The Summons (22 page)

“Some reason why Britt went to the trouble of visiting a squat,” he answered truthfully. “I still haven’t worked it out and G.B. was no help.”

“At least you caught up with him.”

“Yes. He’s a bright lad, but he couldn’t help.”

“Why is it important?”

He started working his way slowly through the photographs. “Because it may yet provide the answer to why she was murdered.”

“Isn’t old man Billington the answer?”

“We don’t know for sure.”

“You think Britt stumbled into something dangerous?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think Britt ever stumbled into anything. She knew precisely what she was up to, and why. I wish we did.”

“She could still have given one of the crusties a fright without knowing it,” Prue Shorter speculated, standing close to Diamond. “Just look at this lot! There really were some hard cases among them. God knows what unspeakable things they got up to. It only wanted one of them to think his past was about to be resurrected. I tell you, ducky, they scared me.”

He studied each photograph, characterizing the hard-faced people as individuals rather than an amorphous mob. Certain of them had obviously appealed to Prue as subjects, for they were prominent in the majority of the shots: a man with a Mohican bar of hair down the center of an otherwise shaven skull; a woman with a cropped head and round glasses; a heavily tattooed man clutching a bottle of cider and lying with his eyes closed in most of the pictures; and of course G.B., dominant in height and personality, judging by the attitudes others around him struck. Having established the leading players, Diamond took stock of the others, the less photogenic, sometimes just out of focus, or half obscured by furniture or bisected by the frame of the picture.

“This one,” he said, his finger on a slim, large-eyed girl with dark hair in a plait, “do you remember her?”

“I remember them all,” said Prue, “but I’ve no idea of their names, if that’s what you’re asking. Introductions weren’t encouraged.”

“I think I know this one’s name,” said Diamond.

“The thin woman?”

“Can you remember her?”

“Only vaguely. She stayed in the background. One of the squaws. Who is she?”

“Her name is Una Moon.”

“Should I have heard of her?”

“No.” And he didn’t enlighten her. Una Moon was the young woman he had last seen at the nick with Warrilow, the one who had first reported that Samantha Tott was missing.

Chapter Nineteen

Mountjoy’s barely functioning brain struggled to explain how it was possible that a woman was with him in his cell in Albany. He could definitely hear her moaning quite close to him. A conjugal visit—that great myth so often spoken of by the wishful thinkers? Conjugal visits—in Albany? About as likely as balloon trips. Even if they
were
permitted, who in the world would want to be conjugal with him? Sophie had sworn never to speak to him again after the divorce, let alone visit him in jail for what she would surely regard as the ultimate degradation.

And why was he lying on the floor instead of in bed? The thin mattress they provided was bloody uncomfortable and sometimes you could hardly tell the bed from the floor, only this felt cold as well as solid. And there
was
a woman somewhere close.

He shifted slightly, freeing his right arm and confirming that he was lying on a flat, smooth surface that had to be lino. His fingertips ran across one of the joins. He lifted the corner of the lino and felt underneath and traced the join between two floorboards. No prison he knew had a board floor.

He opened his eyes, saw an old-fashioned fireplace and a window without bars and remembered where he was. He cursed himself for falling asleep.

He told Samantha, “Stop moaning, will you?”

“I hate it here.”

“What?”

“This place.” She was sitting in the center of the floor wrapped in blankets, rubbing at her face with the back of her tied hands. “It’s giving me the creeps. I’ve never been anywhere so musty and horrible.”

“For God’s sake, I got you out of that cave, didn’t I?” Mountjoy said. “I brought you blankets, food, drink. I let you keep your precious violin.”

None of that counted, apparently. “It feels as if no one’s been in here for a hundred years. The toilet, with that wooden seat. That’s antique. This old fireplace with the iron grate. It’s bizarre, like being in a time warp.”

“Give it a rest, will you?”

“Where are we?” she asked. “I can hear traffic. Why won’t you tell me where we are?”

“You hungry?”

“No.”

“Cold?”

“Not really.”

“Well, then.”

“I’d like to know where I am.”

“Wouldn’t you just?”

“I’ve lived nearly all my life in Bath. I wouldn’t have believed a place like this still existed.”

