Cop to Corpse

24

In the morning Peter Diamond put in a later appearance than usual. The word had spread in CID that he’d personally arrested the Somerset Sniper overnight, but it hadn’t been the triumph it might have been. At the scene, the capture had been messy. Back at the nick, he owed the team an apology. Almost every line of enquiry he’d initiated had been shown as mistaken. No one was going to forget that his focus had been closer to home. They hadn’t missed the irony that he, of all people, had nicked a man who by all accounts wasn’t a serving officer, an ex-officer or even a civilian employed by the police.

So it wasn’t going to be a case of round to the pub, lads, we nailed this together. No one knew what the big man’s mood would be.

He looked none the worse for his wrestling match on the riverbank — except for what he was wearing: a houndstooth sports jacket with leather elbow patches, grey flannel trousers and crepe-soled canvas shoes. God only knew where he stored such relics. There was a distinct smell of mothballs. His movement was ponderous, as if every muscle was stiff, yet he wasn’t carrying the stick and the limp had gone as he passed through the CID room on the way to his office.

Actually he sounded energized. ‘Morning, people. Ingeborg and Paul, I need to hear from you about last night.’ He left the door open.

Looks were exchanged. It seemed to be business as usual, regardless that the main suspect was under arrest in the cells downstairs.

‘What did you come up with?’

In his office, Ingeborg played along, assisted by Paul Gilbert, with a short account of their walkthrough of Harry Tasker’s beat, how they’d got the tip that Anderson Jakes might have information and where they’d tracked him down and what he had to tell them about Harry’s possible dealings with Soldier Nuttall’s son, Royston.

‘It’s all academic now,’ she added. ‘In view of the arrest last night, we don’t need to pursue this.’

‘Why not?’ Diamond said.

‘It’s dirty linen, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t talk to me about dirty linen. Both my suits are at the cleaner’s.’

‘Guv, no one wants bad stuff like this to come out, even if it’s true. Harry’s funeral is on Thursday.’

‘I thought I made myself clear at the meeting the other day. If Harry was up to no good, it has to come out. Nothing is off limits.’

‘But we’ve got a man in custody.’

‘Has he confessed, then?’

‘Not yet. I don’t think they’ve got much out of him.’

Paul Gilbert added, ‘He seems to be claiming the right to silence. But they’ve sent his shoes to forensics and taken his prints and we’ll soon know if he’s the killer.’

‘Shows how much you know about forensics,’ Diamond said. ‘Don’t hold your breath.’

Gilbert gave a queasy smile.

‘He’s within his rights not to say anything.’ Diamond’s mouth curved in a way that wasn’t charitable. ‘He’s Jack Gull’s catch. Well, more or less. Jack always believed the guy in the woods is the killer and that’s who we nicked and now he can go to town on him. We’re pursuing our own line of enquiry. This Royston sounds like someone we should speak to. Where does he hang out?’

Suppressing a sharp, intolerant sigh, Ingeborg said, ‘Claverton Down. He lives with his father.’

‘Soldier Nuttall?’

‘Right.’ The triple nod she gave said it all about Nuttall’s reputation.

‘Is the kid employed?’

‘It seems not. He’s a young man of independent means, thanks to his father. A bit of a wheeler-dealer, according to Anderson. What he deals in wasn’t made clear, except it’s a cut above what most of the others handle.’

‘Sounds like hard drugs. And he’s a night bird, obviously. This morning might be a good time to find him at home.’

A little of the colour drained from Ingeborg’s cheeks. ‘You want us to go to the house?’

‘It’s a lot easier than trailing around the streets at night. I’d better come with you.’

‘I can handle it,’ she said quickly.

‘Put it another way. I need to come with you. When there’s a suspicion a police officer was corrupt, I have a duty to get involved.’

She eyed him warily, suspicious that he was being over-protective. ‘What about Paul?’

‘It won’t take three of us.’ He turned to Gilbert. ‘Have a quiet word with the PCSOs who share that city beat with Harry Tasker. If he was on the take as we now suspect, they’ll surely have heard a whisper.’

Before leaving the office, he eyed the overflowing in-tray. The morning’s mail had been heaped on top of yesterday’s. With care, so as not to spill everything on the floor, he extracted those sheets listing the personnel at Wells, Radstock and Bath. He held them over the waste-paper bin. And then some inner prompting made him hesitate. He stuffed them into his top drawer. On the way out, he turned to Keith Halliwell and casually asked him to deal with the mail. Opening letters was all too boring for a man of action.

