Peter Lovesey - The Summons

She asked, “What else is in the carrier? Did you get anything really delicious?”

“Chocolate.”

“Brings me out in spots, I’m afraid, but if I’m really hungry I’ll have some. May I see?” She dropped the comb and held out her hands for the bag, which still lay on the floor with some of its contents inside.

“No.”

“Why not?” She sounded quite hurt. “There’s no harm in seeing. I’m not going to take a bite of your precious chocolate, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

He picked up the bag and carried it to the kitchen.

“It was my money,” she pointed out. “I’m entitled to know what you bought with it.”

In the kitchen he started storing the things in the tiny cupboard. Not wishing to provoke her any more than was necessary, he said, “Two sliced loaves, four packets of chicken soup, a pint of milk, eight slices of corned beef, six bananas, some tea and some sugar. Satisfied?”

“And the chocolate.”

“And the chocolate.”

She said, “I don’t see why you have to treat a bag of shopping as a state secret.”

He said, “Because it’s boring.” And out of her line of vision he took the final item from the bag and tucked it out of sight on top of the cupboard.

It was a packet of hair tint, labeled Mocha.

A whiff of fried bacon was in the air.

From deep in the bed came an utterance just comprehensible as, “You can chuck my clothes off the chair and leave the tray.”

“It’s five past eight, sir,” the cadet announced as he went out.

Diamond heaved himself up to a sitting position.

The breakfast had been a brilliant idea. He was less convinced about the sleep. Three hours had not been enough. He was left with a pounding headache and a mouth that tasted as if it had Hoovered the carpet. He reached for the mug on the tray.

The tea tasted good. It hadn’t come from an urn. This was almost like home.

Out of curiosity he leaned toward the tray and lifted the cover. Some angel in the canteen had a long memory: two eggs coated pale pink on a slice of thick fried bread, with several strips of crisp streaky bacon, a sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and a heap of fried potato.

Then it occurred to him that the last meal of a condemned man is supposed to be exactly what he desires. Were they telling him something?

Keith Halliwell looked around the door. “How do you feel, chief?”

“In need of some aspirin. No, before you get it, what’s new?”

“Damn all, really. Nothing on Mountjoy or the girl. There’s a car ready in case you…”

“… want to make a getaway?”

Halliwell smiled as if a couple of aspirin might also do him some good.

Diamond asked, “Is Tott still about?”

“Yes, and Mr. Farr-Jones is in.”

“Full dress parade, is it?”

“I’ll see to the aspirin for you.”

“Thanks. And, Keith…”

“Yes?”

“Keep the top brass out if you can. I want to eat this in peace.”

Just after eight-forty, with a clearer head and contented stomach, he looked into the nearest locker room. “Could anyone lend me a razor?”

He meant to have a wet shave, but one of the new sergeants on the strength seemed determined to lend him an electric shaver, not knowing the jinx he put on anything mechanical.

“This is neat. How does it work-like this?”

He slid back a cover on the side and one of the batteries fell out and rolled under a locker. “How about that? There’s an arrow thing on the side. What do they expect people to do?”

“You press the switch.”

“What switch?”

“On the side, sir.”

“Doesn’t work.”

“It won’t. It’s short of a battery now.”

“You wouldn’t be taking the piss by any chance, sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

“Where did it go, then-and what happens if you press this side?”

“Don’t.”

Too late, his thumb flicked off the head guard and shot it across the room. “Strewth.” He handed back what was left of the shaver. “Does anyone have one in working order?”

It was ten to nine when he completed a wet shave, courtesy of Keith Halliwell, and put on a shirt and tie and ventured out to check some old haunts. His arrival in the main office was disconcerting because three or four faces he remembered from two years ago looked up and smiled. Smiled. The Manvers Street mob usually put their heads down when he appeared and tried not to be noticed. Something in the looks he was getting made him deeply uneasy. It was almost like admiration. It dawned on him that the entire station knew what he was being asked to take on. He was being treated like Gary Cooper in High Noon and he hadn’t even agreed to the shootout.

He returned upstairs to where the Chief Constable was waiting. Farr-Jones definitely wasn’t out of a Western. Short and dapper, with a rosebud in his lapel, he could have doubled for John Mills in one of his English country gentleman roles. He shook hands as if he was applying a tourniquet.

“Man of the hour, eh? Sensible, getting some sleep.”

“I don’t think sense had much to do with it,” said Diamond. “I was bushed.” He had noted the “man of the hour” remark and let it pass.

“Yes, I think Mr. Tott ought to bunk down very soon. You can’t keep going forever on black coffee.”

Tott, leaning against the wall with the back of his head against a graph of the crime statistics, certainly looked exhausted, but insisted that he would wait and see whether Mountjoy sent the promised instructions.

Farr-Jones said to Diamond, “I don’t think you have met Commander Warrilow from Hampshire. We’re fortunate to have him with us.”

A silver-haired man at his side who looked as if he might be chairman of a golf club gave a nod and said, “I’m coordinating the recapture operation.” Positive thinking. A recapture, not a hunt.

Farr-Jones said to Diamond, “The Mountjoy case was before my time, of course, but I’ve looked at the file. You were commended by the judge.”

“The police work was mentioned, not me,” recalled Diamond with modesty. “It was a team effort.”

Farr-Jones turned to Wigfull, who in spite of a night’s growth of stubble on his chin succeeded in looking reasonably alert. “Were you on the team?”

“No, sir. At that time I was in CID Administration.”

“Less newsworthy, but no less important.” Farr-Jones was obviously a student of psychology. He saw the advantage in making everyone feel important.

“It was useful experience, anyway,” said Wigfull. “But I prefer being in the front line.”

In the front line waiting to see me go over the top, thought Diamond.

“Apart from his record, what sort of man are we dealing with?” Farr-Jones asked.

Diamond realized that the question was meant for him. “Mountjoy? A good brain. Went through university. Opened his own private college, of course. A glib talker and good-looking, which is why the ladies get taken in. Physically strong. Underneath, he’s violent, as you know. He had a conviction for assaulting his girlfriend in about 1980. Badly. She had to be treated as a casualty. Sensibly the hospital reported him. Some idiot magistrate let him off with a fine and a year’s remand.”

“He also assaulted his wife, I believe.”

“Several times. The marriage survived only six months and then she had to get an injunction to keep him away. Sophie Mountjoy hadn’t much to say in his favor when I talked to her. She petitioned on the grounds of cruelty. He used to get into a frenzy of rage over quite trivial matters and beat her.”

“Not really a sadist, then?” said Farr-Jones.

Diamond gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”