Killing with Confetti

24

‘False alarm, then?’ Ingeborg said to Diamond.

‘What do you mean — “false alarm”?’ He wasn’t in the best of moods after the drenching he’d got. The last time he’d tried ironing the creases out of a suit he’d ended up with the imprint of the iron on the trousers, brown on grey. Trying to dye the whole suit black hadn’t been such a good idea either. The stain had become a hole.

‘Nobody took a potshot at Big Joe.’

He recovered his composure. ‘I was never wholly convinced it would happen and I don’t think Joe had many worries either, but orders are orders.’

‘He could have got lucky, saved by the rain.’

They were in the back room of the Huntsman, the Georgian coffeehouse turned pub in Terrace Walk, conveniently close to the Roman Baths. Diamond was treating the team to a drink after their surveillance duties — except for Paul Gilbert, who hadn’t yet arrived.

‘So will you be going to the reception, guv?’ John Leaman asked.

‘I have to, don’t I? I’m on the guest list. And so is bloody Irving. I’m on duty until it’s all over and he’s safe in bed tonight.’

‘And you don’t think he’s worried?’

‘Joe? He doesn’t turn a hair. It’s George who is bricking it.’

‘George?’

‘The DCC.’

‘You’re on first-name terms now?’

Diamond shrugged.

‘A knees-up in the Roman Baths should be fun,’ Keith Halliwell said.

‘If that’s your idea of fun, I don’t share it.’

‘Will you be doing a sweep of the site in case someone is hiding up?’

‘Sorted. The place closes at six and they routinely make a check in case anyone is left in there. Tonight the security guys will be joined by two armed police officers.’

‘Will anyone be on the door when the guests arrive?’

‘Are you volunteering, Keith?’

Ingeborg laughed. ‘Walked into that, didn’t you?’

‘Actually,’ Diamond said, ‘they’ll have a receiving line as we go in. Joe Irving, George Brace and his wife and the new Mr. and Mrs. Brace. I can’t see any dodgy character running that gauntlet.’

‘Are you hoping they’ll let you in, guv?’

‘And why shouldn’t they?’

‘The suit.’

‘What’s wrong with the suit?’

‘All the wrinkles. It dried out badly.’

He frowned. ‘Do you mind? I went home and changed. This is my second-best suit.’

Nobody commented.

He shook his head, uncertain if he was being sent up. ‘What time is it? The thing starts at seven-thirty.’

‘You’ve got a couple of hours. Time for a few more rounds.’

‘Where’s young Paul?’

‘We were wondering,’ Halliwell said. ‘He had some trouble making contact. Personal radio on the blink, I reckon.’

‘The rain?’

‘Could be.’

A general pause for thought.

Ingeborg said, ‘Is it possible he’s still on that roof, do you think?’

A couple of them giggled at the thought.

‘Can’t be. He’ll have seen them drive away, same as we did.’

‘How did he get up there?’

‘A ladder,’ Diamond said. ‘Before any of us were up and about.’

‘Did anyone send a ladder to bring him down?’ She put her hand to her mouth and stared at each of the others. It was cruel, but they couldn’t help seeing the funny side.

Waiting for six-twenty was worse than being in the slammer, but Jack wasn’t going to blow his last chance by going too early, before the crowds had left. He used the time checking the handgun several times over.

Precisely on schedule he replaced the Glock in its holster, pulled on the balaclava and stepped up to the wall.

Easy. The drainpipe acted like a handrail.

Using the footholds in the masonry he climbed to the top and looked over.

He was leaning on a raked Roman-style roof with faded interlocking terracotta tiles growing a coat of moss. Ahead, a large paved promenade around a rectangular space that gave views of the Great Bath about thirty feet below. The same stone emperor Jack had taken for a real person the evening before was mounted on the balustrade of this walkway and so were seven others on plinths ranged around its length. The stonework up here had weathered, but it wasn’t old, not as old as it pretended to be. Everything at the top level, including the emperors, was fake Roman. The genuine stuff, the Great Bath and its surrounds, was at basement level.

No one appeared to be about, so he heaved himself up and shuffled and crawled along the top rows of tiles to the end, where the roof linked to a square building. Using the wall as a support he made a cautious descent down the slippery tiles. Then with the help of another drainpipe he lowered himself to the terrace itself.

He was in.

First reaction: check that the gun was still in its holster.

Second: look for somewhere to hide in case anyone appeared.

Forget it. This place was as exposed as a prison landing. There was nothing on the terrace to shelter behind except the emperors. Worse still, the entire area was overlooked from a corridor behind huge arched windows along the side he’d climbed over. Lights were on and people were in there arranging flowers or something.

All that he could see of the terrace was bordered by that balustrade. Yes, another bloody balustrade. He was becoming a balustrade phobic.

