She was a supervisor at Playzone, the children’s activity centre, she told him before giving the details. He couldn’t help wondering how small kids fared with this pent-up aggression. Maybe she was totally different with them. He called the place and said Mrs. Tasker had suffered the loss of a close relative and might not be in for a few days. When he finished the call she was no longer in the room.
He heard a kettle being filled, so he followed her into the kitchen, defying her order to keep out. She had her back to him yet she must have heard his approach because without turning to look she said, ‘I’m just so angry. He’s been on nights all week. We’ve scarcely seen each other.’
‘And there are things you wish you’d said?’ He was speaking from painful experience.
‘I feel cheated.’
‘You have every right. Believe me, we’ll pull out all the stops.’
She snorted at that. ‘If you want sugar, it’s in the cupboard behind you.’
While this embodiment of fury busied herself with milk carton and teapot, Diamond was bold enough to seek information. He asked if Harry had been threatened by anyone, recently or in the past.
‘Apart from me, you mean?’ she said without a glimmer of irony. ‘I gave him hell on a regular basis. No, he was too easygoing to make enemies. Mind, he didn’t tell me everything. Harry wasn’t much of a communicator. He kept his feelings hidden. If I asked about his job, he’d say there wasn’t anything worth mentioning.’
‘I don’t have to tell you police work is like that a lot of the time,’ Diamond said. ‘Loads of boring stuff you wouldn’t want to hear about.’
‘You don’t get it, do you, bloody man?’ she said, widening her big eyes, ‘Anything is better than silence.’
Lady, you’re going to get a lot of that in the weeks and months to come, he thought. ‘I’m asking these questions because we have to be certain he wasn’t shot by someone he knew.’
‘He was killed by that madman who’s been targeting policemen, wasn’t he?’ she said. ‘I’ve forgotten what they call him.’
‘The Somerset Sniper. That’s a strong possibility. If so, it was almost certainly done because Harry wore the uniform, nothing more. He was a cop, so he was fair game. Doesn’t make it any easier to accept.’
‘To come back to your question, I can’t think of anyone who hated him enough to kill him.’
‘Did he have any interests outside the police?’
‘Fishing.’
He took this as another rebuke. ‘I’m doing my job. We need to know.’
‘I said. He fished, with a rod and line. Is that clear enough for you?’
He gave a faint, embarrassed smile.
She added, ‘He didn’t get much time for it.’
‘You must have gone out together sometimes. Where did you go? A favourite pub?’
‘You’ve got to be joking. If we went out more than twice in the past year I can’t recall it. All he ever wanted was to put his feet up and watch telly. It was the job. It tired him out. If I go out, it has to be with the girls, my buddies. That’s all the excitement I get.’
‘This being a murder enquiry, you’re going to have to put up with any number of questions like these. We’ll need to look at everything connected with Harry, bank statements, phone, address book, diary, computer. It’s a huge invasion of your privacy, but necessary. I’m telling you this so that you’re prepared.’
‘You’re not,’ she said. ‘You’re telling me so that the copper who gets the job doesn’t get the blasting you’ve just had. You’re shell-shocked. You look worse than I do.’
Whatever his condition, he needed to drive into the city again. On the car radio the local news reports were coming in of the fatal shooting of a uniformed policeman in Walcot Street and they were linking it to the two previous shootings. He’d completed his next-of-kin mission in the nick of time, even though it hadn’t been the sympathetic heart-to-heart he’d planned. He’d left Emma Tasker in the care of a policewoman trained in helping the bereaved. She would surely cope better than he had. Next-of-kin interviews were never easy, but that one had shaken his confidence. He didn’t have time dwell on it. Soon the media tsunami would swamp everyone. Good thing Jack Gull was in charge.
In the Paragon, the house-to-house was under way. Keith Halliwell had finished interviewing the close neighbours and nobody had spotted the sniper. Some had reacted to the sound of the shooting by going to their windows. So thick and high had been the crop of weeds that a gang of gunmen could have operated from that garden and not been seen.
‘Getting on for five hours since the shooting,’ Diamond said to Halliwell. ‘If he’s got any sense he’ll be miles away by now.’
‘Unless he lives here.’
‘Right. What’s your take on that civil servant, three-gun Willis on the top floor?’
‘In the clear. His licence has been checked. Each of those rifles is registered. The Devizes Gun Club confirms that all three are in their armoury, secure. There’s no way he could have used one this morning and got it back to Devizes by the time we interviewed him.’
‘An unlicensed gun?’
‘If there is one, we didn’t find it. His flat was well searched.’
‘He wouldn’t have it in his flat after using it, would he? He’s a careful bugger. Willis is still top of my list. That bedroom window.’
Halliwell gave a faint grin. ‘If he’s as careful as you say, he wouldn’t have left the window open. The thing is, he may be nicely placed to have carried out this morning’s shooting from his bedroom, but what about the earlier killings in Wells and Radstock?’
‘Trust you to sabotage a good theory.’
Diamond went through the house to the garden and stopped short of the stinging nettles. ‘Any joy?’ he called to the senior crime scene man.
For an answer, a transparent evidence bag was held up. Whatever was inside was too small to make out.
‘What is it?’
‘A cartridge case. A shot was definitely fired from here.’
‘Only the one?’
‘I’m told two were heard. He could have tidied up the first and missed this one. He’s usually more careful. Now we’re checking the brambles for fibres. It’s going to take some time.’
‘Rather you than me. Good find, though.’ He stared up at the top flat, where Willis lived. A shell case ejected from that height could have dropped anywhere in the small garden. And that window was now closed.
Out in the street, a patrol car joined the row of parked police vehicles just as Diamond emerged from the house. A uniformed sergeant got out, spotted him, and shouted, ‘Mr. Diamond, sir.’
The big man waited with arms folded.
The sergeant looked like a man who has been told he has a terminal illness. ‘Sergeant Stillman, sir.’
‘I know who you are,’ Diamond said. ‘Is there news?’
‘I thought I’d better speak to you. I just heard about Inspector Lockton being injured.’
‘You’re the last, then. We found him all of two hours ago.’
‘It’s serious, isn’t it?’
‘Serious enough to have put him in intensive care. He took a blow to the head. What’s your interest in all this?’
‘I drove him up here.’
‘This morning?’ Diamond’s attention quickened. ‘You must be the second man.’
‘Must I?’
‘A young blonde woman in pyjamas opened the door to Ken Lockton and a mysterious sergeant in uniform. If that was you, you can’t have forgotten.’
‘That was me, yes.’
‘Where have you been all this time?’
‘Asleep in the car, I’m sorry to say.’
‘Sleeping on duty while a full scale alert is going on?’
‘Technically, yes.’
‘What do you mean “technically”?’
‘Ken Lockton dismissed me, so I drove back to Walcot Street and parked by the barrier for a short nap. That was the intention. I was flaked out from night duty.’
‘Let’s re-run this from the start. How come you teamed up with Lockton?’
‘Pure chance, sir. He caught my eye in Walcot Street when he had his idea. He told me to drive him up here because he reckoned the shooting must have come from this direction. We buzzed a couple of doors and he was interested in this house because the basement flat wasn’t occupied. The blonde in pyjamas let us in. He asked me to force the basement door.’