The Summons

by Peter Lovesey

  He approached from Upper Borough Walls, the section of the old city defense that the Victorians decorated with battlements to make it look more medieval. In the shadow of the wall, below pavement level—just outside the ancient boundary—was one of Bath’s secret places, a tiny courtyard where, a stone plaque informed the public, 238 patients from the Bath General Hospital were buried. In the year 1849 the graveyard was closed “from regard to the health of the living”— a veiled reference to the cholera epidemic of that year. He gave it a glance and moved on. No disrespect, but the health of the living didn’t interest him much.

  A few steps farther on was Trim Street, named not for its appearance, but, prosaically, because the land had once been owned by George Trim. In fact, the narrow street was an architectural ragbag of eighteenth-century neoclassical and 1960s so-called reconstruction. The disharmony was compounded by the way the facades of the original buildings had been treated, or neglected. One was painted pink, another, next door, cleaned to reveal the creamy Bath stone, while the next was left with two hundred years of soot and grime.

  Diamond hesitated at the bottom of Trim Street. This was the end that had been reprieved from the 1960s’ rebuilding; on one side, a couple of shops, an art supplier and a boutique, that had second entrances in the little graveyard under the city wall. Opposite them, looking in want of restoration, was the one house with a classical facade, and also a plaque that explained why it had escaped being turned into a coffee shop or a wine mart; General Wolfe, the hero of Quebec, had once resided there when his poor health required daily visits to the spa waters. There were also two businesses that suggested that the modern Trim Street was a source of vitality: a Studio of Fitness and Dance and a building intriguingly labeled The Idea Works. A neat play on words, he thought. Maybe the nick in Manvers Street should be called The Investigation Works. Maybe he would try it on John Wigfull and see what reaction he got. Maybe.

  What had drawn Britt Strand here was a matter of speculation. A workout at the studio appeared the best bet. The Swedes are an athletic race. Diamond tried the doorbell several times and had to assume that the fitness and dance was over for the day. He stood under an antique lamppost and looked elsewhere for inspiration. Just ahead where the street turned right, an electrical repair shop was still open. Perhaps a faulty kettle had prompted the entry in the diary. Surely in that case Britt would have noted the name of the shop, not just the street.

  The same argument held for the boutique, only someone was in the act of bolting the door from the inside, so he had to act fast. He stepped across the cobbles and tapped on the glass. The two women within had a rapid consultation. In his raincoat and brown trilby, Diamond didn’t look the class of customer worth reopening the shop for, but who can tell whether a man has made a bold decision to buy something chic and expensive for a lady?

  One of them unbolted the door.

  He didn’t discover whether this tall, tanned woman in black was Kimberly herself or one of her staff. It said much of her professionalism that she didn’t bat an eyelid when he explained that this was a police matter and produced the photo of Britt Strand. Nor did she need telling about the murder that had created such a sensation in the city four years ago. She was quite sure she had never met Britt Strand. However, someone else might possibly have served her and if he would take a seat for a moment, darling, she would look at the mailing list.

  The darling reclined in a deep settee by a Georgian fireplace thinking how shabby his shoes looked against the pink carpet and wondering how much the clothes cost. The display material seemed to be French and Italian. It was the kind of place Stephanie would make a beeline for (in their salaried days) when she was supposed to be on a ten-minute shopping trip; she once came home with a sequinned jacket and pointed out that something quick for dinner need not be edible.

  The helpful saleswoman returned with the disappointing news that no Miss Strand appeared in the records. Asked which businesses had been in existence four years ago, she mentioned Minerva, the art shop, and Nixey’s, the electrical shop. Then she asked if this had anything to do with the crusties.”

  Diamond drew himself up in the settee. “Crusties?”

  “Do you know who I mean?”

  “Of course I know who you mean.” It was just that he hadn’t expected the subject to come up in a smart boutique. The crusties were the begrimed and dreadlocked people who congregated in the city center with their dogs and created alarm and despondency among the council officers responsible for tourism.

