Blood Stones (2 page)

He was an aggressive driver; Elizabeth winced as he shot over a changing traffic light. She looked at him and bit back a protest. She knew he was impatient, consumed with that amazing energy she found so exciting. He had given her so much love, so much enthusiasm for life. He'd made her grow up. ‘Jamie,' she said, using his pet name, ‘you've got more brains than the rest of them put together. If Heyderman gives you the chance, you go for it!'

He drew into the kerb by the Chichesters' house in Lancaster Gate. Chichester was a rising Tory politician. He could be very influential. James put his hand on her knee.
Go for it
. She could say that with the self-confidence that comes from living in the same house in the same place for generations, and never having to worry about money or what other people thought. Such a different background from his own.

The politician and his wife were good hosts; James carefully noted the signs of affluence, like good claret, superb food, and some very expensive antiques. The wife was tailor-made for constituency work: rather plain, jolly, no threat to the ladies of the local Association, with two bouncing blond sons and an appetite for charity committees. She would help her ambitious husband reach his goal. James was no fool; he recognized a steely gleam in the eyes. As usual, Elizabeth charmed everyone. She was so naturally nice, he thought, feeling proud of her. Strangely she was no threat to other women either. She was so blatantly in love with her own husband, and she didn't flirt. He often wondered how she managed to be so beautiful and so unselfconscious about it. Confidence again, he supposed. That precious commodity he had acquired so painfully and with such determination.

His father had made money, that and his son's advancement were his only interests. His mother was unhappy in a silent way and drank in secret. When James was up at Oxford his parents finally got divorced. They had only stayed together because of him, and he knew it. He wasn't grateful. He only felt guilty.

He had learned how to cultivate people who would accept him and ignore the ones that never would. He was a brilliant scholar, and he left Oxford with a first and a fine record of academic achievement behind him. He was popular and handsome, and he knew everybody. When he joined Diamond Enterprises it was a surprise to some of the people who knew him. He had been marked down for politics. But D.E. knew their men; they knew what to offer to entice the best potential and they knew how to push them aside and forget about them if they failed in their promise. James hadn't failed; he had got his seat on the London Board at an age when most men were just coming up to the managerial level. He had loved every moment of the climb. And he had studied his colleagues very carefully. They were all possible rivals and he knew they viewed him from the same angle.

He focused upon Dick Kruger, South African born, clever, a man who had failed to fulfil his promise because of his obsession with his secretary. James didn't like Kruger because he was loyal to Arthur Harris. Whatever his ambitions had been in the past they were finished now, and he had settled for loyalty. He was shrewd and could see through people. James felt that Kruger could see through him more clearly than someone like Andrews with his English lack of imagination.

If Arthur fell eventually, and James's ultimate ambition was realized and he succeeded him, then Kruger would have to go, because he had showed himself to be an enemy; there was always danger in keeping someone on when they'd once shown you the knife. The founder of one of the great armaments industries once said of fights in business, ‘Never wound, kill.' James took that seriously. He knew his own reputation from the Board down: Hastings is a ruthless bastard. And they were right, he was proud of it.

A year ago Heyderman had drawn him aside after a meeting in England and suggested that he might come out to Johannesburg for a trip. The invitation hadn't come to anything, but it was very significant nevertheless. It was a sign that Heyderman had noticed James.

So he had tried to make an ally of Reece. Reece had signed the cable. He would be coming with Heyderman. Reece was the alter ego of Julius Heyderman. His private secretary, personal assistant, and God knew what else. Reece was the X quantity, completely unknown. There was the one point that united all the members of the Board of the London office; from the Managing Director Arthur Harris down to Andrews, who didn't really hate anybody: they all loathed Reece. Reece was Heyderman's spy. Everyone knew that, but nobody could ever catch him out. Reece spent half the year in London and half in South Africa. He had worked with Heyderman in Johannesburg for many years. James wished he knew a little more about the man, because he felt certain it would give him an entrée to the way Julius Heyderman's mind worked. He had tried hard to cultivate him, asking him to lunch away from the boardroom lunches where it was impossible to talk privately, but Reece never accepted. He wasn't intimate with anyone; no-one had ever seen him smile or heard him laugh, or make any remark except of the most general nature. He was dull and sinister at the same time, and James gave up trying to make contact with him.

