The Finisher

21

“Did the drone find anything at all?”

Diamond wasn’t interested in the drone. He asked the question to demonstrate to his deputy, Keith Halliwell, that he had a grasp of life outside the orthopaedic ward. Over the past twenty-four hours he’d got accustomed to being treated as a basket case. He was sometimes accused of being a grouch. Couldn’t usually understand why. In here, he knew what they meant.

Halliwell shook his head. “Too many trees. Drones can’t see through trees. When are you coming out, guv?”

“Today, if I have any say in it. They got me out of bed first thing this morning and walked me in the corridor outside. I’ve done that twice, with some help. Paloma was here at nine. That’s halfway through the day in hospital. I was already thinking about lunch. Anyhow, she’s offered to do the caring when I’m released. I get the feeling the hospital won’t object if I discharge myself. They’ll be glad to be shot of me.”

“Paloma called me at the office. Said you wanted to see me.”

“Correct. Did she give you the message about Stanley, the lad who was with me when I did this?”

“Sending him fifty? I did. He should have got it by now. That was yesterday.”

Irritated, Diamond said, “I know it was bloody yesterday. My head is straight now. I’m off everything except ibuprofen if I need it. Do I sound as if my head’s clear?”

“Clear as a bell.”

“Because we have a problem. When I was below ground with Stanley, I saw something that needs to be acted on. Shortly before the accident we wriggled through a tunnel, really narrow. We had no choice, because the main tunnel had come to an end. I suppose this cut-through was only about forty to fifty metres, but it took a lot of effort.”

“To dig?”

“To crawl through, dumbo. But you do have a point. I was thinking if they took the trouble to dig the thing, it ought to lead somewhere. And I was right.”

A nurse appeared at the end of the bed.

“Not now. I’ve got a visitor,” Diamond said.

“Have you exercised the foot today, Peter?”

“Don’t you people talk to each other? I walked up the corridor twice. I’m not interrupting my conversation to do it again.”

“I’m not suggesting you get out of bed. It’s important that you move the ankle joint. You can do that while you’re talking to your visitor. Both feet, please.”

After she’d gone, he said to Halliwell, “See what I’m up against?”

“Don’t mind me, guv. Wriggle your ankles as much as you like.”

“They call me Peter. Did you notice? Not Mr. Diamond. It’s all part of the brainwashing. You feel five years old. Where was I before she interrupted?”

“Down the tunnel. You were saying it led somewhere.”

“Right. To a room.”

“In the mine?”

Diamond looked as if someone had given his injured foot a twist. “Quarry.”

“A room in a quarry?”

“A big space, big enough for a crane and a trolley on rails and horses to work it. I could see all this ahead of me. That’s where I was heading when I hit my helmet on the roof and brought down the lumps of rock. Idiot me — I was too excited.”

“Anyone would be,” Halliwell said.

“Yes, but there was something else. When the quarrymen cut these rooms, they leave massive pillars, ten feet wide at least, to support the roof. One of them was there in front of me. And in that microsecond before I hit my head, I had a view of the floor beyond the column and there was something down there, Keith. A body, in running shoes.”