“That’s all we need,” Gilbert said.
A pair of streakers had joined in. Stark naked, male and female, they were dodging among the toiling runners doing dance moves and star jumps and jiggling their loose bits.
Pleased with himself, Diamond said, “Not one idiot, but two. I wasn’t far wrong, was I?”
“Nothing much to boast about,” Gilbert said.
He was given a sharp look. “What do you mean?”
“The bloke, guv. If I was him I’d keep it covered up.”
A sniff. “Haven’t you noticed? Modest guys like you and me are always surprised at what other people think is special.”
“Had we better stop them?”
“How?”
“Well, bundle them off the course and get them covered up.”
“What with?”
“My jacket for the woman.”
“And my hat for the man, I suppose? No, thanks.”
“Isn’t it our job to deal with them, guv?”
“You can if you want. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Gilbert glanced at him uncertainly.
“The terrorist threat.”
“Right.”
“Anyone can see those two aren’t armed.”
Having got their few seconds of attention, the streakers discovered they were unpopular. Someone in the crowd threw a water bottle and hit the man’s back and he collided with a runner and fell heavily. He was hauled up by a marshal and led away. No one in the crowd wanted to come into contact with bare flesh, so there was no need to ask them to make room. The woman tamely followed and the show was over.
By this time, hundreds more runners had plodded into view. Diamond was still alert, but — if truth were told — not expecting a terrorist. He was keen to get a second look at the ex-jailbird, Tony Pinto. He wanted to be sure he could trust his own eyes. Had it been a lookalike, or had he truly seen that sicko up to his old game of chatting up a pretty woman? If so, why wasn’t he having a tougher time, as most prisoners do when they are released? How had he got fit enough to run a half marathon? How could he afford the race fee and the smart running kit?
These weren’t idle questions. He meant to follow them up at the first opportunity.
More than an hour went by and the crowd along the finish was still enthusiastic. Every runner was getting cheered and some had joined the supporters to look out for friends. Humanity at its most positive.
But Diamond was weary of scrutinising the finishers. He’d not seen Pinto or the blonde he had been running with. It was well possible that the woman had run by unnoticed, but he doubted that he’d missed the scumbag he’d once arrested, interviewed and charged.
More of the fancy-dress people were coming past now. When last seen, Pinto had been running strongly enough to have finished well ahead of that lot.
Maeve had survived the tunnel of death and a second, shorter, railway tunnel, refuelled at another drinks station, and was starting to believe she would finish the race. She was on a high, literally. The worst was over and all that was left was a steady downhill jog into Oldfield Park and from there into the heart of Bath. She turned a corner, heard a shout of, “Here she is!” Then “Miss Kelleeeeee!” and saw at least a dozen hands reaching to be high-fived. Buoyed up, confident and tearful, she slowed to make sure she didn’t miss one. The human contact after so long with her own insecurities and fears was as good as an injection of energy. Someone thrust a bottle of water at her and she grabbed it, gulped and got into her stride again.
Her first glimpse of the abbey was another thrill. She started striding faster, overtaking runners she’d trailed for the past hour and still finding the strength to wave back each time someone urged her on. Where had this come from? For so much of the race she’d feared she wouldn’t finish, yet here she was, going better than she had all afternoon. All those hours of pounding the streets in every extreme of weather were repaying her. The tumbles, the snarling dogs, the rainstorms, the sore nipples, the sensible eating, the proper kit — and the laundering it required — and the battles to push back the dreaded lactic threshold.
Another pocket of Longford Road kids screamed, “Go, go, go, Miss Kelly!” and behind them she saw the deputy head, Mr. Seagrove, waving his cap and shouting with them, in spite of the fact that twenty-six pounds had gone from his bank account. And she felt a lump in her throat when she reminded herself of all the other generous people who had sponsored her. And the one who hadn’t, her mother, unwilling to encourage such madness, but as a concession funding the expensive kit.
“Shall we call it a day, guv?” Gilbert asked. “Some of them will be crawling in for hours yet.”
“You can if you want,” came the answer. “I’m going to watch a bit longer.”
“An hour and forty minutes.”
“Is that all?”
“Since the winner finished. This lot are taking almost three hours for a thirteen-mile run. Some people could walk it in that time.”
“Look, I said you can knock off.”
“I’m thinking your guy dropped out. Blisters or something.”
“He’s not my guy. He’s a serpent.”
“He’d have passed us by now.”
“No way of telling, is there?”
“Later on there is. The list of all the finishers.”
The frustration was all too evident. “I’m not completely clueless about what goes on. I trust my own eyes better than a results sheet.”
“Masses of them have come through already. It would have been easy to miss someone.”
“Bugger off and leave me in peace.”
Paul Gilbert obeyed orders.
The crowd had thinned to little more than a single line each side of the street. There were long gaps between the pathetic also-rans coming in. The guy with the mike had given up commentating and put on a loop of “We Are the Champions.”
How many times Maeve had crossed the Avon in this mind-numbing foot slog she didn’t know, but at Pulteney Bridge she was over for the last. Then up Argyle Street towards the fountain in the middle of the road and already she could see the dreamed-of scarlet gantry across Great Pulteney Street, the finishing straight. It was a riot of balloons, flashing cameras, blaring music and red-shirted marshals ready to assist.
Her vision blurred as tears streamed down her face, and they weren’t tears of joy. Each step punished her badly blistered feet and brought sharp pains in her shinbones, knees and pelvis, but the thirteen-mile torture was almost over.
With a cry of triumph, she reached the line. She had an overpowering urge to hug somebody, her mother, her friend Olga, even po-faced Trevor. None of them was there, so she settled for a hapless marshal, who didn’t seem to mind the sweaty embrace.
“Well done, love. You deserve a medal and there’s one waiting for you with your goody bag.”
“No time for losers,” for the umpteenth time. Diamond’s head ached from the music and his feet were hurting, although he hadn’t run a step. He was getting hungry. He looked at his watch. Gone 3 p.m. Four hours since the start.
An ostrich with swollen ankles hobbled by.
Time to call it a day.
That evening, Diamond drank more beer than was good for him and watched TV with his long-term friend Paloma in her house on Lyncombe Hill. A crime drama was on. He had a feeling he’d watched it before. He may have dozed through some of it. When the commercials came on, he said, “I lose patience when the detective has that light-bulb moment and doesn’t share it with anyone else.”
“Dramatic licence,” Paloma said. “It’s the signal to the viewers to make up their own minds. People enjoy that. And they stay tuned to find out if they’re right.” She spoke from experience of looking at hundreds of scripts and screenplays. She had a successful business in TV and film, providing images for costume dramas.