He glanced across at his wife and made a signal that it was time they went. She was talking to the politician's wife, and the older woman was obviously enjoying herself. It was extraordinary how well Elizabeth got on with people with whom she had nothing in common. It was part of that alien background of hers that you were always polite and took trouble with people.

They said goodbye to their hosts, and James reminded the politician that he had promised to come to lunch with him and meet some of his fellow directors. They'd be so interested to hear his views on monetary union.

They drove home in silence, but when they stopped outside their own house in Thurloe Square, James put his arm round Elizabeth and kissed her.

‘Sweetheart,' he said. ‘Wasn't a bad party, was it?'

‘I enjoyed it.' She smiled the warm, fond smile which was only given to him. ‘I always enjoy things when we're together.'

James said, ‘You seemed to be getting on very well with Sally Chichester. What on earth were you talking about?'

‘Oh, where to take the boys skiing – she couldn't make up her mind, didn't really want to go to Switzerland. I suggested Austria – it's lovely, and much cheaper. I thought she was quite tough – so was he.'

‘You've got to be if you want to get off the Back Benches,' he said. ‘He could be very useful. I've asked him to lunch with the Board. Come on, darling, let's go in.'

He wanted to sit on in the car for a bit, holding her and talking, going back to the days before they were married, but it was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and he had a heavy day in front of him. Everyone in the office was keyed up. His fellow director Kruger was expected back from France tomorrow, and the day after was the twenty-fifth. He could hardly wait to see what it was all about. He had wanted to make love to Elizabeth, but he had to be fresh for his work. When they made it to bed at last, he turned on his side and went to sleep.

The tugs drawing barges on the East River were hooting, and all along the waterfront the lights were springing up in the Manhattan skyline, forming the pattern which had come to mean America to every tourist. The tall skyscrapers winked and gleamed and the cars flashed by in streaks of light on the East River Drive. It was the view that had sold Clara Wasserman the apartment. She loved sitting by the window watching the sun set and the light fading and New York turning on the lights until it glittered and sparkled like a magic city. She also loved this bit of river because she had been born within the sound of those hooting tugs and steamers, in an overcrowded tenement on the West Side, which was home to twenty families and where everybody knew everything about everybody else. Even as a child Clara had hated the public life; you couldn't have a row, or make love or be ill or have a child or die, without everyone sharing in it whether you wanted them to or not. But that was fifty years ago, and now she and David had their apartment on East 52nd with its magnificent view, and it was so private and exclusive that the elevator never took more than two passengers at a time, and when it stopped you were at your own front door. The apartment had cost them 1.8 million dollars, and the one thing David complained about was that they spent so little time in it. But then the diamond business involved a lot of travelling; David was always making trips to Johannesburg to see the boss, Julius Heyderman, or to London to see the Managing Director, Arthur Harris, and that wasn't counting the out-of-town trips all over the States. When he and Clara married, David was apprenticed to one of Tiffany's suppliers; he was training to be a cutter. That was a long time ago; they had been married thirty years, and now he was on the Board of Diamond Enterprises. As Clara liked to say to him, you can't go higher than the top.

Everyone in the diamond world knew two things about David Wasserman: he was the world's greatest living expert on rough stones, and he was one of the very few men left who had worked with D.E.'s founders, Jan Heyderman and Pat Harris, in Johannesburg when the gold and diamond empire was being built after the death of Rhodes. He also had a wife who knew nearly as much about the industry as he did, and he never made a decision without talking to her first. They had no children and they were so close mentally and physically that they were like Siamese twins.

