The Diamond Thief (4 page)

Four

A Jade’s Trick

Claudette was waiting for Rémy when she got back to the circus field.

“You are very nearly late!” her friend scolded as she ran into the shadow of the big top. “I was about to send in the clowns – the crowd is becoming restless!”

As if on cue, the audience inside the tent began to stamp their feet – just a few at first, but then more and more, in unison. The woody thump echoed in the cold night air. Hauling off her gown, Rémy quickly pulled on the costume Claudette held out instead – a yellow one this time, not Rémy’s favourite, but an old faithful – and slipped into her silver slippers.

“It was worth it, believe me,” she said, pushing the stolen gem into Claudette’s hand. “Take that to Gustave, will you? I will go see him myself once I am off the wire.”

Claudette looked down at the stone in her palm. It glittered weakly in the poor light. “What is it?”

“What do you think?”

Her friend’s eyes widened. “You were not supposed to steal it tonight! You were supposed to wait!”

Rémy ignored Claudette’s protests and, with a final dab of greasepaint, ran for the big top’s entrance. “Tell Am
é
lie we shall have a good dinner tonight!”

She was up on the trapeze in a trice. Rémy flew better than she had in weeks, fired up by the bravery of her theft and by the shouts of the crowd below, whose anger soon turned to delight when they saw her. She swooped and dived, spun and soared like a wonder through the smoke-fugged air. The trapeze was her freedom, and she danced with it, happily.

If she hadn’t been so absorbed in her performance, she would have looked down to see two of London’s policemen enter and then look up at her. She would have seen them talk, the portly one shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders as the other tried to convince him that the girl on the trapeze had been at the Tower of London moments earlier. She would then have seen the portly one leave, stalking out of the big top muttering that the young detective was a lunatic and that his time had been wasted.

But she didn’t see any of that, just as she didn’t see Thaddeus Rec slip out of the tent and head for the caravans where the circus folk lived. Rémy thought only of the fact that she had done as Gustave had ordered and now they could go home to France, where at least the weather was better even if the food was still scarce. Perhaps she would have earned enough money to leave Le Cirque de la Lune behind forever.

It was these thoughts that preoccupied her as she rode her last victory lap with Dominique twenty minutes later, and exited the circus tent on a wave of thunderous applause. Claudette was waiting for her, as always – but this time her face was grave.

“Claudette?” Rémy asked. “Is something wrong? Why do you look so serious? Surely we have reason enough to celebrate tonight? Where is Am
é
lie? She must be hungry, yes?”

Claudette shook her head. “Go see Gustave, Rémy. And I warn you – I have not seen him this angry before. Be careful, Little Bird.”

“Angry?” Rémy asked, astonished. “How can he be angry? Not with me, surely? I have done everything he asked, I have –”

“Not everything, Rémy,” Claudette said softly. “Go, now, before you give him more reasons for fury.”

Thinking her friend must have misunderstood their master’s mood, Rémy did as she was told. Gustave’s caravan was in darkness, and this time there was no sign of Dorffman or his mournful violin. She knocked on the door and then let herself in, finding the circus master sitting at his table in a gloom lessened by a single candle. The weak flame cast sharp, flickering shadows around the walls, and made the space seem smaller somehow, as if the caravan had shrunk since her last visit.

Rémy sniffed, hoping for the aroma of chicken, but there was nothing but the faint smell of damp, covered by a stronger stench of the thick red wine that Gustave liked to drink.

“Master?” she asked, puzzled by his silence. “I – I am just off the wire. Did Claudette bring you the stone?”

Gustave looked up at her, his dark eyes hooded. Rémy glanced at his hand and realized that he held the diamond in his palm.

“Lock the door,” Gustave growled, and she obeyed, pulling the heavy bolt across the door. “Now, is this the stone you gave to Claudette?” he asked quietly.

Rémy nodded. “Is it not magnificent?”

Gustave tossed the gem towards her, across the table. It clunked heavily as it hit the rough wooden surface, turning over once to lie, dull and still, in front of Rémy.

