Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

I told him that I wanted to see my uncle; that I wanted to tell Titus what I’d found. I was playing my last card but it was like Franz knew what I’d been going to say. He said: ‘Certainly.’ Just that, and gave a little bow of his head and a wave of his hand like he was being polite, treating me like I was some kind of lady who needed to go first out the door. I wanted to run but I could hardly walk, and Jana was in front of me anyway so there was no way I could have escaped. Franz was behind my back. He wasn’t touching me, but I could feel his cold breath on the back of my neck while we walked through the woods and across the lawn back to the house. Back to my uncle waiting in his study.

At the end of the corridor Jacob reached round Osman and pushed open the half-closed door with his free hand, and then shoved Osman forwards into the bedroom. But Osman was ready and didn’t fall this time; instead he caught hold of one of the carved mahogany posts of his four-poster bed and then turned to face his adversary, who was standing in the doorway, holding the gun trained on his forehead. Behind Osman, his cat, Cara, who had been sleeping on the bed, opened her green eyes wide in surprise. She’d never seen her master pushed across a room before.

‘Open it,’ commanded Jacob, pointing with a quick sideways motion of the gun towards the oil painting hanging on the wall between the two matching wardrobes.

‘Open what?’ asked Osman, playing for time even though he knew perfectly well what Jacob was telling him to do. Jana had given him a detailed description of her gunpoint encounter with Jacob and his inability to get in the safe ten days earlier. God, what an idiot he’d been, Osman thought, cursing himself for his stupidity. He should have known Jacob would come back, just as he should have known neither Franz nor Macrae could be relied on for protection — instead of finding Jacob they had left him here defenceless to face this maniac on his own. Too late, Osman realized he should have hired guards or left Blackwater altogether until Jacob was caught. Now he was caught himself with no means of escape.

‘Open the fucking safe!’ Jacob repeated his demand with a snarl in his voice; and then, when Osman did not immediately comply, he turned the gun a fraction of an inch and fired through the window overlooking the courtyard, shattering the glass with the bullet. A wave of cold air blew into the room, and Osman’s legs gave way beneath him as, unseen, the cat disappeared under the bed.

Slowly, Osman got back to his feet and took the picture down off the wall with shaking hands. He glanced across at Jacob and then twisted the knob, entering the coded numbers one by one until the steel door clicked and he pulled it open. Behind Osman, Jacob leaned forwards, looking in at the lines of small blue silk bags, each with a different tiny white number embroidered on its side, and, behind them on a shelf, taking up most of the space at the back of the safe, three thick, dark green, leather-bound books.

‘Get those out,’ ordered Jacob, pointing at the books. ‘Show them to me.’

‘They’re my accounts. That’s all — who I’ve sold to, who I’ve bought from, my expenses — nothing else,’ said Osman as he took out the ledgers. He put the first two down on the ground and then held out the third one, turning the pages for Jacob’s inspection, as if he really thought they might convince Jacob that he was indeed an innocent man.

‘How far do they go back?’ asked Jacob, looking up from the names and dates and the columns of figures recorded in red and black ink.

‘This one four years,’ said Osman. ‘But it’s not finished. The other two are five each.’

‘Fourteen years. And before that?’

‘I don’t have records before I came to England. It was the war, you know,’ said Osman. He made it sound like the war explained everything.

‘No, I don’t know. You’re lying,’ said Jacob, losing his temper as his frustration boiled over. He’d pinned all his hopes on the stupid safe, and it had yielded him nothing. Trave had been right about Blackwater Hall. There was nothing here — no evidence, no proof, nothing. Or at least nothing that he was going to find without Osman’s help. And that help would only be forthcoming if Osman really believed that Jacob would kill him if he didn’t talk. The bastard didn’t believe that at present — that much was obvious. Jacob had to convince him. That’s what he needed to do.

‘Get down on your knees,’ he ordered, stepping back and retraining the gun on Osman’s head.

Osman saw the homicidal look in Jacob’s eyes and was filled with a mortal terror that he’d never felt before. He couldn’t be going to die. Not now when he’d finally got everything he’d ever wanted. He grabbed a handful of the silk bags from inside the safe and pulled open their drawstrings, spilling radiant diamonds of all sizes and colours and cuts into his hand, holding them out to Jacob.

‘Here, take them,’ he said. ‘There are more, lots more. I can sell them for you if you want. They’re worth millions, more than you can imagine.’

Jacob looked down at the array of jewels glittering in Osman’s outstretched hand and felt like he was going to be sick. He thought of his family members, dying terrible deaths in unspeakable places just so Osman could get hold of these meaningless baubles of crystal carbon and call them his own. They enraged him, and he leant forward with his free hand and dashed the diamonds out of Osman’s hand onto the floor. They fell, scattering in all directions across the pale blue Axminster carpet, and such was Osman’s obsession with the jewels that he looked down at them for a moment in disbelief, unable to believe that a person could treat such beauty with such contempt. But then he looked back up into Jacob’s cold, angry eyes and remembered his situation.

‘Get down on your knees,’ Jacob commanded again.

But Osman stood his ground: he knew what would happen when he knelt, and he wasn’t going to assist in his own death. He closed his eyes and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in for rescue, and, as if in direct response, the roar of a police siren rent the silence, followed by the sound of a car coming fast up the drive. And suddenly the fog outside was lit up by flashing blue lights. Doors were opening — car doors and the front door of the house, and several moments later a familiar voice shouted up at them from down below: ‘Come out, Jacob Mendel. We know you’re in there. Come out now.’

Keeping his gun trained on Osman, Jacob crossed the room and looked quickly down into the courtyard through the shattered window. The fog had cleared a little, and in the lights he could just about make out the faces of the figures down below: the young detective who’d held him in his flat with Trave was the one who had shouted, and a few yards away on the other side of the fountain was a big burly man in police uniform whom Jacob didn’t recognize. Beyond them, two figures, who could only be Jana Claes and the maid who’d answered the door, were running away up the drive.

‘Fuck!’ Backing away from the window, Jacob vented his anger with a series of expletives, and then he noticed how Osman had risen up to his full height again, puffing out his chest like he had nothing left to fear, like he was back to being Titus Osman, the king of diamonds again. He laughed mirthlessly at Osman’s lack of understanding, realizing suddenly that the police were an opportunity for him, not Osman. They could be witnesses to Osman’s confession. Jacob was grateful for their arrival.

‘Get over by the window,’ he ordered, pressing the cold, hard muzzle of the gun against the back of Osman’s head to force him forward. Down below the two policemen were looking up at them through the mist.