Cop to Corpse

17

His phone went, offering him a choice of traffic offences: use the mobile while driving or stop and block a passing-point in the narrow Somerset lane. He pulled over. He’d met nothing for some way, so he reckoned this was the better option.

‘Yes?’

‘Diamond, where the fuck are you?’

‘Is that you, Jack?’ As if anyone else spoke to him like that.

‘I said — ’

‘Heard you. I’m on the way in.’ True. He was more than halfway back from Wells.

‘Do you know what time it is? I’ve been trying to reach you at Manvers Street. Some of us are at work this morning and we’ve struck gold.’

He yawned. He wasn’t in gold rush mode. ‘Tell me more.’

‘I can do better. Meet me in twenty minutes at Avoncliff railway station and I’ll show you.’

‘Can we make that forty?’

‘Are you still in your fucking pit?’

‘Would I tell you if I was? See you at twelve-thirty.’ He switched off.

Whatever Gull had discovered it would need to be good to outweigh this morning’s find. Ossy Hart and Stan Richmond both involved in folklore and with a prospect of film money in the offing. True, Ossy had by then retired from his role as the Sailor’s Horse, but the lure of thousands of dollars had revived his interest, even if he’d dismissed it as bullshit.

Big money brings its own temptations.

Next question: did Harry Tasker, boring old Harry who did nothing but pound the beat and go fishing according to his wife, get a sniff of the money? Did he have a passing interest in local customs that Emma had failed to mention?

And if any of this were true, why did all three get murdered?

Another session with Emma Tasker beckoned, and Diamond didn’t relish it. Good thing Stan Richmond hadn’t also left a widow to be interviewed. Be thankful for small mercies.

He looked in at the incident room and was told three times over that Jack Gull had been trying to reach him.

‘Don’t suppose he told you what it was about,’ he said to Ingeborg.

‘No, guv, except it was urgent.’

‘Always is with Jack. Makes him feel important.’

The tension from yesterday’s team meeting hadn’t all evaporated, but at least they were on speaking terms.

‘Did he ask where I was?’

‘We didn’t know,’ Keith Halliwell said, and it felt like a dig.

‘I was in Wells.’ He gave them the gist of what Juliet Hart had told him about the Minehead May Day ritual, adding only one comment. ‘And that, my friends, is how Martin Hart came to be known as Ossy.’

Usually the idea of one of the force up to something eccentric was sure to provoke some laughs. This morning’s response was a few bemused looks.

‘Does it make any difference?’ John Leaman asked in his habitual downbeat tone. ‘This all happened before he joined the police.’

‘The film offer was the new factor,’ Ingeborg said, sharp to the point as always. ‘And he was tempted, by the sound of things.’

Leaman was unmoved. ‘But it didn’t come to anything.’

She gave an impatient sigh. ‘It came up shortly before he was shot and it was big bucks. We all know about trying to survive on a police salary.’

‘Are you saying this led to him being murdered?’

She turned to Diamond. ‘Is that what you’re thinking, guv?’

After yesterday’s dust-up, Diamond wasn’t being drawn. ‘It’s a new angle, that’s all.’

Ingeborg wouldn’t leave it. ‘Okay, let’s talk about Stan Richmond. He was into folklore, too. He’d written articles. Do you think the film man went to him for advice?’

‘I simply don’t know.’

‘It’s worth checking if he ever wrote anything on the Minehead hobby horses.’

‘Could be.’

‘Shall I?’

‘If you want.’ He couldn’t have sounded more neutral. Secretly, he was pleased. ‘Has anything else come up that I should know about?’

‘On your desk, from personnel,’ Leaman said with a look laden with reproach. ‘About thirty pages of names … including all of ours.’

That explained the coolness. Yesterday evening he’d gone ahead and asked Headquarters for the printout. No one here would have printed it for him.

He opened the office door and glanced at his in-tray. The paperwork was spilling out of it. Most would be junk. Headquarters had a whole department called Communications and they justified their existence by making sure everyone was made to feel wanted on an hourly basis. They’d found out he didn’t bother much with emails, so they deluged him with paper. Georgina the ACC (who had probably arranged it) was always leaving him memos. As well as all of that, there were the usual letters the postman had brought, bunched and held in place with an elastic band. Another with no stamp and just Detective Diamond — PERSONAL on the envelope must have been delivered by hand. And there was the sheaf of A4 sheets listing all those names. Thanks to Jack Gull he didn’t have time to start on any of it.