He peered over. To avoid being spotted he needed to get down to the excavated level. The Victorians had built a colonnade around the edge of the Great Bath. The columns supported the terrace and everything up here. Of more immediate interest to Jack were the real Roman remains, the chunks of masonry, broken columns and recesses. Useful as cover.

Fortunately he didn’t need to do more steeplejack stuff. He could use the stairs.

Still alert for security people, he headed to the far end. Stepped down to the lower level. Paused a second. From the bottom stair he could see a layer of steam rising in wisps from the greenish water in front of him, the whole reason for the city’s identity, hot water from two and a half miles down forced through the earth’s crust.

He stepped out onto flagstones laid by the Romans almost two thousand years ago.

And froze.

An armed cop stood facing the bath no more than five yards away. Ultra-short assault rifle. Body armour. Belt bristling with pouches and holsters. Handcuffs, baton, radio, Streamlight torch. And a backup handgun.

Jack’s hand automatically felt for the gun on his belt. He could shoot first. He had the advantage. He’d floor the guy, even in the ballistic-plated vest. But sanity prevailed and an inner voice told him he wasn’t here to take on some anonymous cop.

With extreme care, alert for the slightest twitch, he took a step backwards.

And another.

Two more and he was back in the shadows.

The sound of footsteps from the opposite side of the bath, brisk and business-like. For crying out loud. Another armed cop was facing him from across the water. Fortunately Jack had merged with his surroundings now. The cop wouldn’t see him if he stayed still.

How many more armed police were in the building? Anyone would think there was a terror alert.

‘How are you doing?’ from the second cop.

‘Done this side,’ from the first.

‘Move on, then. I’ll check here.’

‘Okay.’

Jack drew his gun. This could be curtains if the cop decided to use the staircase.

Thank Christ the fucker turned right and stepped towards an arched exit at the other end.

Huge, grateful breath.

The second guy started a slow search of the south side, using his torch to explore the shadowy alcoves.

Stay still and keep cool.

More testing minutes passed before the inspection was completed and the second cop left the same way the first had gone.

So what was it about, all this police activity? An extra level of security because the bridegroom happened to be the top cop’s son — or had they arrived in response to an emergency call? To Jack’s knowledge, he’d given no clue about his presence here. He’d left the young cop bound up like King Tut. He’d made sure he destroyed his radio.

Get a grip, Jack. It can’t be anything to do with you.

But would they remain on duty for the whole shindig, or was it only a check before the guests arrived? Surely no bride and groom would want their wedding breakfast patrolled by armed police?

Tough it out, man.

He was about to move on when — shit a brick — two more people, a man and a woman, appeared from the same end the cops had used. This was getting farcical.

He backed fast into the shadow, hoping to God he hadn’t been seen.

Panic stations? No. He was bloody angry. They had no right to be there. The place had closed half an hour ago. The fact that he had no right to be there didn’t cross his mind.

These two were acting as if they owned the bloody bath. The man, wearing what looked like a black velvet jacket, was gesturing in an exaggerated way with both hands and the woman seemed to be taking him seriously. She was holding some gadget in her right hand that Jack now recognised as a light meter.

Photography, then.

But what kind of saddo uses light meters in the digital age?

Jack had read about this while he was inside. Modern technology was wonderful, but there was a fad for retro things like old cameras with their fiddly controls for shutter speeds, apertures and the rest. Some people said you got better results using film, probably the same people who insisted music sounded better on vinyl. Snobbery typical of Bath.

No prize for guessing this was the wedding photographer getting ready for the session that should have happened outside the abbey.

Too fucking late for Jack.

Joe Irving with all his money had no doubt paid top dollar for this prick in velvet planning the shoot with his assistant. All uncertainty was removed when the squeeze picked a tripod off the ground and stood it up. Seemed they were planning to line up everyone on the opposite side of the Great Bath and shoot their pictures from across the water. So arty.

Their set-up was no help to Jack, who had his own shoot to think of. He’d need to get nearer to his target to be certain of the kill. He didn’t have the AK anymore. The Glock is designed for close combat. He hadn’t gone to all this trouble to total someone else in error.

He would pick his moment. And when it came, he wasn’t going to miss.

After they’d fetched a ladder and Halliwell had gone up and was horrified to discover Paul Gilbert stretched out on the roof, bound hand and foot and gagged, Diamond, who wasn’t built for ladder work, decided he’d better make the effort and see for himself.

To say that he was gobsmacked is an understatement. A short while ago he’d been smugly celebrating his prediction that the wedding would pass off without incident.

His first duty was to make sure Gilbert’s attacker wasn’t still about. No one else was visible either side of the roof. There wasn’t anywhere to hide.

