His hands were flat against a smooth surface which had to be the plexiglass side of the walkway. Reaching up, he found it impossible to make contact with the rail, so he worked his way to the left until a stone obstruction stopped him. The wall again. Behind him, he could hear the crunch of Coventry's steps.
He reached up with his right hand to see if there was any chance of scaling the wall, and got an agonizing reminder of the injury to his rib. Using the left hand instead, he discovered a ledge about three feet above the ground. He got his knees up to the level and hauled himself higher. A second step now presented itself. Laboriously, he scrambled up, made contact with the plexiglass again and then – mercifully – the rail of the walkway. He got his legs over and felt the flat rubber surface under his feet. Now he could discern a faint gray light. Daylight. He staggered towards it, conscious that Coventry must reach the walkway at any moment.
The Great Bath was ahead. There, common sense argued, he would be safe from further attack. Coventry could hardly carry on the fight in front of his students.
Diamond assessed his injuries as he moved. The rib was the most disabling, and there was also blood trickling down his scalp from the head-wound. He could feel its warmth on the side of his neck. The blood was conspicuous. When he reached the Great Bath, he didn't want the students crowding around him asking questions. Somehow he must hold himself together and convince anyone who was watching that he was walking normally. That the blood, if they noticed it, was some sort of blemish, a strawberry mark on the skin. Then he needed only to get to one of the doors leading to an exit.
He would have to leave Matthew to find his own way out. Thank God the boy was familiar with the place. He was smart enough to escape.
But Diamond was not. Within a few yards of the entrance to the Great Bath, he was surprised by a sudden movement to his right. He turned. Enough daylight had penetrated the place to show him Andy Coventry coming at him with a spade, a heavy-duty, long-handled spade of the sort used by builders. There was no escape this time. Wielded like a sledgehammer, it was about to cleave Peter Diamond's skull.
PART SIX
Trial
Chapter One
A BLACK BAR ACROSS WHITE. A thin black bar, dividing the field of vision like a cable across the sky.
Too uniformly white for sky. It had to be something else.
A ceiling.
A cable across the ceiling? No. Something more rigid. A black bar. A rod. Or rail.
Maybe a rail. There was something right about a rail. A connection, but with what?
With a sound. The rustle and scrape of something metallic. Curtain rings. So why not a curtain rail?
What would a curtain rail be doing across a ceiling? Curtains were for windows. No window here.
Unless this was a bed, a hospital bed with curtains for privacy. That would explain the scrape of the rings. It ought to be easy to check, because the rail would go at least three sides around the bed.
Unfortunately it wasn't so easy when one couldn't move one's head to left or right. When one felt muzzy and tired, too tired really to care…
'He opened his eyes again, sir,' the voice of a woman announced, a woman difficult to place.
'Didn't move his lips, I suppose?' A man's voice.
'No.'
'Poor sod. Keep your ears open, just in case. I know it's bloody tedious, but it has to be done. You want to try talking to him when you're here by the hour. Anything that comes in to your head. Tell him the secrets of your love life. That's what the nurses do. Anything to stir up the brain cells.'
'Do you mind? My private life isn't for Mr Diamond's ears, sir.'
'Relax, Constable. Even if he heard you, which is doubtful, he wouldn't remember a thing. Well, I'm off. See you tomorrow.'
'Gutso.'
'Mm?'
'You see?' The voice was triumphant. 'It is a response. He heard. Peter Diamond, you fat slob. What do we have to do to bring you round? What's your taste in music? The Hippopotamus Song, I reckon.'
'He's moving his lips, sir.'
'Jesus Christ, he is. Peter? Can you hear me?'
'Mm.'
'Again.'
'Mm.'
Terrific. Mr Diamond, do you understand? This is Keith Halliwell. Remember me? Avon and Somerset Police. Your old sidekick, DI Halliwell.'
'Halliwell?'
'He spoke! Did you hear that, Constable?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Brilliant. Put a call through to Mr Wigfull. We're in business at last.'
His eyes were open, and instead of the curtain rail in front of them, there was a face, a dark face dominated by a moustache. A face he didn't particularly care for.
'Mr Diamond?'
'John Wigfull.'
'How are you feeling?'
'I can't move.'
'Don't try. Your head's clamped. You're lucky to be alive.'
The trite remark irked Diamond, even at this level of consciousness. 'Where am I?'
'In the RUH. You've been in a coma. They said if you did come round, there was no obvious physical damage to the brain, but no one can stay in a coma too long. Do you follow me?'
'Perfectly,' said Diamond.
'You were found in a pool of blood in the Roman Baths. The Didrikson boy alerted us.'
'Good lad.'
'Your skull was cracked and impacted. The only reason your head isn't in two pieces is that the spade was curved at the edge. Do you remember being struck?' the edge. Do you 'Not really.'
'It may come back to you slowly. We'll be needing a statement.'
'You pulled Coventry in?'
'You remember a certain amount then?'
Diamond summarized what he remembered, up to the moment when Andy Coventry had set off in pursuit of him.
Wigfull informed him that the drugs squad were holding Coventry on a charge of possession. 'We'll do him for dealing, as well. He had two kilos of cocaine stashed away in the Baths.'
The brain was functioning, sluggishly, but reliably. 'He was supplying Mrs Jackman, the woman who was murdered.'
Wigfull frowned. 'What's your evidence for that?'
'The boy and his mother witnessed Andy coming out of the house.'
'The Jackman house? When was this?'
'Months ago. Last summer. You remember. Mrs Didrikson told us in her statement. Geraldine Jackman was begging Coventry not to leave.'
'That was Coventry?' Wigfull's tone was sceptical.
'The boy is certain of it.'
'What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Diamond – a drugs angle on the Jackman case? Is that the best the
