Overleaf I found the sort of numbers list I kept in my own diary: passport, bank account, national insurance. After those, in small capital letters farther down the page, was the single word DEREK. Another jolt, seeing it again in his writing.
I wondered briefly whether, from its placing, Greville had used my name as some sort of mnemonic, or whether it was just another doodle: there was no way of telling. With a sigh I riffled back through the pages and came to something I’d looked at before, a lightly penciled entry for the day before his death. Second time around, it meant just as little.
Koningin Beatrix? he had written. Just the two words and the question mark. I wondered idly if it were the name of a horse, if he’d been considering buying it; my mind tended to work that way. Then I thought that perhaps he’d written the last name first, such as Smith, Jane, and that maybe he’d been going to Ipswich to meet a Beatrix Koningin.
I returned to the horse theory and got through to the trainer I rode for, Milo Shandy, who inquired breezily about the ankle and said would I please waste no time in coming back.
“I could ride out in a couple of weeks,” I said.
“At least that’s something, I suppose. Get some massage.”
The mere thought of it was painful. I said I would, not meaning it, and asked about Koningin Beatrix, spelling it out.
“Don’t know of any horse called that, but I can find out for you in the morning. I’ll ask Weatherby’s if the name’s available, and if they say yes, it means there isn’t a horse called that registered for racing.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Think nothing of it. I heard your brother died. Bad luck.”
“Yes... How did you know?”
“Nicholas Loder called me just now, explaining your dilemma and wanting me to persuade you to lease him Dozen Roses.”
“But that’s crazy. His calling you, I mean.”
He chuckled. “I told him so. I told him I could bend you like a block of teak. He didn’t seem to take it in. Anyway, I don’t think leasing would solve anything. Jockeys aren’t allowed to own racing horses, period. If you lease a horse, you still own it.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Put your shirt on it.”
“Loder bets, doesn’t he?” I asked. “In large amounts?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“He said Dozen Roses would trot up at York on Saturday.”
“In that case, do you want me to put a bit on for you?”
Besides not being allowed to run horses in races, jockeys also were banned from betting, but there were always ways round that, like helpful friends.
“I don’t think so, not this time,” I said, “but thanks anyway.”
“You won’t mind if I do?”
“Be my guest. If Weatherby’s lets it run, that is.”
“A nice little puzzle,” he said appreciatively. “Come over soon for a drink. Come for evening stables.”
I would, I said.
“Take care.”
I put down the phone, smiling at his easy farewell colloquialism. Jump jockeys were paid not to take care, on the whole. Not too much care.
Milo would be horrified if I obeyed him.
In the morning, Brad drove me to Saxony Franklin’s bank to see the manager who was young and bright and spoke with deliberate slowness, as if waiting for his clients’ intelligence to catch up. Was there something about crutches, I wondered, that intensified the habit? It took him five minutes to suspect that I wasn’t a moron. After that he told me Greville had borrowed a sizable chunk of the bank’s money, and he would be looking to me to repay it. “One point five million United States dollars in cash, as a matter of fact.”
“One point five million dollars,” I repeated, trying not to show that he had punched most of the breath out of me. “What for?”
“For buying diamonds. Diamonds from the DTC of the CSO are of course normally paid for in cash, in dollars.”
Bank managers around Hatton Garden, it seemed, saw nothing extraordinary in such an exercise.
“He doesn’t... didn’t deal in diamonds,” I protested.
“He had decided to expand and, of course, we made the funds available. Your brother dealt with us for many years and as you’ll know was a careful and conscientious businessman. A valued client. We have several times advanced him money for expansion and each time we have been repaid without difficulty. Punctiliously, in fact.” He cleared his throat. “The present loan, taken out three months ago, is due for repayment progressively over a period of five years, and of course as the loan was made to the company, not to your brother personally, the terms of the loan will be unchanged by his death.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I understood from what you said yesterday that you propose to run the business yourself?” He seemed happy enough where I might have expected a shade of anxiety. So why no anxiety? What wasn’t I grasping?
“Do you hold security for the loan?” I asked.
“An agreement. We lent the money against the stock of Saxony Franklin.”
“All the stones?”
“As many as would satisfy the debt. But our best security has always been your brother’s integrity and his business ability.”
I said, “I’m not a gemologist. I’ll probably sell the business after probate.”
He nodded comfortably. “That might be the best course. We would expect the Saxony Franklin loan to be repaid on schedule, but we would welcome a dialogue with the purchasers.”
He produced papers for me to sign and asked for extra specimen signatures so that I could put my name to Saxony Franklin checks. He didn’t ask what experience I’d had in running a business. Instead, he wished me luck.
I rose to my crutches and shook his hand, thinking of the things I hadn’t said.
I hadn’t told him I was a jockey, which might have caused a panic in Hatton Garden. And I hadn’t told him that, if Greville had bought one and a half million dollars’ worth of diamonds, I didn’t know where they were.
“Diamonds?” Annette said. “No. I told you. We never deal in diamonds.”
“The bank manager believes that Greville bought some recently. From something called the DTC of the CSO.”
“The Central Selling Organization? That’s de Beers. The DTC is their Diamond Trading Company. No, no.” She looked anxiously at my face. “He can’t have done. He never said anything about it.”
“Well, has the stock-buying here increased over the past three months?”
“It usually does,” she said, nodding. “The business always grows. Mr. Franklin comes back from world trips with new stones all the time. Beautiful stones. He can’t resist them. He sells most of the special ones to a jewelry designer who has several boutiques in places like Knightsbridge and Bond Street. Gorgeous costume jewelry, but with real stones. Many of his pieces are unique, designed for a single stone. He has a great name. People prize some of his pieces like Fabergé’s.”
“Who is he?”
“Prospero Jenks,” she said, expecting my awe at least.
I hadn’t heard of him, but I nodded all the same.
“Does he set the stones with diamonds?” I asked.
“Yes, sometimes. But he doesn’t buy those from Saxony Franklin.”
We were in Greville’s office, I sitting in his swivel chair behind the vast expanse of desk, Annette sorting yesterday’s roughly heaped higgledy-piggledy papers back into the drawers and files that had earlier contained them.
“You don’t think Greville would ever have kept diamonds in this actual office, do you?” I asked.
“Certainly not.” The idea shocked her. “He was always very careful about security.”