A long, tense pause.
‘Result,’ says another voice. ‘The tosser has surrendered.’
Sure enough, a dark figure at the right of the garden is among the mass of thistles, prone. No obvious sign of a weapon.
The black-clad officers take no chance. You don’t mess with a killer. They ‘stack up’ at strategic points, guns at the ready, covering the two senior men who must approach the suspect from behind and handcuff him.
It’s swift and efficient. The pair go in at the charge. The first flings himself across the suspect’s back to be sure he can’t move while the second applies the cuffs. There’s no resistance.
‘Cool.’
Except that the man on top presently says, ‘See what I see?’
‘What’s that?’
He stabs his finger at the two silver pips on the epaulette the suspect is wearing. Then at the mass of blood at the back of his head.
3
‘You can stand down, Super. The Serial Crimes Unit is on the case.’
Without a second look at the lanky young guy in leather jacket and shades who had just appeared on the scene, Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond said, ‘You could have fooled me.’
‘I’m the first to arrive.’
‘Hundred and first, maybe.’
‘The first SCU man.’
‘And you are …?’
‘DI Polehampton. The others will be here shortly.’
‘Having a late breakfast, are they?’
‘Traffic, I expect.’ Irony was lost on this guy. ‘As the first at the scene, I’m taking over.’
‘Oh, yes? You and whose army?’ After almost twenty years in Bath CID, Diamond wasn’t being given the elbow by a twit who looked as if he was straight out of training school.
‘In the name of Chief Super Gull.’
Supergull.
Diamond filed that one away for future use.
Polehampton said, ‘He heads the special team co-ordinating the hunt for the Somerset Sniper.’
‘Special I’ll give you,’ Diamond said.
‘I hope you’re not being sarcastic.’
‘It’s just that I find you hard to believe, Inspector Hampton.’
‘Polehampton. You can speak to Headquarters if you want.’
‘Too busy,’ Diamond said. ‘You speak to them. They’ll tell you this is my patch. The men you see around you are my people and they were first on the scene — fact. They’ve been here since first thing dealing with the murder of a close colleague. None of us are walking away from that.’
‘I can understand that. If you want to stay and observe, you’re welcome, but kindly update me first.’
There was a pause while Diamond reined himself in. Far more was at issue this morning than a spat over who was running the show.
‘Here’s your update,’ he said. ‘Two officers attacked, men we work with every day. One dead and the other may not survive.’
‘
‘He’s just been found, that’s why. Ken Lockton, a uniformed inspector with a serious head injury.’
‘God Almighty — another shooting?’
‘Bludgeoned, they’re saying. The ambulance is on its way. I’m cordoning the area in hope of snaring the skunk who did this.’
‘You’d better carry on, then.’
Diamond walked away, speaking into his personal radio, with far more on his mind than Inspector Polehampton. ‘It is secured? … And the garden? … Is there any hope he’s still alive? … Don’t move him. Make sure his airways are clear and wait for the paramedics.’
At times like this, the basics of first aid leave you feeling more helpless than the victim.
He sprinted up the flight of steps to see for himself. Sprinted up the first ten or eleven, anyway. There were fifty-six and he felt about fifty-six pounds overweight. After emerging at the top, gasping, he turned right, towards a cluster of police vehicles. This second crime scene was in the garden of a house in the Paragon, a mid-eighteenth century terrace where in less dangerous times Jane Austen had stayed on her first visits to the city.
Just as he arrived at the house, so did the ambulance, siren blaring.
He stepped aside for the two paramedics and their stretcher and followed them through the unlit basement flat to the back. You couldn’t call it a garden. There wasn’t a flower in sight, just a mass of weeds, much trampled. Near the front a huddle of armed police stood over a dark shape.
Lockton was face down in nettles.
All Diamond could see of the injury was a matted mess of blood and hair. It was obvious the man was out to the world, but the gravity of his condition was impossible to tell.
Suffocation is the commonest cause of death after a head injury. If the victim is unconscious his tongue relaxes and may block his throat. The paramedics checked this, even though the firearms team said they had already done so, putting two fingers at the angle of the jaw and two at the point and opening the mouth.
They went systematically through the standard tests for signs of life. There seemed to be hope. They applied a mask, lifted him onto the stretcher and carried him through the house to the ambulance.
For everyone left in the garden it was like the hiatus after a funeral. Some of the gun team had removed their helmets and goggles. These men who thrived on action seemed uncertain what to do next until Diamond broke the troubled silence. ‘It’s up to the doctors now. If there’s a chance of saving Ken, they will. The rest of us have work to do. It’s just possible there’s evidence here that hasn’t already been trampled over, so watch where you walk. Leave by the same route. Step one by one towards the wall and go through the house and return to your duties.’
His own duties kept him in the garden longer, assessing. The plot was roughly square, not more than ten metres by ten. Some overgrown roses along the side walls were the only indication that this had once been cultivated. He edged around to the iron railing at the end to check how much he could see of the scene below. From this height everything was scaled down. A diminished Polehampton was in the middle of Walcot Street gesturing to other people, looking about him, trying to appear as if he were in charge. More interesting to Diamond was the clear view of the forensic tent directly across the street. No question: the shooting could have been done from up here.
So many had invaded the small plot, crushing the crop of weeds, that it was impossible to work out where the gunman might have taken aim. Nothing so helpful as an empty cartridge case was visible.
He walked through the musty flat and told the constable on duty at the front to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the building except the crime scene investigation team.
‘Including the residents, sir?’
‘Especially the residents. Are they getting stroppy?’
‘Some are. The armed response lads went through all the flats searching for the sniper.’
‘People don’t take well to that sort of invasion. Okay, if anyone wants to know, we’ll be interviewing them all shortly. Do you know the injured man, Inspector Lockton?’
The constable nodded. ‘Quite well, sir.’ A pause. ‘D’you think he’ll pull through?’
‘We can hope. Popular with the lads, is he?’
‘He got promoted recently.’
‘That isn’t the same thing.’
A faint smile.
‘He’s mustard keen,’ the constable said in an effort to be fair. ‘He does a good job. He was here first thing,
