“Offhand, I can’t say,” Farr-Jones admitted.
Wigfull was afforded his chance to shine. “Isn’t it on Lansdown? You know, where the battle was fought in the Civil War? Grenville was one of the Royalist leaders. They put up a stone pillar where he fell.”
“Lansdown, you say?” Warrilow turned to a map on the wall.
“Yes, sir. It’s one of the highest points hereabouts, beyond the racecourse on the Lansdown Road.” Wigfull traced the road with his finger. “I walked the Cotswold Way once and passed close to it. See, the monument is marked. Just here, to the east of Hanging Hill.”
“Open ground?”
“I have a vague recollection of some trees or bushes not far away, but there isn’t much else up there. It still looks like a battlefield. On one side of the road you can see the ridges of earth they dug out for their defenses.”
“Still deep enough to give some cover?”
“Not where the monument is.”
“Ideally I’d use a helicopter for an operation like this,” Warrilow reflected, “but obviously we’ve got to be careful.”
Tott, becoming pink, said, “I’m not prepared to see my daughter’s life put at risk.”
“No question of that, Harry,” said Farr-Jones. “Samantha’s safety is paramount in our planning.”
“Which is why I’m recommending subtlety in our surveillance,” Warrilow added smoothly.
“Surveillance of what?” Diamond said.
“Your meeting with Mountjoy.”
“I haven’t agreed to meet him.”
“But surely-”
“Nothing is sure,” said Diamond. “Nothing is agreed. I’m a civilian. Remember?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
Something had been troubling John Wigfull. Tentatively, he said, “There’s an inconsistency in the two messages from Mountjoy, isn’t there? Yesterday he asked us to have a car ready. Today we’re told to use a taxi.”
“And is there a car ready?” said Diamond.
“Of course. I told you.”
“Is it bugged-invisibly, of course-but bugged?”
“Yes.”
Diamond smiled. “You won’t need it. That was the decoy. Mountjoy is ahead in this game. He’s had years to plan it.”
Warrilow drew in a sibilant breath and folded his arms as if to convey that he, too, had seen through this transparent ruse. “You’ll have to carry something,” he told Diamond.
The moment had arrived for Diamond to lay out his cards. “If you want my cooperation, gentlemen, you can have it on my terms. My terms are Mountjoy’s, exactly. No bugs, no radios, weapons or”-his eyes locked with Warrilow’s- “surveillance. I go up to Lansdown alone to see what this is about. I’m your surveillance, right? If I come back alive, as I intend to, I’ll have plenty to tell you.”
“Come on, man, you were in the police,” said Warrilow abrasively. “We’re a professional force, not the Boy Scouts. Mountjoy is an escaped convict, a lifer with a record of violence. Our job is to recapture him. We can’t let this opportunity pass.”
“And if you do pick him up, what happens to Mr. Tott’s daughter?”
“He’ll tell us where she is.”
“That’s your assessment, is it?”
“He’s no idiot. He’s an educated man. He’ll know when the game is up.”
Diamond glanced at the others, practically inviting them to support Warrilow’s line of reasoning. They were silent. Speaking in a flat tone that let the story supply its own force, he said, “There was a stickup artist a few years back who did post offices in the Midlands and murdered three sub-postmasters. They called him the Black Panther because of the hood he wore. Remember?”
Warrilow gave a grudging nod. The case had been notorious and was frequently quoted on training courses, but no one was going to stop Diamond from pointing out its relevance.
“He got more ambitious. Kidnapped a teen-age girl from a well-off family in Kidderminster and demanded a ransom of fifty grand. Planned it like a military operation. Found an ingenious place to keep his victim. Sent his messages on strips of Dynotape. Early in the hunt, the police had a lucky break. A stolen car was found containing the girl’s slippers and a tape recording of her voice appealing to the family to cooperate. Forensic evidence provided a firm link with the Panther, so they knew they were dealing with a killer. They put terrific resources into the hunt. The girl was missing for about eight weeks. When they finally found her it was too late. She was hanging naked by a wire rope in an underground drainage tunnel. Ruddy sadist. They caught up with him by chance, nine months later, about to do another post office. The point is, why did that young girl die? The answer is that the guy was a killer already. What’s one more death? If the Panther had been nicked before the girl was found, do you believe he would have revealed where she was hidden?”
Warrilow said, “There’s no comparison.”
To which Diamond replied, “You’re right, of course.” Then added mildly, “I wonder where Mr. Tott’s daughter is being kept.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Tott had lowered his head. It wasn’t possible to see his expression.
Abruptly Farr-Jones said, “In the present exercise, I believe we should set aside any idea of arresting the man.”
Warrilow backtracked shamelessly. “I don’t say we need apprehend him immediately, but we have a duty to the public to take this opportunity of tracking his movements. Rest assured, Mr. Diamond, he won’t be aware of what is going on.”
“Fine,” said Diamond evenly. “You go ahead with your tracking. I’ll rest assured, as you put it-in the first InterCity back to London.”
Tott said in alarm, “Don’t do that!”
“He won’t,” said Warrilow. “He’d regret it for the rest of his life.”
Warrilow talked as if he had just completed a course in assertiveness, but he wasn’t the one who would be putting his life on the line. Nor was he the senior officer present. Farr-Jones cleared his throat. “This is an unusual situation, gentlemen, and it would be wise to establish some priorities. Your duty is to recapture Mountjoy, Mr. Warrilow, and we shall do everything in our power to support you. However, the top consideration must be Miss Tott’s safety.”
“Thank you for that, sir,” murmured Tott, while Diamond privately noted that nothing was said about his own safety.
Farr-Jones continued, “From all that I have heard, Mr. Diamond had a high rate of success in his time here.”
“Second to none,” said Tott without a trace of insincerity.
Sensitive, possibly, to the contradictions in the file he’d studied, Farr-Jones explained, “He didn’t always go by the book, but he achieved results. He knows Mountjoy. He sent him down. He’s our best hope in this emergency. I’m willing to back him one hundred percent.”
“Without surveillance?” said Diamond.
“Yes.”
“No bugs?”
“No bugs.”
Warrilow stated piously, “I should like my dissent placed on record.”
“So be it,” said Farr-Jones without looking at him. “Are you ready to leave at once, Mr. Diamond?”
Decision time. He’d talked some sense into the police. Now was he ready to take on Mountjoy?
“If someone will call a taxi. I’m sorry about the car you had ready, John. What is it, by the way?”
Wigfull frowned. “The make? A Vauxhall Cavalier.”
Diamond grinned.
“What’s funny?” asked Farr-Jones.
“The idea of taking a Cavaliet up to Lansdown. Didn’t they lose the Civil War?”
A long-serving Abbey Radio cab rattled up Broad Street in a slow stream of traffic past familiar landmarks like the Moon and Sixpence and the Postal Museum, with Peter Diamond beside the driver spotting the changes. The disfiguring grime on the stonework of St. Michael’s had been removed, leaving an unexpectedly handsome church. Rossiter’s, where Steph had always bought her greeting cards, remained, but the little cafe two doors up, where students used to congregate, renowned for its cheap, wholesome vegetable soup, had gone. Somehow the Bath Book Exchange had survived the recession, still displaying secondhand books with alluringly handwritten descriptions of their contents; he’d once found a fine copy of Fabian of the Yard there, a volume he treasured. If the city shops had changed, how much more had detective work, and not for the better in Diamond’s opinion; these days it was all bureaucrats and boffins. Strange, then, that this morning the central nick, that barracklike block in Manvers Street, had felt like his second home.