The Secret Hangman

50

A fter telling Paloma where he was driving, he was silent. He didn’t trust himself to say more.

The trip was a short belt into the city along the Upper Bristol Road and then south to Green Park. Unusually for Diamond, he put his foot down. Not much was on the move at one twenty in the morning. Sirens and beacons were not being used. This would make the inrush of police vehicles conspicuous, so he’d ordered a discreet operation. He didn’t want Jerry Kean alerted and making a run for it.

Back in 1966, after nearly a century of railway history, the last train pulled out of Green Park station. It was decided not to demolish the fine Palladian facade built by the Victorians. It fitted in with the rest of Bath and hid the train shed behind. Now the site was regenerated as a shopping precinct with car park, shops, superstore, restaurant and covered market. Diamond wished he’d thought of this place as a likely site for the next execution. The arched interior with its cast-iron ribs was in the classic style of St Pancras and other great stations. Crucially for Jerry Kean, there was open access. Once the market stalls inside were closed for the day, the old train shed was deserted. Ample opportunity to sling a cord over a girder and rig up another spectacular hanging.

Not many cars were parked overnight in the space where rail tracks had once run. In his private car Diamond drove past the police vehicles and right up to the end where the great arched shed was. It was difficult to see much, but he picked out the Hosannah van and stopped a few spaces away.

He’d expected Leaman the keeno to be ahead of him. Instead, when he got out, the first to come up was Georgina. Seeing the triumphant look in her eye, he would have settled for Leaman.

‘Glad you made it, Peter,’ she said. ‘My tactics seem to have paid off.’

‘Your tactics?’

‘Pulling out all the stops. The massive surveillance exercise.’

‘That was your idea?’

‘My decision.’ She was taking any credit that was going. Such is the privilege of assistant chief constables.

‘Have you made the arrest, then?’

‘Good Lord, no. I’ve only been here three minutes, straight from seeing the organiser of the ram raids. The man who calls himself Harry Lang, would you believe?’

He didn’t trust himself to comment.

Georgina added, ‘DI Halliwell interviewed him in hospital with me sitting in. He admits to everything.’

‘Congratulations. Are you sure he isn’t in your choir, singing like that?’

She gave an uneasy laugh. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Shall we get on with this, ma’am? Has the van been searched?’

‘I gather DI Leaman has had it open and found nothing.’

‘They’re somewhere in the station, then.’

‘Apparently not.’

He gave her the quizzical look she seemed to expect.

‘No joy so far,’ she said and leaned closer. ‘Who’s the lady in your car, if it isn’t a personal question?’

‘Ah, but it is.’ Bloody cheek, he thought. Spotting Leaman, he turned his back on Georgina and went over.

‘I don’t get it, guv,’ Leaman said. ‘The van’s been parked for some time. The engine’s almost cold. No one inside. They’ve vanished.’

He didn’t believe that for a moment. Taking a few steps into the shed, he peered up at the arched girders. By day, the glass roof gave plenty of light. At this late hour it was impossible to see what was up there. ‘Let’s have some lights. If he’s still about he knows we’re here.’

He wanted to see if the tell-tale plastic cord had been drawn over any of the girders and tied to one side, ready for the hanging.

Powerful flash-lamps probed the roof. A vehicle equipped with rotating lights was driven in. In the next five minutes numerous pairs of eyes stared up at the ironwork and sighted nothing.

‘I don’t get it,’ Leaman said for the second time.

‘Shut up, then.’

Diamond was near the end of his tether. He walked to the far end, the former booking hall. By day and evening it was in use as a brasserie, sometimes with live jazz, but at this hour it was in darkness. There were no signs of a break-in. He rattled the door. ‘Let’s have this open.’

‘What with?’ one officer asked.

‘What do you think? Your magic wand?’

A kick did the job. They went in, switched on the lights and made a swift search of the seating area, bar, kitchen and toilets.

Nobody was in there.

‘What’s upstairs?’ he asked.

‘The Bath Society meeting room.’

He felt movement in his pocket and took out the mobile and looked at it. Who on earth knew his number besides Paloma and Leaman, who were both near by?

He slapped it to his ear. ‘Yes?’

‘Guv.’

Ingeborg. She’d shown him how to use the thing.

