Around 10 P.M., Diamond phoned Julie at the hospital.
“Has he said anything yet?”
“Just a lot of groaning.”
“He’s conscious, then?”
“Not really. In fact they’ve given him something to ease the pain, and he seems to be sleeping now.”
“Is the brain damaged?”
“They don’t know. The doctor was talking about a scan, but they wouldn’t do it tonight.”
“Not much point in you staying, by the sound of it. Let’s both clock off. See you in the morning, early.”
“How early is early?”
“Why don’t you join me for breakfast at the Francis, say about eight-thirty?”
“A working breakfast?”
“No. Just breakfast. Well, not just breakfast. You’ll get a chance to sample the Heritage Platter. So will I. Had to miss it this morning. Don’t quote me, Julie, but there have got to be some perks in this.”
He put down the phone. Across the room, Commander Warrilow was facing the wall, pressing his finger against a map of the city. Diamond in this uncharacteristically benign mood went over and perched on the desk assigned to Warrilow. “Did you have any joy in the sewer?”
Warrilow took this as more sniping, and scowled.
“Looking for Mountjoy,” Diamond prompted him.
Without shifting his gaze from the map, Warrilow said, “If you really want to know, we’re looking at an area just a few streets away. A man answering Mountjoy’s description was seen in Julian Road earlier this evening and we had another sighting about the same time in Morford Street.”
“Alone?”
“What do you expect?” said Warrilow, turning to glare at him. “He’s got the girl trussed up somewhere, poor kid. I’m told that there’s quite an amount of empty property around Julian Road, sometimes used by dossers. I’m having it searched.”
“You’re convinced he’s in the city, then?”
“It’s looking more and more like it. Whether Samantha is here with him-in fact, whether she’s still alive-I wouldn’t like to speculate. I’m getting increasingly worried about her.”
Diamond eased himself off the desk and glided to the exit. This wasn’t a tactful moment to go off duty, but he’d had enough.
In twenty minutes he was in the Roman Bar at his hotel, the solitary Englishman among three groups of German and Canadian tourists. Inevitably after a few brandies he was drawn into their conversation and just as predictably he found himself having to account for the presence of the crusties in such a prosperous-seeming city.
“It’s a mistake to lump them together,” he found himself pontificating. “There are distinctly different groups. You have the so-called new age travelers, dropouts, mostly in their twenties, usually in combat fatigues or leather. Hair either very short or very long. Never anything in between. They have dogs on string or running loose and they can seem quite threatening. Actually they ignore people like us, unless they want money. We inhabit another planet to theirs. Then there’s a hard core of alkies-men about my age-always with a can or bottle in their hands. They’re shabby, weather-beaten, but conventionally dressed in sports jackets and corduroys. They sometimes shout abuse. So do I when I feel brave enough.”
This earned a laugh.
“I’m serious. I could easily join them soon,” he confided as he drained the brandy glass. “I don’t have a proper job. Chucked it in two years ago. So I look at those guys and know it’s only a matter of time.” Having unburdened himself of this maudlin prediction, he rose, unsteadily. “Sleep well, my friends, and be thankful it isn’t a shop doorway you’re lying in.”
As he was moving off he overheard someone saying, “Britain is just teeming with eccentrics.”
To which someone else added, “And crazies.”
He didn’t look round. He made his way ponderously to the lift. He’d talked (or drunk) himself into a melancholy mood and he knew why. The solving of the Britt Strand case was going to hurl him back into the abyss of part-time work in London. These few days had been a cruel reminder of better times and he hadn’t needed to be reminded. He wanted to be back in Bath and more than anything he wanted his old job back.
Outside his room he was fumbling with the key when he became aware of a slight pressure in the small of his back. In his bosky state he didn’t immediately interpret it as sinister. Assuming he must have backed into someone, he murmured, “Beg your pardon.”
From behind him came the command, “Open the door and step inside.”
He knew who it was.
A gun at your back is more sobering than black coffee; a gun held by a convicted murderer is doubly efficacious. Diamond’s rehabilitation was immediate.
It was no bluff, either. A black automatic was leveled at him when he turned to face John Mount joy.
“The gun isn’t necessary,” Diamond said.
The change in Mount joy was dramatic. On Lansdown a couple of days before he’d looked gaunt and pale as prisoners do, yet he’d seemed well in control. Now he was twitchy and the dark eyes had a look of desperation, as if he’d discovered that freedom is not so precious or desirable as he’d supposed. The strain of being on the run was getting to him, unless the unspeakable had happened and he was marked by violence.
Speaking in a clipped, strident voice, he ordered Diamond to remove his jacket and throw it on the bed. What did he suppose-that it contained some weapon or listening device? He waved him to a chair by the window.
It would not be wise to disobey.
“What have you got to tell me?” he demanded. “Speak up.”
“Would you mind lowering that thing?”
“I’ll use it if you don’t speak up.”
Whether the threat was real, Diamond didn’t know, but there was real danger that he would fire it inadvertently, the way he was brandishing it like an aerosol.
“There is progress,” Diamond told him, spacing his words, doing his utmost to project calm whilst thinking how much to tell. “Definite progress. I now have a witness who saw you leaving the house where the murder took place. At approximately eleven o’clock. More important, he’s positive he saw Britt at the front door showing you-”
Mountjoy cut him short. “Who is this?”
“Someone she knew.”
“‘He,’ you said. What was he doing there? I didn’t see him.”
Diamond continued the drip, drip of information, trying to dictate the tempo of this dangerous dialogue. “Watching the house, he says.”
“Who was he? You must know who he was.”
“He fancied his chances as the boyfriend. Someone told him you’d taken her out for a meal. He was jealous. He went to the house to see for himself if it was true. Stood outside in the street. He says you left without even shaking her hand and moved off fast.”
“That much is true,” Mountjoy admitted. “Is he the killer? Why did he tell you this? Who is he?”
The advantage had shifted. Mount joy’s hunger to have the name was making him just a shade more conciliatory. Diamond was far too experienced to miss the opportunity to trade. “What’s happening to Samantha? Is she all right?”
“Don’t mess with me,” said Mountjoy, touchy at the mention of Samantha. “I want the name of this toe rag.”
“Better not abuse him,” Diamond cautioned. “He’s your best hope so far.”
“Who is he?”
“Is Sam still alive?”
No response.
“You know if you hurt her, laid a finger on her, they’d get you.”
“What do you mean-‘they’? You’re one of them.”
A slip of the tongue. He said, “The top brass.”
“They will anyway.”
“If you play it right,” Diamond broached a more positive offer, “you ought to survive. The gun isn’t going to help. I don’t know where you got it, but you’d be safer without it.”
The warning seemed timely when Mountjoy used the back of the hand that was holding the gun to wipe his mouth. Whatever the man’s misdemeanors, he was no gunman.
Diamond sensed that he was on the brink of getting some information about Samantha. It was worth giving more. “As a matter of fact,” he volunteered, “I don’t have the name of this witness who saw you leaving the house. He’s a crusty, a traveler.”