The Summons (12 page)

Chapter Ten

Emerging from a satisfying sleep, he lay faceup, registered after some time that there weren’t any cracks in the ceiling, so it couldn’t be Addison Road, which led him after some more time to recall that he was in Bath, staying at the Francis. With their Traditional Breakfast in prospect—the “Heritage Platter” being the Trusthouse Forte term for bacon and eggs with all the trimmings—he had no difficulty rising from bed. The events of the evening before surfaced in his memory and prompted quiet satisfaction at Warrilow’s comeuppance. It was disloyal, but Peter Diamond grinned—a rare way for him to start the day. A stretch, a scratch and a yawn and he padded across the carpet to the window, reached for the curtain—and instantly regretted it when a needle-sharp pain drove into his thumb. In his muzzy state the shock made his skin prickle all the way down his right arm.

First he reckoned he must have touched the point of a needle or pin left in the curtain by some negligent seamstress. But the pain didn’t ease. If anything, it got worse. With the curtains still closed, he couldn’t see much. Flapping the hand, he hurried to the bathroom and ran cold water over it. In the better light, he examined the thumb. Around the point that hurt most it was turning white. No blood was visible.

He’d been stung.

Hotel rooms were always too warm for his liking and the previous evening he had opened the window a little. A wasp must have flown in. At this end of the year there were still a few about.

It could still be lurking in the room, waiting to strike a second time.

You never know what infliction life holds next, he thought, back to his embittered worst, standing in the bathroom with the door closed while he tried to step into his clothes using one hand. You get up in the comfort of a good hotel ready for the Heritage Platter and the morning papers and this happens.

Downstairs he asked at the desk if they had anything for wasp stings.

“How did you do that?” the young woman on duty asked.

“I didn’t do it. It was done to me.”

“Are you sure it was a wasp, sir?” She seemed to take it as a criticism. Perhaps in a four-star hotel a queen bee would have been more fitting.

“I know I’ve been stung, right?”

“Did you actually see the wasp?”

Now he felt as if he were being treated as an unreliable witness. “Don’t you believe me? What do you want—a description?”

“We’ve got some antihistamine in the first-aid box. Do you mind if I look first?”

He held out the thumb. Some people waiting to pay their bills stepped forward to join in the diagnosis.

“That’s no wasp sting,” a small man in a tracksuit said. “It must have been a bee. Look, the sting is still here.”

“So it is,” said an American woman. “That’s gotta be a bee. It’s the way their stings are shaped, like little arrows.”

“Barbed,” said the small man.

“I can see it now,” said the receptionist.

“Well I can’t,” said Diamond, thoroughly peeved.

“That was definitely a bee,” the receptionist said to justify the stand she had made.

“Perhaps you need glasses,” the little man suggested to Diamond. “The eyes change at your age. Want me to take it out? It ought to come out, you know.”

“You wanna be careful with a bee sting,” said the American woman.

“Wait a minute. I’ll get some tweezers,” said the receptionist.

The operation was performed at 8:10 A.M. and the patient remained conscious throughout. Everyone had a different suggestion for the aftercare: a blue bag, bicarbonate of soda, iodine, cold water and fresh air.

“Take my advice and get your eyes tested,” the little man said in a parting shot.

“Thanks.”

He didn’t fancy the Heritage Platter anymore. All he wanted was strong tea and one slice of toast. The thumb was still sore, even with a coating of antihistamine ointment. Some of this came off on the
Daily Mail,
leaving a smear beside the report that a major police operation was under way to recapture John Mount joy. The stakeout at the caravan park had happened too late to make the morning papers.

Where would Mountjoy go? he demanded of himself, trying to ignore the throbbing. The stolen car wouldn’t be of use for long. Every copper in the West Country would have the number by now. Without a doubt Mountjoy would have some new bolt-hole planned. He’d lived in the area long enough to know his way about. Another caravan site would be too risky. So where?

With a friend? It seemed unlikely that anyone would run the risk of conspiring in a kidnap as well as harboring an escaped prisoner. Friends with that degree of loyalty are rare.

