The Diamond Hunter Read online

  He came fractionally back to his senses and wondered if Reggie had been a ghost – a trick of his imagination. He looked around and felt his painful insides twist harder when he saw that Reggie had found some crude bench on which to make himself comfortable while James was being sick.

  James watched him light a cigarette and fling the spent match aside; it fluttered like a firefly to the ground. He hauled himself up with another groan, regretting his decision to come to the Big Hole. ‘Why are you even here, Reggie?’

  ‘Good question, James. The right one, too, because it cuts straight to the point. As you know, my father died.’

  ‘So what?’ He could see this surprised and perhaps wounded Reggie. When had he become this nasty person? He didn’t like himself any more but he also detested this man, so it mattered less, he supposed.

  ‘So what? Well, I’m now in charge of the family firm.’

  ‘Why should I care, Reggie?’

  ‘Because I am now the sole custodian of the business and those who depend upon it.’ When James said nothing to this he continued. ‘Lilian is dying.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I didn’t know you to be cruel or quite so ill-mannered.’

  ‘And I didn’t know you to have a single feeling for Lilian Grant. She hates you – or at least she didn’t mince her words in public about the bastard son of her husband.’

  ‘And yet, in spite of that, Lilian and I have recently found common ground.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It is. The common ground, James – figuratively speaking – is right here in Africa.’

  His gaze narrowed, both with the headache that was coming on and his confusion at Reggie’s words. ‘Don’t tell me you’re planning to make a diamond claim?’ He could hear the loathing but also despair in his tone.

  ‘Oh, I may well do that. I find this whole set-up intriguing. Hire some Africans, like that burly fellow of yours, and perhaps I can find myself some of these gems that the world lusts after.’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and James watched the glow from the tip light up Reggie’s face. He saw a keen resemblance to Louisa that hurt his soul – and then it was gone, as Reggie pulled the cigarette from his lips and blew the smoke in his direction. ‘No – as I said, it was figurative. The common bond that glues Lilian and me together is, funnily enough, family. I think she has come to accept that Grant blood runs freely in my veins, and I’ve come to realise – too late, I’m ashamed to admit – that Lilian is a formidable woman whose only desire is to keep her family strong and close.’

  James gave a jeering laugh. ‘So she’s left with you?’

  Reggie did not react as James had hoped. Instead he shook his head as if genuinely considering the question. ‘I don’t qualify as family entirely, and neither do you . . . entirely. But Clementine does. She is heiress to a mighty fortune, as you may have guessed.’

  ‘Do I look like I even care about her fortune, Reggie?’

  ‘Care? The word is irrelevant. Addicts don’t care about anyone or anything except whatever it is they’re addicted to. Frankly, you’re acting like a man who would drink that fortune and piss it down the drain, James.’

  ‘So why are you here? To save Clementine her fortune?’

  ‘Whatever I set out to achieve, I realise I’m now here to save a man’s life.’

  James half closed his eyes, baffled, trying to work out what Reggie wasn’t saying. ‘I don’t understand’ was all he managed to reply.

  ‘You’re a drunk.’ He held up a hand. ‘No, please don’t argue with this. I have asked around and I know that you are battling demons but you’re using the wrong weapon, James. The bottle won’t save you, it will kill you – but I suspect you are feverish; I saw it in your glassy eyes earlier. You are sickening.’

  Fever. So that’s what had been chasing him since yesterday; it hadn’t occurred to him that he was becoming ill. It had been such a happy day with Clem today, too, and he’d pushed aside the nag of the headache, the slight tremble, the chills when everyone else was in shirtsleeves puffing at the heat. He had no time for fever. ‘That may be. But very shortly I’ll be using my own fortune to drink with. Meanwhile, you’ll always be beholden to the woman you hate, and trying to live up to your sister’s memory.’ James didn’t know he was capable of such cruel words, but Reggie had made it clear years back that he wanted as little as possible to do with the man who was stealing his sister.

  ‘Listen to me now, James. It’s time to come home. Clementine cannot grow up here, wild, like a poverty-stricken urchin, being raised by an alcoholic and a black. Come on, man! If you won’t think of yourself, think of Louisa and what she would want for her only and most precious child.’

