Four Warned

‘Of course, madam,’ said the doorman, and led her down the corridor.

During the next hour, Arabella carried out almost the same routine as Jeremy, and after much deliberate delay she told Mr Crombie, ‘It’s hopeless, quite hopeless. I’ll have to bring Archie in. After all, he’s the one who’s going to foot the bill.’

‘Of course, madam.’

‘I’m joining him for lunch at Le Caprice,’ she added, ‘so we’ll pop back this afternoon.’

‘We’ll look forward to seeing you both then,’ said the sales associate as he closed the jewel box.

‘Thank you, Mr Crombie,’ said Arabella as she rose to leave. Arabella was escorted to the front door by the sales associate without any suggestion that she should take her clothes off. Once she was back on Piccadilly, she hailed a taxi and gave the driver an address in Lowndes Square. She checked her watch, sure that she would be back at the flat long before her father, who would never find out that his watch and cufflinks had been borrowed for a few hours, and who certainly wouldn’t miss one of his old school ties.

As she sat in the back of the taxi, Arabella admired the perfect yellow diamond. Jeremy had carried out her instructions to the letter. She would of course have to explain to her friends why she’d broken off the engagement. Frankly, he just wasn’t one of our set, never really fitted in.

But she had to admit she would quite miss him. She’d grown rather fond of Jeremy, and he was very keen between the sheets. And to think that all he’d get out of it was a pair of silver collar stiffeners and an old Etonian tie. Arabella hoped he still had enough money to cover the bill at The Ritz.

She dismissed Jeremy from her thoughts and turned her attention to the man she’d chosen to join her at Wimbledon. She had already lined him up to help her get a matching pair of earrings.

* * *

When Mr Crombie left De Beers that night, he was still trying to work out how the man had managed it. After all, he’d had no more than a few seconds while his head was bowed.

‘Goodnight, Doris,’ he said as he passed a cleaner who was vacuuming in the corridor.

‘Goodnight, sir,’ said Doris, opening the door to the viewing room so she could continue to vacuum. This was where the customers selected the finest gems on earth, Mr Crombie had once told her, so it had to be spotless. She turned off the machine, removed the black velvet cloth from the table and began to polish the surface; first the top, then the rim. That’s when she felt it.

Doris bent down to take a closer look. She stared in disbelief at the large piece of chewing gum stuck under the rim of the table. She began to scrape it off, not stopping until there wasn’t the slightest trace of it left. Doris then dropped it into the rubbish bag in her cleaning cart before placing the velvet cloth back on the table.

‘Such a disgusting habit,’ she muttered as she closed the viewing-room door and continued to vacuum the carpet in the corridor.

Don’t Drink the Water

(from Cat O’ Nine Tales)

‘If you want to murder someone,’ said Karl, ‘don’t do it in England.’

‘Why not?’ I asked innocently.

‘The odds are against you getting away with it,’ my fellow inmate warned me, as we walked round the exercise yard. ‘You’ve got a much better chance in Russia.’

‘I’ll try to remember that,’ I replied.

‘Mind you,’ added Karl, ‘I knew a countryman of yours who did get away with murder, but at some cost.’

* * *

It was Association, that welcome 45-minute break when you are released from your prison cell. You can either spend your time on the ground floor (which is about the size of a basketball court), sitting around chatting, playing table tennis or watching television, or you can go out into the fresh air and stroll around the edge of the yard (which is about the size of a football pitch). There was a twenty-foot-high concrete wall topped with razor wire, and only the sky to look up at – but this was, for me, the highlight of the day.

While I was confined in Belmarsh, a category A high-security prison in south-east London, I was locked in my cell for twenty-three hours a day (think about it). You are let out only to go to the canteen to pick up your lunch (five minutes), which you then eat in your cell. Five hours later you collect your supper (five more minutes). At that point they also hand you tomorrow’s breakfast in a plastic bag, so that they don’t have to let you out again before lunch the following day. The only other taste of freedom is Association, and even that can be cancelled if the prison is short-staffed (which happens about twice a week).

I always used the 45-minute escape to power-walk, for two reasons. One, I needed the exercise because on the outside I attend a local gym five days a week, and, two, not many prisoners bothered to try and keep up with me. Except Karl.

Karl was a Russian by birth who hailed from that beautiful city of St Petersburg. He was a contract killer who had just begun a 22-year sentence for disposing of a fellow countryman who was proving tiresome to one of the Mafia gangs back home. He cut his victims up into small pieces, and put what was left of them into a furnace. His fee – if you wanted some

one disposed of – was five thousand pounds.

Karl was a bear of a man, six foot two and built like a weightlifter. He was covered in tattoos and never stopped talking. On balance, I didn’t consider it wise to interrupt his flow. Like so many prisoners, Karl didn’t talk about his own crime, and the golden rule (should you ever end up inside) is never ask what a prisoner is in for, unless they raise the subject. However, Karl did tell me a tale about an Englishman he’d come across in St Petersburg. He claimed to have seen what happened in the days when he’d been a driver for a government minister.

Although Karl and I were on different resident blocks, we met up regularly for Association. But it still took several walks around the yard before I squeezed the story of Richard Barnsley out of him.