‘You’ve made your point. Now what did you pick up?’
‘Only snippets. Ossy Hart came to Wells as a probationer and had just four years of service there.’
‘Where did he train?’
‘Foundation training at Portishead. Before that he was a PE teacher.’
‘In Minehead. We know this already.’
‘Sorry I spoke,’ Ingeborg said, still fractious.
‘Go on. I’m impatient — as if that wasn’t bloody obvious.’
‘I was going to say that the Wells bunch liked Ossy. He ticked most of the boxes. Reliable, good timekeeper, very fit, so hardly a day off duty, good at dealing with the public, always well turned out.’
‘Which are the boxes he didn’t tick?’
She reflected on that for a moment. ‘He was a tad too ambitious for some of them. It showed. He was looking to get promoted as soon as he could.’
‘Promoted? He’d only just completed his probation.’
‘Two years, guv.’ There was more than a hint of protest in the remark. Ingeborg was a high flyer herself, looking to get a sergeant’s stripes soon.
‘Okay,’ Diamond said. ‘I can see it would rankle with the others. What else?’
‘He didn’t like paperwork.’
‘He’s not alone there.’
‘Yes, but he skimped and got caught out a few times.’
‘Hardly a capital offence if it didn’t upset the running of the place too much. Anything else?’
‘They said he was a bit physical.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Being strong, he’d grab people by the arm to make a point and let them know he had a firm grip. I’m talking about his colleagues, not just villains. A couple of the girls said he’d left bruises and they told him to be more considerate, but he never seemed to learn.’
‘Annoying, but not enough to make anyone want to murder him. Did he make any real enemies at Wells?’
She gave an impatient sigh. ‘If he did, no one was saying.’
‘I can understand why. And what about the nickname? Where did that come from?’
‘The “Ossy”? I didn’t find out. They said he was given it before he joined the police. He didn’t seem to mind. When he started at Wells he said he preferred Ossy to to his real name of Martin.’
‘Nobody asked where it came from?’
‘If they did, they didn’t get an answer. No one could tell me. Does it matter?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Nicknames are usually given to people for a reason, some quirk of character they have, or an incident that happened to them. I was hoping we might learn something we don’t know already.’
‘If you really want to find out, his widow would know.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘Good thought. And she might tell us a whole lot more that could be useful.’ Then he hesitated. ‘No, I’d prefer not to approach her at this stage. I’m assuming she’s been interviewed already by Jack Gull or one of his team.’
‘A widow too far?’ Ingeborg said.
He frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I’m wondering if Emma Tasker has put you off interviewing widows. I don’t mind going to see this lady if you want.’
He wasn’t amused. ‘It’s not that. I don’t intend to give Gull any grounds for complaint. He could close us down if he gets the idea we’re running a rival show.’
‘Which we are,’ John Leaman said.
‘In the interest of the truth. But let’s face it, Gull is the headquarters man and his remit is to investigate serial crimes. Ours is to assist him over the murder of Harry Tasker. We need to tread carefully.’
‘That’ll be a first,’ a voice said from the back, and got a laugh. The mood of Bath CID was still bordering on rebellion.
Diamond had the sense not to jump down the joker’s throat. ‘Inge, did you learn anything else from Wells?’
‘Not really.’
‘And you went on to Radstock and made enquiries about PC Richmond. Did he have a nickname?’
‘None that I heard about. He was Stan to everyone there. A loner, wrapped up in his folklore hobby. Always willing to talk about ancient fairs and stone circles, but clueless about the things the others were into, like football and last night’s television. He often had his head in a book.’
‘A good copper?’
‘No one had any complaints. He did the job and evidently knew the law better than most. Unlike Ossy Hart, he had no desire to be promoted. He worked his shift and overtime when required, and that was all he seemed to want. They used to joke that he was away with the fairies the rest of the time.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘In good humour. He didn’t seem to mind.’
