Cop to Corpse (10 page)

Now for Vicky.

She’s the one with a husband. We’ll call him Tim (I have to be careful over names) and she’s always been mysterious about him. I think he’s currently out of work. Whatever, he’s out of the house a lot and seems to prefer his own company, which is why Vicky is able to spend so much time with Anita and me. She’s a true friend, I’m sure of that, but there are no-go areas of her life and Tim is one of them. We don’t ask. Even Anita knows better than to draw her out. Vicky is sweet-natured, a little old-fashioned from her upbringing (her parents were into their forties when they had her), generous, starry-eyed, never been known to tint her hair, but why should she when it’s natural raven-black, straight out of a romantic novel? Yes, she’s a beauty. More than once on our nights
out Anita and I have had to rescue Vicky from testosterone-fuelled males. None of us minds being chatted up by the poor hopeful darlings, but as Anita says, you soon get to spot the ones with three pairs of hands. You can be wearing a wedding ring and a crucifix pendant and they still think you’re up for it.

Vicky has never said so, and I wouldn’t ask, but I know she’d dearly like to have a child. I’ve seen the way she looks at little kids. Why she hasn’t fallen pregnant I don’t know. I hope it isn’t because she or Tim are infertile. Of course it could be that they don’t want to start a family until Tim finds work. Vicky is a school meals assistant and I doubt if it pays much. You wouldn’t know it, but a lot of her clothes are out of the charity shops. Here in this well-heeled city, people’s cast-offs are sometimes as good as you’d find in the best dress shops.

That’s the three of us, then. We meet a few evenings each week and again at weekends, Friday and Saturday evenings and sometimes Sunday afternoons. Often it’s for nothing more exciting than a couple of drinks, cider mostly, but with Anita in the party we always have a giggle. Last night she was telling us about this customer of hers, a woman obviously in her sixties, all blonde curls and blusher, wanting to book two weeks somewhere in the sun and she’d heard about Ibiza and twenties to thirties holidays.
Twenties to thirties?
Anita, trying to be tactful, goes, ‘Are you sure you want that sort of holiday? It can be rather demanding.’ The woman answers, ‘That’s up to me, isn’t it? I know what I’m looking for.’ So Anita, being Anita, thinks toy boy. ‘I feel bound to mention that there’s a lot of drinking in Ibiza.’ And the woman goes, ‘I’m all for that. I carry a bottle of water at all times in case of dehydration.’ Which of course makes us scream with laughter. Anita goes, ‘Actually I meant drinking in bars.’ And the woman is like, ‘I wouldn’t be going all the way to Ibiza to waste time in a bar all evening.’ So Anita feels duty-bound to explain, ‘That’s what happens on twenties to thirties holidays. It’s all about making friends, and that’s where it gets done.’ The woman goes, ‘I’m sorry, whatever it is that gets done, I’m not doing it in a public bar. I prefer somewhere more quiet.’ More hoots from Vicky and me. Anita goes, ‘I’m wondering if you’d be better off on a cruise. We have some wonderful cruise brochures.’ The woman is like, ‘God no, I did one of those and it was up the coast of Norway and we froze. The temperature never got into double figures. All the men
had cold hands. That’s why this time I definitely want a place in the twenties to thirties.’ Twenty Celsius, Geddit?

I’m glad we had a good laugh. I could see Vicky was a bit down when we started, but by the end of that story she was fine.

Now you know the good guys in this blog, Vicky, Anita and me, and you’ll be wanting to find out who the baddies are. There’s only one so far and, natch, he’s a bloke. Maybe it’s jumping the gun to call him an out-and-out baddie. We need to know more about his shady activities before hanging him out to dry. That’s our mission, to uncover the truth.

And hang him out to dry.

We first got onto him through Anita. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she goes with a giggle, ‘but there’s a client – head office insists we don’t call them customers any more – who’s a real puzzle to me. I call him my city break man. He’s always making short trips, mostly to Europe, and sometimes to America. When I say always, that’s an exaggeration. I mean about five times altogether. I shouldn’t complain. It’s good business for us. He pays cash, which is unusual, and the banknotes all pass the test. He buys some of the local currency from our foreign exchange, not a huge amount, about two hundred pounds worth, and he stays in middle bracket hotels for a couple of nights. He doesn’t want to be friendly with any of my staff. They’re company-trained to remember clients and greet them by name, but I can tell he doesn’t like that at all so I told them to ease up. I’ve never seen him smile. He’s usually wearing a dark suit and boring tie. He’s about forty, I would guess. We’re supposed to have a contact address and phone number and all he’s willing to give is a box number and a mobile number.’