“You live and learn.” Mountjoy yawned. Needing to stop himself drifting into sleep again, he got up and went to the window. Below, a long way below, the traffic moved tidily around the one-way system of the Orange Grove, past Bog Island and up Pierrepont Street toward the railway station. The view from this height was unmatched anywhere in the city because there was no obstruction except for the great square tower of the abbey to his right. He could see the gleam of the Avon and the lawns of the Parade Gardens. Further off, beyond the spire of the Catholic Church, rising above Brunei’s railway viaduct, was the wooded slope of Lyncombe Hill, leading the eye to Beechen Cliff. And out to the left was Bathampton Down; last night, out on the balcony, he’d seen Sham Castle floodlit. For Mountjoy’s purposes, this bolt-hole had certain merits, but he would still have favored the caravan park if only bad luck hadn’t forced them out. The stone mine was always going to be unsuitable, an overnight stop, no more. He’d seriously considered taking over the house in Morford Street, but that would have compelled him to take two more hostages. What a prospect! So he’d brought Samantha here. She would have to put up with the Edwardian plumbing.

He knew what she meant about the time warp. It was slightly eerie here. The place
did
seem remote from modern life and it wasn’t merely the dust and cobwebs. Down there, somewhere, that fat detective Diamond ought to be working his butt off to get to the truth of the Britt Strand murder, yet here, six floors up, in another age, there were hours of waiting to be endured, hours when confidence drained.

How much longer?

Mountjoy yawned again. Chronic fatigue was his problem. He kept Samantha tied hand and foot and still didn’t allow himself proper rest because of the risk of being ambushed by the police. It was making him twitchy, shivery and depressed; if he hadn’t planned and worked so single-mindedly for justice—if he’d merely escaped—he would have traded his freedom right now for an undisturbed night in his cell in Albany. When it was over, whatever the outcome, he was going to sleep. For days.

He felt his head sinking. Catnaps were dangerous, yet he craved them like a fix. Deciding to sit rather than stand, he settled against the wall. His lids drooped.

Minutes must have passed when he opened his eyes next. How many, he couldn’t tell. The one thing he could see for sure was that Samantha was no longer in the room.

Gone.

The blankets lay in a heap beside her violin case. The rope that had bound her wrists was on the floor with the flex he used for her ankles.

He got up and dashed to the door.

It wouldn’t open. Locked. Momentarily he concluded that she had locked him in after escaping. Then he felt in his pocket and found the key still there. He’d locked the door himself. Where was she, then? He crossed to the second door that connected with the next room. The door was slightly ajar. Before flinging it fully open, he hesitated. What if she were waiting inside, poised to strike him?

He took the gun from his pocket and said, “Get out of there. I want you in here fast.”

She didn’t make a sound.

“Samantha.”

He kicked the door inward.

Still she made no move.

He said, “You’d better know that I have a gun in my hand.” Then he stepped inside.

The room was empty.

Mystified and in a panic, he stared around him. If she wasn’t inside and she hadn’t gone through the door, she must have used the balcony window. Must have—for it was unfastened.

He pushed open the window and stepped outside. Samantha was there, to the left of the windows where she couldn’t be seen from inside. She was half-naked. She’d stripped off the white T-shirt he had given her and she was waving it frantically.

She turned and saw him and took it as the cue to start screaming for help. Up to now, the waving had been a dumb show. Yelling at the top of her voice, she leaned over the stone balustrade like a ship’s figurehead, her bared breasts pale and pointed in the crisp October air, and continued to flap the T-shirt.

Mountjoy pocketed the gun; it was useless when she was in this hysterical state. Up to this time he’d been scrupulous in the physical contact he’d had with her, avoiding any kind of handling she could object to as indecent. The tying and untying had been necessary, but not once had his hand strayed. All that went out of the window, literally.

He had to get her off the balcony, and gentle persuasion wasn’t an option. He grabbed her from behind, one arm around her ribs, the other prising her fingers from the balustrade she was trying to anchor herself to. She continued to scream. And she was strong. When her grip on the stonework was loosened, she forced her foot against it and braced her leg, forcing him back against the window. One of the panes cracked and shattered under the weight of his shoulder. He fell and took her with him.