‘He wasn’t gay?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘The fairies they meant were the little people.’
‘He didn’t make enemies?’
‘No. It was a massive shock to everyone when he was shot. There’s no question Stan Richmond was well liked. They were genuinely sad that he was killed.’ She paused. ‘They’d be amazed to hear it suggested he was shot by someone who worked with him.’
Another nudge. More like a dig in the ribs.
He was trying to stay calm. ‘Stan Richmond moved around a lot in his career. Is it possible he overlapped with either Ossy Hart or Harry Tasker?’
‘Certainly not Ossy. He only ever served at Wells.’
‘He trained at Portishead.’
‘Yes, but almost twenty years after Stan Richmond went through. As for Harry, I wouldn’t know about his service record before he came to Bath.’
Halliwell was shaking his head. ‘I’ve looked at his postings. There’s no overlap.’
‘Okay,’ Diamond said, needing to lay out the realities. ‘Let’s deal with what we know so far. The sniper uses a G36 rifle — and that’s also a police-issue weapon — with deadly accuracy. He’s well informed about foot patrols. He’s good at hiding up and escaping stake-outs. He seems to anticipate our moves and know our routines. I’m going to need a list of all personnel who served with the three victims — and I mean everyone, top brass, CID, uniform, PCSOs and civilian staff.’
Total silence.
Ingeborg was the first to speak. ‘That sounds to me like a witch-hunt.’
‘And that’s a comment that does you no credit, Inge,’ he said. ‘This is a murder enquiry, remember? “You’re next” — right? If we take it seriously — and I’m telling you that’s our duty — Harry was picked out to be shot. We must assume the others were picked, too, all serving policemen. If they were lorry-drivers or construction workers, you wouldn’t think twice about checking the career records of people who served with them. I’ve been around long enough to know that not all police officers are angels. In fact I could name several who committed murder. This may go against the grain, but it has to be done.’
Ingeborg shook her head and went silent.
You could have built a wall from the antagonism in the room. Still, he wasn’t backing off.
‘Keith, you can take this on,’ he told Halliwell.
‘Do I have to?’
‘What?’ This time the shock was on Diamond’s side and it was like being hit by a demolition ball. For his oldest colleague to question an order, this had to be a full-blown revolt. ‘It’s a routine job, for pity’s sake. Someone in personnel will press a computer key and the names will roll out at your end.’
Halliwell had turned crimson. ‘I’m not happy with it, guv. It seems disloyal.’
‘Not to me, it isn’t.’
‘You’re putting me in an impossible position. We’re being asked to investigate hundreds of brother officers for murder. I’ve never done that before.’
‘If we had a union,’ Ingeborg started up again, ‘it would be a strike issue.’
She earned sounds of support for saying that.
‘But we don’t,’ Diamond said, ‘and our job is to uncover the truth. I don’t like what I’m hearing. A
ll I want at this stage is that list of names. No one is being fingered. We’ll eliminate most of them straight away.’
‘And finger the ones who are left,’ Ingeborg said.
He was incensed. ‘That’s out of order.’
Flushing all over her blonde skin, Ingeborg paused before saying, ‘Guv, have you any idea what this kind of shakeout is going to do for everyone’s confidence, morale, team spirit — all those things we pay lip service to.’
He hadn’t expected this degree of opposition. No one was siding with him and neither could he expect them to now that Keith Halliwell had dug his heels in. Ingeborg sounding off was one thing, but Keith wasn’t a hothead. He carried the respect of the entire team.
It came down to a test of Diamond’s own self-belief. He’d been arguing that the killer’s knowledge of police duty rosters made it inevitable that the crimes were internal. Was there a flaw in his logic?
There was. He had been expecting someone on the team to nail him.
In their stroppy mood they had failed to see that if the sniper was a policeman targeting specific victims he had to know the beat rosters at three different stations over a period of twelve weeks.
Just about impossible.