‘He must have given you a name.’

She shrugs and smiles. ‘Smith. John Smith. That’s the name we use for the bookings. I don’t believe it.’

Vicky makes one of her solemn remarks. ‘There are plenty of John Smiths. On the law of averages, he’s more likely to be John Smith than William Shakespeare or Albert Einstein. Perhaps it’s true.’

‘Darling, it’s precisely because there are so many that he chose it.’

‘Doesn’t it need to match his passport?’

‘It’s not difficult getting a false passport.’

Vicky nods. ‘He’s into something dodgy, that’s for sure.’

I’m like, ‘Drugs?’

Anita goes, ‘I hope not. My company wouldn’t want to get involved with anything like that.’

And Vicky is like, ‘Two hundred quid wouldn’t buy much hard stuff. It’s not even worth the trip.’

How does she know about such things? I wonder.

‘Trafficking?’

‘He’s not the sort. The guys who go in for that are sexy foreign brutes, and they’re not going to use a travel agency.’

‘A spy? Using an agency would be a good cover.’

Anita pipes up, ‘You girls are getting carried away and I haven’t told you the strangest bit. At lunchtime when it’s nice I sometimes buy a sandwich and go for a walk in the park. Just across the street from the sandwich shop is the job centre and a couple of weeks ago I saw some guy in tattered old jeans and a hoodie coming out of there obviously having just collected his social and – get this darlings – it was city break man. I swear it was him. I know the walk. Two days later he’s in my shop wearing his suit and tie and booking two nights in Rome and buying his two hundred pounds worth of Euros. Unemployed, funded by the taxpayer, and off on another trip.’

Vicky tut-tuts at such behaviour. ‘He’s a benefits cheat.’

And I’m like, ‘Are you sure it was him, Anita? Hundred per cent?’

‘Positive.’

‘Does he know you saw him?’

‘He wouldn’t have used my agency again if he did. The way I see it, cheating the taxpayer is one thing, and someone ought to report him, but all these trips abroad make me think he’s up to something bigger.’

‘Such as what?’

‘I don’t know, but I sure as hell want to find out.’

Then I hear myself saying, ‘The three of us ought to be up to it.’

‘Finding out, you mean?’

‘Combining our skills and talents to discover the truth.’

‘The three snoops.’

‘Please,’ I say. ‘Sleuths.’

Suddenly it sounds like an adventure. We’ve been friends up to now, giggly, on the same wave-length, whiling away our spare time, but aimless. This is something more, a project, a bonding exercise. I can tell we all fancy it.

Vicky claps her hands. ‘I’ve got it. Next time he books a trip, you can book places for all of us to tail him and find out what he does.’

‘Too expensive,’ Anita says. ‘The company runs a tight ship.’

‘Send one of us, then: Ishtar.’

And I’m, ‘What do you take me for? I can’t go jetting off to foreign places like James Bond. I’ve got my job to do, delivering flowers.’

Anita shies away, too. ‘And I couldn’t fund it. That’s not on. But I tell you what, Ish. We could do some sleuthing at a local level. Next time he comes in, why don’t I give you a call and get you to follow him in your van, see where he goes, and at least we’ll find out where he lives.’

‘How would that help?’ I’m backtracking fast, wishing I hadn’t suggested this sleuthing game.

‘We’d get to know more about him, wouldn’t we?’

‘Going to the police might be a better idea.’

So Anita does some backtracking of her own. ‘And you know what they’ll say? It’s all suspicion so far. Besides, I don’t want it known that I’m snitching on my own customers.’

I’m happy to agree. ‘You’d lose most of your business. Anyone who can afford a foreign holiday these days must be on the take.’

‘Oh, come on.’

We bang on for some time like this, but deep down I’m hooked. I want to find out what city break man’s game is. After we’ve caught him out, who knows, we could go on to bigger things and get on the trail of the Somerset Sniper. Just joking.

The truth is we’re all turned on by this adventure. Vicky’s eyes are shining. Anita is practically purring. The three snoops. Sorry, sleuths. And guess who’s standing by, waiting for that call from the travel agency?

I’ll report what happens in my next blog – if I’m not dead meat already.