Avoncliff station, Gull’s choice of meeting place, hardly deserved its name. It was that rare thing on the railways, a request stop on the main line between Southampton and Bristol. If you wanted to board a train you were instructed to put out your hand and wave at the driver. There were no train announcements, no display boards and no staff. But it had existed for over a century and the locals would make sure it continued.

One useful facility the station did have was a small car park and Gull was waiting there when Diamond drove in ten minutes late.

‘This had better be good,’ he said as he reached for the walking stick and heaved himself out. ‘The drive down was hairy.’

‘Sod that,’ Gull said. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Not a problem.’ He looked around. ‘Where to? Are you keeping me in suspense?’

‘Not for long. We’re going to follow the railway for a few hundred yards. Are you up for it?’

‘I just said.’ Much more of this and he would be peppering his own speech with obscenities.

‘Let’s go, then.’ Gull had got to know this little area pretty well, taking the soft option last night while Diamond had been overseeing the hunt for the sniper between Westwood and Bradford on Avon. All action now, he headed under the massive Victorian aqueduct that carried the canal over the railway and also served as a passenger bridge. ‘Keep up,’ he called back. ‘It isn’t far.’

Sandwiched between the River Avon and the railway was an overgrown, uneven footpath, not easy to manage with a dodgy leg. Gull was already some distance ahead. Diamond had to raise his voice to be heard. ‘So you took a stroll while you were guarding the aqueduct?’

‘I sent one of the plods on a recce. He made the find. It was too dark to check out yesterday. I had a look for myself this morning.’

Diamond plodded on, managing with the help of the stick. The leg was on the mend, he decided.

Gull stopped to wait for him. ‘This stretch is known as Melancholy Walk. I think I know why.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘If you’re feeling sorry for yourself you’ve got the choice of lying on the railway or jumping in the river.’

‘Charming.’

He pointed. ‘You can see it up ahead. That stone building half-covered in creepers.’

They walked the last stretch in silence and up to a solid, squat concrete block on the railway side of the path.

‘Christ knows what it’s for,’ Gull said.

‘It’s a World War II pillbox,’ Diamond told him, looking at the narrow, elongated space in the front wall, about chest-high, meant for aiming guns. ‘They built hundreds of these in 1940, when the German invasion was expected.’

‘Before my time.’

Before Diamond’s, too, but suddenly the roles were reversed and he was enjoying himself as the one in the know. ‘All along here was the stop-line, the most important one in Britain. Churchill wanted a way of slowing up the panzer tanks, so he asked General Ironside — nice name, that — to build a series of defensive lines northwards from the coast. Pillboxes, stone bollards, trenches, barbed wire. Ironside made good use of what was already in place, and this stretch was perfect: the river and the canal are barriers for miles. The GHQ line, as it was known, ran all the way from Bristol to Kent. There are pillboxes at regular intervals.’

‘How do you know this stuff?’

‘I live nearby. You find things out.’

‘Well, clever-clogs, you don’t know what’s inside. Be my guest.’

Diamond walked around to the back, found the narrow, open doorway, stooped and went in. The light wasn’t good and the smell reminded him of a rugby changing-room after a match. He could make out the dark shape of a bedroll stretched across the end, with a six-pack of beer beside it and some empty cans. There was food also, a half-eaten loaf, apples and the remains of a cooked chicken. A newspaper was tucked between the wall and the bedroll.

‘Yesterday’s Mirror,’ Gull said, coming in behind him. ‘He was here as recently as that.’

‘You think it’s our man?’

‘Someone sleeping rough, isn’t it? We’ve left it like this for when he comes back. I’ve taken one of the empties to get some prints.’

‘No gun.’

‘He’s smart, isn’t he? Either he’s got it with him or it’s somewhere nearby.’

‘The motorbike as well?’

Gull preferred not to think about the motorbike. In truth, it was probably parked in a street somewhere.

Diamond glanced at the folded newspaper. Part of a banner headline was visible: SNIPER: NOW IT’S — . Every national daily was reporting the shootings. Because the paper happened to be face up, nothing could be assumed about the recent inmate of the pillbox.

‘These places get used sometimes by people sleeping rough.’

‘Rough is what he is,’ Gull said. ‘We know he passed at least one night in Becky Addy Wood. The bugger’s on the run and dossing down wherever he can.’

