Peter Lovesey: Cop to Corpse

He stares at the wall, the sodding great wall. Logically that was the side the bullets came from if one penetrated PC Tasker’s right temple. Or was he facing the other direction for some obscure reason?

His gaze travels up the rows of blackened bricks. There isn’t enough daylight to see properly and the height goes well above streetlamp level. He asks for a flashlight and picks out an iron railing along the top. ‘What’s up there, Steve?’ he asks Sergeant Stillman, one of the patrolling drivers who had answered the all-units call. The two were sergeants together for four years. Stillman is worth his stripes, but in Lockton’s opinion won’t ever make inspector. No officer qualities.

‘Behind the rail? Gardens. They’re all the way along. They belong to the houses in the terrace.’

‘Gardens?’ Fresh thoughts stampede Lockton’s brain. He can’t see anything except overhanging foliage from down in the street, but he is visualising a gun position.

‘They’ll be roof gardens really. Just a few feet of soil.’

‘How would he get up there?’

‘He wouldn’t, unless he lived in one of the houses. He’d have to come through someone’s flat.’

‘Drive me up there.’

‘Now?’ Stillman doesn’t appreciate that Lockton wants a personal triumph out of this.

‘Get the car, for fuck’s sake.’

He could just as easily run up the steps. It would be quicker. Sergeant Stillman decides this is about power. Ken Lockton is asserting his rank.

A silver-haired sergeant is deputed to take over at street level.

Without another word Sergeant Stillman fetches the car and does the short drive as ordered, ignoring the one-way system by turning at Saracen Street and back down Broad Street to park on the front side of the terrace, level with the cast-iron bollards at the top of the steps — the same steps Lockton could have used in half the time.

To the right of the steps is Bladud Buildings. The Paragon is to the left. There’s little difference. It’s all four or five floors high and Georgian neo-classical in style: entablatures, pediments and cornices.

Lockton stands by the car with arms folded, trying to understand how this building is grounded on the steep slope. It isn’t easy to visualise from this side. ‘There have got to be basements,’ he tells Steve Stillman. ‘The ground floor is going to be above the level of the garden.’

He steps up to one of the entrances and looks at the array of bell-pushes on the entryphone system. Each terraced house must have been a sole residence once. Now there are flats on all floors. Beside each button is the name of the tenant. He tries the lowest.

Through the grill a weary voice says, ‘Chrissake, what time is this?’

‘Police,’ says Lockton.

‘Fuck off,’ says the voice.

‘That’s what we get for safeguarding the great British public,’ Lockton comments to Stillman. ‘We’ll try another place.’

Stillman is frowning. ‘It could be him.’

‘I don’t think so. He wouldn’t answer, would he?’

There was some logic in that.

They study the bell-system two doors along. Someone has been efficient here. Each name is typed on white card rather than handwritten on odd scraps of paper. ‘Not this one,’ Lockton says.

‘Why not?’ Sergeant Stillman is starting to question Lockton’s deductive skills. By his own estimation, the house must overlook the place where Harry Tasker’s body lies.

‘Because it’s not what I’m looking for, not what the sniper would look for.’

He finds it at the next house, handwritten names for flats 1, 2 and 3 and a blank for the fourth, the lowest. He presses 3.

After a long pause, a woman’s voice. ‘Who is this?’

‘The police.’

‘How do I know that?’

‘Look out of your front window. You’ll see our car.’

‘Hang on a mo.’

Presently they are admitted to apartment 3 by a young woman in blue winceyette pyjamas. She rakes a hand through her blonde hair and tells them it’s early in the day.

Stillman bites back the strong comment he’d like to make after being up all night.

Lockton asks who occupies the flat below.

‘Nobody,’ the blonde says. ‘It’s been empty some time, far as I know.’

‘You haven’t heard any sounds?’

‘Tonight?’

‘Any time.’

A shake of the head. ‘There was a noise like an alarm down in the street a short time ago, or I think there was. It woke me. Then I drifted off again.’

‘How do we get into the basement?’

‘The what? Do you mean the garden flat? The stairs in the hall.’

The two policemen find their way down. The door is locked.

‘Force it, Steve.’

Sergeant Stillman aims a kick at the lock. The door gives at the second try. ‘Shouldn’t we get armed assistance?’

Lockton doesn’t listen. ‘Give me your torch.’

He’s already inside, still living his dream of instant fame. The place has the smell of long disuse and the lights don’t work. He senses that the sniper isn’t here. Through what must be the living room — though the place is unfurnished — he can see a small sunroom, too poky to call a conservatory. Beyond is the garden, overgrown, a fine crop of stinging nettles waist-high and bedraggled with the overnight dew.

He steps through the sunroom and notes that the door isn’t bolted from inside. Not a huge security risk, but any landlord worthy of the name would surely take the trouble to secure an empty flat.

If nothing else, he’ll get a view of Walcot Street from the end of the garden. Parting the nettles, he moves on, following the torch beam, and then stops.

‘Jesus.’

Ahead, resting against the railing, is an assault rifle.

‘Don’t touch it.’

Sergeant Stillman knows his crime scene drill. You don’t handle evidence. You don’t even go near it.

Like a kid caught at the fridge door, Lockton swings around and shows the palms of his hands. He has stopped short of handling the gun, but only just. This is his find. The excitement is all over his features. He tries to sound cool. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, Steve.’

‘Okay.’

‘Quite some find.’

As if by mutual consent, they stand for a moment, in awe that the sniper was here in this small overgrown garden.

Stillman says, ‘We’d better report this.’

‘Quit telling me my job.’

There’s tension between these two. They were sergeants together for a long time. Stillman is experienced, steady, able and, if truth were told, more savvy than Lockton. He just didn’t bother to go for the promotion exam.

Rank must count here, rank and procedure.

‘Our first duty,’ Lockton says as if he’s lecturing recruits at Peel Centre, ‘is to assess the scene. The sniper obviously left without his weapon. But why? All the action was down in the street. He should have felt secure up here.’

‘That shop alarm went off.’

Bloody obvious. The thing must have been loud even this far off. It was ear-splitting at the scene and Lockton has already dismissed it from his mind. He says a grudging, ‘Okay.’ And tries to gloss over his lapse. ‘When you’re in charge of an operation this big, taking decisions, your thoughts are all about what happens next. Getting back to the sniper, he hears the alarm and leaves in a hurry, not wanting to be seen with the weapon.’

Stillman says nothing.

‘That’s the way I see it,’ Lockton adds.

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘I’m thinking if it was me, I wouldn’t leave the gun here. Maybe he means to come back for it.’

This is another thought that hasn’t dawned on Lockton. ‘Just what I was about to say.’ A gleam comes into his eye. ‘We could trap him.’