So there was still a chance that the “You’re next” note was a joke, as Halliwell had first suggested, unrelated to Harry Tasker’s shooting and not connected to the crime. If so, then Gull, blast him, could be right in his assumption that the choice of victims was random.
I’m losing my authority here, he thought, and my case isn’t watertight. I’ve failed to convince my team. Usually I have a sense of what is solid evidence, but have I been too hasty here?
He had a nagging suspicion that he was motivated by the rivalry with Jack Gull. Had he let the man get under his skin to that degree?
Uncharacteristically, he backed down.
‘I’m not going to make an insubordination issue out of this,’ he told them, making it sound as much like a smooth transition as he could. ‘We’ve been together too long to allow a difference of opinion to stop us from functioning. I don’t mind admitting that what I suggested takes some swallowing. I’ve had longer than you to think it over. Keith …’
Halliwell did a fair impersonation of a rabbit in headlights. ‘Guv?’
‘You can disregard that order I just gave you. I’ll re-examine everything I just said. In return I’m asking you — all of you — to reflect further. If you have any better ideas, then for God’s sake make them known to me.’
This, from their shit-or-bust leader, created as big a sensation as the issue itself.
In the Wife of Bath (a Pierrepont Street restaurant renowned for its generous portions) that evening with Paloma Kean, his friend and occasional partner, the shit-or-bust leader confessed to bust. ‘I boxed myself in. Messed up totally. I could feel the ground crumbling under me and there was nothing I could do. Even as I was speaking I knew if I were one of them I’d feel just as angry.’
‘But if you believe a policeman is involved in the crimes, it has to be faced,’ she said.
‘Only if it’s true. The question is whether the evidence stacks up, and it does — but not enough.’
‘Go on.’
‘I can’t work out how he knew so much about the day-to-day running of three different police stations.’
‘Was he transferred? That happens, doesn’t it?’
‘Not twice in three months.’
‘Are the beat duties notified to your headquarters?’
‘Good thinking, but no. It’s decided at the local level. There’s enough form-filling without that.’
‘I’ve run out of ideas, then.’
‘Me, too, more’s the pity.’
‘There’s another thing I can’t understand,’ Paloma said. ‘Why would the sniper send a note like that? What’s the point?’
His eyes widened. This was a different angle. ‘Bragging, I suppose.’
‘It conflicts with everything else he does. He’s secretive, stealthy, keeps his distance. Why risk sending a note and potentially revealing information about himself?’
He started thinking aloud. ‘Maybe all the secrecy doesn’t satisfy him. He wanted Harry Tasker to know he was next for execution.’ He leaned back in his chair and rested the knife and fork on the plate. ‘You’re onto something here. The note doesn’t have much point unless there’s some history behind it. I wonder if Harry himself knew why the others had been murdered. There could have been bad blood that involved all three — and the killer. Then the note makes sense. It was sent out of malice. Harry received it and knew his turn had come. For the sniper, that brought satisfaction.’
‘Sadistic.’
‘That’s my reading, anyway.’
‘If I received a note like that and knew what it meant, I wouldn’t agree to walk the beat at night,’ Paloma said. ‘I’d find any excuse to save my skin.’
‘Fair point, but where would you be safe? This is a clinical killer. You’d have to resign your job and never leave your home. And would you feel any safer in there? I doubt it.’
‘So you’re saying each of the victims knew who their killer was?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Couldn’t they have informed on him?’
‘If they all got death notes, you mean? It depends what motivated the murders. I’m speculating now, but it could have been some bad business they didn’t want made public at any cost.’
‘Bad business?’
‘Some kind of scam.’
‘But they were police officers.’
‘We’re not all angels, as I had to remind the team. Corruption gets exposed once in a while, and some goes undetected.’
‘I thought you said the three victims never served together.’
‘Yes, but the sniper could have served with all three at different times. That’s why I’m so committed to getting staff lists and going through the names.’