‘You think he’s moved on, do you?’

‘He wouldn’t leave his bedding here, or the food. He’ll be back and I’m laying on a welcome.’

‘If you’re right and he’s got the gun with him, that may not be such a good idea.’

‘Get real, Diamond. I’ve got armed police in hiding all around us. You wouldn’t have noticed.’

True. He hadn’t spotted them.

‘With orders to shoot on sight?’

‘No, they’ll close in after he comes back.’

‘Is that wise? This thing was purpose-built for defence. From in here he could take out several more coppers.’

Gull thought about that, obviously decided it was true and then glared back. ‘What’s your suggestion, then?’

‘Ambush him before he can get inside. He’ll be trapped between the railway and the river.’

This silenced the head of the Serial Crimes Unit.

‘Or you could let him go in and then bung in some tear gas. By the sound of it, you need a better game plan. If I were you, I’d think it over, but not in here. I’m getting out in case he’s on his way.’

In truth, Diamond found it hard to believe that the sniper — if that was who had spent the night here — would return in broad daylight. But he’d satisfied his curiosity. He limped back to the car park, leaving Gull to work out the new strategy with his shock troops.

Back with CID, he asked for the latest on Ken Lockton. No change, the hospital had told Keith Halliwell. The patient remained unconscious, in the critical care unit. Christina, the sympathetic PCSO, was still with the family.

Diamond had never known such an atmosphere in his workplace. Bath CID had become the Slough of Despond. A lot of it was down to him and his inept performance yesterday, but there was still a pervading air of gloom. The murder of a colleague on duty and the near-murder of another had poleaxed everyone. The angry mood of the first day had given way to this grim resignation. Generally humour has a way of breaking through the most harrowing of investigations, if only for sanity’s sake. Right now, a light remark seemed like a betrayal. The usual currency of so-called wit was unfit for use.

The only way to get through this was to focus on the job in hand. You knuckled down and did whatever you could to bring the killer to justice.

He walked into his office and closed the door. That heaving in-tray waited on his desk. First, he phoned Emma Tasker. The call was picked up by the Good Samaritan from next door, who’d survived longer as comforter than anyone could have expected. Her voice showed the strain. She said they hadn’t long been back from the undertaker, fixing the funeral, and she doubted if Emma would come to the phone. He said it wasn’t necessary. He just wanted Emma to know she could expect another visit from the big thug from Bath Central this afternoon around three.

‘Are those the exact words you want me to use?’ the neighbour asked.

‘She’ll understand.’

‘She won’t like it.’

‘She’ll have to lump it, then. And speaking of lumps …’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s milk and two sugars for me.’

He cradled the phone, set aside the morning’s mail for later and started leafing through those lists of personnel from three police stations. Not just the current staffs, but years of them, including people transferred and retired. The job of finding matching names was likely to take hours. For a start, he crossed out the three victims and Ken Lockton and his own CID team. If he couldn’t eliminate them as suspects he might as well jack in the job. But upwards of a thousand remained. They weren’t even alphabetical. They were listed in order of taking up duties.

He’d been at the task about twenty minutes when there was a knock and Ingeborg came in. He bent forward to fold his arms protectively over the lists, a reflex action. Clumsy as ever, he found he’d tipped several sheets on the floor. He reached for the walking stick, but Ingeborg stooped to pick them up.

She couldn’t help seeing what they were. ‘How are you getting on with this, guv?’

‘Barely started.’

‘I bet you’ve already found a bunch of Smiths.’

‘Well, I’d expect to.’

‘Smith … my surname.’

He’d been slow to spot this attempt at a peace offering. ‘Oh, I get you,’ he said finally. ‘No, I’m not lining up my own team as possible suspects.’ He leaned back in the chair. The need to be furtive was well over. ‘What did you want?’

‘I found a website called Fairs, Feast-days and Frolics and you can download hundreds of articles on folklore and customs. Stan Richmond definitely wrote about the Hobby Horses.’

‘Did he, by God?’

‘Several places have them. Padstow in Cornwall, Combe Martin in Devon — ’

He raised a finger. ‘Do I need to know this?’

‘I thought you’d be interested.’

‘I’d rather you got to the point.’

Her lips tightened. ‘You could download the piece if you want.’ She knew damned well he wouldn’t.

