Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

‘They’ve been manufactured since the nineteen-nineties. It’s the frontline assault rifle of the German army and several of the NATO countries. Are you armed?’

‘Right now, you mean?’ Diamond admitted he was not.

Gull shook his head in disbelief that anyone could be so ill-prepared. ‘Bad move. This guy is a cop killer.’

‘Good move actually. No one would be safe if I had a gun in my hand.’

‘Even so, you should be wearing body armour. It’s a good thing I have a spare set in the boot. Pity you’re not armed, though.’

Diamond was starting to wonder if he should have come at all.

‘No sweat,’ Gull added. ‘We’ll have the Wiltshire armed response lads in support.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ Diamond said. The car briefly became airborne going over a hump in the road. ‘Strewth!’ With a supreme effort to sound untroubled, he came out with a question worthy of a job interview. ‘When did you first get involved in this operation?’

‘After the Radstock shooting, when it was obvious we had a serial sniper murdering policemen.’

‘Is the MO similar in each case?’ He had an inbuilt dislike of abbreviations, but at high speed the Latin was too much of a mouthful.

‘Same fucking gun, never mind the MO,’ Gull said. ‘The rifling on the bullets is identical. But, yes, he likes to get to a high position and lie in wait. In Wells, he used a kids’ tree house overlooking the street. In Radstock, he was on some scaffolding up the side of a new building.’

‘Fingerprints.’

Gull shook his head. ‘He’s a careful bastard.’

‘Obviously a planner.’

‘Has to be. Not only does he find a good vantage point, it must be a street where one of our boys is on foot patrol. He must suss out the location days if not weeks ahead.’

‘But any copper will do as the target?’

‘That’s become obvious. We researched the backgrounds of PCs Hart and Richmond, the first two victims, and there’s no reason anyone would want to kill them for who they were.’

‘No connection between them?’

Gull shook his head. ‘It’s mindless carnage, no different really from IEDs.’

After the mention of the MO, Gull must have thought Diamond was up with all abbreviations.

‘IEDs?’

‘Roadside bombs.’

‘Got you.’

They’d almost finished the rollercoaster descent down Brassknocker. The traffic lights ahead for the A36 were on red. Their driver gave a blast on the siren, veered into the oncoming lane, swung right and joined the main road.

The straight stretch ahead was no relief for frazzled nerves, just a chance to pick up speed.

‘So what’s the thinking?’ Diamond asked over the surge in revs.

‘About the killer?’

‘His motive.’

‘He must hate us. Some bad experience in the past.’

‘I expect you checked recent releases from prison.’

‘You bet. And not just Erlestoke, Pucklechurch and Horfield. The whole goddamn country. An embittered ex-con would be the prime suspect. Too bad no one fits.’

‘Unless he got out years ago and it was festering all this time.’

Gull looked away, out of the window. ‘You’re a real comfort. How could we possibly know that?’

The road ahead was mercifully free of traffic, a steep climb up a stretch overhung with tall trees. The engine needed a lower gear and Diamond recovered enough to say, ‘Another angle would be the trigger-happy young hoodlum out to impress his mates.’

‘You’re not telling me anything.’

‘I’ll save my breath, then.’

‘Trust me, some good minds are working on this. We’re using a profiler.’

‘What for?’ He’d had enough of Gull’s put downs.

‘Don’t you believe in them?’

‘I believe in them. I’ve met them.’

‘This one is on the Home Office list. He’s good. He suggested possible areas where the sniper might live.’

‘Like midway between Wells and Radstock? Say, Chilcompton?’

Jack Gull turned to glare at Diamond. ‘How did you know that?’

‘You only have to look at a map. I’m not a big fan of geographical profiling. I was reading about a serial killer in America who had the profilers going spare. Each time they settled on a location, he popped up somewhere they hadn’t thought of. Turned out he had a motor home.’

Gull wasn’t amused. ‘I believe in using all the help going. If you can come up with a theory, I’ll even listen to you.’

‘What if the killer was one of our own, then?’

Another glare. ‘A cop, you mean?’

‘A bad apple. I’ve met a few.’

‘He’d have to be psychotic.’

‘Are you saying the sniper isn’t? An evil cop would know how to get hold of that police-issue sniper rifle you mentioned. And he’d have inside knowledge of local foot patrols.’

They were still climbing steadily, and now overtaking all the way. Diamond was thinking it only wanted one dozy truck driver coming towards them and three more of Avon and Somerset’s finest would join the list of dead.

‘The bad cop theory was raised at one of our brainstorming sessions,’ Gull said. ‘Personally, I don’t buy it. If he was picking off hard bastards like you and me, maybe, but these were foot soldiers killed because of where they were, not who.’

‘All right,’ Diamond said. ‘Try this for size. It’s rare, but not unknown: the guy fixated on guns and killing.’

‘Yeah?’

‘He isn’t content with bagging rabbits and pheasants. He kills with the indifference of a marksman hitting clay pigeons. It’s his sport. He’s out of his mind, but that’s how he sees it, picking off policemen.’

After a pause, Gull said, ‘Wild.’

‘Too wild?’

Gull shrugged. ‘It’s one we haven’t talked about, I’ll give you.’

They left the A36 at the top of the hill and swung left. In a few hundred yards it was white-knuckle time again, one of those West Country lanes no wider than the car and without passing spaces. High hedges added to the claustrophobia. On went the siren.

Soon after, the lane opened up to a street with terraced cottages and a few parked cars.

The driver said, ‘Almost there, gentlemen. Hold on. It gets a little hairy going down to Avoncliff. They use it for motocross.’

A bend that was a virtual hairpin started them down the scarp of the Limpley Stoke Valley and into Becky Addy Wood. Grit-bins at intervals testified to the steepness. The road surface was potholed and the wood so dense that headlights were needed. Mercifully they didn’t have far to go before reaching a glade where a number of police vehicles were parked.

It was bliss to get out. Diamond’s legs felt unsteady, his arms ached from being flexed, but his stomach rejoiced.

Someone yelled, ‘Why isn’t that man wearing body armour?’

‘Does he mean me?’

Jack Gull opened the car boot and handed Diamond the protective jacket and helmet. ‘As you’re not armed you’d better not get close to the action.’

‘Are we expecting some?’

‘That’s why we’re here. Shots were heard from the woods over the last couple of days. Not unusual in these parts, but this isn’t shotgun fire. This scumbag uses bullets. A tree was used for target practice.’

Two people-carriers delivered more coppers for the stake-out, all in their protective Kevlar jackets. Most were from the Wiltshire force, for the wood was just across the county border, a remnant of the ancient Selwood Forest which had stretched from Chippenham to Cerne Abbas, fifty miles south on the Dorset Downs. The air of excitement was tempered by the sight of the terrain, dark and difficult to penetrate. This would be no walk in the park.

Gull made himself known to the local chief inspector directing the operation and made it clear he wasn’t aiming to take over. ‘Treat Mr. Diamond and me the same as any other members of your team.’