Sleeping in the Ground: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks Novels)

by Peter Robinson

  That was, of course, assuming the killer wanted to get away.

  Banks glanced back down on the scene. It was hard to believe that such a horror could have taken place in broad daylight, on such a joyous occasion and in such a beautiful spot. The squat Norman church, originally built in 1174, had the traditional square tower with clock, and the limestone was a greenish-gray color in the dimming light. Many of the tombstones stood at precarious angles, and most were spotted with lichen or overgrown by grass. The more recent ones seemed well tended, with vases of bright flowers placed before them.

  St. Mary’s was one of the best known and loved churches around, and it had once been the place for all burials in the dale. Inhabitants of the more remote western villages and farms had carried, or brought on carts, the bodies of their loved ones along the “Corpse Way” for Christian burial there, as there was no closer church that could accommodate them. Like St. Andrew’s in Swaledale, it had become a sort of “Cathedral of the Dale.” Now this.

  “What about the risk factor?” Banks asked.

  “I’d say it wasn’t very high,” Trethowan answered. “It’s a clear day, yes, for once, but that’s more a matter of good fortune than weather forecasting. It was supposed to rain, and you can see that’s coming, but we got a brief stay for some reason. You wouldn’t necessarily get a lot of walkers up here at this time of year, though. Besides, the other side of the valley is more popular, more scenic. I’d say he probably worked it out in advance, chose his spot well.”

  “But if he was lying there in the grass overlooking the church, there’s a chance that someone might have spotted him, isn’t there? A dogwalker, someone like that.”

  “There’s always a chance, Alan. Always an element of risk,” said Trethowan. “But if a dogwalker or a couple of ramblers had come along, he’d probably have shot them, too.”

  “Fair enough. Why did the ARVs take so long to get to the scene, Mike?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Not you as well.”

  “What do you mean? You know it’s going to come up. And I’m in the bloody hot seat here.”

  Trethowan sighed. “We’re well trained, but we’re not used to firearms incidents in these out-of-the-way parts, as you know. The nearest ARV was in the Middlesbrough area. They got here as quickly as they could. Traffic was heavy. They could hardly sprout wings and fly.”

  “And in the meantime there were people wounded and dying here.”

  “I’d like to know how we can do any better with the resources we’ve got. Most of our firearms officers and support units have been targeted toward cities and towns where there’s more risk of terrorist threats. Shopping centers, sports and music stadiums, that sort of thing. We’ve got hardly anyone left in North Yorkshire.”

  “I understand that, Mike, but Terry Gilchrist told you he’d seen the shooter leave but you still wouldn’t let the medics through.”

  “There might have been more than one. Or he might not have gone very far. Or Terry Gilchrist might have been mistaken. We had no idea how reliable he is. There are any number of problems with a vague witness opinion like that. You can’t trust it. You know we’re supposed to be on the scene to protect unarmed police officers as well as emergency services personnel. Who gets the blame if a civilian or a paramedic gets shot? We do, that’s who. So nobody approaches a shooting scene until we’ve cleared it and given the OK. That’s how it works. Besides, I don’t even know why I’m bothering to defend the action. It wasn’t my call. Talk to the gold commander.”

  “I’m just saying it’ll come up. Forewarned and all that . . .”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  “What’s the distance, do you think? Here to the churchyard.”

  “Between three-fifty and four hundred meters.”

  “What’s that in English?”

  Trethowan snorted. “Luddite. About a quarter of a mile.”

  “It’s a long way. What kind of weapon would he need to shoot accurately that far?”

  “We don’t know how accurately he shot,” Trethowan said. “He was firing into a crowd. We don’t know what, or whom, he was aiming at, other than the crowd. According to Terry Gilchrist, he shot the bride first, then the groom, then the chief bridesmaid, and it gets a bit confusing after that. But even if he was simply aiming in that general direction, the odds are that he’d have hit someone.”

  “Seven or eight people were hit, I’ve heard.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Scope sights?”

  “Most likely. That would certainly have given him a chance of being more accurate, if he had specific targets.”

  “Any idea what sort of weapon the shooter used?”

  “Don’t quote me on this,” Trethowan said, “but I’d put my money on the Armalite, an AR15. What they call the ‘Black Rifle.’ The cartridge casings we found bear this out. They’re .223 Remington, the same kind the AR15 takes in a twenty- or thirty-round clip. Of course, there are other rifles that use the same ammo, but . . . well, the AR15 is the most common. You asked what I thought.”

  “Illegal, I should imagine?”

  “Not at all. Very popular with enthusiasts. But it’s available to competition shooters only as a straight pull version.”

  “Meaning? It’s a long time since I took a firearms awareness course.”

  “You have to pull the bolt back to empty the chamber and reload.”

  “So it takes time? Could he have done that quickly enough to get off as many shots as he did?”

  “Ten? Yes. Easily. And he obviously did. It would have taken less than a minute. From what Mr. Gilchrist told us, it was definitely straight pull, not semiautomatic fire. And he should know his stuff, with his military service. If it had been an illegal firearm, a semiautomatic, say, there would have been a lot more people killed.”

  “Bullets?”