“It is a fake,” Gustave said, his voice low and very, very dangerous.

Rémy stopped breathing. Her hearing buzzed, as if someone had slapped her hard. She was so shocked she could not move, not even to shake her head.

“No,” she managed at last, the word barely heard in the thick silence gathering in the shadows around her.

“Yes,” said Gustave. “You have brought me a worthless lump of glass. As worthless as you yourself are, Rémy Brunel. I trusted you. I told you what to do. And you failed me.”

“No,” said Rémy again, stronger this time. “No. No – it cannot be possible. It cannot!”

Gustave waved his fat finger at the stone between them. “Pick it up, oh great knower of gems. Tell me that is the world’s second most valuable diamond.”

Rémy reached out with trembling fingers. She held it in her palm and felt the dread grow heavy in her heart. The stone looked lifeless. There was no light in its glitter, no fire, only reflection. It was as dead as the drinking glass that held Gustave’s deep red wine.

“I don’t… I don’t understand…” she stammered. “How can this be?”

“How?” Gustave bellowed, suddenly slamming his hand down on the table with a crack so loud that Rémy jumped. “I’ll tell you how, Little Bird. You have been fooled. A jade’s trick. They are not showing the real stones. The exhibition is only of fakes.”

“No,” Rémy said, trying desperately to understand what was happening. “That is not so. The stone I saw in the glass case – it was real. I swear it. I – I have never seen another diamond like it. It was real.”

“Then explain!” Gustave roared, “Explain to me how we are sitting here now, with a fake stone!”

Rémy shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What were you doing, taking it tonight, anyway?” Gustave went on, standing up and beginning to pace, his bulk filling the small caravan almost to the ceiling. “I told you to reconnoitre only. I expected you to confirm that the diamond being displayed was real, and to find a way to get in and out quietly without anyone noticing. No alarm bells, no witnesses. Do you remember my instructions?”

“Yes,” said Rémy, faintly, still dazed and staring at the lacking gem, “but I saw an opportunity. The stone was out of its casing. It was… it was there for the taking, in his pocket…”

“In whose pocket?”

“In… in the policeman’s pocket. Thaddeus Rec. He had it… in his pocket.”

Gustave looked at Rémy as if she had gone completely mad. “You took this from a policeman’s pocket?”

Rémy wasn’t listening, still trying to piece together what had happened. Lord Abernathy had fallen, and the stone’s case had been cracked. The Chief Inspector must have picked it up, and then she’d seen him give it to Thaddeus. It was as simple as that. The diamond had been real in the case, but not when she had taken it from his pocket. Did he have another hidden in there? Had it been a double bluff? No, surely not. Then how…?

“Lord Abernathy,” she whispered.

Gustave stopped pacing, his back to her. He turned, slowly. “What did you say?”

“He… he was taken ill,” Rémy went on, hardly hearing her master. “He fell against the plinth – he set the alarm off. It was his fault that the diamond was in the policeman’s pocket…” Rémy’s thoughts ran wild. “But he was just an old man. He couldn’t even walk without my help. And he was a lord! He couldn’t… he couldn’t have switched them…”

But could it really be true? Could Lord Abernathy have been play-acting all along, fooling everyone – fooling her, the best gem thief in the world? Had he faked his illness and swapped the stone?

Gustave leaned over her, close enough that she could smell the old sweat that had dried on his flabby jowls. “Tell me,” he said, softly, clearly, with enough menace to freeze the blood. “What name? Say it again.”

“Lord Abernathy,” Rémy repeated. “He… he helped me. If not for him, I wouldn’t have been able to get into the Tower at all. He was an old man…”

Gustave made a harsh sound in his throat and straightened up. “Abernathy,” he growled, rolling the name around his tongue until it sounded like a clap of thunder in his mouth. “A-ber-na-thy.”

Rémy blinked. “You… you know of him?”

