Cop to Corpse

by Peter Lovesey

  And yet ironically it was Juliet Hart who had started him on the promising new line of enquiry. He might have dismissed the hobby horse connection as hokum were it not for the big bucks said to have been dangled by the American film man. This wasn’t some documentary for television that was being proposed. It was a Hollywood action movie. He could remember some of the set piece chases through carnivals in the Bond films. Everyone knew the millions that went into modern feature films. But was the money real, or just talk? A film in development, or some kind of confidence trick?

  He’d speculated on a link with the second victim, the folklore specialist, PC Richmond, and within hours it had been confirmed.

  Ingeborg and her surfing of the web had added substance: the evidence that Stan Richmond had made a study of the Minehead hobby horse celebration. There was a strong chance he would have been approached by the same film man and offered money as a consultant.

  Two murdered police officers, each with a strong link to the same ritual. But nothing so far tied in with Harry Tasker. His widow Emma had dismissed any connection out of hand. Different as she was from the eerily cheerful Juliet Hart, this lady’s theory of the shooting amounted to the same: ‘Some evil bastard hates the police and wants to kill as many as he can.’ She’d refused to believe that the ‘You’re Next’ note meant Harry was a marked man.

  A movement from the sergeant, hands gripping the gun and taking aim, jerked Diamond back to the gravel heap.

  ‘What is it?’

  He could have saved his breath.

  Better not distract the guy, he thought.

  By degrees, Sergeant Gillibrand relaxed enough to reply. ‘Wildlife,’ he muttered finally.

  ‘Plenty of badgers hereabouts,’ Diamond said from personal knowledge.

  ‘That was a small deer.’ The sergeant rested the gun on its side, black and chunky, not much over two feet in length.

  ‘We could have had venison for supper.’

  No answer.

  Are those things heavy?’

  ‘Almost three kilos, guv.’

  ‘What’s that in words I understand?’

  ‘Over six pounds.’

  ‘It’s a G36, is it? Same as the sniper uses?’

  ‘So they tell us. Want to feel the weight?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Diamond said. ‘I’ll take your word for it. Guns aren’t my thing.’

  Unexpectedly, this got the sergeant going at last. ‘Anyone could learn to use this in ten minutes. The mechanism is dead simple. You’ve got a thirty-round curved magazine.’ The sergeant patted the boxlike lower section with his hand. ‘Basically, the rifle is gas-operated and fires from a closed rotary bolt. When you want to line up the target there’s an optical sight with 1.5 magnification and for conditions like this you clip in the night sight as well. Get the red dot on your target and squeeze the trigger. Simple as that.’

  The specifications didn’t interest Diamond. People did. ‘The press keep telling us the sniper is a brilliant marksman. Are you saying he doesn’t need to be?’

  ‘My mother could fire one of these things.’

  ‘Get away.’

  ‘Honest. The sight system makes it a doddle.’

  ‘If it’s that easy, why is the firearms course such a big deal?’

  ‘You have to know how to assemble the gun, load it, clean it, carry it safely, and there’s a load of other stuff apart from the sessions at the range, like land navigation by day and night, and constructing and using hides. It’s all about confidence and discipline.’

  ‘Confidence, I can do,’ Diamond said.

  The sergeant had enough tact not to ask about discipline. ‘Don’t you have a handgun on you?’

  ‘It’s all I can do to handle this stick.’

  The exchange stopped there. The two men didn’t have much in common. Diamond’s thoughts moved on to another of the day’s discoveries — the fact that Sergeant Stillman was an authorised firearms officer. How much confidence and discipline had he exhibited? Not much of the latter. Here was an officer who against regulations had given his partner time off during a patrol; and who had slept in his car at a major emergency. Yet it was thanks to Stillman that the question of Harry Tasker’s alleged dirty dealings had come up. Taking the uncharitable view of Stillman, he may have traded this titbit in the hope that his own failings would be overlooked. The question had to be asked: had he invented it all? If so, Ingeborg and young Gilbert would be better employed at this minute catching up on their sleep.

