The Summons

Chapter Twenty-seven

The searchlight moved off the turret. Through pitch black, Diamond spoke the same words he had been poised to say to John Mountjoy: “You can put down the gun. It’s me.” He was too staggered to think of anything else. But he didn’t doubt what he had seen. It wasn’t some trick of the imagination brought on by fumbling about in the dark and getting disorientated on the spiral stairs. He couldn’t have mistaken Una Moon’s pallid face and scraped-back hair ending in the plait; there was no way he could confuse her with Samantha Tott. And the man holding the shotgun couldn’t be anyone except G.B.; his whole physique was larger than Mountjoy’s.

Una spoke out of the darkness. “For God’s sake don’t panic, anyone. I’m going to switch on the torch.”

A beam picked out Diamond’s feet and cast a faint light over the rest of the room. He saw that G.B. had obeyed his order to the extent of slanting the gun across his chest, pointing it upward, though his finger still lingered around the trigger. The crusty everyone treated with awe stood beside Una like a kid caught truanting. They had been waiting in the room with their backs to the wall, hoping not to be discovered.

Diamond stared around the small room, getting his wits together. There were signs of recent occupation on the floor, a heap of blankets and a violin case. “You fired those shots?”

G.B. gave a nod.

“Both?”

Una said, “Yes. And he missed with both.”

“We don’t know that,” said G.B.

Una rounded on him with scorn. “Come on-where’s the gunman, then? I didn’t see him lying on the floor anywhere, did you?”

Diamond said, more as a statement than a question, “You were shooting at Mountjoy?”

Una was unfazed. She said fervently, as if she were going straight on with the diatribe she’d given him in the market cafe, “Someone had to rescue Sam, so I got hold of G.B. I couldn’t stand it any longer, knowing she was in here and you pigs were doing sod all about it.”

“That’s untrue,” said Diamond.

Una overrode the objection by saying, “Sam is one of us, and we stick together.”

“How did you get in?”

“Through a window. G.B. is a genius at opening up places. Nobody saw us. We were through the cellars and up the back stairs while you lot were still poncing about in the hotel lobby.”

“With the idea of what-taking on Mountjoy yourselves? Did you run into him?”

“We spotted him in the corridor, the skunk. We’d searched every room on the floor below this and were coming out of that one at the end, where Sam was seen on the balcony this afternoon. They weren’t in there anymore, but just at that minute we saw a movement at the far end. He stepped right across the corridor. It was him, no question, the scumbag, and G.B. should have blown his head off, but he missed, twice.”

Already reduced to a support role by the force of Una Moon’s invective, G.B. said in his own defense, “He was only in view for a couple of seconds, at most.”

Una explained, “We thought he ran upstairs, so we looked up here.”

G.B. said more firmly, “He was definitely up here not long ago. Look at this stuff. It’s Sam’s violin case. They were in this room.”

“And now you’ve scared him out of sight,” said Diamond.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“For one thing, I was trying to win his confidence and for another he could seriously harm the girl if he panics. You must be cuckoo, loosing off a shotgun.”

“He’s got a certificate for it,” said Una.

“A certificate to shoot people? How long have you been up here?”

“Half an hour. Three-quarters. How would I know?”

“Couldn’t you have left this to the professionals?” Diamond rebuked them. The doubts as to his own status didn’t cross his mind.

G.B. said positively, “With three of us, we can take him. No problem.”

“No, we cannot,” Diamond snapped back. “You fouled this up. Don’t you realize there are marksmen out there looking for a target? You wander about with a torch, waving a bloody shotgun. You’re lucky they haven’t picked you off already. Your horsing around is over for today.”

“And if we refuse?” said Una.

“I can do you for unlawful entry, using a firearm with intent to endanger life and obstructing the police in the pursuance of their duties,” he chanced it, but with conviction. “I’m handling this my way. And before you leave, I want that gun unloaded and I’ll take any spare cartridges you have.”

“Like fuck, you will!” said G.B., and he lifted the butt of the gun and charged.