‘You’ve obviously digested it,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘So what were the tasty bits?’ He watched her wince a little.

‘It’s clear that he visited Minehead at some point and spoke to people on the hobby horse committee.’

‘When was this?’

‘The article was dated 2008.’

‘No chance he interviewed Ossy Hart, I suppose?’

‘Ossy was living in Wells by that time. I guess Stan could have caught up with him there if he wanted to talk about what it’s like acting the Sailor’s Horse, but he doesn’t mention him by name, or list him in the acknowledgements.’

‘If I’ve learned anything from all these years of sleuthing, Inge, it’s that nothing comes easy. At least you’ve found proof of what we suspected — that Stan Richmond knew about the hobby horses.’

‘I’ll get you a printout if you want.’

‘That would help.’ He reached for the lists again.

She stepped to the door, hesitated and turned her head, in Lieutenant Columbo mode. ‘One other thing, guv.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Shouldn’t we be tracing that film man, Cubby, or whatever his real name is?’

‘If we knew his real name, yes,’ he said. ‘Anything you can do to find him would be helpful.’

She smiled. ‘Anything? Like a trip to Hollywood?’

‘That might be hard to explain to our paymasters.’

‘Is there any proof that Cubby also made a cash offer to Stan Richmond?’

‘Not yet. It’s starting to sound possible.’

‘And Harry Tasker? What if he met this guy?’

‘That’s something I hope to find out from his widow. I’m seeing her shortly.’

‘Again? People are going to start talking.’

‘Get outta here.’ But it did him good to know someone on the team still had a spark of humour.

The sight of Bath’s last gasholder didn’t do much for his morale when he drove up and parked across the road from Onega Terrace. Unsightly and outmoded, the great drum of gas seemed to sum up his self-image. He was about to cross the road when a sudden barrage of sound came from behind him. He stepped back and a motorbike that had just started up from a parking place a few cars away zoomed past and away towards the city. The rider was in black, just as the motorcyclist in the woods had been.

Don’t get paranoid, he told himself. There are thousands of these things on the roads and they’re not all out to get you.

The large neighbour opened Emma’s front door, took one look at him and said, ‘Right, I’m off home.’

‘What’s this called — respite?’ he said as she pushed past.

‘Man, I’ve earned it. You can go in.’

He found the angry widow in the living room kneeling on the floor. ‘Watch where you’re walking with those great plod feet,’ she said and he saw that the carpet was littered with CDS. ‘I’m supposed to choose the music for the committal, as they call it. Harry wasn’t a believer, so I don’t want any of that so-called sacred music. When I told them, they said it was up to me. Pick a favourite piece for a send-off, they said. Fat chance of finding anything here. We bought these for easy listening, not a cremation.’

He let his gaze travel the width of the carpet, taking stock of the Taskers’ collection. Most of it would be called retro: big bands, crooners, even skiffle. Difficult to find a farewell piece among that lot. ‘I Did It My Way’ was supposed to be the most popular choice for funerals, but didn’t sound right for a murder victim. He gave some thought to the few facts he knew about Harry’s life and an idea came to him. ‘You may think this is in poor taste.’

‘Try me.’

‘I see you have some Louis Armstrong here. There’s an old Satchmo number with Bing Crosby called “Gone Fishing”.’

Her deep brown eyes locked with his and seemed appalled. Then they slipped aside briefly and came back to him with a gleam of understanding. ‘ “Gone Fishing”?’ The start of a smile lit up her face. ‘That’ll do nicely. He’s gone for sure and if he’s got any choice, fishing is what he’ll be doing.’ She stood up. ‘You can have that tea. Is my neighbour Betty seeing to it?’

‘She went home for a bit.’

‘Lazy cow. I’ll have to make it myself. Tidy up the discs, would you? I won’t be long.’

Left alone in the room, he made a show of poking the CDS with his foot into a smaller area near the fireplace. He wasn’t going to risk kneeling. That done, he inspected the few paperbacks displayed on a built-in unit along one wall. No new insights here. Several by Stephen King and John Grisham, the Police and Constabulary Almanac for 2009, the Observer Book of Freshwater Fish and The Good Guys Wear Black, by Steve Collins. He picked up the last. It was sub-titled The True-Life Heroes of Britain’s Armed Police. Inside were photo illustrations of various SO19 raids. All action. Not his scene. He replaced it.

