Wigfull acted on the advice and got on the phone again. After speaking to both of the top brass, he informed Diamond, “We’re to proceed to the hotel at once. The Chief wants a meeting.”
“With Warrilow present?”
“Yes. Shall we go?”
An interested crowd had gathered, attracted by the pulsing blue beacons on the police cars parked in front of the ornate facade of the once-gracious hotel in the center of Bath. The construction of the Empire had spanned the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign and the first of King Edward VII’s and its design seemed to epitomize the change of monarchs; five stories were formal in style, typical of late Victorian public buildings, while the sixth burst into a rollicking joke. The top of the hotel celebrated three disparate styles: a red-tiled twin gable that might have been borrowed from a suburban villa; a Dutch gable defined in gracious curves; and a turret, seven-sided and castellated. In consequence it was the most vilified building in Bath, variously described in books about the city as “huge and execrable”; “a monolithic monster”; “an eclectic piece of nonsense”; “a prime example of Edwardian bad taste”; “crazy round the tops”; “a fearful mock-Jacobean skyscraper with a touch of Lacock Abbey in the top corner”; and “as bad in this setting as a gasometer.” But Peter Diamond had an affection for it amounting to empathy; often his own appearance drew comments almost as harsh.
Tott had already arrived and was standing on the turf of the Orange Grove roundabout staring up at the end of the building where his daughter had been sighted, the twin gables to the left. Warrilow was speaking earnestly to him-the man whose opinion would probably hold sway-getting in his five cents’ worth before the crucial decisions were debated. Wigfull marched over to join in the decision making.
Seeing that the Chief Constable hadn’t yet appeared, Diamond didn’t immediately join the party. Nothing constructive could come from a shouting match with Warrilow, who no doubt blamed him for ruining the recapture operation. Warrilow, another career man like Wigfull, could be counted on to conduct himself decorously when Farr-Jones was present.
Instead, he took a walk around the perimeter of the Empire, faintly interested to discover how Mountjoy had got in, but mainly to gain a few moments’ quiet thought. What was decided presently would settle far more than John Mount-joy’s fate.
The hotel entrances had been made secure with padlocks. Along the sides facing the street, a thirty-foot- deep stone gully behind railings and covered with an iron grille made things difficult for potential intruders. He guessed that the weak points were at the back. Turning left into Boat Stall Lane, the narrow passage dividing the rear of the hotel and the Rummer public house, he came to the ramp descending to Eastgate, the medieval arch below street level that had once formed part of the city boundary. There, in a murky, evil-smelling passage looking like a leftover set from a Hammer horror film, was the Empire’s delivery bay.
By a barred window he happened to notice cut into the wall several initials and dates, D.P.D., RN GUARD, 1940 was one. It was not totally inconceivable that this was his own Uncle Don, who had served in the navy during the war. Most of the carvings were made by navy guards, a reminder that the building had been taken over by the Admiralty at the outbreak of war and remained in the hands of the Ministry of Defense until 1989. The Empire hadn’t functioned as a hotel for over half a century.
Progressing along the passage to a stretch white with pigeon droppings, he examined the double doors leading to the Empire’s cellars. The doors were sturdy enough, but one of the bolts securing them had been forced from the wood. A single padlock remained. This, he guessed, was a likely point of entry for Mounrjoy. Whilst looking at the padlock to see if anyone had tampered with it he was surprised by a voice at his shoulder saying, “What do you think you’re doing, squire?”
Turning, he found himself in the presence of a large, young, bearded constable in uniform.
Chastened, Diamond said, “You don’t know me? I’m Peter Diamond.”
“Are you now?”
“I just got here with Inspector-sorry, Chief Inspector- Wigfull.”
It was a consolation to discover that the name of his successor didn’t make much more impression than his own. “In what capacity, sir?”
Difficult to answer. “A, em, negotiator. I’m here to negotiate with the kidnapper.”
“Well, I’m here to keep the public away from this part of the building, sir.”
“Keep it up, then.” He thought of adding that guarding the doors was a long tradition; only the constable didn’t look as if he had a sense of history. So Diamond moved back up the ramp and into the yard at the rear of the Guildhall where the mayor and other VIPs parked their cars. His thoughts were still with those navy guardsmen. They would be in their mid-seventies now, at least-if they had survived. Was that scraping on the wall the only mark in life they had ever made? In the services in wartime their destiny was out of their control. They might have gone down with the Ark Royal, as Uncle Don had. But Peter Diamond in 1994 was a free agent, thank God. He’d given up all that nonsense about duty and rank and yes, sir, no, sir. Hadn’t he? Deep down, did he want to enlist again?
Better focus on the present problem, he decided, and face the logic of this siege: as soon as Mountjoy was recaptured or shot, the reinvestigation of the Britt Strand murder would be terminated. None of the top brass wanted the original verdict overturned. Avon and Somerset had avoided all the bad publicity that other forces had reaped in recent years through unsafe verdicts and evidence of corruption. They would be mightily relieved to pack him off to London and forget about him. He’d always known it would be so.
Recalling the start, when he had been press-ganged into this bizarre assignment, he thanked his stars that he’d had the sense to realize that he had scope for bargaining, and insisted on a genuine investigation. He’d felt deprived for too long of the work he did best. He hadn’t gone into it expecting to uncover a miscarriage of justice- least of all in a case he’d handled himself. Yet now that flaws in the original investigation were revealed, he was personally committed to discovering the truth. If in the process he exposed his own mistakes the first time around, so what? To his knowledge, he’d never once sent down an innocent man. Until, possibly, now. It was one thing to make a mistake; quite another to cover it up. If he was going to live with himself in future, he had to reveal the truth about the death of Britt Strand.
He needed more time. How long, he didn’t know.
Hold on, mate, he thought suddenly, audaciously. I do know. I need indefinite time. I must have my old job back, nothing less. I must have it for Steph and for myself. I’m a detective, tried and tested, a good sleuth, not infallible, but better than John Wigfull will ever be. I was never cut out to be an artists’ model, or a supermarket- trolley man, or a barman, or a Father Christmas. I catch villains. That’s what I do best. And I can do it again. I have a unique opportunity to get what I want.
My job back.
He had come right around the hotel to the Orange Grove again. He felt resolute, positive, ready to take on the high command. There was only one drawback: the high command had vanished. Nobody was standing on the roundabout.
He walked over to one of the police cars and spoke to a sergeant he knew. “Any idea what happened to Commander Warrilow and the others?”
“They decided to pull back, Mr. Diamond, out of the line of fire.”
“For heaven’s sake, he’s only got a small handgun. He’s not likely to hit anyone from there!”
“You’ll find them up the street, sir.” He pointed and said with a touch of embarrassment, “On Bog Island.”
And where better to spout opinions, Diamond observed to himself, than on the triangle of pavement given its local name because of the underground public toilets once sited there?
Bog Island was a further hundred yards or so from the hotel. He set off at the double.
The Chief Constable had already arrived. The four faces turned to look at him and the message they conveyed was not friendly. They could not have looked more disapproving if he had personally supplied Mountjoy with the gun. Farr-Jones remarked, “I’m not surprised you’re the last to arrive.”
Wigfull, the creep, hadn’t passed on the news that he was already on the scene.
“I was checking the rear of the building,” Diamond informed them. “Just making sure there’s an officer there-and there is. Haven’t had time to look at the Parade Gardens. There’s a way into the cellars under the road. I presume you’ve covered it,” he said directly to Warrilow, whose face was quick to register a satisfying doubt.
