Diamond Dust

'So what went wrong?'

Fiona's expression switched suddenly to a penetrating frown. 'Well you know, don't you?'

'We'd rather hear it from you,' Diamond improvised.

'His habit.'

He gave a nod that was meant to be knowing, encouraging her to say more, while he reeled from the mental jolt she'd just given him.

'I didn't suspect anything when we first met,' she went on. 'He was nothing like my idea of an addict. Not that I knew the first thing about drugs. I was incredibly naive. Ted handled the accounts, banked the takings. I trusted him. I had no idea he'd run through my savings and was putting nothing back. The money was all going to drug- dealers. And all this time he looked perfectly healthy, cooked beautifully, treated me like a goddess.'

'What was he on?'

'H,' Gina murmured.

Diamond's face registered nothing of this bombshell. Inwardly he cursed his sluggish brain for failing to think of drugs. What else could have brought a successful, articulate man to the squalor of that terrace behind Paddington Station?

'But you know all about him,' Fiona said.

'Hearing it just as you tell it is so much more helpful,' he said with all the calm he could drag up from his plunging self-esteem. The case against Dixon-Bligh was red-hot now. He wanted to run through it in his head, item by item, but he had to listen. There could be more.

Fiona said, 'It came to the point where even I found out what was going on - that we had a huge overdraft and a mass of unpaid bills. It was heart-breaking. Such deceit. I found a syringe and needles hidden in a casserole dish high up in a cupboard in the kitchen. He was full of repentance. Drug-users are when they're found out. I was stupid enough to trust him and expect him to stop. We went on for a few weeks more and the bills just mounted up. He was still buying the stuff, still injecting. We closed the restaurant and I used the rest of my savings to clear some of our debts. Ted went off to live in London and I didn't want or expect to hear from him ever again.'

'But you did?'

'Earlier this year. He knocked on my door one afternoon. I suppose it wasn't difficult to track me down. Everyone knows I live in Puttenham. Can you believe he was asking for money again? Addicts have no shame at all. He wanted a thousand pounds. Said it would be a loan and he'd pay me back at ten per cent interest. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was disgusted he had the gall to come back to me wanting more of my money. He went on arguing, saying he now had a very good job at the Dorchester Hotel.'

'The Dorchester}'

'Assistant chef, or something. I didn't believe him, and then he fished in his pocket for some letter on headed notepaper confirming the appointment. I still said it made no difference and I didn't have money to lend him. But he's so crafty, nosing around the cottage, spotting nice bits of furniture he'd never seen before. He soon cottoned on to the fact that my father had died the December before last and I was the main beneficiary. Once he'd got the scent of the money, he said he'd take me into his confidence because he was on the verge of making so much that he'd soon be in a position to pay me back at twenty per cent if I wanted, and he'd still have so much left he'd never bother me again. I thought he was talking about the lottery or something and I treated it all with contempt, and I suppose that just fired him up. Next thing he was telling me about these Arabs he'd met.'

Gina said quickly, 'I think you should stop there, Fiona.'

'Why?'

'They've heard enough.'

'But we haven't We need to hear it all,' Diamond said at once. 'We know what Dixon-Bligh is like, and we're keen to stop him ruining more people's lives.' He ignored the foul look he got from Gina and said, 'Together, we'll do it'

Fiona turned to Gina. 'You told me they were the police.'

'We are,' Stormy said.

'I can trust them, can't I? I'd like to tell it.'

Gina, outgunned, sighed and said nothing.

Fiona took up her thread again. 'Ted told me these Arabs made a deal with him. They'd offered him twenty thousand in return for inside information from the Dorchester. All he had to do was find out in advance when some prince from Kuwait was due to stay. Apparently it's all done secretly for security reasons. Nobody is supposed to know until they arrive, but of course certain people have to be told, and Ted knew who to ask. As simple as that, he said.'

'And he'd tip off the Arabs?'

'And get paid. He was ready to write me an IOU on the strength of it. He needed money now for his drugs.

He couldn't wait for this payday, as he called it.'

'Did you give him any?'

'No. I wouldn't be so daft. You know that old saying? He that deceives me once, shame fall him; if he deceives me twice, shame fall me.' Fiona Appleby obviously didn't think she'd put her life at risk to preserve her self- respect.

'However, I've got to say this in Ted's favour. He wasn't lying this time. There really was some underhand arrangement going on. Whether these mysterious Arabs would pay him all that money I had no idea, but he believed it.

He was going through with it, I'm positive.'