  Thinking of Stillman brought back the sequence of events immediately after the shooting. The 999 call from the student, Damon Richards, who lived over the shop in Walcot Street: impossible for him to have fired the shots from there. He was in the clear. But the residents of the house in the Paragon couldn’t be so easily eliminated as suspects. In all the emphasis on the fugitive in the woods, they’d almost slipped out of the frame. He wondered if any of them had colluded in the crime by letting the sniper into the house. They didn’t have to be gun-toting killers themselves, but they could have harboured one. More was needed on their backgrounds. Even that elderly couple, the Murphys, could have hated the police enough to be part of a conspiracy. The blonde, Sherry Meredith, and the civil servant on the top floor, Sean Willis, had appeared to say enough to clear them of active involvement, but aiding and abetting the killer was not out of the question.

  Mental note: check those tenants again.

  The sergeant hitched himself up on his elbows. ‘Nearly midnight.’

  ‘That’s nothing. He keeps late hours,’ Diamond said. ‘He’s probably stuffing himself in an all night kebab shop.’

  ‘Mind if I take a leak?’

  ‘Be my guest, but just not here, eh?’

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Gillibrand picked up the gun.

  ‘Do you need that?’

  ‘It’s the golden rule. Have it with you at all times.’

  ‘Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, then. Or worse.’

  Left alone, Diamond tried the night-vision binoculars again. They were not unlike standard field-glasses, but with a single elongated front lens. A proximity sensor turned them on when they were lifted to the viewing position, saving battery life. He focussed on the pillbox and used the digital control to intensify the image.

  All was still except some hogweed stirring slightly in the breeze. Everything was in weird green hues and he had the impression he was looking into a fish-tank badly in need of cleaning. The concrete structure appeared as eau-de-Nil with a horizontal stripe as dark as spinach, the oversized letter box to allow the occupants to fire from a well-defended position. Seventy years since the pillbox was built and it could never have been used for its intended purpose. No doubt it had become a play place from time to time for adventurous kids and an occasional shelter for hikers and rough sleepers.

  Behind him sounded the faint crunch of steps on the gravel. You couldn’t walk on this stuff in silence. It amused him that Gillibrand had made such a fuss about speaking aloud and then announced to the world with his police-issue boots that he was off for a jimmy riddle.

  He continued to focus on the pillbox. Had anyone actually looked inside tonight? he wondered. He wasn’t wholly confident that Jack Gull would have thought to check. Was it possible that the sniper had crept inside earlier and was sleeping peacefully while the armed police kept their vigil outside? Stranger things had happened.

  Sometimes you got a gut feeling about the presence of a fugitive. To be fair, the little building wasn’t giving out vibes that it was occupied. Diamond doubted if anyone was inside. But then he also doubted whether the sniper would put in an appearance at all.

  The crunch of gravel got louder, then stopped.

  What was the man doing now — zipping up?

  Diamond removed the binoculars from his face and everything appeared several shades darker than it had before. He turned to the right expecting Gillibrand to join him.

  It didn’t happen.

  Inste
ad, there was the rasp of an indrawn breath and then he was hit with the full force of a falling body. He’d felt nothing like it since his days playing rugby, and rugby wasn’t played on mounds of railway ballast. He was crushed, winded, pained. This wasn’t an accident. It was an attack.

  His face was hard against the sharp points of stone and his attacker had a hand on his head, forcing it further in. A weight heavier than his own was bearing down on his upper body. The assault was so sudden that he was virtually overpowered before he could fight back. He tried turning more to the right to shift the weight and succeeded only in scraping his ribs against the gravel.

  Excruciating.

  This was no place for a wrestling match. The stones shifted when he tried bracing his legs to get some leverage. Immediately he was trapped under the weight of his attacker’s thighs. A pathetically uneven contest. Surprise had done for him. He tried wriggling and squirming, yet each movement brought a counter-move that locked him down, denying another attempt. He was wasting the little strength he had left.

