A Cleft Of Stars

'The Hill, eh?'

From the way he echoed her we both realized that he was probing though there were odd overtones about it. It was improbable that he had ever been to The Hill.

'The authorities intend blocking the natural entrances to The Hill with barbed wire and gates,' Nadine continued. 'They think that the irregular patrols should be enough to keep away the riff-raff.'

'Well. I began doubtfully.

Nadine glanced at her watch. The warders had begun to collect at the far end of the room. Visiting time was over.

'There's a lot more,' she added quickly. 'The guard for the patrol will be flown first to an emergency landing strip in the bush some miles from The Hill and he'll hike from there. They hope this will create the element of surprise. It doesn't say how long he'll stay at a time. . there's also a hut to be built for the guard on the river terrace — you remember, Guy, on the opposite side of The Hill from where I found the statuette.. ' Her eyes held mine. They were full of unsaid, unsayable things.

The warder's voice cut across the room, a jocular roar in imitation of a publican's. 'Time, gentlemen, please!'

Charlie spat it out, too low for Nadine to hear. 'Shit on him! Couldn't he have waited a moment longer?'

'Time, gentlemen, if you please!'

Our eyes locked hastily in unspoken goodbyes, and then Nadine was gone.

The prisoners formed into double file to march out. I found Charlie next to me. He started to whisper something, but a warder overheard.

'Shut up, Charlie! You had plenty of time to say it to your tart even if you couldn't do it.

Charlie's smile remained, but his eyes were venomous.

'Bowker!' the senior warder called to me. 'Get your fat arse into the library. Super's orders. He wants some books fixed. Take someone with you to help'

Almost automatically I chose Charlie.

'Okay,' said the warder, 'but if it were diamonds you were fixing, Charlie Furstenberg would be your man.'

There was a half-hearted cackle from the other prisoners. The man called out our names from a paper and ticked them off.

'Furstenberg, Charlie. Bowker — Christ, how's this for a laugh! William Guybon Atherstone! Where'd you get that lot from, Bowker?'

'I was too young to be consulted at the time of my christening,' I came back. 'Another crack like that and you'll go into solitary instead of enjoying yourself in the library,' the warder snapped.

'Super's darling,' he added in a mock-Oxford accent, 'just because he's had the benefits of a university education, unlike us other poor buggers. Anyway, we don't steal to make our way.

'Keep your mouth shut!' hissed Charlie. 'Don't reply!'

I stared at the neck of the man ahead of me, biting back my retort. A minute ticked by and I did not rise.

'March!' the guard ordered finally. 'Bowker and Furstenberg, sharp left!'

The library had indeed proved itself a haven for me. I spent a lot of time there and had virtually the free run of the place. Control was nominal. I was recataloguing it and had reorganized the system of issuing books. I was also rebinding a number of damaged volumes.

Charlie and I checked in. I led him to an alcove where a pile of books awaited repair.

I jerked my head towards the visitors' room. What was that all about? What the hell are you playing at?'

'Keep your voice down, chum. Do you want some stool pigeon to squeal to the Super?'

I was angry, off-balance. 'See here, Furstenberg.. The smile was fixed. 'Everyone calls me Charlie.'

'Charlie, then. First you muscle in on an old report half a century old, as excited as if you'd just been given the Cullinan itself for a present, then you have the brass to do the same thing a second time. None of it is your bloody business; is that clear?'

I couldn't read what was going on behind his foxy black eyes. He didn't react to my hectoring tone.

'That's a fine girl you've got there, Guy. You didn't appreciate her today.'

' My girl is my affair also.'

'There ain't many dolls who'd take the trouble to look up bits of old newspapers for a bloke who's down on his luck.'

I splashed some glue savagely on the spine of a book. Charlie watched me quizzically.

' Maybe you don't know it. but I'm allergic to diamonds,'

I retorted. 'The Cullinan in particular. My father found it. If he hadn't, I wouldn't be in this mess today.'