  ‘I think of nothing but Louisa,’ he slurred, spittle dribbling angrily to the ground. ‘I am bringing Clem back.’

  That seemed to shake Reggie. ‘Back to Northumberland?’

  He laughed without mirth. ‘I’m not that stupid. Back to Scotland, probably. As much as it galls you, her surname is Knight. And when I get back I will have enough money to support us without needing to touch the fortune you jealously guard. She can have it when she turns thirty. Until then she’s my responsibility and my child to take where I please.’

  ‘Now, listen to me. I want to help.’

  James hauled himself to his unsteady feet. ‘Help whom? Yourself? Why else would you come unannounced if you didn’t have a plan, Reggie? I seem to recall you were always someone with a plan – a plan for Louisa, a plan for us when we got married, a plan for all of us to go into business – do you remember that?’

  ‘I do. It was a sound idea.’

  ‘Yes, but it was all about you. Her money, your great investment idea. At least I tried to set up a life based on my own abilities.’

  ‘And you call this a life, do you, James? Digging around in the desert of Africa, living in a tin hovel, barely able to feed yourselves. Your daughter scruffing around like a gypsy rat, waiting for her drunkard of a father to bother to return. And if he doesn’t, never mind, there’s a thick-skulled Zulu who’ll take care of her needs.’

  ‘He’s a warrior – don’t you dare insult him. He is important to us and he does take care of her . . . of us, actually.’

  ‘James, are we talking about the same person? He’s a barbarian who walks around barefooted – no doubt if you gave him half a chance he’d prefer to be naked and flinging a spear at us.’

  James advanced faster than either of them thought possible and stabbed at Reggie’s chest. ‘At you, maybe.’

  ‘Take your hands off me.’

  ‘No one asked you here. Go back to your lazy life in England. We’re going to be fine.’

  ‘You’re going to be dead soon, more like, and then what?’

  ‘I’m going to be rich soon, you bastard.’

  ‘Oh, yes? With what, you disappointing porridge-toad?’

  The insult was so base, so full of prejudice, that James felt a need to strike back, and he had one ace up his sleeve. Two, actually, he thought with a heartbeat of smugness, if he counted Clementine. And so James wielded them as weapons. The secret he’d insisted to Clem and Joseph must be kept between the three of them at all costs was now given to the one person he never thought he’d share so much as a convivial nip of whisky with, let alone his most important confidence. To his credit, Reggie remained silent while James did his utmost to smirk his way through his news.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Reggie finally said, after an uncomfortably long hesitation.

  ‘Believe me or don’t. Why should I care? All you need to know is that Clem’s future with me is secure. I’ve booked our transport to Cape Town and tickets are already reserved on a ship back to London.’ James grinned lazily, although it wasn’t all bravado; the fever was beginning to loosen his mind and make his skin feel clammy. His clothes, baggy though they were, were suddenly slimy around him.

  ‘Show me again how big this diamond is?’ Reggie demanded.

  James laughed,
and could hear that he sounded like a hyena. ‘Shhh! The Big Hole has ears.’ That amused him further, and his laughter had a manic quality.

  He came briefly to his senses as two fists gripped around his shirtfront. ‘Tell me about this diamond,’ Reggie demanded in a low growl, so close to James’s face that on his breath James could smell the fish that Reggie had eaten for dinner.

  James pushed away and staggered backwards, aware that he was dangerously close to the lip of the Big Hole. He pointed at Reggie. ‘Oh, interested now, eh?’ He lurched back once again towards his scowling brother-in-law, no longer able to tell if the Big Hole was to his rear or in front of him. He shook his head, feeling suddenly useless, as the euphoria of the day fell away. The thought of Louisa and the memory of losing her sat on his shoulder; he felt like the ancient Greek figure of Atlas holding up the sky, lest it all fall down and kill the world. Yet his world was already dead. All he could do now was live long enough to see Clementine home, safe, provided for. ‘It’s worth tens of thousands . . . maybe even scores of thousands – just that one diamond alone. Clem and I can live off it for the rest of our lives.’ He wasn’t going to mention that he felt his own days were few. ‘It’s hundreds of carats, Reggie. You probably have no idea what that signifies. But let me assure you, I can tell even as a rough it’s damn near perfect. They call that a clearwater stone – I’ll put my life on it, it’s one.’

