Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

For ten days Jacob had holed up in the cheap hotel behind Paddington Station where he’d stayed once before, back in the days when he was travelling round the records offices of Europe digging into Claes’s murky past. They took cash in advance at reception and asked no questions, so he didn’t need to tell them any lies. Every day he read the newspaper reports on the Swain trial and listened to the radio and took long walks through the London parks, enjoying the biting cold air that kept him alert as he waited for the jury to reach their verdict on David Swain. And when it came, announced as the first item on the six o’clock news on Wednesday evening, he wasn’t surprised. Instead he was ready. He got up the next morning, hoisted his pack onto his back after breakfast, and took the train to Banbury. He didn’t think the police would be watching the station in Oxford, but there was no need to take the risk. And from Banbury he rode the bicycle that he’d bought in London slowly through the gathering fog, taking the back roads until he came to the far side of Blackwater Lake and found the rowing boat exactly where he’d left it, hidden in a grove of evergreen trees growing a little way back from the bank. His plan had been to avoid the village and the road that passed by the boathouse and the Hall, but the thick fog meant that he did not need to worry about observation. Instead he found it a hard task to navigate his way across the lake and ended up reaching the other side a hundred yards up from his target. Still, eventually he had the boat and the bicycle stowed away under the boathouse and set off through the woods with his torch.

An hour later, standing hidden in the trees at the top of the drive, listening to the Bentley disappearing into the distance, Jacob allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. Claes’s departure was a piece of luck that he hadn’t been anticipating. Now Osman would be on his own, apart from the servants and Claes’s sister, and he had nothing to fear from them. He waited a few minutes and then, with his hand cradled round the butt of the gun in his pocket, stepped out into the fog.

This time it wasn’t Jana but a maid in uniform who answered the door and asked him his business. Immediately Jacob forced his way past her, demanding to see the master of the house. The noise brought Osman into the hall. He quickly retreated back towards his study as soon as he recognized his visitor, but Jacob ran after him down the corridor and was through the door before Osman had the chance to lock himself in.

With nowhere left to go, Osman sat down behind his desk, as if hoping that a little display of dignity might bring Jacob to this senses, although it didn’t help that the top drawer was missing, gone to the furniture maker for repair after Jacob had blasted a hole through it on his last visit.

‘How dare you come in here like this?’ Osman demanded, trying and failing to give the impression that he was in control of the situation.

Jacob didn’t respond, just looked down with contempt at Osman like he was some kind of loathsome insect that he hadn’t yet decided how best to dispose of.

‘What do you want?’ asked Osman. He was unmistakably nervous now — beads of sweat had begun to form in his hairline, and a twitch at the corner of his bottom lip indicated his growing anxiety.

‘I want justice — the kind they’re not handing out up in London,’ said Jacob, pointing to the headline of the Daily Telegraph, which was lying folded on the desk between them: ‘David Swain to hang for Blackwater murder.’

‘I want justice for my father and mother and for my brother and Katya and for all the other men, women, and children that you and Claes have murdered in the last twenty years. That’s what I want,’ Jacob went on, banging his fist down on the desk to emphasize the name of each of the dead victims.

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ said Osman in a shaky voice, shrinking into the back of his chair in the face of this verbal onslaught. ‘I swear it. David Swain killed your brother and Katya, and I tried to save your parents but I couldn’t. I saved you. Don’t you understand that? You wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for me.’

‘Yes, you’re right. But why? Why did you save me, Titus?’ asked Jacob, leaning forward so that his face was only a few inches from Osman’s. ‘Come on, tell me. Spit it out: you know the answer. So that my parents would trust you when their turn came to try and escape across the border. That’s why. So they’d bring you all their precious diamonds and make you the diamond king. That’s all they were to you: the chance for more loot.’

Jacob could no longer contain his anger. He lunged at Osman, taking hold of his enemy by the lapels of his Savile Row suit, and the fine cloth tore in Jacob’s hands as he dragged Osman out from behind the desk and over towards the door. Osman was too shocked at first to struggle; and then, when he began to resist, Jacob threw him down on the carpet, took the gun out of his pocket, and pointed it at Osman’s head.

‘Get up,’ he ordered, speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll kill you. I swear I will, if you don’t give me what I want.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Osman. It was the second time he’d asked Jacob the question, but now there was desperation in his voice: he’d lost control of his breathing and was panting as he spoke. And he seemed to have hurt himself as he fell: he held both his hands behind his back at the base of his spine as he got to his feet and stood swaying backwards and forwards in the doorway.

‘Proof,’ said Jacob. ‘That’s what I want. Proof of what you’ve done, so all the world can see you for what you are: a thief and a cold-blooded killer, not some big-hearted philanthropist.’

‘But there is no proof,’ said Osman, reaching out to touch Jacob’s arm in a gesture of supplication. ‘You’ve got to believe me: I’m an innocent man.’

‘Stop lying. I can’t stand to hear it,’ shouted Jacob, brandishing his gun. With his free hand he pushed Osman away, back through the half-open door, and then immediately came up behind him in the corridor outside, forcing the gun into the small of Osman’s back. It was the place where Osman had hurt himself when he fell, and he cried out in sudden pain.

‘You’re the least innocent man in the whole wide world,’ said Jacob, hissing the information into Osman’s ear. ‘Now get upstairs. Or I’ll do that again; only it’ll be worse this time.’

Osman was shaking from head to toe, but he obeyed the order, shuffling forward into the hall and up the stairs. At the top, Jacob directed him to the left, and they carried on their strange procession down the corridor to Osman’s bedroom. There was no sign of either Jana or the parlour maid or any of the other servants, and Osman wondered whether they had all fled the house, leaving him to deal with Jacob on his own. He’d been listening hard for the sound of the returning Bentley outside, but he’d heard nothing. ‘I won’t be long,’ Franz had said. So where was he now? And where were the police when he needed them?

Concentrating his mind, Trave resumed his reading of Katya’s diary:

Franz looked me in the eye and straight away I knew he knew. It was my fault. I realized what I’d done: like a fool I’d left the writing pad open on my desk when I ran out of the house, and he must have been watching me; he or his foul sister. She was there too, standing behind him on the steps with a smirk on her ugly white face like she was enjoying what was happening, like she wanted to see me suffer. I didn’t struggle. What was the point? I know Franz; I know what he’d like to do to me with his hands if he got the chance. I know what he did to Ethan with that knife. I wasn’t going to give him an excuse.