Part 15 (2/2)

'May I have your name?'

'Derek Franklin. Greville's brother.'

'One moment.' He returned after a while and said he would call me back shortly with an answer.

'Thank you very much,' I said.

'Pas du tout.' Bilingual besides.

I put down the phone and asked both Annette and June, who were busily moving around, if they could find Jacob van Ekeren anywhere in Greville's files 'See if you can find any mention of Antwerp in the computer,'

I added to June.

'Diamonds again!'

'Yup. The van Ekeren address is 70 Pelikanstraat.'

Annette wrinkled her brow. 'That's the Belgian equivalent of Hatton Garden,' she said.

It disrupted their normal work and they weren't keen, but Annette was very soon able to say she had no record of any Jacob van Ekeren, but the files were kept in the office for only six years, and any contact before that would be in storage in the bas.e.m.e.nt. June whisked in to confirm that she couldn't find van Ekeren or Pelikanstraat or Antwerp in the computer.

It wasn't exactly surprising. If Greville had wanted his diamond transaction to be common knowledge in the office he would have conducted it out in the open.

Very odd, I thought, that he hadn't. If it had been anyone but Greville one would have suspected him of something underhand, but as far as I knew hpe always had dealt with honour, as he'd prayed.

The telephone rang and Annette answered it.

'Saxony Franklin, can I help you?' She listened. 'Derek Franklin? Yes, just a moment.' She handed me the receiver and I found it was the return of the smooth French-English voice from Belgium. I knew as well as he did that he had spent the time between the two calls getting our number from international enquiries so that he could check back and be sure I was who I'd said.

Merely prudent. I'd have done the same.

'Mr Jacob van Ekeren has retired,' he said. 'I am his nephew Hans. I can tell you now after our researches that we have done no business with your firm within the past six or seven years, but I can't speak for the time before that, when my uncle was in charge.'

'I see,' I said. 'Could you, er, ask your uncle?'

'I will if you like,' he said civiUy. 'I did telephone his house, but I understand that he and my aunt will be away from home until Monday, and their maid doesn't seem to know where they went.' He paused. 'Could I ask what all this is about?'

I explained that my brother had died suddenly, leaving a good deal of unfinished business which I was trying to sort out. 'I came across the name and address of your firm. I'm foUowing up everything I can.'

'Ah,' he said sympathetically. 'I will certainly ask my uncle on Monday, and let you know.'

'I'm most grateful.'

'Not at aU.'

The uncle, I thought morosely, was a dead-end.

I went along and opened the vault, telling Annette that Prospero Jenks wanted all the spinel. 'And he says we have a piece of rock crystal like the Eiger.'

'The what?'

'Sharp mountain. Like Mont Blanc.'

'Oh.' She moved down the rows of boxes and chose a heavy one from near the bottom at the far end. 'This is it,' she said, humping it on to the shelf and opening the lid. 'Beautiful.'

The Eiger, filling the box, was Lying on its side and had a k.n.o.bbly base so that it wouldn't stand up, but I supposed one could see in the lucent faces and angled planes that, studded with diamond stars and given the Jenks's sunlight treatment, it could make the basis of a fantasy worthy of the name.

'Do we have a price for it?' I asked.

'Double what it cost,' she said cheerfully. 'Plus VAT, plus packing and transport.'

'He wants everything sent by messenger.'

She nodded. 'He always does. Jason takes them in a taxi. Leave it to me, I'LL see to it.'

'And we'd better put the pearls away that came yesterday.'

Oh, yes.'

She went off to fetch them and I moved down to where I'd given up the day before, feeling certain that the search was futile but committed to it all the same.

Annette returned with the pearls, which were at least in plastic bags on strings, not in the awkward open envelopes, so while she counted and stored the new intake, I checked my way through the old.

Boxes of pearls, all sizes. No diamonds.

'Does CZ mean anything to you?' I asked Annette idly.

'CZ is cubic zirconia,' she said promptly. 'We sell a fair amount of it.'

'Isn't that, um, imitation diamond?'

'It's a manufactured crystal very like diamond,' she said, 'but about ten thousand times cheaper. If it's in a ring, you can't tell the difference.'

'Can't anyone?' I asked. 'They must do.'

'Mr Franklin said that most high-street jewellers can't at a glance. The best way to tell the difference, he said, is to take the stones out of their setting and weigh them.'

'Weigh them?'

'Yes. Cubic zirconia's much heavier than diamond, so one carat of cubic zirconia is smaller than a one-carat diamond.'

'CZ equals C times one point seven,' I said slowly.

'That's right,' she said, surprised. 'How did you know?'

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