The Diamond Hunters

The Diamond Hunters by Wilbur Smith

His flight had been delayed for three hours at Nairobi, and despite four large whiskies he slept only fitfully until the intercontinental Boeing touched down at Heathrow. Johnny Lance felt as though someone had thrown a handful of grit in each eye, and his mood was ugly as he came through the indignity of Customs and Immigration into the main hall of the international terminus.

The Van Der Byl Diamond Company’s London agent was there to meet him.

“Pleasant trip, Johnny?”

“Like the one to Hell,“Johnny grunted.

“Good practice for you.” The agent grinned. The two of them had seen some riotous times together.

Reluctantly Johnny grinned back at him.

“You got me a room and a car?”

“Dorchester - and Jag.” The agent handed over the car keys. “And I’ve got two first-class seats reserved on tomorrow’s nine o’clock flight back to Cape Town. Tickets at the hotel reception desk.”

“Good boy.” Johnny dropped the keys into the pocket of his cashmere overcoat and they started for the exit. “Now where is Tracey van der Byl?” The agent shrugged. “Since I wrote to you she has dropped out of sight. I don’t know where you can start looking.”

“Great, just great!” said Johnny bitterly as they came out into the car park. “I’ll start with Benedict.”

“Does the Old Man know about Tracey?” Johnny shook his head. “He’s a sick man. I didn’t tell him.”

“Here’s your car.” The agent stopped by the pearl-grey Jaguar.

“Any chance of a drink together?”

“Not this trip, sorry.“Johnny slipped in behind the wheel.

“Next time.” “I’ll hold you to that,” said the agent and walked away.

It was almost dark by the time Johnny crossed the Hammersmith flyover in the moist smoky grey of the evening, and he lost himself twice in the maze of Belgravia before he found the narrow mews behind Belgrave Square and parked the Jaguar.

The exterior of the flat had been lavishly redecorated since his last visit, and Johnny’s mouth twisted. He might not be so hot at earning the stuff - but our boy Benedict certainly was a dab hand at spending it.

There were lights burning and Johnny hit the door knocker half a dozen lusty cracks. It echoed hollowly about the mews, and in the silence that followed Johnny heard the whisper of voices from behind the curtains, and a shadow passed quickly across the window.

Johnny waited three minutes in the cold, then he stepped back into the middle of the mews.

“Benedict van der Byl,” he bellowed. “I’ll give you a count of ten to get this door open. Then I’ll kick the bloody thing down.” He drew breath, and bellowed again.

“This is Johnny Lance - and you know I mean it.” The door opened almost immediately. Johnny pushed his way through it, not glancing at the man who held it, and started for the lounge.

“Dammit, Lance. You can’t go in there.” Benedict van der Byl started after him.

“Why not?“Johnny glanced back at him. “It is a Company flat - and I’m the General Manager.” Before Benedict could reply, Johnny was through the door.

One of the girls picked up her clothing from the floor and ran naked into the bedroom passage. The other pulled a full-length caftan over her head and glared at Johnny sulkily. Her hair was in wild disorder, fluffed out into a grotesque halo of stiff curls.

“Nice party,” said Johnny. He glanced at the movie projector on the side table, and then at the screen across the room. “Films and all.”

“Are you the Fuzz?“demanded the girl.

“You’ve got an infernal cheek, Lance.” Benedict van der Byl was beside him, tying the belt of his silk dressing-gown.

“is he Fuzz?” the girl demanded again.

“No,” Benedict assured her. “He works for my father.” With the statement he seemed to gather self-assurance, drawing himself up to his full height and smoothing his long dark hair with one hand. His voice regained its polish and lazy inflection. “Actually, he is Daddy’s messenger boy.” Johnny turned to him, but he addressed the girl without looking at her.

“Beat it, girlie. Follow your friend.” She hesitated.

“Beat it!” Johnny’s voice crackled like a bush fire, and she went.

The two men stood facing each other. They were the same age, in their early thirties - both tall, both dark-haired but different in every other way.

Johnny was big in the shoulder and lean across the hips and belly, his skin polished and browned by the desert sun.

The line of his heavy jawbone stood out clearly, and his eyes seemed still to seek far horizons. His voice clipped and twanged with the accents of the other land.

“Where is Tracey?” he asked.

Benedict lifted one eyebrow in a pantomime of arrogant surprise.

His skin was pale olive, unstained by sunlight for it was months since he had last visited Africa. His lips were very red, as though they had been painted, the classical lines of his features were blurred by flesh. There were soft little pouches under his eyes, and a plumpness beneath the silk dressing-gown that suggested he ate and drank often and exercised infrequently.

“My dear chap, what on earth makes you think I know where my sister is? I haven’t seen her for weeks.” Johnny turned away and crossed to one of the paintings on the far wall. The room was hung with good original South African artists - Alexis Preller, Irma Stem and Tretchikof - an unusual mixture of techniques and styles, but someone had convinced the Old Man they were sound investments.

Johnny turned back to face Benedict van der Byl. He studied him as he had the paintings, comparing him with the clean young athlete he had been a few years before. A clear mental image in his mind pictured Benedict moving with leopard grace across the green field of play under the packed grandstands, turning smoothly beneath the high floating arc of the ball to gather it neatly, head high, and break back infield to open the line for the return kick.

“You’re getting fat, Laddy Buck, he said softly, and Benedict’s anger stained his cheeks dull red.

“Get out of here,” he snapped.

“In a minute - tell me about Tracey first.” “I’ve told you - I don’t know where she is. Whoring it up around Chelsea, I expect.”

Johnny felt his own anger surge fiercely, but his voice remained level.

“Where is she getting the money, Benedict?”

“I don’t know - the Old Man-” Johnny cut him short. “The Old Man is keeping her on an allowance of ten pounds a week. From what I hear she’s throwing more than that around.”

“Christ, Johnny,” Benedict’s tone became conciliatory, “I don’t know. It’s not my business. Perhaps Kenny Hartford is..." Again Johnny interrupted impatiently. “Kenny Hartford is giving her nothing. That was part of the divorce agreement when they split up. Now I want to know who is subsidizing her trip to oblivion.

How about it, big brother?” The?” Benedict was indignant. “You know there is no love wasted between us.” “Must I spell it out?” Johnny asked. “All right, then. The Old Man is dying - without losing his horror of all weakness and sin. If Tracey turns into a drug-soaked little tramp then there’s a good chance that our boy Benedict will come back into full favour. It would be a good gamble on your part to lay out a few thousand now, to send Tracey to Hell, Cut her off completely from her father - and all those nice fat millions.” “Who said anything about drugs?” Benedict blustered.

“I did.“Johnny stepped up to him. “You and I have a little unfinished business. It would give me intense pleasure to take you to pieces and see what makes you work.” He held Benedict’s eyes for long seconds, then Benedict looked down and fiddled with the cord of his dressing-gown.

“Where is she, Benedict?” don’t know, damn you!” Johnny moved softly across to the movie projector and picked up a reel of film from the table beside it. He peeled off a few feet of celluloid from the reel and held it up to the light.

“Pretty!” he said, but the line of his mouth tightened with disgust.

“Put that down,“snapped Benedict.

“You know what the Old Man thinks about this sort of thing, don’t you, Benedict?” Suddenly Benedict went pale.

“He wouldn’t believe you.”

“Yes, he would.” Johnny tossed the reel on the table and turned back to Benedict. “He believes me because I’ve never lied to him.” Benedict hesitated, wiped his lips nervously with the back of his hand.

“I haven’t seen her for two weeks. She was renting a place in Chelsea. Stark Street. Number 23. She came to see me.”

“What for?”

“I lent her a couple of pounds,” Benedict muttered sulkily.

“A couple of pounds?“Johnny asked.

“All right, a couple of hundred. After all, she is my sister.”

“Damn decent of you,“Johnny lauded him. “Write down the address.”

Benedict crossed to the leather-topped writing desk and scribbled on a card. He came back and handed the card to Johnny.

“You like to think you’re big and dangerous, Lance.” His voice was pitched low but it shook with fury. “Well, I’m dangerous too - in a different sort of way. The Old Man can’t live for ever, Lance. When he’s gone I’m coming after you.

“You frighten the hell out of me.“Johnny grinned at him, and went down to the car.

The traffic was solid in Sloane Square as Johnny eased the Jaguar slowly down towards Chelsea. There was plenty of time to think; to remember how close they had been the three of them. He and Tracey and Benedict.

Running together as wild young things with the endless beaches and mountains and sun-washed plains of Namaqua land as their playground.

That was before the Old Man made the big strike on the Slang River, before there was money for shoes. When Tracey wore dresses made from flour sacks sewn together, and they rode to school each day, all three of them bare-back on a single pony like a row of bedraggled little brown sparrows on a fence.

He remembered how the long sun-drenched weeks while the Old Man was away were spent in laughter and secret games. How they climbed the kopie behind the mud-walled shack each evening and looked towards the north across the limitless land, flesh-coloured and purple in the sunset, searching for the wisp of dust in the distance that would mean the Old Man was coming home.

Then the almost painful excitement when the dusty, rackety Ford truck with its mudguards tied on with wire was suddenly there in the yard, and the Old Man was climbing down from the cab, a sweat-stained hat on the back of his head and the dust thick in the stubble of his beard, swinging Tracey squealing above his head. Then turning to Benedict, and lastly to Johnny. Always in that order - Tracey, Benedict, Johnny.

Johnny had never wondered why sometimes he was not first. It was always that way. Tracey, Benedict, Johnny. The same way as he had never wondered why his name was Lance and not van der Byl. Then it had come to an end suddenly, the whole brightly sunlit dream of childhood was gone and lost.

“Johnny, I’m not your real father. Your father and mother died when you were very young.” And Johnny had stared at the Old Man in disbelief.

“Do you understand, Johnny?”

“Yes, Pa.” Tracey’s hand groped for his beneath the table top like a little warm animal. He jerked his own hand away from it.

“I think you’d better not call me that any more, Johnny.” He could remember the exact tone of the Old Man’s voice, neutral, matter of fact, as it splintered the fragile crystal of his childhood to fragments. The loneliness had begun.

Johnny accelerated the Jaguar forward and swung into the King’s

Road. He was surprised that the memory hurt so intensely - time should have mellowed and softened it.

His life from then on had become a ceaseless contest to win the Old Man’s approval - he dare not hope for his love.

Soon there were other changes, for a week later the old Ford had come roaring unexpectedly out of the desert in the night, and the barking of the dogs and the Old Man’s shouted laughter had brought them, sleepy-eyed, tumbling from their bunks.

The Old Man had lit the Petromax lamp and sat them on the kitchen chairs about the scrubbed deal table. Then with the air of a conjuror he had lain something that looked like a big lump of broken glass on the table.

The three sleepy children had stared at it solemnly, not understanding. The harsh glare of the Petromax was captured within the crystal, captured, repeated, magnified and thrown back at them in fire and blue lightning.

“Twelve carats - ” gloated the Old Man, “blue-white and perfect, and there is a cartload more where that came from.” After that there were new clothes and motor cars, the move to Cape Town, the new school and the big house on Wynberg Hill - but always the contest. The contest that did not earn the Old Man’s approval as it was designed to do, but earned instead Benedict van der Byl’s jealousy and hatred.

Without his drive and purpose, Benedict could not hope to match Johnny’s achievements in the classroom and on the sports field. He fell far behind the pace that Johnny set - and hated him for it.

The Old Man did not notice for he was seldom with them now. They lived alone in the big house with the thin silent woman who was their housekeeper, and the Old Man came infrequently and for short periods.

Always he seemed tired and distracted. Sometimes he brought presents for them from London and Amsterdam and Kimberley, but the presents meant very little to them. They would have liked it better had it stayed the way it was in the desert.

In the void left by the Old Man the hostility and rivalry between Johnny and Benedict flourished to such proportions that Tracey was forced to choose between them. She chose Johnny.

In their loneliness they clung to each other.

The grave little girl and the big gangling boy built together all against the loneliness. It was a bright secure place where the sadness could not reach them - and Benedict was excluded from it.

Johnny swung the Jaguar out of the line of traffic into Old Church Street, down towards the river in Chelsea. He drove automatically and the memories came crowding back.

He tried to recapture and hold the castle of warmth and love that he and Tracey had built so long ago, but instantly his mind leapt to the night on which it had collapsed.

One night in the old house on Wynberg Hill Johnny had come awake to the sound of distant weeping. He had gone barefooted in his pyjamas, following that heartrending whisper of grief. He was afraid, fourteen years old and afraid in the dark house.

Tracey was weeping into her pillow and he had stooped over her.

“Tracey. What is it? Why are you crying?” She had jumped up, kneeling on the bed, and flung both arms about his neck.

“Oh, Johnny. I had a dream, a terrible dream. Hold me, please.

Don’t go away, don’t leave me.” Her whisper was still thick and muffled with tears. He had gone into her bed and held her until at last she slept.

Every night after that he had gone to her room. It was innocent and completely childlike, the twelve-year-old girl and the boy who was her brother, in fact if not in name.

They held each other in the bed, and whispered and laughed secretly until sleep carried them both away.

Then suddenly the castle was blasted by the bright electric glare of the overhead light. The Old Man was standing in the door of the bedroom, and Benedict was behind him in his pyjamas dancing with excitement and chanting triumphantly.

“I told you, Pa! I told you so!” The Old Man was shaking with rage, the bush of grey hair standing erect like the mane of a wounded lion. He had dragged Johnny from the bed, and struck away Tracey’s clinging hands.

“You little whore,” he bellowed, holding the terrified boy easily with one hand and leaning forward to strike his daughter in the face with his open hand. Leaving her sobbing, face down on the bed, he dragged Johnny down the passages to the study on the ground floor. He threw him into the room with a violence that sent him staggering against the desk.

The Old Man had gone to the rack and taken out a light Malacca cane. He came to Johnny and, taking a handful of his hair, threw him face down over the desk.

The Old Man had beaten him before, but never like this.

Mad with rage the Old Man’s blows had been unaimed, some fell across Johnny’s back.

Yet in the agony it was deadly important to the boy that he should not cry out. He bit through his lip so the taste of blood was salt and copper in his mouth. He must not hear me cry! And he choked back the moans feeling his pyjama trousers hanging heavy and sodden with blood.

His silence served only as a goad to the Old Man’s fury.

Flinging the cane aside, he pulled the boy upright and attacked him with his hands. Slamming Johnny’s head from side to side with full, open-handed blows that burst in Johnny’s skull with blinding flashes of light.

Still Johnny kept on his feet, clinging to the edge of the desk.

His lips broken and swollen and his face bloated and darkening with bruises, until at last the Old Man was driven far beyond the borders of sanity. He bunched his fist and drove it into Johnny’s face - and with a wonderful sense of relief Johnny felt the pain go out in a warm flood of darkness.

He heard voices first. A strange voice: As though he’s been savaged by a wild beast. I’ll have to inform the police.” Then a voice he recognized. It took him a little time to place it. He tried to open his eyes but they seemed locked tight, his face felt enormous, swollen and hot. He forced the fat lids of his eyes back and recognized Michael Shapiro, the Old Man’s secretary. He was talking quietly to the other man.

There was the smell of antiseptic and the doctor’s bag lay open on the table beside the bed.

“Listen, Doctor. I know it looks bad - but hadn’t you better talk to the boy before you stir up the police?” They both looked towards the bed.

“He’s conscious.” The doctor came to him quickly. “What happened to you, Johnny? Tell us what happened. Whoever did this to you will be punished - I promise you.” The words were wrong. Nobody must ever punish the Old Man.

Johnny tried to speak but his lips were stiff and swollen.

He tried again.

“I fell,” he said. “I fell. Nobody! Nobody! I fell down.” When the doctor had gone Mike Shapiro came and stood over him. His Jewish eyes were dark with pity, and something else - anger perhaps, or admiration. “I’m taking you to my house, Johnny. You will be all right now.” He stayed two weeks under the care of Michael Shapiro’s wife, Helen. The scabs came away, the bruises faded to a dirty yellow, but his nose stayed crooked with a lump at the bridge. He studied his new nose in the mirror, and liked it.

It made him look like a boxer, he thought, or a pirate, but it was many months before the tenderness passed and he could finger it freely.

“Listen, Johnny, you are going to a new school. A fine boarding-school in Grahamstown.” Michael Shapiro tried to sound enthusiastic. Grahamstown was five hundred miles away. “In the holidays you’ll be going to work in Namaqualand - learning all about diamonds and how to mine them.

You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?” Johnny had thought about it for a minute, watching Michael’s face and reading in it his shame.

“I won’t be going home again then?” By home he meant the house on Wynberg Hill. Michael shook his head.

“When will I see ” Johnny hesitated as he tried to find the right words,” - when will I see them again?”

“I don’t know, Johnny,” Michael answered him honestly.

As Michael had promised it was a fine school.

On his first Sunday after the church service, he had followed the other boys back to their classroom for the session of compulsory letter-writing. The others had immediately begun dashing off hasty scribbles to their parents. Johnny sat miserably until the master in charge stopped at his desk.

“Aren’t you going to write home, Lance?” he asked kindly.

“I’m sure they’ll all want to hear how you are.” Johnny picked up his pen obediently, and puzzled over the blank writing-pad.

He wrote at last: Dear Sir, I hope you will be pleased to hear that I am now at school. The food is good, but the beds are very hard.

We go to church every day and play rugby football.

Yours faithfully, Johnny.

From then until he left school and went up to University three years later, he wrote every week to the Old Man.

Every letter began with the same salutation and went on, “I hope you will be pleased to hear-” There was never a reply to any of these letters.

Once each term he received a typewritten letter from Michael Shapiro setting out the arrangements that had been made for the school holidays. Usually these involved a train journey hundreds of miles across the Karroo to some remote village in the vast dry wasteland, where a light aircraft belonging to Van Der Byl Diamonds was waiting to fly him still deeper into the desert to one of the Company’s concession areas. Again, as Michael Shapiro had promised, he learned about diamonds and how to mine them.

When the time to move on to University arrived, it was completely natural that he chose to take a degree in Geology.

During all that time he was an outcast from the van der Byl family. He had seen none of them - not the Old Man, nor Tracey, nor even Benedict.

Then, in one long eventful afternoon, he saw all three of them.

It was his final year at University. His degree was a certainty. He had headed the lists at every examination from his first year onwards.

He had been elected the senior student of Stellenbosch University, but now there was a further honour almost within his grasp.

In ten days” time the National Selectors would announce the rugby team to meet the New Zealand All Black touring team - and Johnny’s place at flank forward was as certain as his degree in Geology.

The sporting press had nicknamed Johnny “Jag Hond” after that ferocious predator of the African wilds, the Cape hunting dog; an animal of incredible stamina and determination that savages its prey on the run. The nickname had stuck fast, and Johnny was a favourite of the crowds.

In the line-up of the team from Cape Town University was another crowd-pleaser whose place in the National Side to meet the All Blacks seemed equally assured. From his position at full back Benedict van der Byl dominated the field of play with a grace and artistry that were almost godlike. He had grown tall and wide-shouldered, with long powerful legs and dark brooding good looks.

Johnny led the visiting team out on to the smooth green velvet field, and while he jogged and flexed his back and shoulders he looked up at the packed stands seeking assurance that the high priests of rugby football were all there.

He saw Doctor Danie Craven sitting with the other selectors in their privileged position below the Press enclosure. While in front of the Doctor, leaning back to exchange a few words with him, sat the Prime Minister.

This meeting between the two universities was one of the high spots of the rugby season, and the aficionados travelled thousands of miles to watch it.

