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Peter Robinson: Sleeping in the Ground

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Peter Robinson Sleeping in the Ground

Sleeping in the Ground: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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A shocking mass murder occurs at a wedding in a small Dales church and a huge manhunt follows. Eventually, the shooter is run to ground and things take their inevitable course. But Banks is plagued with doubts as to exactly what happened outside the church that day, and why. Struggling with the death of his first serious girlfriend and the return of profiler Jenny Fuller into his life, Banks feels the need to dig deeper into the murders, and as he does so, he uncovers forensic and psychological puzzles that lead him to the past secrets that might just provide the answers he is looking for. When the surprising truth becomes clear, it is almost too late.

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‘But if he was lying there in the grass overlooking the church, there’s a chance that someone might have spotted him, isn’t there? A dog-walker, someone like that.’

‘There’s always a chance, Alan. Always an element of risk,’ said Trethowan. ‘But if a dog-walker or a couple of ramblers had come along, he’d probably have shot them, too.’

‘Fair enough. Why did the ARVs take so long to get to the scene, Mike?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Not you as well.’

‘What do you mean? You know it’s going to come up. And I’m in the bloody hot seat here.’

Trethowan sighed. ‘We’re well trained, but we’re not used to firearms incidents in these out-of-the-way parts, as you know. The nearest ARV was in the Middlesbrough area. They got here as quickly as they could. Traffic was heavy. They could hardly sprout wings and fly.’

‘And in the meantime there were people wounded and dying here.’

‘I’d like to know how we can do any better with the resources we’ve got. Most of our firearms officers and support units have been targeted towards cities and towns where there’s more risk of terrorist threats. Shopping centres, sports and music stadiums, that sort of thing. We’ve got hardly anyone left in North Yorkshire.’

‘I understand that, Mike, but Terry Gilchrist told you he’d seen the shooter leave but you still wouldn’t let the medics through.’

‘There might have been more than one. Or he might not have gone very far. Or Terry Gilchrist might have been mistaken. We had no idea how reliable he is. There are any number of problems with a vague witness opinion like that. You can’t trust it. You know we’re supposed to be on the scene to protect unarmed police officers as well as emergency services personnel. Who gets the blame if a civilian or a paramedic gets shot? We do, that’s who. So nobody approaches a shooting scene until we’ve cleared it and given the OK. That’s how it works. Besides, I don’t even know why I’m bothering to defend the action. It wasn’t my call. Talk to the Gold Commander.’

‘I’m just saying it’ll come up. Forewarned and all that...’

‘Don’t I know it?’

‘What’s the distance, do you think? Here to the churchyard.’

‘Between three-fifty and four hundred metres.’

‘What’s that in English?’

Trethowan snorted. ‘Luddite. About a quarter of a mile.’

‘It’s a long way. What kind of weapon would he need to shoot accurately that far?’

‘We don’t know how accurately he shot,’ Trethowan said. ‘He was firing into a crowd. We don’t know what, or whom, he was aiming at, other than the crowd. According to Terry Gilchrist, he shot the bride first, then the groom, then the chief bridesmaid, and it gets a bit confusing after that. But even if he was simply aiming in that general direction, the odds are that he’d have hit someone.’

‘Seven or eight people were hit, I’ve heard.’

‘Sounds about right.’

‘Scope sights?’

‘Most likely. That would certainly have given him a chance of being more accurate, if he had specific targets.’

‘Any idea what sort of weapon the shooter used?’

‘Don’t quote me on this,’ Trethowan said, ‘but I’d put my money on the Armalite, an AR15. What they call the “Black Rifle”. The cartridge casings we found bear this out. They’re.223 Remington, the same kind the AR15 takes in a twenty- or thirty-round clip. Of course, there are other rifles that use the same ammo, but... well, the AR15 is the most common. You asked what I thought.’

‘Illegal, I should imagine?’

‘Not at all. Very popular with enthusiasts. But it’s available to competition shooters only as a straight pull version.’

‘Meaning? It’s a long time since I took a firearms awareness course.’

‘You have to pull the bolt back to empty the chamber and reload.’

‘So it takes time? Could he have done that quickly enough to get off as many shots as he did?’

‘Ten? Yes. Easily. And he obviously did. It would have taken less than a minute. From what Mr Gilchrist told us, it was definitely straight pull, not semi-automatic fire. And he should know his stuff, with his military service. If it had been an illegal firearm, a semi-automatic, say, there would have been a lot more people killed.’

‘Bullets?’

‘You’d best ask the pathologist about that when he digs them out.’

‘Terry thinks they were hollow point.’

‘And he could well be right.’

‘Would the killer need a military background?’

‘Not necessarily, but I wouldn’t rule it out. There are plenty of rifle and pistol clubs and people who enjoy competitive shooting with a wide range of weapons. Or hunting. He might simply be a good shot.’

‘Any chance it was a terrorist attack?’

‘Always a possibility, something like this,’ said Trethowan. ‘Even here. The experts are on their way and they’ll be digging deep. But off the record, it’s not really terrorist style, is it? A lone gunman, as far as we know, with a legal weapon, shooting from a distance. A country wedding in an out-of-the-way place. Where’s the cachet in that?’

‘That they can hit us anywhere, anytime they like, and our customs and ceremonies mean nothing to them. They’ve been going for a lot of “soft” targets recently. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Istanbul.’

‘Well, if you put it like that...’

‘No, I agree with you, Mike. It doesn’t have the feel of a terrorist attack. They could have done far more damage sending a man or a woman in the church with an automatic weapon, or strapped with explosives, though I don’t suppose you can always find a keen suicide bomber when you want one. I’m just keeping an open mind.’ He paused. ‘If the gun was legal, we should be able to trace it through the firearms certificate, right?’

‘Ostensibly,’ said Trethowan. ‘The checks to get a certificate are pretty thorough, but people do slip between the cracks. Remember, I only said that guns modified in that way are legal to own. I didn’t say this one was obtained legally.’

‘OK. But criminals make mistakes, get overconfident. How many certificates might we be talking about?’

‘The last I heard there were about seven hundred thousand gun owners in the UK and almost two million licensed firearms.’

‘Two million?’

‘Easily. About sixty thousand in North Yorkshire alone.’

‘A lot of those would be shotguns, I assume?’

‘Uh-huh. Typically, in rural areas.’

‘So there would be fewer AR15s?’

‘Far fewer. We can narrow it down a lot. It shouldn’t take us that long to sort them out.’

‘The sooner we get started, then,’ said Banks. ‘Tell your team to start with those living closest to the scene, then work their way out. You know the drill.’

‘I’ll be sure to advise extra caution, too. If a man uses a legal firearm to commit an atrocity like this, he’s got to be expecting a visit from us before long.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t care,’ said Banks.

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’

Banks could see the news vans arriving, and there were two TV helicopters already overhead, along with the Dales search-and-rescue teams the police had co-opted to scan the moors for the killer. This would be a big story. All eyes would be on them for the next while, however things developed. If a reporter discovered how long it took the ARVs to get to the scene and secure it while people were dying there, and how long it was before they let in medical help, heads would roll, despite the orders to redistribute personnel to urban areas more vulnerable to terrorist attack. And the media would find out. Someone always blabbed. Adrian Moss, the MLO, would have his work cut out for him. If a Paris- or Istanbul-style attack occurred in a tourist beauty spot such as the Dales, the Cotswolds or the Lake District, then the terrorists would have all the time in the world to do whatever damage and kill as many people as they wanted before anyone could even attempt to put a stop to them. Talk about soft targets.

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