'Hospital? Whatever for?'
'He blacked out. The school quite properly called the emergency number. It seems that concussion has been diagnosed.' Mr Tott gave out the information routinely, as if he were a hospital spokesman. Routinely and unsparingly.
'He was all right when I saw him last,' Diamond said, conscious how feeble this sounded. 'Conversing normally, quite relaxed.'
'The effects aren't always immediate,' commented Mr Tott, and then continued with the bulletin. 'They are taking X-rays, in case the skull is fractured. It's too early to tell if there is permanent damage.'
The whole thing was so incredible that Diamond wanted to ask if anyone had considered whether the boy was play-acting, but he checked himself. Such a suggestion was most unlikely to ease his predicament. Mr Tott was taking it seriously, and Mr Tott wouldn't take kindly to being duped.
Instead, he confined himself to a defence of his own actions. 'If the kid did crack his head on the wall, it was accidental. He kicked me in the privates first and then made a dive for my leg. All I did was push him away. John Wigfull saw it. He was right behind me, sir.'
Mr Tott shook his head. 'That's where you're mistaken. Inspector Wigfull didn't see it. His attention was directed to Mrs Didrikson. He had just caught sight of her making her getaway through the back of the house. He wasn't looking at you or the boy.'
Thanks a bunch, John, Diamond thought bitterly. Any brother officer with an ounce of loyalty would have given me some backing. Wigfull knew there was nothing deliberate in the hand-off.
'Whatever the rights and wrongs of it,' Mr Tott said in a cold, judicial tone, 'I have to consider the way it could be interpreted by others, outside the police. I mean the school and the parent. This morning I took a pretty irate call from the boy's headmaster.'
'Oh, no!'
The school had not been informed that the boy had received a blow to the head.'
'It wasn't a blow, sir. Nobody struck him.'
'I'm not here to argue terminologies, Diamond. This is too serious for that. The headmaster registered a complaint and he assumes – not without reason – that Mrs Didrikson will wish to do the same.' He tilted his head back a fraction, signalling a significant statement. 'In the circumstances, I have asked Wigfull to take over the investigation into Geraldine Jackman's death. With the acting rank of chief inspector.'
'What?' Diamond's skin prickled and a pulse started thumping in his head.
'I'm relieving you of your command, pending a possible inquiry into your conduct. I have no option. What has happened may already have undermined our case against this woman.'
Even the semblance of respect cracked now. 'This must be Toytown. It's bloody Toytown. I don't believe it.'
'Have a care what you say, Superintendent.'
But Peter Diamond was in no frame of mind to care any more. 'Too late for that, Mr Tott. I've got your number now. I know what this is – your golden opportunity. You're terrified of my record. All that horseshit about no blame attaching to me from the Missendale inquiry and you hit the panic button at the first whisper against me. It suits your book beautifully. Your stooge was sitting in, waiting for me to screw up, and now he takes over. Well, I just hope he delivers. You bloody deserve each other. As for me, I'll save you the trouble of an inquiry. I'm quitting. You have my resignation.'
After which, he had nothing else to do but walk out and down the stairs.
Chapter Four
Too angry to speak to anyone, he left the building and crossed the street, only to realize that even the timing of his exit was ill-judged, for the pubs wouldn't be open for another hour. He started walking, past the bus station towards Stall Street, telling himself that by degrees the anger would recede. He didn't regret what he had said. Every word had been justified, and if he had expressed it more diplomatically, he would still have been there trying to find an exit-line. All right, he could be called impetuous, wrong-headed and insubordinate, but he still had balls. To have capitulated to Tott, allowing himself to be sidelined, excluded from the murder squad, condemned to see out the rest of his career from behind a desk, would have been emasculation.
Regrets? None that would cause him to reconsider. He hadn't been long enough with Avon and Somerset to make strong friendships. And – it was no less true because he beefed about it so often – his job satisfaction had been in steep decline in recent years. The scientists were taking over CID work. The great detectives of the past – the idols of his early years in the force, like Bob Fabian, Jack du Rose and 'Nipper' Read – now seemed as remote as dinosaurs. They were honest-to-God detectives. They'd have been hamstrung by the paraphernalia of modern technology – computers, cellphones, photofits, police programmes on television, ultrasonic surveillance and genetic fingerprinting. Maybe he was rationalizing what had just taken place upstairs, but he didn't see how he could have lasted much longer in the modern police. He'd chalked up some modest successes over the years. Pity he was denied the satisfaction of clearing up the Jackman murder. Yes, that was a genuine regret.
His biggest concern was the shock this would be for Stephanie. Poor Steph was going to hear it cold. If he was stunned by the suddenness of his going, how much worse would it be for her? At least he'd been there at the time and brought it on himself. Steph hadn't been given the slightest warning that this would happen. Her world was about to cave in and she was likely to cave in with it. Even after the shock subsided, she would sink into a deep despair about the mortgage and the bills and the cost of staying alive. He would deal with those things as they happened, but Steph was a born worrier.
On his right as he made his way up Stall Street was an electricity showroom, and the sight of all those appliances in the window gave him a thought. As impulsively as he had quit his job, he marched in and asked to see the microwave ovens. Big enough to cast aside his principles in an act of mercy, he decided to go for broke, selected the one with the biggest display of controls and paid for it by cheque. They promised to deliver it to Mrs Peter Diamond the same afternoon. That, he told the salesman, would be the good news.
Coming out, he continued past the colonnaded entrance to the Baths and came to the Abbey Churchyard, his lunchtime haunt in summer. At this end of the year there were fewer tourists, so he had a wooden seat to himself. Only the pigeons remained in any numbers, and they converged on him at once, too single-minded even to coo as they searched the flagstones by his feet for crumbs. Then a loose dog, a black retriever, came running from the direction of Abbey Green, and the pigeons took flight. Diamond watched their whirring ascent. They formed into a tight flock within a moment of taking to the air and when they had wheeled out of sight behind him, he was left gazing up at the Abbey front, those stone angels perpetually trapped on the ladders. The consoling thought came to him that he could stop identifying with them now. Just as he started to look away, something strange made an impression on his vision, demanding a longer inspection. He squinted up at the stonework. He had spotted a feature of the carving he had never previously noticed. It was not a trick of the light, nor a failing of vision. One of the angels – the third from the top – wasn't sculpted in the attitude of climbing, but was upside down. No question. That angel was coming down head-first.
He couldn't summon a grin, but he nodded and said, 'You and me both, mate.'
He didn't, after all, make straight for the nearest pub. Apart from the bitterness he felt towards Tott, something else rankled – his strong suspicion that the whole thing had been founded on a deception. He didn't believe Matthew Didrikson had blacked out. It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes after the alleged incident in the hall that he'd seen the boy lounging on his bed, not in the least distressed, doing his best to convince his mother that what had happened amounted to deliberate assault by the police. In his rugby-playing days, Diamond had seen a number of genuine cases of concussion and not only had the effects been immediate, but the victims hadn't been able to recall the events immediately before they were hit. If the kid was shown to be faking, Diamond still couldn't turn back the clock and get his job back: he accepted that. But a disturbing possibility was beginning to dawn on him. His sudden resignation might be interpreted as an admission that the boy had been treated violently. Taking the worst possible scenario, he might find himself being sued for assault, facing ruinous damages. And it was too late now to turn to the police for support.