The young detective constable was in a sorry state, blood smeared on his forehead and seeping from a wound in his matted hair, but if he expected sympathy, he didn’t get much.

‘How the hell did this happen?’ Diamond asked after the gag was ripped off and the duct tape cut.

Gilbert needed water first. Halliwell massaged his legs to restore circulation. He groaned.

‘Am I hurting you?’ Halliwell asked.

‘It’s not you. It’s my ribs.’

His account, when they got it, posed more questions than it answered.

‘Description?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘What do you mean, you can’t say? You get clobbered and tied up and you can’t even tell me what your assailant looked like?’

‘He had one of those masks you pull over your head. Holes for eyes and mouth.’

‘Balaclava.’

‘Yeah. Bala...’ He couldn’t get his mouth around the word. He was still in a state of shock or concussion.

‘Height?’

‘Don’t know, guv. Average, I suppose.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Black. All black.’

‘Leather? Tracksuit?’

‘T-shirt and jeans.’

‘Any accent?’

‘Nothing I noticed.’

‘You said he hit you with a rifle butt?’

‘Yes.’ He felt for the injury.

‘What sort of rifle? Fully automatic? Magazine-fed?’

‘I didn’t get much chance to see it.’

‘After you were felled, did he threaten you with it?’

‘He hit me with it.’

‘You told us that already. I’m asking if he threatened to shoot you.’

‘Pulled a handgun on me.’

‘His, or yours?’

‘His, I think. He grabbed mine when he was taping me up and slung it away.’

Halliwell interrupted. ‘Guv, that looks like one of our Glocks behind you in the gutter.’ He was pointing along the roof to what appeared to be a police-issue weapon.

‘Fetch it, then.’

A slight, respectful pause. ‘Better leave it, hadn’t we? Prints. This is a crime scene now.’

‘What?’

‘Assaulting a police officer.’

‘Mm.’

Halliwell was right, of course. Diamond’s mind wasn’t on the legalities of what had happened. Who was more befuddled by what had happened, Gilbert or his boss?

He turned back to Gilbert. ‘Did you get him to talk?’

‘In the end, I did, but he didn’t give anything away except he was really pissed off about the rain. It was like a mon... mon...’

‘Monsoon. We know. We were there.’ He chose not to add that ‘there’ had been mainly inside the coffee shop. After all, he’d made the dash for the abbey and ruined his best suit.

‘I could have drowned,’ Gilbert said. ‘I was lying in six inches of water.’

‘He didn’t help you?’

‘He was round the other side, trying to line up a shot, I suppose. He came back finally after the wedding was over — I know it was over ’cos the bells were going — and he dragged me up here.’

‘At any point did he tell you why he was here?’

‘Like I say, guv, he wasn’t a talker. I’m sure he meant to use the rifle. From where I was, I couldn’t see anything, but I don’t think he fired a single shot. Nobody was hit, were they?’

‘No thanks to you, getting ambushed as soon as you got up here. Where’s your bag?’

‘He took it away, but he shared some of the water with me and let me take bites at an apple.’

‘Decent of him.’ Diamond asked Halliwell to go to the other side of the roof and check for the bag.

Paul Gilbert was looking bereft, as if the enormity of events had caught up with him. ‘I’m sorry, guv. I messed up badly.’

Diamond softened a little. ‘And paid for it. He gave you a kicking in the ribs, did he?’

‘That wasn’t a kick. That was with the end of the gun.’

‘After he’d knocked you down?’

‘Should have been on my guard. The day hadn’t started when I first got up here. Didn’t cross my mind someone else could be here already.’

‘You’ve been tied up for how long? At least ten hours.’

‘I don’t like to think.’

From the other side of the roof came Halliwell’s voice. ‘Better come and look at this, guv.’

‘Stay sitting here,’ Diamond told Gilbert. ‘We don’t want you keeling over.’ He took the long way around the end of the raked roof.

At once he saw why Halliwell had called him. The narrow gully between the roofing and the balustrade was cluttered with discarded objects, among them a smashed personal radio, two backpacks, a bedroll, several empty water bottles and a banana skin. And an assault rifle.

‘He left the gun behind?’ Diamond remarked. ‘Strange.’

Halliwell shook his head. ‘They’re not easy to come by. Why did he do that?’

‘Got a theory?’

‘He left in a hurry?’

‘I don’t think so. He spent some time with young Gilbert.’ Diamond rubbed the back of his neck, trying to put himself into the mind of the unknown gunman. ‘He had no more use for the rifle, so he sacrificed it. He didn’t want to be seen with a bloody great weapon in broad daylight.’

‘You don’t think he’s done a runner?’

‘Do you?’

‘Well, he’s not here anymore.’

‘What’s that wall at the end? The Roman Baths are on the other side.’ His eyes widened. ‘He could be in there now.’ He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his phone.