The Summons Read Free Page B

could dredge up, “A man is dead up there. The Governor wants us to stand by.” Then he approached the door and raised a hand to signal to the screw in the control room.
    Quaking in his shoes, he waited.
    One of the police said, “You from Cowes, mate?”
    He answered, “Shanklin,” and added, “on detachment.”
    “Thought I didn’t recognize you. How did you get in before us? We’re just down the road.”
    “A tip-off,” Mountjoy answered, and then—Praise the Lord—the door swung open. He stepped inside.
    This moment over which he had lost sleep every night for years seemed like an anticlimax. He had to stand there for those seven seconds and be vetted by the team in the control room. But this place was a refuge after the ordeal he had just been through.
    Nothing happened.
    He waited.
    He counted mentally, staring ahead.
    Seven seconds had passed. Must have passed, he thought. He’s having a long look at me.
    Then the second door opened and he felt the cooler air of the central corridor on his face. He stepped forward.
    He could be observed all the way now if they suspected him. He walked briskly, head erect, past the entrance to C Hall on his right and the hospital on his left. He was familiar with the route because it was the way to the classrooms and the library—always under escort, of course. The main entrance was beyond the classrooms and to the left.
    B Hall was coming up. The door opened and a party of screws came out just as he was reaching there. They ran toward Mountjoy and for a sickening moment he thought they must have had instructions to stop him. But they dashed straight past, heading for the hall he’d left. He moved on and turned the corner.
    The main entrance to the prison complex is controlled by a triple system of sliding doors. The lighting here is brilliant and Mountjoy felt certain that every stitch in the rags he was wearing must show up on the monitors. There was a bell to press, quite superfluous, he was sure.
    He stood to wait, trying to achieve a compromise between confident informality and the upright bearing of your typical English bobby.
    Then there was the rustle of static and a voice addressed him. “Leaving already, officer?”
    He supplied the answer he’d had ready in case he met anyone. “Hasn’t the support arrived? I’m supposed to brief them.”
    The first door slid across.
    “Thank you.”
    He stepped forward.
    He waited.
    The second door opened.
    And the third.
    In the real world it was dark by this time, but the towering floodlights made a gleaming desert of the prison yard. He had at least six shadows radiating from his feet. Parked outside the main entrance were two red-striped police cars. Knowing that he was under video surveillance he paused by the nearer car and leaned on the window frame for a few seconds as if making a radio report. Then he started marching across the yard toward the gatehouse.
    A dog barked and its handler shouted something to disabuse the animal of its conviction that John Mountjoy was an escapee. More barking followed. At least two dog patrols were on the perimeter, by the first of the two fifteen-meter fences inside the wall. He still had to bluff his way through four gates.
    And now he believed he would.

Chapter Two

    “I was offered a job today.”
    Stephanie Diamond lowered the evening paper sufficiently to look over the top edge and see if her husband was serious. “A proper job?”
    “That’s open to debate.”
    On the kitchen table between them was a three-quarters empty bottle of cheap red wine and a dish that had contained shepherd’s pie. The cork was already back in the wine to keep it from turning sour by next day. Stephanie limited them to one glass, not for reasons of health, but housekeeping. The Diamonds had learned to live prudently, if not frugally, in their basement flat in Addison Road, Kensington.
    Supper was a precious interval in the day, the first chance to relax together. If anything of interest had