by Bill Rogers
‘ASP?’ said Jo.
‘Advanced Sports Pellet. They were specially designed for competitive shooting. Very popular and unfortunately very common.’
‘This wasn’t a lucky shot then?’
Jindal frowned. ‘Can you just run that first piece of footage for me?’ he said to the cameraman. ‘Only slow-mo it for me so we can see the time lapse.’
When the replay had finished, he stood up. ‘He had less than half a second when the neck was exposed. He would have had to anticipate the timing and the trajectory, make allowance for the crosswind – although that was probably coming over his shoulder and not such a problem as it might have been – and know how long it would take that pellet to reach its target.’
‘How long might that be?’ asked Jo.
‘They can travel in excess of the speed of sound,’ he replied. ‘Up to one thousand six hundred feet per second – but that’s with much lighter pellets. With an eighteen grain we’re looking at around eight hundred feet per second.’
‘And you estimated the distance as around three hundred and sixty-five feet,’ said Jo. ‘So just about doable?’
Jindal nodded. ‘Providing you’re a bloody good shot. I’m not sure I could do it first time, and I’m on the range most days.’
‘Which tells us that we’re looking for someone who’s an experienced shooter. With air rifles in particular?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What kind of air rifle?’ asked Benson.
‘Now you’re asking,’ said Jindal. ‘There are lots of models you could make that shot with. But if you wanted it more or less silent, and with deadly accuracy, I’d go for one with professional specifications that exceeded the requirements for the task. Something like a Ruger Yukon Air Rifle. It’s gas-ram piston driven, one of the least difficult to cock. It has an integrated silencer and fires a .22 pellet at one thousand and fifty feet per second. Either that or the Black Opps Tactical Sniper Air Rifle.’
‘Sniper rifle?’ said DC Whittle. ‘Are you sure we’re talking air rifles?’
Jindal nodded grimly. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You don’t need a licence for an air rifle. But trust me, these are basically replicas of the ones used by military special forces. Okay, they’re intended to be used for target shooting, and the humane killing of small game, and pest control, but in the wrong hands they can be used to kill humans too.’
Jo stared over at the trees, a rainbow of colours swaying majestically in the wind. ‘Like this one did,’ she said. ‘Maybe not immediately. And certainly not humanely.’
Chapter 12
Forty minutes later, Jo was back at Nexus House. Half of Jack Benson’s team were crawling inch by inch over the tee on the seventh hole. The remainder were trying to pinpoint the exact spot from which the gunman had fired. Searching for broken branches, disturbed undergrowth, footprints, traces of cloth snagged on thorns – anything that might provide the slightest evidence that could be used to place the perpetrator at the scene, if and when they caught him.
When, Jo said to herself. It has to be when, not if. There’s enough anxiety out there without having a maniac roaming the city, armed with deadly poison and a sniper rifle.
She was in her office drinking water from the cooler when her personal phone rang. She checked the caller ID. Abbie. What the hell does she want now? She took a deep breath and answered.
‘Abbie. What’s up?’
There was a pause long enough for Jo to sense Abbie steeling herself.
‘I was hoping you could let me know when your sale’s going through? Only it’s my due date in a fortnight and I was anticipating it would all be sorted by then.’
Jo bit her lip and resisted the temptation to remind her that this was the third time she’d asked in as many days.
‘You’ll remember that I exchanged contracts with the buyer on Friday,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure I mentioned that they’re wanting completion by the 23rd.’
‘Next Monday,’ said Abbie. ‘And you’ll do a bank transfer straight away? I’ll email you my bank details this evening.’
‘No need,’ said Jo. ‘I still have them.’
‘Actually, you don’t.’ There was a noticeable shift in tone. She sounded uncharacteristically tentative. Almost apologetic. ‘The bank’s the same. The account’s changed. Make sure you delete the old ones, Jo.’
‘I will.’
