The Summons pd-3

by Peter Lovesey

  Some metal object clattered along the landing. Presumably the raiding party had been spotted. A chorus of swearing followed. And the sound of more missiles hitting the iron railings.

  He needed to know what was happening downstairs. Twenty-five minutes must have passed since the incident began- time enough, surely? He was going to have to make his move PDQ, or the landing would be swarming with screws. The nearest staircase was about four strides from the door. He was counting on getting down without drawing attention to himself.

  He took another look. The screws had retreated apparently. The Assistant Governor-it was his voice Mountjoy heard-was issuing another warning.

  “… reason to believe a man was seriously injured, possibly killed. I have no option but to bring this disturbance to a quick end. The prison staff have been joined by a number of police officers…”

  That was all Mountjoy wanted to hear. He took one more look and stepped outside, moving rapidly to the staircase. It was a double flight with a small landing halfway. Eight steps down, about-turn and eight steps to the ground. Then it would be time to say his prayers.

  The first flight was partly sheltered from view. The second offered no protection. He remembered a clip from a film called The Last Emperor. That little kid stepping outside the Imperial Palace and facing a mass of people. That’s how I’m going to feel any minute, he thought. Conspicuous.

  As he descended, his confidence drained. What am I doing for Christ’s sake, dressed in dyed rags and cardboard, masquerading as a policeman? How did I ever persuade myself that this was a feasible plan?

  He reached the landing and turned. Keep going, he told himself. Whoever is ahead, keep going.

  There were scores of dark blue uniforms down there. Fortunately most of them weren’t looking his way. The landing where the barricade was built was the focus of attention. A spotlight beam moved along the ironwork. Mountjoy started going down the stairs. To his left, at the edge of his vision, someone in a suit was issuing instructions to more of the riot squad. He looked straight ahead, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone at all, fully expecting to be challenged any second.

  He reached ground level and hoped to merge with the crowd. Some of the lights had been switched off down there, he supposed to confuse the rioters, which ought to be to his advantage. He estimated fifteen paces to the first security door, but the floor was too crowded to take a straight line. It was the proverbial minefield. God, he thought, will I come face to face with a screw who knows me?

  Stiff back, he told himself. Walk like a copper. What I could do with now is a personal radio to thrust in front of my face and talk into if anyone approaches me. A bit bloody late to think of it.

  He was in a stupor of fear. Things were registering in slow motion as if he were just an observer. He supposed it was the stage before screaming panic sets in. Although the place was seething with screws, he hadn’t spotted a single one of the fuzz yet. He didn’t want to meet any, but it would be useful to know that they were there.

  He was sidling around a group when the loud-hailer spoke and he reacted with such a jerk that he almost lost his cardboard cap.

  “Move back under the landing,” the Assistant Governor announced. “We need more space here.”

  He wasn’t speaking just to Mountjoy. The attention shifted from upstairs. A general movement began. Someone at Mountjoy’s side asked him, “Was anyone killed up there?”

  “Nobody can tell yet,” he muttered, trying to move against the tide and being forced off course. He was starting to feel like a drowning man. He hated the proximity of people, and these were screws. He was shoulder to shoulder with them, unable to move.

  He could do nothing except shake with fear.

  Behind him someone said, “They’re going in again.”

  It seemed that the riot squad had taken up a position on the very staircase that Mount joy had just come down. There was a general movement forward to get a sight of them. The congestion eased slightly and he edged to his right. He was still less than halfway across the floor to the door. So eager was he to make progress that he barged into someone and practically knocked him over.

  The screw turned and stared at Mountjoy. It was Grindley, one of the SOs he saw every day. There was a petrifying moment when Grindley’s eyes narrowed and he appeared to have recognized him. Mountjoy was ready to surrender. Then Grindley blinked twice. It was obvious from his face that he wasn’t quite sure. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing and cold reason was telling him he must be mistaken. He actually said, “Sorry, mate.”

  Mountjoy dared not speak. He nodded and moved on.

  He was so close to the first door now. God help me, he said to himself-a group of police were standing beside it.

  He couldn’t halt in his tracks. He was on camera so he would have to act the part he was supposed to be playing.

