The Summons

by Peter Lovesey

  He wouldn’t be shaken from his confessional mood. “If it were just my own life, fair enough, but it was yours and you had no say in the decision. It was the most selfish bloody thing I’ve ever done.”

  She said, “It was a question of principle.”

  “Yes, mine, not yours.”

  “If they didn’t appreciate your worth as a detective, they didn’t deserve to keep you.”

  He gave a short, sardonic laugh. “They were only too happy to get shot of me.” He sighed, turned over and talked to the wall. “I deserved to go. I didn’t fit in.”

  Stephanie wriggled toward him. “Yes, you’re a brute to be with.”

  “Inconsiderate,” said he.

  “Tactless,” said she.

  “Boorish.”

  “And self-pitying.” She tugged at his pajama trousers and slapped his exposed rear. “Does that make you feel any better?”

  “Not really.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Who’s talking about sport?”

  She pressed against him and whispered in his ear, “I am.”

  Apparently the fates wanted some sport as well, because at this intimate moment came the scrape of shoes on the concrete steps outside.

  “What the heck . . . ?”

  “Some drunks, I expect,” murmured Stephanie.

  “Or kids, messing about. Sounds like more than one to me.

  “Kids at this hour?”

  They lay still and waited.

  “Can’t even find the bell,” said Diamond.

  On cue, the bell was rung.

  “What sort of time is this?” muttered Diamond. “It must be after midnight.”

  “It is. Are you going?”

  “Sod that. I’m not at home to anyone. I’ll look through the curtain.” He got up and went to the window. Two youngish men in padded jackets were standing out there faintly illuminated by a streetlamp. They didn’t look drunk. “I’m foxed,” said Diamond.

  Stephanie sat up and put on the bedside lamp.

  “Switch it off!” Diamond hissed at her.

  But the callers must have seen the light because they rang again and rattled the knocker as well.

  “I’d better go.”

  “Do you think you should? They can’t be up to any good at this hour.”

  “I’ll keep the chain on.” He reached for his dressing gown. The knocking continued, loud enough to disturb the entire house, so he shouted, “All right, all right.”

  He opened the front door the fraction the safety chain allowed, and looked out.

  “Mr. Peter Diamond?”

  He frowned. A couple of passing drunks wouldn’t have known his name. “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Inspector Smith and this is Sergeant Brown. Avon and Somerset CID.”

  “Avon and Somerset? You’re way off your patch, aren’t you?”

  “Would you mind if we come in?” The man held a police identity card close enough to the crack for Diamond to see that he was, indeed, called Smith. If you’d wanted to invent a couple of names, would you seriously have chosen Smith and Brown?

  “It’s bloody late, you know,” Diamond complained. “What’s this about? Has somebody died?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Could we discuss it inside, Mr. Diamond?”

  He had to admit that this was authentic CID-speak for dealing with a potential witness—or humoring a dangerous suspect. “I’m ex-CID myself. I know my rights.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If I’m under suspicion of something, I want to be told what it is.”

  “You can rest assured about that, sir. We’re not here to interview you.”

  “But you’re up from Somerset, so it isn’t just a social call.”

  “Right, sir. It’s urgent, or we wouldn’t be disturbing you.”

  Diamond unfastened the chain. At the same time he called out to Stephanie, wanting to put her mind at rest and realizing as the words came out that he would not succeed, “It’s all right, love. They’re CID.”

  He led them into the living room. Both officers took stock of the place with expressions suggesting that they couldn’t understand how a former superintendent had sunk so low.

  “Coffee?”

  “Please phone this number immediately, Mr. Diamond.” Inspector Smith handed across a piece of paper and added in an afterthought, “You do have a phone?”

  Diamond walked to it.

  He noticed Sergeant Brown turn and close the door, and it wasn’t to stop a draft. They wanted to prevent Steph from hearing what was said. This cloak-and-dagger stuff was tiresome.

