‘Downhill. sir.’
‘Towards Bradford?’
‘Towards the canal, anyway.’
The Kennet and Avon Canal ran through the bottom of the Limpley Stoke valley parallel to the river and the railway. At the town of Bradford on Avon it diverted south. The sniper had apparently escaped this way yesterday. In the planning for tonight, Diamond had predicted he would use the Westwood route.
Big mistake.
He held out his hand. ‘Map.’ One was provided. ‘How will he do it? He’ll need to cross the canal.’
‘And the river,’ Gull said, as if pursuit would be impossible. ‘And the railway.’ He was increasingly negative about the whole operation.
‘Okay, let’s deal with this,’ Diamond said, studying the map. ‘The nearest crossing point is the aqueduct at Avoncliff where the canal crosses the river and the railway. I know it. I’ve been there. It’s a footbridge as well. Once across, he can pick up a footpath heading into Winsley and he’s away if we don’t stop him.’ He turned to Gull. ‘Let’s get men down there and block it.’
‘Why the fuck didn’t we do this already?’
‘It wasn’t my call, was it?’
‘You had a voice in the planning.’
‘Yes, and I thought he’d come by way of Westwood and I was wrong. Slap my wrist if you want, Jack. This is spilt milk.’
Gull rolled his eyes and said nothing.
‘But we’ve got to be careful here,’ Diamond resumed. ‘A small team of armed officers for the aqueduct, yes, but the main force may be needed elsewhere. Actually, it doesn’t look as if he’s making for Avoncliff. He’s at the far end of the wood, the eastern edge. Would he trek all that way and then double back? I don’t think so. He seems to be heading along the side of the canal.’
‘Where there’s no crossing point.’
‘There is. Look here.’ Diamond tapped the map. ‘The swing bridge by the sewage farm.’
Gull wasn’t used to being corrected. He took a brief, disbelieving glance and had to admit he was wrong. ‘But that only gets him across the canal. He won’t get over the river without swimming for it.’
‘He doesn’t need to. If he follows the towpath all the way through this green bit — the countryside park — he’ll reach the Frome Road eventually. Or if he doesn’t use the swing bridge and stays this side of the canal he can come through Grip Wood, rough going, no towpath, but better cover.’
Grip Wood, on the south bank, looked about as long as Becky Addy and would be just as dense. The strips of woodland must have been linked in ancient times when most of the valley was forested.
‘What we do,’ Diamond said, ‘is transfer our main firepower to this side of the Frome Road south of Bradford. We put stops on the towpath and all points east of the country park.’
‘If he’s armed with his sniper rifle now it’s going to be a bloodbath.’
‘AFOs are trained to deal with exactly this kind of situation.’
‘All of this depends on him taking the canal route.’
‘True. I’m relying on Oscar One to keep us updated.’
The downside was that Oscar One had gone silent, presumably already doing his covert surveillance.
Gull marched over to the senior firearms officer to pass on the new orders. He had virtually ceded control to Diamond. The trickery over the fireworks had deflated him. Although both men had been guilty of errors, Supergull with his loudhailer had insisted on the high profile and made a public fool of himself.
A small team was dispatched down to the Avoncliff Aqueduct, but the main firepower would be posted to the opposite end, where Diamond had predicted the sniper would be heading, this side of the Frome Road. The men would be driven there in their minibuses and they should have time to find cover. It would take the sniper on foot at least another twenty minutes.
Diamond thought about getting in radio contact with John Leaman and telling him to divert most of the men in Westwood to the new point of ambush. Unarmed as they were, they could be useful as observers, but their presence would complicate the operation. Best keep it simple, he decided.
‘Do you want a piece of the action?’ he asked Gull.
‘You mean by the road?’
‘You’re armed.’
‘It’s only a sodding handgun. I’ll be of more use at the aqueduct.’
‘As you wish.’
So it was Diamond armed only with a crutch who joined the firearms team heading for the minibuses. He was too hyped up to care about personal safety. All this could soon be over if he got the sniper’s thinking right this time. What he needed was an update from Oscar One. Frustratingly, nothing was coming through on the radio.
Two buses had been driven down from Upper Westwood to the rendezvous at the bend of the road. When the first had filled, he clambered aboard and took the single seat across from the driver. In their body armour laden with radios, tasers, plasticuffs and cutters, torches and handguns, the men needed two seats each. Tension was high. No one, however well trained and experienced, could feel confident being transported to a new, unseen location. Little was said as the wheels bumped over the rough ground and back onto the more even surface.
Getting impatient, Diamond checked that his radio was still switched on, the volume turned high. To be fair, he hadn’t instructed Oscar One to make regular reports on the sniper’s movements. Maybe that was another error on his part. He shouldn’t have assumed it would happen. After all, who was Oscar One? Not one of these macho AFOs, but some young bobby who spent most of his duty time behind a desk. Pure chance had catapulted him into this crucial role. He couldn’t be expected to know what to do in pursuit of a killer. It was enough to hope he had the savvy to remain unseen.
A voice could be heard over the heavy drone of the engine in low gear powering them up the steep incline. Not from Diamond’s radio. One of the firearms officers was speaking at the back of the bus. ‘He’s scum. He’s totalled three of our lads, doing their job.’
Diamond turned around. ‘I don’t know who was speaking just then. What you said is fair comment, but getting angry won’t help any of us do the job. We have standards, right?’
‘You don’t need to tell us, guv,’ another voice said. ‘We’ve done the training.’
Someone else spoke. ‘Angry or not, we’re still supposed to take him out.’
‘Out of action, yes,’ Diamond said. ‘Get this straight, all of you. The object is to take the man alive, disable him if need be, but not to kill him. A corpse full of bullets will be a failure. Do that and we’ll all find ourselves on a public enquiry being ripped to shreds by some lawyer. We’re police officers in pursuit of an armed suspect. Doesn’t mean we shoot to kill. Too many deadly mistakes have been made by armed officers in the past. It’s not our aim to add to them.’
More was probably said that he didn’t hear. He understood the strength of feeling against the sniper, but he wanted an arrest, not a revenge killing. The pressure of a shootout, the real thing, would test these young officers to a degree no amount of training had prepared them for. Mishandled, this operation could turn into a nightmare.
They were driven fast through Upper Westwood. With his acute discomfort at any speed over forty, Diamond now regretted choosing the front seat, the more so when they swung left and started down the ultra-narrow Jones Hill. Tall hedgerows caught in the headlights accentuated the velocity. Occasionally an overgrown bramble scraped the side of the bus. He put a hand to his face as if scratching his head and peered through the slits between his fingers.
‘Where do I put you down?’
‘What?’ he uncovered his eyes. They’d done the descent and were approaching the Frome Road, the southern route into Bradford on Avon.
The driver didn’t repeat the question. It was plain enough.
Diamond unfolded the map and took a rapid decision. ‘There’s a place called Victory Field. Over the bridge and sharp left.’
Before they disembarked, he conferred with the senior man. Protocol mattered now. The armed response team expected to run their own show, but the strategy, such as it was, was being decided at a higher level.
It was agreed Diamond should issue instructions to everyone. ‘We can’t say which side of the canal the
