Peter Lovesey: Cop to Corpse

‘Just you and me? I don’t think so. We need back-up.’

Lockton ploughs on as if he hasn’t heard. ‘To come and go, he’d need a key to the front door. He must have got hold of one to let himself in.’

Stillman shakes his head, disturbed by what is being proposed.

Lockton thinks the issue in doubt must be his theory about the key. ‘Or he could have walked in when one of the residents was coming or going. Or a friend of a resident. In places like this people don’t necessarily know each other. You hold the door open for someone else thinking they must be from one of the other flats.’

‘Someone else with a gun?’

‘Guns like that fold up. You can get one into a bag, no problem. It’s feasible.’ Lockton peers at the rifle again. ‘I don’t know much about firearms, but this looks state-of-the-art to me. Telescopic sight.’

‘We knew he was good.’

‘He’ll be gutted at leaving it behind. I think you’re right. He won’t want to leave it here for long.’ The opportunity is huge, irresistible. Lockton can already picture himself making the arrest — and tomorrow’s headlines. ‘He means to come back for it.’

‘One thing is certain,’ Steve Stillman says in his downbeat tone.

‘What’s that?’

‘He won’t come back while our car is outside.’

‘Christ, yes.’ Pause for thought. The blue and yellow police car in front of the house is a glaring giveaway. ‘Move it.’

‘Leaving you here?’

‘Someone’s got to be here. I’ll stay hidden.’

‘I don’t advise it.’

‘And I don’t take advice from you, sergeant.’

The ‘sergeant’ and the way it is said is a low blow from an old colleague. A muscle twitches at the edge of Stillman’s mouth. With an effort he stays civil. ‘You’ll need back-up. D’you want me to radio for a couple of firearms officers?’

‘I can do that. I’ve got my own radio.’

‘Shall I call headquarters to let them know what we found?’

‘Leave that to me.’

The two men eye each other. The mistrust is palpable. Lockton is hell-bent on making the arrest.

‘As you wish,’ says Stillman.

Because of its sheltered position, Walcot Street is slow to emerge from darkness. The tops of the stone buildings are getting a glimmer of natural light, the first of the day. The place is waking up to a street killing. Despite the best efforts of the police, nervous tenants are at their front doors demanding to know when it will be safe to go out. Almost without the order being given, the house-to-house questioning is under way. A number of the residents claim to have heard the shots or the alarm and gone to their windows, but no one has seen the sniper.

Being Sunday, there isn’t the influx of working people you’d get on other days. Even so, at either end of the cordoned-off area, a few early risers are demanding to know what is happening. More persistent are television staff and pressmen trying to negotiate a better view. The news of the shooting has already broken on twenty-four hour TV.

The police are adamant that no unauthorised person gets admittance, and as some of them are carrying guns, the warnings are heeded.

A large forensic tent has screened off the body of PC Tasker. A Home Office forensic pathologist is now at work making a taped summary of his findings. His crouched figure is silhouetted on the tent by the arc-lamp inside. SOCOs in white zipper suits are coming and going.

The sergeant left in temporary charge of the scene has now been supplanted by CID officers. They have ordered a sweep search of the gardens between the shop-backs and the river. Dogs are being used to check the outbuildings. It’s a rare luxury to have enough personnel to mount an operation on this scale.

Officially the night shift will end at 6.30, but a major incident like this alters everything. When enough of the next shift — the early turn, as it is known — are bussed in, it’s possible that the sleep-starved will be laid off. Until then they remain on duty.

Sergeant Stillman has moved the police car from its conspicuous position in the Paragon and parked it on the lower level, outside the taped-off section of Walcot Street. Being a wise old hand — and exhausted — he has decided to have forty winks — or a few more than forty. If he is needed, he’ll find out. A personal radio with the volume on full is better than an alarm clock. He’s at his post and on duty and you can’t ask more from a man who’s been up all night. His head lolls to one side until it finds a comfortable position against the car door and he drifts into a shallow sleep.

Meanwhile the whiz kids from CID have gone through the same process Ken Lockton did earlier, calculating the probable direction of the fatal shots. The pathologist has explained about the bullet’s angle of penetration. The armed police inform them that a search has already been made of the lock-ups along the wall. It’s deceiving, that vast wall. Daylight has to strengthen before someone looks higher and decides to order a search of the elevated gardens.

This time enough men assemble outside Bladud Buildings to make a near-simultaneous entry to each house and garden. By now hardly anyone in the neighbourhood can be unaware of what is going on, so there’s no difficulty gaining admission. Most of the garden flats are occupied and the small gardens easily searched. There’s just the one that Lockton and Stillman entered earlier. ‘Someone forced this,’ the officer says at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Hold it, then,’ his colleague says. ‘We’d better bring in the armed response lads.’

It doesn’t take long. The firearms team have driven up in their Trojan Horse van. They can’t wait for some action.

They crowd the narrow staircase in their body armour and ballistic helmets. More are detailed to enter from the gardens on either side. The object: to terrorise any intruder into submission by letting him discover he’s under attack from all sides.

‘Armed police!’ goes up the shout from the loud-hailer. ‘Drop your weapon and lie face down.’

This is the drill. If no one is inside, the anticlimax can be a real downer.

The first pair kick the door inwards, enter the flat and take up offensive positions. More follow. It’s a show of strength designed to intimidate.

They move forward, checking each room in the basement flat. The search is simplified because the place is unfurnished. In seconds they are through the building.

‘Stand by, stand by,’ a voice says into all the earpieces. ‘We have a sighting. Garden, right hand side almost against the wall.’

A sighting.

This is the adrenalin moment they train for.

The movement forward is stealthy now. The only cover in the garden is a rich crop of weeds, and weeds don’t stop bullets.

‘Give him the message again.’

‘Armed police! Drop your weapon and get face down.’

A long, tense pause.

‘Result,’ says another voice. ‘The tosser has surrendered.’

Sure enough, a dark figure at the right of the garden is among the mass of thistles, prone. No obvious sign of a weapon.

The black-clad officers take no chance. You don’t mess with a killer. They ‘stack up’ at strategic points, guns at the ready, covering the two senior men who must approach the suspect from behind and handcuff him.

It’s swift and efficient. The pair go in at the charge. The first flings himself across the suspect’s back to be sure he can’t move while the second applies the cuffs. There’s no resistance.

‘Cool.’

Except that the man on top presently says, ‘See what I see?’

‘What’s that?’

He stabs his finger at the two silver pips on the epaulette the suspect is wearing. Then at the mass of blood at the back of his head.