Cop to Corpse (34 page)

Diamond inspected the perimeter wall. It was brick-built, all of eight feet high and topped with what looked like a triple electric cable strung along its length. He ruled out climbing. ‘The gates look as if they might open with a little persuasion.’ He gripped the left side and pushed. The base was anchored to a grooved arc in the ground, but there was some movement higher up. ‘I could squeeze through, at a pinch.’

From nowhere obvious, a black Dobermann flung itself at the gate, all teeth and snarling. Diamond withdrew his fingers just in time. ‘Not such a great idea.’

Ingeborg produced her mobile. ‘Shall we try phoning the house?’

‘I have a feeling they’re ex-directory, but no harm in trying.’

No joy.

‘If it wasn’t for the dog, we could get in,’ he said.

‘I know how to deal with the dog,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Shoot it?’

She told him her plan.

‘I’m willing to try,’ he said.

They got in the car and drove back to the shops at Widcombe Parade. In the traditional sweetshop they asked for aniseed balls and a strong tin to put them in. ‘It acts like catnip except it’s dogs who go for it,’ Ingeborg told him. ‘He’ll be far more interested in these than your fingers.’

Beside the river, the sergeant was looking at his watch. The search was taking longer than he’d estimated. He’d sent for reinforcements and now had two men underwater and they’d moved a short distance downstream. Closer to the pub, but not close enough for his liking. He’d call a halt soon.

He didn’t have long to wait. One head surfaced and then another.

They didn’t appear to have brought anything up. The searching of river bottoms can be unrewarding. Mud and reeds make it difficult.

‘No joy?’ he shouted, with joy of his own in mind.

‘It’s okay, we hit the jackpot this time,’ one of the constables said, ‘but we’re going to need lifting gear.’

‘For Christ’s sake – what is it?’

‘A bloody great motorbike.’

Diamond and Ingeborg returned up the hill and tried the conventional entryphone once again and still got no response. Ingeborg opened the tin and tipped out one of the aniseed balls just out of the Dobermann’s reach at the far end of the gate. The dog was there at once, muzzle through the bars, sniffing strongly. Ingeborg put down two more, taking care not to handle them. One rolled close enough for the dog to twist its head sideways and scoop up. The sweet was crunched in those powerful jaws. ‘That should improve his breath.’

‘Will it improve his behaviour?’ Diamond said.

‘Why not give it a go and see?’

Tentatively, he put his shoulder to the gate. The dog paid no attention, fully absorbed with the challenge of reaching the remaining aniseed balls. Diamond increased the pressure, forced a space and squeezed through. On the other side, with the Dobermann for company, he said, ‘Hurry up. I don’t fancy standing here for long.’

Ingeborg eased herself through and they walked at a quick rate up the tiled drive towards the house, leaving the dog to work on its tantalising problem.

‘It all seems strangely quiet,’ Ingeborg said. ‘The lawns are well mown. They must have staff.’

‘Part-time, I’d say. It’s low-maintenance, grass and trees. Not a single flowerbed.’

As they approached the front, Diamond pointed to more cameras. ‘Before we declare ourselves, let’s see what else there is.’ He’d spotted some outbuildings to the right of the main house. An open-sided barn contained two motor-mowers, a four-by-four, a red Porsche and a powerful-looking motorbike. Behind it were a woodshed and a couple of locked buildings that probably contained tools.

‘Would that be the bike that ran you down?’ Ingeborg asked.

‘It was all too sudden. I wouldn’t know.’

‘Might be worth getting a print of the tyres.’

‘What with?’

‘Later, then. Fancy a swim?’ Ingeborg said, moving on. Shimmering in the sunlight, tiled blue, green and gold, and enclosed by Romanesque columns, the pool looked more California than Claverton Down. It was at least thirty metres by twenty and deep enough to have a springboard. At the far end was a whirlpool and a building that probably housed a sauna.

‘An hour on one of those recliners with a beer would do me the most good,’ he said. ‘What’s over there – a games room?’ Behind the house and some distance away he had seen a long, low wooden building with shingle roofing. ‘No, it’s a firing range. Let’s go over.’