The circus master looked down at her, his dark eyes glinting angrily. “Know of him? Oh yes, I dare say. I knew an Abernathy once. But he was no lord of Great Britain. He was not an old man, either. You have been duped, my girl – twice. You fool, Rémy! And now, what do I do with you? Once Abernathy talks to the police and casts suspicion on you – telling them how he had never met you before, how you used him to access the tower – the police will hunt you down. They would never suspect him, of course! He has committed the perfect crime. And you… you took this from a policeman’s pocket! Surrounded by prying eyes! Idiot child!”

Rémy shook her head. “Then… then we’ll pack up. We can leave, tonight. Go back to France, before anyone can stop us.”

Gustave bared his teeth. “And what,” he asked softly, “of the Ocean of Light?”

She frowned. “There – there are other stones, many others, all easier to steal. I can make this up to you, Gustave. I will steal more, once we are back in France – much more, whatever you want –”

Gustave roared again, swinging his hand to slap her soundly across the cheek. The blow was so hard and so painful that Rémy was almost knocked clean out of her chair. Her eyes watered with shock and tears.

“There is no other diamond!” Gustave bellowed. “I must have that one! I must! Foolish child! I should have sent Nicodemus. Perhaps his paws would have been more reliable than your fingers!”

Gustave looked down at her, a flash of disgust passing through his eyes. “I should have known that you would fail, just as your parents did before you,” he said.

“My… my parents! What do you mean? What do you know about them?” she stammered, all the while clutching nervously at the opal around her neck. “I don’t understand.”

“Oh yes, and that opal you are always fingering,” he went on. “You think it is just a pretty keepsake, don’t you? Your lucky charm. No, no, it is much more than that. That opal is more powerful than you could ever imagine. It is true you do not understand, Little Bird. Prepare yourself for the truth about your parents.”

Gustave sat down and began to pour himself a fresh glass of wine as Rémy clasped her opal, her mind whirring. What was he talking about? Her parents? Gustave had never spoken of them before. Of course he hadn’t, Gustave had no more idea who her parents were than she. Did he? What hideous game was he playing?

Gustave sighed heavily. “Your parents were cursed, Rémy, as I, too, am cursed. To lift the curse we must return the diamond. The diamond that you…”

A noise outside the caravan door startled Gustave. It was the sound of Claudette’s voice, purposefully raised so that Gustave and Rémy would hear her.

“You cannot enter!” she was saying. “You have no right!”

“I am looking for a thief, madam – and I am the police,” came a male voice. “I have every right.”

“It’s the policeman,” Rémy hissed as Claudette continued to protest, “the one I took the jewel from!
Mon Dieu
– what am I going to do?”

Gustave’s face distorted into fury once again. “Whatever it is, Little Bird, you had better be quick!”

Rémy looked around, panic-stricken. “The window. I’ll escape through the window,” she said, running towards it.

Gustave grabbed her arm, jolting her to a standstill, and thrust his face into hers. “Who knows how many policemen you have brought to my circus. We could be surrounded.”

Rémy was unable to halt the frightened sob that left her lips as Gustave threw her to the other side of the room. But instead of advancing on her, he crouched and began to scrabble at the edge of the carpet, lifting a section of it to reveal a small trapdoor hidden in the caravan’s floor.

“This is your only possible route of escape, Little Bird.” Gustave said.

“Stand aside,” Thaddeus’ voice thundered outside, “or I will arrest you for obstructing the work of an officer going about his duties!”

Five

Taking Flight

“What are you waiting for?” Gustave hissed, his hand on the open trapdoor.

Rémy looked at the door to the caravan. Thaddeus Rec was still banging on it, so hard she thought the hinges might pop. For a second she thought about throwing herself on his mercy – after all, he’d tried to catch her when she fell, so he was surely a good man at heart. But she abandoned that idea almost immediately. He’d probably never known a day of hardship in his life. What sympathy could a policeman have for a circus rat like her?

