Cop to Corpse (25 page)

Diamond had never known such an atmosphere in his workplace. Bath CID had become the Slough of Despond. A lot of it was down to him and his inept performance yesterday, but there was still a pervading air of gloom. The murder of a colleague on duty and the near-murder of another had poleaxed everyone. The angry mood of the first day had given way to this grim resignation. Generally humour has a way of breaking through the most harrowing of investigations, if only for sanity’s sake. Right now, a light remark seemed like a betrayal. The usual currency of so-called wit was unfit for use.

The only way to get through this was to focus on the job in hand. You knuckled down and did whatever you could to bring the killer to justice.

He walked into his office and closed the door. That heaving in-tray waited on his desk. First, he phoned Emma Tasker. The call was picked up by the Good Samaritan from next door, who’d survived longer as comforter than anyone could have expected. Her voice showed the strain. She said they hadn’t long been back from the undertaker, fixing the funeral, and she doubted if Emma would come to the phone. He said it wasn’t necessary. He just wanted Emma to know she could expect another visit from the big thug from Bath Central this afternoon around three.

‘Are those the exact words you want me to use?’ the neighbour asked.

‘She’ll understand.’

‘She won’t like it.’

‘She’ll have to lump it, then. And speaking of lumps …’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s milk and two sugars for me.’

He cradled the phone, set aside the morning’s mail for later and started leafing through those lists of personnel from three police stations. Not just the current staffs, but years of them, including people transferred and retired. The job of finding matching names was likely to take hours. For a start, he crossed out the three victims and Ken Lockton and his own CID team. If he couldn’t eliminate them as suspects he might as well jack in the job. But upwards of a thousand remained. They weren’t even alphabetical. They were listed in order of taking up duties.

He’d been at the task about twenty minutes when there was a knock and Ingeborg came in. He bent forward to fold his arms protectively over the lists, a reflex action. Clumsy as ever, he found he’d tipped several sheets on the floor. He reached for the walking stick, but Ingeborg stooped to pick them up.

She couldn’t help seeing what they were. ‘How are you getting on with this, guv?’

‘Barely started.’

‘I bet you’ve already found a bunch of Smiths.’

‘Well, I’d expect to.’

‘Smith … my surname.’

He’d been slow to spot this attempt at a peace offering. ‘Oh, I get you,’ he said finally. ‘No, I’m not lining up my own team as possible suspects.’ He leaned back in the chair. The need to be furtive was well over. ‘What did you want?’

‘I found a website called Fairs, Feast-days and Frolics and you can download hundreds of articles on folklore and customs. Stan Richmond definitely wrote about the Hobby Horses.’

‘Did he, by God?’

‘Several places have them. Padstow in Cornwall, Combe Martin in Devon –’

He raised a finger. ‘Do I need to know this?’

‘I thought you’d be interested.’

‘I’d rather you got to the point.’

Her lips tightened. ‘You could download the piece if you want.’ She knew damned well he wouldn’t.

‘You’ve obviously digested it,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘So what were the tasty bits?’ He watched her wince a little.

‘It’s clear that he visited Minehead at some point and spoke to people on the hobby horse committee.’

‘When was this?’

‘The article was dated 2008.’

‘No chance he interviewed Ossy Hart, I suppose?’

‘Ossy was living in Wells by that time. I guess Stan could have caught up with him there if he wanted to talk about what it’s like acting the Sailor’s Horse, but he doesn’t mention him by name, or list him in the acknowledgements.’

‘If I’ve learned anything from all these years of sleuthing, Inge, it’s that nothing comes easy. At least you’ve found proof of what we suspected – that Stan Richmond knew about the hobby horses.’

‘I’ll get you a printout if you want.’

‘That would help.’ He reached for the lists again.

She stepped to the door, hesitated and turned her head, in Lieutenant Columbo mode. ‘One other thing, guv.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Shouldn’t we be tracing that film man, Cubby, or whatever his real name is?’

‘If we knew his real name, yes,’ he said. ‘Anything you can do to find him would be helpful.’

She smiled. ‘Anything? Like a trip to Hollywood?’

‘That might be hard to explain to our paymasters.’

‘Is there any proof that Cubby also made a cash offer to Stan Richmond?’