Clara turned away from the window. She shouted to her husband, who was in the next room, just as all their families shouted to each other above the din of children crying, neighbours yelling and street noises. She had not lost the habit of her early years.

‘David! Aren't you finished yet?'

He came into the room, a little man with a lined face, seamed with years of concentration, his bald head fringed with grey hair. He was a dedicated and immaculate dresser with a passion for English clothes, beautifully cut suits from Savile Row and shoes by Lobb of St James. When he was in London he always carried an umbrella, and he had a dozen, all made for him by Brigg. Even his underwear came from Sulka in Bond Street, and this was something Clara had given up trying to understand.

They had been in bed watching TV when the cable arrived from London the night before:

CONFERENCE CALLED LONDON 25TH
.
ARRIVING EVENING 24TH
.
IMPERATIVE YOU ATTEND
.
KRUGER
,
ANDREWS
,
JOHNSON ALSO NOTIFIED
.
REGARDS
,
JULIUS
.

If Heyderman was recalling the whole London Board of Directors, then there must be a major crisis. The last time there had been trouble Heyderman made the trip to London from South Africa: both the Wassermans remembered it well. Ivan Karakov was one of the biggest jewellers in Europe and America, and he could make a valid claim to occupying the late Harry Winston's throne as the king of the retail jewellery trade.

They had known him for years on a personal as well as a business basis, because he was one of D.E.'s biggest customers for super-quality gems. A little over a year ago he had begun arguing with Arthur Harris about the quality of the diamonds he was buying from them, and the prices he was being charged. As a diamond man himself, Wasserman could sympathize with Karakov's objection to the system of regular diamond sales. Dealers from all over the world came by invitation only, and each one was allotted a parcel of goods at a fixed price. If he argued or complained about the price of the stones, he got a worse parcel next time or no invitation at all. It was as simple as that. David had never pretended that it was a nice way of doing business, but it was certainly effective. It kept the price of diamonds pegged, and controlled the supplies, even if it meant breaking the backs of mining companies and retail firms alike who tried to go outside it. D.E. had so many interests in all branches of industry that it was like an octopus, and, whether you liked him or not, it needed a Chairman like Julius Heyderman to control it properly. He had come on to New York and seen Karakov personally to persuade him to accept his allocation of diamonds, promising they would be of better quality. They had worked out a kind of compromise which satisfied Karakov for a while. It was an indication of just how important Karakov was in the industry that Julius had crossed the world to see him.

‘Packing,' David Wasserman said. ‘Always packing! I don't know why we don't sell this apartment and live in a hotel!'

‘Because you like it here,' his wife said. ‘I like it, too. Why don't you quit grumbling? Isn't it better to be home for a few months in our own place? I'll get Martha to finish the packing for you, if you're tired.'

‘You overwork that woman,' David said. ‘I keep telling you, Clara, one day she'll leave. Then what will we do, eh? You want a drink?'

‘Not right now. I'll go tell Martha to finish up for you.' Then she said suddenly, ‘You think this London meeting is something to do with Ivan Karakov?'

‘I don't know,' David shrugged. He was mixing himself a gin and tonic from the bar at the other side of the room. The decorator who did their apartment had made the bar in the top half of a Chippendale bookcase. All the Wassermans' furniture was eighteenth-century English with a few Early American pieces of great rarity. By contrast, their pictures were modern. There was a Braque hanging above the mantelpiece and a very fine Buffet in the dining-room which they had bought quite cheaply in Paris when he first began exhibiting. Their taste was faultless.

‘I don't know for sure, but I just have a feeling, that's all.'

‘But Ivan's been happy lately, hasn't he?' Clara said. ‘When they were over last July, they were so friendly – we went to the theatre, they took us to dinner. Ever since, Laura kisses me when we meet … Why should it be him?'

‘I told you,' David said, ‘I don't know. OK, so he's friendly, and his wife kissed you. You ever heard of the kiss of death, Clara?'