  He pressed out the number.

  It didn’t have to ring more than a couple of times. A voice said, “Yes?”

  “Diamond speaking.”

  “Excellent. I’m Farr-Jones, Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset. I don’t believe we have met.”

  If they had, they wouldn’t have spent long in each other’s company. Farr-Jones’s voice was redolent of golf clubs and smart dinner parties that Diamond would have avoided like the plague. But the name was familiar. Patrick Farr-Jones had been appointed to Avon and Somerset about eighteen months ago after serving as ACC in Norfolk. The Chief Constable sitting up to take a call in the small hours? This had to be high level.

  “You probably guess what has prompted this call, Mr. Diamond,” the velvet tones articulated.

  “No,” said Diamond.

  The terse response derailed Mr. Farr-Jones. He evidently wanted some cooperation, so after a short hiatus he started again with a compliment. “Well said. A good detective assumes nothing.”

  “I’m not a detective anymore, Mr. Farr-Jones.”

  “True, but—”

  “And it’s debatable whether I was ever a good detective.”

  “My information is that you were very good.”

  “Pity nobody thought so at the time,” said Diamond. “What should I have guessed? If it was something in the papers, I don’t read them, except to look for jobs.”

  “You haven’t heard about Mountjoy, then?”

  An image from years ago flickered in his brain: a bedroom, a woman’s body on the bed in pale blue pajamas bloodied with stab wounds. And there was a bizarre feature that had got into all the papers. Stuffed into her mouth and scattered across her body were the heads of a dozen red roses in bud. This ritualistic feature of the murder had created a sensation at the time. “What about Mountjoy?”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t heard. It was all over the papers last week. He’s out. He escaped from Albany.”

  “God help us!”

  On October 22, 1990, Diamond had arrested John Grainger Mountjoy for the murder of Britt Strand, a journalist, in a flat in Larkhall, Bath. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

  Farr-Jones added, “He’s made his way here. An incident has occurred, an extremely serious incident.”

  “And you believe it’s Mountjoy?”

  “We’re certain.”

  “How do I come into this?”

  “We need you here. It’s essential that you come.”

  “Hold on, Mr. Farr-Jones. I quit two years ago. I’m not on the strength anymore.”

  “Kindly hear me out, Mr. Diamond. This is more than a dangerous man on the run. He’s created an emergency, a major emergency, and I can’t say any more than that over the phone except that we have asked for and achieved a press embargo. As an ex-superintendent you’ll appreciate that we don’t go to such lengths unless it is justified by the sensitivity of the incident.”

  “And you think I can help?”

  “It isn’t like that.”

  “What is it like, exactly?”

  “Didn’t I just say that I can’t go into details?”

  “Why not, if there’s an embargo? Surely that makes it safe to talk.”

  “Please don’t be difficult. I know this is a wretched time to be disturbed, but take my word for it, there is an overridi
ng necessity for you to come.”

  “You mean right away?”

  “The officers who are with you now have instructions to drive you here. As soon as you arrive you will be fully briefed.”

  “And if I decline?”

  “I would still require the officers to drive you here.”

  Diamond was tempted to ask what the purpose of the phone call had been if he was being carted off to Bath willy- nilly, but he restrained himself. “I’d better get some clothes on then, but no obligation. You do appreciate I’m not in the police anymore?”

  He showed Smith and Brown where the coffee things were and went back to the bedroom to break the news of his departure to Stephanie. He told her as much as he knew; after all, she was entitled to be told and he was under no obligation of secrecy. She found it difficult to credit that the police wanted him back after the angry scene when he had quit. In his heavy-handed way he had been a good detective, but no one is irreplaceable. She asked how long he would be there and he reminded her that Bath was only a couple of hours’ drive. He promised to phone her in the morning.

  To make light of it, he said, “Well, I suppose it beats posing in the nude.”

  Stephanie said, “Don’t count on it.”

