'This is a diamond, love, but the torn trade calls these Light Brown Rejects.'
The torn trade means jewellery, from Cockney rhyming slang: tomfoolery, jewellery. In fury she switched on the interior light, revealing our clandestine meeting to the universe. I shrank in my seat.
'Not real?' she shrieked, as secret as Radio One.
I hadn't a loupe with me, but did the trick of squeezing together two fingers and a thumb to magnify sight in one eye. The diamond was stuffed with brown debris. Still genuine, but hardly worth a train fare. Diamonds are graded according to purity, flaws, size, other factors. It was my chance to maybe learn a bit more about Taylor and Susanne Eggers.
'This thing should be for industry.' I let go, and smiled my most sympathetic smile.
'They're the ones sold at multiple stores, dwoorlink.'
'The bastard!' she breathed. 'After all I did!'
'I'm sure he appreciated ...'
'For two auctioneers' boxes and a list of dealers?' She was in floods of tears. 'He said it was a priceless effing diamond that the Queen once wore ...'
And so on. I couldn't wait to get away fast enough, now I'd found out what I wanted. I know I sound horrible, but I'd a million excuses, most of them honestly nearly almost quite good. I tried to make it easier for Olive by telling her the tale.
'Listen, dwoorlink. What time is it?'
She told me some ungodly hour, still wailing.
'Look,' I said, all sudden brainwave. 'There's just time to get hold of Diamond Pease.
He'll still be there! Quick, love! Go, go!'
'Who? What for?'
'He might change it for us. Into a valuable stone!' Some hopes.
She struggled upright and switched on the ignition, enthusiasm returning.
'Who's Diamond Pease?'
How the hell should I know? I thought, narked. I'd just made him up.
'Works in Hatton Garden, London's diamond district. An old pal. Might not be able to do anything, but at least we can ask, right?'
'Right! Right!'
We careered from the rural scene, me eager as Olive to reach civilization – that is, the town centre miles from the woods and fields I detest. As she dropped me at the war memorial I kissed her long and passionately, thanking her for a wonderful tryst. I asked to keep the pendant. She said okay. I promised I'd throttle the Yank with it if I bumped into him. Wish I'd not said that now, but what can you do?
Olive had given me enough to be going on with.
'See you soon,' I promised as she gunned away.
She called something that I wish now I'd heard, but I was already limping off down the road, my leg rediscovering circulation.
Who had the power to manipulate police, the judiciary and all the local antiques dealers including auctioneers, plus the local hoods? Nobody, that's who. Meaning no one person. But there is one mob – note the term – that has. It is mightier than the sum of its parts.
It's called the raj.
Some people call it the tally, the old word for counting, as if they're a benign club of elderly gents, all quill pens and ledgers.
Wrong.
They say the raj began when Raffles was rollicking round the Far East. Or maybe in Hong Kong or India back in the days of the Raj proper when pirates – loyal and freebooters alike – rioted over the globe trying to keep one horizon ahead of a vengeful Royal Navy. Me, I believe the raj began in the horrendous slums of Seven Dials or London's evil Arches, or St Giles Parish where starving folk had to steal for bread.
Dealers speak of it with bated breath. I'd never met, as far as I know, anybody in the raj. There's supposed to be from nine to fourteen of the blighters. Who they are nobody knows. There was talk that Big John Sheehan was in. And that Willie Lott had tried to gain entry, and been rejected. I gulped. I was terrified of Sheehan.
Olive was supposed to be in the know. Now, I wasn't so sure.
The raj frightens me, like everything unknown. They're said to top, as in eliminate, three or four antique dealers each year, and to be involved with arms handlers, drug lords, and political taipans you don't mess with. They control some of the great auction houses but from without. That is to say, they charge each auction a fee to simply allow it to go ahead, especially if it's going to change, say, the price of Impressionist paintings or early New England walnut furniture or Hepplewhite items.
I put Olive's pendant in my pocket and forgot about it.
For peace of mind, I paused to watch the Women's Institute making cakes. They're good at it. Occasionally I help out, shifting tables, lugging chairs. They give me edibles that have been damaged in transit, and a cuppa. I sat on the grass watching and thinking. I'd seen Susanne Eggers and Consul Sommon leaving my cottage. Ex-spouses, who'd left evidence of passion.
I reflected. Are we really the people we say we are?
We're a rotten species. Yet every so often something restores your faith, makes you think we're not so bad after all. Like the great Cash Dispenser Bonanza. True story, incidentally:
It happened just before the Millennium celebrations. A bloke rushed into a pub calling,
'Free money! Free money!'
Folk thought, hello, old George has been at the ale again, and continued chatting, drinking.
Except it was true.
Across the dark street, nine o'clock at night, a bank's cash machine inexplicably started giving out twice what you asked for, and debiting your account with half. The crowd flowed across the road to examine this curious phenomenon. Jubilation!
Within seconds an orderly queue formed. One bloke even took charge, calling out,
'Three goes only, please. Then return to the back of the queue. Keep in line. Please don't obstruct the pavement...' And would you believe, a police motor cruised by. The bobby asked was everything in order. 'Yes, thanks, constable,' the line replied, party hats at rakish angles, blowing razzers and laughing merrily. 'Happy New Year,' the bobbies said, driving off. The revellers replied, 'Thanks, lads, and the same to you!'
There was no riot. No shoving, no weapons, just people taking their turn with lots of,
'No, please go ahead, mate. I've already had a go,' and all that. There, in rain-sodden northern England, order ruled until the machine gasped out its last note, when the crowd returned to their wassailing.
Okay, people in effect robbed the bank. But the point is valid: people's good manners withstood the severest test of all, which is unbridled greed gratified free of charge.
Hearing of the incident warmed the cockles of my heart.
When you are feeling down, though, your sourest convictions are sometimes confirmed.
Like Rita. She's a legend in the Eastern Hundreds. Rita was a restless lady. I knew her distantly. She was alluring, evidently very rich. I'd have loved her given half a chance.
She got through four husbands, accumulating investments. The trouble was, every penny was in her baby granddaughter's name.
Came the day when the world's watch collectors were stunned by the announcement that a Supercomplication was on sale. Rita snapped into action, announced that she was going to buy it for her baby granddaughter. We talked of nothing else for weeks.
Antique dealers even applauded her as she swanned round. Rita was going for the Big One!
The Supercomplication?
Back in 1933, a firm called Patek Philippe in Switzerland made watches. Nothing new.
Two American watch collectors were rivals. Henry Graves ran a bank, Mr Packard –that one – made cars. Being American, they were multimillionaires. Obligingly the Swiss watchmakers set to, turning out ever more intricate and complicated watches to please the two friends. Until 1933, when the Henry Graves Supercomplication hit the road. It was almost impossibly refined: handcrafted, gold, nearly a thousand parts, it eclipsed all timepieces. It even gauged the wind, tides, moons. Clearly the last word. The rival Yanks called time, as it were.