Blood Stones (20 page)

‘She's your girl, Mr Heyderman, and for that we'll turn a blind eye when we can, but if she cohabits with a black …' The lifted eyebrow of the Chief Police Commissioner, the slight shake of the head. ‘Six months in the Fort …'

It was Reece who told him that a young Marxist agitator had been seen visiting her flat and that the police were about to move in.

Jacob Yakumi had studied law in England and returned to South Africa to act as lawyer for activists accused of political crimes. He was a marked man by the authorities as soon as he set foot in Johannesburg. Julius had acted instantly. He had driven to Stella's address and slapped an air ticket down in front of her. Father and daughter seldom met; she rejected the values and capitalist enterprise which was personified in Heyderman himself and Diamond Enterprises. She also said, quite genuinely, that however powerful he was in public life, it must harm his reputation to be seen with her. He had always refused to repudiate her publicly, although he had often been pressured to do so.

She was his daughter, and if she wanted to make a fool of herself and had the guts to do so under the circumstances, he wasn't going to interfere. She had loved him in silent gratitude for that endorsement.

‘I've come to take you to the airport,' he had said, ‘before you are arrested. I don't want to know if you are sleeping with this black – I don't want to think you'd sink so low – but the police have decided he's going inside and so are you. Put some things in a bag and hurry up!'

To his amazement she had laughed at him. He often thought of that scene in mingled pain and disgust. ‘I would be, but he won't sleep with me, Dad – he says it's too dangerous for me! I'm not running off and leaving him. They'll take him in and kick his balls to pulp. If you want me to get out, then he goes with me. Two tickets, not one.'

And she meant it. For a moment they had faced each other, locked in a conflict of wills that Julius knew he wasn't going to win. He hadn't tried to argue. ‘All right, get packed. Tell me where to find him. You mustn't telephone, his line is bugged. Like yours.'

Reece had gone to Yakumi's office, leased from an Indian in the poor quarter of the city. Reece had simply explained that Stella wouldn't leave without him and would be arrested and jailed. He had a straight choice: walk out of the door and into Reece's car and go to the airport, or commit her to prison. Jacob Yakumi had made that choice. Julius had said goodbye to his daughter in the limousine, shielded by the glass partition.

‘I'll make all necessary arrangements for money in London. When the fuss has died down, I'll let you know and you can come home. Now go on, Stella, or you'll miss your flight.'

She'd looked at him for a moment, and then swung the door open. As she turned to go, she paused a moment. ‘Thanks,' she said. ‘But if it's not safe for Jacob, it won't be safe for me.'

A month later he got a letter to say that she had married Jacob Yakumi, and would not return home until the antiapartheid and miscegenation laws were repealed.

Married. Heyderman had stared down at the letter, and felt an urge to be physically sick. Coloured children. His bloodline tainted for ever, his daughter the wife of a black from the Soweto township. He had given a great shout of outrage and smashed the nearest thing to hand: a clock that Sylvia treasured. Then he got so drunk that the servants had to support him up to bed. She had betrayed him and degraded herself. His only recourse was to ensure that nobody knew what she had done. Except Reece. Reece was the only one he could trust with his humiliation because Reece loved him with the devotion of a dog for its master. Unquestioning, with utter loyalty. And because he rewarded him with his secrets, as much as with money and position in the business, Reece would do anything for Julius. Setting up a trust fund for his daughter on condition that the marriage was never made public was a simple task. He had gone to London to arrange it.

Now he would go to London again for Julius. This time to spy on Arthur, and to see if he could salvage something from the terrible wreck of Stella Heyderman Yakumi's life.

Karakov checked his watch again. Madeline Luchaire, minor movie actress and mistress of one of the world's richest men, had made an appointment for three o'clock that afternoon. She was twenty minutes late. Eugene Titulescu had arranged it, and he waited in the office with his father-in-law, poised to hurry down and meet her at the entrance as soon as her car drove up. Nerves made Ivan snarl at him, ‘For Christ's sake, stop walking up and down like a cat on a fucking hot brick!'

The prince didn't answer. He was so used to Ivan's outbursts that he didn't react at all. ‘She has to make an entrance,' he ventured after a pause. ‘Actresses are like that.'

