It was mainly for this reason that I was unlikely to be star struck by meeting a singer who had made most of his fortune by being a famous foul mouthed charity promoter, and not by his singing.

***

Dee was still not leaving my side, and so when I went into the conference room she came with me, of course. I think she also wanted the chance to see Don Fisher close up.

We were ushered into the room, and Don Fisher was polite towards us, shaking hands and flirting with Dee. Then in an instant he changed, and with a wave of his hand he dismissed his solicitor and the uniformed policeman who had been taking his statement.

“Get out; I want to talk to these two alone.” In their position I would have slapped him, but they left the room somewhat meekly, smiling deferentially. When we were alone he leaned forward and spoke quietly.

As I looked at him I realised that he looked much older than his forty six years. His complexion was beyond pale; his hair was grey, wiry and lacked condition. I noticed that his eyes were rheumy and yellow in the corners. His face was heavily wrinkled, especially the eyes and forehead. He had the lines most associated with those who have squinted through a lifetime of smoking to keep the smoke out of their eyes. His thick Birmingham accent seemed more pronounced as he kept his voice down.

“This bastard threatened my daughter and I’m going to see him dead. Are you going to help me?”

“No,” I answered, equally quietly.

He frowned, paused and hissed. “If I was you I would cooperate.” There was a distinct threat behind the words that made me angrier than I had ever been.

I answered in a barely controlled voice. “How do you even know it was Lord Hickstead who blackmailed you?”

“Who else would it have been?” he snarled.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I postulated, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Maybe it could be one of those lowlifes who shag your daughter on a one night stand, take sordid photos of her and post them on the internet for everyone to see.”

The aging rocker leapt to his feet, his face purple with rage. I stood up and faced him, ready for a fight. Dee pushed me down in my seat.

“That’s enough, Josh. He might be rude but he’s a victim, too, and that last comment was below the belt.” She turned to Don Fisher next. “And you can sit down too, before I put you down.”

He sat down abruptly, and I apologised. I felt calmer now.

“I’m sorry. Your daughter is still only twenty, and we all make mistakes when we’re young. She’s a pretty girl and no one deserves to have their life threatened.”

He was calmer, too, when he spoke. “Bloody kids! My parents told me ‘what goes around comes around’ when I was rebelling and making their lives hell. I hated them then, now I realise I love them more than life itself and always did. Wisdom comes a bit too late for some of us. My two youngest won’t get the same freedom.”

Dee brought us back to the point.

“Look, Don, I don’t know if you remember Arthur Hickstead?” He shook his head; he had no idea who Arthur was. “Well, in 1988 at the Rock Relief concert he was giving a live TV interview, and was about to take credit for a million pound donation when you burst in and made your famous, ‘get your hands in your pockets’ rant. He felt humiliated, according to the newspapers the next day.”

“I remember the rant, as you call it, but possibly because I’ve seen it so many times on TV since. I don’t remember interrupting anyone, but I wasn’t entirely lucid at the time. I did that after I’d taken a little something to keep me awake. It had been a long and stressful couple of days.”

“So, you and Josh are going to get payback, but not by attacking anyone. This man is powerful and well connected; he enjoys his position and the power it brings. The best punishment would be his fall from grace, imprisonment, loss of freedom and the removal of his title. If you want to help, tell us what happened to you and we’ll explain what we know.”

We listened as the angry father in Fisher came to the fore, and he described how he had been in bed reading a book when a text came through on his business iPhone. He almost ignored it because that was the number used by the media and his business contacts, and he didn’t want to be bothered at that time of night. Nevertheless, he did look at it, and the picture that followed, and he had been shocked beyond words. There on his screen, looking glamorous in a long, low cut dress, Lavender Mali Fisher smiled for the camera. Crosshairs had been added to her forehead.

Jim the blackmailer had allowed Don Fisher forty eight hours to raise one million pounds, but realistically it would have to be paid before the bank closed and so he had around forty hours in reality. Twenty four hours out of those forty, the banks would not be open. Nonetheless, he raised the cash – his personal fortune has been estimated at over a hundred million pounds, after all - and arranged to have it picked up. Until the payment had been confirmed, Angel, Lavender and Tawny were told to stay either in their flats or at home. Seemingly, Lavender got bored with being stuck indoors with nothing to do, and went out to a nightclub which had sent her an invitation to attend the reopening of their refurbished electro pop dance room. She was advised by a guy in a tuxedo to leave by the back door, as the press were waiting for her at the front. She complied, and got paint balled. It was just one shot, but a painful one, on her bare back.

Don Fisher had one of his men drop off the bag with the guest at table nineteen at Cosmo’s Seafood Restaurant, on the Strand, as instructed. The man at the table was little more than a boy. He appeared to be Arabic, and this was confirmed when he thanked the man for bringing his bag with the words:

“Tell Don that Jim is grateful for his cooperation.”

Don’s man waited in a shop doorway across the street and watched the restaurant, but the boy with the bag never emerged. Don never heard from Jim again, and had been surprised when he found out that the police knew he had been blackmailed.

We told the rocker what we knew, and he concluded that it was a slam dunk that it was Hickstead. I agreed with him, but noted that the police needed an iron clad case.

To my surprise, Fisher told us that the police were going to pick up Hickstead for questioning and perhaps get a warrant to search his accommodation. The problem was that no-one knew where he was staying. His credit card had not been used since he had used it to buy rail tickets to and from Leeds on Friday.

Chapter 39

City of London Police HQ, Wood St, London. Wednesday 8am.

DS Fellowes tapped on Inspector Boniface’s door before entering. As soon as he was in the room he was sharing his good news.

“Inspector, we were checking Hickstead’s credit card purchases to see if we could find out where he was staying and we came across this item. I’ve highlighted it in yellow.” Boniface took the printout and read that the card had been charged two hundred and eighty six pounds by VLM Ticketing.

“Who are VLM?” Boniface asked.

“They fly daily from London City Airport to Rotterdam, and it seems that Lord Hickstead has a flight booked at five this evening, with a return flight early tomorrow morning.”

“He must be selling the diamonds,” Boniface said, thinking out loud.

“That’s what we think, sir.”

“OK, Fellowes, this is what we do.”

The inspector laid out a plan to track and find the diamonds, a plan which he was optimistic would produce results.

***

Dee was concerned at how tired both of us were feeling and so she reset my alarm without me knowing. As a result, I slept until almost eight, whereas I was often up before six.

We ate a relaxed breakfast and neither of us were city ready, still in our lounging clothes. Dee suggested that we head in mid morning, and I agreed. As we sat and chatted, she asked about my family. I told her about my parents up in the Midlands, and my brother, all of whom felt responsible for me because I was the youngest and had no wife to take care of me. Dee thought that was amusing, given the perils I had faced this past week. She then asked if she could see pictures of them, and so, for ease, I went to www.webshots.com on my laptop and opened my account. My albums were all listed. I opened the one which I had ingeniously named Family Album.