Mountjoy’s problem was Samantha. A man alone might wander about looking for places, or decide to sleep rough. A man with a young woman hostage wasn’t going to get far without creating suspicion. An empty house was the best bet. There were plenty in and around the city with agents’ boards outside.

Julie Hargreaves was already in the office when Diamond got there soon after nine. To his already jaded eye she looked depressingly top-of-the-morning.

She said brightly, “We’re still in business, then?”

“Naturally,” said he, manfully. “It throbs a bit, but the antihistamine will take it down, no doubt.”

She said, “I think we’re at cross-purposes. I was talking about Mount joy getting through the net at Atworth last night. What’s wrong?”

This way, it sounded as if he was touting for sympathy. He told her about the sting and she made the appropriate remarks.

“How was your meeting with Jake Pinkerton?” she asked when it was clear that he wished to talk about something else than his thumb.

He summed up. “He just confirmed what we know: he and Britt dumped each other more than a year before the murder. He reckoned it was mutual. No resentment. And she had no interest in dishing the dirt on him because it had all been done by others when he was younger. The only mildly interesting thing that came up was that he was at the funeral and remembers seeing a bunch of red roses among the floral tributes.”

“Who from?”

“No message. Pretty tasteless in the circumstances, don’t you think?”

“Sick, I think.”

“So how about you?” he asked. “Did you get to see the photographer lady?”

“Prue Shorter—yes. She lives out at Steeple Ashton. She was certainly worth the trip. She took the pictures—or pics, as she calls them—for three stories with Britt. Well, only one, actually. The last two were never completed.”

“One of those being the college expose?”

“Yes, she took some exteriors of the building and she was going to get some of Mountjoy when the opportunity came, but Britt didn’t want them taken until she’d finished her investigation. She intended to confront him with her evidence on the night she was killed.”

“That’s what I always assumed, but it’s good to have it confirmed,” said Diamond. The case against Mountjoy wasn’t crumbling. It was being reinforced. “What was the story that did get into print?”

“She did an exclusive feature on Longleat House and Viscount Weymouth. He’s Lord Bath now, of course. Well, the whole emphasis of the story was the gallery of portraits he has of his lovers, his ‘wifelets,’ as he calls them, all fifty-four of them.”

Diamond smiled. “I once attended a meeting about security at Longleat and we were shown inside the Kama Sutra room, with its four-poster bed and the murals painted by the Viscount. Allegedly erotic.”

“Allegedly? I’ve seen the photos,” said Julie.

“Well, if they struck you as erotic, fine.”

She colored.

“I mean, it’s all in the mind, isn’t it?” Diamond teased her.

She stayed staunchly with the story she was reporting. “The family were extremely obliging. Prue Shorter took any number of photos while Britt got the interview with the Viscount and wrote the story. The press made a great splash out of it. She did some very big deals with continental magazines. Anything out of the ordinary about the British aristocracy sells well in Europe.”

“Out of the ordinary? Yes, I think that sums it up.” Privately he thought the Longleat story unlikely to have influenced the murder. “You said there were three stories Prue Shorter photographed for Britt. The Longleat portraits, the Mountjoy scam and what else?”

“The other was Trim Street.”

“Really?” He leaned forward in the chair.

“Well, you found this out yourself,” said Julie. “The crusties got into one of the empty houses and declared squatters’ rights. Britt got to know them and succeeded in getting Prue inside to photograph the place.”

“When?”

“She couldn’t pin down the date, but it was only a week or so before the murder. Britt’s story never got written. Prue Shorter has some excellent shots of the crusties inside the place. She showed them to me.”

Diamond examined his thumb again. Every so often it gave a twinge and his face prickled as if he were sitting in a draught. “I can’t think what she hoped to do with the story. There are homeless people all over Europe occupying empty houses.” Recalling a comment of Pinkerton’s, he said, “Did she say what the angle was?”

“The angle?”

“The point the article was making.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Maybe I should meet this woman. Steeple Ashton, you said? Is she likely to be there this morning?”

Julie thought so. She had gathered that Prue Shorter worked from home these days. She had given up the photography.

They drove there together, Julie at the wheel of the Escort. So far, he was glad he had asked her to act as his assistant. The decision hadn’t been taken out of any strong conviction that women deserved a better deal in the police. He judged people on their merits, and Julie was a good detective. John Wigfull was also a good detective, much more experienced than Julie, but a pain to work with.

