have to ask my client and get back to you,” I said.

I went downstairs and found a Starbucks and ordered a cup of tea, sat in a corner and phoned Jeremy in his office. He was free and I got through immediately. I asked whether we should check with Michelmore before spending five hundred pounds of his money. “No need,” Jeremy said. “He’s pretty much given us
carte
blanche
, and five hundred pounds is peanuts to him. The only thing that worries me is whether what he tells you will get us any further.”

“We’ve had this problem at every stage. So far it’s worked out.” I was on the scent.

“OK, we’ll take a chance,” he said.

I went into the office, had a secretary type out a letter on Fitzwilliam Harvey Security paper agreeing to pay Mr Pierre Azamouth five hundred pounds in exchange for information, and took two copies. It was late afternoon by now. I telephoned Azamouth and arranged to come into his office the following morning.

*

I arrived at the office the next morning and rang the bell. No answer. I rang the bell of the neighbouring office. A secretary answered and I asked whether she knew anything about Azamouth’s whereabouts. She did. “He had a heart attack yesterday. He was taken away in an ambulance.”

I was taken aback. I felt as if I were climbing a ladder and had found the next rung missing.

“Do you know what hospital?” She did not.

Always difficulties. The awful thing was that at that moment I did not think of whether poor Azamouth would live or die but only about whether he would live long enough to give me that address. I told Jeremy the bad news, and got from him the names of some nearby hospitals. I phoned a couple and the Middlesex Hospital said yes, they had admitted someone of that name yesterday. What ward? They told me.

I went along there with the letter in my pocket, went up to the ward and waited until I could speak to the ward sister. I told her I was a friend and asked her what his condition was. She said it was only a mild heart attack. Was he well enough to receive visitors? Was I a close friend? Well, not exactly, but I had a letter in my pocket that he would want to see. She said he was alone and I could go into his ward for a short time.

He was in pyjamas, leaning back on a pillow with his eyes closed. He was attached by a tube in his arm to a monitoring screen which was showing a jagged line on a graph. How can you talk business with someone in that state? I pulled up a chair next to the bed and he opened his eyes. He looked at me, seemed confused for a moment, and then he remembered me.

“Mr Azamouth, we don’t have to talk business now. I just wanted to see how you are.”

“I’m glad to see you. I haven’t talked to anybody all day. My wife is on the Isle of Wight. She’s on her way back.” His voice was weak.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve known better days. But it’s not too bad. I’m not in pain. The doctor says I should recover soon.”

“Good. I should have brought you something. Grapes or something, it’s traditional. But I was in a hurry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want to be a traditional patient.”

“Can I bring you anything now?”

“I like chocolates. But my wife will probably be bringing some.”

“OK. Do you want to read this? Do you feel up to it?” I showed him the letter and said, “This is a promise to pay you five hundred pounds for the name and address of that diamond cutter.”

“I feel a little badly about asking you for the money. I’m a businessman, but not a good one. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But I had a minor heart attack – this is the second – and I’m planning to retire, and I don’t have a lot of money put away.”

“I suppose it was quite reasonable to ask for money,” I said.

“My wife and I are moving out of London and we’ve bought a cottage in Dymchurch. Do you know Dymchurch?”

“No.”

“It’s a village on the south coast, quite near Folkestone. A quiet, pleasant place, although I gather it gets a bit less quiet with holidaymakers in the summertime.” He paused, as if contemplating life in Dymchurch.

He looked at the letter and said, “Ah yes. I don’t have to read it, I’m sure it says what you say it does. But I’m going to make a condition.” He smiled a weak smile.

“What’s that?” I asked warily.

“That you stay here for a while and talk to me. Listen to me. I’ve not talked to anyone since I came here yesterday evening. My wife was on the Isle of Wight. She’s on her way back,” he said again.

“OK. Agreed.”

He paused as if wondering where to begin. Then he said, “You’ve seen my office. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place one where one deals in diamonds worth several million pounds, does it?”

I thought of the cramped space and the few furnishings and I was embarrassed. It was like a woman saying she wasn’t good-looking and asking you to confirm it. The office did seem like that of a small fry dealership. “It does seem like a small operation,” I said, finally.

“It goes back to Azamouth Frères. To their father, Père Azamouth, actually. Père Azamouth was a really nice man. A very good man. Have you seen Azamouth Frères? Their office?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Why did you go there?”

“The same reason I came here. I’m trying to find out where the diamond comes from.”

“And were they helpful?”

“No, they weren’t, actually.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s a smart office, yes? Elegant. Impressive.”

“If you like that sort of thing.”

“If you like that sort of thing,” he repeated, and smiled. “Very good. Yes. They like that sort of thing.

“I’m a cousin of Azamouth Frères,” he went on. “Second cousin, actually. The Azamouths are Algerian Jews. My father and his cousin Marcel were both in Paris in 1940 when the Germans occupied it. My mother went back to her parents in Algiers and my father was going to follow but the French police got to him first. Not the Germans, you understand, the French police, doing the Germans’ work for them. He and Marcel were both rounded up by the police, along with fourteen thousand other Parisian Jews, and handed over to the Germans.”

He paused and then said, “Would you mind pouring me a glass of water?” I poured water from a pitcher at his bedside table into a plastic glass and gave it to him. He drank it, and was silent for a while.

Then he said, “Mr Root, I was joking when I said you had to stay and talk to me. Or rather listen to me. I’m sure you’re a busy man. I said I’d give you the cutter’s name and I will. Reach into that cubicle and get out my jacket, would you please?”

I took his jacket out of the bedside cubicle and handed it to him. He took out a wallet and extracted a business card. “Here. I put his card in my wallet after you left yesterday just to remind myself.”

I looked at the wallet and read out loud, “Israel Cremer.” There was an address in Amsterdam.

“He’s one of the best,” he said. “He’s well known in the diamond world. Now you’ve got it and you can go. You don’t have to stay and listen to the rest of my family story.”

He was obviously lonely and I did not like the idea of leaving him. Besides, his family history was interesting. I said, “Mr Azamouth, I’m not in a great hurry, and I’m very happy to hear some more of your family story. What happened to your father and your uncle after they were taken prisoner by the Germans?”