8

J
ack Gull said without a scrap of sympathy, ‘Shouldn’t you be at home?’

Diamond widened his eyes. ‘With one of our guys dead and the other fighting for life? I’ll see the day out.’

They were back in Manvers Street police station in the incident room freshly created by DI John Leaman as office manager. Give Leaman a job and he delivered. Display boards were in place with photos from the scene and details of principal witnesses, the morning’s statements already on computer, civilian support staff installed as receiver, indexer, action allocator and statement readers.

Calls were coming in steadily from the public. The standard request for information had already been broadcast. A team of trained staff were noting everything. Ninety per cent of what came in would be of no use, but every snippet of information had to be recorded and prioritised. Later Diamond would make a personal TV appeal for assistance.

Gull was forced to admit that everything was in place. His only grudging comment – in case his own empire should be undermined – was that this had to be a temporary arrangement, which prompted Diamond to say that if an incident room ever got to be permanent they’d better resign, all of them.

Photos of Harry Tasker’s corpse and the wound to Ken Lockton’s head dominated one end of the room, a reproach to everyone who entered. On another board were grim close-ups of the two previous victims of the sniper. In each case shots to the head had caused death.

Leaving Gull to check the displays, Diamond went across to Leaman and asked what news there was from the hospital.

‘No change, guv. He’s in a coma and they say it could be for weeks.’

‘Are his people with him?’

‘His wife and son.’

‘Someone is with them, I hope.’

‘Christina, one of the PCSOs, drove them in. She has a good way with people.’

‘Good choice, then. And who have we got supporting Harry Tasker’s widow?’

‘PC Dawn Reed volunteered. She worked with Harry.’

‘I know Dawn. She’ll cope if anyone can. Emma Tasker isn’t easy to help. So what do we have that’s new?’

Leaman produced the preliminary report from ballistics. The misshapen bullet and the cartridge case were now confirmed as from a .45 round.

‘Same fucking gun as he used in Wells and Radstock, as if we hadn’t twigged,’ Jack Gull’s voice boomed from the other side of the room.

‘We’d better wait for their final report before we say that for sure, sir. It may be a G36 like the others, but we can’t say for certain it was the same G36,’ Leaman said in his matter-of-fact manner. He yielded to no one in the pursuit of accuracy.

‘I said it, chum, and you heard me,’ Gull responded. ‘I’m the CIO here and we’re proceeding on the basis that these killings are the work of one individual with one gun.’

Even John Leaman appreciated that you don’t argue with a chief superintendent who skews a point of information into a test of authority.

Typical of Gull, Diamond thought, shouting over the heads of civilian staff as if they didn’t exist. Curbing himself from making something of it, he fixed his mind on the investigation.

‘What I want to know is whether today’s events have told us any more about the suspect.’

‘Plenty,’ Gull said, turning away from the display board. ‘He’s familiar with your routines here in Bath. He must be, to have known PC Tasker was walking that beat in the small hours of Sunday morning. He got into the garden in the Paragon, so either he lived there or knew the place well enough to con his way in.
And obviously he’d sussed it out as a perfect place to shoot from. That’s one of his hallmarks, doing his homework before he carries out the killing.’

‘Are you thinking he’s a local?’ Diamond said.

‘Got to be.’

‘Local to Wells and Radstock, too?’ Leaman got in, still smarting from the putdown.

‘And Becky Addy Wood,’ Diamond said. ‘Unless we’re mistaken about the motorcyclist and it was someone else.’

‘No chance,’ Gull said. ‘That was our man. The practice shots in the tree. The hideout. The way he hightailed it when we got near. Obviously he used the wood as his base.’

‘If he’s local,’ Leaman said, ‘why hide in a wood? Why not work from home?’ His dogged logic was starting to sound insubordinate.

Diamond headed off another dustup. ‘Because he doesn’t want to appear suspicious. He may be living with someone else who doesn’t know he owns a gun.’

Gull nodded. ‘Fair point.’

‘Tell me,’ Diamond said. ‘Do we have any fingerprints from the previous shootings?’

‘No fingerprints,’ Gull said. ‘He’s too smart to leave any. Shoe prints. A nice clean set from the tree house he used as a hide in Wells.’

‘But they’re on file here, are they?’ Diamond’s thoughts were still with Willis, the clever-dick civil servant. ‘So at least we have something to compare with, if we come up with a suspect?’