‘I’m just saying it’ll come up. Forewarned and all that...’
‘Don’t I know it?’
‘What’s the distance, do you think? Here to the churchyard.’
‘Between three-fifty and four hundred metres.’
‘What’s that in English?’
Trethowan snorted. ‘Luddite. About a quarter of a mile.’
‘It’s a long way. What kind of weapon would he need to shoot accurately that far?’
‘We don’t know how accurately he shot,’ Trethowan said. ‘He was firing into a crowd. We don’t know what, or whom, he was aiming at, other than the crowd. According to Terry Gilchrist, he shot the bride first, then the groom, then the chief bridesmaid, and it gets a bit confusing after that. But even if he was simply aiming in that general direction, the odds are that he’d have hit someone.’
‘Seven or eight people were hit, I’ve heard.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘Scope sights?’
‘Most likely. That would certainly have given him a chance of being more accurate, if he had specific targets.’
‘Any idea what sort of weapon the shooter used?’
‘Don’t quote me on this,’ Trethowan said, ‘but I’d put my money on the Armalite, an AR15. What they call the “Black Rifle”. The cartridge casings we found bear this out. They’re.223 Remington, the same kind the AR15 takes in a twenty- or thirty-round clip. Of course, there are other rifles that use the same ammo, but... well, the AR15 is the most common. You asked what I thought.’
‘Illegal, I should imagine?’
‘Not at all. Very popular with enthusiasts. But it’s available to competition shooters only as a straight pull version.’
‘Meaning? It’s a long time since I took a firearms awareness course.’
‘You have to pull the bolt back to empty the chamber and reload.’
‘So it takes time? Could he have done that quickly enough to get off as many shots as he did?’
‘Ten? Yes. Easily. And he obviously did. It would have taken less than a minute. From what Mr Gilchrist told us, it was definitely straight pull, not semi-automatic fire. And he should know his stuff, with his military service. If it had been an illegal firearm, a semi-automatic, say, there would have been a lot more people killed.’
‘Bullets?’
‘You’d best ask the pathologist about that when he digs them out.’
‘Terry thinks they were hollow point.’
‘And he could well be right.’
‘Would the killer need a military background?’
‘Not necessarily, but I wouldn’t rule it out. There are plenty of rifle and pistol clubs and people who enjoy competitive shooting with a wide range of weapons. Or hunting. He might simply be a good shot.’
‘Any chance it was a terrorist attack?’
‘Always a possibility, something like this,’ said Trethowan. ‘Even here. The experts are on their way and they’ll be digging deep. But off the record, it’s not really terrorist style, is it? A lone gunman, as far as we know, with a legal weapon, shooting from a distance. A country wedding in an out-of-the-way place. Where’s the cachet in that?’
‘That they can hit us anywhere, anytime they like, and our customs and ceremonies mean nothing to them. They’ve been going for a lot of “soft” targets recently. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Istanbul.’
‘Well, if you put it like that...’
‘No, I agree with you, Mike. It doesn’t have the feel of a terrorist attack. They could have done far more damage sending a man or a woman in the church with an automatic weapon, or strapped with explosives, though I don’t suppose you can always find a keen suicide bomber when you want one. I’m just keeping an open mind.’ He paused. ‘If the gun was legal, we should be able to trace it through the firearms certificate, right?’
‘Ostensibly,’ said Trethowan. ‘The checks to get a certificate are pretty thorough, but people do slip between the cracks. Remember, I only said that guns modified in that way are legal to own. I didn’t say this one was obtained legally.’
‘OK. But criminals make mistakes, get overconfident. How many certificates might we be talking about?’
‘The last I heard there were about seven hundred thousand gun owners in the UK and almost two million licensed firearms.’
‘Two million?’
‘Easily. About sixty thousand in North Yorkshire alone.’
‘A lot of those would be shotguns, I assume?’
‘Uh-huh. Typically, in rural areas.’
‘So there would be fewer AR15s?’
‘Far fewer. We can narrow it down a lot. It shouldn’t take us that long to sort them out.’
‘The sooner we get started, then,’ said Banks. ‘Tell your team to start with those living closest to the scene, then work their way out. You know the drill.’
‘I’ll be sure to advise extra caution, too. If a man uses a legal firearm to commit an atrocity like this, he’s got to be expecting a visit from us before long.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t care,’ said Banks.
‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
Banks could see the news vans arriving, and there were two TV helicopters already overhead, along with the Dales search-and-rescue teams the police had co-opted to scan the moors for the killer. This would be a big story. All eyes would be on them for the next while, however things developed. If a reporter discovered how long it took the ARVs to get to the scene and secure it while people were dying there, and how long it was before they let in medical help, heads would roll, despite the orders to redistribute personnel to urban areas more vulnerable to terrorist attack. And the media would find out. Someone always blabbed. Adrian Moss, the MLO, would have his work cut out for him. If a Paris- or Istanbul-style attack occurred in a tourist beauty spot such as the Dales, the Cotswolds or the Lake District, then the terrorists would have all the time in the world to do whatever damage and kill as many people as they wanted before anyone could even attempt to put a stop to them. Talk about soft targets.
Banks heard a rustling sound and turned to see two officers leading sniffer dogs to the site. Mike Trethowan’s police radio crackled. ‘Sir,’ the voice said over the static. ‘I’ve been instructed to ask you if Detective Superintendent Banks is with you.’
‘He is,’ Trethowan answered.
‘His team has just had a call from the youth hostel, sir. Seems somebody up there knows something. One of his officers is already on site. He’s been asked to drop by. There’s a car waiting at the bottom of the hill.’
Banks nodded to Trethowan and set off down the hill.
Banks got out of the patrol car outside the youth hostel and asked the driver to wait. He looked up at the nineteenth-century manor house with its distinctly Gothic facade, as if the builder had been a fan of Bram Stoker and Ann Radcliffe. It was built of local limestone, like the church, with added wings, gables and a gargoyle or two stuck on for good measure. In the gathering late-afternoon darkness, against a background of heavy rainclouds, with only a few lights showing in mullioned windows here and there, it resembled a spooky old house from a black-and-white horror film. The House on Haunted Hill. All it needed was thunder and lightning.