They were in a wrestling match now and Samantha was on top, but with her back against Mountjoy’s chest, her buttocks mashing his stomach, her hair pressing into his face. To stop her from getting up, he swung his left arm across her chest and felt his fingers sink into the flesh of her right breast. In a frenzy, she pummeled his ribs with one hand and tried to bend back his fingers with the other. Her thrashing legs threatened to get some leverage on the balustrade until he succeeded in clamping one with his right leg. Then he held on in the hope that she would give up the struggle at some stage.

It was as well that they were locked like this, using up their strength. He was angry enough to have beaten her senseless.

Chapter Twenty

Two police cars with beacons flashing swung out into Manvers Street just as Diamond was about to make the turn into the yard. Commander Warrilow, with patrician self-importance etched all over his features, was seated beside the driver in the second vehicle. Yet another “sighting” of Mount-joy, Diamond presumed, and yawned.

When he had parked, he went in and tracked Julie to the canteen, where she rose without obvious haste from a table of CID lads and came to meet him.

With a tolerant grin meant to soften the edge of his sarcasm, he said, “High level discussions, Inspector?”

“Just getting the latest buzz,” she responded evenly. “They’re the Bumblebee squad.”

The grin faded.

Julie added, “Want to whisk me away?” She was learning how to deal with his irony. Too well.

He said, “That’s why I’m here.”

“Have you got time for a coffee?”

“Do you drink the coffee in this place?”

Her eyes widened. “There isn’t anything the matter with it, is there?” She hadn’t entirely got his measure.

Of course he left her to wonder about the coffee. He now felt he’d given as good as he’d got. “Get me a tea and we’ll update each other.”

Presently they had a table to themselves and Julie reported on her search of the Billington residence. “If the cassette I was looking for was there, I’m afraid it eluded me. I searched everywhere I could think and I had a SOCO to help. It’s safe to say that Winston Billington got rid of it, if he ever acquired it at all.”

“Find anything else?”

“A packet of raunchy pictures stuffed into an envelope in the secret drawer of an antique writing desk. What a letdown! I thought I’d struck gold and all I found was backsides.”

“Whose backsides?” Diamond solemnly asked. “Any we know?”

She shook her head. “How could I tell? Faces didn’t feature at all.”

“Pictures, you say. Photos?”

“Scraps of paper clipped out of soft-porn mags. Pathetic, really.”

“We all get our thrills some way,” he said philosophically.

“Well, I found it sad.”

“You’re not sorry for him?”

“Sorry for the women in the pictures, reduced to that.”

“They don’t need your sympathy. It pays better than the police.”

“I wouldn’t do it for anything.”

Fleetingly, he was reminded of the modeling offer he’d been made by Chelsea College, and chose not to mention it. That was for Art, not pornography, and he hadn’t signed up— yet. “And you found nothing else of interest?”

“No.”

“Letters, a diary?”

“We were looking for something the shape and size of an audio cassette,” she reminded him. “We didn’t want to get sidetracked.”

“Understood.” He summarized his interview with Prue Shorter, taking care not to understate his astuteness in recognizing Una Moon in one of the photos of the Trim Street squatters. “Beautiful how things link up.”

“Just a coincidence, I expect,” Julie commented with serious want of tact.

“Coincidence be buggered!” said he in an injured tone. “She’s living in a squat in Widcombe, so it’s quite logical that she should have been in squats before. I wasn’t surprised to spot her there. These crusties all know each other. They represent—what’s the jargon I’m groping for?—a whole subculture.”

“Are you going to question her?” asked Julie, adding, when he didn’t answer, “Correction. Am I going to?”

“One of us is, for sure. My big mistake four years ago was that I didn’t follow all the leads we had.”

“You can’t possibly follow up every lead in a murder investigation. And now with only two of us . .

“Una Moon may be a crucial witness,” he stated with an oracular air.

“But if Winston Billington is the murderer, where does she fit in?”

“I’m far from certain that he
is.”

She waited interestedly for him to say more. It wasn’t often that Peter Diamond admitted to doubts of any sort.

“We shouldn’t count on a confession when he recovers consciousness,” was all he added.

“He was
seen
going into the house.”

“If you believe G.B.”

“Don’t you?”

“G.B. is, or was, a drugs dealer. Telling lies goes with the job.”

Julie was plainly unsettled by all this. Diamond seemed ready to jettison most of the progress they had made, and she didn’t understand why. “But we have it confirmed by Mrs. Billington that her husband came back early from Tenerife. That checks with G.B.’s statement.”

