Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

He turned to look at the station front with its six columns above the metal canopy that had once protected passengers waiting for taxis. He couldn’t see Jerry Kean or Martin Steel. ‘Where are they?’

‘On the roof,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He must have seen the activity. I’m sure he knows we’re here.’

He stared up at the balustrade extending along the whole facade of the building. The roof was flat and about thirty feet high. ‘I can’t see anything.’

‘He’s pulled back out of sight. He’s definitely there. Look.’

As she was speaking, a figure came into view, silhouetted against the sky, edged towards the parapet and stopped. From the reluctant movement, this person could only be Martin Steel, hampered by some kind of restraint. His hands were fastened behind his back and there was something odd about his head.

A voice at Diamond’s side said, ‘Oh God, no.’

It was Paloma. She’d got out of the car and followed him.

‘We need people up there,’ he said. ‘And lights, and a hailer.’

Ingeborg already had her personal radio out and was calling for the back-up.

Diamond’s eyes adjusted to the conditions and he picked out more detail. A long cord was lashed to one of the balusters and hung down in a loop. The other end was tied in a noose around Martin Steel’s neck. The strange shape of the head was explained. He was hooded, as if for a judicial hanging.

‘You know what that is over his head?’ Diamond said, more to himself than anyone else. ‘One of those totebags he uses for shopping. We found some grains of sugar in one victim’s hair. Now we know why.’

A sob came from beside him.

‘Paloma, you’d better not watch this.’ He felt a pang of sympathy for her. This killer had been her child.

‘I want to be here.’

He didn’t argue. He turned to Ingeborg. ‘Tell them I reckon the way up is through the meeting room. There must be a hatch to the roof.’

He was trying to be positive in the face of imminent tragedy. One shove from behind and Martin Steel would topple forward and dangle dead on the end of the line. Somewhere out of sight was his executioner primed to act. In truth it would take a miracle to stop it happening.

He cupped his hands and shouted, ‘Martin, the police are here. We’ll get you out of this.’

There was no response from the hooded man.

But Diamond guessed this would bring Jerry Kean into view to check the situation below, and he was right. The second figure materialised.

‘Jerry, this is Peter Diamond. Do you hear me? It’s all over. We can end this peacefully if you do as I say.’

Jerry shouted back, ‘Go to hell.’

Paloma took a sharp breath, on the point of appealing to her son, but Diamond gripped her arm and said, ‘No.’ He called up, ‘You’ve made your point five times over. It’ll all be written up in the papers. There’s no sense in taking another life.’

From the roof came the riposte: ‘“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”’

‘What on earth are you on about?’ Diamond called back.

‘He’s quoting from the Old Testament,’ Ingeborg said.

‘If he’s going to give us a sermon, we might gain some time.’ He shouted back at Jerry, ‘Would you repeat that? I didn’t catch what you were saying.’

‘Jeremiah, one, five. They’re the words of the Lord,’ Jerry called.

‘“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” Proof positive that human life begins at conception. These people have been murdering their unborn children. They deserve to die.’

‘But you didn’t know these people. You stole their case notes from the hospitals, but you didn’t know them personally until you kidnapped them.’

‘Judges don’t know the people who appear before them, but they decide on their guilt.’

‘You’re judge and executioner, are you?’ Diamond was working at full stretch to prolong this. ‘What are your qualifications?’

‘It’s my mission. “The Lord called Samuel, and he answered:

Here am I.”’

‘You’ve been talking to God?’

‘He spoke to me, just as he spoke to Samuel.’

Diamond turned to Ingeborg. ‘He’s crazy. Did you get through?’

‘They should be on their way, guv.’

‘All right, Jerry,’ he returned to the debate, ‘and is this action of yours supported by your church?’

‘They don’t know what I’m doing. But like me they believe it’s a mortal sin to murder the unborn.’

‘Are you saying you’re all in it together? Who was it I spoke to on the phone? Virginia. Is she an accessory to murder?’

‘Of course she isn’t. You’re twisting my words.’

‘What’s Virginia’s second name?’

‘She’s nothing to do with this.’

‘What I don’t follow, Jerry, is how you feel so passionate about the lives of unborn children, yet you don’t find it morally wrong to take the lives of their parents.’

‘They made their decision and that made them murderers, so they forfeit the right to live.’

‘I think you’ve missed my point,’ Diamond called back, and then muttered in an aside to Ingeborg. ‘I can’t keep this going indefinitely. Why aren’t they up there by now?’

She used her radio again.

Jerry was holding forth again. ‘The Book of Exodus tells us, “If men strive and hurt a woman with child so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow, he shall be surely punished… Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”’

‘Yes, but we’re not living in Old Testament times, Jerry. There’s all kinds of stuff in there that doesn’t apply any longer.’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Jerry shouted. ‘You’re trying to distract me from my duty, but you won’t succeed. This sinner shall pay for his wickedness.’ He stepped closer to the hooded man and gripped his shoulders.

‘Jerry, your mother’s here,’ Diamond yelled, at the limit of invention.

Jerry hesitated. ‘You’re lying.’

Paloma cried out, ‘It’s true, Jerry. Don’t do this. You might as well kill me, too.’

What do you mean?’

‘I had a baby stopped when you were a child. There was no medical reason. I just didn’t want another one. If you think the man you’re holding is wicked, then so is your own mother.’

He didn’t respond for several seconds. Then he said in a barely audible voice, ‘Is that true?’

Paloma said, ‘I swear to God it is.’

Jerry went silent again, taking it in. He removed his hands and stepped away from his prisoner. His mother’s words had stunned him. He covered his eyes. He was making involuntary movements, as if convulsed. Then he spread his arms and stepped towards the balustrade, poised to leap to his own death.

Paloma screamed.

Those on the ground could only watch. Diamond put his arm round Paloma and she turned away and pressed her face against his chest and sobbed.

Ingeborg said, ‘They’re on the roof, guv.’

Figures in black sprinted across the roof and grabbed Jerry and pulled him down and out of sight. Others grasped Martin Steel and helped him away.

Diamond muttered, ‘About bloody time.’

Much needs to be done after a major arrest. Martin Steel was brought down. Before being driven off in an ambulance he told Diamond the salient facts of his ordeal. He and his wife had been abducted at knifepoint by Jerry, tied up and driven to the trading estate. In the book depot they were kept pinioned for days and put through a quasi-judicial procedure, accused of murder by abortion, with Jerry as judge and jury. He had told them they were sentenced to death and would find out what it is like to await execution. ‘He’s fanatical,’ Steel said. ‘He would only quote scripture each time he brought us food and water. He took poor Joss out one night and I didn’t see her again.’ At this point he was too distressed to continue. He would be kept in hospital overnight and sedated.