A private range fitted in with the ethos of Fight for Britain. And this one was on a military scale. The target lines on gently rising ground were set at what must have been four hundred metres and backed with sandbags. A higher set of butts was at about six hundred metres.

The covered stand where the shooting was done had a gate on a latch and a safety notice. Diamond and Ingeborg let themselves in. It was wide enough to take up to ten guns. The flooring was coconut matting on Astroturf over what felt like a concrete base. Clearly it was well maintained. They weren’t stepping on used cartridge casings. Diamond paced the length of it, weighing the significance of the find. You didn’t expect a military-style range in private grounds. As far as he was aware, it was legal provided that the weapons were licensed, but he doubted if anyone except the owner and his private army knew the scale of this place. The remote location meant no neighbour was likely to be disturbed by the gunfire.

‘Guv, have you seen these?’

Ingeborg had been rummaging at the back of the stand. She picked up a large cardboard target with the usual black circles on a white background – usual, except that this one was mounted on a lifesize silhouette of a police officer with helmet.

His blood ran cold for a moment. ‘Nasty.’

He knew you could buy targets of hate figures like Bin Laden. This was a variation he hadn’t seen. And he doubted if it could be prosecuted.

Turning away, he stared into the distance, imagining the sight of up to ten of the target figures spread across the landscape at six
hundred metres. If it wasn’t so sinister in the light of the recent killings, the sight of all those helmets might seem comical. He could imagine Soldier Nuttall’s recruits thinking it funny.

Silent now, he moved forward a short way. Beyond the matting the Astroturf extended for about thirty metres before the real grass took over. When he stepped on it there was a difference in sound, a drumming effect. He brought his foot down more heavily. ‘Must be hollow underneath. Give me a hand,’ he said to Ingeborg.

They found the edge and rolled the Astroturf back like a carpet to reveal some board panels. ‘Let’s have one of these up.’

The panel was about two metres square and took some lifting, but Diamond was insistent and they prised it up and hefted it aside. Below was a deep cavity.

‘Storage space?’ Ingeborg said.

‘I wonder how deep it is.’ He squatted, perched himself on the edge and dangled his legs. ‘I can see a wall ladder here. I’m going down.’

‘Careful,’ Ingeborg said. ‘You could get injured again.’

He turned, got a foot on one of the rungs, and started to descend. ‘A torch would be useful.’

‘Don’t know where we’ll get one unless I go back to the car,’ Ingeborg said.

‘I’d rather you kept guard. There was a time when I’d have carried a cigarette lighter.’

He continued down until his head was below the opening. ‘Strange. I’ve come to the bottom of the ladder and it hasn’t connected with the floor.’ Then the explanation dawned. ‘I know what this is. The walls are tiled. It’s another swimming pool – empty fortunately – and this must be the deep end.’

‘Better leave it,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Can’t be all that deep. They don’t make private pools really deep.’ He began lowering his handhold until he was in a crouched position on the lowest rung. Then he hung his right leg below the ladder and just made contact with the floor. ‘As I thought. Not so far down.’ He let himself down completely. It was a relief to stand upright. His suspect leg had started aching. ‘Could you roll back the turf a little more and give me some extra light?’

‘It’s back as far as it will go,’ she called down.

‘Hold on. There’s some flex hanging here. I think I’ve found a light switch.’ He pressed it and got the flicker of strip lighting that
presently came on fully and showed him the entire area. ‘Would you believe it?’

‘What’s down there?’ Ingeborg asked.

‘This is the armoury.’

He’d not seen so much weaponry in one place. There must have been fifteen purpose-built wooden racks ranged across the width of the pool, each stacked with rifles and sub-machine-guns. He was no expert, but everyone has seen the ubiquitous Kalashnikov on film and in print and he was pretty certain there were military weapons from other East European countries and Germany, all systematically clipped into place and grouped by type. It had the look of an efficient, well-maintained arsenal.

He was staggered by the find, here in Claverton, less than a mile from Manvers Street. No private citizen should own a sub-machine-gun. Plenty did illegally, of course. The international trade was huge. At one time the KGB was giving them away to foment terrorism. But he’d always thought Bath was the most unlikely place to attract illicit arms. He didn’t doubt that it was shotgun territory. Countrymen liked their sport. Weapons like these were something else.

