Sleeping in the Ground

Chapter 2

By the time Banks arrived in Fortford, the whole village was swarming with police, and the curious inhabitants had been strongly advised to stay in their homes. Naturally, they didn’t, and the police community support officers had a job on their hands keeping everyone behind the police tape at the southern edge of the village green.

According to Annie, on receiving Terry Gilchrist’s phone call at 1.03 p.m., the dispatcher had consulted with her control room inspector, who had ordered that no unarmed officers or emergency services personnel should attend the scene until given the all clear by Firearms Support Command, even though Terry Gilchrist had claimed that he had seen the shooter leave the hill.

Firearms support had sent their three closest armed response vehicles, and the officers had just finished securing the area around the church, about a quarter of a mile south of the village itself. Uniformed officers had then contained the scene and constructed designated pathways and meeting points so that the investigators could do their jobs and the paramedics could move in and out and take care of the injured. There were still no accurate reports on exactly what had happened in the churchyard, or how many people had been hurt.

Banks showed his identification at the second checkpoint, about a hundred yards from the church itself, signed the officer’s log, then sprinted briefly to catch up with Annie Cabbot and DCs Doug Wilson and Geraldine Masterson, who were slightly ahead of him. Chief Superintendent Gervaise was Gold Commander, coordinating things back at Eastvale HQ along with representatives from the emergency services and firearms support.

A line of authorised firearms officers, resembling an invading army in their full personal protective equipment, stood outside the churchyard, facing the hill opposite. Banks could see a number of other armed officers moving about on the hillside itself. Each AFO carried a PR-24 baton, rigid handcuffs and CS spray, along with the Glock side arm and Tasers. Because of the seriousness of the incident, they were also carrying Heckler & Koch MP5 carbines, which they usually kept locked in the boots of their vehicles. They made a chilling sight.

‘Any news?’ Banks asked as he caught up with the others.

‘Nothing yet,’ Annie answered. ‘How was the funeral?’

‘As you’d expect. Winsome?’

‘I’ve talked to Terry on his mobile. Winsome’s been hit, but he couldn’t say how serious it is. The AFOs have searched the hill area, which is where Terry said the shots were fired from, and they confirm the shooter’s definitely gone. They think they’ve found the spot he fired from and secured it for forensic examination. Gold Command has instructed that everyone unharmed inside the church should remain there until the ambulances have cleared the dead and wounded. We’ve arranged coaches for the uninjured. Eastvale General’s been advised to expect the casualties. So have James Cook Hospital and Leeds Infirmary. As far as anyone knows, there were about sixty guests in all. It was a bit of a local celebrity wedding. In the papers and all that.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s a bloodbath, Alan, like nothing we’ve had before.’

‘Media? You said it was a celebrity wedding.’

‘We’re not talking Madonna or royalty or anything. There were a few reporters and photographers, but they either ran away or took refuge in the church.’

‘Pity for once the place wasn’t swarming with them,’ Banks said. ‘It might have made the killer think twice, or one of them might have got some footage of him. What about the wedding photographer?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Annie said. ‘He caught a splinter of stone in one eye. But we’ll be checking out all photos and videos taken at the scene. Terry said he’s done what he can for the injured,’ Annie went on. ‘He managed to tie some tourniquets and staunch the blood flow on a couple of victims. He said it took ages for the AFOs to get here. It’s been well over an hour since the shooting.’

Banks glanced at his watch. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I was just getting off the train when I got your messages. I drove as fast as I could from Northallerton. I’m sorry my mobile was turned off earlier.’

‘It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you could have done on the train except fret. We’ve only just been permitted to approach, ourselves. Before that, it was armed personnel only. We couldn’t get near the place. The first armed response vehicle didn’t arrive until 1.41 p.m., and they had to search the area and make sure the shooter wasn’t still around. Some of the paramedics and doctors are really pissed off. They say people could have been dying up here while they were tied up in red tape.’

The four detectives walked through the lychgate into the old country churchyard. Banks saw the wounded sprawled here and there, sobbing and clutching torn bits of shirt or dresses to staunch their bleeding. He could hear more ambulance sirens in the distance, and already paramedics were making their way around the churchyard along the common approach path designated by bright yellow plastic squares, like garish stepping stones, marked out to avoid people contaminating the scene. Peter Darby, the crime-scene photographer, was already hard at work amid the carnage. These were the ‘golden hours’, the period closest to when the crime had taken place, and evidence would never be as fresh or as plentiful as now. Dr Burns, the police surgeon, glanced up as Banks passed. Banks had never seen him so pale.

One beautiful young woman in a coral-coloured dress sat propped up against a gravestone shaking and whimpering, ‘Help me. Please.’ Her lap was soaked in blood and her hands were clutched around her stomach, as if she were trying to hold her insides in. With her long blond hair and her pale heart-shaped face, she reminded Banks a little of Emily Hargreaves. A doctor hurried past him towards her. Another girl lay on the grass with half her head missing. She resembled an actor from that zombie TV programme wearing a realistic prosthetic.

‘How many victims?’ Banks asked.

‘Seven or eight, according to Terry. It’s not official yet.’

