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  ‘And when I’ve elicited this vital piece of evidence, Inspector, I’ll get two years knocked off my sentence, as you promised?’ Benny reminded him.

  ‘Don’t push your luck, Friedman. I accept that you’ve earned a year off, but you won’t get the other year until you find out where those diamonds are. So get back to your cell, and keep your ears open and your mouth shut.’

  It was on a Saturday morning that Bryant asked Benny, ‘Have you ever fenced any diamonds?’

  Benny had waited weeks for Bryant to ask that question. ‘From time to time,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a reliable dealer in Amsterdam, but I’d need to know a lot more before I’d be willing to contact him. What sort of numbers are we talkin’ about?’

  ‘Is ten mill out of your league?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Benny, trying not to rise, ‘but it might take a little longer than usual.’

  ‘All I’ve got is time,’ said Bryant, slipping back into one of his long, contemplative silences. Benny prayed that it wasn’t going to be another six weeks before he asked the next question.

  ‘What percentage would you pay me if I let you fence the diamonds?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘My usual terms are twenty per cent of the face value, strictly cash.’

  ‘And how much do you sell them on for?’

  ‘Usually around fifty per cent of face value.’

  ‘And how much will your contact make?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ said Benny. ‘He doesn’t ask me where it comes from, and I don’t ask him how much he makes out of it. As long as we all make a profit, the less anyone knows the better.’

  ‘Does it matter what kind of stones they are?’

  ‘The smaller the better,’ said Benny. ‘Always avoid the big stuff. If you brought me the Crown Jewels, I’d tell you to fuck off, because I’d never find a buyer. Small stones aren’t easy to trace, you can lose them on the open market.’

  ‘So you’d cough up a couple of mill, if I deliver?’

  ‘If they’re worth ten million, yes, but I’d need to see them first.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ asked Bryant, looking Benny straight in the eye.

  ‘Because figures reported in the press aren’t always reliable. Crime reporters like numbers with lots of noughts, and they only ever round them up.’

  ‘But they were insured for ten million,’ said Bryant, ‘and don’t forget the insurance company paid up in full.’

  ‘I won’t make an offer until I’ve seen the goods,’ said Benny.

  Bryant fell silent again.

  ‘So where are they?’ asked Benny, trying to make the words sound unrehearsed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where they are,’ said Bryant.

  ‘It matters if you expect me to give you a valuation,’ snapped Benny.

  ‘What if I could show you half a dozen of them right now?’

  ‘Stop pissing me about, Kev. If you’re serious about doin’ a deal, tell me where they are. If not, fuck off.’ Not tactics Inspector Matthews would have approved of, but with his appeal coming up in a few days’ time, Benny couldn’t afford to wait another six weeks before Bryant spoke again.

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Bryant quietly. ‘So shut up and listen for a minute, unless you’re doing a bigger deal this week?’ Benny thought about another year being knocked off his sentence and remained silent. ‘While I was banged up on remand, one of the cons was arrested for possession. Heroin, class A.’

  ‘So what?’ said Benny. ‘People get arrested for possession every day.’

  ‘Not while they’re in prison, they don’t.’

  ‘But how did he get the gear in?’ asked Benny, suddenly taking an interest.

  ‘This con picks up the stuff from a mate while he’s on trial at the Old Bailey. Durin’ one of the breaks he asks to go to the toilet, knowing that the guard has to stay outside while he’s in the cubicle. While he’s on the john, he stuffs the gear into a condom, ties a knot in it and swallows it.’

  ‘But if the condom split open in his stomach,’ said Benny, ‘he’d be history.’

  ‘Yeah, but if he gets it into prison, he can make a grand. Five times what he’d pick up on the out.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Benny.

  ‘Once he’s banged up in here, he waits till the middle of the night, sits on the toilet, where the screws can’t see him through the spy hole, and—’

  ‘Spare me the details.’

  After another long pause, Bryant said, ‘On the day I was sentenced I did the same thing.’

  ‘You swallowed two ounces of heroin?’ asked Benny in disbelief.

  ‘No, you stupid bugger, you’ve not been payin’ attention.’ Benny remained silent while Bryant rolled a cigarette then kept him waiting until he’d lit it and inhaled several times. ‘I swallowed six of the diamonds, didn’t I?’

  ‘Why in Gawd’s name would you do that?’

  ‘Prison currency, in case I ever found myself dealin’ with a bent screw, or in need of a favour from an old lag.’

  ‘So where are they now?’ asked Benny, pushing his luck.

  ‘They’ve been in this cell for the past three months, and you haven’t even set eyes on them.’

  Benny said nothing as Bryant climbed down from the top bunk and took a plastic fork from the table. He slowly began to unstitch the centre strip that ran down the side of his Adidas tracksuit bottoms. It was some time before he was able to extract one small diamond. Benny’s eyes lit up when he saw it sparkle under the naked light bulb.

  ‘Six stripes means six diamonds,’ Bryant said in triumph. ‘If any screw checked my tracksuit, he would have found more stashed in there than he earns in a year.’

  Bryant handed the diamond over to Benny, who took it across to the tiny barred window and studied it closely while he tried to think.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Can’t be sure yet, but there’s one way to find out. Let me see your watch.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Bryant, holding out his arm.

  Benny didn’t reply, but ran the edge of the stone across the glass, leaving a thin scratch on the surface.

  ‘Hey, what’s your game?’ said Bryant, pulling his arm away. ‘I paid good money for that watch.’

  ‘And I won’t be wasting good money on this piece of shit,’ said Benny, handing the stone back to Bryant before returning to the bottom bunk and pretending to read his newspaper.

  ‘Why the fuck not?’ asked Bryant.

  ‘Because it’s not a diamond,’ said Benny. ‘If it was, it would have shattered the glass on your watch, not just left a scratch on the surface. You’ve been robbed, my friend,’ said Benny, ‘and by a very clever man who’s palmed you off with paste.’

  Bryant stared at his watch. It was some time before he stammered out, ‘But I saw Abbott fill the bag with diamonds from his safe.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you saw him fill the bag with something, Kevin, but whatever it was, it wasn’t diamonds.’

  Bryant collapsed on to the only chair in the cell. Eventually he managed to ask, ‘So how much are they worth?’

  ‘Depends how many you’ve got.’

  ‘A sugar bag full. It weighed about two pounds.’

  Benny wrote down some numbers on the back of his newspaper before offering his considered opinion. ‘Two grand perhaps, three at the most. I’m sorry to say, Kev, that Mr Abbott saw you coming.’

  Bryant began picking at the remaining stripes on his track-suit bottoms with the plastic fork. Each time a new stone fell out, he rubbed it across his watch. The result was always the same: a faint scratch, but the glass remained firmly intact.

  ‘Twelve years for a few fuckin’ grand,’ Bryant shouted as he paced up and down the tiny cell like a caged animal. ‘If I ever get my hands on that bastard Abbott, I’ll tear him apart limb from limb.’

  ‘Not for another twelve years you won’t,’ said Benny helpfully.