“The curse,” she whispered to Gustave. “You said there was a curse. What is it? How –”

He rattled the trapdoor with his fist. “Get it back, Little Bird. Bring the Ocean to me, and then I will explain everything. But you must get it back.”

“What if I can’t?” she whispered. “What if –”

“If you cannot?” Gustave sucked air through his teeth. “Then do not bother to return at all. Now, go.”

What else could she do but obey? Rémy jumped through the trapdoor, landing on the grass below, and immediately dropped into a crouch as Gustave closed the opening over her head. She heard him slide the carpet back into place before slowly making his way to the caravan door, unlocking it and letting the policeman in. Once the door was closed, the men began to talk, but their voices were too muffled for her to make out what they were saying.

She had to get away. Rémy checked that the coast was clear and then scrambled out from under the caravan. The lights of the circus were dwindling as it closed for the night, but Claudette was waiting for her in the shadows, clutching a drawstring bag in her hands. She pulled Rémy to a safe distance and thrust the bag towards her.

“Clothes,” Claudette whispered, “and the little money I have saved. Go. Get away from here, as fast as you can. And be safe.”

Rémy held on to her friend, needles of fear stabbing at her heart. “I don’t know where to go,” she said. “I don’t know what to do!”

Claudette pulled away and looked Rémy in the eye. “You are strong, Rémy, and clever. Keep to the poor streets – the places where the police do not go unless they have to.”

Rémy felt her eyes filling with tears. “I don’t know when I will see you again. I don’t know –”

“Rémy,” the fortune-teller whispered. “Listen to me. You will find that diamond and come back to me. I know it. You can do it. Now go, before Gustave throws that policeman out!”

Rémy took the bag and stumbled away, ducking from shadow to shadow as she made her way out of the circus field. At the roadside, she stopped and turned back to catch one last glimpse of Claudette, who stood motionless as stone, watching her. Rémy felt the tears run down her face, and wiped them away, angrily. She’d got herself into this mess, so there was no point feeling sorry for herself. Rémy turned her back on Le Cirque de la Lune – on the only home she had ever known – and plunged into the dark streets of London’s East End.

* * *

“Apologies for not answering the door sooner. I have trouble with my leg, you see,” said the circus owner, as he patted his thigh and limped slowly towards his chair.

“I heard voices,” Thaddeus said, facing the enormously fat man who had introduced himself as Gustave. “In here, just now before I came in.”

The man looked around and shrugged. “My singing, perhaps? As you see, there is no one here but me.” He smiled, revealing his few remaining teeth, but the expression did not reach his eyes. “Except you, of course.”

Thaddeus followed his gaze. The caravan was small and cramped, and he couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to live in such a hovel. But then, Thaddeus knew, it was a lucky man who was able to choose how he lived.

“You have a performer here. A high wire act called Little Bird.”

The circus master grinned again. “Ah, yes. Have you seen her? She is a wonder.” He looked Thaddeus up and down, slyly. “She is pretty, too, no? Ah, but alas – she is not for sale.”

Thaddeus blinked, and then frowned. This man made his skin crawl. “Where is she?”

The man sighed heavily, and then pulled out a pocketwatch. He made a show of flipping it open and checking the time before looking surprised.

“She has only been off the trapeze for… what?
Cinq minutes
? She is probably getting changed.”

“You haven’t seen her, then?”

The man shook his head. His lank hair remained still, slicked against his scalp. “
Non
.”

“Do you know where she might be?”

The circus owner showed his teeth again. “Ah, well, she is slippery, that one. A good girl, really – but slippery. Wild.” He shook with faint laughter. “It is why she is ‘Little Bird’, yes? Because she is little, and… she flutters, here and there.”

“What’s her real name?”

The man frowned, as if Thaddeus had asked him a riddle. “Her real name?… She is Little Bird.”

“No,” Thaddeus said, impatiently. “Not her stage name. Her real name. What do you call her, when she is not performing?”

“Ah, I think I see what you mean.” Gustave paused, a pained expression on his face as if he were trying hard to remember something long forgotten. “Moineau,” the man said eventually.