If only it was as easy to delete the memory of those final fractious months together. And the hurtful things they had said. How much easier life would be if we could edit out the bad stuff. Like a movie, or an airbrushed photograph.
‘And how are you, and . . . the baby?’ Jo asked.
But Abbie had gone. She no longer had time for goodbyes it seemed, or pleasantries. A knock on the door reminded Jo that neither did she. It was Carter. She waved him in.
He hovered in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry about earlier, Ma’am,’ he said, looking genuinely apologetic. ‘The DC Whittle thing. It’s not like me. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘For God’s sake, come in and close the door,’ she said. ‘And stop this “Ma’am” nonsense when we’re on our own. How many years have we known each other? It’s Jo, alright?’
He relaxed, closed the door and sat down.
‘Otherwise I won’t be able to call you Nick,’ she continued. ‘And then I won’t be able to fire a shot across your bows by calling you Detective Sergeant Carter.’
It was enough to draw a line under the dressing-down she’d given him earlier that day. Jo knew that he had gamely hidden the hurt he’d felt following her promotion to inspector, when he’d been the longer serving detective. To be fair, he’d never suggested that it was anything to do with her gender and had been one of the first to congratulate her. But that wouldn’t stop him feeling aggrieved. Now he was faced with the loss of his pal Gordon Holmes, and to make matters worse, here she was, back as his boss and line manager. They needed each other and she was determined to make him feel as valued as Caton had made her feel.
‘Fair enough, Jo,’ he responded with a broad grin. ‘So, where are we up to?’
‘We’re pretty certain now where the perpetrator was when he fired that pellet at Ronnie O’Neill. CSI are searching the area. DC Whittle is setting up door-to-door enquiries along millionaires’ row on Bridgewater Road. She’s making sure they ask for any private CCTV footage.’
‘You reckon the perp’ may have used that road for his entry and exit?’ said Nick.
‘Who knows? It’s the nearest point to the seventh hole. And there’s a wide path behind it that runs between two of those mansions. But he could just as easily have masqueraded as a golfer and joined the course at any point around the perimeter. The forensic firearms expert thought that most likely, because he’d have been able to hide the rifle in a golf bag, provided he’d topped up the gas first. With his baseball cap pulled down low, nobody would have given him a second glance.’
‘Still worth getting witness statements from everyone who was playing or working the course that day,’ he said.
‘We can’t afford not to. Problem is that it was a large company’s annual two-day conference for employees from all over the UK. And members were also playing that day. I’ve asked the director of golf, the conference manager, and head of the country club to get me the names of everyone who was there that day. They reckon it’ll come to more than five hundred people.’
‘That’s a hell of a lot of interviews. Don’t expect Gates to sanction overtime.’
‘ACC Gates,’ she reminded him.
You had to set the limits on between-rank informality, Caton had taught her. Otherwise it might come back to bite you.
‘ACC Gates,’ he acknowledged. ‘In case you’re wondering, I’ve set up the incident room for Operation Alecto with Ged, and the murder log. Nobody’s going to be able to criticise our information collation, analysis or storage. There’s a timeline analysis chart ready and I’ve brought a management team checklist
for your approval. I took the liberty, with you not knowing some of the syndicate, of suggesting names against most of the roles. I can talk you through any you’re not sure about.’ He handed her the list.
‘Nick, you’re a genius,’ she said. ‘And a mind reader to boot. I was dreading having to do that.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he responded. ‘And I’m not the only one pulling out all the stops. Just before you arrived back here Jack Benson sent over a couple of files.’
He placed his tablet on the desk and clicked on a folder headed Alecto CSI SOC 1–3, then clicked on each file in turn. One was a map of the scene, with photographs and a diagram. The second was a list of crime scene features, again with photographs. The third contained the videos taken of the reconstruction.
‘Based on what you’ve told me,’ Nick continued, ‘I can get Duggie to construct a map of all the physical search zones, areas for house-to-house enquiries, and passive media recovery. That’ll tick the mapping requirements of the Investigation Manual.’
