The Freedom Trap

He put his hands flat on the desk. ‘So you are,’ he paused, holding his breath, and then spoke my name in a gasp, ‘Rearden. And how was the flight, Mr Rearden?’

‘Not bad.’

‘That’s fine. Sit down, Mr Rearden. Would you like some tea?’ He smiled slightly. ‘People who work in offices like this drink tea all the time.’

‘All right,’ I said, and sat down.

He went to the door. ‘Could you rustle up another pot of tea, Mrs Smith?’

The door clicked gently as he closed it and I cocked my head in that direction. ‘Does she know?’

‘Of course,’ he said calmly. ‘I couldn’t do without Mrs Smith. She’s a very capable secretary, too.’

‘Smith?’ I asked ironically.

‘Oh, it’s her real name. Not too incredible – there are plenty of Smiths. She’ll be joining us in a moment so I suggest we delay any serious discussion.’ He peered at me. ‘That’s a rather lightweight suit for our English weather. You mustn’t catch pneumonia.’

I grinned at him. ‘Perhaps you’ll recommend a tailor.’

‘Indeed I will; you must go to my man. He’s a bit expensive but I think we can manage that.’ He opened a drawer and took out a fat bundle of currency. ‘You’ll need something for expenses.’

I watched unbelievingly as he began to count out the fivers. He parted with thirty of them, then paused. ‘We’d better make it two hundred,’ he decided, added another ten notes, then pushed the wad across to me. ‘You don’t mind cash, I trust? In my business cheques are rather looked down upon.’

I stuffed the money into my wallet before he changed his mind. ‘Isn’t this a little unusual? I didn’t expect you to be so free and easy.’

‘I daresay the expense account will stand it,’ he said tolerantly. ‘You are going to earn it, you know.’ He offered a cigarette. ‘And how was Johannesburg when you left?’

‘Still the same in a changing sort of way,’ I said. ‘Since you were there they’ve built another hundred-and-sixty-foot office block in the city.’

‘In two months? Not bad!’

‘They put it up in twelve days,’ I said drily.

‘Go-ahead chaps, you South Africans. Ah, here’s the tea.’

Mrs Smith put the tea tray on to the desk and drew up a chair. I looked at her with interest because anyone Mackintosh trusted was sure to be out of the ordinary. Not that she looked it, but perhaps that was because she was disguised as a secretary in a regulation twin-set – just another office girl with a nice smile. Yet in other circumstances I thought I could get on very well with Mrs Smith – in the absence of Mr Smith, of course.

Mackintosh waved his hand. ‘Will you be Mother, Mrs Smith?’ She busied herself with the cups, and Mackintosh said, ‘There’s no real need for further introductions, is there? You won’t be around long enough for anything but the job, Rearden. I think we can get down to cases now.’

I winked at Mrs Smith. ‘A pity.’

She looked at me unsmilingly. ‘Sugar?’ was all she asked.

He tented his fingers. ‘Did you know that London is the world centre of the diamond business?’

‘No, I didn’t. I thought it was Amsterdam.’

‘That’s where the cutting is done. London is where diamonds are bought and sold in all stages of manufacture from uncut stones to finished pieces of jewellery.’ He smiled. ‘Last week I was in a place where packets of diamonds are sold like packets of butter in a grocer’s shop.’

I accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Smith. ‘I bet they have bags of security.’

‘Indeed they have,’ said Mackintosh. He held his arms wide like a fisherman describing the one that got away. ‘The safe doors are that thick and the place is wired up with so many electronic gimmicks that if you blink an eyelash in the wrong place at the wrong time half the metropolitan police begin to move in.’

I sipped the tea, then put down the cup. ‘I’m not a safe cracker,’ I said. ‘And I wouldn’t know where to begin – you need a peterman for that. Besides, it would have to be a team job.’

‘Rest easy,’ said Mackintosh. ‘It was the South African angle that set me thinking about diamonds. Diamonds have all the virtues; they’re relatively anonymous, portable and easily sold. Just the thing a South African would go for, don’t you think? Do you know anything about the IDB racket?’

I shook my head. ‘Not my line of country – so far.’

‘It doesn’t matter, perhaps it’s for the better. You’re a clever thief, Rearden; that’s why you’ve stayed out of trouble. How many times have you been inside?’

I grinned at him. ‘Once – for eighteen months. That was a long time ago.’

‘Indeed it was. You change your methods and your aims, don’t you? You don’t leave any recurring statistics for a computer to sort out – no definite modus operandi to trip over. As I say – you’re a clever thief. I think that what I have in mind will be just up your street. Mrs Smith thinks so, too.’

‘Let’s hear about it,’ I said cautiously.

‘The British GPO is a marvellous institution,’ said Mackintosh inconsequentially. ‘Some say ours is the best postal system in the world; some think otherwise if you judge by the readers’ letters in the Daily Telegraph, but grousing is an Englishman’s privilege. Insurance companies, however, regard the GPO very highly. Tell me, what is the most outstanding property of the diamond?’

‘It sparkles.’

‘An uncut diamond doesn’t,’ he pointed out. ‘An uncut stone looks like a bit of sea-washed bottle glass. Think again.’

‘It’s hard,’ I said. ‘Just about the hardest thing there is.’

Mackintosh clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘He’s not thinking, is he, Mrs Smith? Tell him.’

‘The size – or the lack of it,’ she said quietly.

Mackintosh pushed his hand under my nose and curled his fingers into a fist. ‘You can hold a fortune in your hand and no one would know it was there. You could put diamonds worth a hundred thousand pounds into this matchbox – then what would you have?’

‘You tell me.’

‘You’d have a parcel, Rearden; a package. Something that can be wrapped up in brown paper with enough room to write an address and accept a postage stamp. Something that can be popped into a letter-box.’

I stared at him. ‘They send diamonds through the post!’

‘Why not? The postal system is highly efficient and very rarely is anything lost. Insurance companies are willing to bet large sums of money on the efficiency of the GPO and those boys know what they’re doing. It’s a matter of statistics, you know.’

He toyed with the matchbox. ‘At one time there was a courier system and that had a lot of disadvantages. A courier would personally carry a parcel of diamonds and deliver it to its destination by hand. That fell through for a number of reasons; the couriers got to be known by the wide boys, which was very sad because a number of them were severely assaulted. Another thing was that human beings are but human, after all, and a courier could be corrupted. The supply of trustworthy men isn’t bottomless and the whole courier system was not secure. Far from it.

‘But consider the present system,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Once a parcel is swallowed into the maw of the Post Office not even God can extract it until it reaches its destination. And why? Because nobody knows precisely where the hell it is. It’s just one of millions of parcels circulating through the system and to find it would not be like finding a needle in a haystack – it would be like searching a haystack for a particular wisp of hay. Do you follow me?’

I nodded. ‘It sounds logical.’

‘Oh, it is,’ said Mackintosh. ‘Mrs Smith did all the necessary research. She’s a very clever girl.’ He flapped his hand languidly. ‘Carry on, Mrs Smith.’

She said coolly, ‘Once the insurance company actuaries analysed the GPO statistics regarding losses, they saw they were on to a good thing providing certain precautions were taken. To begin with, the stones are sent in all sizes and shapes of parcel from matchbox size to crates as big as a tea chest. The parcels are labelled in a multitude of different ways, very often with the trade label of a well-known firm – anything to confuse the issue, you see. The most important thing is the anonymity of the destination. There are a number of accommodation addresses having nothing to do with the diamond industry to which the stones are sent, and the same address is never used twice running.’