The Prime Minister smiled and nodded, then leaned forward to touch the shoulder of the big white-headed figure that sat in the row below him.

Johnny felt an electric tingle run up his spine as the white head lifted and looked directly at him. It was the first time he had seen the Old Man in the seven years since that terrible night.

Johnny lifted an arm in salute, and the Old Man stared at him for long seconds before he turned away to speak with the Prime Minister.

Now the drum majorettes came out in ranks on to the field.

White-booted, dressed in Cape Town University colours with short swinging skirts and tall hats, they highstepped and paraded, lovely young girls flushed with excitement and exertion.

The roar of the crowd drummed with the blood in Johnny’s ears, for Tracey van der Byl was leading the first rank. He knew her instantly, despite the passage of years in which she had grown to young womanhood.

Her legs and arms were sun-bronzed and her dark hair hung glossily to her shoulders. She cavorted and kicked and stamped shouting the traditional cheers, jiggling her firm young bottom with innocent abandon while the crowds screamed and writhed, beginning already to work themselves into an hysterical frenzy. Johnny watched Tracey. He stood completely still in the thunderous uproar. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Then the show was over, the drum majorettes retreating back through the stadium entrance, and the home team trotted on to the field.

The presence of the Old Man and Tracey added intensity to the glare of hatred that Johnny turned on the tall whiteclad figure that fell back to take control of the Cape Town back field.

Benedict van der Byl reached his position and turned.

From inside his calf-length sock he took a comb and ran it through his dark hair. The crowd bellowed and whistled, loving this little theatrical gesture. Benedict returned the comb to his sock and posed with one hand on his hip, his chin lifted arrogantly as he surveyed the opposition.

Suddenly he intercepted Johnny’s glare, and the pose altered as he dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet a little.

The whistle fluted, and play began. It was everything the crowds had hoped for, a match that would long be remembered and gloated over. Massive Panzer offensives by the “! forwards, long probing raids by the backs with the oval ball flickering from hand to hand, until a bone-jarring tackle smashed the carrier to the turf. Hard and fast and clean play swung from side to side, a hundred times the crowd came up on its feet as one, eyes and mouths wide in screaming unbearable tension, to sink back with a groan as the ball was held by a desperate defence within inches of the try line.

No score and three minutes of play left, Cape Town attacking from a set scrummage, driving through a gap in the defence and then putting the ball in the air with a long raking pass, taken cleanly by the Cape Town wing without a break in his stride. His feet twinkled across the green turf, and again the crowd came up with a gasp.

Johnny hit him low, just above the knee, with his shoulder. The two of them rolled together out of the field of play lifting a puff of white lime from the line and the crowd groaned and sank back.

While they waited to receive the throw, Johnny whispered hoarse orders. His gold and maroon jersey was soaked with sweat, and blood from a grazed hip stained his white shorts.

“Get it back fast. Don’t run with it. Give it to Dawie.

Kick high and deep, Dawie.” Johnny leapt high to the flight of the thrown ball, with a bunched fist he punched it back accurately into Dawie’s hands, at the same moment twisting his body to block the attackers. Dawie fell back two paces and kicked. The power of the kick swung his right foot above his head, and the impetus flung him forward to put his forwards “on side’.

The ball climbed slowly, flying like a dart with no wobble or roll in the air, reaching the zenith of its trajectory high over mid-field, then floating back to earth.

Twenty thousand heads followed its flight, a hush had fallen over the field - and in the unnatural silence Benedict van der Byl was drifting back deep into his own territory, anticipating the drop of the ball with deceptively unhurried strides, yet timing it with the precision of the gifted athlete.

The ball slotted neatly into his arms, and he began moving lazily infield to open his angle for the return kick.

Still a tense throbbing mesmeric hush hung over the field, Benedict van der Byl was at the focus of attention.

“Jag Hond!” A single voice in the crowd alerted them, and twenty thousand heads swung downfield.

“Jag Hond!” A roar now. Johnny was well clear of the pack, arms pumping and legs churning as he bore down on Benedict. It was a futile effort, he could not hope to intercept a player of Benedict’s calibre from such long range, yet Johnny was burning the last of his physical reserves in that charge. His face was a sweat-shining mask of determination, and clods of torn grass flew from under his savagely driving boots.

Then something happened which was unaccountable, almost past belief. Benedict van der Byl glanced round and saw Johnny. He broke his stride, two clumsy shuffling paces, and tried to pivot away deeper into his own ground. All the assurance had gone from his body, all the skill and grace.

He tripped and stumbled, almost fell and the ball popped out of his hands, bouncing awkwardly.

Benedict scrambled after it, groping blindly, looking back over his shoulder. Now on his face was an expression of naked terror.

Johnny was very close. Grunting at each stride like a gut-shot lion, massive shoulders already bunching for the strike, his lips drawn back into a murderous parody of a grin.

Benedict van der Byl dropped to his knees and covered his head with both arms, cringing down on to the green turf.

Johnny swept past him without a check, stooping easily in his run to gather the bouncing ball.

When Benedict uncovered his head and, still kneeling, looked up, Johnny stood ten yards away between the goal posts watching him. Then, deliberately, Johnny placed the ball between his feet to complete the formality of the touchdown.

Now, as if by agreement, both Johnny and Benedict looked towards the main grandstand. They saw the Old Man rise from his seat and make his way slowly through the ecstatic crowds towards the exit.

The day after the match, Johnny went back into the desert.

He was down in the bottom of a fifteen-foot prospecttre rich that had been dug across the grain of the country rock. It was oppressively hot in the confines of the trench and Johnny was stripped to a skimpy pair of khaki shorts, his sun-browned muscles oily with sweat, but he worked steadily at his sampling. He was establishing the Contours; and profile of an ancient marine terrace that the ages buried beneath the sand. It was here on the bedrock that he expected to find the thin layer of diamond-bearing gravel.

He heard the Jeep pull up at ground level above him, and the crunch of footsteps. Johnny straightened up and held his aching back muscles.

The Old Man stood at the edge of the trench and looked down at him. He held a folded newspaper in his hand. This was the first time

Johnny had seen him at close range in all the years, and he was shocked at the change. The mass of Fli bushy hair was so white, and his features were folded and creased like those of a mastiff, leaving the big hooked nose standing like a hillock from his face. But there was no wasting or deterioration in his body, and his eyes were still that chilling enigmatic blue.

He dropped the newspaper into the trench and Johnny caught it, still staring up at the Old Man.

“Read it!” said the Old Man. The paper was folded to the sports page, and the headline was thick and bold.

JAG HOND IN. VAN DER BYL OUT.

The shock was as delicious as the plunge into a mountain stream.

He was in - he would carry the gold and green, and wear the leaping

Springbok on his blazer pocket.

He looked up, proud and happy, standing bareheaded in the sun waiting for the Old Man to speak.

“Make up your mind,” said the Old Man softly. “Do you want to play ball - or work for Van Der Byl Diamonds? You can’t do both.” And he walked back to the Jeep and drove away.

Johnny cabled his withdrawal from the team to the Doctor personally. The storm of outraged protest and abuse in the national press, and the hundreds of viperous letters Johnny received accusing him of cowardice and treachery and worse made him thankful for the sanctuary of the desert.

Neither Johnny nor Benedict had ever played the game again.

Thinking about it, even at this remove of time, Johnny felt the sting of disappointment. He had wanted that green and gold badge of honour so very deeply. Brusquely he pulled the Jaguar off the road and scanned the street map of London and found Stark Street tucked away off the King’s Road. He drove on remembering how it had been after the Old Man had taken it from him. The agony of mind had been scarcely endurable.

His companions in the desert were Ovambo tribesmen from the north, and a few of those taciturn white men that the desert produces, as hardy and uncompromising as her vegetation or her mountain ranges.

The deserts of the Namib and the Kalahari are amongst the loneliest places on earth, and the desert nights are long.

Not even the day’s unremitting physical labour could tire Johnny sufficiently to drug his dreams of a lovely girl in a short white skirt and high boots - or an old white-headed man with a face like a granite cliff.

Out of those long days and longer nights came solid achievements to stand like milestones marking the road of his career. He brought in a new diamond field, small but rich, in country which no one else had believed would yield diamonds. He pegged a uranium lode which Van Der

Byl Diamonds sold for two and a half millions, and there were other fruits from his efforts as valuable if not as spectacular.

At twenty-five, Johnny Lance’s name was whispered in the closed and forbidding halls of the diamond industry as one of the bright young comers.

There were approaches - a junior partnership in a firm of consulting geologists, field manager for one of the struggling little companies working marginal ground in the Murderers” Karroo. Johnny turned them down. They were good offers, but he stayed on with the Old Man.

Then the big Company noticed him. A century ago the first payable pipe of “blue ground” in Southern Africa was discovered on a hard scrabble farm owned by a Boer named De Beer. Old De Beer sold his farm for 16,000, never dreaming that a treasure worth 300,000,000 pounds lay beneath the bleak dry earth. The strike was named De Beers New Rush, and a horde of miners, small businessmen, drifters, chancers, rogues and scoundrels moved in to purchase and work minute claims, each the size of a large room.

From this pretty company of fortune’s soldiers two men rose high above the others, until between them they owned most of the claims in De Beers New Rush. When these two, Cecil John Rhodes and Barney Barnato, at last combined their resources, a formidable financial enterprise was born.

From such humble beginnings the Company has grown to awesome respectability and dignity. Its wealth is fabled, its influence immeasurable, its income is astronomical. It controls the diamond supply to the world. It controls also mineral concessions over areas of Central and Southern Africa which total hundreds of thousands of square miles, and its reserves of un-mined precious and base minerals cannot be calculated. Small diamond companies are allowed to co-exist with the giant until they reach a certain size then suddenly they become part of it, gobbled up as a tiger shark might swallow any of its pilot fish who become too large and daring. The big Company can afford to buy the best prospects, equipment - and men. It reached out one of its myriad tentacles to draw in Johnny Lance. The price they set on him was twice his present salary, and three times his future prospects.

Johnny turned it down flat. Perhaps the Old Man did not notice, perhaps it was mere coincidence that a week later Johnny was promoted Field Manager of Beach Operation. The nickname that went with the job was “King Canute’.

Van Der Byl Diamonds had thirty-seven miles of beach concession.

The tiny ribbon of shoreline, one hundred and twenty feet above highwater mark, and one hundred and twenty feet below low-water mark.

Inland the concession belonged to the big Company. It had purchased the land, a dozen vast ranches, simply to obtain the mineral rights.

The sea concessions, territorial up to waters twelve miles off shore, belonged to them also. Granted to them by Government charter twenty years before. But Van Der Byl Diamonds had the Admiralty strip - and it was“King Canuta’s job to work it.

The sea-mist came smoking in like ground pearl dust off the cold waters of the Benguela current. From out of the mist bank the high unhurried swells marched in towards the bright yellow sands and the tall wave-cut Cliffs of Namaqualand.

The swells peaked up sharply as they felt the land. Their crests trembled and turned luminous green, began to dissolve in plumes of wind-blown spray, arched over and slid down upon themselves in the roar and rumble of white water.

Johnny stood on the driver’s seat of the open Landrover. He wore a sheepskin jacket against the chill of the dawn mist, but his head was bare and his dark hair fluttered nervously against his forehead in the wind.

His heavy jaw was thrust forward, and his hands in the pockets of the sheepskin jacket were balled into fists. He scowled aggressively as he measured the height and push of the surf. With his crooked nose he looked like a boxer waiting for the gong.

Suddenly with an awkward angry movement he jerked his left hand from his pocket and looked down at the dial of his wrist watch. Two hours and three minutes to low tide. He pushed his fist back into his pocket, and swivelled quickly to look at his bulldozers.

There were eleven of them, big bright yellow D.8 Caterpillars, lined up along the highwater mark. The operators sat goggled and tense in their high stem seats.

They were all watching him anxiously.

Beyond them, standing well back, were the earthloaders.

They were ungainly, pregnant-looking machines with swollen bellies, and heavily lugged tyres that stood taller than a man. When the time came they would rush in at thirty miles an hour, drop a steel blade beneath their bellies and scrape up a fifteen-ton load of sand or gravel, race back inland and drop their load, turn and rush back for another gargantuan bite out of the earth.

Johnny was steeling himself, judging the exact moment in which to hurt a quarter of a million pounds” worth of machinery into the

Atlantic Ocean, in the hope of recovering a handful of bright pebbles.

The moment came, and Johnny spent half a minute of precious time in scrutinizing his preparations before committing himself to action.

Then “GO!” he shouted into his loudhailer and windmilled his right arm in the unmistakable command to advance.

“Go!” he shouted again, but his voice was lost. Even the sound of the wild surf was lost in the bull bellow of the diesels. Lowering their massive steel blades, a chorus line of steel monsters, they crawled forward.

Now the golden sand curled before the scooped blades, like butter from the knife. It built up before the monstrous machines, becoming a pile and then a high wall. Thrusting, pulling back, butting, worrying, the bulldozers swept the wall of sand forward. The arms of the operators pumping the handles of the controls like mad harmen drawing a thousand pints of beer, the diesels roaring and muttering and roaring again.

The wall of sand met the first low push of sea water up the beach and smothered it. In seeming astonishment and uncertainty the sea pulled back, swirling and creaming before the advancing dyke of sand.

The bulldozers were performing a complicated but smoothly practised ballet now. Weaving and crossing, blades lifting and falling, backing and advancing, all under the supervision of the master choreographer, Johnny Lance.

The Land-Rover darted back and forward along the edge of the huge pit that was forming, with Johnny roaring orders and instructions through the electric loudhailer.

Gradually a sickle-shaped dyke of sand was thrown out into the sea, while behind it the bulldozer blades cut down, six, ten, fifteen feet through the loose yellow sand.

Then suddenly they hit the oyster line, that thin layer of fossilized oyster shell that so often covers the diamond gravels of South West Africa.

Johnny saw the change in the character of his pit, saw the shell curling from the blades of the bulldozers.

With half a dozen orders and hand signals he had his “dozers flatten a ramp at each end of his pit, to give the earthloaders access.

Then he ordered them away to hold the dyke against the sea.

He glanced at his watch. “One hour thirteen minutes,” he muttered. “We’re running tight!” Quickly he checked his pit. Two hundred yards long, fifteen feet deep, the overburden of sand stripped away, the oyster line showing clean and white in the sun, the bulldozers clear of the pit bottom - fighting back the sea.

“Right,” he grunted. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” He turned to face the two earth movers waiting expectantly above the highwater mark.

“Go in and get it!” he shouted, and gave the windmill arm signal.

Nose to tail the earthloaders roared forward, swinging wide at the head of the pit, then swooping down the ramp and dashing along the bottom. They scooped up a load of shell and gravel without checking their speed and went bellowing up the far ramp, swinging again to race up and deposit their load below the Cliff, but above the highwater mark.

Round they went, and round again, chasing their tails, while the bulldozers held back the sea which was now becoming angry - sending its cohorts to skirmish along the dyke, seeking a weak place to attack.

Johnny glanced at his watch again.

“Three minutes to low water,” he spoke aloud, and grinned. “We’re going to make it!“He lit a cigarette, relaxing a little now.

He dropped into the driving seat and swung the Land-Rover up the beach, parking it beyond the mountain of gravel that the earthloaders were building.

He climbed out and took up a handful of the gravel.

“Lovely!” he whispered. “Oh sweet! Sweed” It was right. All the signs were good. In the single handful he identified a small garnet, and a larger lump of agate.

He scooped another handful.

“Jasper,” he gloated. “And banded ironstone!” All these stones were the team-mates of the diamond, you found them together.

The shape was right also, the stories polished round and shiny as marbles, not flattened like coins which Would mean they had washed in only one direction. Round stones meant a wave action zone - a diamond trap!

“We’ve hit a jewel box - I’ll take Lysol on that”

From thirty-seven miles of beach Johnny had picked a two-hundred-yard stretch, and hit it right on the nose. A choice not by luck, but by careful study of the configuration of the coastline, aerial photographs of the wave patterns and bottom contours of the sea, an analysis of the beach sands, and finally by that indefinable “feel” for ground that a good diamond man has.

Johnny Lance was mightily delighted with himself as he climbed back into the Land-Rover. The earthloaders had scraped the gravel down to bedrock. Their job was finished, and they pulled out of the pit and stood with panting exhausts beside the enormous pile of gravel they had recovered.

“Bottom boys!” roared Johnny, and the patient army of Ovambo tribesmen who had been squatting above the beach came swarming down into the pit. Their job was to sweep and clean the pit bottom, for a high proportion of the diamonds would have worked their way down through the gravel into the crevices and irregularities of the bedrock.

The sea changed its mood, furious at the brutal rape of its beaches it came hissing and tearing at the sand dyke.

The tide was making now, and the bulldozers had to redouble their efforts to keep it out.

In the pit the Ovarribos worked in a frenzy of activity, sparing only an occasional apprehensive glance for the wall of sand that held the Atlantic at bay.

Now Johnny was tensing up again. If he pulled them out early he would be leaving diamonds down there, if he left them in too late he might drown machinery - and men.

He cut it fine, just a fraction too fine. He pulled the bottom boys out with the sea beginning to break over the dyke, and to seep through under it.

Then he began to pull out his bulldozers, ten of them out - one still coming infinitely slowly, waddling across the wide bottom of the empty pit.

The sea broke through, it broke simultaneously in two places and came boiling into the pit in a waist-high wave.

The bulldozer operator saw it, hesitated one second, then his spirit failed him and he jumped down from his machine; abandoning it to the sea he sprinted ahead of the wave, making for the steep nearest side of the pit.

“Bastard!” swore Johnny as he watched the operator scramble to safety. “He could have made it.” But his anger was against himself also. His decision to withdraw had been too long delayed, that was

20,000 pounds worth of machinery he had sacrificed to the sea.

He slammed the Land-Rover into gear, and put her to the pit. She went off the edge like a ski jump, falling fifteen feet before she hit the bottom, but her fall was cushioned by the slope of sand and she sprang forward bravely to meet the rush of sea water.

It broke over the bonnet, slewing the vehicle viciously, but Johnny fought her head round and kept her going towards the stranded bulldozer.

The engine of the Land-Rover had been sealed and water-proofed against just such an emergency, and now she ploughed forward throwing a sheet of water to each side.

But her forward rush faltered as the green water poured over her.

Now suddenly the entire sand dyke collapsed under the white surf and the Atlantic took control. The tall wave of green water that raced across the pit hit the Land-Rover, upending her, throwing Johnny into the jubilant frothing water, while the Land-Rover rolled over on her back, pointing all four wheels to the sky in surrender.

Johnny went under but came up immediately. Half swimming, half wading, battered by the boisterous sea he struggled on towards the yellow island of steel.

The sea struck him down, and he went under again.

Found his feet for a moment, then had them cut from under him once more.

Then suddenly he had reached the bulldozer and was dragging himself up over the tracks to the driver’s seat. He was coughing and vomiting sea water, as he reached the controls.

The bulldozer seat immovable, held down by her own twenty-six tons of dead weight on to the hard bedrock of the pit. Although the sea burst over her, and swirled through her tracks, it could not move her.

Through eyes bluffed and swimming with salt water and his own tears, Johnny briefly checked the gauges on the instrument panels. She had oil pressure and engine revs, and high above his head the exhaust pipe chugged blue smoke.

Johnny coughed again. Vomit and sea water shot up his throat in a scalding jet, but he pushed the throttle wide and threw in both clutch levers.

Ponderously the great machine ground forward, almost contemptuously shouldering the sea aside, her tracks solidly gripping the bedrock.