  ‘Clearwater? What are you raving about, Knight?’

  James, helplessly gripped now by the fever, leapt around Reggie, grinning madly. He knew he must look like a court jester. ‘Clearwater. Paragon. Perfect, Reggie. Something you aren’t, but your half-sister was. Not a single flaw did she have.’ Then he groaned. ‘Other than to marry me, perhaps.’ He waggled a finger as though he was pleased with himself for making that last remark before Reggie could. ‘And when that stone is cut and polished, I daresay they’ll write songs about it. I have no doubt in my mind it will be shown at one of the huge international exhibitions. We are talking a once-in-a-lifetime find – and by that I mean . . .’ He stooped to cough, threatened to vomit and then changed his mind, holding his chest as he belched. He didn’t think Reggie could look upon him with any deeper contempt than he did in that moment. James found his train of thought again, surprised that he could. ‘Every single digger here could smash away for a lifetime in this enormous pit and between us we might be lucky to ever find something as remarkable as this stone that Joseph One-Shoe revealed yesterday. Yes, Reggie, the black man. The Zulu warrior who you dismiss as a barbarian. Technically, the stone is his, as is half the claim. He dug it out of the pit. But he gave it to Clementine and me.’

  Reggie, trapped in the wonder of the tale, looked stunned. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he possesses something that you’ve perhaps never experienced in your whole pitiful life. He knows that we love him. And in return he loves us. He has no use for a stone of its size or quality because he knows that men like you jump to conclusions and he would never be permitted to benefit from his find. He wants Clem to enjoy its proceeds, as do I. And that’s why we’re going home, Reggie. I’m going to sell it, make my fortune, and Clem and I are going to grow old and fat and happy without worrying about Africa or the Grant family or her mother’s death ever again.’ He was raving. Even he knew it. ‘So even if I do die soon, Reggie, it won’t be in vain. I will have achieved my aim to make my fortune, and not a penny of Grant money required. Clementine Knight will be a double heiress.’

  He did vomit now, bending double and weeping with pain at the burn of the alcohol as still more of it made its vicious way up to scorch his throat on its journey out.

  10

  Reggie was in shock. As his much-loathed brother-in-law brought up impossible amounts of foul-smelling liquid to splatter near the edge of the Big Hole, his thoughts were already reaching to an even quicker way to alleviate the burden of debt on the Grant family. Perhaps James could be persuaded.

  ‘I came to fetch you both. Let me do that – get you both home safely.’

  ‘We don’t need your escort,’ James groaned, his throat raw. ‘I really do not know why you came all this way. Go away. Leave us alone, Reggie . . . for good.’

  ‘I cannot do that, James. Clementine’s grandmother is dying, and she may hate you for the rest of her life if she discovers you prevented her seeing one of the last two living members of her Grant family. Where is your heart? More to the point, where is this diamond you boast of?’ He said the last in a tone just above a whisper.

  ‘Safe with the others,’ he murmured.

  ‘Others?’

  James smiled secretively. ‘Plenty of small ones. Her ragdoll won’t be able to take another stone now that Sirius is sewn in. Clever Joseph One-Shoe. No one would think to look in a child’s toy.’

  Her ragdoll? They’d put the diamonds inside Clementine’s toy? That had been a gift from the Ghillie. Lilian had thought it frightening and vulgar for a little girl but Louisa had adored its permanent grin and mad hair.

  James was still slurring. ‘Time for us to go back to my bonny Oban. And you, Reggie, can go back to your father’s wife and see what little handouts she’ll give you so you can keep pretending you’re a man of means and not reliant on an old woman’s spare change and a dead half-sister’s goodwill.’