Down at Avoncliff, three of Avon and Somerset’s underwater search unit were following up Diamond’s report of a loud splash in the river. A rigid inflatable boat was secured with lines from the bank and the first diver and his attendant were aboard and ready to start.

‘What exactly are we looking for here?’ the constable in the scuba diving suit asked before taking the plunge.

‘Mr. Diamond said it was heavier than a bird and lighter than a body,’ the sergeant in charge said from the riverbank. ‘Think of it as a lucky dip,’

‘If it was a branch off a tree it would have floated away.’

‘And we wouldn’t want to find it, would we? He thinks it was an object slung in the water by the guy they arrested last night.’

‘The sniper? Maybe it’s his gun.’

‘That would be the top result. I suggest you stop going on about it and go down and have a look.’

The diver nodded, adjusted his mask and tipped off the side of the dinghy.

He wasn’t down for long.

He bobbed to the surface and gave a thumb-down sign.

‘What’s wrong?’ the sergeant asked.

The diver pushed up his visor. ‘Visibility almost nil. Do we have the sonar equipment?’

Their grey USU van was nearby. The operation was halted for a while.

Even with sonar, and after several dives, nothing seemed to be down there.

The sergeant studied his map and said to the diver’s assistant, ‘I hope this is the right stretch of river. They could have left a cone here to help us.’

‘They like to test us out.’

The diver submerged again. He took much longer.

‘Not a bad spot,’ the sergeant said, looking at the wooded hills surrounding them. ‘There’s a good pub a short walk from here. Do you know the Inn at Freshford? Nice old place with a packhorse bridge. If he doesn’t surface soon, I’ll be off there for a pint.’

Then the water churned and the diver’s head and shoulders came to the surface.

‘Got something?’ the sergeant said.

He poured the water from his find and held it up: a motorcycle helmet, black and shiny. ‘Hasn’t been down there long,’ he said. ‘It’s in good nick. Why would anyone want to chuck this away?’

Diamond continued to function as if he were high on caffeine. ‘Jack’s done us a bloody good turn,’ he said to Ingeborg as she drove out of the police station in her shiny Ford Ka. ‘All the media interest is going to be on the man he’s holding. We can come and go as we like.’

‘Isn’t he the sniper, then?’

‘I honestly don’t know. All I can tell you for sure is he tried damned hard to get away.’

‘Wasn’t he armed?’

‘They looked in the rucksack and all he was carrying were a few apples and a cut loaf.’

‘Money?’

‘A few quid in his trouser pocket.’

‘What was he doing by the river?’

‘Same as me, I expect. Trying to avoid being picked off by one of Jack’s sharpshooters.’

‘So you think he knew the stakeout was in place?’

‘Most likely. If he is the sniper, he’s been smart avoiding arrest all these weeks. He’s not going to blow it by being too obvious.’

‘And if it isn’t him?’ Ingeborg said as she steered left and they crossed the Avon at Churchill Bridge and approached one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s oddest indulgences, his railway viaduct disguised as a castle wall.

‘It will have been some ne’er-do-well out late. Didn’t stop him spotting one or other of the firearms team and steering a wide berth. Do you know where Soldier Nuttall lives?’

‘I must have passed the gate a hundred times,’ she said, not wanting to be patronised. She moved out to overtake a farm vehicle. ‘There’s something else I ought to tell you, guv. Last night when we were doing the rounds and questioning people, someone told me about a blog she’d been looking at. Sounds as if it’s posted by some woman who reckons a friend’s partner has been acting suspiciously.’

‘In what way?’

‘Staying out all night, secretive, refusing to answer questions.’

‘Male?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not uncommon,’ he said. ‘It’s known as playing away.’

She gave him a world-weary look. ‘How does it help us?’ he asked.

‘It appears they live in Bath. The blog never says so, but when you read it carefully, there’s enough to tell you she’s located here. I visited the site this morning and I’m satisfied it can’t be anywhere else. This guy is obviously up to no good and the woman is terrified.’

‘Not just a wandering husband?’

‘It’s got the feel of something much more serious.’