Johnny looked about him quickly. The sand ramps at each end of the pit were washed away. The sides were sheer now, and behind him the sea was rushing unimpeded into the pit.

A wave broke over his head, and Johnny shook the water from his hair like a spaniel and looked around with mounting desperation for an avenue of escape.

With a shock of surprise he saw the Old Man. He had thought him to be four hundred miles away in Cape Town, but here he was on the edge of the pit. The white hair shone like a beacon.

Instinctively Johnny swung the bulldozer in his direction, crawling through the turbulent waters towards him.

The Old Man was directing two of the other bulldozers, reversing them as close as he dared to the lip of the bank of sand, while from the service truck parked below the cliff a line of Ovambos came staggering down the beach with the heavy tractor tow chain over their shoulders. They shuffled bow-legged under the tremendous weight of the chain, sinking ankle deep into the sand with each step.

The Old Man roared at them, urging them on, but the words were lost in the thunder of diesel engines and the ranting of the wind and the sea. Now he turned back to Johnny.

“Get her in close,” the Old Man yelled through cupped hands.

“I’ll bring the end of the chain down to you!” Johnny waved an acknowledgement, then grabbed at the controls as the force of the next wave pushed even the giant tractor off its line, and Johnny felt the diesel falter for the first time - the water had found its way in through the seals at last.

Then he was under the high bank of yellow sand that towered twenty feet above him and he scrambled forward over the engine bonnet to meet the Old Man.

The Old Man was poised on the lip of the pit with the end of the chain draped in a loop over both shoulders. He was stooped beneath its weight, and when he stepped forward the sand crumpled away beneath him and he came sliding and slipping down the steep incline, buried waist deep, the great chain snaking after him.

Judging the rush of the sea Johnny jumped down to help him.

Together, battered by the sea, they dragged the chain to the bulldozer.

“Fix it on to the blade arm,” grunted the Old Man, and they got a double turn of chain around the thick steel arm.

“Shackle!” Johnny snapped at him, and while the Old Man untied the length of rope which secured the steel shackle around his waist, Johnny looked up at the cliff of sand that hung over them.

“Christ!” he said softly, the sea was attacking it - and now it was soft and trembling above them, ready to collapse and smother them.

The Old Man passed him the huge shackle, and Johnny began with numbed hands to secure the end of the chain.

He must pass the thick case-hardened pin through two links and then screw it closed. It was a Herculean task under these conditions, with the surf bursting over his head, the drag of the sea on the chain, and the cliff of sand threatening to fall on them at any moment. From twenty feet above them Johnny’s foreman was watching anxiously, ready to pass the word to the two waiting bulldozers to throw their combined weights on the chain.

The thread of the pin caught, half a dozen turns would secure it, he would have finished the job by the time the word was passed to the “dozer operators.

“Okay,” he nodded and gasped at the Old Man. “Pull!” The Old Man lifted his head and bellowed up the bank, “Pull!” The foreman acknowledged with a wave.

“Okay.” And his head disappeared behind the bank as he ran back to the bulldozers, and at that moment the surf swung the chain. A movement of a few inches, but enough to catch Johnny’s left index finger between two of the links.

The Old Man saw his face, saw him struggling to free himself.

“What is it?” Then the water sucked back for a moment, and he saw what had happened. He waded forward to help - but from above them came the throaty roar of the diesels and the chain began running away, snaking and twisting up the bank like a python.

The Old Man reached Johnny and caught him about the shoulders to steady him. They braced themselves in horror, staring at the captive hand.

The chain jerked taut, severing the finger cleanly in a bright burst of scarlet, and Johnny reeled back into the Old Man’s arms. The great yellow bulk of the bulldozer was dragged relentlessly down on top of them, threatening to crush them both, but using the next break and push of the sea the Old Man dragged Johnny clear - and they were carried sideways along the bank, tumbled helplessly by the strength of the water out of the bulldozer’s path.

Johnny clutched his injured hand to his chest, but it hosed a bright stream of blood that discoloured the water about them. His head went under and salt water shot down his throat into his lungs. He felt himself drowning, the strength oozing out of him.

He surfaced again, and through bleary eyes saw the glistening wet bulldozer half-way up the sand bank. He felt the Old Man’s arms about his chest and he went under again relaxing as the darkness closed over his eyes and brain.

When the darkness cleared from his eyes, he was lying on the dry sand of the beach and the first thing he saw was the Old Man’s face above him, furrowed and pouched, his silver white hair plastered across his forehead.

“Did we get her out?“Johnny asked thickly.

“Ja,” the Old Man answered. “We got her out.” And he stood up, walked to the jeep, and drove away, leaving the foreman to tend to Johnny.

Johnny grinned at the memory, and lifting his left hand off the driving-wheel of the Jaguar he licked the shiny stump of his index finger.

“It was worth a finger,” he murmured aloud, and still searching for road signs he drove on slowly.

He smiled again comfortably, shaking his head with amusement as he remembered his hurt and disappointment when the Old Man had walked away and left him lying on the beach. He had not expected the Old Man to fall on his shoulders sobbing his gratitude and begging forgiveness for all the years of misery and loneliness - but he had expected something more than that.

After a two-hundred-mile round Jeep-journey through the desert night to the nearest hospital where they had trimmed and bound the stump, Johnny was back at the workings the next day in time to watch the first run of gravel from the beach.

In his absence, the gravel had been screened to sieve off all the over-size rock and stone, then it had been puddled through a tank of silicon mud to float off all the material with a specific gravity less than 2.5, then finally what was left had been run through a ball mill - a long steel cylinder containing steel balls the size of baseballs.

The cylinder revolved continually and the steel balls crushed to powder all substance softer than 4 on Mohs hardness scale.

Now there was a residue, a thousandth part of the gravel they had won from the sea. In this remainder would be the diamonds - if diamonds there were.

When Johnny arrived back at the shed of galvanized iron and wood on the cliff above the beach that housed his separation plant, he was still half groggy from the anaesthetic and lack of sleep.

His hand throbbed with the persistence of a lighthouse, his eyes were reddened and a thick black stubble covered his jaws.

He went to stand beside the grease table that filled half the shed. He was swaying a little on his feet, as he looked around at the preparations. The massive bin at the head of the table was filled with the concentrated diamond gravels, the plates greased down, and his crew was standing ready.

“Let’s go!” Johnny nodded at his foreman, who immediately threw in the lever that set the table shaking like an old man with palsy.

The table was a series of steel plates, each slightly inclined and thickly coated with dirty yellow grease. From the bin at the head of the shuddering table a mixture of gravel and water began to dribble, its consistency and rate of flow carefully regulated by the foreman.

It spread over the greased table like spilled treacle, dropping from one plate to the next, and finally into the waste bin at the end of the table.

A diamond is unwettable, immerse it in water, scrub it, but it comes out dry. A coat of grease on a steel plate is also unwettable, so wet gravel and sea shell will slide over it and keep moving across the agitating, sloping table.

But a diamond when it hits grease sticks like a halfsucked toffee to a woollen blanket.

In the excitement and anxiety of the moment Johnny felt his weariness recede, even the pain in his stump was muted by it. His eyes and whole attention were fastened on that glistening yellow sheet of grease.

The little stuff under a carat in weight, or the industrial black diamond and boart would not be visible on the table; the agitation was too rapid - blurring with speed, and the flow of loose material would disguise them.

So complete was his absorption that it was some seconds before he was aware of a presence beside him. He glanced up quickly.

The Old Man was there, standing with the wide stance and tension-charged attitude that was his own special way.

Johnny was acutely conscious of the Old Man’s bulk beside him - and he felt the first flicker of alarm. What if this was a barren run?

He needed diamonds now - as he had never needed anything in his life.

He scanned the blurring plates of yellow grease, seeking the purchase price that could buy back the Old Man’s esteem. The speckled gravel flowed imperturbably across the plates, and Johnny felt a flutter of panic.

Then from across the table the foreman let out a whoop, and pointed.

“Thor she blows!” Johnny’s eyes darted to the head of the table.

There beneath the outlet from the bin, half buried in the thick grease by its own weight, anchored solidly while. the worthless gravel washed past it, was a diamond.

A big fat five-carat thing, that glowed sulky and yellow, like a wild animal resenting its captivity.

Johnny sighed softly and darted a sideways glance at the Old Man.

The Old Man was watching the table without expression, and though he must have been conscious of Johnny’s scrutiny, he did not look up. Johnny’s eyes were dragged irresistibly back to the table.

By some freakish chance, the next diamond fell from the bin directly on to the one already anchored in the grease.

When diamond strikes diamond it bounces like a golf ball off a tarmac road.

The second diamond, a white beauty the size of a peach pip, clicked loudly as it struck the other then spun head high in the air.

Both Johnny and the foreman laughed involuntarily with delight at the beauty of that twinkling drop of solid sunlight.

Johnny reached across the table with his good hand, and snatched it out of the air. He rubbed it between his fingers revelling in the soapy feel of it, then turned and offered it to the Old Man.

The Old Man looked at the diamond, nodded in acknowledgement.

Then-he pulled back the cuff of his coat and checked his wrist watch.

“It’s late. I must get back to Cape Town.”

“Won’t you stay for the rest of the run, sir?” Johnny realized his tone was too eager. “We could have a drink together afterwards.” He remembered that the Old Man abhorred alcohol.

“No.” The Old Man shook his head. “I have to get back by this evening.” Now he looked steadily into Johnny’s eyes.

“You see, Tracey is getting married tomorrow afternoon and I must be there.” Then he smiled, watching Johnny’s face, but nobody could ever guess the meaning of a smile on the Old Man’s lips - for it never showed in his eyes.

“Didn’t you know?” he asked, still smiling. “I thought you had received an invitation.” And he went out of the shed to where his jeep stood in the bright sunshine waiting to take him out to the aircraft landing-strip among the sand dunes.

The pain in his injured hand, and the Old Man’s words denied Johnny the sleep he so desperately needed, but it was two o’clock in the morning before he threw back his blankets and lit the lamp beside his camp bed.

“He said I had been invited - and, by God, I’ll be there.” He drove through the night, and the next morning. The first two hundred miles were on desert tracks of sand and stone, then he reached the metalled highway in the dawn and turned south across the great plains an dover the mountains. It was noon before he saw the squat blue silhouette of Table Mountain on the skyline dwarfing the city that huddled beneath it.

He checked in at the Vineyard Hotel, and hurried to his room to bath and shave and change into a suit.

The grounds of the old house were crowded with expensive automobiles, and the overflow was parked along both sides of the street outside, but he found a space for the dusty Land-Rover. He walked up through the white gates and across the green lawns.

There was a band playing in the house, and a hubbub of voices and laughter drifted out through the windows of the ballroom.

He went in through the side door. The passages were thronged with guests, and he made his way amongst them seeking a familiar face in the groups of loud-voiced gesticulating men and giggling women. At last he found one.

“Michael.” And Michael Shapiro looked round, recognizing him and letting the conflicting emotions of pleasure, surprise and alarm show clearly on his face.

“Johnny. It’s good to see you.”

“Is the ceremony over?”

“Yes, and the speeches also - thank God.” He took Johnny’s arm and led him aside.

“Let me get you a glass of champagne.” Michael hailed a waiter and put a crystal glass into Johnny’s hand.

“Here’s to the bride,“Johnny murmured and drank.

“Does the Old Man know you are here?” Michael came out with the question that was burning his mouth, and when Johnny shook his head, Michael’s expression became thoughtful.

“What’s he like, Michael, Tracey’s husband?”

“Kenny Hartford?”

Michael considered the question. “He’s all right, I suppose.

Nice-looking boy, plenty of money.”

“What’s he do for a crust of bread?”

“His daddy left him the whole loaf - but to fill in the time he does fashion photography.” And Johnny pulled down the corners of his mouth.

Michael frowned. “He’s all right, Johnny. The Old Man picked him carefully.”

“The Old Man?“Johnny’s jaw thrust out.

“Of course, you know him - he wouldn’t leave an important decision like that to anybody else.” Johnny finished his champagne in silence, and Michael watched his face anxiously.

“Where is she? Have they left yet?”

“No.” Michael shook his head.

“They’re still in the ballroom.”

“I think I’ll go and wish luck to the bride.”

“Johnny.” Michael caught hold of his elbow. “Don’t do anything stupid - will you?” Johnny stood at the head of the marble staircase that led down into the ballroom. The floor was crowded with dancing couples and the music was loud and merry. The bridal party sat at a raised table across the floor.

Benedict van der Byl saw Johnny first. His face flushed and he leaned quickly to whisper to the Old Man, then began to rise from his seat. The Old Man placed a restraining hand on Benedict’s shoulder, and smiled across the room at Johnny.

A Johnny went down the stairs and made his way through the dancers. Tracey had not seen him. She was talking to the silky-faced young man who sat beside her. He had wavy blond hair.

“Hello, Tracey.” She looked up at Johnny and caught her breath.

She was more beautiful than he remembered.

“Hello, Johnny.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“May I dance with you?” She was pale now, and her eyes went to the

Old Man, not to her new husband. The gleaming white bush of hair nodded slightly, and Tracey stood up.

They made one circuit of the dance floor before the band stopped playing. Johnny had planned a hundred different things to say to her, but he was dumb until the music ended and the opportunity was passing.

Hurriedly now in the few seconds that were left Johnny told her: “I hope you will be happy, Tracey. But if you ever need help - ever - I will come, I promise you that.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was husky, and for a moment she looked like the little girl who had cried in the night. Then he took her back to her husband.

The promise had been made five years ago, and now he had come to London to honour it.

Number 23 Stark Street was a neat double-storeyed cottage with a narrow front. He parked outside it. It was dark now and lights burned on both floors. He sat in the parked Jaguar, suddenly reluctant to go further. Somehow he knew that Tracey was here, and he knew it would not be pretty.

For a moment he recaptured the image of her as a lovely young woman in a wedding dress of white satin, then he climbed out of the

Jaguar and went up the steps to the front door. He reached for the bell before he noticed with surprise that the door was ajar. He pushed it open and walked into a small sitting-room furnished with feminine taste.

The room had been hastily ransacked, one of the curtains was spread on the floor and on it were piled books and ornaments. Pictures had been taken down from the walls and stacked ready for removal.

Johnny picked up one of the books, and opened the cover. On the fly leaf was a handwritten name. “Tracey van der Byl He dropped it back on the pile as he heard footsteps on the stairs from the floor above.

A man came down the stairs. He was dressed in soiled green velvet trousers, sheepskin boots, and shabby frock coat of military cut fragged. with tarnished gold braid. He was carrying an armful of women’s dresses.

He saw Johnny and stopped nervously, his pink lips opened in vacant surprise but his eyes were beady and bright under the thatch of lank blond hair.

“Hello,” Johnny smiled pleasantly. “Are you moving out?” And he drifted quietly closer to the man on the stairs and stood looking up at him.

Suddenly from the floor above a low wail echoed down the stairs.

It was an eerie sound, without passion or pain, as though steam were escaping from a jet, only just recognizable as human. Johnny went rigid at the sound, and the man on the stairs glanced nervously over his shoulder.

“What have you done to her?” Johnny asked softly, without menace.

. “No. Nothing! She’s on a trip. A bad trip.” The man’s denial was frantic. “It’s her first time on acid.”

“So you’re cleaning the place out, are you?“Johnny asked mildly.

“She owes me plenty. She can’t pay. She promised - and she can’t pay.”

“Oh,” said Johnny. “That’s different. I thought you were hitting the place.” He reached into his overcoat and brought out his wallet, riffling the wad of banknotes. “I’m a friend of hers. How much does she owe you?”

“Fifty nicker.” The man’s eyes sparkled when he saw the wallet. “I gave her credit.” Johnny counted off ten fivers, and held them out. The man dropped the bundle of clothing over the banisters and came eagerly down the last few stairs.

“Did you sell her the stuff - the acid?“Johnny asked, and the man stopped a pace from him, his expression stiffening with suspicion.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Johnny grinned. “We are not children - I know the score.” He offered the banknotes. “Did you get the stuff for her?” The man grinned back at him weakly, and nodded as he reached for the money. Johnny’s free hand snapped closed on the thin wrist and he swung him off his feet, forcing his wrist up between his shoulder-blades.

Johnny stuffed the money into his pocket, and marched him up the stairs.

“Let’s go and have a look, shall we?” There was a mattress on the iron bedstead covered with a grey army blanket. Tracey sat cross-legged on the blanket.

She wore only a thin cotton slip and her hair hung lank and lustreless to her waist. Her arms crossed over her chest were thin and white as sticks of chalk. Her face also was pale, the skin translucent in the light of the electric bulb.

She was rocking gently back and forth and wailing softly, her breath steaming in the icy cold room.

It was her eyes that shocked Johnny the most. The eye seemed to have expanded to an enormous size, and beneath each was a dark bruised-looking smear. The pupils of the eyes were distended and glittery with the same adamant sheen as uncut diamonds.

The big glittery green eyes fastened on Johnny and the man in the doorway, and the wail rose abruptly to a shriek.

The shriek died away, and she bowed forward and buried her face in her hands, covering her eyes.

“Tracey,” said Johnny softly. “Oh God, Tracey!”

“She’ll be all right,” the man whimpered and twisted in his grip. “It’s the first time - she’ll be all right.”

“Come!” Johnny dragged him out of the room, and pushed the door closed with his foot. He held him against the wall, and his face was set and pale, his eyes merciless - but he spoke quietly, patiently as though he was explaining to a child.

“I’m going to hurt you now. I’m going to hurt you very badly. Just as badly as I can without killing you. Not because I enjoy it, but because that girl is a very special person to me. In the future when you think about giving poison to another girl - I want you to remember what I did to you tonight.” Johnny held him with his left hand against the wall and he used his right hand, punching up under the ribs at an angle to tear the stomach muscles. With three or four blows he was too high, and he felt ribs crack and snap under his fist.

When he stepped back the man sagged slowly face forward, and Johnny caught him cleanly in the mouth snapping his teeth off at the gums, splitting his lips open like the petals of a rose. The man had made a lot of noise.

Johnny looked into Tracey’s room to make sure she had not been disturbed, but she was still bowed forward, rocking rhythmically on her haunches.

He found the bathroom and dampened his handkerchief and wipe the blood off his hands and the front of his overcoat.

He came out into the passage again and stooped over the unconscious body to check the pulse. It was strong and regular, and he felt a lift of relief as he dragg the man’s face out of the puddle of his own blood and vomit to prevent him drowning.

He went through to Tracey and, despite her frantic struggles, wrapped her in the greasy army blanket and carried her down to the Jaguar.

She quietened down and lay like a sleeping child in the back seat while he tucked the blanket round her, then he went back into the house and phoned 999, giving the address and hanging up immediately.

He left Tracey in the car outside the Dorchester, while he went in to speak to the reception clerk. Within minutes Tracey was in a wheelchair on her way up to the two-bedroom suite on the second floor. The doctor was there fifteen minutes later.

After the doctor had gone Johnny bathed, and carrying a tumbler of Chivas Regal in one hand he went into Tracey’s room and stood by her bed. Whatever the doctor had given her had put her out cleanly. She lay gaunt and pale - yet with a strangely fragile beauty that seemed enhanced by the bruised discoloration of her eye sockets.

He stooped to brush the hair from her cheek, and her breath was light and warm on his hand. He felt such an infinity of tenderness for her then as he had never known for any other person, he was amazed by the strength of it.

He stooped over her and gently brushed her lips with his own. Her lips were dry and flaky white, and their touch was harsh as sandpaper.

Johnny straightened up and went to the armchair across the room.

