Peter Robinson: Sleeping in the Ground

‘How are you doing?’ Banks asked Gerry when he reached them.

‘Fine, sir. I just got here.’

Gerry was all business now, long legs crossed, hair tied in a ponytail trailing down her back, bottle green jacket and black jeans, black polo-neck jumper. She had also regained a bit of colour and a lot of composure, and, judging by the way she averted her eyes, Banks could tell that she felt embarrassed by the earlier episode in the churchyard. That would pass, he knew, but the deeper feelings would remain. He certainly couldn’t blame her for such a reaction; it had probably been the worst thing she had ever seen in her life. It could haunt her nightmares for years to come.

It was hardly water off a duck’s back to Banks, either, and would contribute significantly to the nightly danse macabre that was his dream world. But it wasn’t his first scene of carnage: he had seen the young girls’ bodies in the cellar of Terence Payne’s house; he had been on the spot to help the maimed and dying in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist bombing in London; and more recently he had picked his way through mixed human and animal body parts strewn along the bottom of the Belderfell Pass. All had taken their toll. It wasn’t so much the number as the details that stayed with him, like the bridesmaid in the churchyard holding her intestines inside.

‘This is Gareth Bishop, sir,’ Gerry said. ‘He says he’s got some interesting information for us. I thought you’d like to be here.’

The gangly youth half stood and shook hands with Banks, then they both sat. Gerry took out her notebook. The woman from reception came in with a tray of tea and set it on the low table between them. ‘Give it a minute or two to mash,’ she said, then left.

‘OK, Gareth,’ said Banks. ‘What is it you saw?’

Gareth Bishop swallowed. He had a prominent Adam’s apple and a shock of fair hair hanging over his left eye. ‘I saw a man hurrying down the hill across from the church and getting in a car parked in a lay-by about fifty metres further up the road, towards this place.’

‘Just one man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was there anyone waiting in the car?’

‘Not that I could see, but the windows were dark.’

‘Where were you? How far away?’

‘I was up on the opposite hill. You have to walk right along the edge on some sections of the footpath. It’s quite high up and far back, maybe four or five hundred metres from where the car was parked.’

‘So you didn’t get a close look?’

‘No.’

‘How do you know the figure you saw was a man?’

‘His shape, and the way he moved,’ said Gareth. ‘I mean, girls... they move... You can just tell. No woman would walk or run like that.’ He glanced nervously at Gerry, blushed and put his hands to his chest. ‘Or be that shape. He had no breasts.’

Banks saw Gerry smiling to herself as she wrote in her notebook. She probably wasn’t in the least surprised that a teenage boy could spot a pair of tits, or the lack of them, at four or five hundred metres. Banks had seen plenty of women with very small breasts, but there was no point telling Gareth that. The lad had a point about the way the men and women moved differently.

‘Was he fat or thin?’

‘Sort of ordinary, really. In the middle. Not fat, but not skinny. Slim, I guess.’

‘Could you see how tall he was?’

‘Only in comparison to the car. Not really tall or anything. I’d say he was medium height, about 175 centimetres.’

‘What’s that in—’

‘About five foot nine or ten, sir,’ said Gerry, with a patient smile.

Banks poured them all tea. ‘I don’t suppose you saw his face?’ he asked.

‘No. I was too far away to see that kind of detail.’

‘White?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

‘What time was this?’

‘I’m not certain. I don’t have a watch, and I had no reason to take out my mobile. Perhaps about one o’clock, a bit after?’

The timing was right, Banks thought. ‘Did you hear anything before you saw this figure?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I heard the church bells ringing, and some bangs. Not very loud, not from where I was, at any rate. The footpath dips behind the edge for a while and blocks off the view of the road.’

‘How many bangs?’

‘Dunno. A few. I wasn’t counting.’

‘Gunfire?’

‘I suppose it could have been. You hear guns often out in the country and think nothing of it. Shotguns, usually. Now I know what happened, I could kick myself for not recognising what it was, but...’

‘Don’t beat yourself up, Gareth. There’s nothing you could have done without risking getting yourself killed, and, as it happens, you’re turning out to be much more useful alive. You’re the first person we’ve come across who saw the car.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes. What can you tell us about it?’

‘It was one of those SUVs, a people-mover. That Toyota you see advertised a lot.’

‘The RAV4?’

‘That’s the one. It had the hatchback and everything. That was where he put whatever it was he was carrying. His gun, I suppose. It opened sideways, like a door.’

‘He opened the hatchback and put the weapon in there?’

‘I didn’t know it was a weapon, but it wasn’t long enough for a golf club. I suppose it could have been a fishing pole. They come apart into sections, don’t they?’

‘What did he do next?’

‘He got in the driver’s side and drove off.’

‘Which direction?’

‘South. Away from the village.’

‘What colour was the car?’

‘Black.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, I suppose it could have been dark green or blue, but it looked black to me.’

‘OK, Gareth. You’re doing really well. Where were you going when you saw all this?’

‘I was heading along the edge, back towards the hostel. I’d been for a long walk in the morning and stopped off at the Lamb and Flag in the village for a sandwich and a pint.’

‘So you were on the section of the hill between St Mary’s and here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you thought you heard some bangs, then you saw a man get in a people-mover, maybe a black RAV4, but you didn’t see the church below, what was going on down there? You didn’t hear any screams or anything?’

‘No. Like I said, the path only comes up along the edge when I saw him getting in the car, about a hundred metres south of the church. Before that, I couldn’t see or hear anything very clearly down towards the road, except the bangs and the church bells. But even they sounded distant and muffled.’

‘How long have you been staying here at the hostel?’

‘All week. I head home tomorrow. Southampton.’

‘You’re on your own?’

‘Yes. A walking holiday. Sort of compensation. I’m... well, I just split up with my girlfriend.’

‘Sorry to hear it. So you’ve been out and about a lot this week, then?’

‘I suppose so.’ He grinned. ‘Walking away the pain, you could say.’

‘Have you ever seen either the man or the car before?’

‘Not the man, no, but the car was there on Thursday.’

‘Thursday? Two days ago?’

‘Right.’

‘Same spot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure it was the same car?’

‘I never saw the number plate, so I can’t be a hundred per cent certain, but I think so. It was the same colour, and it was an SUV.’

What were the odds of another black SUV being parked in the same remote lay-by two days earlier, Banks wondered? Probably very small. So the shooter had been out on at least one reconnaissance mission. He must have heard about the wedding somewhere, or read about it in the local press, specifically targeted it, picked his spot, checked out the lie of the land. Annie had said it was something of a celebrity wedding. Could that be a motive? A stalker of some sort? There were still many lines of inquiry to pursue, but Gareth’s information had given Banks a degree of focus he hadn’t had before. Now he knew at least that the killer had driven away from the scene in a black people-mover, rather than heading for a bolt-hole on the moors, which agreed with what Terry Gilchrist said about seeing him hurrying down the hillside. It didn’t mean they could call off the search of the moors completely, as he could have dumped the people-mover and struck out over open country, but they could probably afford to scale it down and concentrate on tracking the vehicle.