Lost (17 page)

“What diamonds? What are you talking about?” he yel s.

“Just shut up and drive.”

Ali is stil on the phone.

“I might be wrong about the transmitter,” I tel her. “Just relax.”

She's already ahead of me—ripping open the packages. I can hear her breaking open the blocks of foam. I know what she's going to find. Radio transmitters can weigh less than eighty grams and have a battery life of three, maybe four weeks. My kitchen floor was dusted with polystyrene foam and scraps of plastic. I hol owed out the foam with a knife.

“I found it.”

“Disconnect the battery.”

Joe is yel ing at me. “You have Aleksei Kuznet's diamonds! Are you crazy?”

The car swerves suddenly into Albany Street and he brakes hard, pul ing us around a line of traffic. He accelerates again and we leap over a speed bump.

Ali lives in a run-down, crumbling neighborhood in Hackney, on a narrow street of soot-blackened warehouses and barred shop windows. She's stil on the phone.

“Where are you now?”

“Close. Are the lights turned off?”

“Yes.”

In the background I hear a doorbel ringing.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“No.”

“Don't answer it.”

Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty seconds pass. Then comes the sound of breaking glass.

“Someone just smashed a door panel,” says Ali, her voice thick with fear. The burglar alarm is sounding.

“Are you armed?”

“Yes.”

“Just give them the diamonds, Ali. Don't take any risks.”

“Yes, Sir. I can't talk anymore. Hurry!”

The phone goes dead.

The next few minutes are the longest I can remember. Joe has his foot hard on the floor, braking around the corners and running red lights. Weaving onto the wrong side of the road, he accelerates past three buses and forces oncoming cars off the road.

Wrenching the wheel, he puts us into a half spin, sliding around a tight bend. I'm thrown against the door and the phone smacks my ear. I'm cal ing the police, tel ing them there's an officer in trouble.

“It's the next on the left . . . about halfway down.”

There are terraced houses on either side of the road. The streetlights have turned everything yel ow, including the pebble-dash façades and net curtains.

Ali's place is ahead of us. The burglar alarm is stil ringing. The car brakes and I'm out of the door hobbling in a half run toward the house. Joe is yel ing at me to slow down.

The front door gapes darkly. Pressing my back to the outside wal , I glance inside. I can see the hal way and the stairs to the upper floor. Sliding sideways, I move inside, letting my eyes get used to the darkness.

I have visited Ali's house once before. It was years ago. We sat outside on her roof garden, drinking beer and resting our feet on a skylight. Everything was painted gold by the sunset and I remember thinking that maybe London
was
the new Babylon after al . The thought disappeared in the darkness.

There's a living room just off the left and a dining room farther along the hal . The kitchen is at the rear. I can see moonlight coming through the window and no sign of a tel tale silhouette.

The shril alarm is shredding my senses. Running my fingers along the wal , I search for the control panel. The alarm wil be linked to the main electric supply and have a backup twelve-volt battery with an anti-tamper switch.

Joe puts his hand on my shoulder and nearly gets flattened with a walking stick. Shouting to be heard, I tel him to go back outside, find the alarm bel and pul it off the wal .

“What with?”

“Use your imagination.”

He disappears and I search the kitchen and sitting room. A streetlight is shining outside and I can see Joe crossing the road with a tire iron. Hoisting himself onto a brick wal , he takes a swing at the alarm bel . Twice more he hits the box and suddenly the alarm fal s silent. The change is so dramatic it feels like the air pressure has dropped.

Climbing the stairs, I step onto the next landing. For al my opposition to firearms, I wish I had one now. My gun is somewhere at the bottom of the river or fenced on the black market.

Reaching the first door I pause and listen. I can only hear my heartbeat. Then, in the stil ness, I pick up another sound, someone breathing. Pressing my ear against the door, I wait, trying to hear the sound again.

Weighing my walking stick, I reach for the door handle and push it open. The darkness is more intense than the dimness behind me.

Here, too, I wait.

I hear metal shaking . . . springs. It's a tremble born of dependency rather than fear. Reaching forward, I flick the light switch. Ali is perched on her bed, her MP5 A2 carbine pointing directly at my chest.

We gaze into each other's eyes. She blinks at me slowly and lets out a long slow breath. “You were lucky I didn't shoot you.”

“I had it covered.”

Pul ing open my shirt, I show her the bul etproof vest.

The Professor slumps in a chair, his hands gripping the armrests. The last few minutes have drained his reserves. Ali pours him a glass of water. He takes it with his right hand—the steady one.

“Where did you learn to drive like that?”

“At Silverstone,” he replies. “I won an advanced driving course at a school trivia night.”

“Michael Schumacher eat your heart out.”

Ali has barricaded the front door and is moving through the rooms, checking to see if anything is missing. Whoever broke in triggered the alarm and then fled.

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Where are the diamonds?”

Ali opens a drawer. “I put them where a girl puts anything personal—with her underwear.”

Four velvet pouches are tucked inside. She opens one of them and diamonds spil through her fingers onto the duvet. Sometimes when you see an excess of something rare and beautiful it begins to pale. Diamonds are different. They always take your breath away.

I can hear police sirens approaching. Ali goes downstairs to meet them. I don't expect there'l be fingerprints or physical evidence left behind but we'l go through the motions of making statements and dusting for prints. Joe stil doesn't understand how the ransom ended up with Ali. I relate the whole story about the linen cupboard and the scraps of plastic on my kitchen floor.

I have to admire his sense of priorities. Instead of being frightened or angry, he sits on Ali's bed and studies the remnants of the packages, the bright orange plastic, white foam and electrical tape. The transmitter is the size of a matchbox with twin wires separated from a smal er battery unit.