“Checks with it, yes. Confirms it, no.”

She didn’t appreciate the distinction. “We know Billington perjured himself in court.”

“But we don’t know why.”

She sighed and said, “Something is going over my head here.”

He explained. “The point is this. Billington cut short his holiday and returned early. We don’t have copper-bottomed proof yet, but since we have corroboration from two sources we’ll take this as more than likely true. It’s the most interesting thing to emerge since you and I started on this. Now suppose G.B. also got to know this information, either back in 1990 when it happened, or some time since. He could easily have concocted a story to implicate Billington in the murder.”

“I understand that. But why?”

“To shift the suspicion.”

“Away from himself, you mean?”

“Or someone he wants to protect.”

She was still skeptical. “How would G.B. have found out about Billington’s holiday arrangements?”

“Through the grapevine. All those crusties at the Trim Street squat had met Britt when she came to do her story on the place. There was a lot of interest in the murder. Billington’s evidence at the trial was written up in the press. His picture was in the local papers at the time of the inquest. It only wanted one person to recall seeing him here in Bath at the time he was supposed to have been in Tenerife.”

She pondered the matter. “But we’ve been assuming that Billington returned early because he fancied his chance of some action with Britt. He bought flowers at Tenerife Airport, remember.”

“So Mrs. Billington told us.”

“We can check the credit card records.”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying all this may not have happened?”

“I’m saying there may be another explanation.”

“He told his wife the story of the emergency meeting in London.”

“She
told us he told her.”

“Don’t you believe her either?”

“Not until we’ve checked it ourselves. I’ve got a list of things that need following up ASAP, and one of them is that meeting. Get on the phone to Billington’s head office and see if they have any record of it. I also want to know if Una Moon has any form.”

“I’ll run her name through the PNC,” said Julie, forgetting Diamond’s computer phobia.

“Don’t we keep records of our own in this Constabulary?” he said peevishly.

“The PNC is quicker.”

Rather than arguing, he said, “As it’s so quick, see what you can find on the rest of the bunch: Billington, Marcus Martin, Jake Pinkerton and G.B.”

She didn’t protest. “Do we have a surname for G.B.?”

This wrongfooted him. He remembered trying to tease out the name, and failing. Annoyed with himself, he fired one of his regular broadsides: “It’s all initials these days. We don’t need words anymore. PNC, SOCO, CPS, PACE. Three days back in Bath and my brain is clogged with letters of the alphabet.”

“What do you suggest I do, then?”

“About the Police National Computer? Do you really want me to answer that?”

She smiled faintly. “I meant about G.B.”

When really taxed, he could sometimes dig deep into his memory. “There’s a unit to monitor the crusties over that midsummer festival nonsense every year. Operation Stonehenge, or whatever they call themselves. OS, no doubt. They ought to know his name.”

“I’ll try them. Shall I check Prue Shorter while I’m at it?”

“On the computer? Yes.”

“She’s still a suspect?”

He nodded, as if the question were superfluous.

Julie said, “I wasn’t sure if you’d ruled her out.”

“Why should I?”

“You thought originally that she might be a lesbian, jealous about Britt’s affairs with men, but now we know she had a daughter, that motive is out.”

He said, “I don’t see why. Did the sexual revolution pass you by? There are plenty of lesbian mothers about. Haven’t you heard the expression AC/DC?”

Julie exercised restraint, refraining from pointing out that he was now using initials himself. “Fair enough. I’ll check her, too.”

He finished his tea. “Whilst you expose yourself to gamma radiation, I’m going to look for John Wigfull. I want to know whether they’ve charged Mrs. Billington yet.”

Wigfull was in the main control room using the phone. Several others were speaking into headsets. In fact, a major alert seemed to be on. Briefly, he moved the phone away from his mouth and muffled it against his chest. “Have you heard?” he asked Diamond. “We’re about to move in on Mountjoy.”

“Where?”

Wigfull put up his hand to interrupt and spoke into the mouthpiece again. “Look, we’re fully stretched here. If I can’t get something sorted soon, I’m trying Wilts.”

“Is this another of Warrilow’s wild goose chases?” Diamond asked.

Wigfull shook his head and said down the line, “Thanks. Just as soon as you possibly can.”

“In Bath?” Diamond asked.