“And her surname?” Thaddeus barked, becoming increasingly frustrated.

“Her surname… let me see…” Gustave hesitated again, letting out a long sigh. “Volant. Yes, Moineau Volant.”

Thaddeus nodded, taking out his notepad and writing down the name. He asked Gustave to spell it for him, careful to make sure he got it right. Moineau Volant. Not Rémy Brunel.

“And the other circus performers would confirm that, would they?” he asked, looking up into the man’s chubby, pale face. “If I asked them for her real name?”

“We all call her Little Bird, monsieur. I know not whether she has told others her… ‘real name’ as you call it. If she has, then that will be the name they give you.”

The policeman put away his notepad and pencil. “Yes,” he said, thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m sure it will be.”

* * *

The streets were slick with rain and Rémy did not like to think what else. Her silver slippers were soon soaked through and blackened by the grime that oozed over every cobble and encrusted the rough paving of the alleyways. She had to get rid of her circus costume. In these dark streets, it was beginning to attract attention. She might as well have shouted “I am a stranger and alone, come and get me.” She dodged into a dark hollow of mouldering brick, crouching to open the bag that Claudette had given her. She found her favourite black shirt and belt, a pair of leggings and her trusty boots. There was also a thick cloak that Rémy recognised as belonging to her friend. Oh, how she loved her dear Claudette.

Pulling on the shirt, Rémy wriggled awkwardly out of the leotard. She hesitated for a moment, taking one last look at her dazzling costume, before using the fabric to scrub her face clean of the lingering greasepaint. As she stared at the smudge of mingled colours on the yellow satin, she wondered whether she would ever again perform as Little Bird. How would she survive without the circus? Of course, she had dreamed for so long of escaping it, of leaving that life behind. Yet, in those dreams, she had always had Claudette and Am
é
lie by her side. Now she was cast adrift on an unknown ocean, without her friends, and she didn’t know when, or even if, she would see them again.

Shaking herself, Rémy pulled on her leggings and then her cloak. She looked up at the ribbon of night sky, only just visible between the roofs over her head. It was late, and she was suddenly deathly tired. Around her, sounds were muted – there was only the odd burst of music rising through the open door of an all-night public house, and occasionally the hollow laughter of a drunken woman. She looked around the little alcove she had found and realized it was probably as safe a place as she would find to sleep tonight.

Wrapping her cloak more firmly around herself, Rémy sank to the ground and curled up with her head resting on her knees, the drawstring handle of her bag looped around one wrist. The wall was damp and uncomfortable against her back, and the cold bit at her despite Claudette’s cloak. But eventually she slept, her dreams unhappy.

She was roused some time later by a slight tickle. It felt as if someone were brushing a feather against her arm. Her immediate thought was rats, and she shifted slightly, unafraid and too deeply asleep to stir properly. The feeling went away for a few minutes, and then came back with a vengeance. It wasn’t a tickle, it was something tugging, something…

Rémy snapped awake properly as the drawstring of her bag gave beneath the knife sawing at it. She was on her feet in a second, but it was too late. The thief – a small, scrawny boy – had fled, his prize held tight in his arms.

“Hey!” she shouted at the cutpurse as he vanished down the alley. “Stop! You little –”

Rémy gave chase, dashing out into the grey, weak light of morning. It had begun to rain again. Icy drips of water slid down Rémy’s neck and she pulled the hood of her cloak up around her ears.

Rounding the corner after the boy, she found herself in a busier street. There were knots of people everywhere, huddled, crouching in corners or muttering together beside the crumbling brick walls. Pungent smoke – from the houses of those lucky enough to have a few lumps of coal, as well as from decrepit old pipes – hung in wraiths around their heads. The poisonous air was full of the sound of coughs and wails, shouts and the occasional scream, always cut short. Children skittered past her legs, as fast as rats and just as scrawny. The place reeked of hunger and decay, and there was desperation everywhere. Rémy knew poverty from France. It was a fearful disease and there was no cure, not in streets as poor as these.