‘Actress, my ass,' the old man said. ‘She's just a—'

At that moment the phone rang from reception.

‘She's here,' he swung on Titulescu. ‘What are you waiting for? Get down there!'

Karakov had met Madeline Luchaire once or twice at starry media receptions. She was a very beautiful woman by any criteria, and all her endowments were natural, from the softly curving body to the lustrous golden blond hair. She was witty, too, if her much reported comment about herself was original, ‘Silicone, like soap, never touches my skin.'

She spoke with a Midi accent which encouraged her enemies to spread the rumour that she came from the slums of Marseilles and began her career in a brothel at fifteen. She held out her hand and Karakov bowed low and kissed it.

It was the first time she had come to his headquarters. When Abdullah Bin Saladin bought her jewels, they were taken round to his suite at the Ritz by Eugene Titulescu and left there until he made a choice. He had never received Ivan Karakov. He never dealt direct with tradesmen, however prominent. He accepted Prince Titulescu because he bore a title that resembled his own. He was unaware that princes in Hungary and Romania were almost as commonplace as counts in France.

‘The prince has told me so much about you, Monsieur Karakov,' she said. ‘I'm glad to meet you at last after wearing so many of your lovely jewels. As you see …' Her throat was circled by two strands of enormous South Sea pearls, matching stones gleamed in her small ears, ringed by perfect blue-white diamonds.

‘It gives me pleasure to think of you wearing them, Madame,' Ivan said. He knew how to flatter and when he wanted to, he could be very charming. ‘Beauty belongs to beauty.' He smiled at her wickedly, sensing a gleam of humour in the violet blue eyes. ‘With some of my clients, Madame, I have to shut my eyes and think of the money.'

She laughed out loud. It was a full, throaty sound; old and calculating as he was, Ivan found himself responding. She was incredibly, vibrantly sexy.

‘I love jewels,' Madeline Luchaire said, and he could see how she had acquired so many. ‘And I've been hearing whispers about some very fine things you've got hidden away. So,' the gorgeous smile beamed at him, ‘what have you got to show me?'

He had the plan all worked out. His son-in-law knew what to do; he saw a signal from Karakov and stepped forward, the epitome of old-fashioned elegance. ‘Some champagne first for Madame?' he suggested. Madeline liked him. She wasn't fooled by the façade. He was the old man's lackey, just as she was an Arab's sexual plaything. They were both in it for the money.

‘That would be nice,' she agreed. ‘Fortunately His Highness doesn't object to alcohol, as long as it's in private.' Eugene Titulescu had seen the Highness in question making serious inroads into a decanter of whisky in the privacy of his suite.

‘Prince,' Karakov always used the title in front of clients of importance, ‘ring down and tell them to bring up the keys.' He turned to her. ‘I shall open my private safe for you, Madame. I hope to find something that will interest you.'

He knew exactly why she had come and what she was waiting to see, but he knew that the art of making a super sale was to keep the client in suspense, and then pretend you wanted them to buy something else. Fifteen minutes later, the Dom Pérignon was open and a space had been cleared on Ivan's desk, spread with a black velvet cloth. He had personally chosen every item. There were emeralds from Imperial Russia, originally sold by desperate
émigrés
for a fraction of their value seventy years ago; he had reset them in modern designs because there was no market among the super-rich for old-fashioned jewellery, whatever its provenance. Some, like a brooch that had belonged to the Empress Farah of Iran, were contemporary. Its central stone was a ruby as big as a pullet's egg, surrounded by diamonds of eight carats each, blue-white. It was worth a fortune and he had paid a fair price for it, but it was not for sale and never would be. It was part of the Karakov legend that he owned the Shah's ruby and no amount of money could get him to part with it. Laura wore the brooch on important occasions, but he had never let her keep it. Madeline picked it up, admiring it, touching the big stone with a finger, caressing it.

‘No, Madame,' Karakov said softly. ‘That is for show but not for sale. Let me show you this.'

He gave her his magnificent oval stone, blue-white and burning with thousands of tiny lights; it was a masterpiece of fine cutting. It weighed 120 carats in the rough and Ernst Richter had bought it from a big dealer in Antwerp for 10,000 dollars. It now weighed just over 38 carats and it was perfect. The price was 400,000 dollars. She was gazing at it a little too intently. He didn't want her to get too interested; the big diamond was just to whet her appetite.

