Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

Gull said from inside the hole, ‘A bloody great chunk of limestone has been taken out of the ground. He’d get a motorcycle in here, no problem, and it’s got a natural ramp with some purchase where they cut into the open face. He’d found his own hidden parking spot. The scumbag was in here waiting for the right moment to get the hell out.’

‘Neat,’ someone said.

‘No question. He planned it for an emergency getaway.’

‘Will he get stopped?’ Diamond said.

‘He’d better.’ From his sunken position Gull swept some bracken aside and addressed the man in charge. ‘You sealed the area, right?’

‘The roads, yes, but — ’

‘But what?’

‘On a bike he can use the footpaths and this whole area is riddled with them.’

‘Give me strength. He’ll be clean away. Did you radio all units?’

‘We’re not total idiots.’ There was some cross-border rivalry here. Wiltshire wasn’t part of Gull’s empire.

Gull climbed out of the dugout and went over to Diamond. ‘What did this dickhead look like?’

‘Helmet and visor. Leathers. That’s as much as I saw.’

‘Come on. You saw the bike.’

‘Black, with a windshield. I’m not into motorbikes.’

‘Fat lot of use that is. This is the fucking sniper. He comes so close he knocks you down and that’s all you remember.’

The chief inspector said, ‘I think we should lay off. The man’s obviously in pain.’

‘He’s in pain?’ Gull said. ‘I’m in bloody torment. The tosser was under our fucking noses and he escaped.’

The ambulance arrived and got as close as it could. Diamond insisted on trying to walk and had to admit he needed the stretcher. They removed the protective jacket and he was made sharply aware of how much his ribs hurt. He was hauled inside and driven to the Royal United Hospital.

In Accident and Emergency, he was checked by a doctor, put in a wheelchair and taken away for X-rays to his left leg, shoulder and ribcage.

‘What happens now?’ he asked the staff nurse in the radiography department.

‘You wait your turn.’

‘I don’t have time to wait. I’m a police officer on a manhunt.’

The nurse gave a smile that said she’d heard every story going and this was a nice try. ‘You won’t be hunting anyone today. We take patients strictly in order. It shouldn’t take long.’

‘Nothing is broken. It’s bruising or a sprain. Find me a pair of crutches and I’ll save you the trouble.’

‘This is radiography, Mr. Diamond. We don’t supply crutches.’

‘There’s a man over there with them.’

‘He’ll have a good reason.’

‘And you think I don’t? I tried standing up and it’s obvious what’s wrong. My ankle can’t take my weight. If that doesn’t justify crutches, I don’t know what does.’ He knew as he spoke the words that he’d just undermined two of his arguments: that no X-ray was necessary and that he was essential to the manhunt.

The staff were too busy to listen any more. He was left to see out time in the wheelchair, more at risk from soaring blood pressure than recent injuries.

Patients were being taken in for X-ray, not at the speed Diamond would have liked. He took out his mobile to check what was happening at the murder scene in Walcot Street.

‘Can’t you read?’ the man with the crutches said. He pointed to the poster on the wall showing mobiles were prohibited.

Even Diamond knew there were practical reasons for the ban. He sighed and returned the phone to his pocket.

His thoughts turned to what was happening in Becky Addy Wood. The place where the motorcycle had been hidden ought to be taped off by now and the scene-of-crime team collecting evidence. The searchers would be combing the area in hope that the murder weapon was hidden there. What an anticlimax. Through his own failure to think ahead, a marvellous chance of an arrest had gone begging. If he’d had the wit to visualise the killer using a bike, they might have focused the hunt and got a result.

Instead, it was back to the tedious step-by-step search. Those lads had every right to curse him.

He’d spent the morning reacting to events instead of anticipating the gunman’s next move. This wasn’t the sort of case where you follow up clues and piece together what happened. Three police officers had been murdered and there was no reason to believe it had stopped there. Someone needed to look ahead. He hadn’t much confidence in Jack Gull’s foresight.

‘Clarence Perkins,’ the voice came over the tannoy. Once it would have been Mr. Perkins, Diamond reflected. We’re all overgrown children in the modern health service.

‘That’s me.’ Clarence was the possessor of the crutches. They’d been resting against his wheelchair while he waited.

A nurse came over to collect him. ‘You won’t need these inside,’ she told him. Watched particularly by Diamond, she placed the crutches along three of the steel chairs reserved for the walking wounded and wheeled Clarence around a partition and into the X-ray room.

Diamond looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes of precious time had gone by. The temptation to leave was overwhelming. His wheelchair was parked at the end of the row of linked chairs. He tugged at the wheels. The brake was on. He was no expert at manoeuvring one of these things. No use trying to get it moving without help. He shifted his legs and got his good foot to the floor. Rising from the chair was going to hurt, but it was the only way. By twisting and shuffling he managed to get half of his backside clear of the seat and this enabled him to put the other foot to the floor.

At great discomfort.

‘What are you trying to do?’ one of the other patients asked.

‘I need a leak,’ he lied.

‘Call the nurse. That’s what they’re here for.’

‘A nurse taking me for a jimmy? I don’t think so,’ he said. By force of will he heaved himself upright, taking the weight on the right leg. The left one was far too sore. He was thinking maybe his own diagnosis was wrong and he really had broken it.

With his left hand as support, he started hopping towards the crutches, holding onto to the next chair. And the next.

‘I’m borrowing these,’ he said to the man who had spoken. He grabbed one of the crutches and attached the support to his upper arm. The second was more of a challenge while standing on one leg. He got it on the third attempt, slotted in his arm and took his first step.

‘The gents isn’t that way,’ his well-meaning adviser called out. ‘It’s the other direction.’

Diamond didn’t answer. He was back on the sniper’s trail.

By the time he’d made it through the corridors to the main exit, his conscience had been touched by small examples of members of the public behaving as one should do in hospitals, disinfecting their hands before entering the wards, sitting in waiting areas without complaining and holding doors open for a man on crutches. Before phoning for a taxi, he called at the reception desk and asked them to inform the radiology unit that Peter Diamond would not, after all, require X-rays. Then he was off before anyone tried to stop him.

Keith Halliwell was open-mouthed. ‘Guv, what on earth?’

The taxi had put Diamond down at the foot of the eighteenth century flight of steps in Walcot street. He made quite a performance of positioning the crutches and getting himself out of the back seat. ‘Have you got a tenner on you? I can’t manage these and reach my wallet at the same time.’

Halliwell shared a long-suffering look with the driver and settled the fare.

Diamond said, ‘Don’t let me forget.’

Halliwell let that pass. ‘What happened?’

‘Tell you later. This is urgent. Have any of the people in the Paragon house been allowed out yet?’