  “You’d best ask the pathologist about that when he digs them out.”

  “Terry thinks they were hollow point.”

  “And he could well be right.”

  “Would the killer need a military background?”

  “Not necessarily, but I wouldn’t rule it out. There are plenty of rifle and pistol clubs and people who enjoy competitive shooting with a wide range of weapons. Or hunting. He might simply be a good shot.”

  “Any chance it was a terrorist attack?”

  “Always a possibility, something like this,” said Trethowan. “Even here. The experts are on their way and they’ll be digging deep. But off the record, it’s not really terrorist style, is it? A lone gunman, as far as we know, with a legal weapon, shooting from a distance. A country wedding in an out-of-the-way place. Where’s the cachet in that?”

  “That they can hit us anywhere, anytime they like, and our customs and ceremonies mean nothing to them. They’ve been going for a lot of ‘soft’ targets recently. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Istanbul.”

  “Well, if you put it like that . . .”

  “No, I agree with you, Mike. It doesn’t have the feel of a terrorist attack. They could have done far more damage sending a man or a woman in the church with an automatic weapon, or strapped with explosives, though I don’t suppose you can always find a keen suicide bomber when you want one. I’m just keeping an open mind.” He paused. “If the gun was legal, we should be able to trace it through the firearms certificate, right?”

  “Ostensibly,” said Trethowan. “The checks to get a certificate are pretty thorough, but people do slip between the cracks. Remember, I only said that guns modified in that way are legal to own. I didn’t say this one was obtained legally.”

  “OK. But criminals make mistakes, get overconfident. How many certificates might we be talking about?”

  “The last I heard there were about seven hundred thousand gun owners in the UK and almost two million licensed firearms.”

  “Two million?”

  “Easily. About sixty thousand in North Yorkshire alone.”

  “A lot of those would be sh
otguns, I assume?”

  “Uh-huh. Typically, in rural areas.”

  “So there would be fewer AR15s?”

  “Far fewer. We can narrow it down a lot. It shouldn’t take us that long to sort them out.”

  “The sooner we get started, then,” said Banks. “Tell your team to start with those living closest to the scene, then work their work way out. You know the drill.”

  “I’ll be sure to advise extra caution, too. If a man uses a legal firearm to commit an atrocity like this, he’s got to be expecting a visit from us before long.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care,” said Banks.

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Banks could see the news vans arriving, and there were two TV helicopters already overhead, along with the Dales search-and-rescue teams the police had co-opted to scan the moors for the killer. This would be a big story. All eyes would be on them for the next while, however things developed. If a reporter discovered how long it took the ARVs to get to the scene and secure it while people were dying there, and how long it was before they let in medical help, heads would roll, despite the orders to redistribute personnel to urban areas more vulnerable to terrorist attack. And the media would find out. Someone always blabbed. Adrian Moss, the MLA, would have his work cut out for him. If a Paris- or Istanbul-style attack occurred in a tourist beauty spot such as the Dales, the Cotswolds or the Lake District, then the terrorists would have all the time in the world to do whatever damage and kill as many people as they wanted before anyone could even attempt to put a stop to them. Talk about soft targets.

  Banks heard a rustling sound and turned to see two officers leading sniffer dogs to the site. Mike Trethowan’s police radio crackled. “Sir,” the voice said over the static. “I’ve been instructed to ask you if Detective Superintendent Banks is with you.”

  “He is,” Trethowan answered.

  “His team has just had a call from the youth hostel, sir. Seems somebody up there knows something. One of his officers is already on-site. He’s been asked to drop by. There’s a car waiting at the bottom of the hill.”

  Banks nodded to Trethowan and set off down the hill.

  Banks got out of the patrol car outside the youth hostel and asked the driver to wait. He looked up at the nineteenth-century manor house with its distinctly Gothic facade, as if the builder had been a fan of Bram Stoker and Ann Radcliffe. It was built of local limestone, like the church, with added wings, gables and a gargoyle or two stuck on for good measure. In the gathering late-afternoon darkness, against a background of heavy rain clouds, with only a few lights showing in mullioned windows here and there, it resembled a spooky old house from a black-and-white horror film. The House on Haunted Hill. All it needed was thunder and lightning.

  The front door was open, and the woman at the reception desk directed Banks toward the common room and asked if he would like a cup of tea. He thanked her and walked down the vaulted passage. Several armed officers were already conducting a search of the building, as it was only about a quarter of a mile south of St. Mary’s.

  The common room was a cold, high-ceilinged lounge with a huge bay window and a glittering chandelier. Battered armchairs were scattered around, some next to shaded reading lamps. Pop music played quietly in the background, some group he didn’t recognize. The room was empty except for DC Masterson sitting opposite a lanky blond boy by the window.

  “How are you doing?” Banks asked Gerry when he reached them.

  “Fine, sir. I just got here.”

  Gerry was all business now, long legs crossed, hair tied in a ponytail trailing down her back, bottle-green jacket and black jeans, black polo-neck jumper. She had also regained a bit of color and a lot of composure, and, judging by the way she averted her eyes, Banks could tell that she felt embarrassed by the earlier episode in the churchyard. That would pass, he knew, but the deeper feelings would remain. He certainly couldn’t blame her for such a reaction; it had probably been the worst thing she had ever seen in her life. It could haunt her nightmares for years to come.