‘Adrian Moss here?’ Moss was their media liaison officer, and he would soon be much in demand.

‘Not yet.’

Banks noticed that Gerry Masterson, the newest and youngest team member, had turned white. She was slowing to a halt, as if marooned on one of the yellow pads, staring at the girl holding her stomach by the gravestone. Banks thought he could see Gerry start to shake. Quickly he went over to her and grasped her arm. ‘Come on, you’ll be OK,’ he said. ‘Look at me. Deep breaths. One. Two. Three.’

Gerry turned towards him, her nostrils flared, eyes wild, then she gave a slight nod. Her shoulders stiffened, and he could see the effort she made, slowing her breathing, staring fixedly straight ahead at the church doors. ‘I’ll be all right, sir,’ she said through gritted teeth.

Banks could hear children crying the moment he stepped through the doors, but it took a while for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside the church. There were people everywhere, some silent, some crying, some just talking. Banks saw a flower girl, with her hair in ringlets, holding her bouquet and sobbing. She had blood on her dress and her face, but he didn’t think it was hers. A little boy in a smart suit had his arm around her and was trying awkwardly to get her to be quiet. Next he saw the vicar sitting on the worn stone step by the altar, hunched over, head lowered, hands clasped in prayer, mumbling to God. Then he spotted Terry Gilchrist holding someone in his arms, leaning against a stone column.

Banks hurried over to Terry and saw, as he had expected, that it was Winsome he was holding. Her arms were wrapped around her raised knees, clutching them tightly to her chest. There was blood all over the front of Terry’s shirt as well as on his suit and face. Winsome’s peach satin dress — the one she had been so thrilled to find on sale — was smeared and stained with blood, too, and he noticed a bloody streak running across the top of her bare left shoulder. Something had made a furrow in her skin. The cut wasn’t bleeding much, a superficial flesh wound at best, but she had come that close. Winsome was trembling; her tear-filled eyes seemed unfocused, directed inwards, unaware of her surroundings.

‘She’s in shock,’ Terry said. ‘She needs a doctor, but there are people far worse off. You’ve seen what it’s like outside.’

‘You were out there when it happened?’

Terry stood up, but he didn’t take his eyes off Winsome. Annie took his place beside her. ‘I did the best I could. I tried to get everyone inside to safety. The shooter nicked Winsome’s shoulder. She’s lucky. I think the bastard was using hollow points, judging by the damage he’s caused. I saw him leave the hill over the road, heading south. I think the waiting was the worst. People were crying everywhere, screaming in pain. We could have got the ambulances and paramedics in much sooner, they were just waiting for the word, but the firearms officers wouldn’t let anybody past, and it had taken long enough for them to get here. Christ, Alan, people were dying. Winsome could have died. The bastards just wouldn’t take my word for it that the shooter had gone.’

Banks touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘You did the best you could, Terry. Remember, I know your military background but the others don’t. They had to follow procedure. Don’t worry, we’ll get Winsome some attention soon enough. She’ll be fine. What about you?’

‘I’m OK.’

Banks stood up and surveyed the scene. Gerry and the others were squatting on their haunches, talking to witnesses. The sirens he had heard out in the churchyard stopped suddenly, and then more paramedics and doctors rushed into the church bearing stretchers and medical supplies.

Banks stood on top of the hill opposite the scene and watched the activity in the churchyard. Tiny figures, like a Lowry painting. The hillside sloped gently down towards a field full of sheep across the road from St Mary’s. They were grazing innocently, as unaware of what had happened as the horse scratching its behind on a tree in the Auden poem about the fall of Icarus. To his left, he could see the village of Fortford, at the junction with the Helmthorpe Road, a cluster of stone cottages with flagstone roofs huddled around a village green, the familiar Roman hill fort, the whitewashed facade of the Lamb and Flag. Behind him stretched the moors, a tangle of bare heather and gorse, like coiled barbed wire among the rocky outcrops. On the other side of the road, behind the church, a similar hillside sloped up to similar moorland. It had been a perfect sniper’s day, not even a hint of a breeze nor a drop of rain, but now the wind was whipping up again and the rainclouds were gathering fast. It was close to four on a Saturday afternoon in early December, and it was already getting dark, a chill creeping into the air from the north.

Banks was joined by Stefan Nowak, crime-scene manager, and Superintendent Mike Trethowan, head of the firearms cadre. The three men stood by a section of the hilltop surrounded by police tape, inside which two CSIs were busy erecting a makeshift canvas tent over the area where the shooter had lain.

‘Find anything yet?’ Banks asked.

‘Ten shell casings,’ said Trethowan. ‘They’ve gone to ballistics.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not yet,’ Nowak answered. ‘The grass is clearly flattened, as if someone has been lying there. No doubt there’ll be other traces when we organise a full search. Fibres, most likely. Who knows, maybe he smoked a cigarette and left us a nice DNA sample.’

Trethowan pointed to a rough path leading diagonally down the hillside to their right. ‘Mr Gilchrist said he saw the shooter head down there,’ he said. ‘We’ve already got road blocks up. Alerts have gone out all over the county. If only we knew what we were looking for. We’re still waiting for the sniffer dogs up here.’

