Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

‘It’s all academic now,’ she added. ‘In view of the arrest last night, we don’t need to pursue this.’

‘Why not?’ Diamond said.

‘It’s dirty linen, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t talk to me about dirty linen. Both my suits are at the cleaner’s.’

‘Guv, no one wants bad stuff like this to come out, even if it’s true. Harry’s funeral is on Thursday.’

‘I thought I made myself clear at the meeting the other day. If Harry was up to no good, it has to come out. Nothing is off limits.’

‘But we’ve got a man in custody.’

‘Has he confessed, then?’

‘Not yet. I don’t think they’ve got much out of him.’

Paul Gilbert added, ‘He seems to be claiming the right to silence. But they’ve sent his shoes to forensics and taken his prints and we’ll soon know if he’s the killer.’

‘Shows how much you know about forensics,’ Diamond said. ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

Gilbert gave a queasy smile.

‘He’s within his rights not to say anything.’ Diamond’s mouth curved in a way that wasn’t charitable. ‘He’s Jack Gull’s catch. Well, more or less. Jack always believed the guy in the woods is the killer and that’s who we nicked and now he can go to town on him. We’re pursuing our own line of enquiry. This Royston sounds like someone we should speak to. Where does he hang out?’

Suppressing a sharp, intolerant sigh, Ingeborg said, ‘Claverton Down. He lives with his father.’

‘Soldier Nuttall?’

‘Right.’ The triple nod she gave said it all about Nuttall’s reputation.

‘Is the kid employed?’

‘It seems not. He’s a young man of independent means, thanks to his father. A bit of a wheeler-dealer, according to Anderson. What he deals in wasn’t made clear, except it’s a cut above what most of the others handle.’

‘Sounds like hard drugs. And he’s a night bird, obviously. This morning might be a good time to find him at home.’

A little of the colour drained from Ingeborg’s cheeks. ‘You want us to go to the house?’

‘It’s a lot easier than trailing around the streets at night. I’d better come with you.’

‘I can handle it,’ she said quickly.

‘Put it another way. I need to come with you. When there’s a suspicion a police officer was corrupt, I have a duty to get involved.’

She eyed him warily, suspicious that he was being over-protective. ‘What about Paul?’

‘It won’t take three of us.’ He turned to Gilbert. ‘Have a quiet word with the PCSOs who share that city beat with Harry Tasker. If he was on the take as we now suspect, they’ll surely have heard a whisper.’

Before leaving the office, he eyed the overflowing in-tray. The morning’s mail had been heaped on top of yesterday’s. With care, so as not to spill everything on the floor, he extracted those sheets listing the personnel at Wells, Radstock and Bath. He held them over the waste-paper bin. And then some inner prompting made him hesitate. He stuffed them into his top drawer. On the way out, he turned to Keith Halliwell and casually asked him to deal with the mail. Opening letters was all too boring for a man of action.

Down at Avoncliff, three of Avon and Somerset’s underwater search unit were following up Diamond’s report of a loud splash in the river. A rigid inflatable boat was secured with lines from the bank and the first diver and his attendant were aboard and ready to start.

‘What exactly are we looking for here?’ the constable in the scuba diving suit asked before taking the plunge.

‘Mr. Diamond said it was heavier than a bird and lighter than a body,’ the sergeant in charge said from the riverbank. ‘Think of it as a lucky dip,’

‘If it was a branch off a tree it would have floated away.’

‘And we wouldn’t want to find it, would we? He thinks it was an object slung in the water by the guy they arrested last night.’

‘The sniper? Maybe it’s his gun.’

‘That would be the top result. I suggest you stop going on about it and go down and have a look.’

The diver nodded, adjusted his mask and tipped off the side of the dinghy.

He wasn’t down for long.

He bobbed to the surface and gave a thumb-down sign.

‘What’s wrong?’ the sergeant asked.

The diver pushed up his visor. ‘Visibility almost nil. Do we have the sonar equipment?’

Their grey USU van was nearby. The operation was halted for a while.

Even with sonar, and after several dives, nothing seemed to be down there.

The sergeant studied his map and said to the diver’s assistant, ‘I hope this is the right stretch of river. They could have left a cone here to help us.’

‘They like to test us out.’

The diver submerged again. He took much longer.

‘Not a bad spot,’ the sergeant said, looking at the wooded hills surrounding them. ‘There’s a good pub a short walk from here. Do you know the Inn at Freshford? Nice old place with a packhorse bridge. If he doesn’t surface soon, I’ll be off there for a pint.’

Then the water churned and the diver’s head and shoulders came to the surface.

‘Got something?’ the sergeant said.

He poured the water from his find and held it up: a motorcycle helmet, black and shiny. ‘Hasn’t been down there long,’ he said. ‘It’s in good nick. Why would anyone want to chuck this away?’

Diamond continued to function as if he were high on caffeine. ‘Jack’s done us a bloody good turn,’ he said to Ingeborg as she drove out of the police station in her shiny Ford Ka. ‘All the media interest is going to be on the man he’s holding. We can come and go as we like.’

‘Isn’t he the sniper, then?’

‘I honestly don’t know. All I can tell you for sure is he tried damned hard to get away.’

‘Wasn’t he armed?’

‘They looked in the rucksack and all he was carrying were a few apples and a cut loaf.’

‘Money?’

‘A few quid in his trouser pocket.’

‘What was he doing by the river?’

‘Same as me, I expect. Trying to avoid being picked off by one of Jack’s sharpshooters.’

‘So you think he knew the stakeout was in place?’

‘Most likely. If he is the sniper, he’s been smart avoiding arrest all these weeks. He’s not going to blow it by being too obvious.’

‘And if it isn’t him?’ Ingeborg said as she steered left and they crossed the Avon at Churchill Bridge and approached one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s oddest indulgences, his railway viaduct disguised as a castle wall.

‘It will have been some ne’er-do-well out late. Didn’t stop him spotting one or other of the firearms team and steering a wide berth. Do you know where Soldier Nuttall lives?’

‘I must have passed the gate a hundred times,’ she said, not wanting to be patronised. She moved out to overtake a farm vehicle. ‘There’s something else I ought to tell you, guv. Last night when we were doing the rounds and questioning people, someone told me about a blog she’d been looking at. Sounds as if it’s posted by some woman who reckons a friend’s partner has been acting suspiciously.’

‘In what way?’

‘Staying out all night, secretive, refusing to answer questions.’

‘Male?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not uncommon,’ he said. ‘It’s known as playing away.’

She gave him a world-weary look. ‘How does it help us?’ he asked.

‘It appears they live in Bath. The blog never says so, but when you read it carefully, there’s enough to tell you she’s located here. I visited the site this morning and I’m satisfied it can’t be anywhere else. This guy is obviously up to no good and the woman is terrified.’

‘Not just a wandering husband?’