‘Not yet. It’s starting to sound possible.’

‘And Harry Tasker? What if he met this guy?’

‘That’s something I hope to find out from his widow. I’m seeing her shortly.’

‘Again? People are going to start talking.’

‘Get outta here.’ But it did him good to know someone on the team still had a spark of humour.

The sight of Bath’s last gasholder didn’t do much for his morale when he drove up and parked across the road from Onega Terrace. Unsightly and outmoded, the great drum of gas seemed to sum up his self-image. He was about to cross the road when a sudden barrage of sound came from behind him. He stepped back and a motorbike that had just started up from a parking place a few cars away zoomed past and away towards the city. The rider was in black, just as the motorcyclist in the woods had been.

Don’t get paranoid, he told himself. There are thousands of these things on the roads and they’re not all out to get you.

The large neighbour opened Emma’s front door, took one look at him and said, ‘Right, I’m off home.’

‘What’s this called – respite?’ he said as she pushed past.

‘Man, I’ve earned it. You can go in.’

He found the angry widow in the living room kneeling on the floor. ‘Watch where you’re walking with those great plod feet,’ she said and he saw that the carpet was littered with CD
S
. ‘I’m supposed to choose the music for the committal, as they call it. Harry wasn’t a believer, so I don’t want any of that so-called sacred music. When I told them, they said it was up to me. Pick a favourite piece for a send-off, they said. Fat chance of finding anything here. We bought these for easy listening, not a cremation.’

He let his gaze travel the width of the carpet, taking stock of the Taskers’ collection. Most of it would be called retro: big bands, crooners, even skiffle. Difficult to find a farewell piece among that lot. ‘I Did It My Way’ was supposed to be the most popular choice for funerals, but didn’t sound right for a murder victim. He gave some thought to the few facts he knew about Harry’s life and an idea came to him. ‘You may think this is in poor taste.’

‘Try me.’

‘I see you have some Louis Armstrong here. There’s an old Satchmo number with Bing Crosby called “Gone Fishing”.’

Her deep brown eyes locked with his and seemed appalled. Then they slipped aside briefly and came back to him with a gleam of understanding. ‘ “Gone Fishing”?’ The start of a smile lit up her face. ‘That’ll do nicely. He’s gone for sure and if he’s got any choice, fishing is what he’ll be doing.’ She stood up. ‘You can have that tea. Is my neighbour Betty seeing to it?’

‘She went home for a bit.’

‘Lazy cow. I’ll have to make it myself. Tidy up the discs, would you? I won’t be long.’

Left alone in the room, he made a show of poking the CD
S
with his foot into a smaller area near the fireplace. He wasn’t going to risk kneeling. That done, he inspected the few paperbacks displayed on a built-in unit along one wall. No new insights here. Several by Stephen King and John Grisham, the
Police and Constabulary Almanac for 2009
, the
Observer Book of Freshwater Fish
and
The Good Guys Wear Black
, by Steve Collins. He picked up the last. It was sub-titled
The True-Life Heroes of Britain’s Armed Police
. Inside were photo illustrations of various SO19 raids. All action. Not his scene. He replaced it.

Emma returned with a mug of tea in each hand. ‘It was two sugars?’

A distinct improvement in relations, courtesy of Louis Armstrong. ‘Thanks. I was looking at your books.’

‘His, not mine. If you want any, take them. No point in me keeping them.’

‘That wasn’t why I mentioned it. I was thinking we don’t know much about Harry except his fishing and his TV viewing.’

‘Why do you want to know?’ She sat in an armchair and gestured to him to do the same.

‘Oddly enough, I know more about the other guys who were shot. Harry was one of our own.’

‘Typical, isn’t it?’ she said, back on her familiar tack. ‘He was just a number and a uniform.’

‘That’s not been my experience.’

‘You got lucky, then.’

‘I did my stint in uniform. I started in the Met a long time ago.’

‘That lot? We were always hearing horror stories of them. We were country cops, in Cornwall at the start. That’s where we met, Harry and I.’

He’d forgotten she was originally in the force with her husband. ‘Which part of Cornwall?’

‘Helston.’