“Why are they packed like this?”

“I think they were meant to float.”

“So you took the diamonds to the river.”

“I don't know. This type of transmitter sends out a signal every ten seconds and is picked up by a receiver. Unlike a satel ite tracking device the transmitter has a limited range

—about three miles in the city and six miles in the countryside.”

“How accurate is it?”

“Down to within fifty yards.”

If Rachel acted as the ransom courier and I went with her, I would have arranged for someone to fol ow us, tracking the signals. Aleksei had the most to gain. They were
his
diamonds and it was
his
daughter.

Joe weighs the transmitter in his hands. “But how did the ransom wind up in your cupboard? Something must have gone wrong.”

“Tel me about it! I got shot.”

“No, but think about it. You were in the hospital for two weeks. If Aleksei knew you had the diamonds, he could have taken them back at any time. Instead he waited.”

“Perhaps he wanted someone else to find them first—like Keebal.”

Almost immediately, I try to push the thought away. I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories and I have nothing against Keebal except the job he does—spying on his col eagues—but someone tipped him off about the diamonds. It must have been Aleksei. Are they working together or feeding off each other?

The Professor is stil studying the packaging as if trying to re-create the dimensions.

“What do we do now?” asks Ali, returning upstairs.

“We take advantage of this.” I toss her the transmitter.

She grins. We're both singing from the same song sheet. “Are you thinking Intercity Express?”

“Nah, it's too fast.” I look at my watch. “The printing presses are just starting to run at Wapping. Some of those newspaper trucks drive al the way to Cornwal .” Bon voyage!

13

Condensation drips steadily down the dormer window creating rainbow patterns on the windowsil . What day is it? Thursday. No, it's Friday. Lying in bed, I listen to the delivery trucks, pneumatic dril s and workmen shouting to each other. This is London's dawn chorus.

Against my better judgment I let Ali bring me here last night—to her parents' house in Mil wal . We couldn't stay at her flat—not after what happened.

Ali's parents were both asleep when we arrived and exhaustion drove me to bed soon afterward. Ali showed me the spare room and left a fresh towel and cake of soap on the end of the bed like at some fancy B & B.

This must be Ali's old room. The shelves and tops of bookcases are crammed with elephants of al description, ranging from tiny blown-glass figurines to a large furry mammoth guarding the wooden chest at the end of the bed.

There's a light knock on the door. “I brought you a cup of tea,” says Ali, pushing the door open with her hip. “I also have to change the dressing on your leg.” She's wearing a dressing gown with a frayed cord and an elephant sewn into the pocket. Her bare feet are out-turned slightly, which splays her knees and puts me in mind of a penguin, which is strange considering she moves so graceful y.

“How did you sleep?”

“Great.”

She knows I'm lying. Sitting next to me, she sets out scissors, bandages and surgical tape. For the next fifteen minutes I watch her unwrapping and rewrapping my thigh.

“These stitches are nearly ready to come out.”

“Where did you learn first aid?”

“I have four brothers.”

“I thought most Indian lads were pretty peaceful.”

“They don't
start
the fights.”

She cuts off the last strip of tape and wraps it around my leg. “Does it hurt, today?”

“Not so much.”

She wants to ask about the morphine but changes her mind. As she leans forward to retrieve the scissors, her dressing gown fal s open and I glimpse her breasts beneath a Tshirt. The nipples are dark, sharp peaks. Immediately, I feel guilty and look away.

“So what are you going to do with the diamonds?” she asks.

“Hide them somewhere safe.” I glance around the room. “You seem to like elephants.”

She smiles self-consciously. “They bring good luck. That's why their trunks are raised.”

“What about that one?” I point to the wool y mammoth, which has a lowered trunk.

“An ex-boyfriend gave that to me. He's also extinct.”

She picks up the scraps of bandages and straightens a lace doily on the bedside table. “I had a cal this morning about Rachel Carlyle.” She pauses and my hopes soar. “She suffered some sort of nervous breakdown. A night watchman found her sitting in a stolen car on some wasteland in Kilburn.”

“When was this?”

“On the morning you were pul ed from the river. The police took her to the hospital—the Royal Free in Hampstead.” Rather than joy I feel relief. Up until now I have tried not to think of who might have been on the boat. The longer Rachel remained missing, the harder this had become.

“Was she interviewed?”

“No. The police didn't talk to her at al .”

This is Campbel 's doing. He won't investigate anything associated with Mickey Carlyle because he's frightened of where it might lead. It's not a cover-up if you don't lift the covers in the first place. Plausible deniability is a coward's defense.

“They searched Rachel's flat and found your messages on her answering machine. They also found a set of your clothes. They don't want you anywhere near her—not so close to Howard's appeal.”

“Where is Rachel now?”

“She checked out ten days ago.”

Someone close to Campbel must have told Ali these things, a detective who worked on the original investigation. It was probably “New Boy” Dave King, who has always fancied her. We cal him “New Boy” because he was the newest member of the Serious Crime Group, but that was eight years ago.

“How is your boyfriend?”

She screws up her face. “That would be none of your business.”

“He's a good lad, Dave. Very fit looking. I think he must work out.”

She doesn't respond.

“He's not the sharpest quil on the porcupine but you could do a lot worse.”

“He's not real y for me, Sir.”

“Why's that?”

“Wel for one thing his legs are skinnier than mine. If he can
fit
into my pants he can't
get
into my pants.” She keeps a completely straight face for about fifteen seconds. Poor Dave. She's far too sharp for him.

Downstairs in the kitchen I meet Ali's mother. She's barely five feet tal , dressed in a bright green sari that makes her look like a bauble on a Christmas tree.