He sank into it wearily, and sipped the whisky, feeling its warmth spread from his belly and untie the knots in his muscles. He watched the pale ruined face on the pillows.

“We are in a hell of a mess, you and I,” he spoke aloud, and felt anger again. For long minutes it was undirected, but slowly it gelled and found an object to focus on.

For the first time in his life he was angry with the Old Man.

“He has brought you to this,” he said to the girl on the bed.

“And me-” The reaction was swift, his loyalty was a thing grown part of his existence. Always he had trained himself to believe that the Old

Man’s machinations were just and wise - even if at times the justice and wisdom were hidden from him. Mortal man does not doubt the omnipotence of his gods.

Sickened by his own treachery, he began to examine the Old Man’s motives and actions under the bright light of reason.

Why had the Old Man sent Michael Shapiro to fetch him out of the desert?

“He wants you in Cape Town, Johnny. Benedict didn’t measure up.

The Old Man has given him the London Office, it’s a form of exile.

He’s picked you to take over the C company,” Michael explained.

“Tracey is out of the way.

She and her husband are in London also. I guess the Old Man thinks it’s safe to have you back in Cape Town now.” Michael watched

Johnny’s undisguised joy and went on slowly.

“I’m speaking out of turn, perhaps. Mr. van der Byl is a strange man. He’s not like other people. I know how you feel about him, I’ve watched it all, you know - but listen, Johnny, you can go anywhere on your own now. There are a lot of other companies that want you-” But he had seen the expression on Johnny’s face, and stopped okay, Johnny.

Forget I ever said it. I only spoke because I like you.” Thinking on it now, there had been substance in Michael’s warning. Certainly he was General Manager of Van Der Byl Diamonds, but he was no nearer to the Old Man than he had ever been. He lived under the mountain but the mountain was remote and he had not been able to scale the lowest slopes.

He had found the city as lonely as the desert, and he was ripe for the first attractive woman who set her snares for him.

Ruby Grange was tall and slim with hair the colour they call “Second Cape” in a diamond, like sunlight through a crystal glass of champagne.

He wondered now at his own naivety. That he should be so easily misled, and should have rushed so headlong into her web. After the wedding she had revealed herself, exposing the deeply calculating greed, the driving hunger for flattery and material possessions which was her mainspring, and her complete absorption with herself - Johnny had not been able to believe it. For months he fought off the growing certainty until it could be denied no longer, and he looked with chilled dismay on the shallow selfish little creature he had married.

He had withdrawn from her and flung all his energies into the Company.

This, then, was his life and he saw that it was an empty thing, hollowed out by the Old Man’s hand.

For the first time his mind skirted the idea that it was a carefully calculated and sadistic revenge for the innocent action of a half-grown boy.

As though it were an escape from thoughts too dreadful to be borne, he fell asleep in the chair and the glass fell from his hand.

Jacobus Isaac van der Byl sat in a leather chair before the X-ray viewer. Fear had blasted the granite of his features, leaving them cracked and sagging, recognizable but subtly alerted below the gleaming white mane.

Fear was in his eyes also, moving below the surface like slimy water creatures in the pale blue pools. With the fear chilling and numbing his limbs he watched the cloudy and swirling images on the screen.

The specialist was talking softly, impersonally, as though he were lecturing one of his classes, enveloping the thymus here and extending beyond the trachea.”

The point of his gold pencil followed the ghostly outline on the screen. The Old Man swallowed with an effort. It seemed to be swelling in his throat as he listened, and his voice was hoarse and blurred to his own ears.

“You will operate?” he asked, and the specialist paused in his explanation. He glanced at the surgeon across the desk.

The exchange was as guilty as that of conspirators.

The Old Man swivelled his chair and faced the surgeon.

“Well?“he demanded harshly.

“No.” The surgeon shook his head apologetically. “It’s too late.

If only you had-“

“How long?“The Old Man overrode his explanation.

“Six months, not more.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes.” The Old Man’s chin sank on to his chest and he closed his eyes. There was complete silence in the room, they watched him with Professional pity and interest as he reached his own personal acceptance of death.

At last the Old Man opened his eyes and stood up slowly. He tried to smile but his lips would not hold the shape.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he croaked in this new rough voice. “Will you excuse me, please. There are many things to arrange now.” He went down to where the Rolls waited at the entrance.

He walked slowly, shuffling his feet and the chauffeur came to him quickly, but the Old Man shrugged away his helping hands and climbed into the back seat of the car.

Michael Shapiro was waiting for him in the study of the big house.

He saw the change in him immediately and jumped up from his chair.

The Old Man stood in the doorway, his body seemed to have shrunk.

“Six months,” he said. “They give me six months.” He said it as though he had expected to buy off death, and they had tricked him. He closed his eyes again, and when he opened them there was a glint of cunning in them, even his face had a pinched foxy look to it.

“Where is he? Is he back yet?”

“Yes, the Boeing got in at nine this morning. He’s at the office now.” Michael was shocked, it was the first time he had seen the Old Man without the mask.

“And the girl?” He had not called her daughter” since the divorce.

“Johnny has her in a private nursing home.” “Worthless slut,” said the Old Man softly, and Michael stilled the protest before it reached his lips. “Get your pad. I want you to take something down.” The Old

Man chuckled hoarsely. “We’ll see!” he said, making it sound like a threat.

“We’ll see!” Johnny’s doctor was waiting at Cape Town airport.

“Take her, Robin. Dry her out, and fatten her up.

She’s up to her gills with drugs and she probably hasn’t eaten for a month.” Tracey showed her first spark of spirit.

“Where do you think-“

“Into a nursing home.” Johnny anticipated her questions.

“For as long as is necessary.”

“I’m not-“

“Oh, yes, you bloody well are.” He took her arm, and Robin grabbed the other. They walked her, still protesting weakly to the car park.

“Thanks, Robin Old Soldier, give her the full workout.”

“I’ll send her back to you like new,” Robin promised and drove away. Johnny took a few moments to look at the massive square silhouette of the mountain - his own private home-coming ceremony. Then he fetched the Mercedes from the airport garage, and hesitated between home or the office, decided he was not up to an interrogation from Ruby and chose the office. He kept a clean shirt and shaving tackle in his private bathroom there.

They descended on him like a tribe of man-eating Amazons as he came in through the glass doors into the lusciously furnished and carpeted reception area of Van Der Byl Diamonds head office.

The two pretty little receptionists began yipping joyously in chorus.

“Oh, Mr. Lance, I have a whole sheaf of messages-“

“Oh, Mr. Lance, your wife,” Trying not to run he made it to within ten feet of his own door, when the Old Man’s secretary popped out of ambush from behind her frosted-glass panel.

“Mr. Lance, where on earth have you been? Mr. van der Byl has been asking-” Which alerted Lettie Pienaar, his own secretary.

“Mr. Lance, thank goodness you’re back.” Johnny stopped and held up his hands in an attitude of surrender.

“One at a time, ladies. There is enough h to go round don’t panic.”

Which broke the reception team into a quivering jelly of giggles, and sent the Old Man’s watchdog back behind her panel sniffing disgustedly.

“Which is the most important, Lettie?” he asked as he went to his desk and flipped through his mail, shrugged out of his coat and began stripping tie and shirt as he headed for his bathroom.

“They shouted at each other through the open door of the bathroom, as Johnny shaved quickly and showered, Lettie bringing him up to date on every aspect of Company and domestic business.

“Mrs. Lance has phoned regularly. She called me a liar when I told her you were at Cartridge Bay.” Lettie was silent a moment, then as

Johnny came out of the bathroom she asked, “By the way, where have you been?”

“Don’t you start that.” Johnny stood over the desk, and began flipping through the accumulated papers. “Get my wife on the phone, please - no, hold it. Tell her I’ll be home at seven.”

Lettie saw she had lost his attention, and she stood and went out.

Johnny settled down behind his desk.

Van Der Byl Diamonds was a sick company. Despite Johnny’s protests the Old Man had been drawing off its reserves and feeding them into his other ventures - the property-developing company, the clothing factory, Van Der Byl fisheries, the big irrigation scheme on the Orange

River - and now the cupboard was almost bare.

The beach concessions were reaching the end of a short but glorious life. They were starting to work break-even ground. The Old

Man had sold the Huib Hoch concession to the big Company for a quick profit - but the profit had been just as quickly transferred out of Johnny’s control.

There was only one really fat goose left in his pen, and it wasn’t laying eggs yet.

Eighteen months earlier Johnny had purchased two offshore diamond grounds from a company which had died in attempting to work them. It had been strangled by its own inefficiency.

Taking diamonds from the sea is about eight times more expensive than working them from a dry opencast. One must dredge the gravel from the wild and unpredictable waters of the Skeleton Coast, load it into dumb barges, tow the barges to a safe base, off-load it and then begin the recovery process - or rather, that was the method the defunct company had attempted.

Johnny had dreamed up, and then ordered a vessel which was completely self-contained. It could lie out at sea, suck up the gravel and process it, spilling the waste gravel back into the sea as rapidly as it was sucked aboard. It was fitted with a sophisticated recovery plant that was completely computerized and contained within the ocean-going hull. It needed only a small crew, and it could work in all weather conditions short of a full tornado.

The Kingfisher was lying at Portsmouth dockyards rapidly nearing completion. Her trials were scheduled for early August.

Financing the building of this vessel had been a nightmare for Johnny. The Old Man had been unhelpful, when he wasn’t being downright obstructive. He never discussed the venture without that little smile twitching at his lips.

He had restricted Van Der Byl Diamonds” monetary involvement in the project so severely that Johnny had been forced to raise two millions outside the company.

He had found the money, and the Old Man had smiled again.

Kingfisher should have been lying on the grounds three months ago, sucking up diamonds. The whole financial structure of the scheme was based on her completion on schedule, but Kingfisher was running six months behind and now the foundations were shivering.

Sitting at his desk Johnny was working out how to shore up the whole edifice and keep it from collapsing before he could get

Kingfisher working. The creditors were rumbling and creaking, and Johnny had only his own enthusiasm and reputation left to keep them quiet.

Now he must ask them to defer their interest payments for another three months. He picked up the telephone.

“Get me Mr. Larsen at Credit Finance,” he said, steeling himself as he did so, jutting out his jaw and thrusting one bunched fist into his jacket pocket.

At five o’clock he stood up from his desk and went to the cabinet.

He poured three fingers of whisky and went back to lower himself wearily into his swivel chair. He felt no elation at having won another reprieve, he was too tired.

The unlisted telephone on his desk rang and he picked it up.

“Lance, he said.

“How was London?” he recognized the voice instantly, feeling no surprise that the Old Man knew about his journey. The Old Man knew everything. Before he could answer the hoarse croak came again, “Come up to the house now!” And the receiver clicked dead.

Johnny looked at the whisky in his hand regretfully and set it down untouched. The Old Man would smell it and smile.

Cloud was blowing over the mountain, and the setting sun turned it to the colour of tangerine and peaches. The Old Man stood at the window and watched the cloud cascade down into the valley, dispersing as it fell.

He turned from the window as Johnny entered the study and instantly Johnny was aware that something momentous had taken place in his absence.

He glanced quickly at Michael Shapiro for a cue, but Michael’s grey-streaked head was bowed over the papers he held on his lap.

“Good evening.” Johnny addressed the Old Man.

“Sit there.” The Old Man indicated the Spanish leather chair opposite his desk.

“Read it,” the Old Man ordered Michael, and Michael cleared his throat and patted the papers into a neat square before he began.

The Old Man sat with his eyes on Johnny’s face. It was a candid, intimate scrutiny, but Johnny felt no discomfort under it. It was almost as though the Old Man’s eyes were caressing him.

Mike Shapiro read intelligently, bringing out the meaning of the involved and convoluted legal phrases. The document was the Old Man’s Last Will and Testament, and it took twenty minutes for Mike to complete the reading of it. When he had finished there was silence in the room, and the Old Man broke it at last.

“Do you understand?” he asked. There was a gentleness about him that there had never been before. He seemed to have shrunk, the flesh withering on his bones and leaving them dry and light - like the sun-dried bones of a long dead seabird.

“Yes, I understand.“Johnny nodded.

“Explain it to us simply, not in your lawyer’s gobbledygook, just to be certain,” the Old Man insisted, and Mike began to speak.

“Mr. van der Byl’s private estate, with the exception of his shares in Van Der Byl Diamond Co. Ltd, after taxes and expenses, is placed in

Trust for his two children, Tracey-” The Old Man interrupted impatiently, swatting Mike’s words out of the air as though they were flies.

“Not that. The Company. Tell him about the shares in the Company.”

“Mr. van der Byps shares in the Company are to be divided equally between you and the two van der Byl children, Tracey-” Again the Old Man interrupted.

“He knows their names, dammit.” It was the first time ever that either of them had heard him swear. Mike grinned ruefully at Johnny, as though asking for his sympathy, but Johnny was intent on the Old Man, studying his face, feeling the deep satisfying thrill swelling within his chest.

A third share in Van Der Byl Diamonds was no great fortune - nobody knew that better than Johnny.

However, by placing Johnny’s name on the list with Tracey and Benedict - he had made him his own. This was what he had worked for all these years. The declaration was public, an acknowledgement to the world.

Johnny Lance had a father at last. He wanted to reach out and touch the Old Man. His chest felt swollen, tight with emotion. Behind his eyelids was a slow soft burning.

Johnny blinked.

“This is-” His voice was ragged, and he coughed. “I just don’t know how to tell you-” The Old Man interrupted him impatiently, silencing him A with an imperious gesture, and he croaked at Mike.

“Now read him the codicil to the Will. No, don’t read it.

Explain it to him.” Michael’s expression changed; he looked down at his papers as he spoke, as though reluctant to meet Johnny’s eyes.

He cleared his throat unnecessarily and shifted in his seat.

“By the codicil to the Will, dated the same date, and duly signed by Mr. van der Byl the bequest of shares in Van Der Byl Diamond Co. Ltd to JOHN RIGBY LANCE, is made conditional on the issue by the said JOHN RIGBY LANCE of a personal guarantee for the debts of the company, including the present loan account and amounts outstanding to tributary companies for royalties and options.

“Christ,” said Johnny, stiffening in his chair and turning to stare incredulously at the Old Man. The tightness in his chest was gone. “What are you trying to do to me?” The Old Man dismissed Mike Shapiro quietly, without even looking at him. “I’ll call you when I want you.” And when he had gone he repeated Johnny’s question.

“What am I trying to do to you?” he asked. “I am trying to make you responsible for debts totalling about two and a half million Rand.”

“No creditor would come to me for half a million, I would be hard pressed to raise ten thousand on my personal account.” Johnny shook his head irritably, the whole thing was nonsensical.

“There is one creditor who could come to you, and subject you to the full process of law. Not to receive payment in cash - but in personal satisfaction. He would smash you - and delight in doing so.”

Johnny’s eyes narrowed disbelievingly. “Benedict?” The Old Man nodded.

“For once Benedict will hold the top cards. He won’t be able to dislodge you from the management of the company, because Tracey will support you as she always has done - but he will be able to watch every move you make from his seat on the Board of Directors. He will be able to hound you, bring you and the Company down without suffering financial loss himself.

And when you fall - you know better than to expect mercy from him.

You will be devoured by the ogre you have created.”

“Created?”

Johnny’s voice was shocked. “What do you mean?”

“You turned him into what he is now. You broke his heart, made him weak and useless ”

“You are crazy.” Johnny came to his feet. “I have never done anything to

Benedict. It was he who-” But the Old Man’s husky croak brushed aside

Johnny’s protests. “He tried to run with you - but could not. He gave up, became small and vicious. Oh, I know about the way he is - how you made him.” Please, listen to me. I did not-” But the Old Man went on remorselessly. “Tracey also, you have ruined her life. You enslaved her, in your sin-” “That night!” Johnny shouted at him. “You never let me explain. We never-” Now the Old Man’s voice was a whiplash.

“Silence!” And Johnny could not defy him, the habit was too deeply engrained. The Old Man was trembling, his eyes glittering with passion. “Both my children! You have plagued me and my family. My son is a weak-willed drifter, trying to hide his hurt in a hunt for pleasure. I have given him the instruments to destroy you, and when he does so perhaps he will become a man.” The Old Man’s voice was strained now, rusty and painracked. He swallowed with an effort, his throat convulsing but there was no softening of the glitter in his eyes.

“My daughter also, torturned by her lust. A lust which you awakened - she also seeks an escape from her guilty passion. Your destruction will be her release.”

“You’re wrong,” Johnny cried out, half in protest, half in entreaty. “Please, let me explain-“

“This is how it will work. I have made you vulnerable, linking you to a crippled and foundering enterprise. This time we will be rid of you.”

He stopped to pant quickly, like a running dog. His breathing was strangled, harsh-sounding.

“Benedict will cut you down, and Tracey will have to watch you go.

She cannot help you, her inheritance is carefully tied up, she has no control of the capital. Your only hope is the Kingfisher. The Kingfisher will turn into a vampire and suck your life blood! You asked why I was systematically transferring the assets of Van Der Byl Diamonds to my other companies? Well, now you know the answer.”

Johnny’s lips moved. He was very pale. His voice came out small and whispery.

“I could refuse to sign the guarantee.” The Old Man smiled bleakly, a drawing back of the lips that was without warmth or humour.

“You will sign it.” His voice was wheezy. “Your pride and conceit will not let you do otherwise. You see, I know you.

I’ve studied you all these years. But if you refuse to sign the guarantee, I will still have smashed you. Your shares will go to Benedict. You will be out. Out! Gone! We will be finished with you at last.” Then his voice dropped, “But you will sign. I know it.”

Involuntarily Johnny lifted his hands towards the Old Man, a gesture of supplication. “In all this time. When I stayed with you, when I-” His voice went husky and dried up. “Did you never feel anything for me - anything at all?” The Old Man sat up in his chair. He seemed to regain his bulk and he began to smile. He spoke quietly now, he did not have to shout.

“Get out of my nest, Cuckoo. Get out and fly!” he said.

Slowly Johnny’s expression changed, the line of his jaw hardened, thrusting out aggressively. His shoulders went back. He pushed his hands into his pockets, balling his fists into bony liters.

He nodded once in understanding.

“I see.” He nodded again, and then he started to grin. It was an unconvincing grin, that twisted his mouth out of shape and left his eyes dark and haunted.

“All right, you mean old bastard, I’ll show you.” He turned and walked from the room without looking back.

The Old Man’s expression lit in deep satisfaction. He chuckled, then his breath caught. He began to cough, and the pain ripped his throat with a violence that left him clinging weakly to the edge of his desk.

He felt the crab of death move within his flesh, sinking its claws more deeply into his throat and lungs - and he was afraid.

He called out in his pain and fear, but there was nobody in the old house to hear him.

-Kingfisher was launched in August and ran her trials in the North Sea. Benedict was aboard, by the Old -.&Man’s express command.

With a vessel of such complexity, and of such revolutionary design, it would have been a miracle had she functioned perfectly. August that year was not the month for miracles. At the end of the trials Johnny had compiled a list of twenty-three modifications that were necessary.

“How long?” he asked the representative of the shipyard.

“A month.“The reply was hesitant.

“You mean two,” said Benedict and laughed out loud.

Johnny looked at him thoughtfully, he guessed that the Old Man had spoken to him.

“I’ll tell you something, Johnny.” Benedict was still laughing.

“I’m glad this cow isn’t my dream of paradise.” Johnny froze. Those words were the Old Man’s, repeated parrot fashion. It was all the confirmation that he needed.

Johnny flew back to Cape Town to find his creditors on the verge of mutiny. They wanted to sell out, and take the loss.