‘You’re sticking with that?’
‘Definitely, but as a solo effort. My team is dead against it.’
‘They’ll find out,’ she told him.
He nodded. ‘They know me, anyway. Obstinate old bugger.’
‘I’ll second that. You should have gone for that X-ray.’
‘I went. Just didn’t stay.’
‘Is it still painful? You seemed to be limping on the way here.’
‘Trying for sympathy. I can’t get enough.’
‘Well, you look tired.’
‘Lady, that’s not sympathy. That’s a taunt. You don’t tell your date he looks tired.’
She smiled. ‘I wasn’t thinking of this as a date. If it’s sympathy you want, I’ll offer some, but forget the date bit. Men feeling sorry for themselves aren’t much of a turn-on.’
All in all, this hadn’t been his day. He regrouped rapidly. ‘Okay, here’s the deal. Leave out the sympathy, come home with me and we’ll crack open another bottle of wine. Does that sound more like a turn-on?’
Paloma laughed. ‘Kind of.’
14
Yes, it’s another blog from me. The call from Anita couldn’t have come at a worse time. Monday morning and I was driving to the undertaker’s to deliver a vanload of floral tributes for the funeral of an ex-mayor of the city, sprays, wreaths, basket arrangements, the works, including his name spelt out in two-foot high letters in white carnations. The name was Bartholomew, so you’ll understand the struggle I had getting a thing that size into my dinky little van. I was driving with the B resting on my shoulder, the flowers tickling my ear. Anita’s hushed, excited voice on the mobile was like, ‘Babe, it’s me. He’s just walked in, city break man. Can you get here really fast, like in the next five minutes?’
‘Sorry, sweetie,’ I told her. ‘I’m on a job the other side of town.’
‘Ten minutes, then?’
‘No chance. I’m making a delivery.’
‘A delivery? Oh my God! Tell me it’s only flowers.’
What did she think �
� that I did midwifery as a sideline?
‘You haven’t seen how many. This will take forty minutes, easily, and I have to be respectful. I can’t just dump them and run.’
So the chance went begging.
Later, when all was explained and forgiven, Anita was like, ‘I would have kept him talking if I could. The trouble is, most men aren’t talkers and he’s an extreme example.’
‘They keep it bottled up,’ Vicky added from the bottom of her heart. I knew, I just knew, she was speaking from experience.
The three of us had met for a late cuppa in our city department store. The restaurant on the first floor stays open until five-thirty and we get in there at five and sit in comfy leather armchairs at a low round table and order pots of tea. I don’t think we’re too popular with the waiters. By then they’re thinking about going home. We’re not much trouble. We don’t order cream teas, or anything. Once Anita was tempted to ask for a scone and the waiter goes, ‘Just the one scone?’ and Anita goes, ‘Lordy, yes, I’ve got a figure to think about.’ The waiter goes, ‘No cream? No jam?’ And we’re creased up laughing. But when the scone came it was so small you could have eaten it in one bite. You should have seen Anita’s face. I think they usually serve these mini-scones to the tourists in twos or threes with jam and cream. Ever since then we settle for the tea and nothing else, but we never tire of reminding Anita and asking if she wants a scone. Often we have the restaurant to ourselves. The town is dead between five and ten, when the clubs open.
Getting back to our usual topic of men and are they necessary, Anita is still on about city break man. ‘All blokes can talk about football, in my experience,’ she says. ‘They all have a theory why England will never win the World Cup again. I’ve heard it so often that I’m an expert myself. But I had the feeling city break man would have got suspicious if I’d started cold on do you favour a four four two formation.’
Vicky went, ‘He might have thought you were proposing group sex.’
‘On a Monday morning?’
‘You never know your luck.’ Then Vicky gave me a sly nudge under the table. She was quite skittish for once. ‘Maybe that’s the way we should be handling this, instead of trying to follow him home.’
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