‘Mr. and Mrs. Murphy. They’re old.’
‘And above them?’
‘Mr. Willis, some kind of civil servant.’
‘How long have the old people lived here?’
‘Since it was built, I reckon.’
‘About 1800?’
She giggled. ‘I could be wrong about that. A long time, for sure. They know everything about the place. They’re lovely, the sweetest people you could hope to have as neighbours. They take things in for me when I’m at work.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, no, I’ve just remembered.’
‘Something important?’
‘I have a Sunday job at Waitrose. Will I be allowed to go soon?’
‘A job doing what?’ He couldn’t picture her coping with the checkout.
‘Round the back, preparing chickens for the spit.’
‘And what do you do in the week?’
‘Cosmetics — in Jolly’s.’
Out in the street in front of the Paragon, he briefed the scene-of-crime team who had just arrived and were getting into their blue protective suits. The vacant flat had to be gone over in case the sniper had spent time there. And there were two possible incidents in the garden to investigate. First, he suspected the sniper had been there and fired from the railing at the end. The spent cartridge cases might well be waiting to be found. In addition, he hoped for powder residue that might be used in evidence. Second, some time after the shooting, Ken Lockton had been hit over the head and there ought to be traces of his attacker and possibly the implement he’d used.
The CSI team leader was confident of results until he saw the state of the garden. He commented that it looked as if a tank regiment had been through pursued by a herd of buffalo.
Diamond wasn’t in a mood to smile. ‘Come on — it’s no size. It’s a postage stamp.’
‘A well-franked postage stamp.’
He turned away, shaking his head.
Keith Halliwell came down from interviewing the sweet old couple, the Murphys. They’d slept through everything until the firearms unit went through their flat. Hadn’t heard the shooting, or the sirens. The presence of four heavily armed men at their door had come as a strong surprise. The armed officers had failed to get across the reason for their visit. Sweet old Mr. Murphy kept a shillelagh behind the door. He’d bruised a few legs, he claimed. Probably the firearms lads were ashamed to admit to the assault.
The old couple could be ruled out as principal witnesses, but they had intriguing information about the civil servant who lived above them. Sean Willis had occupied the top flat for two years He worked in the Ministry of Defence and belonged to a gun club in Devizes.
This had to be followed up fast.
‘We’ll see him together,’ Diamond told Halliwell.
They marched straight into Willis’s flat. There was splintered wood where the door had been forced. ‘Anyone about?’
The tenant was slow in answering and when he did he was unwelcoming. ‘Who do you think you are, invading my home?’ Thirtyish, tall, lean, tanned, and with a black ponytail, Sean Willis wasn’t the popular image of a civil servant. Sunday gear for him was a sleeveless black top and matching chinos.
Diamond told him who they were.
‘That doesn’t give you the right to walk in here without so much as a by your leave. I’ve taken photos.’
‘Of what?’ Diamond asked.
‘The evidence.’
‘Are you telling us you have evidence in here?’
‘Of the wreckage after your heavy mob went through my flat.’
Diamond said in a few sharp words that a police officer had been murdered and he was making no apologies for the armed search. ‘For all we knew, the killer could have been in here with a gun at your head.’
‘In which case, I’d be dead by now,’ Willis said. ‘Your people weren’t exactly subtle. The way they burst in would put the frighteners on anyone.’
‘Leave it,’ Diamond said through his teeth. ‘We’ve work to do. I’d like to see the view from the back of the flat.’
‘And I’d like you to witness the damage they did, because I fully intend to sue.’
Inside, the reason for Willis’s outrage became more clear. He was a compulsive personality. The place was tidy to the point of obsession. It would have been immaculate before the armed response unit went through. Pictures and mirrors shone. Books were displayed according to size and colour, magazines stacked like a deck of playing cards on a shining glass table. The carpets must have been vacuumed the previous evening. All this made the open cupboards and their avalanche of contents spread across the floor, clearly dragged out by the gun team searching for the sniper or his weapon, look more of an outrage than it was.
Diamond wasn’t being sidetracked. The windows that interested him were at the back of the house, with original sash frames, two in the sitting room and one in the bedroom. All three would provide a direct line of sight to the stretch of Walcot Street where Harry Tasker had been shot. He checked the sitting room windows and — as you would expect with such a fastidious owner — each moved so well it could be raised with one finger on the brass fitting.
The bedroom looked like a hotel room after the maid had been through, everything folded and in place. Except that the lower section of the window was pushed up.
‘Why is this open?’
Willis said as if to a child, ‘Airing the room.’
‘Anyone airing the room would pull the top window down. You were watching what was going on.’
‘That’s no crime.’
‘Did you hear the shooting?’
‘I’m a heavy sleeper. The first I knew was all the sirens going. Shops, ambulance, police cars. They’d have woken anybody.’
‘Were you conscious at any time of other people in the house?’
Willis rolled his eyes upwards. ‘These are apartments. Other people live here.’
‘Unusual sounds?’
‘No.’
‘You’re a marksman, I heard.’
He hesitated. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Is it true?’
‘Shooting is a hobby of mine, yes. Competition shooting.’
‘What are we talking here — a rifle?’
‘Mainly.’
‘So you own one?’
‘Three, in point of fact.’
Diamond kept the same even tone of voice. ‘Where do you keep them?’
‘Not here. That would really play into the hands of you people wanting a quick arrest.’
‘I’m ignoring that remark,’ Diamond said. ‘Answer my question, please.’
‘Under lock and key in my club at Devizes, twenty miles’ drive, whichever route you choose.’
Keep the pressure on, Diamond decided. This man isn’t as calm as he wants to appear. ‘You have a car, then? Where is it?’
‘Where I left it, I hope, in Beehive Yard.’
‘Key, please.’
‘I don’t think you have the right.’
‘If we aren’t given the key, Mr. Willis, I’ll tell you what we do have — a small spring-loaded device that smashes car windows.’
The threat of more damage to his property was too much for the overparticular civil servant. He handed across the key and volunteered the make, colour and registration.