Johnny spent two whole precious days on Larsen’s wine farm at Stellenbosch calming his fears. When Fifi Larsen, twenty years younger than her husband, squeezed Johnny’s thigh under the lunch table he knew it would be all right for another two months.

During the next hectic, strength-sapping week of argument and negotiation, Johnny made time to see Tracey.

She had been out of the nursing-home for a month now, staying with friends on a small farm near Somerset West.

When Johnny climbed out of the Mercedes, and Tracey came down from the stoop to greet him, he had his first real lift of pleasure in a long time.

“God,“he said. “You look great.” She was dressed in a cotton summer dress with open sandals on her feet. Her friends were away for the day, so they walked through the orchards. He studied her openly, noticing how her cheeks and arms had filled out and the colour had come back into them. Her hair was bright and springing with lights in the sun, but there were still the dark smears under her eyes, and she smiled only once when he picked a sprig of peach blossoms for her. She seemed to be afraid of him, and unsure of herself.

At last he faced her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “All right. What’s eating you up It came out in a quick staccato rush of words.

“I want to thank you for coming to find me. I want to explain why I was - like that. In that state. I don’t want you to believe - well, bad things about me.”

“Tracey, you don’t have to explain to me.”

“I want to. I must.” And she told him, not looking at his face, twisting and tearing the blossoms in her hands.

“You see, I didn’t understand, I thought all men were like that.

Not wanting, I mean not doing it-” She broke off, and started again.

“He was kind, you understand. And there were lots of parties and friends around all the time, every night. Then he wanted to go to London - for his career.

There was not enough scope here. Even then I didn’t know.

Well, I knew he had lots of men friends and that some of them were different - but … Then I went to his studio and found them, and they laughed, Kenny and the boy twined together like snakes. “But you must have known,” he said.

Something just snapped in my head, I felt spoiled, dirty and horrible and I wanted to die. There was nobody to go to and I didn’t want anybody - I just wanted to die.” She stopped and stood waiting for him to speak.

“Do you still want to die?” he asked gently, and she looked up startled and shook her shining hair.

“I don’t want you to die either.” And suddenly they were both laughing. After that it was good between them and they talked with all the strangeness gone until it was almost dark.

“I must go,“Johnny said.

“Your wife?” she asked, the laughter fading.

“Yes. My wife.” It was dark when Johnny went in through the front door of the new split-level ranch type in Bishopscourt which was his house but not his home; the telephone was ringing. He picked up the receiver.

“Johnny?”

“Hello Michael.” He recognized the voice.

“Johnny, get up here to the old house right away.” Michael

Shapiro’s voice was strained.

“Is it the Old Man?“Johnny asked anxiously.

“No talk - just come, quickly!” The curtains were drawn, and a log fire roared on the stone hearth. But the Old Man was cold. The coldness was deep inside him where the flames could not warm it. His hands shook as he picked sheets of paper from the open document box, glanced at them and then dropped them into the fire. They exploded into orange flame, then curled and blackened to ash. At last the box was empty but for a thick wad of multi-coloured envelopes bound together with a ribbon. He loosened the knot, picked out the first envelope, and slipped from it a single sheet of writing-paper.

“Dear Sir, I hope you will be pleased to hear that I am now at school. The food is good but the beds are very hard-” He dropped both envelope and letter on the fire and selected another. One at a time he read and then burned them.

“-that I have been selected to play for the first fifteen-“

Sometimes he smiled, once he chuckled.

“-I was top in all subjects except history and religious teaching.

I hope to do better next-” When there was one envelope left he held it a long time in his blue-veined bony hands. Then with an impatient flick of his wrist he threw it on to the fire and reached up to the mantelpiece to pull himself to his feet. As he stood he looked into the gilt-framed mirror above the fireplace.

He stared at his reflection, mildly surprised by the change that the last few weeks had wrought in his appearance. His eyes had lost the sparkle of life, fading to a pale dirty brownish blue the colour of putrefaction. They bulged from the sockets, in the glassy startled stare which is peculiar to the later stages of terminal cancer.

The watery feeling of limb, and the coldness were not the result of the pain-killing drugs, he knew. Nor was the shuffling feet-dragging gait with which he crossed the thick Bokhara carpet to the stinkwood desk.

He looked down at the oblong leather case with its brassbound corners, and he coughed, a single flesh-teating bark.

He caught at the desk to steady himself, waiting for the pain to pass before he sprang the catch on the case and laid the lid back.

His hands were quite steady as he took the barrel and butt section of the Purdy Royal twelve-bore shotgun from the case and fitted them together.

He died the way he had lived - alone.

“Oh, how I hate black.” Ruby Lance stood in the centre of the bedroom floor, staring at the clothing laid out on the double bed. “It makes me look so washed out.” She swung her head from side to side, setting the champagne-coloured cascade of her hair swinging. She turned and moved lazily across the room to the tall mirrors.

She smiled at herself, a languid slanting of the eyes, and then she spoke over the shoulder of her own image.

“You say that Benedict van der Byl has arrived from England?”

“Yes,“Johnny nodded. He sat slumped in the chair beside his dressing-room door, pressing his fingers into his eyes.

Ruby came up on her toes, pulling in her stomach and pushing forward her small hard breasts.

“Who else will be there?” she asked, cupping her hands under her breasts and squeezing out the nipples between thumb and forefinger, inspecting them critically. Johnny took his hand from his eyes.

“Did you hear me?” Ruby’s voice took on a sharp admonishing note. “I’m not talking to myself, you know.” She turned away from the mirror to face him. Standing long and slim and golden as a leopard, even her eyes had the yellow intentness of a leopard’s stare. She gave the impression that at any moment she would draw her lips back in a snarl.

“It’s a funeral,“he said quietly. “Not a cocktail party.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to die of sorrow. I couldn’t stand him.” She crossed to the bed and picked up the pair of peach-coloured panties and rubbed the glossy material against her cheek. Then she stepped into them with two long-legged strides.

“At least I can wear something pretty under the weeds.” She snapped the elastic against her sun-gilt belly, and the almost colourless blonde curls were flattened beneath the sheer silk.

Johnny stood up slowly, and went into his dressing-room.

Scornfully she called after him. “Oh for God’s sake, Johnny Lance, stop dragging that long face around as though it’s the end of the world. Nobody owes that old devil a thing he collected all his debts long before they fell due.” They were a few minutes early, and they stood together beneath the pine-trees outside the entrance to the chapel.

When the pearl-grey Rolls drew up at the gate and brother and sister stepped down and came up the paved path, Ruby could not contain her interest.

“Is that Benedict van der Byl?” Johnny nodded.

“He’s very good-looking.” But Johnny was looking at Tracey. The change in her appearance since he had last seen her was startling. She walked like a desert girl again, straight and proud. She came directly to Johnny and stopped in front of him. She removed her dark glasses, and he could see she had been weeping, for her eyes were slightly puffy. She wore no make-up, and with the dark scarf framing her face she looked like a nun. The marks that sorrow had left gave her face maturity.

“I did not think this day would ever come,” she said softly.

“No,” Johnny agreed. “It was as though he would live for ever.”

Tracey moved a step closer to him, she reached out as if to touch Johnny’s arm but her fingers stopped within inches of his sleeve.

Johnny understood the gesture, it was a sharing of sorrow, an understanding of mutual loss, and an unstated offer of comfort.

“I don’t think we have met.” Ruby used her sugar and arsenic tone. “It is Miss. van der Byl, isn’t it?” Tracey turned her head and her expression went flat and neutral. She replaced the dark glasses, masking her eyes.

“Mrs. Hartford,” she said. “How do you do.” ike Shapiro stood beside Johnny in the pew. He spoke without moving his lips, just loud enough for Johnny to catch the words.

“Benedict knows the conditions of the Will. You can expect his first move immediately.”

“Thanks, Mike.” Johnny kept his eyes on the massive black coffin. The candlelight granted and sparkled on the elaborate silver handles.

As yet he could find no interest for the conflict that lay ahead.

That would come. Now he was too deeply involved in the passing of an era, his life had reached another point of major departure. He knew it would change, had already changed.

He looked across the aisle suddenly, his gaze drawn intuitively.

Benedict van der Byl was watching him, and at that moment the priest asked for the pallbearers.

They went to stand beside the coffin, Benedict and Johnny on opposite sides of the polished black casket among the massed display of arum lilies. They watched each other warily. It seemed to Johnny that the whole scene was significant. The two of them standing over the Old Man’s corpse, facing each other, with Tracey looking on anxiously.

Johnny glanced back into the body of the church, looking for Tracey. Instead he found Ruby. She was watching them both, and Johnny knew suddenly that the board had changed more than he realized.

A new piece had been added to the game.

He felt Mike Shapiro nudge him, and he stooped forward and grasped the silver handle. Between them they carried the Old Man out into the sunshine.

The handle had cut into his palm with the weight of the coffin.

He went on massaging it, even after the coffin had gone down into the pit. The crude mounds of fresh earth were covered with blankets of bright green artificial grass.

The mourners began to drift away, but Johnny went on standing there bareheaded. Until Ruby came to touch his arm.

“Come on.” Her voice pitched low, but stinging. “You’re making a fool of yourself.” Benedict and Tracey were waiting under the pine-trees by the churchyard gate, shaking hands and talking quietly to the departing mourners.

“You are Ruby, of course.” Benedict took her hand, smiling a little, urbane and charming. “The flattering reports I’ve had of you hardly do you justice.” And Ruby glowed, seeming like a butterfly to spread her wings to the sun.

“Johnny.” Benedict turned to him, and Johnny was taken off balance by the friendly warmth of his smile and the grip of his hand. “Michael

Shapiro tells me that you have accepted my father’s legacy and the conditions attached to it - you have signed the guarantee. It’s wonderful news. I don’t know what we would have done without you in Van Der Byl Diamonds. You are the only one that can pull the Company through this difficult period. I want you to know I am behind you all the way, Johnny. I intend becoming much more involved with the Company now, giving you all the help you need.”

“I knew I could depend on you, Benedict.” Johnny accepted the challenge as smoothly as it was thrown down.

“I think everything is going to turn out all right.”

“We have a meeting on Monday, then I must return to London on Thursday - but I hope you can have dinner with me before. then - you and your lovely wife, of course.”

“Thank you.” Ruby seeing the refusal on Johnny’s lips, interrupted quickly. “We’d enjoy that.” You were going to refuse, weren’t you?” She sat with her legs curled up sideways under her, watching him from the passenger seat of the Mercedes with the slanting eyes of a Persian cat.

“You’re damn right.“Johnny nodded grimly.

“Why?”

“Benedict van der Byl is poison.”

“You say so.”

“Yes, I say so.”

“Could be you’re jealous of him.” Ruby lit one of her gold-tipped cigarettes, puffing the smoke through her lips.

“Good God!” Johnny gave one harsh snort of laughter, then they were silent awhile, both staring ahead.

“I think he’s pretty dreamy.”

“You can have him.“Johnny’s tone was disinterested, but her retort was shrill.

“I could too - if I wanted to. Anyway you and that Tracey creature mooning-“

“Cut it out, Ruby.” “Oh my, I’ve said the wrong thing. The precious Mrs. Hartford-” “Cut it out, I said.“Johnny’s tone was sharp.

“Little Miss. Fancy Pants. - God! She almost had them down for you in the bloody graveyard-“

“Shut up, damn you.”

“Don’t you swear at me.”

And she lashed out at him flathanded, leaning forward across the seat to strike him in the mouth. His lower lip smeared against his teeth, and the taste of blood seeped into his mouth. He took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it to his mouth, steering the Mercedes with one hand.

Ruby sat curled in her corner of the seat, puffing quickly at the cigarette. Neither of them spoke again until he drew up in front of the double garage. Then Ruby slipped out of the Mercedes and ran across the lawns to the front door.

She slammed it behind her, with a force that rattled the full-length glass panel.

Johnny parked the Mercedes, closed the garage door and followed her slowly into the house. She had kicked off her shoes on the wall-to-wall carpet in the lounge, and run through on to the patio beside the swimming pool. She stood barefooted staring down into the clear water, hugging herself about the shoulders.

“Ruby.” He came up behind her, forcing the anger out of his voice with an effort, trying to keep it conciliatory.

“Listen to me She spun around to face him, eyes blazing like a cornered leopard.

“Don’t try and gentle talk me, you bastard. What do you think I am - your damned servant. When did I last get to do anything I wanted?” With Ruby he had long ago realized that placation was the short cut to peace, so he was roused by the implication.

“I’ve never stopped you from-“

“Good! That’s just fine! Then you won’t stop me going away.”

“What do you mean?” He was caught between shock and a sneaking sense of hope. “Are you talking about divorce

“Divorce? Are you out of your little mind! I know all about the big bagful of goodies the Old Man left you in his will. Well, little Ruby is getting her pinkies into that bag starting right now.”

“What do you want exactly?” His voice was cold and flat.

“A new wardrobe, and a quick whip around all those nice places you go to all the time - London, Paris and the rest.

That will do for a start.” He thought a moment, assessing how far he could stretch his overdraft; since his marriage his bank statement had seldom been typed in black. It was worth it, he decided. He could afford no distraction over the next few months. He could move faster and think quicker without having Ruby Lance sitting between his shoulder-blades - much better she should go.

“All right,“he nodded. “If that’s what you want.” Her eyes narrowed slightly and her mouth pinched in as she studied his face.

“That was too easy,” she said. “You want to get rid of me?

Don’t get any ideas, Johnny boy, you put one finger - or anything else - out of line and I’ll chop it off.” here is a Mrs. Hartford to see you, sir. Lettie Pienaar’s voice whispered through on the intercom, then just audibly she added, “Lucky you!” Johnny grinned. “You’re fired for insolence - but send her in before you go.

He stood up as Tracey came in, and went around his desk to meet her. She wore a nononsense grey suit, with her hair scraped back from her face. She should have looked like a school mom - but she didn’t.

“You’ve got your times mixed up, Tracey. The Directors” meeting is at two this afternoon.”

“That’s a sweet greeting.” She sat down in an egg-shaped swivel chair, crossing long legs which Johnny dragged his eyes off with an effort. “I’ve come looking for a job.”

“A job?” He stared at her blankly.

“Yes, a job. You know - work? Employment?”

“What on earth for?”

“Well, now that you’ve dragged me back from the bright lights with all the finesse of a cavernan - you don’t expect me to sit around until I drop dead of boredom. Besides, your tame doctor feels that good healthy employment is essential to the completion of my - - cure.”

“I see.” He sank back into his own chair. “Well - what can you do?”

“Mr. Lance.” Tracey widened her eyes suggestively, but made her voice prim. “- Really!”

“All right,” Johnny chuckled. “What are your qualifications?”

“You may or may not know that I have a law degree from the University of Cape Town.”

“I didn’t.” (Also, it occurred to me that during the next few months you might need someone around whom you can trust.” She was serious now, and Johnny’s smile faded also. “Like the old days.” She added quietly. They were silent for a few seconds.

just so happens that we are looking for a personal assistant in our legal department,” Johnny murmured, and then softly, “Thanks, Tracey.” The Board Room of Van Der Byl Diamonds was furnished in soft forest colours, browns and greens.

A long luxurious room that reflected the opulence of the days when the Company had been glutted with capital. But now the air was charged with a tension that crackled in the air like static electricity.

The subject of debate was the diamond recovery vessel, Kingfisher.

The Company’s last hope. Her only substantial asset, and Johnny’s personal cross.

“This vessel should have been in operation nine months ago. All the estimates were based on that assumption - yet, she is still lying awaiting completion on the slips at Portsmouth.” Benedict was speaking with unconcealed relish. “In consequence, the interest charges that are accruing put us in a position-“

“The shipyard was out on strike for a total of four months during construction - in addition they were working to rule for, - Johnny’s jaw was thrust out, he was ready to fight.

“Ah! I don’t think we are particularly interested in the unpredictability of the British workman - the contract should have gone to the Japanese company. Their tender was lower-“

“It would have,” grated Johnny, “if your father had not insisted-“

“Please, let us not attempt to lay the blame at the door of a dead man.” Benedict’s tone was sanctimonious. “Let us rather try and rectify a grievous situation. When will Kingfisher be ready for sea?

“On the thirteenth of September.”

“It had better be.” Benedict dropped his eyes to his notes.

“Now, this man whom you have engaged to captain the vessel -

Sergio Caporetti - let us hear a little about him, please.”

“Fifteen years” experience on offshore oil-drilling vessels in the Red Sea.

Three years as Captain of Atlantis Diamonds” offshore dredger operating off the West Coast. He’s one of the best, no doubt about it.”

“All right.” Almost reluctantly Benedict accepted this, and consulted his notes. “Now, we have two sea-concession areas. Number 1 area off Cartridge Bay; number 2 some twenty miles north of that. judging by your prospecting results you will elect to work number 1 area first.” Johnny nodded, waiting for the next attack to develop.

Benedict sat back in his chair.

“Atlantis Diamonds Ltd went broke working number 1 area. - what makes you think you can succeed where they failed!”

“We’ve been over this before,“Johnny snapped.

“I wasn’t there, remember? Humour me, please. Go over it again.

Quickly Johnny explained that Atlantis Diamonds” costs had been inflated by their method of operation. Their dredgers were not self-propelled but had to be towed by tugs. The gravel they recovered had been stored, taken into Cartridge Bay in bulk, transhipped ashore to be processed at a land-based plant. Kingfisher was a self-propelled and self-contained vessel. She would suck up the gravel, process it through the most sophisticated system of cyclone and X ray equipment and dump the waste overboard.

“Our costs will be one quarter those of Atlantis Diamonds,” he finished.

“And our loan account is a mere two millions,” Benedict murmured dryly. Then he looked towards Mike Shapiro at the bottom of the table.

“Mr. Secretary, please note the following motion - “That this Company proceed to sell the vessel Kingfisher presently building at Portsmouth.

That it then sells all diamond concessions at the most advantageous terms negotiable, and goes into voluntary liquidation forthwith.” Have you got that?” It was a direct frontal attack. Clearly if the motion succeeded the Company was worthless. They could not recover the price of the Kingfisher on a forced sale. There would be a shortfall - and Johnny had signed the guarantee.

It was a straight test that Benedict was making. A setting of the lines of battle. Tracey held the balance between Johnny and Benedict.

He was forcing her to declare herself.

Benedict watched her while the motion was put to the vote. He leaned forward in the padded leather chair, a slightly amused smile on the full red lips. Beautifully groomed and tailored, with the grace that wealth and position give to a man and which cannot be counterfeited.

But the clean athletic lines of his body were fractionally blurred by indulgence, and there was a little too much flesh along the line of his jaw that gave him the petulant look of a spoilt child.

Tracey voted with Johnny Lance, not hesitating a second before lifting her hand. Returning Benedict’s smile levelly, and watching her brother’s smile alter subtly - become wolfish, for Benedict did not like to lose.

“Very well, my darling sister. Now we know how we stand at least.” He turned easily to Johnny. “I presume you wish me to continue with my duties in London.” For years now Benedict had handled the London sales of the Company’s stones. It was an unexacting task, which the Old Man had judged within his capabilities.

“Thank you, Benedict,” Johnny nodded. “Now, I have a proposal to put to the meeting - “That the Directors of this Company, as a gesture of solidarity, agree to waive their rights to Directors” fees until such time as the Company’s financial position is on a more sound footing.”” It was a puny counter-attack, but the best he could mount at the moment.

Take-off was in the first light from Youngsfield, and Johnny swung the twin-engined Beechcraft on to a northerly heading, leaving the blue massif of Table Mountain on the left hand.