Steeple Ashton lies west of Bath, across the county border, in Wiltshire. Strictly, he should have informed the Wilts Constabulary that he was pursuing inquiries on their patch, and Wigfull would have reminded him of the fact, but Julie had the good sense to say nothing.

Prue Shorter’s cottage was stone-built and thatched, south of the village, up a lane much used by cows. There were some ancient apple trees in the garden.

“Is she friendly?” Diamond asked.

“I think you’ll find her so. With that sore thumb of yours, I wouldn’t shake hands. She’s big.”

“Hearty?”

“Yes.”

Smoke was coming from the chimney, a promising sign. The hearty occupant must have heard the car because she opened the door before they reached it. “You again, love?”

“This is Mr. Diamond, my boss,” said Julie, sidestepping the trifling matter of rank. “He won’t shake hands because he was stung by a bee this morning.”

“Poor lamb!” said Prue Shorter. “Have you put something on it?”

He didn’t care to start that again. “It’s under control, thanks. I wanted to meet you because you worked with Britt Strand, the woman who was murdered. I don’t know how much Inspector Hargreaves told you.”

“I know Mountjoy is on the run,” she said. “I can relax. He never met me. Doesn’t even know I exist. Are you coming in? I’ll get the kettle on.”

When she opened the door wider and turned, she made Diamond feel undersized, a mere tug beside an ocean liner. Such encounters were rare. She had to ease her way into the kitchen, where something rich was cooking.

Left in the living room, which was the greater part of the ground floor of the cottage, he looked around for signs of the work Miss Shorter did from home, and saw none. Maybe she had an office upstairs, he speculated, because this room was furnished for relaxation, with a chintz sofa and armchairs, a music center and a television set. It also contained the stone hearth and a log fire. The framed pictures of Redoute roses, the vases and ornaments and the cut chrysanthemums in a glass vase were arranged with a bold sense of design. Large as she was, Prue Shorter was not ham-fisted. A violin in a white alcove was elegantly displayed.

“You’re a musician, I gather?” he said sociably when she returned with a laden tray.

“What makes you say that? Ah—the fiddle. It’s not full-size. It belonged to my daughter. She died.”

“Sorry—I wouldn’t have ...”

“It’s all right. I’m thick-skinned. And I like to listen to music. I play things most of the time—CDs, I mean. The recorder was the only instrument I mastered, and there’s not much joy playing that.”

“Music is nice as a background, if it doesn’t interfere with your work,” he ventured. This was subtle stuff, and he hoped Julie was taking note.

“Oh, it’s just the thing for what I do,” Prue Shorter said. “I make and decorate cakes. There’s one in the oven right now.”

“It smells irresistible. No more photography, then?”

“Only pics of the cakes.” She set down the tray. “You can sample one I made for myself.”

“I’d love to.”

“That’s the kind of man I like,” she said, raising her fist in tribute. “Sod the calories, forward the cakes.” She cut a generous slice of iced fruit cake and handed it to him. “How about you, Inspector? Do you good.”

“Thanks, but it’s a little early in the day,” Julie said.

“And last night it was too late. When
do
you eat? Never mind, love.” She went through the maneuver of sitting down, in free fall for the last foot or so, severely testing the frame of the sofa, never mind the springs. “Yes, the press photography suffered in the recession—and without Britt. I was always freelance, you see. Didn’t want to live in London, where the well-paid work is. So I went back to making cakes. I learned it years ago. Won competitions for my icing. The great thing about all this—and I’m not referring to my figure—is that even in a recession people get married and want wedding cakes. Whatever damn-fool things the government does to ruin the economy, babies get christened—that means more cakes—and Christmas comes up every year—and that’s another batch.”

“It sounds like good sense to me,” said Diamond.

“You’re in the same happy position, ducky,” she remarked. “Crime is always going to be around. You’re never going to be short of work.”

He let that pass. “I’d like to ask you a couple of things that could be helpful without going over the ground you covered with Inspector Hargreaves. About Mountjoy. Did Britt say much to you about what she was uncovering at the college?”