The Summons

by Peter Lovesey

  “I never have much, anyway.”

  “Just as well. We have ten and a half hours to nail the killer, Julie.”

  They found the patient sitting up, in conversation with a woman in a dark red quilted coat.

  “Who’s the visitor?” Diamond muttered to the constable on duty in the corner.

  “His sister.”

  “Did they say he could have visitors?”

  “They didn’t say he couldn’t, sir. She just walked in.”

  He rolled his eyes upward. “What do you think your job is, then—watching the nurses?”

  As soon as he approached the bed the woman got up from the chair, blushing scarlet. She was wearing a perfume that more than canceled out the hospital smells. She must have been in her mid-forties, with dark, dyed hair and a small, pretty, round face of a type that had been commonplace in the fifties, but you didn’t see so often now.

  “Pardon me,” Diamond said, “but we’re from the police.”

  “Of course.” She leaned over Billington, said, “I’ll come again, Win. Take care, love,” and planted a kiss on his forehead that left a lipstick mark.

  In stepping aside to let her pass, Diamond backed into a screen and had to steady it. In the confusion he murmured to Julie, “Follow her.” Then he gave his total attention to the patient. Billington’s head was bandaged, yet he was no longer linked to a ventilator or a drip feed. The bed had been raised a few turns to bring him up from the horizontal. Was this frail figure with watery eyes the killer who had bluffed his way through the police investigation four years ago, the bottom fancier with sex on the brain and a steady supply of Milk Tray to help achieve it? “Remember me, sir? Peter Diamond, Bath CID. We met some years ago. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

  Billington said something inaudible.

  “Can you speak up?”

  “. . . very hazy.”

  “I’m not surprised. You were out cold for a day. Can you recall anything at all?”

  “... don’t see how I can help.”

  The phrase triggered a memory. Four years ago in court Billington had been more articulate, yet the essential message had been similar: he was a decent citizen anxious to cooperate, only puzzled as to his part in the proceedings. Diamond reflected cynically that the same air of innocence probably worked a treat in selling saucy greetings cards.

  “What happened, Mr. Billington?”

  “My wife ...”

  “Yes?”

  “. . . spoken to you?” Hazy he might be, but he was smart enough to test the water first.

  “She has.”

  “We had a falling-out. She tell you that?”

  “I’d like to hear your version, sir.”

  “. . . got rather out of hand this time. She must have struck me. Couldn’t say what she used.”

  “A bag of coins, she told us.”

  “Just coins?”

  “A solid mass of them can weigh quite heavy. Enough to do serious damage.”

  “Mm. Awfully sore.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive. What was the cause of this falling-out?”

  He pondered this for a considerable time. “Something she imagined.”

  Diamond looked at the lipstick imprint on Billington’s forehead. “You didn’t provoke her?”

  “All in her mind.”

  “You can’t say for certain why your wife attacked you?”

  “Don’t wish ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t wish to press charges. Sort this out in our own way.”

  “It was a serious assault, sir. She damn near killed you.”

  “Poor old me.”

  You’ll feel even worse when you know what she’s accusing you of, thought Diamond. “Mrs. Billington told us that the reason for her anger went back four years, to the time the Swedish woman was murdered in your house.”

  “Yes?” The voice was hollow and the eyes slid aside, as if he was unwilling to make the effort of thinking back four years.

  “She stated that you returned home from Tenerife before Britt Strand was killed. That wasn’t what you said in your statement to us at the time, or in court.”

  Billington mumbled, “This important?”

  “It’s bloody important,” Diamond told him, trying to speak the words calmly.

  “Long time ago.”

  “I must know what really happened.”

  Billington’s eyes made contact with Diamond’s again and he said in a surprisingly lucid utterance, “I don’t wish to testify against my wife. The reason why she attacked me is academic.”

  “I’m not particularly interested in what happened yesterday, sir. I want to know about 1990. Your wife has accused you of murdering Britt Strand.”

  He digested this and then summoned up a smile. “Bit over the top, isn’t it?”

  “Did you return from Tenerife two days before your holiday was due to end?”

  “Don’t think I should answer that.”

  “Mr. Billington, you won’t know this, but John Mount-joy, the man convicted of Britt Strand’s murder in 1990, has escaped and is at this minute holding a young woman hostage. He swears he’s innocent of that murder. Your wife has named you as the killer.”

  This elicited a long interval of silence.

  “Shows how much she knows,” Billington was finally spurred to say. “She wasn’t even in this country when Britt was killed.”

  “But you were. What your wife told me is true.”

  “Yes.”

  “She also told me you bought some flowers at Tenerife Airport.”

  “How did she know that?”

  “Credit card statement.”

  Billington made no response.

  “Why? Why did you come back early?”

  “A business meeting. In London.”

  That mythical meeting. Diamond looked over his shoulder for Julie, but of course he’d sent her in pursuit of the woman visitor. He’d asked her to check whether such a meeting ever took place. Was that what she’d been trying to tell him in the car on the way here? He took a chance. “There wasn’t any meeting. You came back to Bath with those flowers. You were seen on the night of the murder entering the house.”