‘Get in touch with the blogger, then.’

‘I wish we could. She’s taken good care she can’t be traced. I guess she feels freer to write whatever she likes.’

‘Can’t be traced? I don’t follow you. We’ve got hackers who can break into anything.’

‘Not this. It’s a site that uses an elaborate relay system, bouncing anything that’s posted on it from point to point until no one can get back to the source. Intelligence agencies use it to disseminate their own information, but they’ve never succeeded in cracking it.’

He gave a nod of approval. ‘In a way it’s heartening to hear there’s something computers can’t do — until you realise it’s been set up by a bloody computer.’

‘People are involved as well. Do you want to look at it when we get back?’

‘I’d better. We can’t neglect anything.’ His head turned. ‘Hey, did you notice that — an old-fashioned sweetshop with big glass jars in the window?’ He’d spotted the display in Widcombe Parade, along Claverton Street, in a row of shops with traditional fronts that supposedly imparted a ‘village’ feel to them.

After a pause, Ingeborg said, ‘You don’t do much shopping, do you, guv?’

‘Why?’

‘They’re opening everywhere, old sweetshops, every town on the tourist map, anyway. Don’t ask me why. I don’t bother with them.’

‘Sweet enough?’

She didn’t say so, but she found the comment about as cringe-making as the outfit he was wearing.

Widcombe Hill morphs into Claverton Down Road a mile out of the city and then loops around the contour and doubles back. At almost the farthest point out, Ingeborg swung the little car into a space in front of a set of closed iron gates.

‘This is it.’

A straight drive between lawns led to a large three-storey building. Block-like in shape, the house had an institutional look, rows of windows as regular as a prison. But it was heavily clad in some climbing plant like wisteria that had established such a good hold that it reached to the eaves.

‘Wouldn’t be my choice,’ Diamond said.

She shrugged. ‘Up here, the air’s easier to breathe than it is in Bath through most of the summer. Prime location and plenty of land. I bet you wouldn’t get much change out of ten million.’

‘Let’s see how we get in.’

A notice on the gatepost informed them: Callers strictly by appointment. Video surveillance in operation. High voltage protection. Guard dogs patrolling.

‘And a hundred thousand welcomes,’ Diamond said. He pressed the entryphone button and put his head close to the mesh. Nothing happened and the gates stayed shut.

‘Maybe you should say something into it,’ Ingeborg suggested.

‘Like: open up, it’s the Old Bill?’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of: special call for Mr. Royston Nuttall with something to his advantage.’

‘You try, then. You’ve obviously got the patter and you’ll look better on the video.’

She tried and those assets made no difference.

Diamond inspected the perimeter wall. It was brick-built, all of eight feet high and topped with what looked like a triple electric cable strung along its length. He ruled out climbing. ‘The gates look as if they might open with a little persuasion.’ He gripped the left side and pushed. The base was anchored to a grooved arc in the ground, but there was some movement higher up. ‘I could squeeze through, at a pinch.’

From nowhere obvious, a black Dobermann flung itself at the gate, all teeth and snarling. Diamond withdrew his fingers just in time. ‘Not such a great idea.’

Ingeborg produced her mobile. ‘Shall we try phoning the house?’

‘I have a feeling they’re ex-directory, but no harm in trying.’

No joy.

‘If it wasn’t for the dog, we could get in,’ he said.

‘I know how to deal with the dog,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Shoot it?’

She told him her plan.

‘I’m willing to try,’ he said.

They got in the car and drove back to the shops at Widcombe Parade. In the traditional sweetshop they asked for aniseed balls and a strong tin to put them in. ‘It acts like catnip except it’s dogs who go for it,’ Ingeborg told him. ‘He’ll be far more interested in these than your fingers.’

Beside the river, the sergeant was looking at his watch. The search was taking longer than he’d estimated. He’d sent for reinforcements and now had two men underwater and they’d moved a short distance downstream. Closer to the pub, but not close enough for his liking. He’d call a halt soon.

He didn’t have long to wait. One head surfaced and then another.

They didn’t appear to have brought anything up. The searching of river bottoms can be unrewarding. Mud and reeds make it difficult.

‘No joy?’ he shouted, with joy of his own in mind.

‘It’s okay, we hit the jackpot this time,’ one of the constables said, ‘but we’re going to need lifting gear.’