Jo was relieved. Her biggest fear, apart from failing to nail the bastard, was not getting the basics right on her first really major investigation as SIO.
Then Nick grinned and spoiled it for her. ‘Just as well,’ he said. ‘Because we’ve bugger all else.’
There was no paper on the desk, other than those ominously piled on top of Gordon’s in tray. She opened one of the drawers looking for a pad she could scribble some thoughts on. There was only an A4 manila file. She took it out, placed it on the desk, and opened it.
‘Who’d have thought,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Gordon.’
Nick Carter craned forward. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ he asked.
‘If you think it’s a super-handy digest of the Murder Investigation Manual, you’d be right,’ she replied, leafing through the laminated sheets of checklists and diagrams.
‘He kept that close to his chest,’ said Nick. ‘I often wondered how he was suddenly so on the ball when DCI Caton left.’
‘Here we are,’ said Jo. ‘The very thing. Saves me opening my tablet. Bring your chair round here, Nick, where you can see it.’
It was a list of all the key elements involved in investigative strategy – the main focus for any Review team after they’d checked the Fast Track menu. Miss any of this out and she’d be toast. She ran her finger down it.
‘Crime scene, that’s in hand. Hopefully CSI will find something for Forensics to look at, and we’re waiting on the results from the tissue samples taken at the hospital. Post-mortem: do we know when that’s taking place?’
Nick looked at his watch.
‘Eight o’clock this evening,’ he told her. ‘Sorry, I should have told you straight off. Professor Flatman pulled rank and pulled out all the stops. Said he’d never seen a case like this one.’
‘Nobody has,’ said Jo. She pointed to the next one. ‘Witnesses – we’ve three of those, one of whom has done a runner. We’ve already carried out a reconstruction. Not that it’s provided us with much to go on. Victim Care is already round at Mrs O’Neill’s, despite her son’s protestations. House-to-house enquiries are under way. As for suspects, Operation Challenger is compiling a list of anyone who might have had a grievance against Ronnie O’Neill.’
‘Enough to fill a phone directory by all accounts,’ said Nick. ‘And we can’t start any elimination enquiries until we have those names.’
‘ACC Gates has insisted that she’ll be handling Media,’ said Jo, ‘which is fine by me. But if it starts to get ugly, I have no doubt that yours truly will suddenly find herself in the firing line.’
‘Never been a problem for you in the past,’ said Nick.
Jo ran her finger further down the list and paused. ‘Community is a tricky one. This isn’t like the States where multiple shootings are commonplace.’
‘I know,’ said Carter. ‘Sixteen mass shootings this month alone. It was on the news on Saturday night. Thirteen killed, sixty wounded. An average of four people shot per incident.’
‘One person roaming the streets over here with poison pellets is probably going to get more or less the same reaction,’ she said. ‘It’s going to take a concerted effort to reassure the public and I don’t want the syndicate to have to spend time on that.’
‘Another one for Assistant Chief Constable Gates,’ Nick suggested. ‘Neighbourhood teams, the force Twitter feed, media statements, they’ll all have a part to play. Do you want me to chase it up?’
‘If you could.’
She looked at the last three items on the list. ‘Between us, I think we’ve got passive data recovery sorted. Until we have a suspect there’s no cause to develop a search strategy other than at the crime scene. That just leaves covert intelligence. I’m assuming that Operation Challenger and Operation Xcalibre must have assets in place helping them to compile that list of names. We need to make sure they keep their ears to the ground and see if there are any whispers about possible motives or, even better, likely suspects.’ She put the checklists back in the folder and stood up. ‘Time to brief the team before I get over to the morgue.’
‘Just a thought,’ said Nick, one hand on the door handle. ‘About the passive data. What about a public dashcam appeal?’
‘Go on.’