  “I only mention it because at about that time we had quite a scare with them. They took over one of the houses as a squat. It was reported to the police. I mean, it was very unhelpful to anyone trying to run a business. Perhaps you remember.”

  “I was up to my eyes in the murder inquiry,” said Diamond. “What happened?”

  “Luckily for us, they didn’t stay long, but I heard they left the place in a disgusting state and did no end of damage.”

  “And you thought it might have some connection?” he said.

  “She was a journalist, wasn’t she?”

  “Ah, but in the big league,” said he in a way that rejected the suggestion graciously. “She sold her stuff abroad, to some of the top magazines. I can’t see that a bunch of crusties squatting in Trim Street would interest anyone in France or Italy. She wouldn’t, by any chance, have written a piece about your shop?”

  “If she had, I’m sure I’d have noticed her picture when the murder was in all the papers.”

  Ninety-nine percent of doorstepping gets you nowhere, but in this game, you have to be persistent, he consoled himself as he left the boutique. He tried Nixey’s next, then the Trim Bridge Galleries at the top of the street.

  “No joy at all,” he commented to Julie when he was back at the nick. “I thought I might get lucky with the fitness place, but I gather it wasn’t in existence at the time of the murder. No one in Trim Street remembers Britt.”

  “It was a long shot,” Julie was bold enough to comment.

  “I enjoyed the exercise. How did you get on with the diary?”

  Julie had plotted every diary entry on a grid arrangement on a large sheet. The names and places were listed down the left side, with the weeks from January to December across the top. A tick at the intersection marked each mention. This way, the regular appointments were clearly defined.

  Diamond viewed her work with some reserve; this was about as much technology as he was willing to take. He studied the grid. “Presumably these are days she paid the rent. This is the riding. These are dates with Marcus Martin. There are some women’s names here. Who was May? Her name comes up quite a bit.”

  “May Tan, the hairdresser.”

  “That would explain it. Britt kept up appearances.”

  “And Hilary Mudd . . . ?”

  “... gave her facials.”

  “Why didn’t I guess?” He ran his finger down the list. “So Prue Shorter—don’t tell me—has to be a manicurist.”

  If Diamond made an unsmutty joke, however feeble, it wanted encouraging. Julie humored him by wincing. “Actually she was the press photographer Britt sometimes worked with.”

  He became serious again. “A professional colleague? Presumably we took a statement from her at the time. Be helpful to trace her. I’d like to know what other stories Britt worked on. I imagine an investigative journalist isn’t everyone’s favorite person. It’s possible she made enemies before she ever met Mountjoy.”

  “I’ll see if Miss Shorter is in the phone book.”

  “She’s yours, then,” he said in his old, imperious style. “Get out and see her tonight.”

  She didn’t object. Anyone who worked with Diamond expected overtime. But then he added, “I’m going to see what I can get from the rock musician.” And she did feel like objecting, but she had the sense to keep silent.

  As for the man himself, he was beginning to function as a senior detective again, and it felt agreeable. It would have f
elt even more agreeable in a larger vehicle than the Escort they had put at his disposal. Fortunately Monkton Coombe was a mere fifteen-minute drive. Jake Pinkerton, if the records were up-to-date, lived in a cottage close to the public school.

  The coach lamp that lit up automatically as Diamond approached, the trimmed lawn and pruned cordon fruit trees, didn’t fit the image of a pot-smoking Heavy Metal freak. And the man who opened the door was revealed as a smart dresser in a purple designer shirt buttoned at the neck, coffee-colored slacks and soft leather boots. He hadn’t enough hair remaining to let it grow with any conviction. Around forty, well in command, slim, tall and with alert brown eyes, unfazed by the unexpected visitor.

  “Sorry to spring this on you, Mr. . . . ?”

  The man stared back. He wasn’t falling for that one.

  “Mr. Jake Pinkerton?”