He put down the phone. “The Empire Hotel.”

“A
hotel?”
He plucked the name out of his past, clicked his fingers, and said, “Right. You mean that enormous place behind the Guildhall that’s been empty for years.”

“They’re in one of the top-floor rooms overlooking Orange Grove. Young Samantha was spotted forty minutes ago on the balcony trying to attract attention.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“Totally. She was topless and waving a T-shirt like a flag.”

“You know her as well as that?”

“I’m telling you,” said Wigfull, blushing scarlet, more in anger than embarrassment. “A Japanese tourist was taking a video from the top story of the Ham Gardens car park. He brought it straight here. On the zoom you can see it’s Samantha, even though her hair has been dyed.”

“Any sign of Mountjoy?”

“Hard to see.”

“So what’s happening?”

“Warrilow is there, directing operations.”

“You’d better warn him that Mountjoy is armed.”

“What?” Wigfull swayed toward Diamond. “What did you say?”

“He has a gun, a handgun. If they’re moving in, they ought to be told.”

“Bloody hell!” Wigfull snatched up the phone again. “Get me Mr. Warrilow, fast.” To Diamond, he said, “For crying out loud! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Diamond treated the question as less urgent than Wigfull’s business on the phone, and, sure enough, in less than the time it would have taken to answer, the vital information was being relayed to Warrilow.

“Yes, with a handgun. . . . Peter Diamond tells me. ... I don’t know, sir. I haven’t had a chance to ask him. ... Of course. ... In the meantime, will you . . . ? Yes, I think that’s essential.” To Diamond, he said, “I’m lost for words. People could have been killed.”

“Is he pulling them back?”

“Of course he is. My God, Peter, you’d better fill me in fast.”

That was what Diamond proceeded to do, explaining succinctly how Mountjoy had ambushed him in the Francis the previous evening at the point of an automatic. “Don’t ask me where he got it from, or whether it’s loaded. That didn’t emerge. We talked. He told me he was becoming impatient. He wanted results.” He paused to receive the heat of Wigfull’s outrage.

“All this was last night. Last night, for crying out loud? I simply don’t understand why you didn’t report it.”

“Frankly, John, because I believe Warrilow will have him shot. Now that he knows the man is armed, he’s justified in taking his life. You know the form. You know how sieges end.”

“If it’s Mountjoy’s life or one of ours, we’ll shoot the bastard,” Wigfull declared.

“And I can’t fault your logic.”

This sounded like capitulation and caught Wigfull off balance. His next remark was couched less aggressively. “But you were willing to expose police officers to fire without warning them.”

“No. The minute I heard they were moving in, I told you what I know.”

“Why not last night?”

“I just explained.”

“What’s so special about Mountjoy, that you want him kept alive?”

Diamond insisted gently, “I’m almost certain that he’s an innocent man.”

“Innocent?
He’s kidnapped Mr. Tott’s daughter. That’s a serious crime.”

“I mean innocent of murder, the murder I sent him down for.”

“I see! You believe what Mrs. Billington told us last night, that stuff about her husband killing Britt Strand?”

“All I’m saying is that Mount joy appears to have suffered a miscarriage of justice. I was chiefly responsible and I want to see him cleared.”

“If he is, it won’t reflect credit on you.”

At this, Diamond erupted. “Do you think I’m looking for bloody credit? I spent long enough in the police to know what that amounts to. I had a pretty good record as a detective, but I wasn’t infallible, and when I make a mistake I have the guts to admit it and do something about it.”

“I don’t understand this,” said Wigfull, raking a hand through his dark hair. “I just don’t understand. You were brought in because of Samantha Tott, not Mountjoy. Her life was under threat and Mountjoy was making demands. We had you brought here to keep him sweet while we recaptured him.”

“I made it crystal clear that if I stayed, I would look at the case again. Keeping people sweet doesn’t come naturally to me, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I don’t know how you hoped to get anywhere, just two of you.” A thought struck Wigfull and it was almost possible to see it strike. “Did Inspector Hargreaves know that Mountjoy is armed?”

“She wasn’t there,” Diamond said, wanting to cut off that avenue.

“But did you inform her?”

“Keep Julie out of this.”

“You may think because you’re no longer on the strength that you can take chances with men’s lives, but she’s one of us. If she knew about that gun—”