Lost

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

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

The front door gapes darkly. Pressing my back to the outside wall, I glance inside. I can see the hallway 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 all. The thought disappeared in the darkness.

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

The shrill alarm is shredding my senses. Running my fingers along the wall, I search for the control panel. The alarm will 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 tell him to go back outside, find the alarm bell and pull it off the wall.

“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 wall, he takes a swing at the alarm bell. Twice more he hits the box and suddenly the alarm falls silent. The change is so dramatic it feels like the air pressure has dropped.

Climbing the stairs, I step onto the next landing. For all 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 stillness, 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.”

Pulling open my shirt, I show her the bulletproof 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 spill 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'll be fingerprints or physical evidence left behind but we'll go through the motions of making statements and dusting for prints. Joe still 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 smaller 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 satellite 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 follow us, tracking the signals. Aleksei had the most to gain. They were his diamonds and it was his daughter.