They finally reached the location Dyson had identified and Grace halted, signalling for him to stop, too. Ahead was a rectangular area of flattened grass.
Dyson nodded. ‘Looks like someone has been here very recently. Unless it’s an animal — but unlikely — there’s nothing big enough out here to have flattened that area. There’s no cows or horses.’
Grace nodded, studying the flattened grass and the area immediately around it, looking for anything that might be a link to the shooter. A discarded cigarette butt, a water bottle top, a scrap of paper. He sniffed the air slowly and deeply to see if he could detect the smell of urine, in the hope the shooter might have had a pee. But the only scents were grass, gorse, bracken and earth.
Dyson raised his rangefinder and focused back on the crime scene. After some moments, handing the device to Grace, the ballistics expert said, ‘I could be right, sir.’
Peering through the viewfinder, the range on the digital display veered between 296 and 297 yards. Roy Grace could see the body on the ground and several CSIs on their knees carrying out a fingertip search immediately around the body and a little further away from it.
Keeping clear of the area of flattened grass, Grace squatted down and, mimicking the action of a sniper, prostrated himself, before once again peering through the viewfinder. He could see the old brick surround to the tunnel entrance, down in the cutting below, the lift and the steps.
‘Even from this distance of three hundred yards, to be sure of a head shot you’d need the target to be stationary, right?’ he asked.
‘Yes, correct, sir.’
‘You might just have nailed it, Baz,’ he said. ‘This position is concealed by the gorse bushes but gives a perfect line of sight to the tunnel entrance, the steps and the knoll on top. The shooter would have seen them emerge from the tunnel, and then climb the steep steps, knowing they would almost certainly stop at the top to get their breath back. Would you agree?’
‘That’s exactly what I would have been counting on,’ Dyson agreed.
Grace stood, radioed the Crime Scene Manager, and asked Gee to arrange for some new CSIs to attend this second crime scene to avoid any cross contamination.
After Gee had acknowledged that, Grace turned back to Dyson. ‘Another hypothesis, Baz. Could this shooter have possibly been aiming at someone standing alongside this victim and missed, hitting the victim — Peregrine Greaves — in the head instead?’
Dyson considered the question for some moments. ‘It’s a possibility, but not one I’d subscribe to. Let’s look at the facts that we have.’ He began a countdown on his fingers. ‘First is that only two shots were fired. No sniper is going to rely on only two rounds of ammunition. They’ve got to have at least some backup shots, and the Blaser’s magazine — if I’m right about the weapon — could hold ten. But even if I’m wrong about the gun used here, any sniper rifle will have a magazine with a bare minimum of, say, six rounds. Let’s assume our shooter was a pro — or at least a very experienced amateur. If he’d hit the wrong person, when his target was Camilla, he only took a second shot but missed? So let’s follow that theory for a moment. You detectives work on hypotheses, right?’
Grace smiled grimly. ‘It’s a word we prefer to assumption.’
‘So let’s hypothesize. The shooter is up here, concealed by the gorse bushes, with a perfect line of sight on both the south entrance to the tunnel and the grassy area above it. He takes aim at Camilla and his shot goes wide, hitting Greaves in the head. If the shooter’s here to assassinate Camilla and well capable of firing at least another four rounds in rapid succession, why did he only shoot again once?’
Grace nodded. ‘Fair point, but don’t forget, within a couple of seconds Her Majesty was on the ground covered by her Protection Officers.’
‘The sniper could still have got more shots off — he got spooked perhaps?’
Before Grace could respond, he was distracted by a text from Downing.
Roy, we have a problem. Need you back down here asap.
21
Monday 20 November 2023
The unanswered question stayed with Roy Grace as he and Dyson waited for the CSIs to attend and start a forensic search of the possible shooter location. And it stayed with him all the way back down to the activity at the crime scene, the Coroner’s Officer having not yet arrived. Suddenly a call came through on his radio. It was a Comms controller.
‘Sir, I have Chief Superintendent Carr.’
Grace thanked her and a moment later heard the voice of the Commander for Brighton and Hove Police, who was today also Silver Commander for Operation Flagship.
‘Roy,’ she said, ‘how is it going?’
‘I’m at the scene of the shooting now, Rachel,’ he said. ‘Pretty grim.’
‘I’ve just had a call from the Chief,’ she continued. ‘The Queen is adamant about continuing with her tour of the hospices, as scheduled for both today and tomorrow. The only difference being she will not attend Chichester Theatre but will return to London overnight. I just wanted to alert you to this.’
‘Thanks, Rachel, for confirming, we thought that would be the case.’
‘Except now we have to try to protect her, knowing there’s a gunman out there somewhere who is maybe intent on killing her.’
Behind the tape he saw a very agitated ACC Downing and he signalled he’d be with him in a moment. ‘Rachel, all we can do is surround her with officers, vehicles in front and behind her car, and a helicopter directly overhead with Armed Response officers on board, plus put a ring of steel around each hospice.’
‘That’s being done, Roy.’
‘OK, keep me posted.’ He thanked her and headed straight to Downing.
‘Roy,’ the ACC said, his normally very confident and assured boss looking uncharacteristically nervous. ‘We have a bit of an issue. Just when you thought today could not get any worse, it does.’
‘Bet you are wishing right now you were back in your old job of Highways Planning. Just having to worry about potholes.’
‘Never! So, this other major problem we now have.’ He gave Grace a bemused grin, his arms gesturing he was out of his depth. ‘It’s the Met.’
Grace wasn’t entirely surprised to hear this. Competition between the Met and regional forces frequently arose on major incidents of national importance. The vast Met Police force had around 35,000 officers, compared to the few thousand of most of the country’s other forces, and they could be very superior, regarding all other English police forces as less able outfits by comparison. He felt a sudden hollow sensation in the pit of his stomach. ‘Tell me, sir?’
The ACC blushed. ‘Well, the thing is, Roy, I’ve just had Sir Mark Peckham, the Commissioner of the Met, on the phone — in person.’
The Commissioner of the Met was, by definition, England’s most senior police officer.
Downing waved a hand uselessly in the air, as if trying, unsuccessfully, to indicate it was of no importance, no importance at all. ‘Sir Mark feels this might be too big for Sussex Police to handle — that the Met Counter Terrorism Command should have primacy on this case.’
Grace stared at him for some moments. ‘That’s typically high-handed of them, sir.’ He realized this was where Downing’s lack of policing experience was an issue. ‘I hope you gave them short shrift.’
Downing grimaced uncertainly, flapping his hand around in the air again. ‘Well, I — tried to be tactful, Roy. I... I told them that this had all happened on our — in our — county — and that I was very satisfied you were the right man to handle this. You are a fully trained, accredited SIO. But I’m afraid a group of them have helicoptered down from London and will be here imminently.’ He gave Grace an imploring look. ‘An attempted assassination of The Queen is a pretty big thing, Roy.’