Page 101 of The Scene of the Crime

‘Hundred and fifty grand, split between us. I got a loan for my seventy-five, but I quickly made enough profit to pay it off. It was a profitable business.’

Michelle shook her head in disbelief. ‘Where is this machine?’

‘In the warehouse next door to mine.’

‘Do you rent it?’

‘No, Cole does.’

‘How long has this partnership been going?’

‘A year or so.’

Michelle was so shocked she had to sit down. ‘This is all unbelievable. Did you ever stop to think a purchaser might suspect the diamonds were lab ones and get a second opinion?’

‘No one ever has, which made me think everything was legit.’

‘I think you knew from the start what Cole was up to. You didn’t walk away because greed got the better of you,’ she said, picking up her handbag and standing up, as if she was leaving. She knew it would make him react.

‘All right . . . when I discovered Cole was passing off the lab diamonds as mined ones, I told him it was risky and that if we got caught, we could both end up in prison. He said he knew other jewellers who did it, and they had never been caught. It’s almost impossible to distinguish between a lab-grown diamond and a natural one unless you’ve got expensive high-tech equipment. Cole also made fake certificates to show customers their provenance.’

‘This just gets worse and worse. How could you be so stupid? Did you not stop to think how what you’re doing could destroy our marriage? If you had walked away, Cole couldn’t have done anything about it without incriminating himself.’

‘I told him a few weeks ago you were pregnant, and I was having second thoughts about our . . . partnership. He was upset and asked me to reconsider. I said I’d think about it, but that was because he still owed me money for the lab diamond sales.’

‘If you cared about me, you’d never have got involved with him in the first place!’

‘I got involved because I didn’t want you to think I was failing . . . I did it for you . . . I thought everything was above board and it would solve my financial problems, which it . . .’

‘I don’t believe you!’ she hissed.

‘I’m telling the truth . . . I told him I didn’t want to be involved with him anymore.’

‘When did you tell him that?’

‘He came round the house last Friday with my money, and I told him then.’

She was standing at the end of his bed looking down at him. ‘And what did he say to that?’

‘He got angry . . . tried to persuade me to carry on. We argued a bit, but I told him I couldn’t risk all you and I had together, and he eventually accepted it. He said he would find a new partner and shook my hand. I was so relieved . . . I thought he’d go nuts. He even said he’d pay me back some of the cost of the CVD machine.’

‘How much money did he give you last Friday?’ Johan closed his eyes and she nudged the end of the bed with her knee. ‘How much did he hand over to you?’

‘A hundred and fifty thousand.’

Michelle looked stunned. ‘In cash?’

‘Yes . . . my payments were always in cash so I could put them through the books as wine sales.’

‘That tells me you knew the diamond sales were crooked,’ she sneered. ‘And you put the money in the safe?’ Johan nodded. ‘You just told me there was only fifty thousand in it.’

‘OK . . . I didn’t want you to know what I was up to with Cole.’

‘You keep lying to me! Tell me how much was in that safe, Johan!’ she demanded.

‘In total . . . including my legitimate business earnings . . . there was about two hundred and fifty thousand.’

Michelle shook her head in disbelief. ‘Did Cole know you put the money in the safe?’