  “It is my house.”

  “You don’t deny it, then?”

  “I deny murdering Britt.”

  “But you were there when she was killed.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  Breaking the news considerately, Diamond said, “There’s something you ought to know, Mr. Billington. We have a witness who saw a man answering to your description let himself into the house some time between eleven and midnight. This witness went so far as to say that the person looked as if he owned the place. He had a door key. And only a few minutes before, Britt Strand came to the door to show Mount-joy out. Do you understand what I’m saying? Mount joy—the man convicted of murder—left the house and, shortly after that, you went in. She was still alive when you went in.”

  Billington’s moist brown eyes held Diamond’s steadily. He said with clarity, “And did this eagle-eyed witness also see me leave the house a few minutes later?”

  These occasional bursts of articulate speech had Diamond convinced that the vagueness was a convenient bluff. Billington was in full possession of his mental powers.

  “Leave the house? No, Mr. Billington. He didn’t mention it.”

  “But was he still there?”

  The question deflected Diamond. He cast his mind back to what G.B. had said. Had he remained watching any longer after the second caller arrived? Diamond dredged deep for the words G.B. had used. “/ left. Seeing him arrive made up my mind. He was sure to come to the door if I knocked and I didn’t want any hassle.” So Billington’s story matched G.B.’s in that particular. There was more to cross-check. He removed his hat and placed it on the bed.

  Immediately a voice behind him said, “You needn’t think you’re staying. Mr. Billington has had one visitor for twenty minutes before you arrived. W
e can’t have him getting tired.”

  He half turned and got a faint impression of a dark blue uniform at the edge of his vision. Judged by her voice, the ward sister wasn’t the sort to respond to persuasion.

  Diamond nodded, neither conceding nor defying. He leaned closer to Billington. “Where did you go?”

  Billington chose silence, probably relying on the sister to bring this to a quick conclusion.

  “If you left the house as you just suggested, where did you go?”

  He shook his head.

  “Can anyone vouch for this? Where did you spend the rest of the night if it wasn’t in your own house?”

  Billington looked away.

  “If you won’t answer, I’ll have to assume that you can’t because you made it up.”

  “Assume what you like.”

  “That night I’m talking about, did you try anything with Britt?”

  Billington frowned. “What do you mean—try anything?”

  Diamond turned his head to satisfy himself that the sister had moved on. “A bit of slap and tickle.”

  A faint trace of color rose in the patient’s cheeks. “I didn’t even see her. She was upstairs. We live on the ground floor.”

  “How do you know she was upstairs? Did you hear her?”

  “I saw the light at her window as I came along the street.”

  A plausible answer. “You’re telling me you didn’t go into her flat that night? Didn’t even knock on the door?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “It’s no secret that you fancied her, used to give her chocolates and flowers. There you were, alone in the house with her for once. Don’t tell me you missed your chance.”

  “I wasn’t in the house five minutes.”

  “Ah, yes. This unlikely story that you went out again. If you won’t tell me where you spent the rest of the night, perhaps you’ll say what you did in that five minutes.”

  “Collected my car key. Went to the toilet.”

  “Then you left the house again?”

  “Yes.”

  “After collecting your car key. So you drove somewhere?”

  The assumption was rather obvious. In Billington’s supposedly depleted state a sarcastic comment would sound too sharp, so he gave Diamond a despising look. “Yes. I didn’t need my car keys on holiday so I left them in the house. My old motor was parked in the street for a couple of weeks. I called home because I wanted to use it. Is that what you want to know?”

  “Why won’t you tell me where you spent the rest of that night? Did you return to your house at any time?”

  “No.”

  “Were you with a woman?”

  He gave no answer.

  If this had been an interview room at the nick, Diamond would have come down harder. There were people who coughed at the first hint of the third degree and Billington gave every indication of being one, but this wasn’t the time and place.

  Instead, the oblique approach. “Let’s talk about Britt. We know of several men friends she knew over the period she was lodging in your house. Did you meet that rock musician— what was his name?—Jake, em . . .”

  “Pinkerton.”

  “So you did.”

  “I’m getting tired,” said Billington.

  “Bright lad, that one. Sussed the pop music industry and invested in production when he’d made his millions performing. Did he come to the house?”

  “If you want to chat to someone, why don’t you try another ward?”

  “Did you meet Jake Pinkerton?”

  A heavy sigh.

  “When he came to the house, it must have registered with you. He’s a famous name. Mega-famous. Always on the telly. You do remember?”

  A yawn.

  Diamond persevered. “They had a fling, I gather, Britt and her millionaire muso, a few steamy nights at his place, but they were free spirits, both of them. Not the sort of people who move in together.”

  Billington’s eyelids drooped.

  This was going nowhere, and it didn’t seem worthwhile starting on Britt’s other lovers. “Your car, Mr. Billington. What was it?”

  “MGB.”

  “What?”