Emma returned with a mug of tea in each hand. ‘It was two sugars?’

A distinct improvement in relations, courtesy of Louis Armstrong. ‘Thanks. I was looking at your books.’

‘His, not mine. If you want any, take them. No point in me keeping them.’

‘That wasn’t why I mentioned it. I was thinking we don’t know much about Harry except his fishing and his TV viewing.’

‘Why do you want to know?’ She sat in an armchair and gestured to him to do the same.

‘Oddly enough, I know more about the other guys who were shot. Harry was one of our own.’

‘Typical, isn’t it?’ she said, back on her familiar tack. ‘He was just a number and a uniform.’

‘That’s not been my experience.’

‘You got lucky, then.’

‘I did my stint in uniform. I started in the Met a long time ago.’

‘That lot? We were always hearing horror stories of them. We were country cops, in Cornwall at the start. That’s where we met, Harry and I.’

He’d forgotten she was originally in the force with her husband. ‘Which part of Cornwall?’

‘Helston.’

His brain dredged up something Ingeborg had tried to tell him about town customs and traditions. ‘My geography isn’t up to much. Is that anywhere near Padstow?’

She shook her head. ‘Padstow’s a good forty miles away, on the North coast. Why do you ask?’

‘It was a long shot.’ Stupid bloody expression to use, he thought, the moment he’d said it. He’d never been noted for discretion. By some miracle the words got past her, so he followed them up fast. ‘I was trying to find some connection between the three officers who were killed.’

‘The only connection is the sonofabitch who shot them.’

‘There is that note you found.’

‘The “You’re next” thing? Are you taking that seriously?’

‘I can’t ignore it.’

‘That would mean Harry was a marked man and probably the others as well. Did they get notes?’

‘We haven’t found any.’

‘They could have thrown them away. Why did you ask me about Padstow just now? Was one of the others from Padstow?’

‘No.’ This was as good an opening as he was likely to get. ‘But there is a possible link between the first two victims, Ossy Hart and Stan Richmond. It may amount to nothing. When you said you served in Cornwall, I remembered that the town of Padstow has a hobby horse ceremony.’

‘What?’ All the good work of the past ten minutes went for nothing. She glared as if she’d caught him stealing underwear.

‘The locals call it ’obby ’oss,’ he said.

‘Now you’ve lost me altogether.’

‘Hold on.’ He launched into an explanation: the origin of Ossy’s name and the Minehead May Day celebration and the fact that Stan Richmond devoted his spare time to the study of such things.

She still looked at him as if he was talking bilge, so he threw in the added ingredient of the film man and thousands of dollars. Now it was all out in the open and he felt only the chill of her stare.

‘I don’t know if I’ve understood you,’ she said finally, ‘but you seem to be suggesting they were shot because of this horsing around in Minehead. Is that it?’

‘It’s an incomplete theory,’ he said, wishing already that he’d kept it to himself.

‘You’re hoping I’m about to say something that will make sense of it all?’

‘I’m not expecting anything.’

‘You won’t get anything. The reason they were shot — all three of them — is that some evil bastard hates the police and wants to kill as many as he can. While you waste time on weird theories, he’s no doubt lining up the next one.’

‘We’re actively pursuing him, ma’am,’ he said, thinking of Jack Gull and his armed police on watch in Avoncliff. ‘It’s not just down to me.’

‘I should hope not. In the state you’re in, you couldn’t actively pursue the last man out at closing time.’

There wasn’t much point in continuing. He reached for his stick and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Do me a favour,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’ He prepared for one more crushing putdown.

‘Come to the funeral on Thursday.’

His voice shrilled in surprise. ‘Me?’

‘I don’t know any of the Manvers Street lot except you. A few of Harry’s relief are coming, but they’re only names to me.’

‘I hardly knew him myself.’

‘You thought of “Gone Fishing”. Saved me hours of headache. The least I can do is ask you to be there. And you don’t suffocate me with sympathy. Come for my sake. 3 P.M. at Haycombe.’

Haycombe wouldn’t be easy. He’d been to the same crematorium for Steph’s funeral. But for all her carapace of toughness, this woman was in mourning, and he knew what that was like.

‘All right. I will.’

‘And join us after, for a drink and some snacks,’ she added.

‘Okay.’

She came to the door with him. ‘All that hobby horse stuff is bunk. Don’t waste time on it.’