The Peer stood with his arms outstretched and was patted down, the contents of his pockets in a blue tray next to his open carryon bag.

“Thank you, sir. Could you boot up your laptop now, please? While that is booting up, could you please stand in the scanner booth? I am obliged to tell you that you will not be subjected to any harmful rays, but if you decide not to be scanned we reserve the right to do a full body search.”

“The scan will be fine, officer. We have to keep the skies safe, after all,” Lord Hickstead said, without meaning a word. The scan took less than a minute.

The customs officer tapped a couple of keys on the laptop to ensure that it was a fully working computer, and then he allowed its owner to repack his case and board the plane.

***

A minute later the customs officer was standing in a small windowless office with Inspector Boniface.

“Inspector, I have to tell you that Lord Hickstead is not carrying any diamonds. I did a thorough pat down and I searched his bag. Both he and his bag were then separately scanned; there was no sign of diamonds or anything else unusual, for that matter.” There was finality in his tone. “Oh, but there was one thing. As requested I had him boot up his laptop, and he does have an Icon for Photopaint on his windows opening page.”

***

The decision not to carry the diamonds with him had been a sound one. It only needed one random security check, such as the one he’d been subjected to, to blow the whole scheme. He would meet with an old colleague from his EU days and enjoy a leisurely dinner before embarking on the late night meeting that formed the real purpose for his trip.

As was bound to be the case, the buyer, Mr Van Aart, turned out to be a shady character, and so not carrying the diamonds was probably a good thing. In any case, Mr Van Aart had his own methods of moving diamonds around the world and Arthur Hickstead didn’t want to know what they were.

Chapter 42

Cafe Zwart, Schiekade 640, Rotterdam. Wednesday. 11:45pm

Hickstead knew that the potential buyer already had the certificates, the photos and that he had spoken to the diamond cutter. Van Aart had confirmed that he was satisfied that he could move the diamonds at a profit, as long as Arthur was prepared to be reasonable.

Arthur had chosen to stay at, and eat at, the Best Western Crown Hotel, which was conveniently close to the rail link for the airport. He was now sitting in a coffee shop less than a hundred yards from his hotel, waiting for the Dutch buyer.

The door opened and a bell suspended on a wire jangled as it was displaced by the head of the door. The man who entered was well over six feet tall, and completely bald. More accurately, his head was shaven. He did not seem at all threatening, however, and he smiled under a typically bushy Dutch moustache. Arthur hadn’t bothered with a disguise, but he wore a hat and glasses which obscured much of his head and face.

“Mr Bob Smith?” Van Aart asked as he stood at the only table occupied by a customer. Arthur nodded, and they shook hands. Van Aart shouted something in Dutch to the owner and then turned to his seller.

“Bob, I am very impressed with the gems. I am even more impressed that they are legitimate and not stolen. This makes resale more.....” - he struggled for the word in English - “.....profitable.”

The cafe owner brought a coffee over, along with a pastry containing half a peach covered in white icing. “Fruit; you have to get it where you can, eh, to stay healthy and to live long.” Arthur suspected that the sugar in the icing alone made the Dutchman’s efforts at hitting his ‘five a day’ redundant.

The negotiations took almost fifteen minutes, and as soon as they had shaken hands on an agreed price they heard a melodious clock strike twelve. Arthur was a little disappointed at receiving only a quarter of a million Euros rather than a quarter of a million pounds, but it was still around two hundred and ten thousand pounds. Van Aart would pay the money directly into an account in Brussels, held under the name Euro Union Financial Enterprises. That particular account was already heavily loaded with money and expenses accumulated over the last ten years, and kept well away from the inquisitive noses of the UK Exchequer.

Tomorrow morning the Peer would go to his safety deposit box, remove the diamonds and hand them to the courier in the shadow of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, and the transaction would be complete.

***

Ever the gentleman, Lord Hickstead held open the hotel door for the attractive Dutch lady who had come in behind him. She smiled and thanked him before heading to the bar. He wondered whether he should follow her. After all, it had been a successful trip so far, but he had to be up early for his flight and so he took the elevator and headed off to bed.

As soon as the elevator doors closed the woman, who had been following him since he had left the airport, watched the display above the doors, recording that it stopped at the sixth floor. She took her mobile phone out of her pocket and walked to a quiet spot in the lobby.

“Commissaris, this is Imka. The target has left the hotel only once for a meeting in a coffee shop, and now he has retired to bed, I think.”

“Good work, Imka. I will tell the English Inspector. They are one hour behind us, he will still be available.”

“Commissaris, the man he met with was Walt Van Aart.”

“Are you sure, Imka? I have surveillance photographs of him in Paris this morning, sent to me from Europol.”

“I am certain it was him, Commissaris. I was on the surveillance team in Delft when he met with the Russians.”

“Thank you, Imka. I will send the English police his file, summarised of course. We cannot jeopardise our own prosecution for the sake of a few diamonds.”

Chapter 4 3

London City Airport, London. Thursday, 8:30am.

DS Fellowes stood on the platform at the City Airport Docklands Light Railway Station. He was waiting for the next train to Bank Station in the City. His mobile phone rang. The voice was one he knew well.

“Sarge, our man has arrived and is heading to the DLR station as predicted, so I am now handing him over to you. He should be standing on the platform any second.”

Fellowes saw Hickstead arrive on the platform, and smiled in approbation when he noted the next Bank train was scheduled in one minute’s time.

“Okay, thanks Andy, I’ll take it from here.” Fellowes ended the call just as the driverless train approached.

No matter how many times he travelled this route, Arthur Hickstead felt uncomfortable about riding a train with no driver. It was disconcerting to stand at the front of the train and watch as the rails passed beneath it at fifty miles per hour. In the middle of the carriage sat DS Fellowes, apparently immersed in the pages of a fantasy novel. The chances of losing His Lordship were nil, but they didn’t want to risk missing a clandestine meeting where diamonds could change hands.

Brad Fellowes wondered whether the Peer knew who he was getting into bed with when he was dealing with Walt Van Aart. A quarter of a million pounds in diamonds was small beer to a crook like Van Aart; the Dutch Police seemed surprised that he would bother to meet Lord Hickstead personally. Unless, of course, Van Aart was aware of the real identity of the seller, and felt that he could use His Lordship’s European political clout to his own advantage at some time in the future.

The file said that Van Aart led an organisation known as the Geest Mafia, which in English means the Ghost Mafia. The trafficking of people, diamonds and drugs in the southern half of the Netherlands, including all of Amsterdam south of the river, was their speciality. Another gang called the Matroos, or the Seamen in English, ruled the northern half of the Netherlands. Van Aart was dangerous.