  The eyes opened. “MGB, I said.”

  Even Peter Diamond, no car buff, knew that these days the MGB was regarded as a classic. They’d stopped building them about 1980. He wouldn’t have thought a colorless character like this would own an MGB. “Are you telling me you left an MG sports car on the street for two weeks while you went on holiday?”

  Billington blinked and stared. “Didn’t say that.”

  “You told me a moment ago that this was the reason you went back to the house on the night of the murder: to collect your car key.”

  “We weren’t talking about my car. Mine’s an old Vaux-hall.”

  Confusion, then. Real, or contrived?

  “What’s this about an MGB, then?”

  “That was Britt’s—when she was seeing Pinkerton. Red. Beautiful little car.”

  “I didn’t think she drove.”

  “She got rid of it later. Didn’t get another, far as I know.”

  “So we’re talking about some time back?”

  “I was. What were you on about?” He made it sound as if Diamond was the one suffering post-concussional effects.

  “How long before the murder?”

  “Couple of years. I don’t know. It wasn’t my business, was it?”

  “But you’d know if she owned another car after she got rid of the MGB.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “So she was without wheels. Did you ever give her lifts in your old Vauxhall?”

  “A couple of times to the station.”

  “Did you ever meet her train to drive her home?”

  “No.”

  “Ever buy her flowers?”

  “Buy them? No.”

  “You picked them from the garden.”

  “Why not?” said Billington. “She was living in my house. People can be civil to each other without ulterior motives.”

  The way this pat little speech came out told Diamond it was well rehearsed. The civilized behavior card. He was tempted to trump it with a blunt mention of the bum-shot clippings Julie had found. But as the ward sister was likely to bring this interview to a premature end any time, he moved on fast to a topic of more urgency. “There was another man Britt was seeing shortly before she was killed. Quite a celebrity in his own way, wasn’t he? That show jumper, Marcus Martin. Did he visit the house?”

  Billington perked up, the adrenaline flowing now that someone else might be under suspicion. “He was calling right up to the time we went on holiday.”

  “You met him, then? When did he first appear?”

  “Only a week or so before we left for Tenerife. He was an arrogant bastard. Treated us like servants.”

  “In what way?”

  He proceeded to tell the story. “Once I remember he had a dog with him. Big, spotted thing. I don’t know what breed it was or what it was called. He hooked the lead over our hall stand and told me to keep an eye on it, without so much as a ‘please.’ We had a polished wooden floor and I could hear the claws scratching it, ruining the surface, while Mr. Martin, cool as you like, started up the stairs to Britt’s rooms. I asked him politely to leave the dog outside the front door. Apart from anything else, we keep a cat. But Lord Muck took not the blindest notice. So presently I took the dog outside myself and tied it to the railings.” The incident must have made a deep impression, more than four years on, for Billington to have recalled it. And his concussion had miraculously lifted to do justice to the outrage he obviously felt.

  “What happened when he found the dog had been moved?”

  “He came downstairs because it started howling, making a God-awful racket. The next thing, this bumptious fathead marched into our private flat with the dog and said I had no right. Cheek. He got more than he bargained for when Snowy started on him.”

  “Snowy?”

&n
bsp; “The cat. She felt cornered, you see. The dog came in and hurled itself toward her. Snowy clawed its nose. She’s fearless. You never heard such yelping. That was the last time he brought the dog into our place, I can tell you.”

  “Did Britt have anything to say?”

  “She had the good sense to keep out of it.”

  A thought occurred to Diamond. “What happens to your cat when you go on holiday?”

  “It goes next door. That’s always been open house for Snowy. They’ve got an old tabby who clears off upstairs and leaves the food trough to Snowy.”

  The cat’s welfare ceased to be of interest. “Britt’s friendship with this man started only a few weeks before she died, am I right?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “They were still seeing each other at the time you went on holiday?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Did Martin bring flowers for Britt?”

  He shook his head. “That one was far too mean.”

  “Did anyone? Did bouquets ever get delivered to your door?”

  “I can’t remember any.”

  “Did Martin ever stay the night?”

  “No one did. We made that very clear to Britt and she respected it.”

  “Did you respect ber?”

  Billington frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “Her privacy. Did you ever go into her flat when she was out?”

  “Only for maintenance.”

  “What maintenance is that?”

  “Checking the radiators for leaks, changing light bulbs, inspecting the fabric—the usual things, you know.”

  “I can guess,” said Diamond, and he could.

  “She had nothing to complain of.”

  “That night you found her dead. What time was it you went into her flat—about one A.M. , wasn’t it? Was that maintenance, or what?”

  “That isn’t funny.”

  “But I want an answer.”

  Billington’s gaze shifted to the ceiling as he recollected that evening. He was still talking lucidly. “It had been so quiet. Usually we could hear her moving about. She always took a shower before going to bed, and we’d hear the water going through the system. We’d hear her footsteps across the floor. That night, nothing.”

  “But there must have been times when she spent the night in other places. She had lovers. What made this night so special that you decided to check?”