As a gun owner living in this house with a sight of the street, Willis had to be treated as a suspect. If he had the means and opportunity, his motives could be probed later. Who could say what was motivating the Somerset Sniper to pick off his victims? Contempt for the police? A personal grudge? The power thing you get from handling a precision weapon? Or was it just boredom from shooting on a range? A live quarry was a different challenge from paper targets.
‘Have you lived here long?’
‘Just over two years.’
‘And you’re in the civil service, I was told. Ministry of Defence.’
He glared. ‘You’ve been talking to my neighbours.’
‘Is it top secret, then, your work?’
‘Not at all. I’m an office worker. I don’t like being talked about, that’s all.’
‘Do the talking yourself, then. You’re single?’
‘Yes. It is allowed.’
Diamond waited for more, and eventually got it.
‘In case you’re wondering, I do have women friends, and they sometimes stay the night, and that’s allowed too, even in the Paragon.’
‘Were you sleeping alone last night?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. But I expect you got that already from my talkative neighbours.’
‘Actually, no. There was no gossip.’
‘Otherwise I’m a model of respectability, educated at Sherborne and Oxford, a non-smoker, vegetarian, church-goer and I serve the community as a teller at elections.’
‘Where did you learn to shoot?’
‘The school rifle club, along with most of my contemporaries. It’s not unusual in public schools.’
‘He’s smooth and he’s smart,’ Diamond said to Halliwell on the way down the stone steps. ‘I don’t expect to find anything in the car, but some of his prints will come in useful.’
4
Any policeman will tell you the worst duty of all is informing the next of kin. Traditionally the young bobby straight out of training gets the job and his more experienced colleagues tell themselves they had their turn when they were recruits and can delegate with clear consciences.
Peter Diamond bucked the tradition. Years ago as a fresh-faced rookie in the Met he’d served his rites of passage, knocking on a door in Hammersmith to inform an elderly couple that their only son had been killed in a hit and run. In those days you were given no advice how to break the news. You improvised as well as you could. With mixed results. He’d done it ineptly. The parents had assumed the worst when they saw him in uniform solemn-faced at the door, yet, after repeatedly rehearsing what he would say, he’d stumbled over the words and — sin of sins — got the name of the deceased wrong, calling him Mike when he should have said Mark. ‘That isn’t our son,’ the man had said, clutching at any straw. Diamond had been forced to stumble through his piece again, causing even more distress. That night he’d drunk himself legless. The memory was still vivid and painful. He’d resolved never to ask an inexperienced officer to do the job.
In the near-panic after the Walcot Street shooting, with every available officer called to the scene, no one had visited Harry Tasker’s next of kin. The thing had to be done urgently, before the story broke in the media.
Others may have thought of it and kept quiet. Diamond was the first to speak out.
The uniformed sergeant he raised it with said, ‘God, yes. We should have done this an hour ago. I’d better find someone.’
‘Do we know who the next of kin is? Was he married?’
‘Married, yes, or in a partnership for sure. He lived near the old gasworks off the Upper Bristol Road.’
‘I pass there on the way to work,’ Diamond said. ‘Is there anyone on the strength who would know the partner?’
‘Unlikely. Harry was a quiet guy. A bit of a loner, in fact. We’ll just have to send one of the young lads he worked with.’
‘We won’t.’
‘No?’
‘Get me the address. I’ll break the news. I’ve done this before.’
His part of the investigation was on hold. Each of the potential witnesses in the Paragon house had been seen and Keith Halliwell was interviewing the neighbours. Until the search of the basement flat and garden was complete, little else could happen. Nothing would be gained from standing over the crime scene investigators.
The Upper Bristol Road is busy, dirty and noisy and has some oddly named addresses, like Comfortable Place, which has the look of an almshouse and actually houses a fitness centre. Just behind Comfortable Place stands Onega Terrace, where Harry Tasker lived. The row of small houses has a view from the back of the last remaining gasholder of the old Bath Gas, Light and Coke Company, a mighty drum in its supporting framework with a majesty all its own. It was 140 years old. Diamond often passed it and marvelled at the way it had rusted to an umber shade not unlike the stone for which Bath was famous. But not everyone appreciates industrial architecture so close to home, so the proximity of this giant relic must have depressed house prices and made it possible for a constable on Harry’s modest income to pay the rent. The seven houses of the terrace, built probably in the 1890s, were accessed along a narrow pathway blocked with refuse sacks on the day Diamond arrived. Each house had its own bay window and most of them had satellite dishes.
Her name was Emma, he had learned from the office, and yes, they were married. She was Harry Tasker’s wife turned widow, a change of status she had yet to find out. She came to the door in a red zipper jacket and white jeans, in the act of wheeling out a bike. She was small, with large, intelligent eyes and shoulder-length black hair. ‘I’m sorry, but you’ve chosen the wrong moment, whoever you are,’ she told him. ‘I’m on my way out and I’m already late.’
She had probably taken him for a doorstep evangelist. Not many other callers wear suits and ties.
‘It’s about Harry,’ he said. ‘I work with him.’ He showed his ID. ‘May we go inside?’
The colour drained from her face. ‘Something’s the matter.’
He nodded.
She leaned the bike against the wall of the hallway and stepped back for him to enter. ‘Tell me.’
‘You’d better sit down first.’
Shaking her head as if she didn’t believe this was happening, she opened a door into a small living room and sat on the edge of a short leather sofa. The homely setting, the wedding photo and the family pictures over the fireplace made the task of breaking the news all the harder.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I wish there was a gentler way of telling you. It was very sudden, early this morning while he was still on duty.’
‘How?’
‘He won’t have known anything about it. He was shot.’
She took a sharp breath and didn’t speak. She blinked several times and her front teeth pressed down on her lower lip. A shock as terrible as this takes people in different ways. Emma Tasker was internalising it.
What can you do to ease the agony for the suddenly, violently bereaved? Diamond’s way was to fill the silence with information. ‘We’ve got every available officer hunting for the gunman. It happened about 4 A.M. in Walcot Street, at the end nearest the city centre, two or three shots from high up when Harry was on his way back from checking one of the clubs. There had been no reports of trouble. This seems to have been unprovoked. Take it from me, ma’am, we’ll find the scum who did this. You know how we feel when one of our own is murdered.’ As his words tailed off, he watched her, prepared for an outpouring of grief.
It didn’t come. She was silent, immobile.
Some seconds went by.
‘Do you have any brandy in the house?’ he asked.
