Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

‘Now tell them,’ ordered Jacob in a steely voice. ‘Tell them what you did. Tell them about my parents, about how you betrayed them to the Nazis, about how you sent them to Auschwitz on the cattle train. Tell them about my brother, about how you and Claes put a knife in his back. Tell them about Katya. Tell them, Titus. I’ll kill you if you don’t. I swear I will.’

But Osman wasn’t listening. He thought of jumping, but it was too far and he was too frightened. ‘Help me,’ he shouted, not at Clayton but at the burly man standing behind him. ‘That’s what I pay you for.’

Below, Wale backed away towards the police car without responding, leaving it to Clayton to do the talking. ‘Let him go,’ Clayton shouted up at Jacob. ‘Claes is dead. Isn’t that enough?’

But Jacob wasn’t listening. All his attention was focused on the trembling man in front of him. ‘Confess,’ he demanded, thrusting the gun into the small of Osman’s back. ‘Confess and I’ll let you go.’

‘No,’ said Osman. ‘I’m an innocent man.’ He shouted out the words so that everyone could hear them: Jana and the servants on the other side of the courtyard; the policemen down below; and even Osman’s cat, who’d emerged from under the bed and now stood watching the man who was hurting her master over by the window, forcing him to cry out in pain. Suddenly Cara arched her back and launched herself through the air, hanging on to Jacob’s shoulder with her claws as she sank her teeth into his neck, and, shocked to the core by this utterly unexpected attack from behind, Jacob dropped the gun.

Osman was onto the opportunity in an instant. Displaying an entirely unexpected athleticism for a man of his age, he dived to the ground, seized the gun in his hand, and rolled away towards the door.

Jacob staggered back into the room, struggling to get a firm grip on the cat as she continued her assault, scratching at his face and neck. Finally he succeeded in getting both his hands around her squirming body and threw her against the far wall, from where she fell to the floor with a shriek and then disappeared back under her master’s bed.

Jacob couldn’t see for a moment. Blood was spurting out from a line of cuts on his forehead, and he put up his hand to wipe it away. When he opened his eyes he found himself looking straight down the barrel of his own gun.

‘Don’t move. Don’t speak,’ said Osman. They were over by the bed, out of view of the people in the courtyard down below.

‘So you want to hear my confession, do you?’ he asked. His voice was a whisper. His head was inches from Jacob’s; it was almost as if he was kissing Jacob with his words, feeling for his fear with the gun. ‘You want to be my priest? You want to give me absolution for my sins?’

Jacob looked at his adversary, saying nothing, waiting to hear the truth. Behind him the soft winter breeze blew into the white silk curtains through the remains of the broken window, and down below Adam Clayton took Franz Claes’s gun out of his pocket, looked at it a moment, steeling his courage to the sticking place, and then went up the steps and entered the house through the wide-open front door.

‘There’s a line I can hardly read here,’ said Trave. His forehead was furrowed with concentration as he held Katya’s little diary up to the light. ‘It’s smudged like she spilt something on the page, or maybe she was crying.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Vanessa, nearly beside herself with impatience. ‘Get on with it, Bill. Put me out of my misery, for Christ’s sake.’

And Trave began to read again, slowly deciphering Katya’s scribbled words:

My uncle was sitting at his desk with Ethan’s note in front of him. And he looked up at me and smiled and I knew the truth then once and for all. He didn’t need to admit it. I knew what he had done. To Ethan and to David and to Ethan’s parents and to all those Jews he didn’t save.

‘So you found something, little Katya,’ he said. He’d never called me that before. ‘A whisper from the past. But that’s all it is, you know. A whisper; a murmur on the breeze that nobody will ever hear.’ And he picked up the writing pad and threw it on the fire and I watched it burn. Burn my proof to ashes; my hope to dust.

I looked at him and I spat in his face and he took out a silk handkerchief and wiped the spit away. He was still smiling, told me he was sorry it had come to this and even looked half-regretful when Franz took hold of me from behind and dragged me upstairs. I can still feel Franz’s cold hands on my body even now two hours later: killer’s hands they are, with no pity in them at all; no mercy. They’re going to kill me. I know they are. Just like they killed Ethan. So why don’t they get it over with? What are they waiting for?

‘They were waiting to get David Swain out of gaol; that’s what they were waiting for,’ said Trave, looking up. ‘So that they could set him up with the murder.’

But Vanessa wasn’t listening. Her face had crumpled up, and her body shook with terrible sobs. Titus was a murderer and she was his accomplice. That was the truth. If she had gone to the police with what Katya had told her the girl would still be alive. She’d been Katya’s last chance, and yet she had done nothing, just left Katya to her fate.

Titus had lied to her about everything — even perhaps about the existence of his dead wife and child, and she had believed him because she had wanted to; because she was flattered by his attention and wanted to be the new Mrs Osman, living the good life out at Blackwater Hall. Vanessa looked down at her hand and pulled Osman’s beautiful diamond ring from her finger and threw it away into a corner of the room. But it didn’t help; it didn’t change anything. The ring was still there, glittering by the skirting board, an indestructible symbol of her complicity, and she knew that she’d never stop feeling ashamed of herself until she was dead and buried and couldn’t feel anything any more.

‘You want to know why I betrayed your parents?’ asked Osman, staring into Jacob’s eyes.

‘Because they were Jews?’

‘No; they could have been Hindus for all I cared. Guess again.’

‘For their diamonds?’

‘Yes,’ said Osman. ‘You know the answer. Of course you do, but you don’t understand it. Look, look, where you threw them on the floor.’ Osman gestured with the gun down at the gemstones glittering like tiny stars all over the pale blue carpet at their feet.

‘They’re bits of rock. That’s all. They’re not alive,’ said Jacob. ‘Not like your victims were.’

‘Yes,’ said Osman. ‘You’re right. They’re not like flesh and blood; they don’t decay; they don’t rot. Diamonds are forever.’

Osman smiled, and Jacob knew suddenly what was going to happen next. He thought of shouting but knew instinctively that he wouldn’t get the words out of his mouth before the bullet entered his head. Osman would be able to say it was in self-defence — everyone down below in the courtyard had already seen Jacob at the window threatening the owner of the house with a gun.

‘Do people mean nothing to you?’ Jacob asked, playing for time. ‘Katya was your flesh and blood. She was almost like your daughter

…’

‘She was a fool. That’s what she was. Just like you. She couldn’t help herself: she had to peep through the keyhole; she had to go where she was forbidden — and for that there’s a price to pay; there’s always a price to pay. And you know what that price is, don’t you, Jacob?’ asked Osman. His voice was gentle, almost sad, but the gun was steady in his hand.

Jacob knew what was coming. He closed his eyes, shutting out Osman’s hateful face, waiting to hear the gun’s explosion in his ears — the last sound that he would ever hear, but instead he heard a familiar voice shouting ‘Stop’ somewhere to his left. He opened his eyes and saw Adam Clayton standing in the doorway, holding Claes’s gun shaking in his hands.