A low mood had not left Stone that day. From the sitting room he spent some time staring across to the sea; Claire’s call had been difficult. That family were devious, paying the sweetener to Edith was all just a game, but he was becoming more certain he was going to win against them. Even if he could not clear the money they were demanding for Marine House.
There was, though, another much louder ringing in his ears. The demand from Xavier for £25,000 in notes. Just to keep his gang of druggies and extortionists at bay and to buy precious information to make Marine House his. He searched along the road and across to the sea, but he saw no hooded druggie with a grey wispy beard lurking around the place. Their confining closeness was an invisible iron ring around Marine House, and now Claire had felt their brute force.
But to get Marine House he needed another big insider deal from Xavier. It left him inevitably being drawn, sucked into the eddy of a whirlpool that spewed out money.
Stone poured a whisky and slumped onto the cushions of a sofa. He momentarily closed his eyes and was interrupted as his phone buzzed. It was his diamond dealing friend, Sol.
‘Harry, I had a visit the other day from an attractive lady, says her name’s Claire. And she’s brought me another beautiful diamond. I hope you’ve got these stones insured. A lady walking around London with some valuable jewels in her bag is a sitting duck. I put her back in a taxi to her apartment, but tell her to take care, Harry. You never know who’s out there picking off people like your nice lady.’
‘What’s the price, what do you give me for it?’
‘Ninety grand. How does that sound?’
‘That sounds right on, Sol.’
‘How do you want it, cash to your banks, money in your hand?’
‘I need some notes. Can you do me twenty-five grand in Bobby Moores? I’ll come in the next couple of days to collect them. The balance, pay into my five bank accounts. Split it up and make it all look like normal money flowing.’
As he said it, Stone sat more upright on the sofa. The cockney slang for that bundle of notes for a moment lifted him. They would be his insurance to clear the heroin and narcotics dealers that he saw circling around Marine House.
‘I’ll get that for you, but come and see me soon,’ Sol said.
‘I’ve got three laboratory grading certificates. Came the other day. But tell me, Sol, if a diamond is lost, could it be sold without those bits of paper?’
‘Doubtful if it’s been engraved with its own number. But you could find a cutter, pay enough and the diamond could be sliced up into smaller pieces. Then they would be sold on, no trouble.’ Sol laughed. He had been there himself before.
‘Thanks. There’s one more big diamond still to come, and it’ll be with you very soon. Okay?’
‘My Russian friend tells me he’ll be in London in two weeks’ time and that big-carat diamond he’d like to handle and take back with him. When can you get it to me?’
Stone hesitated. Where was that little man Josh?
‘Claire’s collecting it. It’ll be a day or two,’ Stone replied.
It was from this top price from Sol of his big-carat diamond that Stone thought he had earned another glass of whisky. Without the pain still nagging in his lower back, he would have gone straight to London, to the Mayfair house, and confronted Lady Ruth about her son with the sticky fingers stealing his valuable diamond. He went to his study and totted up his money; he was still over £80,000 short. Today he would keep his final card on the table; he would let them sink further before dealing it.
And as he sipped from his whiskey, he could not know how Claire would artfully intimidate this family to do that dirty work for him.