  A grudging nod.

  “You were good enough to help the police in regard to a murder inquiry four years back. You remember the case of the Swedish woman who was stabbed? It’s come up again and we’re speaking to the principal witnesses.” Diamond presented his credentials, so to speak, without actually revealing his civilian status.

  Pinkerton’s face took on the glazed look of a man importuned by a door-to-door evangelist.

  Diamond pressed on. “You’re going to tell me a man was convicted, and I should know, because I was in charge. Peter Diamond. I don’t think we met.”

  “The guy is on the run,” said Pinkerton. “It’s been in all the papers.”

  “Confidentially, Mr. Pinkerton, we believe he’s somewhere in this area.” Diamond’s eyes slid sideways, as if he expected Mountjoy to come around the corner of the cottage carrying a sledgehammer. “Mind if I come in?”

  The interior was straight out of Homes & Gardens, furnished with fine antique pieces that must have taken some finding, and some funds. Three framed gold discs were displayed in an alcove. Where were the cigarette burns and the wine stains, Diamond thought, the signs of head-banging and wild parties?

  Pinkerton showed him to a white leather chesterfield and faced him from an adjacent window seat.

  He said, “Let me absorb this fully. You’re reopening the Britt Strand case—is that why you’re here?”

  “I wouldn’t put it in those terms. This is routine, in case Mount joy attempts to contact anyone. He claims he was unjustly convicted.”

  “Who doesn’t these days?”

  “I don’t want you to think there’s any reason for panic,” Diamond said, regardless that Pinkerton was totally self-composed. “Do you know Mountjoy?”

  “Never met him.”

  “But you were a close friend of the victim?”

  Although Pinkerton didn’t quite deny this, his tone made clear that he would have liked to. “Britt and I had something going at one time. It was over by the time she was killed. That was a couple of years later.”

  “You’d stopped seeing her altogether?”

  “We each found other people, but we kept in touch. I liked her.”

  “But there had been an affair between you?”

  Pinkerton thought about his answer. His whole manner was dismissive. “If you want to call it that.”

  “When?”

  “Around 1987, through ‘88.’

  “What was she like?” Diamond rephrased it more tastefully. “I mean, what sort of person was she?”

  “Britt? She was smart.”

  “Fashionwise?”

  “Headwise as well. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. She was an ace reporter, wasn’t she? I only ever saw one thing she wrote, and that was about me, miles better than most of the stuff that gets written.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “Conkwell.”

  Puzzling. Pinkerton had named a hamlet deep in the Limpley Stoke Valley, southeast of Bath. “Were you performing there?”

  “Give me a break.”

  “I thought perhaps there was a pub.”

  Pinkerton said evenly, “I don’t perform anymore and I never performed in pubs. I’m a producer.”

  “You manage other musicians?”

  “The hell I do. I’m a producer.” Diamond had hit a raw nerve.

  “Pardon my ignorance. What’s the difference?”

  “I own some land at Conkwell. A big slice of the wood, if you really want to know. I built a studio there. It’s ...” He paused “. . . rather famous in the music business. Bands come from all over and I create unique sounds for them.”

  “I see. And Britt came to Conkwell to see the studio with a view to writing about it.”

  “You got it.”

  “And one thing led to another ...” said Diamond casually, as if his own life had been filled with erotic experiences with pretty Swedish journalists.

  “Yep.”

  “But it didn’t last?”

  “It didn’t last.”

  “Would you like to tell me about her?”

  Pinkerton looked at his watch. “She was very together. She could get enough bread for a single story to keep her living in style for months while she worked out the next story line. It wasn’t just finding the material that she was so good at. She was always after the angle. Once she went through a news mag pointing out all the good stories and the great items they might have been, given the right slant. Blew my mind.” He talked with more admiration than warmth, and it occurred to Diamond that this was one well-organized person praising another’s capacity to work the system. Whatever Pinkerton did at his studio in Conkwell Woods, he wasn’t a raver; he was making intelligent use of his know-how.

