Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

‘The only connection is the sonofabitch who shot them.’

‘There is that note you found.’

‘The “You’re next” thing? Are you taking that seriously?’

‘I can’t ignore it.’

‘That would mean Harry was a marked man and probably the others as well. Did they get notes?’

‘We haven’t found any.’

‘They could have thrown them away. Why did you ask me about Padstow just now? Was one of the others from Padstow?’

‘No.’ This was as good an opening as he was likely to get. ‘But there is a possible link between the first two victims, Ossy Hart and Stan Richmond. It may amount to nothing. When you said you served in Cornwall, I remembered that the town of Padstow has a hobby horse ceremony.’

‘What?’ All the good work of the past ten minutes went for nothing. She glared as if she’d caught him stealing underwear.

‘The locals call it ’obby ’oss,’ he said.

‘Now you’ve lost me altogether.’

‘Hold on.’ He launched into an explanation: the origin of Ossy’s name and the Minehead May Day celebration and the fact that Stan Richmond devoted his spare time to the study of such things.

She still looked at him as if he was talking bilge, so he threw in the added ingredient of the film man and thousands of dollars. Now it was all out in the open and he felt only the chill of her stare.

‘I don’t know if I’ve understood you,’ she said finally, ‘but you seem to be suggesting they were shot because of this horsing around in Minehead. Is that it?’

‘It’s an incomplete theory,’ he said, wishing already that he’d kept it to himself.

‘You’re hoping I’m about to say something that will make sense of it all?’

‘I’m not expecting anything.’

‘You won’t get anything. The reason they were shot — all three of them — is that some evil bastard hates the police and wants to kill as many as he can. While you waste time on weird theories, he’s no doubt lining up the next one.’

‘We’re actively pursuing him, ma’am,’ he said, thinking of Jack Gull and his armed police on watch in Avoncliff. ‘It’s not just down to me.’

‘I should hope not. In the state you’re in, you couldn’t actively pursue the last man out at closing time.’

There wasn’t much point in continuing. He reached for his stick and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Do me a favour,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’ He prepared for one more crushing putdown.

‘Come to the funeral on Thursday.’

His voice shrilled in surprise. ‘Me?’

‘I don’t know any of the Manvers Street lot except you. A few of Harry’s relief are coming, but they’re only names to me.’

‘I hardly knew him myself.’

‘You thought of “Gone Fishing”. Saved me hours of headache. The least I can do is ask you to be there. And you don’t suffocate me with sympathy. Come for my sake. 3 P.M. at Haycombe.’

Haycombe wouldn’t be easy. He’d been to the same crematorium for Steph’s funeral. But for all her carapace of toughness, this woman was in mourning, and he knew what that was like.

‘All right. I will.’

‘And join us after, for a drink and some snacks,’ she added.

‘Okay.’

She came to the door with him. ‘All that hobby horse stuff is bunk. Don’t waste time on it.’

On the drive back, he had a Eureka moment. Ask for another list.

So had he finally flipped?

Not at all. The list would contain the names of all officers from Wells, Radstock and Bath who had completed a firearms course. If the sniper was, indeed, a policeman, he must have been trained to use a gun.

Neat. If this worked, the thousand-odd names in those earlier lists could go to the shredder.

Back in the 1980s when Diamond had joined the Met, as many as fifteen per cent of the force had gone though a five-day course at the range and were dubbed authorised firearms officers. After certain well-publicised fiascos in the last decades of the twentieth century arising from under-trained armed police, the policy had changed. Since 2004 the National Police Firearms Training Curriculum ensured that the training was much more rigorous and intensive. An initial course lasted thirty-five days and those who passed were required to complete two days’ training every month and requalify four times a year.

An AFO was now a specialist. And they were all on record.

Better start on home ground, he decided. Back in Manvers Street, he asked for the Bath Central names. Fourteen in all.

He didn’t know them all personally. Even after serving here for so long, he couldn’t keep up with the staff changes outside CID. But he knew who to ask, the key people in each section.

The problem wasn’t who to ask, it was what. ‘Has PC Plod the firearms officer been acting strangely of late? Talking to himself? Looking over his shoulder? Writing two-word notes on slips of paper?’ Questions of this sort could rapidly turn the whole place into a hotbed of rumour and recrimination. The word witch-hunt had already been used in CID.

His enquiries had to continue alone. He couldn’t even risk asking for help from the civilian staff. Face it, Diamond, he told himself, you’ll have to exercise the mouse.

He started by accessing the duty rosters for the last twelve weeks. You’d think old stuff like that was over and forgotten, but in the computer age everything can be retrieved. Straight away he eliminated eight of the fourteen AFOs. Two had been on protection duty for some minor royal in Bristol at the time of the Wells shooting and three on the night shift in Bath. Another three couldn’t possibly have been in Radstock when Stan Richmond was shot because they were at Portishead on the two-day rifle refresher course.

Down to six already.

He turned to the rosters for last Saturday night. Of those remaining, one had been off sick all week with a broken arm and three more on night duty and accounted for as part of the armed response unit which had actually attended the scene in Walcot Street when the shout came.

That left two from the original fourteen: a Sergeant Stillman and a PC Gaunt. Theoretically, either could have been at all three scenes.

The first name was familiar.

He didn’t have to dredge deeply in his memory. Stillman was the sergeant who had accompanied Ken Lockton on the morning after the shooting. He’d driven Lockton from Walcot Street to the Paragon and gone through the house to the garden where they’d found the rifle resting against the railing overlooking the scene of the shooting.

If Stillman had been with Lockton that night he couldn’t have shot Harry Tasker.

Or could he?

Assumptions sometimes need to be challenged. Diamond sat back in the chair and closed his eyes in concentration. This was the kind of problem he had a knack of unravelling.

The only version of the events in the garden was Stillman’s. The sergeant had surprised everyone by turning up two hours after the shooting saying he’d fallen asleep in his patrol car after being told to move it out of sight by Ken Lockton. But what if Stillman had been lying? Could he have clobbered Lockton himself? And done it to cover up the fact that he’d earlier shot Harry Tasker?

Hair-raising possibilities. They had to be explored. Stillman’s whole story was odd. He’d apparently been on patrol in his car, heard the shout about the shooting in Walcot Street and driven there. Was he alone then? The usual arrangement was that patrolling officers at night worked in pairs.

Then — according to his story — he’d been spotted by Lockton and ordered to drive him up to the Paragon, which in itself was strange, because it would have been quicker to use the steps. The pair had been admitted to the house by the blonde, Sherry Meredith. That much was true. She’d testified to it.