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the inevitable grand reunion when Father, looking strangely like Anthony Hopkins, would admit that he’d erred and that he needs her. By now the scene has become so real she can smell his aftershave and feel the stubble on his cheeks as he hugs her close. Variations on this theme have been played out dozens of ways over the years. She sighs and makes an effort to switch off her futile longing. She’s twenty-nine, she’s never had a father and she certainly doesn’t need one now. But all the same… There and then she decides that she will contact a South African Missing Persons’ Agency and set in motion a search for her father.

CHAPTER SIX
    Chris wakes feeling optimistic. It’s Monday morning and the first day of her new job. She’s wearing a tailored black suit, black court shoes and a white silk blouse, and she makes the office by eight a.m.
    When Jean Morton, strong-featured, fiftyish, with iron-grey hair and a trace of a moustache, ushers her into a single office overlooking Regent’s Park, Chris tries to disguise her glee. There’s a green carpet, Venetian blinds, modern furniture and, best of all, a lockable filing cabinet and a wall safe large enough to take two dozen files.
    Jean, once Ben’s, now half hers, is trying to establish her authority and get to grips with who and what Chris is and how much of a threat she is likely to become. She explains how the expenses work and jots down Chris’ details for a company credit card. She pries a bit further than she has to, and fills Chris in on company gossip: Rowan is anunknown quantity who seldom socialises in the office, but he brings in most of their business from the many clubs and associations he networks. Ben and his wife have agreed to split, but Ben is depressed since he learned that Annette plans to return to Paris with their children. Janice Curtis, IT, is supposed to be on hand to help everyone with research, but she’s built up a three-week backlog doing private work, so it’s quicker to cope without her. Jean dismisses them all with a contemptuous chuckle.
    Ben arrives at nine-thirty, looking so sad that it hurts.
    ‘Pretty good view from here,’ he says as he sits on the other side of her desk. ‘We’ve been having a reshuffle and I grabbed this office for you. Do you have everything you need?’
    ‘Yes, thanks. I like the office and the view. I’m going to love being here.’
    She smiles warmly and watches the sadness fade from Ben’s eyes.
    ‘It’s not a picnic, I assure you. We have to crack this case as soon as possible. The reason for the hurry is that various non-governmental organizations, called NGOs, based in London and America, are about to combine their resources to persuade the public to boycott diamonds. They were very successful with furs some years back. If they aimed their skills at diamonds the resulting boycott would send the industry into a slump. No one wantsthat. Developing countries would be badly affected, miners would lose their jobs, and, incidentally, it would reflect badly on us. Several demonstrations have taken placed in the States recently.’
    ‘Why would anyone want to boycott diamonds?’
    ‘Because most of the civil wars in Africa were financed by diamonds and the resulting cruelty – injuries from mines, limbs hacked off, children forced to be soldiers…you know the score – has sickened every right- thinking person. Hence the term “blood” diamonds.’
    ‘But do all the blood diamonds come from wartorn territories, Ben?’
    ‘No. The point is these diamonds are not legal. They might be blood diamonds mined to finance civil wars, or diamonds that are surplus to a country’s quota, or stolen gems. Masses of roughs are stolen from legitimate mining houses every year. In other words, the diamonds are illegal in terms of a United Nationals mandate, and since most of them are from conflict zones, the term blood diamonds is most appropriate.
    ‘Apart from these problems, we now have a kidnapped