Page 28 of Murder at the Ponte Vecchio (Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery #11)
I stood up. ‘I’m glad to be able to help. All right with you if I collect my camera now? And then I’d better go home and learn my lines.’
I had only just finished removing the spy camera when Amélie the cleaner arrived with a broad smile on her face. I asked how she had heard the news so quickly and she looked puzzled.
‘What news?’
I told her that the play had been cancelled but that it was back on again.
In response, she clapped her hands together and her smile became even broader.
I felt I had to ask if there was another reason why she had come in looking so happy and she came over to me to explain, the excitement in her voice almost palpable.
‘We’re finally leaving Florence next week and heading to England.
I’m so happy, I could sing. Not that Zebra hasn’t been a great help, but it’s just fantastic to know that we’re progressing. ’
‘So this means you’ve been able to collect together enough money for the journey?’
‘Well, with a little bit of help. My brother-in-law, Vanda’s husband, has arrived and he’s brought enough money for us to continue our journey.’
‘He wasn’t travelling with you?’
She shook her head. ‘No, he’s been working in the mines over in the DRC. He made his way here by a different route.’
‘The DRC? Sorry, my geography isn’t great.’
‘The Democratic Republic of the Congo. A lot of the men in our country go there to find work. Ours is a very poor nation.’
‘And he managed to smuggle cash out of the country? That sounds risky.’
A sour expression appeared on her face, but only for a few moments. ‘You’re right, he didn’t bring much cash. The people smugglers and the gangs would have taken it off him.’ She glanced around and lowered her voice. ‘He sewed three little diamonds into the hem of his trouser leg.’
I tried my best to keep my expression neutral, although my brain had suddenly erupted into a fury of conjecture. ‘Diamonds? Was he working in a diamond mine?’
‘No, a copper mine, but there are plenty of diamonds on sale over there, if you know the right people.’
I knew I needed to find out more, but I tried not to sound too inquisitive. ‘What a good idea. And he sold them here? Did he just walk into a jeweller’s and sell them?’
She shook her head. ‘Not these diamonds. There’s a man at the station who buys them.’ Realising that she had probably said too much, she turned towards the door. ‘Anyway, I need to get on. The theatre will be open to the public in a few days’ time and everything’s got to be sparkling clean.’
I shook her hand and wished her a safe journey, hoping that she really would be able to achieve her dream of getting to the UK but knowing that it wouldn’t be easy.
After the door had closed behind her, I sat down and reflected on what I’d just heard.
Could diamonds form a link between two murdered asylum seekers, a pair of Dutch jewellers with a ‘gentlemen’s agreement,’ and a bent police officer?
The ramifications of this were potentially huge.
And what had she meant when she’d said, ‘Not these diamonds’?
It occurred to me that I maybe knew somebody who knew somebody who could help with this conundrum.
The first thing I did, after saying goodbye and good luck to Zebra, was to drive to an even more deserted part of the suburbs where there was nobody around. I parked in a patch of shade, pulled out my phone, and called Anna, who answered almost immediately.
‘ Ciao , Dan. Where are you?’
‘In the van, thinking about taking Oscar for a good long walk, but first, I was wondering if you could give me the phone number of your friend in the tiger costume, Amy Mackintosh. She told me her husband’s a geologist, and I need to speak to somebody who knows about diamonds.’
She gave me the number, and we agreed to carry on spending the nights out at my place in the hills, seeing as Florence was already getting uncomfortably warm.
I told her I’d make a mixed salad and she sounded delighted – but maybe that was just because she wasn’t going to have to do the cooking for a change.
I dialled Amy’s number and was pleased to hear her voice. After a quick exchange of greetings, I asked her if it might be possible for me to speak to her husband about a geology matter. She laughed.
‘Sandy’s always happy to talk about geology. He’s here with me now. I’ll put him on. ’
A few moments later, I heard a Scottish voice. ‘Hello, Alexander Mackintosh here. How can I help?’
‘Hello, Mr… Dr Mackintosh.’ For all I knew, he might even be Professor Mackintosh. He was quick to reassure me.
‘Just call me Sandy. Everybody else does. If I remember right, you’re the Englishman married to an Italian who’s lucky enough to live in Florence.
