Warrilow beckoned to one of the constables by the door and had him lend his radio to Diamond, who then needed instructions in how to use the thing. He had such a deep-rooted dislike of mechanical appliances that even those he’d been forced to master were later expunged from his memory.
“You’re insisting on doing this?” Warrilow repeated himself with something not far short of actual concern. His hostility had been rather defused by Diamond’s ineptness with the radio.
“Of course.”
“And you won’t be carrying a gun?”
“No.”
“Then for God’s sake use the radio at the first hint of trouble.”
“I’m giving the radio to Mountjoy,” Diamond told him casually.
Having asked for another guarantee that no police personnel were on floors five or six, he started up the grand staircase like a freshly arrived guest, pausing to check the angle of his hat in the triple mirror on the second landing.
At the third floor, a shade less exuberant, he stopped for breath and spoke to a group in combat jackets holding automatic rifles. They told him that sounds had been heard in the tank loft on the fifth floor, but no one was sure if it was water circulating, because earlier someone had used one of the old wooden-seated toilets.
He met another six armed men on the next flight and they assured him that they were the advance party, the Special Operations Unit, marksmen every one; they had been on the point of occupying the fifth just as Warrilow had given the order to withdraw to level four. To Diamond’s eyes, they looked disturbingly young, yet they insisted that they could have “taken” Mountjoy and freed Samantha. He didn’t recognize a single one of them from the old days and they didn’t look as if they wanted to be friendly. That didn’t stop him from reminding them to stay off the top floors while he was up there.
He wasn’t built for all these flights of stairs. As he got higher, breathing more heavily, wishing he’d brought a torch for the dark corridors, he thought seriously of the risk he was taking-principally the risk of being shot by his own side. He would have liked to have cleared the entire hotel of armed police. These young men brandishing their guns made him uncomfortable. They scared him more than Mountjoy did.
Here he was, a civilian, staking his life on his ability to talk an armed man down from a siege. Why? Because it was personal. Because of the mistakes he’d made four years ago. He owed Mountjoy this.
And there was another reason for doing this, wasn’t there? It wasn’t just altruism. What the hell was it? His memory wasn’t functioning too well. Got it! He wanted the damned job back, didn’t he? Nobody would have thought so when he was slagging off the Chief Constable; in truth, he’d rather undermined his job prospects then, but Farr- Jones had broken a promise, however he liked to put it. He’d handed over effective control to Warrilow. In a short time those eager young men with guns would have located Mountjoy and started firing. This needed to end peacefully. It cried out for the old, unfashionable policing he represented. He wasn’t remotely like your chummy old English bobby, Dixon of Dock Green- thank God-but at least he pursued the truth, whatever the cost. That was what had kept him from being kicked off the force all the times he’d traded aggro with people like Farr-Jones. His values were right.
He was approaching the fifth floor. He bent his back as he prepared to go up the last steps. It was an unconscious action and he was annoyed with himself for doing it and instantly straightened up. The right signal to give Mountjoy was openness, not stealth. In fact, he needed to announce that he was coming.
“Mountjoy, it’s me, Peter Diamond.” He raised his voice and said, “I want to talk to you. I promised to come and here I am.”
Midway up the last flight, he paused and listened. He thought he detected a movement.
“Mountjoy, is that you?” he asked.
Someone fired a shot.
He slammed himself against the wall.
Immediately after was a second shot.
The firing had come from just above him, on the fifth floor. The echo was still ringing through the building.
His first thought was that Warrilow had double-crossed him and marksmen were posted up here. He was incensed.
Boneheads.
But presently he decided that they weren’t firing at him, or he’d be dead. He was an easy target. The action was in the corridor. They must have spotted Mountjoy.
He waited almost a minute without moving, his ears ringing. Then another sound blended in, a high-pitched intermittent beep.
The personal radio. He snatched it off his chest, pressed the switch and heard the crackle of static, followed by Warrilow’s voice. “Control to Diamond. Are you receiving?”
Diamond hissed into the thing, “You told me there were no guns up here. Someone fired two shots.”
“We heard them. Where are you now?”
“On the fifth floor.”
“We don’t have anybody higher than the fourth apart from the team on the roof, and they haven’t moved.”
“Someone must have.”
“I’m in communication, for God’s sake. I know where the men are. Nobody has moved. Nobody. Mountjoy must be doing the shooting. Listen, I’m sending a team up to you now.”
“Don’t,” said Diamond at once. “I can handle this.”
“That’s ridiculous. He’s out of control. He may have shot the hostage.” This crushing possibility had hit Diamond almost as it was spoken. Horrible as it was, it had to be faced. He spoke his thoughts aloud as they came to him: “There were two shots, so he may have killed himself as well. Hold back your men until I’ve clarified what happened.”
Warrilow said, “I don’t take orders from you.”
“I’m on the spot and it’s got to be my decision,” Diamond told him with passionate conviction. “Hold everything. Do you hear me, Mr. Warrilow? Do you hear me? I’ll radio down when I’ve checked.”
He couldn’t rely on Warrilow, but with luck he had bought himself a few minutes. He shut off the radio and shouted into the darkness, “Mountjoy?”
There was just the echo from the bare walls. The burnt gunpowder lingered in the air.
“Mountjoy, this is Peter Diamond. Where are you? Do you need help?”
No answer, but he expected none. The most likely explanation of the silence was that Mountjoy had cracked under the strain and blown his brains out, but that didn’t entirely account for the shooting. It takes one shot to commit suicide and there had definitely been two. A double killing? He had to be prepared for it.
He got up and mounted the last couple of steps and stood on the fifth floor. “I’m alone,” he shouted once more. “Unarmed. Can you hear me?”
Apparently not.
But he fancied he could hear a slight movement higher in the building. Possibly it was coming from the men on the roof. He strained to listen.
It had stopped.
Across the corridor he could just make out the angle of the V, where the spiral staircase ought to be. He stepped forward, through a space where the walls didn’t run exactly parallel, into what had to be the lower level of the turret. The way ahead was practically pitch black.
“Mountjoy?”
Nothing.
“If you’re up there-” He was stopped in mid-sentence by another series of beeps from the personal radio he was carrying. He clasped the thing and fumbled with the controls, wanting just to silence it, but then there was a crackle of static and Warrilow’s voice came over.
“Command Control to Diamond. Our monitors are picking up sound from the top floor of the turret. Are you receiving me? The top floor of the-”
The sentence was never completed because he snatched the radio off his chest and crunched it savagely against the wall.