  A couple of the rozzers turned his way and looked surprised, and no wonder.

  They expected him to speak, to supply some explanation for his presence. He said with all the credibility he could dredge up, “A man is dead up there. The Governor wants us to stand by.” Then he approached the door and raised a hand to signal to the screw in the control room.

  Quaking in his shoes, he waited.

  One of the police said, “You from Cowes, mate?”

  He answered, “Shanklin,” and added, “on detachment.”

  “Thought I didn’t recognize you. How did you get in before us? We’re just down the road.”

  “A tip-off,” Mountjoy answered, and then-Praise the Lord-the door swung open. He stepped inside.

  This moment over which he had lost sleep every night for years seemed like an anticlimax. He had to stand there for those seven seconds and be vetted by the team in the control room. But this place was a refuge after the ordeal he had just been through.

  Nothing happened.

  He waited.

  He counted mentally, staring ahead.

  Seven seconds had passed. Must have passed, he thought. He’s having a long look at me.

  Then the second door opened and he felt the cooler air of the central corridor on his face. He stepped forward.

  He could be observed all the way now if they suspected him. He walked briskly, head erect, past the entrance to C Hall on his right and the hospital on his left. He was familiar with the route because it was the way to the classrooms and the library-always under escort, of course. The main entrance was beyond the classrooms and to the left.

  B Hall was coming up. The door opened and a party of screws came out just as he was reaching there. They ran toward Mountjoy and for a sickening moment he thought they must have had instructions to stop him. But they dashed straight past, heading for the hall he’d left. He moved on and turned the corner.

  The main entrance to the prison complex is controlled by a triple system of sliding doors. The lighting here is brilliant and Mountjoy felt certain that every stitch in the rags he was wearing must show up on the monitors. There was a bell to press, quite superfluous, he was sure.

  He stood to wait, trying to achieve a compromise between confident informality and the upright bearing of your typical English bobby.

  Then there was the rustle of static and a voice addressed him. “Leaving already, officer?”

  He supplied the answer he’d had ready in case he met anyone. “Hasn’t the support arrived? I’m supposed to brief them.”

  The first door slid across.

  “Thank you.”

  He stepped forward.

  He waited.

  The second door opened.

  And the third.

  In the real world it was dark by this time, but the towering floodlights made a gleaming desert of the prison yard. He had at least six shadows radiating from his feet. Parked outside the main entrance were two red-striped police cars. Knowing that he was under video surveillance he paused by the nearer car and leaned on the window frame for a few seconds as if making a radio report. Then he started march
ing across the yard toward the gatehouse.

  A dog barked and its handler shouted something to disabuse the animal of its conviction that John Mountjoy was an escapee. More barking followed. At least two dog patrols were on the perimeter, by the first of the two fifteen-meter fences inside the wall. He still had to bluff his way through four gates.

  And now he believed he would.

  Chapter Two

  “I was offered a job today.”

  Stephanie Diamond lowered the evening paper sufficiently to look over the top edge and see if her husband was serious. “A proper job?”

  “That’s open to debate.”

  On the kitchen table between them was a three-quarters empty bottle of cheap red wine and a dish that had contained shepherd’s pie. The cork was already back in the wine to keep it from turning sour by next day. Stephanie limited them to one glass, not for reasons of health, but housekeeping. The Diamonds had learned to live prudently, if not frugally, in their basement flat in Addison Road, Kensington.

  Supper was a precious interval in the day, the first chance to relax together. If anything of interest had happened, this was when they mentioned it. They didn’t always speak. Stephanie liked to work through the quick crossword on the back page of the Evening Standard. She generally needed to unwind after her afternoon serving in the Oxfam shop. It was difficult not to be irked by well-to-do Knightsbridge women who ransacked the rail for designer labels at bargain prices and still asked for a reduction.

  Peter Diamond rarely glanced at the paper these days. Most of what they printed put him into black moods. He had stopped watching the television except for rugby and boxing. There was too much about the police-too much on the news and too much drama. He was trying to forget.

  “But you’ve already got a job,” Stephanie said.

  He nodded. “This is an evening job, as a model.”