  Chapter Three

  Sergeant Brown drove as if he wanted to get airborne. The streets of West London were a blur from the backseat of the red Montego heading for the M4. Peter Diamond, never comfortable in cars, tried repeatedly to get a conversation going, but neither of his escorts would be charmed or bullied into disclosing any more about the “major emergency” being used to justify this extraordinary night exercise. By Junction Three Diamond had concluded that they were just dogsbodies who knew nothing.

  He changed the subject and asked for news of the current personnel in the Avon and Somerset CID. Evidently a shakeout had taken place since the new Chief Constable had arrived. Of the murder squad of two years ago—Diamond’s team— only two senior detectives remained. As many as seven had been transferred to other duties or had taken early retirement. The survivors were Keith Halliwell, charming, but a lightweight, and John Wigfull, the fast-track career man with the staff college mentality. Wigfull had been elevated to the rank of Chief Inspector. He now headed the squad.

  Diamond closed his eyes and told himself it was all behind him. What did it matter to him personally if a toe rag like Wigfull had the top job?

  “Good thinking,” said Smith.

  “What?”

  “Getting some shut-eye while you can.”

  “The speed we’re going, it could be permanent.”

  However, Diamond did drift off.

  When he woke, prepared to find himself in intensive care, they were at Membury Services, sixty miles on. A petrol stop.

  “I don’t know about you fellows, but I wouldn’t say no to a coffee,” he suggested.

  “We’ll be there in under the hour,” said Smith.

  “Under three-quarters,” said Brown. “Have a coffee when we get there.”

  “By then I’ll need something stronger than coffee.”

  The last stretch, over the rump of the Costwolds on the A46 after leaving the motorway, gave Brown the opportunity to bring the experience to a heart-thumping climax, leaving tire marks at intervals on the winding descent from Cold Ashton, beside what Diamond knew was a sheer drop of several hundred feet if the car left the road.

  In other circumstances the night panorama of Bath with its myriad lights spreading out from the floodlit Abbey would have been a welcome sight. He saved his approval for the moment they turned right onto the level stretch of the London Road.

  “Good.”

  “Good driving, or good to be here?” said Smith.

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after three.”

  “All of two hours. What kept us so long?”

  Smith and Brown were easy targets. He looked forward to sharper exchanges presently.

  “Who will I see at the nick? Who are the insomniacs on the roster?”

  Smith didn’t know, or didn’t care to answer.

  The car drew up at the entrance to Manvers Street Police Station and Diamond, buoyant after surviving the trip, went in with Smith to get the answer to his question.

  The public reception area had been altered since Diamond’s day, drastically reduced in size by partitioning. The silver trophies won by the force remained on display in a glass cabinet, practically daring the local smash-and-grab lads to have a try. A round mirror was strategically placed to give a view of anyone entering. The desk sergeant operated from behind protective glass, like a bank clerk. He was one of the old hands and his face lit up. “Mr. Diamond! It’s a real tonic to see you again.” A warmer welcome than old acquaintance merited. Diamond wasn’t fooled: it said more about the new regime than his own lovability.

  Smith escorted him upstairs to the room the top brass used as an office when they visited. Ironically, it was the same room Diamond had stormed out of the last time he had been here. That ill-starred morning, Mr. Tott, the Assistant Chief Constable, in uniform, every button fastened, had been at the far end of the oval mahogany table to inform Diamond he was being taken off the murder inquiry he was heading and replaced by Wigfull. The offense? He had allegedly caused concussion to a turbulent twelve-year-old who had kicked him in the privates. All he had done was push the boy aside, against a wall. Young Matthew had later admitted he was faking the concussion, but by then Diamond had resigned.

  The door stood open.

  “Go right in,” said Smith. “Mr. Tott is waiting.”

  Diamond slapped a hand against the door frame. “Did you say Tott? I don’t believe this.”

  “The ACC,” Smith whispered reverentially.

