dismissed the hobby horse connection as hokum were it not for the big bucks said to have been dangled by the American film man. This wasn’t some documentary for television that was being proposed. It was a Hollywood action movie. He could remember some of the set piece chases through carnivals in the Bond films. Everyone knew the millions that went into modern feature films. But was the money real, or just talk? A film in development, or some kind of confidence trick?
He’d speculated on a link with the second victim, the folklore specialist, PC Richmond, and within hours it had been confirmed.
Ingeborg and her surfing of the web had added substance: the evidence that Stan Richmond had made a study of the Minehead hobby horse celebration. There was a strong chance he would have been approached by the same film man and offered money as a consultant.
Two murdered police officers, each with a strong link to the same ritual. But nothing so far tied in with Harry Tasker. His widow Emma had dismissed any connection out of hand. Different as she was from the eerily cheerful Juliet Hart, this lady’s theory of the shooting amounted to the same: ‘Some evil bastard hates the police and wants to kill as many as he can.’ She’d refused to believe that the ‘You’re Next’ note meant Harry was a marked man.
A movement from the sergeant, hands gripping the gun and taking aim, jerked Diamond back to the gravel heap.
‘What is it?’
He could have saved his breath.
Better not distract the guy, he thought.
By degrees, Sergeant Gillibrand relaxed enough to reply. ‘Wildlife,’ he muttered finally.
‘Plenty of badgers hereabouts,’ Diamond said from personal knowledge.
‘That was a small deer.’ The sergeant rested the gun on its side, black and chunky, not much over two feet in length.
‘We could have had venison for supper.’
No answer.
Are those things heavy?’
‘Almost three kilos, guv.’
‘What’s that in words I understand?’
‘Over six pounds.’
‘It’s a G36, is it? Same as the sniper uses?’
‘So they tell us. Want to feel the weight?’
‘No thanks,’ Diamond said. ‘I’ll take your word for it. Guns aren’t my thing.’
Unexpectedly, this got the sergeant going at last. ‘Anyone could learn to use this in ten minutes. The mechanism is dead simple. You’ve got a thirty-round curved magazine.’ The sergeant patted the boxlike lower section with his hand. ‘Basically, the rifle is gas-operated and fires from a closed rotary bolt. When you want to line up the target there’s an optical sight with 1.5 magnification and for conditions like this you clip in the night sight as well. Get the red dot on your target and squeeze the trigger. Simple as that.’
The specifications didn’t interest Diamond. People did. ‘The press keep telling us the sniper is a brilliant marksman. Are you saying he doesn’t need to be?’
‘My mother could fire one of these things.’
‘Get away.’
‘Honest. The sight system makes it a doddle.’
‘If it’s that easy, why is the firearms course such a big deal?’
‘You have to know how to assemble the gun, load it, clean it, carry it safely, and there’s a load of other stuff apart from the sessions at the range, like land navigation by day and night, and constructing and using hides. It’s all about confidence and discipline.’
‘Confidence, I can do,’ Diamond said.
The sergeant had enough tact not to ask about discipline. ‘Don’t you have a handgun on you?’
‘It’s all I can do to handle this stick.’
The exchange stopped there. The two men didn’t have much in common. Diamond’s thoughts moved on to another of the day’s discoveries — the fact that Sergeant Stillman was an authorised firearms officer. How much confidence and discipline had he exhibited? Not much of the latter. Here was an officer who against regulations had given his partner time off during a patrol; and who had slept in his car at a major emergency. Yet it was thanks to Stillman that the question of Harry Tasker’s alleged dirty dealings had come up. Taking the uncharitable view of Stillman, he may have traded this titbit in the hope that his own failings would be overlooked. The question had to be asked: had he invented it all? If so, Ingeborg and young Gilbert would be better employed at this minute catching up on their sleep.
Thinking of Stillman brought back the sequence of events immediately after the shooting. The 999 call from the student, Damon Richards, who lived over the shop in Walcot Street: impossible for him to have fired the shots from there. He was in the clear. But the residents of the house in the Paragon couldn’t be so easily eliminated as suspects. In all the emphasis on the fugitive in the woods, they’d almost slipped out of the frame. He wondered if any of them had colluded in the crime by letting the sniper into the house. They didn’t have to be gun-toting killers themselves, but they could have harboured one. More was needed on their backgrounds. Even that elderly couple, the Murphys, could have hated the police enough to be part of a conspiracy. The blonde, Sherry Meredith, and the civil servant on the top floor, Sean Willis, had appeared to say enough to clear them of active involvement, but aiding and abetting the killer was not out of the question.
Mental note: check those tenants again.
The sergeant hitched himself up on his elbows. ‘Nearly midnight.’
‘That’s nothing. He keeps late hours,’ Diamond said. ‘He’s probably stuffing himself in an all night kebab shop.’
‘Mind if I take a leak?’
‘Be my guest, but just not here, eh?’
‘I won’t be long.’ Gillibrand picked up the gun.
‘Do you need that?’
‘It’s the golden rule. Have it with you at all times.’
‘Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, then. Or worse.’
Left alone, Diamond tried the night-vision binoculars again. They were not unlike standard field-glasses, but with a single elongated front lens. A proximity sensor turned them on when they were lifted to the viewing position, saving battery life. He focussed on the pillbox and used the digital control to intensify the image.
All was still except some hogweed stirring slightly in the breeze. Everything was in weird green hues and he had the impression he was looking into a fish-tank badly in need of cleaning. The concrete structure appeared as eau-de-Nil with a horizontal stripe as dark as spinach, the oversized letter box to allow the occupants to fire from a well-defended position. Seventy years since the pillbox was built and it could never have been used for its intended purpose. No doubt it had become a play place from time to time for adventurous kids and an occasional shelter for hikers and rough sleepers.
Behind him sounded the faint crunch of steps on the gravel. You couldn’t walk on this stuff in silence. It amused him that Gillibrand had made such a fuss about speaking aloud and then announced to the world with his police-issue boots that he was off for a jimmy riddle.
He continued to focus on the pillbox. Had anyone actually looked inside tonight? he wondered. He wasn’t wholly confident that Jack Gull would have thought to check. Was it possible that the sniper had crept inside earlier and was sleeping peacefully while the armed police kept their vigil outside? Stranger things had happened.
Sometimes you got a gut feeling about the presence of a fugitive. To be fair, the little building wasn’t giving out vibes that it was occupied. Diamond doubted if anyone was inside. But then he also doubted whether the sniper would put in an appearance at all.
The crunch of gravel got louder, then stopped.
What was the man doing now — zipping up?
Diamond removed the binoculars from his face and everything appeared several shades darker than it had before. He turned to the right expecting Gillibrand to join him.