Amy told me about your book launch last week.
She’s been reading it and is very enthusiastic about it.
Apparently, I absolutely must read it after her.
Congratulations.’ He sounded very friendly.
‘Hi, Sandy. Thanks for speaking to me and say thanks to Amy for investing in a copy of my book.’ I decided not to specify that Anna and I weren’t married as I moved on to the matter in hand.
‘I gather from Amy that you’re the man to speak to about diamonds.
I know very little about them apart from them allegedly being a girl’s best friend. Can you spare me a few minutes?’
‘Of course, fire away.’
I gave him a quick summary of what Amélie had told me and asked him what she might have meant when she’d said, ‘Not these diamonds’. He answered with a question.
‘Did she say her brother-in-law had been working in the DRC?’
‘Yes, and he and his wife are originally from the Central African Republic.’
‘Then these are almost certainly conflict diamonds, sometimes called blood diamonds. Do those names ring a bell?’
‘Yes, vaguely.’
He could tell from my uncertain tone that I needed help, so he launched into an explanation.
‘There are certain parts of Africa where terrorists, criminals or armed militias have hijacked the diamond trade, and hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people have had to flee their homes to escape the brutality of the unscrupulous people exploiting the mines. Places like Sierra Leone and the DRC have seen the worst of it. Although some of the proceeds go to criminals, lots of the money goes to rebel forces fighting supposedly legitimate governments, and that causes even more upheaval for the people over there. The diamonds mined under these circumstances have been given the name “conflict diamonds”, for obvious reasons.’
This was fascinating. ‘So what’s the difference between conflict diamonds and ordinary diamonds?’
‘As far as the stones themselves are concerned, none at all. They’re all essentially just carbon crystals. The difference from a legal point of view is that the trade in conflict diamonds has been banned in many parts of the world, particularly Europe.’
‘I see, but if they’re the exact same stone, how can you tell the difference?’
‘Regulators have been wrestling with that for years. There was a thing called the Kimberley Process set up a few years back and, although it’s been massively abused, it sort of still operates.
According to the KP, any diamond has to come with a certificate attesting to its place of origin.
That way, the hope was that the warlords and the criminals wouldn’t be able to sell their looted diamonds and they would run out of money pretty quickly. ’
‘From your tone, Sandy, I get the impression this maybe hasn’t worked out quite as they hoped.’
‘Exactly.’ There was a frustrated note to his voice.
‘The system has been abused from day one. Let’s face it, if a bag of diamonds is mined by what is effectively slave labour at the hands of criminal overlords in the DRC or elsewhere, but then smuggled from there to, say, South Africa and declared as having been found in that country, the certificates are issued and no questions asked.
Or, at least, the questions are probably asked, but there’s no way of proving that the diamonds aren’t from South Africa. ’
‘So if this guy brought three conflict diamonds with him from the DRC, theoretically, he shouldn’t have been able to sell them in Europe without certificates of origin?’
‘And you’re quite right – theoretically.
That’s where you need a trader who’s prepared to bend the rules.
After all, these diamonds are sold on the black market at a considerably lower price than legitimately mined ones, so there’s a bigger profit to be made.
What you’ve got to do now is to find that dodgy trader.
Traditionally, Antwerp has always been the home of the diamond trade in Europe, but Italy has also been cashing in on the flood of diamonds smuggled over there, often by so-called asylum seekers coming over the Mediterranean from Libya. ’
I felt a surge of satisfaction as the pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place. ‘That’s fascinating, thanks a lot.’
He offered a suggestion. ‘Seeing as it’s Italy, might it be the Mafia?’
It was a sensible suggestion. ‘I must admit that it wouldn’t surprise me if they were involved, particularly when you consider that there are at least three or four different branches of organised crime still operating happily in Italy.
I can well imagine that a supply of cheap diamonds would be welcomed by the Mafia, but in this case, I believe the police already know the identity of a couple of these rogue traders.
Unfortunately for them, they’ve both just been murdered. ’
‘That’s the other reason they’re called blood diamonds. So much value in such a tiny item tends to bring out the worst in people.’
I thanked him warmly and put down the phone, catching Oscar’s eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘And now, old buddy, I think we’ve earned ourselves a long walk.’