‘For Christ’s sake — what is it?’

‘A bloody great motorbike.’

Diamond and Ingeborg returned up the hill and tried the conventional entryphone once again and still got no response. Ingeborg opened the tin and tipped out one of the aniseed balls just out of the Dobermann’s reach at the far end of the gate. The dog was there at once, muzzle through the bars, sniffing strongly. Ingeborg put down two more, taking care not to handle them. One rolled close enough for the dog to twist its head sideways and scoop up. The sweet was crunched in those powerful jaws. ‘That should improve his breath.’

‘Will it improve his behaviour?’ Diamond said.

‘Why not give it a go and see?’

Tentatively, he put his shoulder to the gate. The dog paid no attention, fully absorbed with the challenge of reaching the remaining aniseed balls. Diamond increased the pressure, forced a space and squeezed through. On the other side, with the Dobermann for company, he said, ‘Hurry up. I don’t fancy standing here for long.’

Ingeborg eased herself through and they walked at a quick rate up the tiled drive towards the house, leaving the dog to work on its tantalising problem.

‘It all seems strangely quiet,’ Ingeborg said. ‘The lawns are well mown. They must have staff.’

‘Part-time, I’d say. It’s low-maintenance, grass and trees. Not a single flowerbed.’

As they approached the front, Diamond pointed to more cameras. ‘Before we declare ourselves, let’s see what else there is.’ He’d spotted some outbuildings to the right of the main house. An open-sided barn contained two motor-mowers, a four-by-four, a red Porsche and a powerful-looking motorbike. Behind it were a woodshed and a couple of locked buildings that probably contained tools.

‘Would that be the bike that ran you down?’ Ingeborg asked.

‘It was all too sudden. I wouldn’t know.’

‘Might be worth getting a print of the tyres.’

‘What with?’

‘Later, then. Fancy a swim?’ Ingeborg said, moving on. Shimmering in the sunlight, tiled blue, green and gold, and enclosed by Romanesque columns, the pool looked more California than Claverton Down. It was at least thirty metres by twenty and deep enough to have a springboard. At the far end was a whirlpool and a building that probably housed a sauna.

‘An hour on one of those recliners with a beer would do me the most good,’ he said. ‘What’s over there — a games room?’ Behind the house and some distance away he had seen a long, low wooden building with shingle roofing. ‘No, it’s a firing range. Let’s go over.’

A private range fitted in with the ethos of Fight for Britain. And this one was on a military scale. The target lines on gently rising ground were set at what must have been four hundred metres and backed with sandbags. A higher set of butts was at about six hundred metres.

The covered stand where the shooting was done had a gate on a latch and a safety notice. Diamond and Ingeborg let themselves in. It was wide enough to take up to ten guns. The flooring was coconut matting on Astroturf over what felt like a concrete base. Clearly it was well maintained. They weren’t stepping on used cartridge casings. Diamond paced the length of it, weighing the significance of the find. You didn’t expect a military-style range in private grounds. As far as he was aware, it was legal provided that the weapons were licensed, but he doubted if anyone except the owner and his private army knew the scale of this place. The remote location meant no neighbour was likely to be disturbed by the gunfire.

‘Guv, have you seen these?’

Ingeborg had been rummaging at the back of the stand. She picked up a large cardboard target with the usual black circles on a white background — usual, except that this one was mounted on a lifesize silhouette of a police officer with helmet.

His blood ran cold for a moment. ‘Nasty.’

He knew you could buy targets of hate figures like Bin Laden. This was a variation he hadn’t seen. And he doubted if it could be prosecuted.

Turning away, he stared into the distance, imagining the sight of up to ten of the target figures spread across the landscape at six hundred metres. If it wasn’t so sinister in the light of the recent killings, the sight of all those helmets might seem comical. He could imagine Soldier Nuttall’s recruits thinking it funny.

Silent now, he moved forward a short way. Beyond the matting the Astroturf extended for about thirty metres before the real grass took over. When he stepped on it there was a difference in sound, a drumming effect. He brought his foot down more heavily. ‘Must be hollow underneath. Give me a hand,’ he said to Ingeborg.

They found the edge and rolled the Astroturf back like a carpet to reveal some board panels. ‘Let’s have one of these up.’