She dodged and wove through the throngs of people, her boots echoing along the narrow alley walls. No one took any notice of her cries, or even turned to look at the fleeing boy, clutching her bag as his bony legs carried him along. He kept looking over his shoulder to see if Rémy had given up yet, but she was determined and, despite Gustave’s tight-fistedness, still better fed than an East End street urchin. Besides, the bag and its contents were now all she had in the world. She wasn’t going to let them go without a fight.

The thief ducked into an even narrower alley, and then immediately darted right, into another so narrow that two men would struggle to walk abreast. Rémy was quick, though, and followed easily. She could see that the boy was tiring, the distance between them lessening with every step.

“I’m not going to give up,” she shouted after him. “So you might as well drop the bag!”

The boy didn’t answer. He disappeared from sight, instead. Rémy skidded to a stop where she’d last seen him, looking around, perplexed. Then, over the noise of rain and despair, she heard a faint metal clang. Looking up, she saw him shimmying up an old, rusting pipe, heading for the rooftops.

Rémy didn’t hesitate. The pipe was fragile but she was quick and nimble, and the walls were so close together that she knew she could easily brace herself if necessary. She was quieter than the boy, too, so when she appeared on the roof beside him, he started.

“Not so fast,” she snapped, as the wheezing child tried to scramble away. She pinned him by the shoulder, holding him still with one hand and ripping her bag from his grip with the other.

“Bleedin’ ‘eck’!” The boy whimpered, looking back towards the roof’s edge. “Where in ‘ell d’you learn to climb like that?”

Rémy put the bag behind her out of his reach, but didn’t let him go. “A good lesson to learn, rat. ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, I believe you say here. Strangers might be out of place, but that does not make them helpless.”

They were both breathing hard and the boy didn’t attempt to struggle from Rémy’s grip. He seemed to have accepted that he’d been beaten, and his eyes closed as he caught his breath. Rémy thought he was probably about ten years old, but he was so thin and malnourished he looked younger. His face, lined with dirt, looked gaunt, his eyes dark hollows.

“Sorry,” he said eventually. “Just ‘ungry, y’see. ‘Aven’t ‘ad a bite today. Not likely to, neither. Didn’t ‘ave one yesterday, come to think of it. And you looked like you could spare a bit.”

“Well, you are wrong,” Rémy told him, and then relented. After all, she knew no one here, or even where she was. Perhaps this was an opportunity to make a friend – or at least buy one for a while. She let him go and opened the bag, searching for the small purse that contained the money Claudette had given her.

“I have not eaten either,” she told the boy. “I bet you know somewhere we can get a meal for little money, yes?”

The boy blinked at her. “Eh?”

“I won’t ask twice. I do not make a habit of buying meals for my enemies, so you’d better make yourself my friend before I change my mind.”

He scrambled up with a quick grin. “We can go to The Grapes. It ain’t far.”

As Rémy stood up, she asked, “What is your name?”

“J,” he said. “Friends call me J.”

She nodded. “
D’accord
, J. Lead the way.”

* * *

“Where’d you learn to speak English so proper, anyway?” J asked, an hour or so later, his mouth stuffed full of greasy bacon. They were sitting in the narrow, wood-panelled dining room of The Grapes. It was so close to the Thames that Rémy could smell the sewage stench of the river even though they had opted to sit inside, rather than on the shabby balcony that hung over the water.

She rested her chin on one hand and shrugged. “Claudette – a friend – taught me.”

“Oh yeah? Frenchie too, is she?”

“Yes.”

“So where’d she learn it, then?”

Rémy frowned. It was a question that had never occurred to her before. Claudette always seemed to know something about everything. It was just the way she was. “I don’t know.”

J nodded, then carried on shoving food into his mouth, losing interest in his question in favour of the first proper meal he’d had in weeks.

“Where are your parents?” Rémy asked.

J shrugged. “Dunno. Never really ‘ad any. There was me mum, once, but… she went.”