Read Online The Summons by Peter Lovesey - Free Book Online

you have to treat a bag of shopping as a state secret.”
    He said, “Because it’s boring.” And out of her line of vision he took the final item from the bag and tucked it out of sight on top of the cupboard.
    It was a packet of hair tint, labeled Mocha.

Chapter Five

    A whiff of fried bacon was in the air.
    From deep in the bed came an utterance just comprehensible as, “You can chuck my clothes off the chair and leave the tray.”
    “It’s five past eight, sir,” the cadet announced as he went out.
    Diamond heaved himself up to a sitting position.
    The breakfast had been a brilliant idea. He was less convinced about the sleep. Three hours had not been enough. He was left with a pounding headache and a mouth that tasted as if it had Hoovered the carpet. He reached for the mug on the tray.
    The tea tasted good. It hadn’t come from an urn. This was almost like home.
    Out of curiosity he leaned toward the tray and lifted the cover. Some angel in the canteen had a long memory: two eggs coated pale pink on a slice of thick fried bread, with several strips of crisp streaky bacon, a sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and a heap of fried potato.
    Then it occurred to him that the last meal of a condemned man is supposed to be exactly what he desires. Were they telling him something?
    Keith Halliwell looked around the door. “How do you feel, chief?”
    “In need of some aspirin. No, before you get it, what’s new?”
    “Damn all, really. Nothing on Mountjoy or the girl. There’s a car ready in case you ...”
    “... want to make a getaway?”
    Halliwell smiled as if a couple of aspirin might also do him some good.
    Diamond asked, “Is Tott still about?”
    “Yes, and Mr. Farr-Jones is in.”
    “Full dress parade, is it?”
    “I’ll see to the aspirin for you.”
    “Thanks. And, Keith ...”
    “Yes?”
    “Keep the top brass out if you can. I want to eat this in peace.”

    Just after eight-forty, with a clearer head and contented stomach, he looked into the nearest locker room. “Could anyone lend me a razor?”
    He meant to have a wet shave, but one of the new sergeants on the strength seemed determined to lend him an electric shaver, not knowing the jinx he put on anything mechanical.
    “This is neat. How does it work—like this?”
    He slid back a cover on the side and one of the batteries fell out and rolled under a locker. “How about that? There’s an arrow thing on the side. What do they expect people to do?”
    “You press the switch.”
    “What switch?”
    “On the side, sir.”
    “Doesn’t work.”
    “It won’t. It’s short of a battery now.”
    “You wouldn’t be taking the piss by any chance, sergeant?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Where did it go, then—and what happens if you press this side?”
    “Don’t.”
    Too late, his thumb flicked off the head guard and shot it across the room. “Strewth.” He handed back what was left of the shaver. “Does anyone have one in working order?”

    It was ten to nine when he completed a wet shave, courtesy of Keith Halliwell, and put on a shirt and tie and ventured out to check some old haunts. His arrival in the main office was disconcerting because three or four faces he remembered from two years ago looked up and smiled. Smiled. The Manvers Street mob usually put their heads down when he appeared and tried not to be noticed. Something in the looks he was getting made him deeply uneasy. It was almost like admiration. It dawned on him that the entire station knew what he was being asked to take on. He was being treated like Gary Cooper in High Noon and he hadn’t even agreed to the shootout.
    He returned upstairs to where the Chief Constable was waiting. Farr-Jones definitely wasn’t out of a Western. Short and dapper, with a rosebud in his lapel, he could have doubled for John Mills in one of his English country gentleman roles. He shook hands as if he was applying a tourniquet.
    “Man of the hour, eh? Sensible, getting some sleep.”
    “I