The advantages were all with G.B.: his height, his physique, his age and, not least, the weapon. He was as large a man as Diamond had ever handed off, and it wasn’t the tidiest of moves, but his years as a rugby forward had left him with some skill and, more important, nice timing. He ducked under the shotgun, thrust a hand firmly against G.B.’s oncoming shoulder and steered him aside. G.B. cracked his head against the edge of the door, keeled off balance and hit the ground. The gun clattered across the floor.

The big crusty was up immediately and launched himself at Diamond again, this time intent on butting him. It was even more like the loose scrum now, and Diamond dealt with him in a way that no referee would have countenanced, by swaying to the left and bringing up his knee. Bone struck bone and the bone in G.B.’s case was his jaw. His head jerked backward and he crashed down for a second time.

Then Una clubbed him over the skull with the torch and shouted, “Birdbrain! You great dumbbell! What are you bloody thinking of?”

G.B. wasn’t thinking of much after the combined impacts of Diamond’s knee and the torch. He rolled on his back and groaned.

The torch had suffered, too. It flickered a few times and went out.

Una composed herself quickly. It was far from certain that she had lost control. More likely she had summed up their situation and started battering G.B. as a way of cutting their losses. She told Diamond, “That didn’t happen, right? The gun isn’t loaded anymore and we don’t have extra cartridges, but you can take it if you want.”

“Leave it on the floor. Tell him to get up. I’m going to hand you over to the men on the roof.”

She didn’t argue. She merely said, “Are you going to rescue Sam?”

“That’s the only reason I’m here.”

She had to be satisfied with that. She told G.B. to get up. He swore at her and obeyed. Diamond stood back, allowing them to shuffle out and turn left out of the room where the light was slightly better and toward the fire escape, a wooden stepladder leading up to a fire door.

“Better hold your hands above your heads when you get to the top,” Diamond advised. “They might think you’re someone else.”

He watched as they mounted the steps, opened the door and emerged on the roof. There was a shout up there, the standard instruction to a potential armed suspect to lie face-down. The gun crew on the roof took over. If nothing else, it must have relieved their monotony.

He was seething. And the knee that had clobbered G.B. felt as if it might not hold him up much longer. The stupidity of the crusties had made his mission infinitely more difficult and dangerous. He knew he must dismiss the incident and fix his mind on Mountjoy again. He needed to be certain that the rest of the turret remained unoccupied. There were two extra rooms, each faintly lit from outside. He checked them. Then he felt his way to the spiral stairs and down to the fifth floor, where he took stock.

Mountjoy and his hostage could be in any of the twenty or so rooms along the two corridors of the V, or on the balconies, or the roof spaces that were accessible through some of the rooms; but he’d go bail on their being somewhere on this level and he did have an idea where to look first. Tott had said something about the plumbing being like the engine room of a battleship; this was the floor where the water tanks for the entire hotel would have to be sited. In the turret rooms he’d seen old-fashioned radiators that must have been installed for the comfort of the Admiralty staff, so there would be pipes and tanks for hot water as well as cold. The tank space had to be large.

More than likely it was sited in the center of the building, close to where he was. He waited for another swing of the searchlight to give him a long view of the corridor ahead. When it came, he noted the positions of the doors and spotted what he was looking for, a plain door without panels and with smudge marks around the handle. He crossed the corridor and opened it.

“Mountjoy?”

He couldn’t see much, but he could hear the steady drip of water not far ahead and there was a metallic resonance to it that could only mean a cold tank. Leaving the door open, he sidled in, across what felt like wood flooring gritty with dust. His knees touched an obstruction that felt curved and spongy: the insulation around a water pipe.

He said into the darkness, “Listen, if you’re in here, this is Diamond.”

A voice close to his ear said, “And you’re a dead man, Diamond.”

The solid object jammed against his throat had to be the muzzle of a gun.

“I trusted you, bastard,” said John Mountjoy, spacing the words as if every one tasted noxious. If he had sounded agitated the last time they had met, in the Francis, this was a voice on the edge of breakdown.

“I didn’t fire those shots,” Diamond was quick to say.

“I imagined it, did I? My back is a bloody mess of torn flesh and pellets and I imagined it?”

After one of the quickest mental adjustments he’d ever had to make, Diamond talked fast and earnestly. “You’re wounded? That wasn’t me, I tell you. That was some morons who got into here without my knowledge. They weren’t police. I just got rid of them. They’ve been taken away. They didn’t think they hit you.”