‘Vehicle?’

‘We don’t know. I assume so. Plenty of spots to park it out of the way nearby. They’re all being checked out. It’s not a busy road. And there’s no CCTV for miles.’

Banks knew the road well enough. It was a pass that cut sharp south from the main east — west Helmthorpe Road. After climbing then winding through a long stretch of wild moorland beyond the youth hostel, it dropped slowly into the adjacent dale. From there, anyone could easily get to Harrogate, York or Leeds, and from there to the M62 or M1. The killer had a good start. He could be well on his way to London by now, and they would be none the wiser as they had no vehicle description to go on.

That was, of course, assuming the killer wanted to get away.

Banks glanced back down on the scene. It was hard to believe that such a horror could have taken place in broad daylight, on such a joyous occasion and in such a beautiful spot. The squat Norman church, originally built in 1174, had the traditional square tower with clock, and the limestone was a greenish grey colour in the dimming light. Many of the tombstones stood at precarious angles, and most were spotted with lichen or overgrown by grass. The more recent ones seemed well tended, with vases of bright flowers placed before them.

St Mary’s was one of the best known and loved churches around, and it had once been the place for all burials in the dale. Inhabitants of the more remote western villages and farms had carried, or brought on carts, the bodies of their loved ones along the ‘Corpse Way’ for Christian burial there, as there was no closer church that could accommodate them. Like St Andrew’s in Swaledale, it had become a sort of ‘Cathedral of the Dale’. Now this.

‘What about the risk factor?’ Banks asked.

‘I’d say it wasn’t very high,’ Trethowan answered. ‘It’s a clear day, yes, for once, but that’s more a matter of good fortune than weather forecasting. It was supposed to rain, and you can see that’s coming, but we got a brief stay for some reason. You wouldn’t necessarily get a lot of walkers up here at this time of year, though. Besides, the other side of the valley is more popular, more scenic. I’d say he probably worked it out in advance, chose his spot well.’

‘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.

Banks heard a rustling sound and turned to see two officers leading sniffer dogs to the site. Mike Trethowan’s police radio crackled. ‘Sir,’ the voice said over the static. ‘I’ve been instructed to ask you if Detective Superintendent Banks is with you.’

‘He is,’ Trethowan answered.

‘His team has just had a call from the youth hostel, sir. Seems somebody up there knows something. One of his officers is already on site. He’s been asked to drop by. There’s a car waiting at the bottom of the hill.’

Banks nodded to Trethowan and set off down the hill.

Banks got out of the patrol car outside the youth hostel and asked the driver to wait. He looked up at the nineteenth-century manor house with its distinctly Gothic facade, as if the builder had been a fan of Bram Stoker and Ann Radcliffe. It was built of local limestone, like the church, with added wings, gables and a gargoyle or two stuck on for good measure. In the gathering late-afternoon darkness, against a background of heavy rainclouds, with only a few lights showing in mullioned windows here and there, it resembled a spooky old house from a black-and-white horror film. The House on Haunted Hill. All it needed was thunder and lightning.

The front door was open, and the woman at the reception desk directed Banks towards the common room and asked if he would like a cup of tea. He thanked her and walked down the vaulted passage. Several armed officers were already conducting a search of the building, as it was only about a quarter of a mile south of St Mary’s.

The common room was a cold, high-ceilinged lounge with a huge bay window and a glittering chandelier. Battered armchairs were scattered around, some next to shaded reading lamps. Pop music played quietly in the background, some group he didn’t recognise. The room was empty except for DC Masterson sitting opposite a lanky blond boy by the window.

‘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.

‘OK.’ Banks gestured to Gerry, who closed her notebook, then he turned to Gareth. ‘Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.’ He handed the youth his card. ‘If you remember anything else, however minor you think it is, please call me.’

‘Do you know... how many?’ he asked.

‘We don’t know yet.’

Gareth hung his head. ‘It feels terrible, you know. To have been so close and not known, not been able to do anything.’

Banks stood up and rested his hand on Gareth’s shoulder. ‘You should think yourself lucky you were over the ridge, out of the way. A walking stick isn’t much use against a powerful rifle. Take care.’

As they walked to the car, Banks asked Gerry to check Gareth Bishop’s story. ‘I know he seemed honest,’ he said, ‘but stranger things have happened than killers interposing themselves into the investigation. We’d look like a proper pair of ninnies if it turns out he did it all along. I’d like you and Doug to check his alibi at the Lamb and Flag — find out what time he arrived and how long he was there — then check the walk he says he did just to make sure he isn’t lying about what he could and couldn’t see or hear. Get him to show you it tomorrow morning, if you like. Tell him it’s a re-enactment.’

‘What about his room at the hostel, sir?’ said Gerry.

‘The search team will get to it. They’re doing the whole place. Though if Gareth did have anything to do with the shooting, he’s no doubt got rid of the gun by now.’

Back at the mobile incident vehicle parked beside the church, Banks asked if there had been any developments. There hadn’t, and the only comfort Banks could take from that scrap of news was that nobody else had been shot.