mean.” The manager fluttered his hands weakly. “How did you know that?”
“I like to know about all my employees.”
“Employees?“The manager looked stunned.
“That’s correct. My name is Benedict van der Byl. I own Paradise
Jewellers.” Ruby clapped her hands and cooed her applause.
“What a bundle of surprises you are!” she exclaimed.
Benedict smiled in acknowledgement and inclined his head.
“Now,” he said, as he rose and helped Ruby to her feet.
“We will go and buy some real diamonds. Aaron Cohen sold them two fine white twin marquisecut brilliants, and Ruby chose the mounting for a pair of white-gold earrings from a leather-bound catalogue.
Benedict gave Aaron his cheque for twenty thousand pounds, then turned to Ruby.
“Now,” he said. “We’ll have lunch at the Celeste Grillroom. The food is bloody awful - but the decor is stupendous. We had best phone and reserve a table - it isn’t really necessary but they get terribly hurt if you don’t.” As they settled back in the lush upholstery of the
Bentley, Benedict instructed the chauffeur.
“Go past Trafalgar Square, Edmund. I want to pick up the newspapers from South Africa House.” Edmund double-parked outside the
Ambassador’s entrance, and the doorman recognized the car and hurried inside to fetch the bundle of newspapers.
As they pulled away around the square towards Haymarket, Benedict selected a copy of the Cape Argus.
“Let’s see what’s happened at home.” He glanced at the front page, and stiffened perceptibly.
“What is it?” Ruby leaned towards him anxiously, but he ignored her. His eyes were darting across the page like the shuttle of a loom.
She saw the colour fade from his face, leaving it white and intent.
He finished reading, and pushed the paper towards her. She spread the page.
VAN DER BYL DIAMONDS WIN VALUABLE CONCESSION.
APPEAL COURT SUPPORTS KAISER’S MINERAL GRANT.
LANCE GETS THUNDERBOLT AND SUICIDE.
Bloemfontein, Thursday.
“In an urgent application by the Central Diamond Mines Ltd, to prevent Van Der Byl Diamonds Ltd prospecting and mining a concession area off the South West African Coast, Mr. justice Tromp today dismissed the application with costs stating in his judgment: “The original concession granted by German Imperial Decree in 1899, and subsequently ratified by Act of the Union Parliament in Act 24 of the 1920 must hold good in law, and will take precedent over any subsequent grant or concession purporting to have been made by the Minister of Mines to any other party.”
“The area in dispute covers 100 square kilometres surrounding two small islands lying some fifteen miles south of Cartridge Bay and five miles offshore. The islands are known as Thunderbolt Island and
Suicide Island, and at the turn of the century were the site of considerable exploitation by a German guano company. Mr. John Rigby
Lance, the General Manager of Van Der Byl Diamond Co. Ltd, acquired the rights to the concession when he took over the inoperative guano company.
“In Cape Town today Mr. Lance stated: “It’s the opportunity I have waited for all my life. All indications are that Thunderbolt and
Suicide will prove to be one of the richest marine diamond fields in the world.”
“Van Der Byl Diamond Co. had a diamond-dredging vessel nearing completion in the United Kingdom, and Mr. Lance stated that he hoped to begin recovery operations off Thunderbolt and Suicide Islands before the end of the year.” Ruby lowered the paper and looked at Benedict.
What she saw was an intense physical shock.
Benedict had crumpled down in the seat. Gone was all the assurance and savoir fare. His face was deathly pale, but now his lips trembled and with disgust she saw that his eyes were swimming with tears. He hunched forward over his hands, shaking his head gently and hopelessly.
“The bastard,” he whispered, and his voice was soggy and muffled.
“He does it every time. I thought that I had him at last but - Oh God, I hate him He looked at her, his face soft with self-pity. “He does it every time. Often I’ve thought I had him, but he just-” She was mystified by his reaction.
“Aren’t you pleased? Van Der Byl Diamonds will make millions-“
“No! No!” he cut in savagely, and then the years of hatred and frustration and humiliation began pouring out.
Ruby listened quietly, slowly beginning to understand it all, marvelling at the accumulation of pain and hatred that he exposed for her. He remembered conversations from twenty years ago. Small childhood episodes, innocent remarks that had festered and rankled for a decade.
“You don’t want him to succeed, is that it?“she asked.
I want to crush him, break him, humiliate him.” For ten seconds
Ruby was silent.
“Well, what are we going to do about it?“she asked flatly.
“Nothing, I suppose.” Benedict’s tone irritated her. “He always comes out on top, you just can’t-, “Nonsense,” Ruby snapped. She was angry now. “Let’s go over it carefully, and see how we can stop him. He is only human, and you have shown me enough to prove you are a brilliant and successful businessman.” Benedict’s expression changed, becoming trusting and animated. He turned to her almost eagerly: he blinked his eyes. “Do you really believe that?”
The bunk was too narrow, Sergio Caporetti decided, much too narrow.
He would have one of the carpenters alter it today.
He lay on his back, wedged in firmly, with the blanketcovered mound of his belly blocking his view southwards.
He lay and assessed his physical condition. It was surprisingly good. There was but a small blurred pain behind his eyes and the taste of stale cigars and rank wine in the back of his throat was bearable.
The leaden feeling in his lower limbs alarmed him until he realized that he was still wearing his heavy fisherman’s boots. He remembered one of the girls complaining about that.
He hoisted himself on one elbow, and looked at the girls.
One on each side of him, jamming him solidly into the bunk with magnificent hillocks of pink flesh. Big strong girls both of them, he had chosen them with care, neither of them an ounce under twelve stone.
Sergio sighed happily it had been a wonderful weekend. The girls were snoring, in such harmony that it might have been a rehearsed stage act.
He listened to them with mild admiration for a few minutes, then crawled over the outside girl and stood in the centre of the cabin, clad only in his heavy boots. He yawned extravagantly, scratching the thick black wiry curls that covered his chest and belly, and cocked an eye at the bulkhead clock. Four o’clock on a Monday morning, but it had been a truly memorable weekend.
The table was hidden under a forest of empty wine bottles, and dirty plates. There was a congealed mass of cold spaghetti bolognaise in a dish and he picked it up. As he clumped out of the cabin on to
Kingfisher’s bridge he was scooping up spaghetti with his fingers and cramming it into his mouth.
He stood at the rail of the bridge, a naked hairy figure in tall black boots clutching a dish of spaghetti to his chest, and looked around the dockyard.
Kingfisher was in stocks undergoing the modifications that Johnny
Lance had ordered. She was standing high above the level she would attain when she was launched.
Although she was a vessel of a mere 3,000-ton displacement, she appeared black and monstrous in the floodlights that illuminated the ship-builders” yard. It was obvious from her unusual silhouette that she was designed for a special purpose. Her superstructure was situated well aft like that of an oil tanker, while her foredeck was crowded by the huge gantry which would control the dredge, and by the massive storage tanks for the
