Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

In the near-panic after the Walcot Street shooting, with every available officer called to the scene, no one had visited Harry Tasker’s next of kin. The thing had to be done urgently, before the story broke in the media.

Others may have thought of it and kept quiet. Diamond was the first to speak out.

The uniformed sergeant he raised it with said, ‘God, yes. We should have done this an hour ago. I’d better find someone.’

‘Do we know who the next of kin is? Was he married?’

‘Married, yes, or in a partnership for sure. He lived near the old gasworks off the Upper Bristol Road.’

‘I pass there on the way to work,’ Diamond said. ‘Is there anyone on the strength who would know the partner?’

‘Unlikely. Harry was a quiet guy. A bit of a loner, in fact. We’ll just have to send one of the young lads he worked with.’

‘We won’t.’

‘No?’

‘Get me the address. I’ll break the news. I’ve done this before.’

His part of the investigation was on hold. Each of the potential witnesses in the Paragon house had been seen and Keith Halliwell was interviewing the neighbours. Until the search of the basement flat and garden was complete, little else could happen. Nothing would be gained from standing over the crime scene investigators.

The Upper Bristol Road is busy, dirty and noisy and has some oddly named addresses, like Comfortable Place, which has the look of an almshouse and actually houses a fitness centre. Just behind Comfortable Place stands Onega Terrace, where Harry Tasker lived. The row of small houses has a view from the back of the last remaining gasholder of the old Bath Gas, Light and Coke Company, a mighty drum in its supporting framework with a majesty all its own. It was 140 years old. Diamond often passed it and marvelled at the way it had rusted to an umber shade not unlike the stone for which Bath was famous. But not everyone appreciates industrial architecture so close to home, so the proximity of this giant relic must have depressed house prices and made it possible for a constable on Harry’s modest income to pay the rent. The seven houses of the terrace, built probably in the 1890s, were accessed along a narrow pathway blocked with refuse sacks on the day Diamond arrived. Each house had its own bay window and most of them had satellite dishes.

Her name was Emma, he had learned from the office, and yes, they were married. She was Harry Tasker’s wife turned widow, a change of status she had yet to find out. She came to the door in a red zipper jacket and white jeans, in the act of wheeling out a bike. She was small, with large, intelligent eyes and shoulder-length black hair. ‘I’m sorry, but you’ve chosen the wrong moment, whoever you are,’ she told him. ‘I’m on my way out and I’m already late.’

She had probably taken him for a doorstep evangelist. Not many other callers wear suits and ties.

‘It’s about Harry,’ he said. ‘I work with him.’ He showed his ID. ‘May we go inside?’

The colour drained from her face. ‘Something’s the matter.’

He nodded.

She leaned the bike against the wall of the hallway and stepped back for him to enter. ‘Tell me.’

‘You’d better sit down first.’

Shaking her head as if she didn’t believe this was happening, she opened a door into a small living room and sat on the edge of a short leather sofa. The homely setting, the wedding photo and the family pictures over the fireplace made the task of breaking the news all the harder.

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I wish there was a gentler way of telling you. It was very sudden, early this morning while he was still on duty.’

‘How?’

‘He won’t have known anything about it. He was shot.’

She took a sharp breath and didn’t speak. She blinked several times and her front teeth pressed down on her lower lip. A shock as terrible as this takes people in different ways. Emma Tasker was internalising it.

What can you do to ease the agony for the suddenly, violently bereaved? Diamond’s way was to fill the silence with information. ‘We’ve got every available officer hunting for the gunman. It happened about 4 A.M. in Walcot Street, at the end nearest the city centre, two or three shots from high up when Harry was on his way back from checking one of the clubs. There had been no reports of trouble. This seems to have been unprovoked. Take it from me, ma’am, we’ll find the scum who did this. You know how we feel when one of our own is murdered.’ As his words tailed off, he watched her, prepared for an outpouring of grief.

It didn’t come. She was silent, immobile.

Some seconds went by.

‘Do you have any brandy in the house?’ he asked.

He could have saved his breath.

‘Whisky?’ he said. ‘Sometimes it can help. Or I can make tea. How about tea?’

No reaction. Her brown eyes could have been painted, they were so still, so inscrutable.

‘I’ll shut up, while you take it in,’ he said, easing a finger around his collar, remembering his own darkest moment. The difference was that when Steph had been murdered, he’d found out for himself. He’d attended a crime scene and had the unendurable shock of discovering that the victim was his own wife. It had all been so traumatic he still didn’t have any memory of how he had reacted. One thing he did recall from the days that followed: no one had been capable of comforting him.

Would it be any different for Emma Tasker? He guessed you couldn’t generalise.

If she had screamed, or fainted, or burst into tears, he would have coped better. He was in two minds whether to find the kitchen and make mild, sweet tea, that old remedy. He didn’t dare leave her at this moment. Instead, he turned and looked out of the window, waiting for whatever would happen next, be it an eruption of grief or a quiet request for him to leave.

Minutes passed.

The phone rang. It was on a low table beside the sofa. Automatically Emma Tasker put out a hand.

Diamond moved fast across the room. ‘Leave it,’ he said, his hand closing over hers as she reached for the receiver. ‘This will be the press.’

The contact brought a response from her, one he didn’t expect. Her eyes blazed hostility. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘Sorry.’ He withdrew his hand.

The ringing stopped.

She rubbed at the back of her hand as if his touch had been contagious.

‘I didn’t want you picking it up,’ he said.

‘ You didn’t want?’ She was angry, galvanized. ‘You think you have the right to tell me what to do? This is my home. It’s my phone.’

‘True.’

The simple argument about the phone was the tipping point. She vented all the anger she’d been suppressing and Diamond took the full force. ‘You bastard! You come in here and flash your warrant card at me and tell me the worst thing I could hear and then you expect me to jump to your commands. Mister, you don’t impress me at all. I don’t care if you’re the chief constable. I could spit in your eye. I’ve only got to look at you to know you sit behind a desk ordering good men like my Harry out on the streets at night dealing with drug-dealers and drunks and gang members.’

No use telling her he was CID and Harry was uniform. Her ferocity wasn’t amenable to reason. Better let this storm blow itself out.

She continued with the rant. ‘He never got any credit for all the policing he did. He would have stayed a constable for ever. People like Harry don’t get promoted. They do their work and all the overtime keeping the streets safe without complaining while the creeps and arse-lickers put all their energy into sucking up to the likes of you. I know what I’m talking about. I was in the force for three years until I couldn’t stand it any more. That’s how we met. Are you a Freemason?’