  It was hardly water off a duck’s back to Banks, either, and would contribute significantly to the nightly danse macabre that was his dreamworld. But it wasn’t his first scene of carnage: he had seen the young girls’ bodies in the cellar of Terence Payne’s house; he had been on the spot to help the maimed and dying in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist bombing in London; and more recently he had picked his way through mixed human and animal body parts strewn along the bottom of the Belderfell Pass. All had taken their toll. It wasn’t so much the number as the details that stayed with him, like the bridesmaid in the churchyard holding her intestines inside.

  “This is Gareth Bishop, sir,” Gerry said. “He says he’s got some interesting information for us. I thought you’d like to be here.”

  The gangly youth half stood and shook hands with Banks, then they both sat. Gerry took out her notebook. The woman from reception came in with a tray of tea and set it on the low table between them. “Give it a minute or two to mash,” she said, then left.

  “OK, Gareth,” said Banks. “What is it you saw?”

  Gareth Bishop swallowed. He had a prominent Adam’s apple and a shock of fair hair hanging over his left eye. “I saw a man hurrying down the hill across from the church and getting in a car parked in a lay-by about fifty meters further up the road, toward this place.”

  “Just one man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there anyone waiting in the car?”

  “Not that I could see, but the windows were dark.”

  “Where were you? How far away?”

  “I was up on the opposite hill. You have to walk right along the edge on some sections of the footpath. It’s quite high up and far back, maybe four or five hundred meters from where the car was parked.”

  “So you didn’t get a close look?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know the figure you saw was a man?”

  “His shape, and the way he moved,” said Gareth. “I mean, girls . . . they move . . . You can just tell. No woman would walk or run like that.” He glanced nervously at Gerry, blushed and put his hands to his chest. “Or be that shape. He had no breasts.”

  Banks saw Gerry smiling to herself as she wrote in her notebook. She probably wasn’t in the least surprised that a teenage boy could spot a pair of tits, or the lack of them, at four or five hundred meters. Banks had seen plenty of women with very small breasts, but there was no point telling Gareth that. The lad had a point about the way the men and women moved differently.

  “Was he fat or thin?”

  “Sort of ordinary, really. In the middle. Not fat, but not skinny. Slim, I guess.”

  “Could you see how tall he was?”

  “Only in comparison to the car. Not really tall or anything. I’d say he was medium height, about 175 centimeters.”

  “What’s that in—”

  “About five foot nine or ten, sir,” said Gerry, with a patient smile.

  Banks poured them all tea. “I don’t suppose you saw his face?” he asked.

  “No. I was too far away to see that kind of detail.”

  “White?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “What time was this?”

  “I’m not certain. I don’t have a watch, and I had no reason to take out my mobile. Perhaps about one o’clock, a bit after?”

  The timing was right, Banks thought. “Did you hear anything before you saw this figure?” he asked.

  “Yes. I heard the church bells ringing, and some bangs. Not very loud, not from where I was, at any rate. The footpath dips behind the edge for a while and blocks off the view of the road.”

  “How many bangs?”

  “Dunno. A few. I wasn’t counting.”

  “Gunfire?”

  “I suppose it could have been. You hear guns often out in the country and think nothing of it. Shotguns, usually. Now I know what happened, I could kick myself for not reco
gnizing what it was, but . . .”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Gareth. There’s nothing you could have done without risking getting yourself killed, and, as it happens, you’re turning out to be much more useful alive. You’re the first person we’ve come across who saw the car.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. What can you tell us about it?”

  “It was one of those SUVs, a people mover. That Toyota you see advertised a lot.”

  “The RAV4?”

  “That’s the one. It had the hatchback and everything. That was where he put whatever it was he was carrying. His gun, I suppose. It opened sideways, like a door.”

  “He opened the hatchback and put the weapon in there?”

  “I didn’t know it was a weapon, but it wasn’t long enough for a golf club. I suppose it could have been a fishing pole. They come apart into sections, don’t they?”

  “What did he do next?”

  “He got in the driver’s side and drove off.”

  “Which direction?”

  “South. Away from the village.”

  “What color was the car?”

  “Black.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I suppose it could have been dark green or blue, but it looked black to me.”

  “OK, Gareth. You’re doing really well. Where were you going when you saw all this?”

  “I was heading along the edge, back toward the hostel. I’d been for a long walk in the morning and stopped off at the Lamb and Flag in the village for a sandwich and a pint.”

  “So you were on the section of the hill between St. Mary’s and here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you thought you heard some bangs, then you saw a man get in a people mover, maybe a black RAV4, but you didn’t see the church below, what was going on down there? You didn’t hear any screams or anything?”

  “No. Like I said, the path only comes up along the edge when I saw him getting in the car, about a hundred meters south of the church. Before that, I couldn’t see or hear anything very clearly down toward the road, except the bangs and the church bells. But even they sounded distant and muffled.”

  “How long have you been staying here at the hostel?”