‘Assuming the perpetrator left on foot, on a bike, or some other vehicle. There are bound to be people with dashboard cameras fitted to their cars who’ll have unwittingly captured footage with him on it. Either the vehicle and its number plate, or maybe him crossing the road, or walking to a car with a golf bag. I bet there are as many dashcams out there now as static cameras.’
‘Well done, Nick,’ she said. ‘I should have thought of that.’
‘You did,’ he said, with a broad grin. ‘You just hadn’t said it yet.’
She laughed. ‘Do you know when I first heard that said?’
‘Of course I do. On your first day as a DC at Longsight. I was your DS, Gordon was our DI. Tom Caton was the boss – he said it to you. Like he said it to everyone when they first started. Like you will to DC Whittle.’ He opened the door for her. ‘When you do, you’ll owe me a pint, Boss.’
‘You’re on,’ she said.
Chapter 13
The team briefing was going well and Jo was relieved. It was important to make that first impression – like the brand-new manager of a premiership club about to face its sternest test. Long-standing members like Carter, Duggie Walters, and to his credit even DC Hulme, were playing their part with positive comments and suggestions. The ones she’d not come across before were still weighing her up. She could see it in their eyes and their fixed and watchful expressions. Twenty minutes in, Ged signalled that she needed a word. Jo asked Nick Carter to take over.
‘I’m sorry, Ma’am,’ said Ged, ‘but Mr Benson says there’s been a breakthrough. He thought you’d want to know.’
‘He has Skype on his tablet, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘In which case, tell him to Skype you and put it through to the interactive whiteboard. I’d like everyone to hear what he has to say.’
Ged looked uncertain.
‘You know how to do that, don’t you, Ged? If not, Mr Wallace can help you.’
‘It’s not that,’ she replied. ‘I just wondered how secure it was.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jo told her. ‘All video, voice, and file transfers are encrypted. Only calls to landlines and personal phones over the ordinary phone network are at risk of being eavesdropped.’
Jo rejoined Nick and waited until he’d finished talking the team through the passive data issues.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘There’s an update coming through from the crime scene. I’ve asked Ged to put it up on the screen because I want you all to hear it. It’ll be quicker that way than my having to repeat it, and some of you may have questions others haven’t thought of. That’s the way I intend to run this investigation. Whatever your own particular role, I want each of you to have the same a
ccess to information as everyone else. When it comes to solving difficult problems, who’s to tell which mind may see the missing piece. There’ll be no prima donnas on Operation Alecto – me included.’
That brought murmurs of appreciation and smiles all round.
‘Well done, Boss,’ whispered Nick.
Everyone turned to watch as Jack Benson’s face appeared on the whiteboard, distorted into a ghoulish mask by the harsh lighting from crime scene arc lamps.
‘Good evening, Mr Benson,’ said Jo. ‘Good of you to join us. Please tell me you have some good news?’
‘I’ll let you be the judge of that, Ma’am. But we have made progress. For example, we recovered this from the tee on which the victim was standing when he thought he’d been stung by a wasp.’
His latex-gloved hand appeared in front of his face. Something was held between his thumb and forefinger. The object was a dull silver colour and he turned it slowly for them to see.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Jo asked.
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ he said from behind his glove. ‘It remains to be confirmed, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that Forensics will identify it as an air rifle pellet.’
A cheer went up in the room and a few people applauded.
‘We found it using a metal detector,’ Benson continued. ‘It’s a bit dirty because it had been trampled several inches into the ground, but you can still see the tiny holes drilled into the surface.’
‘To contain the poison?’ said Nick Carter.
‘Presumably. Shouldn’t take us long to find out when we get back.’
Benson lowered his hand. ‘We also found a spot in the woods from which the perpetrator may have fired the shot. The grass has been flattened and some branches broken off, possibly to provide a better view of the tee. We also have some partial boot prints to and from those places. They’re not brilliant, and whether or not they’ll be viable for comparison with those on the national database, it’s too soon to tell, but I have someone lifting them as we speak. There was also a scrap of fabric on a nearby branch, but we would need something to match it to.’