‘Guv, he’s here, round the front entrance. You’d better come fast, but try not to panic him. There’s a noose round Martin Steel’s neck.’

His skin prickled. He ran to the door that led on to the street and kicked it open. He was among a cluster of metal tables and patio heaters. He ran on across the cobbled forecourt to where he saw Ingeborg standing beside a police car parked in James Street West to block the traffic. She was pointing.

He turned to look at the station front with its six columns above the metal canopy that had once protected passengers waiting for taxis. He couldn’t see Jerry Kean or Martin Steel. ‘Where are they?’

‘On the roof,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He must have seen the activity. I’m sure he knows we’re here.’

He stared up at the balustrade extending along the whole facade of the building. The roof was flat and about thirty feet high. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘He’s pulled back out of sight. He’s definitely there. Look.’

As she was speaking, a figure came into view, silhouetted against the sky, edged towards the parapet and stopped. From the reluctant movement, this person could only be Martin Steel, hampered by some kind of restraint. His hands were fastened behind his back and there was something odd about his head.

A voice at Diamond’s side said, ‘Oh God, no.’

It was Paloma. She’d got out of the car and followed him.

‘We need people up there,’ he said. ‘And lights, and a hailer.’

Ingeborg already had her personal radio out and was calling for the back-up.

Diamond’s eyes adjusted to the conditions and he picked out more detail. A long cord was lashed to one of the balusters and hung down in a loop. The other end was tied in a noose around Martin Steel’s neck. The strange shape of the head was explained. He was hooded, as if for a judicial hanging.

‘You know what that is over his head?’ Diamond said, more to himself than anyone else. ‘One of those totebags he uses for shopping. We found some grains of sugar in one victim’s hair. Now we know why.’

A sob came from beside him.

‘Paloma, you’d better not watch this.’ He felt a pang of sympathy for her. This killer had been her child.

‘I want to be here.’

He didn’t argue. He turned to Ingeborg. ‘Tell them I reckon the way up is through the meeting room. There must be a hatch to the roof.’

He was trying to be positive in the face of imminent tragedy. One shove from behind and Martin Steel would topple forward and dangle dead on the end of the line. Somewhere out of sight was his executioner primed to act. In truth it would take a miracle to stop it happening.

He cupped his hands and shouted, ‘Martin, the police are here. We’ll get you out of this.’

There was no response from the hooded man.

But Diamond guessed this would bring Jerry Kean into view to check the situation below, and he was right. The second figure materialised.

‘Jerry, this is Peter Diamond. Do you hear me? It’s all over. We can end this peacefully if you do as I say.’

Jerry shouted back, ‘Go to hell.’

Paloma took a sharp breath, on the point of appealing to her son, but Diamond gripped her arm and said, ‘No.’ He called up, ‘You’ve made your point five times over. It’ll all be written up in the papers. There’s no sense in taking another life.’

From the roof came the riposte: ‘“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”’

‘What on earth are you on about?’ Diamond called back.

‘He’s quoting from the Old Testament,’ Ingeborg said.

‘If he’s going to give us a sermon, we might gain some time.’ He shouted back at Jerry, ‘Would you repeat that? I didn’t catch what you were saying.’

‘Jeremiah, one, five. They’re the words of the Lord,’ Jerry called.

‘“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” Proof positive that human life begins at conception. These people have been murdering their unborn children. They deserve to die.’

‘But you didn’t know these people. You stole their case notes from the hospitals, but you didn’t know them personally until you kidnapped them.’

‘Judges don’t know the people who appear before them, but they decide on their guilt.’

‘You’re judge and executioner, are you?’ Diamond was working at full stretch to prolong this. ‘What are your qualifications?’

‘It’s my mission. “The Lord called Samuel, and he answered:

Here am I.”’

‘You’ve been talking to God?’

‘He spoke to me, just as he spoke to Samuel.’

Diamond turned to Ingeborg. ‘He’s crazy. Did you get through?’

‘They should be on their way, guv.’

‘All right, Jerry,’ he returned to the debate, ‘and is this action of yours supported by your church?’

‘They don’t know what I’m doing. But like me they believe it’s a mortal sin to murder the unborn.’

‘Are you saying you’re all in it together? Who was it I spoke to on the phone? Virginia. Is she an accessory to murder?’

‘Of course she isn’t. You’re twisting my words.’

