Peter Lovesey: The Summons

“Thought I didn’t recognize you. How did you get in before us? We’re just down the road.”

“A tip-off,” Mountjoy answered, and then-Praise the Lord-the door swung open. He stepped inside.

This moment over which he had lost sleep every night for years seemed like an anticlimax. He had to stand there for those seven seconds and be vetted by the team in the control room. But this place was a refuge after the ordeal he had just been through.

Nothing happened.

He waited.

He counted mentally, staring ahead.

Seven seconds had passed. Must have passed, he thought. He’s having a long look at me.

Then the second door opened and he felt the cooler air of the central corridor on his face. He stepped forward.

He could be observed all the way now if they suspected him. He walked briskly, head erect, past the entrance to C Hall on his right and the hospital on his left. He was familiar with the route because it was the way to the classrooms and the library-always under escort, of course. The main entrance was beyond the classrooms and to the left.

B Hall was coming up. The door opened and a party of screws came out just as he was reaching there. They ran toward Mountjoy and for a sickening moment he thought they must have had instructions to stop him. But they dashed straight past, heading for the hall he’d left. He moved on and turned the corner.

The main entrance to the prison complex is controlled by a triple system of sliding doors. The lighting here is brilliant and Mountjoy felt certain that every stitch in the rags he was wearing must show up on the monitors. There was a bell to press, quite superfluous, he was sure.

He stood to wait, trying to achieve a compromise between confident informality and the upright bearing of your typical English bobby.

Then there was the rustle of static and a voice addressed him. “Leaving already, officer?”

He supplied the answer he’d had ready in case he met anyone. “Hasn’t the support arrived? I’m supposed to brief them.”

The first door slid across.

“Thank you.”

He stepped forward.

He waited.

The second door opened.

And the third.

In the real world it was dark by this time, but the towering floodlights made a gleaming desert of the prison yard. He had at least six shadows radiating from his feet. Parked outside the main entrance were two red-striped police cars. Knowing that he was under video surveillance he paused by the nearer car and leaned on the window frame for a few seconds as if making a radio report. Then he started marching across the yard toward the gatehouse.

A dog barked and its handler shouted something to disabuse the animal of its conviction that John Mountjoy was an escapee. More barking followed. At least two dog patrols were on the perimeter, by the first of the two fifteen-meter fences inside the wall. He still had to bluff his way through four gates.

And now he believed he would.

“I was offered a job today.”

Stephanie Diamond lowered the evening paper sufficiently to look over the top edge and see if her husband was serious. “A proper job?”

“That’s open to debate.”

On the kitchen table between them was a three-quarters empty bottle of cheap red wine and a dish that had contained shepherd’s pie. The cork was already back in the wine to keep it from turning sour by next day. Stephanie limited them to one glass, not for reasons of health, but housekeeping. The Diamonds had learned to live prudently, if not frugally, in their basement flat in Addison Road, Kensington.

Supper was a precious interval in the day, the first chance to relax together. If anything of interest had happened, this was when they mentioned it. They didn’t always speak. Stephanie liked to work through the quick crossword on the back page of the Evening Standard. She generally needed to unwind after her afternoon serving in the Oxfam shop. It was difficult not to be irked by well-to-do Knightsbridge women who ransacked the rail for designer labels at bargain prices and still asked for a reduction.

Peter Diamond rarely glanced at the paper these days. Most of what they printed put him into black moods. He had stopped watching the television except for rugby and boxing. There was too much about the police-too much on the news and too much drama. He was trying to forget.

“But you’ve already got a job,” Stephanie said.

He nodded. “This is an evening job, as a model.”

She stared. Her mind was still on the fashion trade “What?”

“A model. This character with a bow tie and a tartan waistcoat approached me in Sainsbury’s. They’re short of male models at Chelsea College.”

She put down the paper. “An artist’s model?”

“Right.”

“With your figure?”

“My figure is simply crying out to be captured in charcoal, according to my new friend. I have a Rubenesque form and challenging contours.”

“Did he say that?”

“Have you ever heard me talk that way?”

“You wouldn’t pose naked?”

“Why not?” This was a favorite game, starting with a doubtful premise that he proceeded to develop with high seriousness. Better still when Steph took it all as gospel. “The pay isn’t bad.”

“I don’t think I want my husband exposing himself to a roomful of students.”

“You make it sound like a criminal offense.”

“Some of them are straight out of school. Young girls.”

“I’m sure they’ll hold themselves in check,” he said in the same reasonable tone. “My challenging contours may set their pulses racing, but these classes are supervised, you know.”

He had overplayed his hand. Stephanie said, “I think you made this up.”

“I swear I didn’t. He gave me his card with a phone number to ring.”

She was silent for a while. Then she said, “What’s a seven-letter word meaning odd?”

“Is that what you think of my efforts to supplement our income?”

“No, it’s in the crossword.”

“I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t waste time on it if I were you.”

She countered with, “Perhaps if you did, you might still have a good job in the police.”

He grinned amiably. “No, crosswords in themselves wouldn’t be enough. You also have to listen to opera in the car.” Almost two years had gone by since he had rashly resigned his job as a detective superintendent in the Avon and Somerset Police. It seemed longer. Between bouts of unemployment he’d scraped a living serving in a bar, taking turns as Father Christmas, guarding Harrods, helping in a school for the handicapped, delivering newspapers and-currently-collecting supermarket trolleys from a car park. Now was not an auspicious time to be middle-aged and looking for salaried employment.

Stephanie’s job as a school meals supervisor had come to an end in July, when cuts were made in local authority spending. She had tried repeatedly to find paid employment since then. She said wistfully, “Speaking of the old days, there was a program about the Kennet and Avon Canal the other afternoon.”

Now it was his turn to be surprised. “I didn’t know boats interested you.”

“They don’t. It was the scenery. The views of Bath. You remember how elegant it could look with the sun on those long Georgian terraces? That honey-colored glow that I’ve never seen anywhere else?”

Picking his words carefully, because one of the reasons why he loved her was that she had taught him to see so much he had never noticed before, he said, “Actually, I remember being mightily relieved to get out of the center on those warm afternoons when the place looked like a picture postcard and felt like a Turkish bath. I can’t see us ever getting back there, Steph, except on a day visit. It was a phase in our lives, a reasonably happy one. Let’s settle for that.”