Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

‘Go forward,’ interrupted Vanessa impatiently, sitting up. ‘Read what happened at Blackwater. I need to know.’

Trave nodded, skimming across several pages and then started reading again:

August 24th:

I have begun the search and so far I have found nothing. I took Titus’s keyring and searched his desk but found only boring business letters and stationery. And today I phoned Jacob like we agreed and told him he must be patient. I will not call again until I have found something — it is too much of a risk. Still, I am sure my uncle has no idea of what I am about. He seems pleased to have me home; it’s as if he wants to believe I’m a reformed character. But he’s obviously got his doubts — says he’ll have to put some weight on my bones and colour in my cheeks before he takes me out into society which is fine with me. I’ve got better things to do than make small talk with bigwigs. I don’t know about Franz — he watches me, but then again he watches everyone. Who wouldn’t with secrets like he has! God, I hate him. And his sister too, muttering in Dutch over her stupid crucifix. I wonder what she knows…

August 25th:

Franz and Titus were arguing in the dining room. Titus has a girlfriend in Oxford, the wife of that policeman who put David away.

Trave looked up and caught Vanessa’s eye and dropped his gaze immediately. His wife had seemed so familiar sitting across from him on the sofa like she used to do that he’d forgotten for a moment the great divide that now separated them from each other. He bit his lip and went back to the diary:

Franz doesn’t like it; says a policeman’s wife is a bad choice. I wonder why! Of course Franz would hate any woman Titus brought home: everyone knows what he is but no one’s going to admit it. More lies. This house is built on them.

August 28th:

I hate Franz. I hate the way he watches me all the time, the way he sneers at me like he knows what I’m looking for and knows I won’t find anything. I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and I want to go back to Oxford and get fixed and forget, but I can’t do that either. I promised myself and I promised Jacob.

I look at my uncle and I can’t believe he could be involved. He’s always been kind to me; he often treats me like I’m his daughter. But if Franz is guilty then perhaps he is too. I have to know one way or the other. There’s a safe in Titus’s bedroom behind a picture. Yesterday I saw it open. I was out in the corridor and Titus had his back to me. He didn’t see me. I know he didn’t. And I went in there afterwards while he and Franz and Jana were downstairs eating lunch. I said I wasn’t hungry. That much was true. I tried all the different number combinations — every birthday, every important date I could think of, forwards and backwards, but nothing worked. I need to see him open it. That’s my only chance.

August 30th:

Twice now I’ve risked everything and come away with nothing, and I can’t do this any more. I know I can’t. Yesterday I lay under Titus’s bed for hours and he didn’t go near the safe — not once — but today I was lying there in the dust half asleep, daydreaming of Ethan, and suddenly Titus came in and went straight to the picture. I pushed up the counterpane and looked, but he was between me and the safe and I couldn’t see the numbers when he opened it. My heart was beating so hard and I was so frightened, and he looked round once and I thought he’d seen me, but then he left. And afterwards my legs were shaking so bad I could hardly make it out of the room. It’s so hard and I am so alone. I wish Ethan was here to tell me what to do because I don’t know about my uncle any more. Maybe he had nothing to do with killing Ethan; maybe Jacob’s got it wrong. Maybe it’s all Franz, but I can’t get into his bedroom. He keeps it locked. Day and night.

‘I told you,’ said Vanessa, nodding. ‘It’s not Titus; it’s Claes and his weird sister who are the guilty ones. But Katya must have found something. Otherwise they wouldn’t have killed her. Can’t you find what it was? It must be in there somewhere.’

Trave turned several pages and suddenly looked excited. ‘Here it is,’ he said, and began reading again:

September 2nd:

This has been the longest day of my life. I found what I was looking for and then I lost it because I was a fool, and now I am a prisoner here in my own room. And I will die here. I know I will. And be forgotten. Like Ethan. Unless maybe someone finds this record after I am dead. I must write down everything that’s happened while I remember, while I can still write. Thank God they don’t know about my diary. I don’t think they even suspect that it exists.

I was sitting here this morning in despair, and I took out a letter-writing pad from the top drawer of my desk to write a letter to Jacob to say it was over, because I’d gone as far as I could and found nothing. And the sun was shining down on me so brightly — it was like it was mocking me, except it wasn’t. I looked down out of the glare and it was showing me the outline of someone’s writing on the first page of the pad. And straight away I knew it was Ethan’s — even though the writing was only a faint indentation. I recognized his big, bold letters, and it was like he was speaking to me, like he’s been listening when I talk to him at night.

‘Dearest Katya, I’ve just got back. I need to see you. Meet me at the boathouse at five. Ethan.’ That was what he’d written. I looked at it and then I realized what it was. It was the note he must have written to me when he arrived back from West Germany on the day he died, or rather a copy of it that he had made unintentionally when his words indented through the thin paper as he wrote. I know what happened now. He must have come up to my room looking for me as soon as he got back, and then, when he didn’t find me, he took the pad out of the drawer to write the note, and when he was done, he put it back where he’d found it. And it’s been there ever since, waiting for me — Ethan’s message to me from beyond the grave.

And I knew straight away what happened afterwards too. Franz found the note taped to my door and he realized his opportunity. He tore off the top of the note and then used the bottom half to lure David out to the boathouse. So simple and yet so ingenious. And the plan worked beautifully. Ethan’s dead and David’s in prison serving a life sentence for something he never did.

And I realized something else, something terrible. Franz must have kept Ethan prisoner in the boathouse all through the afternoon waiting for David to come. He couldn’t have killed Ethan before or the time of death wouldn’t match. My darling was alive all day while I was out shopping. Shopping! I couldn’t bear it. I rushed out of the house. I needed to think. I ran through the woods to the boathouse. That was where Franz had to have kept him. Perhaps Ethan had found a way to leave me some note, some sign before he died. I searched in every corner, every cranny, every crevice, but there was nothing, and then I walked back down the path through the trees, back the way I’d come. Not once but twice. I went down on my hands and knees in the undergrowth but still there was nothing. Nothing at all. And so I went and sat in the boathouse, laying my head on the table where I’d sat with Ethan so many times before. I remembered the past and I forgot about time, and it was like Ethan was alive again, just beyond the reach of my arms. But then I heard voices outside on the steps and there was nowhere to hide when they opened the door.

Trave paused, glancing up at Vanessa as he turned the page. She was wild-eyed, sitting forward on the edge of the sofa only inches away from him with her hands clasped tight together in front of her chest. There was nothing he could say to comfort her, and so with a heavy heart he turned back to the diary and resumed his reading.