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of another Charlie. For a moment he dropped his cheap slangy way of speaking. 'IDB is like extra-marital intercourse — it's widely practised but officially frowned upon.' Then the grinning mask was firmly back in place. 'And it's hell when you're found out. We're both taking the rap for the same thing.'

'I was framed,' I retorted.

'There's no room for you fartin' amateurs in this game,' he said roughly. 'Leave it to us professionals. I slip up now and then and land inside but that's an occupational hazard. You should keep out of this, mate.

Bitterness mixed with my anger. 'I was framed,' I repeated.

'Framed by a bastard whom I tried to help. And as if that weren't enough, it was the same bastard who found the Cullinan with my father.

I can still see Charlie's long look. 'Rankin!' he said slowly.

'John Rankin!'

He perched himself on the edge of the work table and stared at me with the bright grin stencilled on his swarthy face. At length he said, 'So Rankin shopped you! Now there's a zip-lip sonofabitch for you! Never been inside himself, they say. A big operator. Anyone who crossed his path would get hurt'

'A big operator,' I repeated. 'How do you know that?'

'One hears things around in the trade.'

'I wish I'd heard things around concerning what became of Rankin. We searched the country for him before my trial. Key witness. Not a sign. Vanished. Not a trace, not a single damn trace.'

Charlie slid off the table and pretended to be helping me for the benefit of the warder sitting out of earshot by the door.

'Classic Rankin pattern,' he replied. 'It's happened before'

'I simply tried to help him. . Hell, what's the use of moaning at this stage? I'm here for another year anyway.'

'Like to tell me about it?'

Charlie's suggestion was sympathetic, perfectly timed. I didn't know then there could be a double-cross within a double-cross. Nor did I know Charlie. It helped me to talk. I entered his shabby confessional.

'I had a way-out sort of job,' I told him. 'I started a rock museum in Johannesburg — you've seen those old rocks which are etched with the outlines of wild animals. I became interested in them at university.;

'There are lots of them down on the diggings near Lichtenburg,' remarked Charlie.

'Lichtenburg!' I burst out. 'I'll never forget Lichtenburg There had been a concentration of my rocks on the edge of what once had been the site of one of the world's great diamond rushes — at Lichtenburg, in the Western Transvaal. It was winter when I arrived. The veld looked like a gigantic graveyard of earth mounds from abandoned, worked-out claims. An icy wind whipped the dust off them. I spotted a hut made of old grain sacks and a surly Hottentot working a trommel, or diamond washing machine, nearby. I asked my way. The man gestured to the hut. A voice called to enter. Lying inside a sleeping-bag on the floor and covered with a dirty, stinking kaross was — Rankin.

I had remembered him from my boyhood as a tall, restless, wiry man with a shock of dark hair. Now his face under its tan was gaunt with pneumonia and hunger, but if he hadn't been as tough as an old boot and in remarkable physical shape for his age he would have been dead. The interior was grim: a paraffin box for a bedside table; and on it a guttered candle, a tiny solid-meths stove, a mug and a bottle of brandy. I offered to take him to hospital but he refused. I then tried money — it would have been strange to have put a few dollars into hands which had once held an untold fortune in the shape of the Cullinan — but he refused that too. He said he had resources in the form of diamonds but he couldn't trust the Hottentot to take them to a diamond dealer called Cohen who ran a shop some miles away. He and Cohen had had close dealings in the past. Would I oblige? I did — and walked straight into a police trap. Cohen was a police stooge. When I was arrested I told my story about Rankin. Cohen swore he had never heard of him. I took the detectives next day to Rankin's claim. There wasn't a sign of him or the Hottentot, who had accompanied me to Cohen's and obviously tipped Rankin off. Even my lawyer refused to credit that Rankin had ever existed. I never got to the bottom of the Cohen-Rankin set-up. All I knew was that I took the rap.