Mountjoy came back at him. “In a corridor, with a shotgun?’

“Are you badly hurt?”

The question was ignored. “You’re lying, Diamond. You were calling my name before the shots were fired. I stepped into the corridor and got shot. You set me up, you bastard.”

“I did not. I didn’t know they were up here. I want to end this peacefully. I’ve got news for you.”

“Yes,” said Mountjoy bitterly, “the place is swarming with police. Christ!” He groaned in pain and pressed the gun harder against Diamond’s neck.

“Your conviction was wrong. I can prove it now.”

There was an interval without words, but it wasn’t because of what Diamond had said. It was filled by Mountjoy rasping for breath. He was in real pain. Finally he muttered, “Double-crosser.”

Diamond said with difficulty, because the gun was constricting his breath, “We had a deal. You wanted the truth about Britt Strand-by today, you said. I kept my word. I know who did it now.”

“I’m going to blow your brains out.”

“Will you listen?” His mind raced. The man was past reason, in too much pain.

The pressure on his throat eased and it was not a good omen. He was certain that Mountjoy was about to press the gun to his head and fire. In the split second before it could happen, he did the only thing open to him. Blindly he swung his arm upward to deflect the gun. He dipped his head in the same movement. His forearm made contact with Mountjoy’s. The gun blasted.

There is said to be a short grace period after any severe trauma such as a bullet wound, during which the shock to the nervous system results in the victim feeling no pain. Diamond had no idea whether he was wounded. He dived to his left, hit the floor and rolled over several times until the floorboards ended and he dropped into the space over the joists. He knew they were joists because the upper edges crunched into his limbs and ribs in parallel. It took extraordinary self-control not to cry out.

He pressed himself into the space and lay still.

Then white streaks penetrated the roof area and it came alight. The searchlight beam.

A short distance off, Mountjoy was about to pick up the gun. The pain of the pellet wounds must have been severe, because in the act of bending his back he gave a groan and stopped before completing the movement. He was forced to go down on one knee.

Diamond was up and charging at hm as the hand groped for the revolver. Mountjoy succeeded in picking it up and partially turning before Diamond flung himself into a diving tackle that crunched into the convict’s ribs, bowling him over like a tenpin, still holding the gun. He was no sharpshooter. He’d missed his opportunity. Diamond flattened him to the floor, gripped his wrists with both hands and hammered them against the boards until his grip loosened and the gun slipped free and out of reach.

Mountjoy gave up resisting.

“As far as you and I are concerned, that cleans the slate,” said Diamond. He reached for the gun and held it against Mountjoy’s head. “Where’s Samantha?”

No answer.

“If you’ve harmed her…”

“No,” said Mountjoy, responding to a jab from the gun. “She’s all right. Get off me, will you?”

“Where?”

“Over there, behind the big tank.”

“Where’s that?”

The big tank could have been anywhere. The searchlight had shifted again.

“Just a few feet away.”

“Lead me to her,” said Diamon. “You’re sure she’s all right? Why hasn’t she said anything?”

“She’s gagged.”

He eased himself off, allowing Mountjoy to get to his knees, groaning. It seemed unlikely at this stage that he was capable of counterattacking, but the gun was a wise safeguard. He kept it pressed against the sore back, ignoring the wincing and groaning while Mount joy got himself upright and started stumbling over joists and pipes. He reached what was evidently the cold water tank and edged around it to the far side, sliding his hands along the surface.

“Here. Careful. Don’t tread on her. There’s a torch down here somewhere.”

“I’d shoot you,” Diamond warned him. His senses were compensating for the dark. He could hear how close he was to Mountjoy and he was primed for any sudden movement. And he was conscious of the closeness of someone else, whether through body heat or scent he was not sure.

“Got it.”

The light came on and discovered a young girl lying face upward in the cavity between two of the joists. Her ankles and thighs were tied with white flex and her hands were strapped behind her back. A brown adhesive strip was across her mouth. One of her eyes was bloodshot and her forehead was bruised.

“It’s all right, love,” Diamond told her. “It’s over.”