‘Isn't it beautiful?' Ivan said, taking it from her. ‘Prince, more champagne for Madame. You know, there's nothing in the world like a diamond; not even rubies, and they're wonderful stones, not even the best ruby can compare with something like this.'

He moved the stone in his thumb and forefinger; it flashed every colour in the spectrum. ‘Look at that,' he said. ‘That's what you get with a diamond – purity and brilliance. You don't get that with any other stone in the world. It's what makes the diamond unique.'

‘Yes,' Madeline Luchaire said. ‘It's a magnificent jewel – truly magnificent.'

It was time for the real sale to open … ‘If you like that stone, Madame, then I'm going to show you something really special. Something I don't show to everybody. But I know you'll appreciate them.'

He looked up and his hard old eyes flashed a message at Titulescu. He wanted no interruptions. The prince poured another glass of champagne, and began picking up the jewels and putting them back in the outer safe. Ivan picked up the phone.

‘I'm sending Prince Titulescu down to the vaults. Tell them to have the Romanovs ready for him.'

‘I won't be long, Madame.' The prince bent over her chair. ‘But this is really worth seeing.' He let himself out of the office; he moved very quietly, though he was a big man.

‘You mustn't mind me,' Ivan said, ‘if I get excited. But these stones are the love of my life. That's why I will only show them to someone who I think loves diamonds like I do. I'm damned if I'll let just anyone see them.'

He scowled, as if he had some unappreciative people in mind. He opened the gold cigarette box on his table. His manners were perfect to his clients, but they were a little artificial, like his eating habits. He had once sat through a formal dinner in Washington where a senator's wife was entertaining them and gone through the tortures of the damned because he couldn't pick his teeth. ‘You don't smoke, Madame?'

‘No.' She shook her head. ‘His Highness doesn't approve of smoking.'

The prince was back in less than five minutes. Normally it took half an hour to get through the vaults and clear a valuable piece before it was taken upstairs, but the Romanov Diamonds had been waiting for him. He had given orders that no calls were to be put through to Mr Karakov's private office, he was not to be disturbed for any reason.

‘Ah.' Ivan got up. ‘Here they are. Now, Madame, you're going to see one of the wonders of the world.'

He opened the biggest box first, and laid the pieces out on the black cloth. Huge pools of crimson blazed up at them, flashing with incredible brilliance. For a moment the woman said nothing; she didn't even put out her hand to touch them.

‘My God,' she said. ‘What are these?'

‘Diamonds, Madame,' Ivan said. ‘Red diamonds from a secret mine in Russia. The rarest stones in the world.'

He took the necklace and held it out between his fingers. It swung in the light, flashing red fire. It was exquisitely mounted in platinum, set so that the stones seemed joined invisibly. They had an unearthly colour and brilliance.

‘Take it, Madame,' Ivan said quietly. ‘Look at it.'

She held the necklace in her hands and looked into the heart of the central stone.

‘They're the colour of rubies,' she said. ‘And the fire in them … it's incredible.'

‘They have an interesting history. Here are the companion pieces to the necklace.' He laid out the ear-rings, the ring and the brooch. She put the necklace down and slipped the ring on her finger. Karakov paused. It was time for the fairy story he had invented to embellish his sales pitch. He spoke slowly, dramatically.

‘These stones were mined in Russia in the seventeenth century.' Ivan sat back in his chair; the lady was examining the ear-rings, turning the stones round as if she were hypnotized. ‘The location of the mine was kept secret. Legend says that when these stones were found, the slaves working there were killed so nobody would ever discover where they came from.'

He paused for dramatic effect. Madeline Luchaire was still looking at the ring.

‘There was no means of cutting them properly, so they never revealed their true magnificence and fire. But they were so unique that only the emperors of Russia could possess them and they were part of the State Treasury. Until Catherine the Great gave them to her lover Potemkin.' Ivan spread his hands, acting the part, revelling in the art of selling. ‘He was always short of money and he sold the red diamonds to an Indian princely family to pay his debts. They were not seen again until the early nineteen hundreds, when the raja of the day wore them to the King of England's coronation.