It was as well that Farr-Jones and the others hadn’t been privy to his thoughts. He didn’t want them getting the idea he missed the action. Far better if they imagined he had found his true vocation retrieving supermarket trolleys from car parks.
The danger in this one-man mission was real. Mountjoy could draw a gun and kill him. But as Diamond’s pulse quickened and his skin prickled in anticipation he knew that the razor’s edge was what he had craved for the last two years.
“Where do you want to be dropped?” the taxi driver asked. They’d motored out of the city and the buildings were separated by stretches of open land. The enfenced Ministry of Defense buildings came up on the right and Beckford’s Tower on the left.
“Slow down a bit, would you? It’s only a quarter of a mile past the racecourse,” Diamond said, thinking as the countryside opened out that Mount joy had chosen well. Any police vehicles here would be conspicuous for miles.
They started to acquire a tail of vehicles. Except on race days drivers expected to travel fast along this stretch toward the M4, but overtaking was difficult. Some speed merchant behind was repeatedly flashing his headlights.
“There’s a sign ahead, if you’d take it more slowly.”
“If I go any slower, mate, you can walk in front with a red flag.”
It pointed the route of the Cotswold Way. “There’s a space on the right. Can you pull in over there?” Diamond had caught a tantalizing glimpse of a stone structure not more than two hundred meters from the road.
Of course it was on the opposite side and of course they were compelled to stop for up to a minute to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic. The procession behind them grew and when the taxi ultimately reached the sanctuary of the small space by the sign for the Cotswold Way a parade of angry faces glared at them from car windows. If anything untoward happened in the next few minutes, there would be no lack of witnesses claiming to have been the last to see Peter Diamond alive.
Ignoring them all, he settled the fare and eyed the stile he would need to climb over to reach the Grenville Monument. A man of his size had to beware of seams splitting. He got over without mishap and set off along a well-trodden grass track toward the stone memorial. No one else was visible.
Sir Bevil Grenville’s monument stood twenty-five feet high and was probably no more of an eyesore than the average war memorial, but it could not be said to grace the scene. It consisted of a gray, four-sided stone on a gray, four-sided pedestal. A sculptured griffin was mounted on the top. The whole was surrounded by railings eight feet high. Diamond walked around it uncertain what he should be looking for. The eighteenth-century inscription on the side he had first approached was an encomium to the Cavalier who had fallen near this spot on a July day in 1643. If it contained some cryptic message, he was at a loss to decipher it. If this account was reliable the noble Sir Bevil hadn’t much in common with John Mountjoy: He was indeed an excellent person… his Temper and Affection sopublick that no Accident which happened could make any impression in him and his Example kept others from taking anything ill or at least seeming to do so. In a word a Brighter Courage and a Gentler Disposition were never marryed together to make the most cheerful and innocent conversation.
No, he didn’t sound like a wife-beater and murderer.
Beneath the inscription was a modern metal plaque detailing Sir Bevil’s heroic role in the Battle of Lansdown. It had been put there by an organization called the King’s Army, one of the groups who reenacted battles.
In all probability the people who played war games were also responsible for the potted chrysanthemum plant and the faded wreath at the foot of the monument that must have been pushed through the railings. Diamond wasn’t built for bending or crouching, but he was glad he put a hand on the railings and made the effort to look more closely because he spotted the corner of a scrap of clean white paper which turned out to be a till receipt, tucked under the flowerpot. He got his arm through the bars and picked it up. On one side was a list of food items bought at Sainsbury’s the previous day. On the other, a message printed neatly in penciclass="underline" D. WALK OFF SOME WEIGHT. FOLLOW THE
PATH ACROSS THE FIELDS. M.
The gibe annoyed Diamond, mainly because Mountjoy knew that at this stage some personal abuse wouldn’t abort the mission. He pocketed the receipt and looked to his right to see what lay ahead. Another stile, inevitably. In the low moments that sometimes troubled his conscience after stepping off scales he had never contemplated anything so drastic as a country walk. In theory he supported the Ramblers’ Association in their campaigns to keep public footpaths open. He also supported the Lifeboat Association, but he didn’t go to sea in a storm.
Grudging each step, he ambled toward the stile. Things could be worse, he tried telling himself. It wasn’t raining. In fact for October it was a tolerably good morning, with a pale blue sky and a light breeze. In a raw east wind this place- what, eight hundred feet above sea level-would be bleak in the extreme. Yes, how lucky I am, he thought, to be stepping out in this splendid landscape to meet a murderer I put away. Lucky, my arse.
Having heaved himself over the stile, he started through the copse, up a gentle rise with glimpses between the trees of the traffic speeding along the Lansdown Road. Common sense told him that Mountjoy would want a view of him alone in open country before he risked coming out of hiding. At the very least he faced a twenty-minute hike.
There was no chance of missing the route. Numerous signs and arrows marking the Cotswold Way sent him steadily higher to a point where he presently emerged from the wood and started along the track beside a drystone wall speckled with yellow lichen. The direction was still gently upward, making his legs ache, but the terrain had changed to turf uncluttered by trees or bushes, a band of dark green across his vision meeting the skyline not far ahead. He must have been walking for three more minutes when a spectacular view opened to his right over the fields and across the Lam Valley to Charmy Down. The climbing was over for the time being. And there was no human being in sight.
The slight hope remained of hearing a voice at some point from behind the drystone wall that stretched ahead for a long distance. The wall was above head height, yet there were small gaps in the structure here and there that a man on the run might use, firstly to spy through and secondly as a kind of confessional screen-except that confession was probably farthest from Mountjoy’s mind. Even so, when a magpie suddenly took flight on the other side Diamond stopped and crept closer and waited, ear to the wall, willing to play the part of the priest. Without result. Sheepishly he set off again and in time came to a gap in the wall. On stepping through to check, he confirmed that he was, indeed, the only living soul in that vast landscape.
Then it had to be down the steep hillside, where, no doubt, some of the less brave of the soldiery had made their escape from the conflict three hundred and fifty years before. History had not made much impression on Diamond in his schooldays and his sense of it here was slight, but he had a strong affinity with anyone of independent mind. Mostly his thoughts were less ethereal. His feet ached. This was harder on the feet than climbing. His immediate concern was at which point he should give up and turn back. There was a limit to the distance he was prepared to go along this path, pretty as the views might be.