  “Did she ever mention the college?”

  “I didn’t even know she joined a college. We’d cooled off yonks before all that.”

  “Parted, you mean?”

  Pinkerton looked unhappy with this interpretation. “Cooled off, I said. We were grown-ups. We stayed friends. Why do you want to know all this?”

  “I’m trying to see it from Mountjoy’s point of view,” Diamond said, at full stretch to make it plausible. “If he’s in the area, either it’s to settle old scores or find something out. He’s got to be taken seriously.”

  “He won’t trouble me. Why should he trouble me?”

  Diamond didn’t venture a reply. “I’d like to get a fuller picture of Britt Strand. What else do you remember about her?”

  Pinkerton slid his eyes upward, as if an image of Britt were painted on the ceiling. “The presentation mainly. She was immaculate, blond, a real blonde, with sensational skin. Good smile. Most probably had her teeth fixed along the way. In her business you have to be confident. She oozed it, sex and confidence. She was a great lay. Typically Swedish with no inhibitions. Fancy a livener?” he said, drawing a line under that phase of the conversation.

  Diamond shook his head.

  “Britt liked her whiskey straight,” Pinkerton added. “She could put them away.”

  “I thought she was TT.”

  “She was a journalist.” Apparently that spoke for itself. “Booze is bloody expensive in Sweden. They go wild when they come over here. Now you mention it, she did ask for a tonic with lemon and ice last time we met. One hangover too many, I guess.”

  “Perhaps she used alcohol to put her in the mood.”

  “And drank tonic water to batten the hatches? Maybe.”

  “Was she romantic?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Speaking of putting her in the mood.”

  “Romantic?” He still treated the word as foreign.

  “Well?”

  “Basically, no. She didn’t go in for violins and roses. Ah.” He stopped and said, “I see what you’re getting at. Roses. No, I never gave her any. Red roses played no part in our relationship. I can’t believe anyone who knew her would think she liked that crap.”

  “This relationship ...”

  “We didn’t live together.”

  “Did she come here?”

  “Was it her place or mine, you me
an? Always mine. Here or the studio. You’re wasting your time with me.”

  How often had Diamond heard that piece of advice from a suspect who wanted him off his back. For the present he was disinclined to take it. “But you can tell me all about Britt.”

  Pinkerton got up and went to a rosewood desk that opened into a drinks cabinet. He held out an empty wine glass. “Sure you won’t?” He poured himself a brandy. “What can I tell you that I haven’t already?”

  “Did she mention any fears?”

  “About what?”

  “Other men pestering her. She was stunning to look at, you said yourself.”

  “Britt could handle that.”

  “She didn’t handle someone with a knife and a bunch of roses.”

  There was a silence that seemed not to trouble Pinkerton.

  Diamond said, “Would you mind telling me why the . . . arrangement between you and Britt cooled, as you put it?”

  “No reason,” said Pinkerton.

  “Come on. You slept with her. This terrific blonde who put so much into the sex. Did she dump you? Is that the expression?” Maybe he would get somewhere by goading Pinkerton.

  But the self-composure was impenetrable. “We dumped each other, if you want to put it that way. No fights. No big scenes. Nothing said, even. We just stopped screwing. If you find that hard to believe, Mr. Diamond, I can’t help you.”

  “It didn’t cross your mind at any stage that she might want to write something uncomplimentary about your past?”

  Pinkerton’s brown eyes regarded Diamond steadily. “My past? A few teenage trips on resin-assisted cigarettes don’t amount to hard news by today’s standards. She wrote a profile that she cleared with me first. She sold it to several magazines. All about my state-of-the-art studio in the wilds of Wiltshire, in a wood where nightingales sing. No dirt, on me or anyone who works with me. The piece didn’t need it. I have no other secrets, Mr. Diamond. I don’t date any of the royal family and I can’t predict Derby winners. Satisfied?”