Tracey wore an anorak over her rose-coloured shirt, and the bottoms of her denim pants were tucked into soft leather boots, her dark hair caught at the nape of her neck with a leather thong.

She sat very still, looking ahead through the aircraft’s windshield at the dawn-touched contours of the land ahead.

At the bleak lilac and purple mountains and the green lioncoloured plains spreading down to meet the mists that hung over the cold Atlantic.

In her stillness Johnny sensed her excitement and found it infectious.

The sun exploded over the horizon, washing golden and bright over the plains, and tipping the mountains with flame.

“Namaqualand.“Johnny pointed ahead.

She laughed with excitement, like a child at Christmas, turning in the seat to face him.

“Do you remember-” She began, then stopped in confusion.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “I remember.” They landed before noon on a rough airstrip bulldozed out of the wilderness. There was a Land-Rover waiting to take them down to the beach to inspect the progress of the workings.

There was little remaining along the thirty-seven-mile Admiralty strip worth working. It was a clean-up and shutdown operation.

When the reigning “King Canute” handed over the parcel of diamonds that made up the month’s recovery, he was apologetic.

“You took out all the plums, Johnny. It’s not like the old days.”

Johnny prodded the pathetic pile of small, low-grade stones with his forefinger.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “But every little bit helps.” They climbed back into the Beechcraft and flew on northwards.

Now they passed over areas where the desert had been scratched and torn over wide areas.

The tractors had left centipede tracks in the soft earth.

“Ours?” asked Tracey.

“I wish they were. We’d have no worries then. No, all this belongs to the big Company.” Johnny checked his watch, automatically comparing the progress of the flight to his estimates. Then he lifted the microphone from the R/T set.

“Alexandra Bay Control. This is Zulu Sugar Peter Tango Baker.” He knew that they had him on the radar plot, and were watching him - not because they were worried about his safety, but because he was now over the Proclaimed Diamond Area of South West Africa - that vast jealously guarded tract of nothingness.

The radio crackled back at him instantly, demanding his permit number, his flight plan, querying his intentions and his destination.

Having convinced Control of his innocence, and received their permission to continue his flight, he switched off his RIT set, and grimaced at Tracey.

He felt ruffled by this small brush with Olympus. He knew that most of it was professional jealousy. He smarted under the knowledge that he was working ground that the big Company would despise as not sufficiently lucrative to bother about.

Sometimes Johnny dreamed about discovering a fault in a land title, or an error in a survey that had been casually performed seventy years previously before the value of this parched denuded earth had been realized. He imagined himself being able to claim the mineral rights to a few square miles plumb in the middle of the big Company’s richest field. He shivered voluptuously at the thought, and Tracey looked at him enquiringly.

He shook his head, then his line of thought took him on to a further destination.

He banked the aircraft, crossing the coastline with its creamy lines of surf running in on the freezing white sands of the beach.

“What?” She was expectant, receptive to the new tone in his voice.

“Thunderbolt and Suicide,” he said, and she made a small grimace of incomprehension.

“There.” He pointed ahead, and through the light smoke of the sea mist she saw them show bare - white and shiny, like a pair of albino whales.

“Islands?“she asked. “What’s so special about them?”

“Their shape,” he answered. “See how they lie like the mouth of a funnel, with a small opening between them.” She nodded. The two islands were almost identical twins, two narrow wedges of smooth granite, each about three miles long, lying in a chevron pattern to each other - but not quite meeting at the peak. The mighty Atlantic swells bore up from the south and ran into the mouth of the funnel. Finding themselves trapped in this granite corral, the swells reared up wildly and hurled themselves on the cliffs in massive bomb-bursts of spray before streaming out in white foam through the narrow opening between the two islands.

“I can see how Thunderbolt gets its name.” Tracey eyed the wild booming surf with awe. “But how about Suicide?”

“The old guano collectors must have called it that, after they tried landing on it.”

“Guano,“Tracey nodded. “That accounts for the colour.” Johnny put the Beechcraft into a shallow dive, hurtling in low over the green water.

Ahead of them the seabirds rose in alarm, streaming in a long black smear into the sky, the cormorants and gannets whose excreta through the ages had painted the rocks that glaring white.

As they flashed through the gap below the level of the cliffs, Tracey exclaimed, “There’s some sort of tower there look! In the back of the island.”

“Yes,” Johnny agreed. “It’s an old wooden gantry they used for loading the guano into the longboats.”

“ He pulled the Beechcraft up in a climbing turn, gaining height to look down on the two islands.

“Do you see where the surf comes through the gap? Now look beneath the surface, can you see the reefs under the water?” They lay like long dark shadows through the green water, at right angles to the drift of white foam.

“Well, you are looking at the most beautifully designed natural diamond trap in the world.”

“Explain,“Tracey invited.

“Down there,” he pointed south, “are the big rivers. Some of them dried up a million years ago, but not before they had spat the diamonds-they carried into the sea. The tide and the wind has been working them up towards the north for all these ages. Throwing some of them back on the beach but carrying others up this way.” He levelled the Beechcraft out and resumed their interrupted flight northwards.

“Then suddenly they run up against Thunderbolt and Suicide. They are concentrated and squeezed through the gap, then they are confronted by a series of sharp reefs across their path. They cannot cross them - they just settle down in the gullies and wait for someone to come and suck them out.” He sighed like a man crossed in love.

“My God, Tracey. The smell of those diamonds reeks in my nostrils. I can almost see the shine of them through a hundred and sixty feet of water.”

He shook himself as though waking from a dream.

“I’ve been in the game all my life, Tracey. I’ve got the “feel”, the same as a water-diviner has. I tell you with absolute certainty there are millions of carats of diamonds lying in the crotch of Thunderbolt and Suicide.”

“What’s the snag?“Tracey asked.

“The concession was granted twenty years ago to the big Company.”

“By whom?”

“The Government of South West Africa.”

“Why aren’t they mining it?”

“They will - sometime in the next twenty years. They aren’t in any hurry.” They lapsed into silence, staring ahead, though once Johnny clucked his tongue irritably and shook his head still thinking about Thunderbolt and Suicide.

To distract him Tracey asked, “Where do they come from in the first place - the diamonds?”

“Volcanic pipes,” Johnny answered. “There are more than a hundred known pipes in Southern Africa. Not all yield stones, but then some do. New Rush, - Finsch, - Dutoitspan, Bulfontein, - Premier - Mwadui. Great oval-shaped treasure chests, filled with the legendary “Blue Ground” the mother lode of the diamond.”

“There are no pipes here - surely?” Tracey turned towards him in his seat.

“No,” Johnny agreed. “We are after the alluvial stones.

Some of those ancient pipes exploded with the force of a hydrogen bomb, spraying diamonds over hundreds of square miles. Others were submarine pipes that discharged their treasure into the restless sea.

Others of the more passive volcanic pipes were simply eroded away by wind and water and the diamonds were exposed.”

“Then they were washed down to the sea?” she guessed.

Johnny nodded. “That’s right. Over millions of years they were moved infinitely slowly by landslides, floods, rivers and rainwater.

Where all the other pebbles and stones were abraded and worn away to nothingness - the diamonds, four hundred times harder than any other natural substance on earth, were unmarked. So at last they reached the sea and mingled with the others from the submarine pipes, to be laid down by wave action on the beaches, or finally to come up against a place like Thunderbolt and Suicide.” Tracey opened her mouth to ask another question, but Johnny interrupted.

“Here we are. There is Cartridge Bay.” And he pushed the nose of the aircraft down slightly. It was more a lagoon than a bay.

Separated from the sea by a narrow sandspit, it spread away into the treeless waste, an enormous extent of quiet shallow water in tranquil contrast to the unchecked surf that burst on the sandspit. There was a deep water entrance through the sandspit, and a channel meandered across the lagoon to where a cluster of lonely whitewashed buildings sprang up on the edge of the desert.

Johnny banked steeply towards the buildings, and below them flocks of black and white pelicans and pink flamingoes rose in panic from the shallows.

Johnny landed and taxied across to the waiting Landrover with the white lightning insignia of Van Der Byl Diamonds painted on its side.

Lugging the coot box that contained their lunch, Johnny led Tracey to the vehicle and introduced her to his foreman.

Then they climbed in and went bumping down to the buildings on the lagoon. Johnny received from his foreman a report on progress of the work. The buildings had been abandoned by the defunct Atlantis Diamond Company.

Johnny was renovating them to serve as a base for the Kingfisher; a rest and recreation centre for the crew, a radio centre, a refuelling depot and a workshop to handle running maintenance and repairs. In addition he was putting a jetty out into the lagoon for the converted seventy-foot pilchard trawler that would be Kingfisher’s service boat - acting as tender and ferry.

They ran an extensive inspection of the base. Johnny was pleased with the interest Tracey showed, and he enjoyed answering her questions for his own enthusiasm was high. It was nearly two o’clock before they had finished.

“How are the watchtowers coming?“Johnny asked.

“All up, ready and waiting.” And suddenly Johnny had a two-edged inspiration.

“Might as well go and have a look.” He made it casual.

“Okay, I’ll fetch the Land-Rover,” the foreman agreed.

“I know the way.” Johnny put him off. “You go and get your lunch.”

“It’s no trouble-” the foreman began, caught Johnny’s frown, cut himself short, then glanced at Tracey. “Yeah!

Sure! Fine! Okay - here are the keys.” He handed Johnny the Land-Rover keys, and disappeared into his own quarters.

Johnny checked the grub box, and they climbed into the open Land-Rover.

“Where are we going?“Tracey asked.

“Inspect the watchtowers along the sandspit.”

“Watchtowers?”

“We’ve put up a line of fifty-foot wooden towers along the beach. From them we will take continual bearings on Kingfisher when she is working offshore. By radio we will be able at any time to give her the exact position over the bottom to within a few feet, as a check to the computer.”

“My, you are clever.” Tracey fluttered her eyelashes at him in mock admiration.

“Silly wench,” said Johnny, and let out the clutch. He swung down past the radio shack on to the hard wet sand at the edge of the lagoon; accelerating he hit second then third and they went away around the curve of the lagoon, headed towards the great yellow wind-carved dunes that lined the coast.

Tracey stood up on her seat, clutching the edge of the windscreen, and the wind snatched at her hair. She pulled the retaining thong from it, and shook it out into a shiny black flag that snapped and snaked behind her.

“Look! Look!” she cried as the flocks of startled flamingoes lurched into flight, streaming white and pink and black over the glossy silver water.

Johnny laughed with her, and swung the Land-Rover towards the dunes.

“Hold on!” he shouted, and she clung to the Windscreen, shrieking in delicious terror as they flew up the steep side of a dune, spinning a cloud of sand from the rear wheels and then dropped over the crest in a stomach-churning swoop.

They crossed the sandspit and hit the beach, racing along it, playing tag with the waves that shot up the sand.

Five miles up the beach Johnny parked above the highwater mark and they ate cold chicken and drank a bottle of chilled white wine sitting side by side in the sand, leaning against the seat cushions from the

Land-Rover. Then they went down to the edge of the sea to wash the chicken grease from their fingers.

“Yipes! It’s cold.” Tracey scooped a double handful of sea water.

Then she looked at Johnny and her expression became devilish.

He backed away, but not quickly enough. The icy water hit him in the chest, and he gasped.

“War!” It was their childhood cry.

Tracey whirled and went off long-legged along the beach, with Johnny pounding after her. She sensed him gaining on her, and shouted.

“It was a mistake! I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry!” At the last moment as he reached out to grip her shoulder, she jinked and ran knee-deep into the sea.

Turning at bay to face him, she kicked a spray of water at him, shouting defrance and laughter.

“All right, come on then!” Braving the flying spray, he reached her and picked her up kicking and struggling and waded out waist deep.

“No, no - please. Johnny. I give in - I’ll do anything.” At that moment a freak wave, bigger and stronger than the others, knocked Johnny’s legs out from under him.

They went under, and were rolled up the beach, to stagger out, completely soaked, clinging together, helpless with laughter.

They stood beside the Land-Rover trying to wring the water out of their clothing.

“Oh, you beast!” sobbed Tracey through her laughter. Her hair was a sodden mass, and drops of sea water clung in her eyelashes like dew.

Johnny took her in his arms and kissed her, and they stopped laughing.

She went loose against his chest, her eyes tightly closed and her lips, salty with sea water, opened against his.

The radio telephone in the Land-Rover beside them began to bleat fretfully, flashing its little red warning light.

They drew apart slowly, reluctantly, and stared at each other with dazed, bemused eyes.

Johnny reached the Land-Rover, unhooked the microphone and lifted it to his lips.

“Yes?” his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and repeated.

“Yes?” The foreman’s voice was distorted and scratchy through the speaker.

“Mr. Lance, I’m sorry to have ” he was clearly about to finish interrupted you.” But he stopped abruptly, and began again. “It’s just that I think you should know we’ve had a gale warning. Northerly gale building up quickly. If you want to get back to Cape Town You had better get airborne before it hits us - otherwise you could be shut in for days.”

“Thanks. We’ll be back right away.” He hung up, and Tracey smiled shakily. Her voice was also husky and unnatural-sounding.

“And a damn good thing too!” Tracey’s hair was still damp, and the borrowed poloneck jersey swamped her. The grey trousers were also borrowed, rolled up to show her bare feet.

She sat very quietly and thoughtfully in the passenger seat of the Beechcraft. Far below them a small fishing vessel lay with a white cloud of seabirds hovering over it, and she watched it with exaggerated attention. There was a heavy feeling of restraint between them now, they could no longer meet each other’s eyes.

“Pilchard trawler.“Johnny noticed her gaze.

“Yes,” said Tracey, and they were silent again.

“Nothing happened.“Johnny spoke again gruffly.

“No,” she agreed. “Nothing happened.” Then shyly she reached out and took his hand. Lightly she rubbed the stump of his missing finger.

“Still friends?” she asked.

“Still friends.” He grinned at her with relief, and they flew on towards Cape Town.

Hugo Kramer watched the aircraft through his binoculars, balancing easily against the roll and pitch of the bridge.

“Police patrol?” asked the man at the helm beside him.

“No,” Hugo replied without lowering the glasses. “Red and white twin Beechcraft. Registration ZS - PTB. Private aircraft, probably one of the diamond companies.” He lowered the glasses, and crossed to the wing of the bridge. “Anyway, we are well outside territorial waters.”

The drone of the aircraft engine faded away, and Hugo transferred his attention to the frantic activity on the deck below him.

The trawler, Wild Goose, lay heeled over under the weight of fish that filled her purse seine-net; at least a hundred tons of seething silver pilchards bulging the net out alongside the trawler into a round bag fifty feet across.

While above it a shrieking canopy of seabirds swirled and wheeled and dived, frantic with greed.

Three of the crew on a scoop-net which hung from the overhead derrick were dipping the fish out of the net, swinging a ton of fish at each scoop over the side, and dropping them like a silver cloudburst into the trawler’s hold. The donkey engine on the winch clattered harshly in time to their movements.

Hugo watched with satisfaction. He had a good crew, and although the fishing was only a cover for the Wild Goose - yet Hugo took pride in his teutonic thoroughness which dictated that the cover should be as solid as possible.

In any case, all profits from fishing were for his personal account. It was part of the agreement with the Ring.

He packed the binoculars carefully into their leather case, and hung them behind the chartroom door. Then he clambered swiftly down the steel ladder to deck level, moving with catlike grace despite the heavy rubber hip boots he wore.

“I’ll take her here for a while,” he told the man at the winch controls. He spoke in Afrikaans, but his accent was shaded with the German of South West Africa.

Wide-shouldered under the blue fisherman’s jersey, he worked with smooth economic movements. His hands on the winch control were rough and reddened by wind and sun, for his skin was too fair to weather.

The skin of his face was also red, and half-boiled, peeling so there were pinky raw places on his cheeks and black scabs on his lips.

The hair that hung out under his cap was white as bleached sisal, and his eyelashes were thick and colourless, giving him a mild near-sighted look. His eyes were the palest of cornflower blue, yet without being weak and watery as those of most albinos; they were slitted now, as he judged the roll and dip of the boat - engaging the clutch to meet the movement, or pulling on the drum brake.

“Skipper!” A shout from the bridge above him.

“Ja.” Hugo did not allow his attention to waver as he replied, “What is it?”

“Gale warning! There is a northerly buster building up.”

And Hugo grinned, pulled on the brake and shut the throttle.

“All right, clean up. Cut the purse rope, let the fish go free.”

He turned and swarmed up the ladder to the bridge, and went to his chart table.

“It will take us three hours to get in position,” he muttered aloud, leaning over the chart, then he barged out on to the wing of the bridge again to chase up his crew.

They had cut the purse rope on the net, allowing the net to fall open like a woman’s skirt, and the fish were pouring out, a dark spreading stain through the gap. Two men had the pressure hose on, washing loose fish from the deck into the sea, others were slamming the hatch-covers closed.

Within forty minutes Wild Goose was running south under full throttle to take up her waiting station.

The diamond coast of South West Africa lies in the belt of the Trades. The prevailing wind is the southeaster, but periodically the wind system is completely reversed and a gale comes out of the north, off the land.

It is a Scirocco-type wind like the “Khamsin” of the Libyan desert, or the “Simoom’of Tripoli.

It was the same searing dry wind out of the desert, filling the sky with brooding dust and sand clouds, smothering everything beneath a hellish pall like the smoke from a great battlefield.

The dust clouds were part of the design, the Ring had taken account of them when they planned the system - for the north wind lifted into the sky Such a quantity of mica dust that the radar screens of the diamond security police were cluttered and confused, throwing up phantom echoes and making it impossible to pick up the presence of a small airborne object.

Turn Back Point was three miles inland, and sixty miles north of the Orange River. The name was given by the first travellers, and expressed their views on continuing a journey northwards. Those old travellers had not known that they + stood in the centre of an elevated marine terrace, an ancient beach now lifted above the level of the sea, and that it was the richest prospect of an area so diamond-rich that it was to be ring-fenced, patrolled by jeep and dog and aircraft, guarded by gun and radar, a laager so secure that a man leaving it would have to submit to X-ray, and take nothing out with him but the clothes he wore.

At Turn Back Point was one of the four big separation plants where all the gravel from the big Company’s workings from miles around was processed. The settlement was comparatively large, with plant, workshops and stores, and accommodation for five hundred men and their families.

Yet not all the Company’s efforts to make it attractive and liveable could alter the fact that Turn Back Point was a hell-hole in a savage and forbidding desert.

Now with the north wind blowing, what had been unpleasant before was almost unbearable. The buildings were tightly sealed, even the joints around the windows and doors were plugged with cloth or paper -

and yet the red dust seeped in to powder the furniture, the desks, the bed linen, even the interior of the refrigerators, with a thin gritty film. It settled in the hair, was sugary between the teeth, clogged the nostrils - and with it came that searing heat that seemed to dry the moisture from the eyeballs.

Outside the dust was a red glittering fog which reduced visibility to a dozen yards. Men who were forced out into that choking dry soup wore dust goggles to protect their eyes, and the mica dust covered their clothing with a shiny coating that glittered even in that dun light.

Beyond the settlement a man moved now through the fog, carrying a small cylindrical object. He leaned forward into the wind, moving slowly away into the desert. He reached a shallow depression and went down into it.

Setting his burden on the sand, he rested a moment. Then he knelt over the cylinder. He appeared monstrous under his leather jacket and cap, his face covered by goggles and a scarf.

