‘This one four years,’ said Osman. ‘But it’s not finished. The other two are five each.’
‘Fourteen years. And before that?’
‘I don’t have records before I came to England. It was the war, you know,’ said Osman. He made it sound like the war explained everything.
‘No, I don’t know. You’re lying,’ said Jacob, losing his temper as his frustration boiled over. He’d pinned all his hopes on the stupid safe, and it had yielded him nothing. Trave had been right about Blackwater Hall. There was nothing here — no evidence, no proof, nothing. Or at least nothing that he was going to find without Osman’s help. And that help would only be forthcoming if Osman really believed that Jacob would kill him if he didn’t talk. The bastard didn’t believe that at present — that much was obvious. Jacob had to convince him. That’s what he needed to do.
‘Get down on your knees,’ he ordered, stepping back and retraining the gun on Osman’s head.
Osman saw the homicidal look in Jacob’s eyes and was filled with a mortal terror that he’d never felt before. He couldn’t be going to die. Not now when he’d finally got everything he’d ever wanted. He grabbed a handful of the silk bags from inside the safe and pulled open their drawstrings, spilling radiant diamonds of all sizes and colours and cuts into his hand, holding them out to Jacob.
‘Here, take them,’ he said. ‘There are more, lots more. I can sell them for you if you want. They’re worth millions, more than you can imagine.’
Jacob looked down at the array of jewels glittering in Osman’s outstretched hand and felt like he was going to be sick. He thought of his family members, dying terrible deaths in unspeakable places just so Osman could get hold of these meaningless baubles of crystal carbon and call them his own. They enraged him, and he leant forward with his free hand and dashed the diamonds out of Osman’s hand onto the floor. They fell, scattering in all directions across the pale blue Axminster carpet, and such was Osman’s obsession with the jewels that he looked down at them for a moment in disbelief, unable to believe that a person could treat such beauty with such contempt. But then he looked back up into Jacob’s cold, angry eyes and remembered his situation.
‘Get down on your knees,’ Jacob commanded again.
But Osman stood his ground: he knew what would happen when he knelt, and he wasn’t going to assist in his own death. He closed his eyes and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in for rescue, and, as if in direct response, the roar of a police siren rent the silence, followed by the sound of a car coming fast up the drive. And suddenly the fog outside was lit up by flashing blue lights. Doors were opening — car doors and the front door of the house, and several moments later a familiar voice shouted up at them from down below: ‘Come out, Jacob Mendel. We know you’re in there. Come out now.’
Keeping his gun trained on Osman, Jacob crossed the room and looked quickly down into the courtyard through the shattered window. The fog had cleared a little, and in the lights he could just about make out the faces of the figures down below: the young detective who’d held him in his flat with Trave was the one who had shouted, and a few yards away on the other side of the fountain was a big burly man in police uniform whom Jacob didn’t recognize. Beyond them, two figures, who could only be Jana Claes and the maid who’d answered the door, were running away up the drive.
‘Fuck!’ Backing away from the window, Jacob vented his anger with a series of expletives, and then he noticed how Osman had risen up to his full height again, puffing out his chest like he had nothing left to fear, like he was back to being Titus Osman, the king of diamonds again. He laughed mirthlessly at Osman’s lack of understanding, realizing suddenly that the police were an opportunity for him, not Osman. They could be witnesses to Osman’s confession. Jacob was grateful for their arrival.
‘Get over by the window,’ he ordered, pressing the cold, hard muzzle of the gun against the back of Osman’s head to force him forward. Down below the two policemen were looking up at them through the mist.
‘Now tell them,’ ordered Jacob in a steely voice. ‘Tell them what you did. Tell them about my parents, about how you betrayed them to the Nazis, about how you sent them to Auschwitz on the cattle train. Tell them about my brother, about how you and Claes put a knife in his back. Tell them about Katya. Tell them, Titus. I’ll kill you if you don’t. I swear I will.’
But Osman wasn’t listening. He thought of jumping, but it was too far and he was too frightened. ‘Help me,’ he shouted, not at Clayton but at the burly man standing behind him. ‘That’s what I pay you for.’
