Peter Lovesey: The Summons

“As far away from that dipstick as I can. I’m a civilian. I don’t have to grovel.”

He continued downstairs.

“I can’t let you do this, Mr. Diamond,” Smith called after him. “You can’t leave the building.”

“Try and stop me,” the ex-detective shouted back. “Do you have a warrant?”

Upon reaching the ground floor, he walked briskly to the entrance hall, past his friend the desk sergeant without so much as a look, through the double doors and out into the night air.

Tott.

He said aloud, “What kind of plonker do they take me for?”

He strode up Manvers Street in a state of outrage; a case of rocketing hypertension. Some way up the street he realized that spots before the eyes are not a healthy sign, and he had better talk himself into a calmer frame of mind. At least he’d had the gumption to walk out. He ought to be feeling better for asserting his independence. He would try the Francis Hotel in Queen Square; a congenial place to get his head on a pillow until morning, when he would return home by train. At lunchtimes in the old days when things were quiet at the nick he had sometimes popped into the Roman Bar at the Francis for a beer. In more benevolent moods than this he had basked in the plush ambience suggestive of less stressful times. It was easy to picture city worthies in pinstripes, with waistcoats and watch chains, entertaining flighty young ladies in cloche hats.

Bath’s city center was safer for walking than London would have been at that hour. The only people he saw were a group of homeless men huddled around the grille behind the Roman Baths where the warm air was emitted. Safe it might be, but the option of spending the rest of the night on the streets had no appeal. If the hotel wouldn’t give him a room at this hour, he’d make his way to the railway station and wait for the first train.

Ahead was the glass-and-iron portico of the Francis, facing the stately trees and unsightly obelisk of Queen Square. He was within a few paces of the revolving door when a police car with flashing beacon screeched around the corner of Chapel Row toward him, disregarding the one-way route around the square.

There is nowhere to step out of sight on the south side of Queen Square. No lanes, passages or shop doorways. There are just the railings fronting the hotel. Diamond wasn’t built for running or jumping and he didn’t fancy entering the lobby with policemen in pursuit, so he stepped to the curb and waited.

The patrol car stopped and someone in a leather jacket and jeans got out of the passenger seat. Diamond registered first that she was female and second that he had recognized her. His memory for names wasn’t so bad as he had feared. Julie Hargreaves had been a sergeant in the CID at Headquarters when last they’d met. She had impressed him as an able and dependable detective.

Disarmed, he relaxed his posture and grinned. “It’s a fair cop, guv. You’ve got me bang to rights.”

She smiled back. “I was willing to bet you’d make for the Francis.”

“My old watering hole.”

“Smithie’s checking Pratt’s.”

“It takes one to know one,” he commented. “Are you going to put an armlock on me, Julie?”

She said, “I ought to. You’re the most wanted man in Bath.”

Sensing that she might be willing to share some information, he said seriously, “I wish someone would tell me why. Mr. Tott appears to think he still has the right to have me hauled out of bed, driven a hundred and twenty miles and dragged before him in the middle of the night. I foolishly assumed that the Gestapo was a thing of the past.”

She said, “Pardon me, Mr. Diamond. We’ve got a real emergency on.”

“So I was told.”

“It wasn’t Mr. Tott who sent for you.”

“No, that’s true,” he conceded. “It was the Great White Chief, Farr-Jones.”

“Mr. Tott isn’t calling the shots. He’s involved, but only as a victim.”

“A victim?”

“In a sense. Well, strictly speaking, he isn’t a victim himself.” Floundering, she said finally, “But his daughter is.”

“Tott’s daughter?”

“Look, would you forget I told you that?” She glanced over her shoulder toward her driver. He was talking into the intercom, so she added, “They mean to brief you in their own way. They’re counting on your cooperation, absolutely counting on it.”

“What can I do that other people can’t?”

“You’ve got to hear it from them, Mr. Diamond. The whole incident is under wraps.”

He stopped himself from asking, “What incident?” To pump Julie for information that he could get legitimately would be unfair. He knew what he must do. The repugnance he felt at facing Tott was a personal matter. His self-esteem had to be weighed against whatever had happened to the man’s daughter and the fact that for some arcane reason his cooperation was indispensable.

Julie said simply, “Will you come back to Manvers Street with me and hear what they have to say?”

“All right, Sarge. You win.”

In the car she told him they had made her up to inspector last November. He said it was not before time. And he meant it.

Five minutes later, practically vomiting with revulsion, he was eye to eye with Tott, that relic from the days when top policemen were indistinguishable from First World War generals. The others around the oval table were Chief Inspector John Wigfull, Inspector Julie Hargreaves and Inspector Keith Halliwell. The reception he was given was so unlikely that it was alarming. Tott got up, came around the table and said how deeply they were in his debt for coming. Not only did he grip Diamond’s hand with his right, but held his elbow with his left and squeezed it like an overzealous freemason.

Halliwell’s greeting was a tilt of the head and a companionable grin. Wigfull summoned up the kind of smile the losing finalist gives at Wimbledon.

Diamond gave them all a sniff and a stare.

Tott turned to Wigfull. “Why don’t you see what happened to the coffee we ordered?”

Wigfull reddened and left the room.

Tott said immediately the door closed, “Mr. Diamond, this won’t be easy for any of us. John Wigfull is the senior man now. He’s running the show.”

“Seeing that I’m no longer a part of the show, I don’t have any problem with that,” said Diamond.

Tott lowered his face and brought his hands together under his chin. The body language was that of a penitent at confession. “I… I want to make a personal statement. It would be remarkable if you didn’t harbor some resentment against me for matters I hope we can set aside tonight. I want to assure you that my involvement is quite unsought on my part. But I thought I should be here when you arrived. I owed it to you.”

“To me? I can’t think why.”

“And to my… to someone else. Avon and Somerset Police are seeking your cooperation. I, personally, want to appeal to you-no damn it- beg you to listen sympathetically, and as we parted on less than friendly terms when we were last in this room together, the least I can do is-”

“Point taken, Mr. Tott,” said Diamond. “I said what I felt at the time. I didn’t expect to be invited back, but here I am.”

“Thank you.”

“Now will somebody tell me why?”

Tott was overwrought. His voice was faltering. He said, “I think it best if I leave that to Chief Inspector Wigfull. He should be back any second.”

Tott and Wigfull. What a team! Diamond couldn’t think of any two people outside prison he’d rather avoid.

A cadet came in with coffee and cheese and ham sandwiches. Wigfull glided in behind him and took his place at the table. Diamond noted sardonically that Wigfull’s elevation to head of the murder squad had produced one interesting change: his mustache had been trimmed. These days he was more like the former English cricket captain than the Laughing Cavalier.