His brain dredged up something Ingeborg had tried to tell him about town customs and traditions. ‘My geography isn’t up to much. Is that anywhere near Padstow?’

She shook her head. ‘Padstow’s a good forty miles away, on the North coast. Why do you ask?’

‘It was a long shot.’ Stupid bloody expression to use, he thought, the moment he’d said it. He’d never been noted for discretion. By some miracle the words got past her, so he followed them up fast. ‘I was trying to find some connection between the three officers who were killed.’

‘The only connection is the sonofabitch who shot them.’

‘There is that note you found.’

‘The “You’re next” thing? Are you taking that seriously?’

‘I can’t ignore it.’

‘That would mean Harry was a marked man and probably the others as well. Did they get notes?’

‘We haven’t found any.’

‘They could have thrown them away. Why did you ask me about Padstow just now? Was one of the others from Padstow?’

‘No.’ This was as good an opening as he was likely to get. ‘But there is a possible link between the first two victims, Ossy Hart and Stan Richmond. It may amount to nothing. When you said you served in Cornwall, I remembered that the town of Padstow has a hobby horse ceremony.’

‘What?’ All the good work of the past ten minutes went for nothing. She glared as if she’d caught him stealing underwear.

‘The locals call it ’obby ’oss,’ he said.

‘Now you’ve lost me altogether.’

‘Hold on.’ He launched into an explanation: the origin of Ossy’s name and the Minehead May Day celebration and the fact that Stan Richmond devoted his spare time to the study of such things.

She still looked at him as if he was talking bilge, so he threw in the added ingredient of the film man and thousands of dollars. Now it was all out in the open and he felt only the chill of her stare.

‘I don’t know if I’ve understood you,’ she said finally, ‘but you seem to be suggesting they were shot because of this horsing around in Minehead. Is that it?’

‘It’s an incomplete theory,’ he said, wishing already that he’d kept it to himself.

‘You’re hoping I’m about to say something that will make sense of it all?’

‘I’m not expecting anything.’

‘You won’t get anything. The reason they were shot – all three of them – is that some evil bastard hates the police and wants to kill as many as he can. While you waste time on weird theories, he’s no doubt lining up the next one.’

‘We’re actively pursuing him, ma’am,’ he said, thinking of Jack Gull and his armed police on watch in Avoncliff. ‘It’s not just down to me.’

‘I should hope not. In the state you’re in, you couldn’t actively pursue the last man out at closing time.’

There wasn’t much point in continuing. He reached for his stick and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Do me a favour,’ she said.

‘What’s that?’ He prepared for one more crushing putdown.

‘Come to the funeral on Thursday.’

His voice shrilled in surprise. ‘Me?’

‘I don’t know any of the Manvers Street lot except you. A few of Harry’s relief are coming, but they’re only names to me.’

‘I hardly knew him myself.’

‘You thought of “Gone Fishing”. Saved me hours of headache. The least I can do is ask you to be there. And you don’t suffocate me with sympathy. Come for my sake. 3
P.M
. at Haycombe.’

Haycombe wouldn’t be easy. He’d been to the same crematorium for Steph’s funeral. But for all her carapace of toughness, this woman was in mourning, and he knew what that was like.

‘All right. I will.’

‘And join us after, for a drink and some snacks,’ she added.

‘Okay.’

She came to the door with him. ‘All that hobby horse stuff is bunk. Don’t waste time on it.’

18

O
n the drive back, he had a Eureka moment. Ask for another list.

So had he finally flipped?

Not at all. The list would contain the names of all officers from Wells, Radstock and Bath who had completed a firearms course. If the sniper was, indeed, a policeman, he must have been trained to use a gun.

Neat. If this worked, the thousand-odd names in those earlier lists could go to the shredder.

Back in the 1980s when Diamond had joined the Met, as many as fifteen per cent of the force had gone though a five-day course at the range and were dubbed authorised firearms officers. After certain well-publicised fiascos in the last decades of the twentieth century arising from under-trained armed police, the policy had changed. Since 2004 the National Police Firearms Training Curriculum ensured that the training was much more rigorous and intensive. An initial course lasted thirty-five days and those who passed were required to complete two days’ training every month and requalify four times a year.

An AFO was now a specialist. And they were all on record.