  What next?

  The bullet in the head?

  The fractured skull?

  He could do nothing to avert either. He was down and out.

  Incapable of moving, he could only wonder how this had happened. The sniper must have spotted the stake-out when returning towards the pillbox and decided to take out one more of the cops he despised. An easy target, an unarmed man, face down, defenceless.

  He felt movement again. His right arm was grasped above the elbow and twisted behind his back and in the same action his neck was grabbed, the classic half-nelson, as good a way as any of disabling a man.

  But it didn’t end there. His attacker forced him further over to his right and groped for the other arm. Diamond at first trapped it under his own body. When that didn’t succeed, he tried stretching it beyond reach.

  No use. A longer arm than his own found his wrist and tugged it inwards and against his back.

  Something odd happened then. Something very odd indeed. He was handcuffed.

  First he felt the enclosing steel as his right wrist was clamped. Then the left was pulled across and applied to the second cuff. These were rigid cuffs, the sort the police themselves use, simple to operate with one hand.

  Hot breath gusted into his right ear and a voice started speaking familiar words. ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention now something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  He’d been arrested.

  20

  ‘On your feet.’

  ‘You’re joking, of course,’ Diamond said, still face down on the gravel heap.

  ‘That’s an order. Do it now.’

  ‘What do you think this walking stick is for?’

  A moment for thought. ‘Sit up, then,’ his attacker said. ‘You can do that.’

  Manacled as he was, he rolled over and succeeded in raising his back from the stones. He had difficulty seeing in this poor light. The voice had sounded strangely familiar, though, and the height of the standing figure silhouetted against the night sky confirmed the galling truth. ‘Oh, Christ almighty!’

  DI Polehampton of the serial crimes unit was no less appalled. ‘Stone the crows, I thought you were the sniper.’

  ‘You thought wrong. Get me out of these cuffs, you wally.’

  Polehampton was in full body armour, black coveralls with pockets galore. Diamond’s confidence of an early release faded when he saw the man starting to frisk himself.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost the key.’

  ‘It’s here somewhere.’ He kept locating new pockets and patting them. ‘What were you doing lying there in your ordinary clothes?’

  ‘I’m CID. That’s what I wear, plain clothes.’

  ‘I was expecting a man in combat gear. I was told one of the Wiltshire firearms team was here, not you.’

  ‘Sergeant Gillibrand. He’s on a comfort break.’

  ‘Look, I’m frightfully sorry.’

  ‘Save it, man. Just find the key and unlock the cuffs.’

  Polehampton was round to his thigh pockets now in a process that was getting frantic, ripping Velcro apart with sounds that must have carried all the way to Avoncliff station. ‘The view I had of you, lying face down, I just couldn’t take a chance. I know the key is on me somewhere.’

  ‘It had better be.’

  ‘I hope I didn’t hurt you.’

  ‘Apart from causing facial scars that could be permanent, pushing my head against the gravel and destroying my sciatic nerve with some item of equipment you’re wearing on your belt, you didn’t trouble me in the least. Have you tried the back pockets?’

  More ripping sounds ensued.

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  Polehampton knelt behind Diamond and got to work on the handcuffs. ‘I didn’t know you were here. I thought Superintendent Gull was in charge.’

  ‘He was until an hour ago. What’s holding you up? My wrists are giving hell.’

  ‘Done.’

  The cuffs snapped open. Diamond massaged his chafed flesh.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d better move on,’ Polehampton said. ‘There’s more liaising to be done.’

  ‘Is that what you call it?’

  The irony was lost on Polehampton. ‘Are you able to move?’

  ‘No thanks to you.’

