Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

I’m happy to agree. ‘You’d lose most of your business. Anyone who can afford a foreign holiday these days must be on the take.’

‘Oh, come on.’

We bang on for some time like this, but deep down I’m hooked. I want to find out what city break man’s game is. After we’ve caught him out, who knows, we could go on to bigger things and get on the trail of the Somerset Sniper. Just joking.

The truth is we’re all turned on by this adventure. Vicky’s eyes are shining. Anita is practically purring. The three snoops. Sorry, sleuths. And guess who’s standing by, waiting for that call from the travel agency?

I’ll report what happens in my next blog — if I’m not dead meat already.

Jack Gull said without a scrap of sympathy, ‘Shouldn’t you be at home?’

Diamond widened his eyes. ‘With one of our guys dead and the other fighting for life? I’ll see the day out.’

They were back in Manvers Street police station in the incident room freshly created by DI John Leaman as office manager. Give Leaman a job and he delivered. Display boards were in place with photos from the scene and details of principal witnesses, the morning’s statements already on computer, civilian support staff installed as receiver, indexer, action allocator and statement readers.

Calls were coming in steadily from the public. The standard request for information had already been broadcast. A team of trained staff were noting everything. Ninety per cent of what came in would be of no use, but every snippet of information had to be recorded and prioritised. Later Diamond would make a personal TV appeal for assistance.

Gull was forced to admit that everything was in place. His only grudging comment — in case his own empire should be undermined — was that this had to be a temporary arrangement, which prompted Diamond to say that if an incident room ever got to be permanent they’d better resign, all of them.

Photos of Harry Tasker’s corpse and the wound to Ken Lockton’s head dominated one end of the room, a reproach to everyone who entered. On another board were grim close-ups of the two previous victims of the sniper. In each case shots to the head had caused death.

Leaving Gull to check the displays, Diamond went across to Leaman and asked what news there was from the hospital.

‘No change, guv. He’s in a coma and they say it could be for weeks.’

‘Are his people with him?’

‘His wife and son.’

‘Someone is with them, I hope.’

‘Christina, one of the PCSOs, drove them in. She has a good way with people.’

‘Good choice, then. And who have we got supporting Harry Tasker’s widow?’

‘PC Dawn Reed volunteered. She worked with Harry.’

‘I know Dawn. She’ll cope if anyone can. Emma Tasker isn’t easy to help. So what do we have that’s new?’

Leaman produced the preliminary report from ballistics. The misshapen bullet and the cartridge case were now confirmed as from a.45 round.

‘Same fucking gun as he used in Wells and Radstock, as if we hadn’t twigged,’ Jack Gull’s voice boomed from the other side of the room.

‘We’d better wait for their final report before we say that for sure, sir. It may be a G36 like the others, but we can’t say for certain it was the same G36,’ Leaman said in his matter-of-fact manner. He yielded to no one in the pursuit of accuracy.

‘I said it, chum, and you heard me,’ Gull responded. ‘I’m the CIO here and we’re proceeding on the basis that these killings are the work of one individual with one gun.’

Even John Leaman appreciated that you don’t argue with a chief superintendent who skews a point of information into a test of authority.

Typical of Gull, Diamond thought, shouting over the heads of civilian staff as if they didn’t exist. Curbing himself from making something of it, he fixed his mind on the investigation.

‘What I want to know is whether today’s events have told us any more about the suspect.’

‘Plenty,’ Gull said, turning away from the display board. ‘He’s familiar with your routines here in Bath. He must be, to have known PC Tasker was walking that beat in the small hours of Sunday morning. He got into the garden in the Paragon, so either he lived there or knew the place well enough to con his way in. And obviously he’d sussed it out as a perfect place to shoot from. That’s one of his hallmarks, doing his homework before he carries out the killing.’

‘Are you thinking he’s a local?’ Diamond said.

‘Got to be.’

‘Local to Wells and Radstock, too?’ Leaman got in, still smarting from the putdown.

‘And Becky Addy Wood,’ Diamond said. ‘Unless we’re mistaken about the motorcyclist and it was someone else.’

‘No chance,’ Gull said. ‘That was our man. The practice shots in the tree. The hideout. The way he hightailed it when we got near. Obviously he used the wood as his base.’

‘If he’s local,’ Leaman said, ‘why hide in a wood? Why not work from home?’ His dogged logic was starting to sound insubordinate.

Diamond headed off another dustup. ‘Because he doesn’t want to appear suspicious. He may be living with someone else who doesn’t know he owns a gun.’

Gull nodded. ‘Fair point.’

‘Tell me,’ Diamond said. ‘Do we have any fingerprints from the previous shootings?’

‘No fingerprints,’ Gull said. ‘He’s too smart to leave any. Shoe prints. A nice clean set from the tree house he used as a hide in Wells.’

‘But they’re on file here, are they?’ Diamond’s thoughts were still with Willis, the clever-dick civil servant. ‘So at least we have something to compare with, if we come up with a suspect?’

‘If he always wears the same pair of trainers, yes.’

Moving on, Diamond asked, ‘Did you find anything more after I was taken to hospital?’

‘In the woods, you mean? Less than I hoped for. Some boot prints, a few tyre prints, no use until we find the boots and a bike that match them. I’m assuming he buried the rifle somewhere in the wood, but you saw what the ground is like. We could have fingertip searches for a month and still not find it.’

‘He may be back to collect the gun.’

‘I thought of that,’ Gull said. ‘Told the Wiltshire guys to keep a twenty-four watch for the whole of next week. They’re not happy. The chief inspector talks about resources and calls it an Avon and Somerset crime, as if his county has no stake in it. The point is that the sniper isn’t fucking interested in who polices what. He’s as likely to strike next in Wilts as he is here.’

‘That’s if he spots a copper on the beat at night,’ Diamond said. ‘What are we going to do about that?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are we going to send out more guys to be shot at?’

Gull frowned. ‘We can’t abandon the streets. The public wouldn’t stand for it.’

‘The public isn’t risking its life. The public can lock its doors and go to bed in safety.’

This flew in the face of modern police procedure. After a pause, Gull said, ‘I don’t know if I’m hearing right. It’s your job and mine to keep the streets safe at night.’

‘We can do that in patrol cars,’ Diamond said. ‘Personally, I’ve never been all that impressed by foot patrols.’

‘You’re on a loser there. Community policing. It’s government policy. Every politician who gets elected calls for a bigger police presence on the streets. The papers scream for it. The public wants it. That’s democracy.’

‘This argument was going on when I first joined the police. Joe Public may feel comforted by the sight of a bobby walking up the high street, but what happens when a crime is committed? They call 999 and expect quick action. That guy on the beat isn’t there before a response car.’