Free Hot Ice by Madge Swindells Page A

containing the word “diamonds”, plus a post office box number in the classified advertisements. Dealers interested in buying from him have the opportunity to write to his box. Then Freeman can check them out before contacting them to make an appointment. I had to rope in a friend of Jon’s to provide me with a jeweller’s background and a letterhead.’
    Chris listens in silence, feeling anxious. Ben wasnever designed for cloak and dagger work. He’s too candid and trustful. ‘Please be careful, Ben.’
    ‘Sure. I met Freeman in the New York Palace Hotel. He twigged that I wasn’t a dealer in no time and gave me the slip. Fortunately I’d arranged to have him followed. He unwittingly led us to his sister’s home. I tried to barge in on Freeman, but he was out. His sister made an appointment for me to see him tomorrow morning. Hope he shows up. If not I may have to fly to Liberia and dig him out of his burrow. I got his Liberian address from Immigration.’ Ben read it out for the files. ‘Apart from Jon’s problem, Freeman can help us a great deal. I’d say he knows exactly what’s going on.’
    ‘So how’re you progressing with the hacking, Chris?’
    ‘I have all their financial transactions for the past six months. I’ve been analysing them every possible way, but I haven’t found anything suspicious. As you said, there are millions of dollars en route to Africa. They have masses of cash at their disposal. Most of it goes to charitable groups, schools, hospitals, medical research and so on. I haven’t found any major cash withdrawals and I guess they’d have to pay for diamonds in cash. I can see no trace of purchases of arms either.’
    ‘OK. Keep trying. It was only a flyer.’
    Chris can hear the disappointment in Ben’s voice as she says goodbye. How can she fail Ben? At the same time, if the group has been set up merely tohand out freebies to Africans, what else could she hope to find? Suppose they really are buying illicit diamonds, laundering them, and selling them at ultra high prices, what sort of evidence could she find? Massive cash withdrawals obviously, yet there’s nothing shown in their accounts. What she needs is a closer look from the inside. There’s nothing more she can do tonight, so she locks Ben’s recorded tapes in her office safe and goes home.
     
    Early the next morning, Chris calls the personnel officer at the Provident Trust to ask if the company has any vacancies. All their hiring is handled by an agency, she’s told. Next, she calls the agency, but there are no vacancies. She seems to have reached a dead end.
    ‘If you give up now, you might as well quit the job,’ Chris tells herself sternly.
    ‘Use your head, Chris. You’ll find a way.’
    She hurries into Jean’s office. ‘What would Ben do if he needed to check on someone’s routine?’ she asks.
    ‘Get a detective maybe. The company normally uses Jeff Jennings at the Browning Agency. Shall I get him on the line?’
    ‘Thanks, Jean.’
    ‘I’m Ben Searle’s PA,’ Chris explains to the detective. ‘I need information concerning the movements of someone and I’m in a hurry. Can you see what you can do in twenty-four hours?’
    ‘I’ll certainly have something. Let’s have the details.’
    After spelling out her requirements, Chris hesitates for a moment.
    ‘There’s something else. Someone’s been stalking me. I’m not sure, but I think I managed to get him to pause in front of a jeweller’s in Finchley long enough for their security camera to get a good shot of him. It was around midnight. I stood there seconds before, so it might follow after a shot of me. Timmins, the jeweller, knows me. He’s a friend of my mother’s. I need to take a look at this stalker. Is there some way you could perhaps identify him?’
    ‘I’ll give it a go. Will tomorrow do?’
    ‘That’s fine. Thanks.’
    Chris spends the rest of the day rechecking the building society’s financial transactions to find out