  She stared. Her mind was still on the fashion trade “What?”

  “A model. This character with a bow tie and a tartan waistcoat approached me in Sainsbury’s. They’re short of male models at Chelsea College.”

  She put down the paper. “An artist’s model?”

  “Right.”

  “With your figure?”

  “My figure is simply crying out to be captured in charcoal, according to my new friend. I have a Rubenesque form and challenging contours.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Have you ever heard me talk that way?”

  “You wouldn’t pose naked?”

  “Why not?” This was a favorite game, starting with a doubtful premise that he proceeded to develop with high seriousness. Better still when Steph took it all as gospel. “The pay isn’t bad.”

  “I don’t think I want my husband exposing himself to a roomful of students.”

  “You make it sound like a criminal offense.”

  “Some of them are straight out of school. Young girls.”

  “I’m sure they’ll hold themselves in check,” he said in the same reasonable tone. “My challenging contours may set their pulses racing, but these classes are supervised, you know.”

  He had overplayed his hand. Stephanie said, “I think you made this up.”

  “I swear I didn’t. He gave me his card with a phone number to ring.”

  She was silent for a while. Then she said, “What’s a seven-letter word meaning odd?”

  “Is that what you think of my efforts to supplement our income?”

  “No, it’s in the crossword.”

  “I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t waste time on it if I were you.”

  She countered with, “Perhaps if you did, you might still have a good job in the police.”

  He grinned amiably. “No, crosswords in themselves wouldn’t be enough. You also have to listen to opera in the car.” Almost two years had gone by since he had rashly resigned his job as a detective superintendent in the Avon and Somerset Police. It seemed longer. Between bouts of unemployment he’d scraped a living serving in a bar, taking turns as Father Christmas, guarding Harrods, helping in a school for the handicapped, delivering newspapers and-currently-collecting supermarket trolleys from a car park. Now was not an auspicious time to be middle-aged and looking for salaried employment.

  Stephanie’s job as a school meals supervisor had come to an end in July, when cuts were made in local authority spending. She had tried repeatedly to find paid employment since then. She said wistfully, “Speaking of the old days, there was a program about the Kennet and Avon Canal the other afternoon.”

  Now it was his turn to be surprised. “I didn’t know boats interested you.”

  “They don’t. It was the scenery. The views of Bath. You remember how elegant it could look with the sun on those long Georgian terraces? That honey-colored glow that I’ve never seen anywhere else?”

  Picking his words carefully, because one of the reasons why he loved her was that she had taught him to see so much he had never noticed before, he said, “Actually, I remember being mightily relieved to get out of the center on those warm afternoons when the place looked like a picture postcard and felt like a Turkish bath. I can’t see us ever getting back there, Steph, except on a day visit. It was a phase in our lives, a reasonably happy one. Let’s settle for that.”

  She said, “It’s hard work. Harder than you think.”

  “What is?”

  “Posing for a life class.”

  Something in her tone made him hesitate. “How would you know?”

  She smiled faintly. “When I was single and needed pocket money I did some modeling at the local tech.”

  She had ambushed him properly this time. He was appalled. She always spoke the truth.

  “Nude, you mean?”

  “Mm.”

  “You’ve never told me that.”

  She said, “It’s not the sort of thing one drops into a conversation. Anyway, I wouldn’t do it now.” After a pause she added, “But then I haven’t been asked.”

  He recovered his poise sufficiently to say, “If you like, I can put in a word for you at Chelsea College.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  There was another silence.

  “I think it’s strange,” Diamond finally said.

  She reddened and her eyes narrowed. “What is?”

  “The seven-letter word you wanted.”

  Much later in bed, he told her, “It’s too bloody late to say this, Steph, but I was an idiot to quit the police. That day I stormed out of the ACC’s office, I had no idea we’d end up like this, in a squalid basement in the back streets.”

  “Do you mind? It isn’t squalid at all. I keep it clean.”

  “Humble, then.”

  “And I don’t see how you can possibly describe Addison Road as a back street. Just listen. No, listen to the traffic. It’s gone midnight and it still sounds like Piccadilly.”

  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 spo
rt 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?”