The fibre-glass cylinder was painted with yellow fluorescent paint. At one end was a transparent plastic bubble which housed an electric globe, at the other end was a folded envelope of rubberized nylon material attached to the cylinder by a stainless steel coupling, and linked to the coupling was a small steel bottle of hydrogen gas.

The whole assembly was eighteen inches long, and three inches in diameter. It weighed a few ounces more than fifteen pounds.

Within the cylinder were two separate compartments.

The larger contained a highly sophisticated piece of transistorized electronic equipment which would transmit a homing signal, light or extinguish its lamp on long-distance radio signal command, and also at command it would control the inflow of hydrogen gas into the nylon balloon through the connecting coupling.

The smaller compartment held simply a sealed plastic container into which were packed twenty-seven diamonds.

The smallest of these stones weighed fourteen carats, the largest a formidable fifty-six carats. Each of these stones had been selected by experts for colour, brilliance, and perfection. These were all first-water diamonds, and once they were cut they would fetch in the open market between seven hundred thousand and a million pounds - depending on the skill of the cutting.

There were four members of the Ring at Turn Back Point. Two of them were long service and trusted diamond sorters employed behind the guarded walls of the processing plant. They worked together, to check each other, for the Company operated a system of employee double check which was completely useless when there was collusion.

These men selected the finest stones and got them out of the plant.

The third member of the Ring was a diesel mechanic in the Company workshops. It was his job to receive ant] assemble the equipment which arrived concealed in a marked drum of tractor grease. He also packed the stones into the cylinder and passed it on to the man who was now kneeling out in the desert, preparing to launch the cylinder into the swirling dust fog.

His final check completed, the man stood up and went to the lip of the depression and peered out into the dust storm. At last he seemed satisfied, and hurried back to the yellow cylinder. With an incisive twist of the bevelled release ring he opened the valve on the bottle of hydrogen gas. There was a snakelike hiss, and the nylon balloon began to inflate. The folds of material crackled as they filled. The balloon lifted, eager to be gone, but the man restrained it with difficulty until the balloon was smooth and tight. He let go, and the balloon with its dangling cylinder leapt into the sky, and almost instantly was gone into the dust clouds.

The man stood with his face lifted to the dark furnacered sky. His goggles glinted blindly, but his attitude was one of triumph, and when he turned away he walked lightly with the step of a man freshly released from danger.

“One more package” he promised himself. “Just one more, and I’ll pull out. Buy that farm on the Olifants River, do a bit of fishing, take a shooting trip every year-” He was still dreaming when he reached the parked Landrover and climbed into the driver’s seat. He started the engine, switched on the headlights, and drove slowly down the track towards the settlement.

The sign on the rear of the departing Land-Rover was in white paint so that it showed clearly through the haze of red dust.

SECURITY PATROL,” it read.

Wild Goose lay on station, with her diesels throbbing softly, ticking over to hold her head into the wind. Even twenty miles out at sea the wind was searing hot and the occasional splatter of spray on

Hugo’s face was refreshing.

He stood in the corner of the bridge where he could watch the sea and the helmsman, but he was anxious. Wild Goose had been lying. on station for fifteen hours now, during ten of which the norther had howled dismally through her rigging.

He was always anxious at the beginning of a pick-up. There was so much that could have gone wrong, anything from a police sweep to a tiny electrical fault in the equipment.

“What time is it, Hansie?” he shouted and the helmsman glanced up at the chronometer above his head.

“Three minutes after six, skipper.”

“Dark in half an hour,” Hugo grunted disgustedly, slitted those pale-lashed eyes into the wind once more, then shrugged and ambled back into the bridge house.

He stopped at the console beside his chart table. Even to an experienced eye the machine was an ordinary

“Fishfinder’, an adaptation of the old wartime anti-submarine device, the ASDIC, to the more prosaic business of plotting als beneath the the depth and position of the pilchard sho surface.

However, this model had undergone a costly and specialized conversion. The Ring had flown an expert out from Japan to do the work.

Now that the set hummed softly, its control panel lit soft green by the internal light, but the sound was neutral, and the circular glass screen WAS blank.

“You want some Coffee, Hansie?” Hugo asked the old coloured man at the wheel. His crew were handpicked, loyal and trusted. They had to be - one loud mouth could blow a multi-million pound business.

Ja done, skipper.” The old man creased his weatherbattered face in appreciation, and Hugo shouted down the companionway to the galley.

“Cooky, how’s it for a pot of coffee?” But the reply was lost, for at that moment the console came to life dramatically. A row of lights blinked on above the control panel, the muted hum changed to a rapid beepbeep signal, and the screen glowed ghostly green.

“She’s up!” Hugo shouted his relief, and ran to the set.

His first mate rushed through from his cabin behind the bridge, tucking his shirt into unbuttoned trousers, his face puckered with sleep.

“About bloody time,“he blurted, groggily.

“Take over from Hansie,” Hugo told him, and he settled into the padded seat in front of the ASDtc set.

“Right, bring her round two points to port and open her up.

The Wild Goose swung her head into the sea, and her motion changed from easy swoop and glide to a crabbing butting lunge, and the spray burst over the glass of the bridge.

Sitting before the console Hugo was tracking the flight of the balloon and keeping Wild Goose on an interception course.

Driven by the forty-knot north the balloon crossed the coastline, climbing swiftly to three thousand feet. Hugo manipulated the knob on the console which sent the balloon a command to release gas and maintain attitude.

Her response was recorded immediately on the screen.

“Good,” Hugo whispered. “Good!” Then louder. “Bring her round a bit, Oscar - the balloon is drifting to the south.” For twenty minutes more they butted through the swells.

“Okay,” Hugo broke the silence. “I’m going to ditch her.” He twisted the knob clockwise slowly, expelling all the gas from the nylon balloon.

Ja. That’s it. She’s down.” He looked out of the window above the set. The dust-laden clouds had brought the night on prematurely.

It was dark outside, with a low black ceiling through which no star showed.

Hugo turned his attention back to the set.

“That’s it, Oscar. You’re right on course, Hold her there.” Then he glanced across at old Hansie and another younger crewman. They were sitting patiently on the bench against the far bulkhead. Both of them were clad in full oilskins, shiny yellow -plastic from head to ankle, with rnboots below that.

“Okay, Hansie,” Hugo nodded. “You can get up in the bows. We are only a mile or so away now They climbed down on to the wave-swept deck, and Hugo watched them scuttling forward between each green burst of water and crouching in the bows. Both of them ducking each time another sweel poured over the top of them, their yellow plastic suits showing clearly in the murky deck tights.

“I’m going to switch her on now,” Hugo warned the helm.

“We should have her on visual.”

Hugo flicked a switch “on the panel, commanding the balloon to turn on her guide light.

Almost immediately there was a shout from Oscar.

“There she is. Dead ahead!” Hugo jumped up and ran forward. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, then he made out the tiny red firefly of light ahead of them in the vast blackness of sea and sky.

It showed for a second then was gone in the trough of the next wave.

“I’ll take her.” Hugo replaced Oscar at the wheel. “You get on the spotlight.” The beam of the spotlight was a solid white shaft through the darkness. The fluorescent yellow paint of the cylinder glowed in the circle of the spot.

Hugo lay Wild Goose upwind of the cylinder, and then allowed her to drift down gently on it. Hansie and his assistant were ready with the twenty-foot boat-hook.

Delicately Hugo manoeuvred down over the bobbing yellow cylinder, and grunted with satisfaction as the boat-hook slipped through the recovery ring and the cylinder was hauled in over the bows.

He watched while the two dripping oilskin-clad figures clambered back up the ladder into the wheelhouse, and laid the cylinder on the chart table.

“Good! Good!” Hugo slapped their backs heartily. “Now, go and get dry - both of you!” They climbed down the companionway, and Hugo handed the wheel over to Oscar.

“Home!” he instructed him. “As quick as you like.” And he carried the cylinder through into his cabin.

Sitting at the fold-down table in his cabin, Hugo unscrewed the lower section of the cylinder and took out the plastic container. He opened it and spilled the contents out on the table top.

He whistled softly, and picked up the biggest stone.

Although he was no expert he knew instinctively that it was a brilliant of exceptional quality. Even the roughness of its exterior could not mask the fire in its depths.

To him it was worthless, there was nowhere he could market a stone like that. There was no temptation to take it out of the Ring - all it would mean for him was fifteen years at hard labour.

The Ring was based on this mutual reliance, no one part of it could function without all the others - yet each part was self-contained and watertight. Only one man knew all its parts, and nobody knew who that one man was.

From the drawer beside him Hugo took out his tools and set them on the table. He lit the spirit stove and set the pot of paraffin wax in the gimbal above it to heat.

Then he poured the diamonds into a shiny metal can. It was the type of ordinary commercial can used for packing and preserving foodstuffs.

Balancing against the ship’s motion, he lifted the pot from the stove, and poured the steaming liquid wax over the diamonds, filling the can to rim level.

The wax cooled and solidified quickly, turning opaque and white.

The stones were now incorporated in a cake of wax that would prevent them rattling, and would give the sealed can authentic weight.

Hugo lit a cigarette and crossed the cabin to look out into the wheelhouse. The helmsman winked at him and Hugo smiled.

He went back to the table, the can was cool enough to handle. He placed the circular lid over it, and moved to the portable jenny bolted to a chest of drawers. Carefully he clinched the lid into place, his eyes squinting at the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from his lips.

Satisfied at last he set the sealed can on the table, while he went to where his jacket hung on the door. From the inside pocket he pulled out a manilla envelope, then from the envelope he drew a printed, colour-screened label. He came back to the bench and meticulously pasted the label around the can. On the label was a highly glamorized artist’s conception of a leaping pilchard, making it look like a Scottish salmon.

Pilchards in Tomato Sauce.” Hugo read the label aloud, as he leaned back to admire his work. “A product of South West Africa.” He smiled with satisfaction and began packing his equipment away.

How much?” The foreman of the fish pump called across the narrowing gap between Wild Goose and the jetty.

“About fifty tons,” Hugo shouted back. “Then the norther chased us home.”

“Ja. None of the boats stayed out.” The foreman watched his gang secure the mooring ropes, and swing the hose of the vacuum-pump over Wild Goose’s hold to begin pumping out her pilchards.

“Take over, Oscar.” Hugo picked up his jacket an 1 cap.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” He jumped down on to the jetty and strode down towards the canning factory with its awesome stink of pilchard oil. His jacket was slung over his shoulder, one finger hooked through the tag.

He went down an alley between the boiler rooms and the fish-drying plant, across a wide yard where the bags of fish meal were piled to the height of a double-storey building. He turned in through the double doors of the cavernous warehouse filled to roof height with cardboard cartons, each stencilled with the words: 1 gross cans.

Consign to: Pilchards in tomato sauce.

Vee Dee Bee Agencies Ltd.

32, Bermondsey Street, London, S.E. I He went into the cubicle that served the warehouse k storeman as an office.

“Hello, Hugo. Good trip?” The storeman was Hugo’s brotherin-law.

“Fifty ton.” Hugo hung his coat casually on the hook behind the door. “I’ve got to take a leak,” he said, and went to the latrine across the floor of the warehouse.

He came back, and drank a cup of tea with his brotherin-law. Then he stood and said, “Jeannie will he waiting.”

“Give her my love.”

“She don’t need yours. She’s going to get plenty of mine!” Hugo winked, and took his coat from the hook. It was lighter now, the can was gone from the pocket.

He went through the main gates of the harbour, exchanging a casual greeting with the customs officer, and went to the battered early model convertible in the car park.

He kissed the girl at the driving-wheel, threw his coat on the back seat and climbed in over the door.

“You drive,” he told her, grinning. “I want both hands free.” She squeaked and pulled his hand out of her skirts.

“Can’t you wait till we get home?”

“I’ve been at sea for five days and I’m hungry as hell.”

“You’re a caution, you are.” She laughed at him and started the car.

This was Sergio Caporetti, the man Johnny had chosen to captain

Kinesher. He was a round man, the same shape as a snowman. He filled the doorway of Johnny’s office, and his great belly bulging into the room ahead of him. His face was round also, like a baby’s - but the beautiful dark Italian eyes fringed with thick lashes like a girl’s.

“Come in, Sergio,“Johnny greeted him. “Nice to see you.” The

Italian crossed the room deceptively quickly, and Johnny’s hand was completely engulfed by the enormous hairy paw.

“So, at last we are ready,” Sergio grunted. “Three months I sit on bum - do nothing. Look at me - ” He slapped his belly with a sound like a pistol shot.” - fat! No good.”

“Well, not quite ready.” Johnny qualified the statement.

He was flying Sergio and his crew over to England well ahead of time. He wanted the big Italian to have plenty of opportunity to study and get to know the revolutionary new equipment with which Kingfisher was fitted. Then when the vessel was ready for sea, Sergio would sail her out to Africa.

“Sit down, Sergio. Let’s go over the crew list-” When Sergio left an hour later, Johnny went as far as the lift with him.

“If you have any problems phone me, Sergio.”

“Si.” Sergio shook hands. “Don’t worry - Caporetti is in charge. All is well.” On his way back Johnny stopped at the reception desk.

“Is Mrs. Hartford in today?” he asked one of the little receptionists, and both of them replied in chorus like Tweedledum and

Tweedledee.

“No, Mr. Lance.”

“Has she phoned to say where she is?”

“No, Mr. Lance.” Tracey had disappeared. Five days now there had been no sign of her, her new office was deserted and unused.

Johnny was worried and angry. He was worried that she had gone on another hinge, and he was angry because he missed her.

He was scowling ferociously as he went back into his office.

“Goodness me.” Lettie Pienaar stood beside his desk with a batch of mail in her hand. “We do look happy. Here’s something to cheer you.” She handed him a postcard with a colour picture of the Eiffel

Tower. It was the first word from Ruby since she had left. Johnny read it quickly.

“Paris - ” he said, ” - is fun, it seems.” He tossed the card on to the desk and plunged back into the day’s work.

He worked late, stopped at a steakhouse to eat, then drove back to the silent house in Bishopscourt.

The crunch of tyres on the gravel drive and headlights flashing across the bedroom wall woke him.

He sat up in bed as the front-doorbell began a series of urgent peals and he switched on the bedside light. Two o’clock - Christ!

He pulled a dressing-gown over his nudity and tottered down the passage, switching on lights as he went. The doorbell kept ringing.

He turned the front door key. The door flew open and Tracey came in like a strong wind, clutching a briefcase to her chest.

“Where the hell have you been?” Johnny was suddenly fully awake, angry and relieved.

“Johnny! Johnny!” She was dancing with excitement, incoherent, her cheeks flaming and eyes shining. “I’ve got them - at least, it, both of them.”

“Where have you been?” Johnny was not to be so easily sidetracked, and with an obvious effort Tracey brought her excitement under control, but she was still smiling and gave the impression of humming like an electric motor.

“Come.” She took his hand and dragged him into the lounge. “Get yourself a large whisky and sit down,” she ordered, imperious as a queen.

“I don’t want a whisky, and I don’t-” “You’ll need one,” she , and went to the open liquor cabinet, poured a massive whisky into a crystal glass, squirted soda into it, and brought it back to Johnny.

“Tracey, what the hell is going on?”

“Please, Johnny. It’s so wonderful, don’t spoil it for me.

just sit there, please!” Johnny sank reluctantly into the chair, and Tracey slipped the catch on her briefcase and drew out a sheaf of documents. She stood in the centre of the floor, and took up the pose of a Victorian actress.

“This she explained, is a translation from the original Cerman of a proclamation by Governor in Council dated 3rd May 1899 and issued at Windhoek. I will leave out the preamble and go straight to the meat.” She cleared her throatand began reading: “In consideration of the sum of 10,000 marks which is hereby paid and received, the rights to mine, win, recover, collect or carry away all metals, whether base or precious, stones whether base, semiprecious or precious, minerals, guano, vegetation and other substances organic or inorganic for a period of Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine years is granted to Messrs

Farben, Hendryck and Mosenthal S. A Guano Merchants of 14

Bergenstrasse, Windhoek, in respect of a circular area ten kilometres in radius whose centre shall be a point situated at the highest elevation of the island lying on latitude 23” 15” South and longitude

15” 12” East.” Tracey paused and looked at Johnny. He was frozen, stony-faced, staring at her with all his attention. She went on quickly, gabbling it out.

“All the old German mineral concessions and rights were ratified by the Union Parliament when the Union of South Africa took over the mandate after the Great War.” He nodded, unable to speak. Tracey’s smile kept breaking out.

“That concession still has all the force of law behind it.

The grant of any subsequent rights is invalid, and although the original grant was mainly for the recovery of guano yet it covers precious stones also.” Again Johnny nodded, and Tracey put the document at the bottom of the sheaf of papers in her hand.

“The concession Company, Farben, Hendryck and Mosenthal S. A is still in existence. The Company’s only remaining as set, apart from any long-forgotten concessions, is an old building at 14 Bergenstrasse, Windhoek.” Tracey seemed to change the subject suddenly.

“You asked me where I have been, Johnny. Well I’ve been to

Windhoek, an dover most of the worst roads in South West Africa.

The Farben, Hendryck and Mosenthal Company is owned by the brothers Hendryck, a couple of Karakul fur farmers. They are a pair of horrible old men, and when I saw them slitting the throats of those poor little Persian lambs just to prevent the fur uncurling, well-” Tracey paused, and gulped. “Well, I didn’t explain to them about the concession. I just offered to buy the Company, and they asked twenty thousand and I said “sign”, and they signed and I left them chuckling with glee. They thought they’d been terribly clever. There! It’s all yours!” Tracey handed the Agreement to Johnny and while he read it she went on.

“I made the Agreement in the name of Van Der Byl Diamonds, I

signed it - as a Director - I hope you don’t mind.”

“Christ!” Johnny took a long deep swallow of whisky, then set the glass down and stood up.

“Mind?” he repeated. “You bring me the concession to Thunderbolt and Suicide - and ask me if I mind.” He reached for her and eagerly she went to him.

“Tracey, you’re wonderful.” They hugged each other ecstatically, and Johnny swung her off her feet. Without either of them planning it they were suddenly lying, still in each other’s arms, on the couch.

Then they were kissing, and the laughter dwindled into small murmurs and incoherent sounds.

Tracey pulled away from him at last, and slipped off the couch.

She stood in the centre of the floor. Her breathing was ragged. Her hair was a dark tangle.

“Whoa! That’s enough.”

“Tracey.” He started up from the couch, wild for her, but she held him at the full stretch of her arms, her hands flat on his chest, backing away in front of him.

“No, Johnny, no!” She shook her head urgently. “Listen to me.” He stopped. The wild look faded from his eyes.

“Look, Johnny, God knows I’m no saint, but - well, I don’t want us to - well, not on a couch in some other woman’s house. That’s not how

I want it to be.” Benedict eased the big honey-coloured Bentley out of the traffic stream that clogged Bermondsey Street and turned into the gates of the warehouse. He parked beside the loading bay and climbed out.

As he pulled off his gloves, he glanced along the bank.

Mountains of goods were stacked ready for distribution.

Cases of Cape wine and spirits, canned fruit in brown cartons, canned fish, forty-gallon drums of fish oil, bundles of raw hides stiff as boards, and cases of indefinable goods all of it the produce of

Southern Africa.

Vee Dee Bee Agencies had grown out of all recognition in the ten years since Benedict had launched it.

Benedict climbed the steps to the bank three at a time, and strode down between the towering stacks of goods that reached up into the murk of the high ceiling. He walked with the assurance of a man on his own ground, the skirts of his overcoat swirling about his knees, broad-shouldered and tall. The storemen and porters greeted him deferentially as he passed, and when he entered the main office there was a stirring and whispering among the ranks of typists as though a wind had blown through a forest.

