murder?’
‘Of course she isn’t. You’re twisting my words.’
‘What’s Virginia’s second name?’
‘She’s nothing to do with this.’
‘What I don’t follow, Jerry, is how you feel so passionate about the lives of unborn children, yet you don’t find it morally wrong to take the lives of their parents.’
‘They made their decision and that made them murderers, so they forfeit the right to live.’
‘I think you’ve missed my point,’ Diamond called back, and then muttered in an aside to Ingeborg. ‘I can’t keep this going indefinitely. Why aren’t they up there by now?’
She used her radio again.
Jerry was holding forth again. ‘The Book of Exodus tells us, “If men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished… Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”’
‘Yes, but we’re not living in Old Testament times, Jerry. There’s all kinds of stuff in there that doesn’t apply any longer.’
‘I know what you’re doing,’ Jerry shouted. ‘You’re trying to distract me from my duty, but you won’t succeed. This sinner shall pay for his wickedness.’ He stepped closer to the hooded man and gripped his shoulders.
‘Jerry, your mother’s here,’ Diamond yelled, at the limit of invention.
Jerry hesitated. ‘You’re lying.’
Paloma cried out, ‘It’s true, Jerry. Don’t do this. You might as well kill me, too.’
What do you mean?’
‘I had a baby stopped when you were a child. There was no medical reason. I just didn’t want another one. If you think the man you’re holding is wicked, then so is your own mother.’
He didn’t respond for several seconds. Then he said in a barely audible voice, ‘Is that true?’
Paloma said, ‘I swear to God it is.’
Jerry went silent again, taking it in. He removed his hands and stepped away from his prisoner. His mother’s words had stunned him. He covered his eyes. He was making involuntary movements, as if convulsed. Then he spread his arms and stepped towards the balustrade, poised to leap to his own death.
Paloma screamed.
Those on the ground could only watch. Diamond put his arm round Paloma and she turned away and pressed her face against his chest and sobbed.
Ingeborg said, ‘They’re on the roof, guv.’
Figures in black sprinted across the roof and grabbed Jerry and pulled him down and out of sight. Others grasped Martin Steel and helped him away.
Diamond muttered, ‘About bloody time.’
Much needs to be done after a major arrest. Martin Steel was brought down. Before being driven off in an ambulance he told Diamond the salient facts of his ordeal. He and his wife had been abducted at knifepoint by Jerry, tied up and driven to the trading estate. In the book depot they were kept pinioned for days and put through a quasi-judicial procedure, accused of murder by abortion, with Jerry as judge and jury. He had told them they were sentenced to death and would find out what it is like to await execution. ‘He’s fanatical,’ Steel said. ‘He would only quote scripture each time he brought us food and water. He took poor Joss out one night and I didn’t see her again.’ At this point he was too distressed to continue. He would be kept in hospital overnight and sedated.
Jerry was driven to Manvers Street and put through the process of fingerprinting and DNA testing. He spent the night in the cells in a zipper overall. The questioning wouldn’t start until next day.
The crime scene people sealed off the station roof ready for examination. Georgina, who had missed the main action, came out to the front to bond with Diamond on the success of the operation she had masterminded, but he had gone.
He was driving Paloma back to Lyncombe, answering her questions about what would happen to Jerry. After he’d explained each stage of the process, she said, ‘It’s kind of you to do this.’
‘I wasn’t going to send you home in a police car,’ he said. ‘What you did tonight took courage. You saved a man’s life.’
‘Not just me.’
‘Just you,’ he insisted. ‘I’d run through my repertoire. It was what you said that stopped another killing.’
They drove up Lyncombe Hill in silence, each in a hell of their own.
Outside the house he stopped and the engine idled and something needed to be said. It was Paloma who spoke. ‘I’m ashamed of myself. I was a scheming bitch, the way I used you. You gave me nothing but kindness.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ he said. ‘I understand your motives. Too bad I wasn’t the deterrent you hoped for.’
‘You’re more generous than I deserve.’
‘Not so. Meeting you was good for me. No regrets.’
He meant this. She’d befriended him under false pretences, but the friendship had grown into something real and worth preserving. He’d learned things about himself. He’d moved on. This wasn’t a time for looking back. She was going to need massive support in the weeks to come.
She opened the door on her side. ‘I guess it’s goodbye, then.’
He put his hand over hers. ‘It doesn’t have to be.’