‘Guv, are you coming up?’ Ingeborg called down.

‘Give me a moment more.’ He was checking the extent of the collection, pacing between the racks and counting. He also needed time to think how to deal with this. There were new priorities now. What had started as a house-call to speak to a seventeen-year-old about suspected drug-dealing had turned into a major illegal arms find that could see Soldier Nuttall put away for years.

‘Guv, time’s going on.’

Finally he returned to the ladder and switched out the light. As he hauled himself up the rungs he said to Ingeborg, ‘You should see it. Mind-blowing.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. We’re over-running.’

‘I know. If this was James Bond, you can bet someone would have crept up on us by now with a gun and caught us red-handed.’

‘Why do you think I was calling out?’

‘There isn’t anyone, is there?’

‘It could still happen. We’re not equipped for heroics.’

‘Looking at what’s down there, we’ll need the SAS to raid this place. It’s huge. More than seventy high velocity rifles, and they’re not for shooting grouse, believe me.’ He climbed out of the space
and with Ingeborg’s assistance replaced the board and rolled the Astroturf into place. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Exactly as we found it. Bond could learn a thing or two from me.’

The motorbike in the river had been a rewarding discovery in more ways than one, for it made a break necessary while a truck with a lifting mechanism was called out from Bath. The underwater searchers had now returned from their late pub lunch and were filling the time making a further survey of the stretch where all the action had taken place the previous night. Besides the motorcycle helmet and the bike they’d found some rusty farm tools, a bucket and some bottles.

The staff in the incident room at Bath sounded excited about the bike. They informed the search party about the motorcyclist in Becky Addy Wood who had almost run over Peter Diamond. The evidence was stacking up nicely, according to Jack Gull, the head of the Serial Crimes Unit, although he put it in more colourful language.

Gull was lost for words of any description when they called him twenty minutes later. One of the search teams had just emerged from the water holding the day’s star discovery, a Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle.

25

‘S
hall we get out while we can?’ Ingeborg said.

‘Why?’

She looked at Diamond as if the reason was all too obvious. ‘We’ve stepped into something really big, that’s why.’

‘Have we?’ He tilted his canvas shoe and looked down. ‘The revenge of the Dobermann?’ Even when faced with this urgent decision he couldn’t resist a poke at Ingeborg’s intensity.

‘You know what I mean, guv. We’re courting disaster here.’

‘We came to meet Royston, in case you’re forgetting.’

Trying to stay patient with her boss, but showing the effort, she said, ‘We’ve got nothing for certain on him. It’s all hearsay up to now. After what you just discovered under the firing range, shouldn’t we change plans and get the hell out?’

‘It crossed my mind too, I don’t mind telling you, Inge.’

‘But what?’

‘But the case against Royston has been ratcheted up by this. He has easy access to a whole armoury of assault rifles. If it’s true that Harry Tasker was leaning on Royston, giving him grief, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what may have happened.’

‘And the others, in Wells and Radstock?’

‘Right now I’m thinking mainly of what happened in Walcot Street, but there is another angle. You saw the target you found, the policeman figure. Royston could have been trophy-hunting, to put it crudely. We have a duty to find out.’

She nodded, reluctant still, but forced to accept his advocacy.
‘All right, but let me phone Headquarters now and tell them about all those guns.’

‘Absolutely not. Wait until we’re through. I don’t want some high-up ordering us to return to base.’

More at cross purposes than ever, they covered the open ground to the house in silence, each troubled, yet knowing they must prepare for confrontation.

Then Diamond said, ‘We’re being watched. Third window from the right. I saw a movement. Keep going.’

‘He’ll know we’ve been at the range.’

‘Hopefully he won’t know everything.’

Leaving the grassed area, they reached the tiled surround of the house. ‘Front door this time,’ Diamond said. ‘Are you still up with your shorthand? I want a note of whatever’s said.’

‘I’m carrying a mini-recorder.’ In an afterthought she added, ‘Don’t ask where.’

‘Good thinking. Make sure it’s switched on.’

The front door looked as solid as the door of a jumbo jet. No bell, no letter-flap, no means of announcing their arrival.

‘What are we meant to do, rap with our knuckles?’ Ingeborg said.