“Which suspects? There was only you.”
“You’ve made my point for me,” said Mountjoy. “You didn’t look for anyone else.”
Diamond sighed, “How long did the jury take to reach a verdict? Ten minutes, or fifteen?”
He seemed not to have heard. “If anyone can find the killer, you can.”
“So you’re not merely asking me to reverse my conclusion and prove you innocent-you expect me to pin the crime on someone else?”
“It’s the only sure way to get the verdict overturned.”
Diamond couldn’t stop himself smiling at the audacity of the man. “You’re the biggest optimist I’ve ever met. Have you thought what’s in it for me, setting out to prove that I got it all wrong in 1990?”
“You’re straight, or I wouldn’t use you,” said Mountjoy.
Diamond noted the wording: “use,” not “ask.” There was a whopping assumption behind it. “Is there anything you can give me, any single item of fresh evidence, that would alter my opinion of four years ago?”
“No.”
Diamond spread his hands as if that settled matters.
“You’ve got to dig.” Mountjoy followed up the negative answer with passion. “How would I have found anything new, banged up in Albany? Someone killed the woman. Someone is still at liberty, laughing up his sleeve at you. Doesn’t that bug you?” When he received no answer he added, “He must have hated her unless he was a complete nut. She must have had lovers she dropped, professional rivals, people she elbowed out of a job.”
“We looked into that at the time,” Diamond told him.
“Yes, but once you had me as a suspect, did you pursue them with the same energy? The hell you did.”
For a short time the only sound was the movement of water trickling over stones. Mountjoy had offered nothing of substance to support his claim. The solitary thing in his favor was that he had gone to so much trouble to set up this bizarre meeting when common sense decrees that a man on the run lies low.
But with a young woman as hostage, he had to be humored. “Suppose I reopen the files, as you want, and still find you responsible for the murder?”
“Then you won’t be any good at your job,” said Mount-joy, his eyes widening, catching a gleam from the gray October sky.
“How long do you hope to remain at liberty? Whatever happens, you can’t expect us to suspend the search.”
“I can hold out.”
Diamond probed some more. “With the girl as prisoner? What you’re doing now-holding her against her will-is an offense.”
“Don’t give me that crap. I want action from you, Diamond. You’d better report some progress when I see you next. I have a short fuse.”
“I know that. How would I contact you?”
“You won’t. I’ll find you.” He released the kickstand, turned the bike and wheeled it closer to Diamond. “I lived in Bath for longer than you, my friend. I know the backstreets and the byways. No one is going to find Miss Cute-Arse before you deliver.” He leaned down and picked up the spare helmet. “Get weaving.”
He kicked the engine into life, replaced his helmet and zoomed away toward Bath.
Chapter Seven
Not one of the top brass at Manvers Street showed any gratitude.
“Didn’t you find out anything about my daughter?” Tott asked, making it obvious that he saw no further need to grovel for Diamond’s cooperation. He’d snatched a few hours’ sleep, and was quite his old, carping self. “I thought that was the point of this exercise.”
Diamond answered, “I thought the object was to find out Mountjoy’s demands.”
Farr-Jones was quick to follow that with, “And I don’t care for them at all.” He spoke as if Diamond himself had framed the despised demands. “The fellow was justly convicted. We can’t reverse the verdict just because he has an aversion to prison.”
Commander Warrilow, the big cheese from Hampshire, tossed in his two cents’ worth. “We missed a golden opportunity. Diamond has told us nothing except that Johnny Mount-joy is now in possession of a motorbike.”
“And all the kit,” contributed John Wigfull from the far end of the room, not missing a chance to demonstrate his power of observation. “Where would he have got the kit?”
Farr-Jones snapped back, “If he can get out of Albany, he’s perfectly capable of nicking a bike and leathers.”
Little Hitlers, every one, Diamond thought. How does anything ever get decided these days? Maybe on the orders of a bigger Hitler, like me.
Warrilow continued his sniping. “If the press get wind of this, they’ll have a field day. He delivers himself to us on a plate and we let him go.”
The cliches of despair continued to rain down. No glimmer penetrated the gloom. This suited Diamond. In his long trek back from the ford to the Lansdown Road (where he had thumbed a lift from a student-a nice reversal) he had decided on a strategy. He knew the psychology of police meetings. Farr-Jones and his henchmen had to eat dust for a time. They had to be thoroughly demoralized-or they would never agree to his terms. So he offered nothing yet.
Presently Warrilow tried striking a more positive note by outlining his plans for the recapture, and it was routine stuff: roadside checks of cars, a poster campaign, searches of unoccupied buildings and outlying farms. He complained that he needed more men for the operation than Avon and Somerset were willing to provide and he wanted better media coverage.
They wrangled tediously over the dilemma posed by the embargo on the news of the kidnapping. Was it enough to inform the public only that Mountjoy had been sighted in the area and that the recapture operation was concentrated there? Warrilow wanted the embargo lifted immediately. He thought Samantha’s best hope-not to say his own-was full publicity. Farr-Jones and Tott insisted that to release news of the kidnap could hinder the delicate process of negotiating a release. They stressed Mountjoy’s record of violence to women. They didn’t want this kidnap ending in tragedy through some precipitate action by the media.
“How do you expect to make progress?” Warrilow demanded in a bitter outburst. “You talk about negotiating, but all we have are these paranoid demands for his case to be reexamined. You don’t seriously expect to humor the man by reopening the files? What’s the point if the case was cut-and-dried?”
“We’re not idiots,” Farr-Jones rebuked him. “The obvious way to deal with this fellow is play him along, let him believe we’re working on it.”
“To what purpose?”
“To involve him in the process, set up more meetings, win his cooperation.”
“And…?”
“Ultimately track him to his hideaway.”
“Which we could have done this morning.”
“With a helicopter?” said Farr-Jones, twitching in annoyance. “No, this requires subtlety, Mr. Warrilow, and it’s obvious that Mr. Diamond has to be given a role. Mountjoy trusts him apparently.”
So the focus shifted. Warrilow stared out of the window as if he no longer expected any sanity inside the room, and all other eyes were on Diamond, who in his own way looked just as disenchanted.
Farr-Jones put a hand to his neatly groomed hair as if he needed to check that it was still immaculate. He hadn’t dealt with Diamond before, and he must have been warned of his prickly personality. “It’s an intrusion on your time,” he ventured. “Inconvenient, no doubt.”
Diamond played the Buddha.
“We can’t insist that you lend a hand. We’ll be in trouble if you don’t, since Mountjoy appears to believe that you’re still on the strength, and the only cop he can trust.” Farr-Jones paused to give an ingratiating smile. His hands were lightly clasped, eyebrows arched. “What do you say?”
“I’d like to make a phone call.”
