Bloodhounds

Chapter One

Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond was suffering in the rear seat of a police car scorching toward Bath along the Keynsham bypass with the headlamps on full beam, blue light pulsing and siren wailing.

"You want to look out for idiot drivers," he shouted to his driver.

"Everyone can hear us coming, sir."

"Yes, but they don't all do what you expect." If this went on much longer, his heels would make holes in the carpet. He was only aboard because he'd been giving evidence in court at Bristol and happened to ask the driver for a lift back to Bath. The emergency call had come over the car radio soon after they drove off. Sheer bad luck. "You said this one is a bank."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you have a bank account, son?"

"Yes, sir."

"At this branch?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then."

"It's an emergency call."

"It happens all the time," Diamond told him, still competing with the siren. "Some poor chump goes into the red, and the manager bites his leg off. They're sharks. They send you a letter telling you you're two pounds overdrawn and then slap on a ten-pound charge for sending it."

The conversation didn't develop. The siren defeated it. Diamond tried not to look at the dizzying blur of green that was all he could see of the trees beside the road. Only that morning, sitting in court, he had seriously thought police work in Bath was a doddle. When they approached the round-about that linked Bath Road and Broadmead Lane he closed his eyes.

They came to a screeching halt outside a branch bank on the A4 in Saltford.

"Looks like we're the first," Diamond said without a trace of pleasure in the achievement. "Who's that wally in the door-way, do you reckon-one of ours, or one of theirs?"

The man was wearing a gray pinstripe three-piece and waving to the police car, so the balance of probability was that he was friendly. He came over while Diamond was still in the act of levering his large body out.

"Routledge," the pinstriped gent introduced himself. The voice had a fruity quality, a definite hint of the plum. "Chief Clerk." He actually offered to shake hands-as if Diamond had called to open an account. "You got here very quickly."

"What's the state of play?"

"Well, the manager, Mr. Bellini, is dead."

"Dead?"

"Shot through the head," the chief clerk said in the clipped, matter-of-fact tone of a British actor suppressing his emotion in a film about the war.

"You mean that? Is the gunman still in there?"

"Er, no."

"Any witnesses?"

"Witnesses? No, it happened in Mr. Bellini's office."

"People must have heard the shot," said Diamond.

"Oh, that's for sure."

"And seen the man come out."

Routledge gave the matter serious thought. "I don't think they could have done. You'll have to ask them. I think they ducked behind the counters."

Diamond's brain was grinding through the information he'd been given. "If no one saw the gunman come out, how do you know he isn't in there still, with Mr. Bellini?"

Routledge gave a shrug and a self-effacing smile. "Well, as a matter of fact, officer, I shot him myself. Forgive me for speaking plainly. Mr. Bellini was a total plonker."