‘What the hell is going on?’ Reg said. ‘Look, that can’t be my basket, someone’s done a switch.’ He glared at Ebenholz. ‘You, of course, that’s why you took my keys and went out there with some cock and bull story.’
Already on his feet, staring at the neat bundles of banknotes, he tried to dart past the big man. Ebenholz stepped across to block him. Clumsily, Reg barged him with his shoulder and started for the basket. Ebenholz moved just enough to give himself room. His muscular arm swung lazily. The side of his clenched fist hit Reg’s forehead with an audible thwack. The old diplomat seemed to take off. He hit the sofa and bounced, then flopped sideways with his head in Eleanor’s lap. His eyes were glazed. He grunted, twitched, struggled to rise.
I looked at Calum, standing behind the sofa. He gave a slight shake of his head. Sian hadn’t stirred from her chair, but she’d changed her position and her eyes were moving constantly from Ebenholz to the Australian.
Still sitting on the step by his empty glass, Rickman said, ‘Have we quite finished?’
‘Could go on all night for all I care,’ Eleanor said, ‘but I’ll never in a month of Sundays believe this old sweetie stole that money.’
‘You’re absolutely right,’ Rickman said. ‘He didn’t.’
‘So I’ll say it again, then: why don’t you bugger off?’
‘Ah, would that it were that simple,’ Rickman said, and looked around happily. ‘Got a Shakespearean sound that, hasn’t it? And so it should have, because this is either a tragedy or a bloody farce. Or both.’
‘Get on with it,’ I said softly.
‘Yeah, back to the chase.’ Suddenly, Rickman changed. His eyes narrowed. Something evil swirled in their depths, and I heard Eleanor draw a sharp breath.
‘This is how the plan – Charlie’s excellent get-rich-quick scheme – was to be wrapped up,’ Rickman said. ‘After that unexpected delay, Charlie made it back to Spain and got Tony Ramirez to locate a buyer and arrange the sale of some stolen diamonds—’
‘Charlie didn’t have’em—’
‘—and come up with a time, and a place,’ Rickman went on, ignoring Reg’s dazed protest. ‘The agreed place was Europa Point. The buyer would bring the money in by boat. The seller – Charlie told Ramirez – would be Charlie’s partner. This guy had listened to Charlie’s idea for stealing stolen diamonds, and thought the plan brilliant because it would make this feller rich and enable him to get back at another guy who was giving him aggro. The partner snatched the jewels at the airport—’
‘Christ, no, you’re wrong,’ Reg said weakly.
‘—and he’s had them ever since. And Charlie told Ramirez the seller would know his partner – waiting down there at Europa – because he’d be an old guy fishing off the rocks, a little runt with grey hair snatched back in a pony tail. The diamonds would be in a leather pouch, inside a fishing basket.’
Reg said something that went unnoticed, because it seemed everybody was now ignoring the little man. I was leaving Clontarf and the American to Calum and Sian, who were watching them intently. It was Rickman who interested me, because I sensed this story would have a twist in the tail.
‘So once Ramirez had arranged the deal,’ I said, knowing how this had to end, ‘he informed you.’
‘Not directly, no,’ Rickman said. ‘What Ramirez did was go to Karl Creeny. In Morocco, remember? Only not exactly Morocco, but Ceuta, which, of course, is a Spanish enclave over there and much closer to Gib than good old Tangier. It was Karl who kept me up to date. Karl who sailed across the straits earlier today. And it was Karl who did a midnight deal with diplomatic Reg Fitz-whatever.’
‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Calum said. ‘Why would that bloody crook spend a fortune buying back stolen diamonds?’
‘Well, the answer to that is, he didn’t.’
Grinning, Clontarf again went down on one knee. He reached into the basket, peeled a banknote off the top of one of the piles. Beneath it there was blank paper. He did the same with each of the piles in turn. He was left clutching a handful of genuine banknotes, and we all stared, mesmerized by the sight of a basket full of plain copier paper neatly cut to the shape and size of banknotes.
‘Without violence, and for little more than the cash he carries in his back pocket,’ Rickman said, ‘Karl’s got his diamonds back.’
‘Then why are you here?’ Calum said. ‘None of this is necessary. Creeny sails away with his diamonds; Reg would have come home and had fun counting his piles of waste paper – a win-win situation for you and Creeny, so why this palaver?’
‘Because as of now, we’ve got Reg,’ Rickman said, and he lifted a hand, pointed his forefinger like the barrel of a pistol at the white-faced diplomat, and cocked his thumb. ‘And for dear old Reg it’s payback time. Too bloody right it is, because he did something much worse than cost me a small bloody fortune. See, Reg, the man who brought in the diamonds, the man you conked on the head at the airport, well, he was Karl Creeny’s younger brother.’