‘What’s Virginia’s second name?’

‘She’s nothing to do with this.’

‘What I don’t follow, Jerry, is how you feel so passionate about the lives of unborn children, yet you don’t find it morally wrong to take the lives of their parents.’

‘They made their decision and that made them murderers, so they forfeit the right to live.’

‘I think you’ve missed my point,’ Diamond called back, and then muttered in an aside to Ingeborg. ‘I can’t keep this going indefinitely. Why aren’t they up there by now?’

She used her radio again.

Jerry was holding forth again. ‘The Book of Exodus tells us, “If men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished… Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”’

‘Yes, but we’re not living in Old Testament times, Jerry. There’s all kinds of stuff in there that doesn’t apply any longer.’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Jerry shouted. ‘You’re trying to distract me from my duty, but you won’t succeed. This sinner shall pay for his wickedness.’ He stepped closer to the hooded man and gripped his shoulders.

‘Jerry, your mother’s here,’ Diamond yelled, at the limit of invention.

Jerry hesitated. ‘You’re lying.’

Paloma cried out, ‘It’s true, Jerry. Don’t do this. You might as well kill me, too.’

What do you mean?’

‘I had a baby stopped when you were a child. There was no medical reason. I just didn’t want another one. If you think the man you’re holding is wicked, then so is your own mother.’

He didn’t respond for several seconds. Then he said in a barely audible voice, ‘Is that true?’

Paloma said, ‘I swear to God it is.’

Jerry went silent again, taking it in. He removed his hands and stepped away from his prisoner. His mother’s words had stunned him. He covered his eyes. He was making involuntary movements, as if convulsed. Then he spread his arms and stepped towards the balustrade, poised to leap to his own death.

Paloma screamed.

Those on the ground could only watch. Diamond put his arm round Paloma and she turned away and pressed her face against his chest and sobbed.

Ingeborg said, ‘They’re on the roof, guv.’

Figures in black sprinted across the roof and grabbed Jerry and pulled him down and out of sight. Others grasped Martin Steel and helped him away.

Diamond muttered, ‘About bloody time.’

Much needs to be done after a major arrest. Martin Steel was brought down. Before being driven off in an ambulance he told Diamond the salient facts of his ordeal. He and his wife had been abducted at knifepoint by Jerry, tied up and driven to the trading estate. In the book depot they were kept pinioned for days and put through a quasi-judicial procedure, accused of murder by abortion, with Jerry as judge and jury. He had told them they were sentenced to death and would find out what it is like to await execution. ‘He’s fanatical,’ Steel said. ‘He would only quote scripture each time he brought us food and water. He took poor Joss out one night and I didn’t see her again.’ At this point he was too distressed to continue. He would be kept in hospital overnight and sedated.

Jerry was driven to Manvers Street and put through the process of fingerprinting and DNA testing. He spent the night in the cells in a zipper overall. The questioning wouldn’t start until next day.

The crime scene people sealed off the station roof ready for examination. Georgina, who had missed the main action, came out to the front to bond with Diamond on the success of the operation she had masterminded, but he had gone.

He was driving Paloma back to Lyncombe, answering her questions about what would happen to Jerry. After he’d explained each stage of the process, she said, ‘It’s kind of you to do this.’

‘I wasn’t going to send you home in a police car,’ he said. ‘What you did tonight took courage. You saved a man’s life.’

‘Not just me.’

‘Just you,’ he insisted. ‘I’d run through my repertoire. It was what you said that stopped another killing.’

They drove up Lyncombe Hill in silence, each in a hell of their own.

Outside the house he stopped and the engine idled and something needed to be said. It was Paloma who spoke. ‘I’m ashamed of myself. I was a scheming bitch, the way I used you. You gave me nothing but kindness.’

‘I’m not complaining,’ he said. ‘I understand your motives. Too bad I wasn’t the deterrent you hoped for.’

‘You’re more generous than I deserve.’

‘Not so. Meeting you was good for me. No regrets.’

He meant this. She’d befriended him under false pretences, but the friendship had grown into something real and worth preserving. He’d learned things about himself. He’d moved on. This wasn’t a time for looking back. She was going to need massive support in the weeks to come.

She opened the door on her side. ‘I guess it’s goodbye, then.’

He put his hand over hers. ‘It doesn’t have to be.’