  Left alone, Diamond checked for blood where his face had been forced against the gravel. To his surprise there didn’t seem to be any. His wife Steph had once told him he had a tendency to over-dramatise injuries and ailments. He’d denied this, of course, while admitting to himself that there was a germ of truth there. Now he could almost see her smiling at this latest non-injury. A comforting thought. He massaged his bad leg. Pins and needles had set in. As the blood flow returned he expected the steady ache to come back, but it didn’t. Was it possible that the wrestling match had effected a cure?

  The gravel crunched again and Sergeant Gillibrand reappeared.

  ‘I thought I heard sounds,’ he said.

  ‘More wildlife,’ Diamond said.

  In Walcot Street, Ingeborg and Paul Gilbert had reached the Bell, one of Bath’s oldest pubs at some two hundred and fifty years, renowned for real ale and live music, and close to the point where Harry Tasker had been shot. They had spoken to a few more of Bath’s night owls along the way without adding anything to the dossier on their dead colleague.

  ‘Going in?’ Gilbert said.

  ‘What’s on?’ Inbeborg asked.

  ‘Getting choosy, are we?’

  ‘Jerk. Is it Anderson’s kind of music is what I’m asking. It doesn’t sound like hip-hop to me.’

  ‘I’m starting to think Anderson is a red herring. And I need a drink.’

  ‘We’re not here to enjoy ourselves, DC Gilbert.’

  ‘It’s on me.’

  Her eyes widened.

  The music was definitely more folksy-rootsy than hip-hop and any tall black guy should have been obvious and was not, but Paul Gilbert was able to pick his pint of real ale from an abundant selection. The Bell’s large interior had a well-used feel to it. A whiff of malt, a live band playing, a congenial atmosphere. The somewhat hippy clientele averaged fifteen years older than the crowd at the Porter.

  Ingeborg had a spritzer and a packet of crisps. They worked their way through the crush to a games room at the back with table football and darts, far enough from the music to make conversation possible.

  ‘We won’t have much to report to the guv’nor,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘He can’t say we didn’t try.’

  ‘Did we try enough?’

  She said with a sharp note of disfavour, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Let’s be honest, Inge. Your heart isn’t in it, and neither is mine.’

  She was silent for a while, then shed any pretence at irritation. ‘True. I’ve never felt like this about a
case before. I want the sniper off the streets, of course I do. I guess I want it on my terms, without rubbishing a dead colleague.’

  ‘Leaving everyone’s reputation okay?’

  ‘Except the sniper’s.’

  ‘Him? He’s scum. Goes without saying.’

  ‘Am I asking too much?’ she said. ‘When Harry was murdered, I was shocked, of course, same as everyone. I looked at the papers next day, and thought there’s something different here, the way it’s being reported. For once the Old Bill are getting a good press. Outraged headlines that someone should kill a policeman. None of the flak we’ve got used to about clear-up rates and never being on the spot when you’re needed and turning a blind eye to rampaging kids. They want us to catch this creep before he shoots another cop. But here at the coalface it doesn’t feel like that. First the boss talks about our own people coming under suspicion and then he’s suggesting Harry was bent. How’s that going to play with the public if it ever gets out?’

  ‘If it’s true,’ Gilbert said. ‘Personally, I don’t see it.’

  ‘The guv’nor does, and he’s no mug.’

  ‘Do you think he knows something he isn’t telling us?’

  She shook her head. ‘He plays it straight. There’d be no point in keeping back information. But he’s troubled. I can read him.’

  ‘I wish I could.’ He stared into the foam still settling in his glass. ‘Was it his wife being murdered that turned him so grouchy? It couldn’t have helped.’

  ‘The truth is, he was like it before. He takes it personally when a case is difficult and he doesn’t know how much it shows. When I was a crime reporter, I used to watch him do press conferences. The press boys baited him for sport. They liked to see him lose his rag. A big laugh, especially as they didn’t have to work with him. There was a DI called Julie Hargreaves who was brilliant at deflecting questions. He relied on her a lot and I think she put up with a lot. Even she got to the end of her tether and put in for a transfer. He was gobsmacked.’