  “I know who he is,” Diamond said in a voice that must have carried into the room. “I don’t wish to speak to him.” He turned away from the door and started back along the corridor to the stairs. He wasn’t sure where he was heading except away from that bloody man he despised. The anger he thought he had dissipated two years ago had him seething.

  Smith came after him and caught him by the arm. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  “Just enough to prevent carnage.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s no concern of yours.”

  “But it is. I was supposed to bring you to that room. They’re waiting in there to speak to you. It’s the middle of the night, for pity’s sake! Where are you going?”

  “As far away from that dipstick as I can. I’m a civilian. I don’t have to grovel.”

  He continued downstairs.

  “I can’t let you do this, Mr. Diamond,” Smith called after him. “You can’t leave the building.”

  “Try and stop me,” the ex-detective shouted back. “Do you have a warrant?”

  Upon reaching the ground floor, he walked briskly to the entrance hall, past his friend the desk sergeant without so much as a look, through the double doors and out into the night air.

  Tott.

  He said aloud, “What kind of plonker do they take me for?”

  He strode up Manvers Street in a state of outrage; a case of rocketing hypertension. Some way up the street he realized that spots before the eyes are not a healthy sign, and he had better talk himself into a calmer frame of mind. At least he’d had the gumption to walk out. He ought to be feeling better for asserting his independence. He would try the Francis Hotel in Queen Square; a congenial place to get his head on a pillow until morning, when he would return home by train. At lunchtimes in the old days when things were quiet at the nick he had sometimes popped into the Roman Bar at the Francis for a beer. In more benevolent moods than this he had basked in the plush ambience suggestive of less stressful times. It was easy to picture city worthies in pinstripes, with waistcoats and watch chains, entertaining flighty young ladies in cloche hats.

  Bath’s city center was safer for walking than London would have been at that hour. The only peo
ple he saw were a group of homeless men huddled around the grille behind the Roman Baths where the warm air was emitted. Safe it might be, but the option of spending the rest of the night on the streets had no appeal. If the hotel wouldn’t give him a room at this hour, he’d make his way to the railway station and wait for the first train.

  Ahead was the glass-and-iron portico of the Francis, facing the stately trees and unsightly obelisk of Queen Square. He was within a few paces of the revolving door when a police car with flashing beacon screeched around the corner of Chapel Row toward him, disregarding the one-way route around the square.

  There is nowhere to step out of sight on the south side of Queen Square. No lanes, passages or shop doorways. There are just the railings fronting the hotel. Diamond wasn’t built for running or jumping and he didn’t fancy entering the lobby with policemen in pursuit, so he stepped to the curb and waited.

  The patrol car stopped and someone in a leather jacket and jeans got out of the passenger seat. Diamond registered first that she was female and second that he had recognized her. His memory for names wasn’t so bad as he had feared. Julie Hargreaves had been a sergeant in the CID at Headquarters when last they’d met. She had impressed him as an able and dependable detective.

  Disarmed, he relaxed his posture and grinned. “It’s a fair cop, guv. You’ve got me bang to rights.”

  She smiled back. “I was willing to bet you’d make for the Francis.”

  “My old watering hole.”

  “Smithie’s checking Pratt’s.”

  “It takes one to know one,” he commented. “Are you going to put an armlock on me, Julie?”

  She said, “I ought to. You’re the most wanted man in Bath.”

  Sensing that she might be willing to share some information, he said seriously, “I wish someone would tell me why. Mr. Tott appears to think he still has the right to have me hauled out of bed, driven a hundred and twenty miles and dragged before him in the middle of the night. I foolishly assumed that the Gestapo was a thing of the past.”

  She said, “Pardon me, Mr. Diamond. We’ve got a real emergency on.”

  “So I was told.”

  “It wasn’t Mr. Tott who sent for you.”

  “No, that’s true,” he conceded. “It was the Great White Chief, Farr-Jones.”