‘Can’t you read?’ the man with the crutches said. He pointed to the poster on the wall showing mobiles were prohibited.
Even Diamond knew there were practical reasons for the ban. He sighed and returned the phone to his pocket.
His thoughts turned to what was happening in Becky Addy Wood. The place where the motorcycle had been hidden ought to be taped off by now and the scene-of-crime team collecting evidence. The searchers would be combing the area in hope that the murder weapon was hidden there. What an anticlimax. Through his own failure to think ahead, a marvellous chance of an arrest had gone begging. If he’d had the wit to visualise the killer using a bike, they might have focused the hunt and got a result.
Instead, it was back to the tedious step-by-step search. Those lads had every right to curse him.
He’d spent the morning reacting to events instead of anticipating the gunman’s next move. This wasn’t the sort of case where you follow up clues and piece together what happened. Three police officers had been murdered and there was no reason to believe it had stopped there. Someone needed to look ahead. He hadn’t much confidence in Jack Gull’s foresight.
‘Clarence Perkins,’ the voice came over the tannoy. Once it would have been Mr. Perkins, Diamond reflected. We’re all overgrown children in the modern health service.
‘That’s me.’ Clarence was the possessor of the crutches. They’d been resting against his wheelchair while he waited.
A nurse came over to collect him. ‘You won’t need these inside,’ she told him. Watched particularly by Diamond, she placed the crutches along three of the steel chairs reserved for the walking wounded and wheeled Clarence around a partition and into the X-ray room.
Diamond looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes of precious time had gone by. The temptation to leave was overwhelming. His wheelchair was parked at the end of the row of linked chairs. He tugged at the wheels. The brake was on. He was no expert at manoeuvring one of these things. No use trying to get it moving without help. He shifted his legs and got his good foot to the floor. Rising from the chair was going to hurt, but it was the only way. By twisting and shuffling he managed to get half of his backside clear of the seat and this enabled him to put the other foot to the floor.
At great discomfort.
‘What are you trying to do?’ one of the other patients asked.
‘I need a leak,’ he lied.
‘Call the nurse. That’s what they’re here for.’
‘A nurse taking me for a jimmy? I don’t think so,’ he said. By force of will he heaved himself upright, taking the weight on the right leg. The left one was far too sore. He was thinking maybe his own diagnosis was wrong and he really had broken it.
With his left hand as support, he started hopping towards the crutches, holding onto to the next chair. And the next.
‘I’m borrowing these,’ he said to the man who had spoken. He grabbed one of the crutches and attached the support to his upper arm. The second was more of a challenge while standing on one leg. He got it on the third attempt, slotted in his arm and took his first step.
‘The gents isn’t that way,’ his well-meaning adviser called out. ‘It’s the other direction.’
Diamond didn’t answer. He was back on the sniper’s trail.
By the time he’d made it through the corridors to the main exit, his conscience had been touched by small examples of members of the public behaving as one should do in hospitals, disinfecting their hands before entering the wards, sitting in waiting areas without complaining and holding doors open for a man on crutches. Before phoning for a taxi, he called at the reception desk and asked them to inform the radiology unit that Peter Diamond would not, after all, require X-rays. Then he was off before anyone tried to stop him.
Keith Halliwell was open-mouthed. ‘Guv, what on earth?’
The taxi had put Diamond down at the foot of the eighteenth century flight of steps in Walcot street. He made quite a performance of positioning the crutches and getting himself out of the back seat. ‘Have you got a tenner on you? I can’t manage these and reach my wallet at the same time.’
Halliwell shared a long-suffering look with the driver and settled the fare.
Diamond said, ‘Don’t let me forget.’
Halliwell let that pass. ‘What happened?’
‘Tell you later. This is urgent. Have any of the people in the Paragon house been allowed out yet?’
Halliwell nodded. ‘We’d already detained them for a couple of hours. They weren’t best pleased.’
‘They wanted to leave?’
‘It’s natural. When you’re treated like a caged beast you want your freedom.’
‘Did they all go out?’
‘Not together, but yes.’
‘The blonde, the old couple and the civil servant? Anyone check where they were going?’
‘Not our business. Actually, the old people said something about going for a coffee.’
‘When was this?’
‘While you were breaking the news to Mrs. Tasker. We’d already questioned them all and turned their flats upside down. Is there a problem?’
‘Tell me this, Keith: is there anything to suggest that Willis, the civil servant, rides a motorbike? While we were inside his place, did you notice leathers anywhere, or a helmet?’
‘He’s a car owner.’
‘Doesn’t stop him having a bike as well.’
Halliwell frowned as he cast his mind back. ‘I didn’t see any of the gear, but then I wasn’t looking for it. I was interested in a gun.’
‘Is he back yet?’
‘Don’t know. I can check with the guy on the door.’ Halliwell had a personal radio attached to his belt. ‘Still out somewhere,’ he presently reported.
‘I want to know the minute he gets back.’
Diamond demanded and was given an update on the investigation. It was now beyond dispute that the sniper had fired the fatal shot from the overgrown garden in the Paragon. Every resident living close enough to have witnessed the shooting had been questioned. The bullet found in the drain and the single cartridge case from the garden had gone to be ballistically tested and compared with the ammunition used in the previous shootings. Although damaged and compressed, the fragments were believed by firearms officers to be from a.45 round used with the Heckler and Koch G36 rifle, the type of weapon they carried themselves.
‘Which tells us something, if true,’ Halliwell added. ‘But are we any closer to catching this guy?’
‘Only an hour ago we were as close as it gets. He ran me down and left me like this,’ Diamond said, and told his story.
Halliwell made the right sympathetic sounds. ‘Nothing else you could have done, guv.’
‘That isn’t the view of Supergull. He reckons if he’d been there he’d have spotted the make of the bike, got the license number and a detailed description of the suspect.’
‘Yeah, the colour of his eyes, size of his collar.’
‘And which aftershave he uses. Then he’d have stretched his arms, got airborne and chased the sniper all the way down the valley and wrestled him off the bike and pinched him.’
‘Why wasn’t Gull with you?’
‘He stayed in line, obeying orders.’
‘Orders from a chief inspector?’
‘He’s more of a team player than I am. I wanted to see the tree the sniper used for target practice. This guy is good, Keith. He knows what he’s doing.’
‘They have these holographic sights, guv. You see a little red spot instead of crosshairs. You can’t miss.’
‘Three parallel lines. That’s class, holograph or not.’
‘The shooting of Harry Tasker told us that. A moving target, side on.’
The crutches were getting uncomfortable. Diamond perched himself on the bowl of the Ladymead fountain and propped them against one of the pink granite columns. ‘Sitting in the hospital I was going over stuff in my mind. Are we a hundred per cent sure that Willis is in the clear?’
‘This guy has really got to you,’ Halliwell said. ‘His guns are locked up at Devizes.’