Scared to Live

‘Possibly. But the other two shots were very accurate. A head shot, and one near the heart. Besides, if you heard a shot and felt a high-velocity bullet whizz past your head, your first instinct would be to dive for cover.’

They all looked at the photographs of Rose Shepherd with a dark hole in her chest and another near her left eye. Her right eye remained open, staring in amazement at the ceiling.

‘This lady did none of those things, so far as we can judge,’ said Hitchens. ‘It appears the bullets struck her before she could react. But we’ll get the opinion of the pathologist, of course.’

The DI paused, but there were no questions, so he continued: ‘We’ve got preliminary reports from the teams on house-to-house. We’re looking for a blue Vauxhall Astra that was seen in Foxlow in the early hours of Sunday morning, about the time of the shooting.’

‘Just one sighting?’

‘No, two. The Astra was seen driving into the village about eleven thirty, and leaving at about three a.m. It’s possible some of the neighbours heard shots between two a.m. and four, but we can’t narrow down the time of the shooting any further than that right now. So I’ve asked for input from the intel unit. We need a list of pos sibles who fit the MO.’

‘What about prison releases?’

‘Yes. Any suggestions?’

‘You know our intelligence feed from HQ is never up to date, sir.’

‘We’ll have to use the informal mechanisms, then,’ said Hitchens.

‘You mean “phone a friend”?’

‘That’s right.’

There were a few ironic laughs around the room. Yes, sometimes the old ways were still the best, they seemed to say.

Another hand went up. ‘What about the gun, sir?’

‘Well, we don’t have the weapon yet,’ said Hitchens. ‘But we do have some bullets. Unfortunately, the heat generated by firing a gun destroys any DNA on the bullets. It’s sometimes worth having a look at the casings, though.’

‘But there aren’t any casings.’

‘Yes, there are. We just don’t know where.’

At one time, Cooper would have tried to stay at the back of the room during these briefings. If you sat at the front, you might be expected to contribute, and he’d never really had the confidence to do it in front of a crowd of people, most of them more experienced than he was. When he did have ideas, he usually preferred to share them discreetly with his DS or the DI, in case he was scoffed at.

But today, he found himself near the front, propped against the wall where Hitchens could see him. Cooper suspected the DI would pick him out at some point. He’d been a member of the force’s competition shooting team for several years, and he knew a bit about guns. Just as he did about lamping — though he’d only ever taken part in the legal kind. Well, probably. Even better, he knew a few people who were obsessed with guns, including some Territorial Army members, the weekend soldiers who trained in their spare time for reserve duty in Bosnia or Iraq.

Hitchens cocked an eye towards him. ‘Anything you want to contribute at this stage, DC Cooper?’

He straightened up, trying not to notice all the eyes suddenly turned towards him.

‘If we’re looking at the possibility of a professional hit, I can tell you that snipers are trained to pick up their brass,’ he said. ‘That would explain why there are no casings. They’re also told not to leave other clues to their identity or their shooting location. A trained person reconnoitres the site and selects a place that gives him cover and an escape route. Then he takes his shot. But normally only one — the sniper’s motto is “one shot, one kill”.’

‘But this suspect took three shots.’

‘To me, that doesn’t sound like a real professional.’ ‘There was no sign of any casings in the field, so we presume our suspect stayed long enough to pick them up.’

‘Well …’ began Cooper.

‘Yes?’

‘At night, in a ploughed field, that would be quite tricky. You’d be lucky to find one, let alone all three.’

‘True,’ agreed Hitchens, looking at him with interest.

Cooper leaned back for a moment and pictured the scene. He imagined himself sitting at the wheel of a car at night, in a ploughed field, with the driver’s window open and three bullet casings lying on the ground somewhere outside the vehicle.

‘Not just tricky,’ he said. ‘It would mean the suspect getting out of the car and leaving his footprints in the soil. He would pick up earth on his shoes and trail it back into the vehicle. That’s three possibilities for trace evidence. But the scenario doesn’t fit, does it? It’s not consistent with the planning before and after the hit.’

‘And there were no footprints in the area where the shots were fired from, just tyre marks,’ pointed out Hitchens. ‘Maybe the casings fell close enough to the car that the gunman was able to lean out of the door and pick them up without leaving the vehicle.’

‘No, that won’t work. It was a high-powered rifle. The casings would have been ejected at speed.’

‘What, then?’

‘The only possibility I can see is that the casings must have been ejected inside the car.’

‘Is that possible? If he was firing a rifle from the driver’s seat?’

‘The car was facing northwards, up the field, wasn’t it? With the back fence of Bain House on the driver’s side?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, no,’ said Cooper. ‘I don’t think it is possible. Whoever fired the rifle would have had to be in the passenger seat.’

There was a sudden buzz of interest. Cooper felt himself flushing — not with embarrassment, but excitement. He was sure he’d got this right. He could see it so clearly.

‘We’ll have to get this checked out properly,’ said Hitchens.

But Cooper mimed holding and pointing a rifle. ‘Imagine it. With the window wound down, you’d want to rest the barrel of your weapon on the door for stability while you were aiming. It wasn’t too distant a shot — a hundred yards is nothing. But even so, you’d want to be sure. That means the stock and the chamber would be well inside the vehicle, so your casings would eject against the back of the seat.’

‘He was shooting from the passenger seat?’

‘No, it would have to be from the back seat,’ said Cooper.

‘Wait a minute. This would suggest two suspects, right?’

‘One to drive and one to shoot. It’s the only way.’

‘Two suspects … It makes sense,’ said DCI Kessen, speaking for the first time. ‘They went into the field, did the job and drove straight out again. No one would want to hang around climbing over seats or packing a weapon away. From their point of view, they were already taking a bigger risk than they might have cared for. Having a separate driver would cut down tremendously on the time they were exposed. Unfortunately, our witnesses say there was only one person in the Astra.’

‘OK. That was useful, Ben. Thanks.’ Hitchens looked at his file, indicating that he wanted to move on. A discussion could last all morning if they got stuck on one subject.

Cooper glanced across at Fry, who was watching him closely. She nodded and almost smiled. That was high praise indeed, coming from her.

‘The good news is that we’ve got some calls coming in from the public in response to photos of Rose Shepherd in the media this morning,’ said Hitchens. ‘So her passport photograph wasn’t too out of date. Most interestingly, we’ve got a couple of potential sightings in Matlock Bath on Saturday afternoon. That would be between six and sixteen hours before she was killed — in fact, around twelve hours, if we put any reliance in the evidence of her neighbours.’

The DI brought up a map of the area for everyone to see. ‘Matlock Bath is no more than three miles from Foxlow — on the A6, just south of Matlock itself. It’s a popular tourist spot, even at this time of year, so it would have been busy on Saturday afternoon. Maybe that’s why she chose it — anonymity in crowds. But if these are