  It was more than Reggie could stomach. Even now he nursed that old sore: his belief that for all his years he’d been sneered at, even by the very man who’d sired him. He loathed himself for feeling pathetic but he could hear that small voice crying, I am the innocent – I didn’t ask to be born. He was still doing what Henry wanted; his demands reached from beyond the grave, forcing Reggie to use his agile, street-smart mind to protect the Grants and their assets. Clementine was an asset in myriad ways, not least because of the powerful, strategic marriage he could negotiate for her in years to come. But in the meantime, there was her ongoing trust fund to manage, plus Woodingdene and all of its assets, some of which could be sold for cash. And now – he felt like he was mentally rubbing his hands with anticipation – now there was a cache of diamonds, with one in particular that could solve all the family’s liquidity issues in a single transaction. Reggie was dizzied by the potential.

  He advanced on the swaying James. ‘You have no right to talk to me like that. I came here in good faith to offer you and my niece a home, a chance to set up a fresh life and to give Clementine all that she is entitled to.’

  ‘Reggie,’ James slurred, breathing hard. ‘In the time I knew you well, you did nothing that wasn’t calculated in your own best interests. I’ve never understood Louisa’s devotion to you.’

  The damaging remark surprised Reggie in its viciousness as it fizzed and frothed in his mind. James wasn’t finished either – he added a final dose of venom.

  ‘There is no love lost between you and me. So stop pretending you care about us and know that I see through you, Reggie. You’re up to something and you obviously have a need from us but I can’t imagine what unless you plan to steal my little girl from me for some reason. Her name is Knight, not Grant, no matter how hard you wish it to be otherwise. She is simply distant kin through marriage. And by the by, she is not Louisa – you could never make Clementine love you blindly, no matter how hard you want her to. My daughter is far more discerning than her mother.’

  James suddenly poked a finger into his chest as the final insult hit. Both hurt. The drunkard didn’t know when to stop; didn’t realise that he was poking a sleeping wolf when he began again, punctuating his slurring words with another jab to Reggie’s sternum.

  ‘You are not worthy of Clementine.’

  Enough! Reggie’s rage was old, constantly bruised, forever painful, rising out of a wound that refused to heal.

  ‘No, James. It’s you who are not worthy of her, or Louisa, or the family name you scorn.’ He shoved the lurching, sickening Scotsman to make his point, about to tell him that he would report James to every authority, and even if he had to bribe the man
in charge he would use a legal precedent to extract Clementine from her wayward, useless drunk of a father.

  Except James was no longer there.

  In a flailing cartwheel of limbs, James toppled backwards into the pit of the Big Hole.

  11

  Reggie stared, open-mouthed, at the space where James had been standing and hurling his abuse just a heartbeat earlier. Now it was empty. He had not made a sound as the pit swallowed him, while the void left by his body was devoured by the dark.

  Reggie rushed to the edge and peered into the gloom: he could see nothing. He struggled for his pockets and found a box of matches and lit one. For a brief moment he looked upon the twisted figure of James Knight below. The match burned out as the darkness closed over like the final curtain at the theatre. Horrified and petrified at once, Reggie stared into the vacant blackness it left behind. And then he was on his feet, looking around wildly – there was no one that he could see. To his knowledge, no one had seen them up here talking, let alone arguing. Was that a groan? What should he do?

  Go! the voice inside him urged. Get away from here, now!

  He forced himself not to run. Instead he backtracked, going the longest way around the pit, picking his way with incredible care, with the single intention of being seen coming from the opposite side from where James had fallen. Fallen, yes. That already sounded so much easier to accept.

  And as he neared the main street, he dusted down his clothes, straightened himself. He remembered the loose cigarette in his pocket. It would soothe him as much as help him to achieve a casual air as he loped back towards the Kimberley Club, giving the appearance of a man who had been out for a night’s stroll after dinner. He smoked slowly, blowing out his fear with each exhalation. The obstacle was out of the way. He could be gone in days with Clementine and that diamond. He wasn’t ready to smile yet but the tightness in his chest was loosening and he was sure a brandy would slow his pulse. By tomorrow morning it would all seem easier to stomach.