Below, Wale backed away towards the police car without responding, leaving it to Clayton to do the talking. ‘Let him go,’ Clayton shouted up at Jacob. ‘Claes is dead. Isn’t that enough?’
But Jacob wasn’t listening. All his attention was focused on the trembling man in front of him. ‘Confess,’ he demanded, thrusting the gun into the small of Osman’s back. ‘Confess and I’ll let you go.’
‘No,’ said Osman. ‘I’m an innocent man.’ He shouted out the words so that everyone could hear them: Jana and the servants on the other side of the courtyard; the policemen down below; and even Osman’s cat, who’d emerged from under the bed and now stood watching the man who was hurting her master over by the window, forcing him to cry out in pain. Suddenly Cara arched her back and launched herself through the air, hanging on to Jacob’s shoulder with her claws as she sank her teeth into his neck, and, shocked to the core by this utterly unexpected attack from behind, Jacob dropped the gun.
Osman was onto the opportunity in an instant. Displaying an entirely unexpected athleticism for a man of his age, he dived to the ground, seized the gun in his hand, and rolled away towards the door.
Jacob staggered back into the room, struggling to get a firm grip on the cat as she continued her assault, scratching at his face and neck. Finally he succeeded in getting both his hands around her squirming body and threw her against the far wall, from where she fell to the floor with a shriek and then disappeared back under her master’s bed.
Jacob couldn’t see for a moment. Blood was spurting out from a line of cuts on his forehead, and he put up his hand to wipe it away. When he opened his eyes he found himself looking straight down the barrel of his own gun.
‘Don’t move. Don’t speak,’ said Osman. They were over by the bed, out of view of the people in the courtyard down below.
‘So you want to hear my confession, do you?’ he asked. His voice was a whisper. His head was inches from Jacob’s; it was almost as if he was kissing Jacob with his words, feeling for his fear with the gun. ‘You want to be my priest? You want to give me absolution for my sins?’
Jacob looked at his adversary, saying nothing, waiting to hear the truth. Behind him the soft winter breeze blew into the white silk curtains through the remains of the broken window, and down below Adam Clayton took Franz Claes’s gun out of his pocket, looked at it a moment, steeling his courage to the sticking place, and then went up the steps and entered the house through the wide-open front door.
‘There’s a line I can hardly read here,’ said Trave. His forehead was furrowed with concentration as he held Katya’s little diary up to the light. ‘It’s smudged like she spilt something on the page, or maybe she was crying.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Vanessa, nearly beside herself with impatience. ‘Get on with it, Bill. Put me out of my misery, for Christ’s sake.’
And Trave began to read again, slowly deciphering Katya’s scribbled words:
My uncle was sitting at his desk with Ethan’s note in front of him. And he looked up at me and smiled and I knew the truth then once and for all. He didn’t need to admit it. I knew what he had done. To Ethan and to David and to Ethan’s parents and to all those Jews he didn’t save.
‘So you found something, little Katya,’ he said. He’d never called me that before. ‘A whisper from the past. But that’s all it is, you know. A whisper; a murmur on the breeze that nobody will ever hear.’ And he picked up the writing pad and threw it on the fire and I watched it burn. Burn my proof to ashes; my hope to dust.
I looked at him and I spat in his face and he took out a silk handkerchief and wiped the spit away. He was still smiling, told me he was sorry it had come to this and even looked half-regretful when Franz took hold of me from behind and dragged me upstairs. I can still feel Franz’s cold hands on my body even now two hours later: killer’s hands they are, with no pity in them at all; no mercy. They’re going to kill me. I know they are. Just like they killed Ethan. So why don’t they get it over with? What are they waiting for?
‘They were waiting to get David Swain out of gaol; that’s what they were waiting for,’ said Trave, looking up. ‘So that they could set him up with the murder.’
But Vanessa wasn’t listening. Her face had crumpled up, and her body shook with terrible sobs. Titus was a murderer and she was his accomplice. That was the truth. If she had gone to the police with what Katya had told