The panel was about two metres square and took some lifting, but Diamond was insistent and they prised it up and hefted it aside. Below was a deep cavity.

‘Storage space?’ Ingeborg said.

‘I wonder how deep it is.’ He squatted, perched himself on the edge and dangled his legs. ‘I can see a wall ladder here. I’m going down.’

‘Careful,’ Ingeborg said. ‘You could get injured again.’

He turned, got a foot on one of the rungs, and started to descend. ‘A torch would be useful.’

‘Don’t know where we’ll get one unless I go back to the car,’ Ingeborg said.

‘I’d rather you kept guard. There was a time when I’d have carried a cigarette lighter.’

He continued down until his head was below the opening. ‘Strange. I’ve come to the bottom of the ladder and it hasn’t connected with the floor.’ Then the explanation dawned. ‘I know what this is. The walls are tiled. It’s another swimming pool — empty fortunately — and this must be the deep end.’

‘Better leave it,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Can’t be all that deep. They don’t make private pools really deep.’ He began lowering his handhold until he was in a crouched position on the lowest rung. Then he hung his right leg below the ladder and just made contact with the floor. ‘As I thought. Not so far down.’ He let himself down completely. It was a relief to stand upright. His suspect leg had started aching. ‘Could you roll back the turf a little more and give me some extra light?’

‘It’s back as far as it will go,’ she called down.

‘Hold on. There’s some flex hanging here. I think I’ve found a light switch.’ He pressed it and got the flicker of strip lighting that presently came on fully and showed him the entire area. ‘Would you believe it?’

‘What’s down there?’ Ingeborg asked.

‘This is the armoury.’

He’d not seen so much weaponry in one place. There must have been fifteen purpose-built wooden racks ranged across the width of the pool, each stacked with rifles and sub-machine-guns. He was no expert, but everyone has seen the ubiquitous Kalashnikov on film and in print and he was pretty certain there were military weapons from other East European countries and Germany, all systematically clipped into place and grouped by type. It had the look of an efficient, well-maintained arsenal.

He was staggered by the find, here in Claverton, less than a mile from Manvers Street. No private citizen should own a sub-machine-gun. Plenty did illegally, of course. The international trade was huge. At one time the KGB was giving them away to foment terrorism. But he’d always thought Bath was the most unlikely place to attract illicit arms. He didn’t doubt that it was shotgun territory. Countrymen liked their sport. Weapons like these were something else.

‘Guv, are you coming up?’ Ingeborg called down.

‘Give me a moment more.’ He was checking the extent of the collection, pacing between the racks and counting. He also needed time to think how to deal with this. There were new priorities now. What had started as a house-call to speak to a seventeen-year-old about suspected drug-dealing had turned into a major illegal arms find that could see Soldier Nuttall put away for years.

‘Guv, time’s going on.’

Finally he returned to the ladder and switched out the light. As he hauled himself up the rungs he said to Ingeborg, ‘You should see it. Mind-blowing.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. We’re over-running.’

‘I know. If this was James Bond, you can bet someone would have crept up on us by now with a gun and caught us red-handed.’

‘Why do you think I was calling out?’

‘There isn’t anyone, is there?’

‘It could still happen. We’re not equipped for heroics.’

‘Looking at what’s down there, we’ll need the SAS to raid this place. It’s huge. More than seventy high velocity rifles, and they’re not for shooting grouse, believe me.’ He climbed out of the space and with Ingeborg’s assistance replaced the board and rolled the Astroturf into place. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Exactly as we found it. Bond could learn a thing or two from me.’

The motorbike in the river had been a rewarding discovery in more ways than one, for it made a break necessary while a truck with a lifting mechanism was called out from Bath. The underwater searchers had now returned from their late pub lunch and were filling the time making a further survey of the stretch where all the action had taken place the previous night. Besides the motorcycle helmet and the bike they’d found some rusty farm tools, a bucket and some bottles.

The staff in the incident room at Bath sounded excited about the bike. They informed the search party about the motorcyclist in Becky Addy Wood who had almost run over Peter Diamond. The evidence was stacking up nicely, according to Jack Gull, the head of the Serial Crimes Unit, although he put it in more colourful language.

Gull was lost for words of any description when they called him twenty minutes later. One of the search teams had just emerged from the water holding the day’s star discovery, a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle.