Gott & Himmell

"We'll be back around five. And if we find you've been lying, we'll bury you around five thirty."

- William Gott

William Gott and Eric Himmell are two antagonists from the Anthony Horowitz Diamond Brothers book The Falcon's Malteser. They also came in its film adaptation, Just Ask for Diamond.

Biography
Although born in Germany they were educated at Eton. In the time they were at school, the gym teacher and assistant headmaster were both killed. The assistant headmaster was found strangled with his own tie. William Gott and Eric Himmell soon got into the criminal underworld and became henchmen of the Falcon.

Henry von Falkenberg, aka the Falcon, was in possession of millions of pounds of diamonds, and he had safes in every capital city where he stored his diamonds. William Gott and Eric Himmell were his lieutenants and he told them his secrets. They wanted to succeed him as the next criminal master.

William Gott and Eric Himmell followed Johnny Naples, the Falcon's friend, over to England when Naples learned of the diamonds. Naples led the killers to Timothy Simple, Tim Diamond's, flat, and when a car backfired when Naples was with the brothers, Naples' hand plunged onto his revolver.

Naples knew he was being followed and he got scared, so he hid himself away in the Splendide Hotel. Gott and Himmel ransacked Tim's place when he had come back from the movies and found the place wrecked. They also searched the place for the Malteser packet Naples carried but couldn't find it. Nick Diamond opened it, and then bought a decoy to fool them again.

On the day of the Falcon's funeral, William and Eric broke into the flat again. But Lawrence, the chauffeur of the Fat Man, the master criminal, was there. Lawrence told Eric to get lost, and when Eric got angry, he shot Lawrence.

The Diamond Brothers were followed home by police Snape and Boyle, who arrested them for the chauffeur's murder. Then, the Diamond Brothers met a singer named Lauren Bacardi, who was Naples' old girlfriend. They told her Naples had been murdered. Then she was called to the door by pretense of flowers and abducted by William Gott and Eric Himmell, who drove off into the night. But Nick ran after and clung onto their van, sensing an intruder, Gott and Himmell shook him off.

When the Professor Quentin Quisling came to Nick's flat to get the Maltesers, Nick gave him the fake box, and then gave him a tail, following him down the street but was knocked out by William and Eric, who took Nick to their apartment in an industrial estate in London.

William Gott and Eric Himmell insanely invited Nick to tea and fairy cakes, and they dined him before asking him the Maltesers. They wanted their location. Nick said it was at Locker 180 at Waterloo. Fooled, the thieves went off to get them after threatening to kill Nick when they came back. He was thrown in a cell with Lauren Bacardi, but both of them escaped.

When the killers returned, getting angry at being held up by a van, Nick decided to stop them killing him and Lauren by dropping a piano on their car. Fortunately, no one was killed, but both William and Eric were badly injured.

William and Eric then pursued Nick to Selfridges in the sausage department because Lauren told them that was where Naples saw a revelation, revealed to be a barcode. Then although Nick lost the men, he was chased by William, who killed a fake Santa, and also got himself pinned to the wall by his jacket when Nick shot a speargun at him.

Then, Nick got the Falcon a phone call to meet at Brompton cemetery on Christmas day at lunch. He said he would explain everything then.

William and Eric turned up and listened to Nick explain the barcode was the key for the diamonds in the Falcon's safe in his grave. But afterwards, the killers got greedy. William shot the Fat Man, who shot William. Then Eric ordered the Maltesers to be picked up. But then Eric too was shot by the Falcon's own wife.