The Managing Director hurried out of his office to greet Benedict and usher him in.

“How: are you, Mr. van der Byl? There’s tea coming now.” And he stood behind Benedict to take his coat.

The meeting lasted half an hour, Benedict reading through the weekly sales and cost reports, querying an item here, remarking on a figure with pleasure or displeasure as it deserved. Many people watching him work would have been startled. This was not the indolent playboy they thought they knew, this was a hard-eyed businessman coldly and unemotionally milking the maximum profit from his enterprise.

There would have been others who wondered where Benedict had found the capital to finance a business of this magnitude, especially if they had known that he owned the premises, and that Vee Dee Bee Agencies was by no means his only stake in the world of business. He had not received money from his father - the Old Man had not believed Benedict capable of successfully negotiating the purchase of a pound of butter.

The meeting ended, and Benedict stood up and shrugged on his overcoat, while his Managing Director went to the grey steel safe in the corner, tumbled the combination and swung the heavy door open.

“The shipment arrived yesterday,” he explained as he reached into the safe and brought out the can. “On the SS Loch Elsinore from Walvis

Bay.” He handed the can to Benedict, who examined it briefly, smiling a little at the painting of the leaping fish and the lettering Pilchards in Tomato Sauce”.

“Thank you.” He slipped the can into his briefcase, and the

Managing Director walked with him back to the Bentley.

Benedict left the Bentley in a garage in Broadwick Street, and walked through the jostle of Soho until he reached the grimy brick building behind the square. He pressed the bell opposite the card that read Aaron Cohen, Manufacturing jeweller, and when the door opened he climbed the stairs to the top and fourth floor.

Again he rang, and after a while an eye peeped at him through the peephole - but the door opened almost immediately.

“Hello, Mr. van der Byl. Come in! Come in!” The young doorman welcomed him in and locked the door behind him. “Papa is expecting you!” he went on as they both looked up at the eye of the closed-circuit TV camera above the wrought-iron grille that barred the passage.

Whoever was viewing the screen was satisfied, for there was an electrical buzz and the grille swung open. The doorman led Benedict down the passage.

“You know the way. Papa is in his office.” Benedict was in a shabby little reception room, with a threadbare carpet and a pair of chairs that looked like Ministry of Works rejects. He turned to the right-hand door and went through it into a long room that clearly occupied most of the top floor of the building.

Along one side of the room ran a narrow bench, to which were bolted twenty small lathes. Each machine ran off a belt from a central drive below the bench. The man tending the machines wore a white dust jacket, and he grinned at Benedict. “Hello, Mr. van der Byl, Papa is expecting you.” But Benedict delayed a moment to watch the operation of the saws. In the jaws of each lathe was set a diamond, and spinning against the diamond was a circular blade of phosphor bronze. As

Benedict watched, the man turned back to the task of spreading a fine paste of olive oil and diamond dust on to the cutting edge of each blade - for it was not the bronze that cut. Only a diamond will cut a diamond.

“Some nice stones, Larry,” Benedict remarked, and Larry Cohen nodded.

“All of them between four and five carats.” Benedict leaned close and examined one of the diamonds.

The line of the cut was marked with Indian ink on the stone.

Benedict knew what heart-searching and discussion, what examination and drawing upon the rich storehouses of experience had preceded the positioning of that ink line. It might take two days to saw through each diamond, so Benedict left the bench and moved on.

In a row down the other side of the room sat the other Cohen brothers. Eight of them. Old Aaron was a great breeder of boys. They ranged in age from nearly forty to nineteen years and there were a couple who were still in school and hadn’t yet come into the business.

How are you Mr. van der byl? Michael Cohen looked up as

Benedict approached. Michael was shaping a fine diamond, cutting it into a round using a lesser stone as a blade. A small tray beneath the lathe caught the dust from the two stones. This dust would be used later for sawing and polishing.

“A beauty,” said Benedict. These men were of the brotherhood, working with diamonds all their lives and loving them as other men loved women or horses and fine paintings.

He moved on down the room, greeting each of the brothers, stopping to watch for a minute the loving care with which the elder boys, master craftsmen each of them, were cutting the precisely angled facets that make up the perfect round brilliant. The fifty-eight facets - table, stars, pavilions and the others which endow a cut stone with its mystic “life” and “fire’.

Leaving them crouched over their wheels, so similar to those of a potter, he went through the door at the end of the room.

“Benedict, my friend.” Aaron Cohen came from his desk to embrace him. He was a tall thin man in his late sixties with a thick silver-grey mane of hair, round-shouldered from years of crouching over a diamond wheel. “I did not know you were in London, they told me you were in Cape Town.

Benedict took the envelope from his pocket and shook twenty-seven diamonds on to the blotter of the desk.

“What do you think of those, Papa?”

“Shu! Situ!” Papa patted his own cheeks with delight, and he reached instinctively for the biggest stone.

“I should live to see such a stone!” He screwed a jeweller’s loupe into his eye, turning to catch the natural light from the high windows, and scrutinized the diamond through the eyepiece.

“Ah, yes. There is a feather*, but small. But we will cut through it. Yes, we will take two gems from this stone. Two perfect diamonds of ten or twelve carats each, and perhaps five smaller ones.” More than half a diamond’s bulk is lost in the cutting.

“Yes! Yes! From this stone we will sell a hundred thousand pounds’worth of polished diamonds!” Aaron crossed to the door. “Boys!

Come see! I will show you a prince among diamonds.” And his sons crowded into the office. Michael took it first and gave his opinion.

“A good stone, yes. But not of the same water as the stone we had in the last batch. You remember that octahedron crystal-” “What you talking!” his father . “You wouldn’t know a diamond from a piece of gorgonzola cheese already!”

“He is right, Papa.” Larry joined in the discussion. “The other stone was better.”

“So the Big Lover argues with his father! Little shiksas with skirts up around their tochis you know all about.

Semi-transparent veinlike flaw.

t Very very slight imperfection.

Dancing the Watsui and the Cha-Cha. Yes! But diamonds you know from nothing.” This declaration precipitated a full-scale, family argument in which each of the brothers joined with gusto.

“Shuddup! Shuddup! Back to work all of you! Out, Out” Aaron broke up the meeting, driving his sons from the office and slamming the door behind them.

“Shu!” He looked to heaven. “What a business! Now we can weigh the stones.” When they had weighed and tallied the stones, and Aaron had locked them into the safe, Benedict told him: “I am thinking of breaking up the Ring.” Aaron froze and looked across the desk at

Benedict.

Between them there was always the pretence that their relationship was legitimate. They never spoke about the Ring, or where the unregistered stones came from, or how the finished gems were sent to

Switzerland.

“Why?“Aaron asked carefully.

“I am a rich man now. With my father’s money, and what I have made from the Ring and invested. A very rich man. I no longer need to take the risks.”

“Such problems I wish I had. But perhaps you are wise

I would not think to argue with you.”

“There will be one or two more packages. Then it will be finished.” Aaron nodded. “I understand, he said. “Like all good things it must end.” It was a little after noon when Benedict parked the Bentley outside the mews flat off Belgrave

Square. He want to shower immediately he was home. In all the years he had lived here he had never grown accustomed to London’s grime-laden atmosphere, and he bathed or showered at least three times a day.

He sang in the shower, and then enveloped in a huge bath towel he left a string of damp footprints through to the lounge where he mixed a

Martini, and screwed up his eyes at the first stinging taste of the drink.

The phone rang.

“Van der Byl,” he said into the mouthpiece, and then his expression changed as he listened. Quickly he put down the glass and used both hands to hold the telephone receiver.

“What on earth are you doing here?” His tone of astonishment was not faked.

“What a wonderful surprise. When can I see you? How about right now - for lunch? That’s great! No, nothing I can’t put off - this is a pretty special occasion, you know.

Where are you staying? The Lancaster. Fine. Look, give me forty-five minutes, and I’ll meet you in the Looking-Glass Room on the top floor. Yes, ten past one. God, what a delightful - I’ve said that already. See you in three-quarters of an hour.” He replaced the receiver, swallowed the remains of his Martini and headed for his bedroom suite. This would make a good day into a truly remarkable one, he thought, as he quickly selected a silk shirt. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and grinned.

“The ball has really started bouncing your way, Benedict,” he whispered.

She was not at the bar, nor in the Looking-Glass Room.

Benedict crossed to the tall picture windows for a glimpse of one of London’s finest views across Hyde Park and the Serpentine. It was a smoky blue day, and the pale sun added bronze to the autumn shades of gold and red in the park.

He turned from the windows, and she was crossing the room towards him. His stomach swooped with delight for she also was pale gold with the coppery sheen of sun on her long legs and bare arms. The grace of her carriage was as he remembered it, the precise lifting and laying down of narrow feet on the thick pile of the carpet.

He stood quite still, letting her come to him. Heads turned all across the room, for she was a splendid golden creature. Benedict knew suddenly and clearly that he wanted this woman for himself.

“Hello, Benedict,” she said, and he stepped forward to take her hand in both of his.

“Ruby Lance!” He squeezed her long fingers gently. “It’s so good to see you again.” The use of her surname was the clue to the strength of his reaction. She belonged to the one man in the world that

Benedict most envied and hated. For this reason she was infinitely desirable.

“Let us celebrate with a little drink. I think the occasion deserves at the very least a champagne cocktail.” She sat with those long slim legs neatly crossed, leaning back in her chair, holding the stemmed glass with tapering fingers. Her hair hung straight to her shoulders, like some rare silken tapestry in white gold, and her eyes watched him with a catlike candour, a calm feline intentness that seemed to look into his soul.

“I should not have bothered you,” she said. “But I know so few people here.”

“How long can you stay?” He brushed aside the disclaimer.

“I must cancel my other arrangements.”

“A week.” She made it sound like an offer that was subject to negotiation.

“Oh, no!” His voice was mock distressed. “You can do better than that - we won’t be able to do half what I had planned in so short a time. You can stay longer, surely?”

“Perhaps,” she agreed, and lifted the glass an inch. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” Benedict agreed with emphasis. They sipped the sparkling wine watching each other’s eyes.

here others must wait weeks and months Benedict went in immediately as though it were This right. A smile and a murmured word, and theatre tickets were his or the doors of fashionable restaurants opened magically.

That first night he took her to the National Theatre, then for dinner at Le Coeur de France where a very famous movie actor stopped at their table.

(Hello, Benedict. We are all going on to the yacht later for a hit of a party. join us, won’t you?” And those legendary eyes turned to Ruby. “And bring your beautiful friend with you.” They ate breakfast under the awning on the after-deck of the yacht, eggs and bacon and Veuve Clicquot champagne, and watched the hubbub of dawn traffic on the wondrously smelly old Thames. Ruby was the only girl in the party without a fur to cheat the chill of the river dawn.

Benedict made a mental note of the fact.

On the way home she sat with those long legs curled under her in the seat of the Bentley, still sleek and golden despite the night’s exertions, but with the lightest touch of blue beneath her eyes.

“I can’t remember having enjoyed an evening so much, Benedict.”

She patted a tiny pink-lipped yawn. “You’re a wonderful companion.”

“Tonight again?“he asked.

“Yes, please,“she murmured.

he sensed an urgency in him, when she came down into the lobby of the Lancaster that evening. He came quickly to meet her as she stepped out of the lift, and the quiet assurance with which he kissed her cheek and took her arm surprised her.

They were silent as he snaked the Bentley through the evening traffic. Ruby realized that at the tips of her long tapered fingers, within touching distance, was a fortune such as she had never before allowed herself to dream about.

She was deadly afraid. A wrong move, even a wrong word might drive that fortune beyond her grasp for ever. She would never have a chance like this again, and she was afraid to move, almost paralysed with fear. The decision she knew she would have to make very soon would be fateful.

Must she encounter his advance with withdrawal, or must she meet it as frankly as it was inside.

She was so deeply involved with her thoughts that when the Bentley came to a standstill she looked up with surprise.

They were parked in a mews outside an expensive-looking flat.

Benedict came round and opened her door, and led her without protest into the flat.

She looked about her curiously, recognizing some of the art works on display in the entrance hall. Benedict took her through into the long lounge and settled her solicitously into the tapestry-covered chair which dominated the room like a throne, and suddenly her fear was gone. She felt queenlike in her control. She knew with certainty that this would all be hers.

Benedict stood in the centre of the room, almost a petitioner in his attitude, and he began to speak. She listened quietly, her expression showing no hint of the triumphant surge of her spirits, and when he stopped to wait for her reply she did not hesitate.

“Yes,” she said.

“I will be with you when you tell him,” Benedict promised.

“It won’t be necessary,” Ruby assured him. “I can handle Johnny

Lance.”

“No.” Swiftly Benedict crossed to her chair and took her hands, drawing her to her feet. “I must be there with you.

Promise me that.” Then it became suddenly evident to Ruby that the strength of her position was unassailable. Benedict needed her not for any physical reasons - but merely because she belonged to Johnny Lance.

Looking steadily into Benedict’s eyes she determined to test her intuition.

“He does not have to know about you,” she said. “I could arrange a divorce with him.”

“He must know about me. That’s what I want, don’t you see?”

“Yes, I see.” She was secure.

“It is agreed?” He could barely conceal his anxiety.

“Yes,” she nodded. “It’s agreed.” And they smiled at each other -

each completely satisfied.

“Come.” He led her almost reverently into his bedroom, and Ruby stopped in the doorway with a little cry of delight.

The double bed was a mountain of glowing fur in a score of shades ranging from soft pinkish cream, through beige and oyster, pale smoky blue to midnight and jet glossy black.

“Choose one!” he ordered her. “To seal our bargain.” She moved like a sleepwalker towards the bed, but as she reached the centre of the Khedive carpet Benedict called out softly.

“Wait.” She stopped obediently and he came up behind her. She felt his hands on the back of her neck, and she lowered her chin, shaking her hair forward so that he could unhook the clasp and draw down the fastening of her dress.

She stepped out of the dress as it dropped around her ankles, then waited passively as he carefully removed her brassiere.

“Now,” he said. “Try them on.” In her stockings and high-heeled shoes she went to the bed, subtly emphasizing the lilt of her movements, and took up the first fur.

Benedict was sprawled in the wing-back chair across the room as she glanced back at him. His face was gloating and flushed, so that his features seemed swollen and coarsened as he stared at her. She understood now that this was a form of ritual in which they were engaged. Like a victorious Roman general, Benedict was conducting his own personal triumph, reviewing the spoils and the plunder. It had no basis in sexual or physical desire, but was rather a service of worship to Benedict himself. She was the priestess of this rite.

Yet, knowing this, Ruby felt no resentment. Rather, she found herself excited by the cold perversity of the pageant.

As she paraded and postured, turned and swirled and flared the skirts of a wild mink, she was very conscious of his eyes upon her body. She knew it was perfect, and his scrutiny stirred her physically for the first time in her life. She felt her blood quicken and pound, felt her heart flutter within its cage of ribs like a captive bird, and her loins tighten like a clenching first. For her also the ritual was narcissistic satisfying her own deep emotional need.

As she discarded each of the coats she dropped it in the centre of the floor, until there was a knee-high pile of precious fur.

At last she faced him, hugging the soft creamy cloud tightly about her body. Then she opened her arms, and the coat also, standing on tip-toe to tighten and highlight the hard muscle in her legs and flanks.

This one,” she whispered, and he came out of the chair, picked her up in his arms and laid her, still wrapped in mink, on the great pile of furs.

Ruby woke in the double bed to a feeling of excitement and enormous well-being such as she had not experienced since she was a schoolgirl on the first morning of a holiday.

The morning was far advanced, pale sunshine in a square shaft poured through the open window like a stage effect.

Benedict in a yellow silk dressing-gown stood beside the bed watching her with an unfathomable expression which changed immediately he realized that she was awake.

“My man has collected your luggage from the Lancaster.

Your toilet things are in the bathroom, your clothing in the dressing-room.” He sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead and then each cheek.

“We will breakfast when you are ready.” He sat back and watched her eyes; clearly he was waiting for her to say something important.

Immediately she was on guard, wary of making a mistake, seeking a clue in his expression.

“Last night,” he asked. “Was it as good for you, as it was for me?” Understanding washed over her in a warm wave. He wanted assurance, a comparison between himself and Johnny Lance.

“I have never in my life She placed the emphasis carefully. “-

experienced anything like it.” He nodded, relieved, pleased - and stood up.

“After breakfast we will go to town.” This morning, Edmund, Benedict’s man, chauffeured the Bentley. When they alighted at the north end of Bond Street and walked arm in arm along the pavement, Edmund tailed them at a dignified crawl, steadfastly ignoring the abuse of other drivers.

The morning was cool enough for Ruby to wear her new cream mink, and the looks of admiration and envy she drew from the other strollers delighted Benedict. He wanted to impress her, he wanted to flaunt his wealth.

“The wife of a diamond man must have diamonds.” He spoke on impulse as they came up to an expensive-looking jewellers. Ruby squeezed his arm and turned to look into the window.

“Good Lord,” Benedict laughed. “Not here!” And Ruby looked at him with surprise.

Mockingly Benedict began reading the signs in the window.

“Paradise jewellers. A large selection of blue white gems.

Certificate of flawlessness with every diamond.

Perfect flawless stones at bargain prices as advertised on TV

and in the national Press. Small deposit secures your ring now. A

diamond is forever - show her you really care.””

“But they are such a well-known firm. They have branches all over the world - even in South

Africa!” Ruby protested, and bridled a little as Benedict smiled patronizingly.

“Let me explain about diamonds. They are bought for two reasons by two different types of people. Firstly by rich men as investments that will not erode and can only increase in value. These men buy notable stones on the advice of experts, the best of the gem diamond production goes to them. So when Richard Burton buys Liz a 300,000 pounds diamond he is not being extravagant - on the contrary he is being ultraconservative and thrifty with his money.”

“That’s the kind of meanness I like,” Ruby laughed, and Benedict smiled at her honesty.

“You may find me as thrifty,“he promised.

“Go on,” she said, “tell me more about diamonds.”

“Well, there is another type who buys diamonds. Usually just one in his life, luckily for him - and he very seldom tries to resell it again or he would get a nasty shock. This type is Joe Everybody who wants to get married. He usually goes to somebody like Paradise jewellers.” Benedict poked a derisive finger at the sign in the window. “Because he has seen it on telly and he can get a ring on the instalment plan. In many cases the deposit covers the dealer for the cost of the stone - the rest goes on advertising, finance charges and, of course, profit.”

“How do you know

Paradise jewellers are that type?” Ruby’s attention was wide-eyed and girlish.

“You recognize them firstly by the big Advertising splurge, then by their language.” Again he studied the notices in the window.”

A large selection of blue-white. gems” - of every thousand stones of jewellery quality produced only one is fine enough in colour to be termed blue-white. It is unlikely they have a large selection. “Gem”

is a special term reserved for a diamond which is in every way superb.

“Flawless stones at bargain prices” - the lack of flaws in a diamond is only one of many factors governing its value. As for bargain prices -

there ain’t no such animal. Prices are maintained at the lowest level by fierce competition among expert and canny dealers, and there are no “sales” or special prices for anyone

“But where should a person buy a diamond?” Ruby was impressed and dismayed despite herself.

“Not here.” Benedict chuckled. “Come, I will show you.” And before she could protest he had taken her arm and swept her into the shop, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the manager who must have noticed Ruby’s mink and the attendant Bentley, which was causing a small traffic jam outside the shop.

“Good morning, madam and sir. May I be of service to you?”