The siege was certain to end in a deadly shoot-out. What other outcome could there be?
“The door straight ahead.”
On the stairs he had kept close behind her so as not to allow her to aim a kick at him. He gave her a nudge with the gun. She saw a short passageway ahead of her with three doors. The turret was not one room, but divided into three like segments.
“Must have been used by servants,” Mountjoy said as they entered the poky little space. In a strange way, he sounded apologetic about the accommodation.
It was the first faintly civil remark he had expressed in some hours. Samantha made an effort to encourage a conversation. “These days they’d take down one of the internal walls, install a Jacuzzi and call it the penthouse suite.” As the torch flicked across the room she saw that the arched window facing the front was boarded over to well above head height. “If that was taken down, there must be a wonderful view.”
“We’re here precisely because it is boarded up,” he said, hostile again. “We can’t be overlooked from the abbey or anywhere else. Get your wrists behind your back.”
The socializing was over. He started the business of tying her again, efficiently, though not so viciously.
“Do you have to tie my legs?” she asked.
“That’s the whole point, to confine you to this room.” But he didn’t gag her this time. When she was seated against the wall with the flex firmly knotted around her jeans, he spread the blanket over her legs. “I’m going to see what’s going on.” He stepped out of the room and across the passage. She saw how right he was about the turret. He could keep her in this room without any risk that she would be seen from the street. Presumably the window in the next room wasn’t boarded over, so he could use that for observation.
Presently she heard a shout of “Bastards!” from the other room. Her heart rate quickened; anything that upset Mountjoy was putting her in danger. In a moment she understood the cause of the outcry: a strong beam of light penetrated the room through the arched area at the top of the window that had not been boarded over. Down in the street they were using some kind of searchlight.
He came back into the room. “They ought to be trying to negotiate, not harassing us with lights.”
She suggested, “They must be trying to find out which part of the building we’re in. How can they negotiate if they don’t know where we are?”
He was silent.
It seemed a constructive thing to have said. She was emboldened to add, “What you need is a mobile phone.”
“Thanks,” he said bitterly. “Next time I break out of jail I’ll remember to have one in my pocket.”
‘What I meant is probably they’ll get one to you somehow. They’ll see the sense of talking.”
“Oh, yes? I can see them doing that.”
“You talked to that man Diamond face to face.”
“Bugger all use it did me.”
She was in two minds about Mountjoy. She wanted the siege to end, but she understood his situation; after all, she was part of it. Frightened as she was, and angry at being hauled off the street and made hostage over an issue she hadn’t even heard about, she sensed that he might have a genuine grievance. If so, he’d been wrongfully imprisoned for years. She didn’t want him injured or killed for her sake. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life thinking he’d been gunned down so that she could be released.
She could also understand that prison was responsible for his fatalistic moods, but that didn’t make them easier for her to endure.
She tried striking another positive note. “I’m sure Mr. Diamond is doing his best to get to the truth.”
“What’s that?”
“I said I’m sure-”
He cut her off in mid-sentence. “Listen.”
She could hear nothing, but Mount joy crept out of the room and stood at the head of the spiral staircase.
Samantha leaned as far forward as the flex allowed. She thought she heard a faint sound. She wasn’t sure if it came from inside the building.
Mountjoy stepped back into the room, gun in hand. His voice was pitched on a high, hysterical note. “I’m going to gag you again. I can’t trust you to keep quiet. There’s definitely someone inside this place.”
She reacted quickly. “It could be Mr. Diamond.”
“Some chance!” He found the roll of plastic adhesive and clawed at the end with his fingernail.
Samantha said, “If you use that gun, you’re finished, whatever the truth is.”
He ripped off a piece of the plastic, slammed it over her mouth and said, “I’ve got to the point when I’m too tired to care anymore. The buggers will do for me anyway.” He got up and walked to the top of the staircase.
Chapter Twenty-six
The kidnapping was public knowledge now. Once the Empire Hotel had been cordoned off, the news embargo could not be sustained. Channel Four News at seven led with still pictures of Mount joy and his hostage Samantha, followed by live coverage of the scene in front of the hotel and an interview with the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset, Duncan Farr-Jones, who stressed that although the escaped prisoner was a murderer, and known to be armed, the police were taking measures to bring the siege to a quick conclusion-to which he added, “… ensuring the safe release of Miss Tott.” He said nothing about Mount joy’s prospects of survival.
Several hundred Bathonians had left their living rooms for a sight of some action. Peter Diamond arrived at Orange Grove soon after eight to find police lines where that afternoon there had only been checkered tape. The yellow jackets with reflective stripes were visible stopping the public at every point of access to the open space in front of the hotel facade. The number of police minibuses and coaches parked beside Bog Island testified to the reinforcements brought in from all over the county.
Julie dropped him at the north end of Pierrepont Street and reverse-turned and drove away. At this critical stage of the operation it was necessary to divide forces. Crucial things still had to be checked and Diamond would be checking the most crucial-the state of Mount joy’s nerves. Too many hours had passed without communication. The man was trapped; he would be exhausted and afraid. If he panicked and used the gun, all the good work of the past hours would be undermined. He had to be informed as soon as possible that the new evidence proved him innocent of murder. It was up to Diamond to give him that reassurance, man to man. This wasn’t an occasion for loud-hailers or mobile phones.
Meanwhile Julie was given the essential task of following up on the discovery in Conkwell Wood.
At Bog Island, ominously, two ambulances were waiting, their crews outside watching the play of the searchlight across the hotel front. The Chief Constable, dapper in a flak jacket and Tyrolean hat, was briefing some of the press outside the police caravan that was being used as the headquarters of the rescue operation. Spotting Diamond’s approach, he cut short the interview and they went inside the van and it wasn’t for a cozy chat. “Where the devil have you been all afternoon? You should have been in touch.” This was said in the presence of a civilian radio operator, Keith Halliwell and Mr. Tott, who got up as if to welcome Diamond and sat down smartly when he heard the rebuke.
Diamond was surprised by the hostility. From long experience of dealing with evasion he decided it had to be a cover for some shabby decision. Sidestepping the Chief Constable’s question, which he considered superfluous at this stage, he asked, “What’s the state of play? Are we in communication with Mountjoy?”
Tott said, “No, we’re not.”
Farr-Jones piled on the reproach. “You’re a fine one to talk about communication.”
Diamond was more than willing to tough it out with them; that was one of the perks of being a civilian. “What’s been happening, then? It’s a siege. I thought the first priority was to set up some line of communication.”
Farr-Jones said acidly, “The first priority is to establish where Mountjoy is, and where he’s holding Miss Tott.”
“Haven’t you done that?”
