‘Christina, one of the PCSOs, drove them in. She has a good way with people.’
‘Good choice, then. And who have we got supporting Harry Tasker’s widow?’
‘PC Dawn Reed volunteered. She worked with Harry.’
‘I know Dawn. She’ll cope if anyone can. Emma Tasker isn’t easy to help. So what do we have that’s new?’
Leaman produced the preliminary report from ballistics. The misshapen bullet and the cartridge case were now confirmed as from a.45 round.
‘Same fucking gun as he used in Wells and Radstock, as if we hadn’t twigged,’ Jack Gull’s voice boomed from the other side of the room.
‘We’d better wait for their final report before we say that for sure, sir. It may be a G36 like the others, but we can’t say for certain it was the same G36,’ Leaman said in his matter-of-fact manner. He yielded to no one in the pursuit of accuracy.
‘I said it, chum, and you heard me,’ Gull responded. ‘I’m the CIO here and we’re proceeding on the basis that these killings are the work of one individual with one gun.’
Even John Leaman appreciated that you don’t argue with a chief superintendent who skews a point of information into a test of authority.
Typical of Gull, Diamond thought, shouting over the heads of civilian staff as if they didn’t exist. Curbing himself from making something of it, he fixed his mind on the investigation.
‘What I want to know is whether today’s events have told us any more about the suspect.’
‘Plenty,’ Gull said, turning away from the display board. ‘He’s familiar with your routines here in Bath. He must be, to have known PC Tasker was walking that beat in the small hours of Sunday morning. He got into the garden in the Paragon, so either he lived there or knew the place well enough to con his way in. And obviously he’d sussed it out as a perfect place to shoot from. That’s one of his hallmarks, doing his homework before he carries out the killing.’
‘Are you thinking he’s a local?’ Diamond said.
‘Got to be.’
‘Local to Wells and Radstock, too?’ Leaman got in, still smarting from the putdown.
‘And Becky Addy Wood,’ Diamond said. ‘Unless we’re mistaken about the motorcyclist and it was someone else.’
‘No chance,’ Gull said. ‘That was our man. The practice shots in the tree. The hideout. The way he hightailed it when we got near. Obviously he used the wood as his base.’
‘If he’s local,’ Leaman said, ‘why hide in a wood? Why not work from home?’ His dogged logic was starting to sound insubordinate.
Diamond headed off another dustup. ‘Because he doesn’t want to appear suspicious. He may be living with someone else who doesn’t know he owns a gun.’
Gull nodded. ‘Fair point.’
‘Tell me,’ Diamond said. ‘Do we have any fingerprints from the previous shootings?’
‘No fingerprints,’ Gull said. ‘He’s too smart to leave any. Shoe prints. A nice clean set from the tree house he used as a hide in Wells.’
‘But they’re on file here, are they?’ Diamond’s thoughts were still with Willis, the clever-dick civil servant. ‘So at least we have something to compare with, if we come up with a suspect?’
‘If he always wears the same pair of trainers, yes.’
Moving on, Diamond asked, ‘Did you find anything more after I was taken to hospital?’
‘In the woods, you mean? Less than I hoped for. Some boot prints, a few tyre prints, no use until we find the boots and a bike that match them. I’m assuming he buried the rifle somewhere in the wood, but you saw what the ground is like. We could have fingertip searches for a month and still not find it.’
‘He may be back to collect the gun.’
‘I thought of that,’ Gull said. ‘Told the Wiltshire guys to keep a twenty-four watch for the whole of next week. They’re not happy. The chief inspector talks about resources and calls it an Avon and Somerset crime, as if his county has no stake in it. The point is that the sniper isn’t fucking interested in who polices what. He’s as likely to strike next in Wilts as he is here.’
‘That’s if he spots a copper on the beat at night,’ Diamond said. ‘What are we going to do about that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are we going to send out more guys to be shot at?’
Gull frowned. ‘We can’t abandon the streets. The public wouldn’t stand for it.’
‘The public isn’t risking its life. The public can lock its doors and go to bed in safety.’
This flew in the face of modern police procedure. After a pause, Gull said, ‘I don’t know if I’m hearing right. It’s your job and mine to keep the streets safe at night.’
‘We can do that in patrol cars,’ Diamond said. ‘Personally, I’ve never been all that impressed by foot patrols.’
‘You’re on a loser there. Community policing. It’s government policy. Every politician who gets elected calls for a bigger police presence on the streets. The papers scream for it. The public wants it. That’s democracy.’
‘This argument was going on when I first joined the police. Joe Public may feel comforted by the sight of a bobby walking up the high street, but what happens when a crime is committed? They call 999 and expect quick action. That guy on the beat isn’t there before a response car.’
‘Yes, but we can’t measure the deterrent effect. You can’t say how many villains were put off robbing old ladies by the sight of bobbies on the streets.’
‘Not many,’ Diamond said. ‘When old ladies are robbed, it’s in their homes mostly, not outside.’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Gull said. ‘The public sleeps easier at nights knowing we’re out there.’
‘And up and down this country a police officer is assaulted on the streets every twenty minutes.’
‘Don’t quote stats at me, Diamond. Up and down this country includes the West Midlands, Strathclyde and the Met. We’re Avon and Somerset, remember.’
‘Peaceful old Avon and Somerset where upwards of a hundred and fifty officers have been victims of assault over the last year. And what is more — ’
‘A hundred and fifty-one.’
Diamond was halted in mid-flow, but not by Gull. John Leaman had spoken again.
‘What?’
‘A hundred and fifty-one, guv. We’ve got to add you to the list.’
Without intending to, Leaman had defused the argument.
Gull gave a rare smile. ‘He’s right. Some people will do anything to prove a point, even flinging themselves under fucking motorbikes.’
‘In point of fact, gentlemen,’ Diamond said with all the dignity he could muster, ‘I wasn’t in Avon and Somerset at the time. I was in Wiltshire.’
The neighbourhood policing debate stopped there. Fortunately the adrenalin rush of clashing with Gull had stopped Diamond thinking about his injuries. His brain was functioning again.
‘Look at this from the sniper’s point of view,’ he said, getting back to the issue that mattered. ‘The first two shootings, in Wells and Radstock, appear to have been carried out without a hitch. He gave nothing away except a few shoe prints and the inevitable, the calibre of the bullets he used. Today was different. He managed the killing okay, except for losing a cartridge case in the undergrowth, but after that things went belly up. For some reason he got trapped in that garden and could have been caught by Lockton and Stillman. He got lucky when Lockton thought he could act alone, but he was forced to clobber Lockton, which was never in the plan.’
Gull took up the narrative. ‘Yes, and after that, he gets on his bike and drives off to the woods and has another close call. He didn’t reckon on us getting onto him so soon.’
‘By his high standards, today was a mess,’ Diamond summed up. ‘He won’t be feeling so chipper. If, as we believe, he hid the gun in Becky Addy Wood, he’ll be worried that we’ll make a search and find it. He knows that’s difficult, but not impossible. With metal detectors we may locate it. And if he intends to carry out more shootings, he’ll need that gun.’
Gull wasn’t comfortable when Diamond was doing the talking. ‘He’s an expert marksman. He may well have other guns. If so, he could afford to leave it buried, rather than risk going back.’
