Authors: Peter Lovesey
‘What we do,’ Diamond said, ‘is transfer our main firepower to this side of the Frome Road south of Bradford. We put stops on the towpath and all points east of the country park.’
‘If he’s armed with his sniper rifle now it’s going to be a bloodbath.’
‘AFOs are trained to deal with exactly this kind of situation.’
‘All of this depends on him taking the canal route.’
‘True. I’m relying on Oscar One to keep us updated.’
The downside was that Oscar One had gone silent, presumably already doing his covert surveillance.
Gull marched over to the senior firearms officer to pass on the new orders. He had virtually ceded control to Diamond. The trickery over the fireworks had deflated him. Although both men had been guilty of errors, Supergull with his loudhailer had insisted on the high profile and made a public fool of himself.
A small team was dispatched down to the Avoncliff Aqueduct, but the main firepower would be posted to the opposite end, where Diamond had predicted the sniper would be heading, this side of the Frome Road. The men would be driven there in their minibuses and they should have time to find cover. It would take the sniper on foot at least another twenty minutes.
Diamond thought about getting in radio contact with John Leaman and telling him to divert most of the men in Westwood to the new point of ambush. Unarmed as they were, they could be useful as observers, but their presence would complicate the operation. Best keep it simple, he decided.
‘Do you want a piece of the action?’ he asked Gull.
‘You mean by the road?’
‘You’re armed.’
‘It’s only a sodding handgun. I’ll be of more use at the aqueduct.’
‘As you wish.’
So it was Diamond armed only with a crutch who joined the firearms team heading for the minibuses. He was too hyped up to care about personal safety. All this could soon be over if he got the sniper’s thinking right this time. What he needed was an update from Oscar One. Frustratingly, nothing was coming through on the radio.
Two buses had been driven down from Upper Westwood to the rendezvous at the bend of the road. When the first had filled, he clambered aboard and took the single seat across from the driver. In their body armour laden with radios, tasers, plasticuffs and cutters, torches and handguns, the men needed two seats each. Tension was high. No one, however well trained and experienced, could feel confident being transported to a new, unseen location. Little was said as the wheels bumped over the rough ground and back onto the more even surface.
Getting impatient, Diamond checked that his radio was still switched on, the volume turned high. To be fair, he hadn’t instructed Oscar One to make regular reports on the sniper’s movements. Maybe that was another error on his part. He shouldn’t have assumed it would happen. After all, who was Oscar One? Not one of these macho AFOs, but some young bobby who spent most of his duty time behind a desk. Pure chance had catapulted him into this crucial role. He couldn’t be expected to know what to do in pursuit of a killer. It was enough to hope he had the savvy to remain unseen.
A voice could be heard over the heavy drone of the engine in low gear powering them up the steep incline. Not from Diamond’s radio. One of the firearms officers was speaking at the back of the bus. ‘He’s scum. He’s totalled three of our lads, doing their job.’
Diamond turned around. ‘I don’t know who was speaking just then. What you said is fair comment, but getting angry won’t help any of us do the job. We have standards, right?’
‘You don’t need to tell us, guv,’ another voice said. ‘We’ve done the training.’
Someone else spoke. ‘Angry or not, we’re still supposed to take him out.’
‘Out of action, yes,’ Diamond said. ‘Get this straight, all of you. The object is to take the man alive, disable him if need be, but not to kill him. A corpse full of bullets will be a failure. Do that and we’ll all find ourselves on a public enquiry being ripped to shreds by some lawyer. We’re police officers in pursuit of an armed suspect. Doesn’t mean we shoot to kill. Too many deadly mistakes have been made by armed officers in the past. It’s not our aim to add to them.’
More was probably said that he didn’t hear. He understood the strength of feeling against the sniper, but he wanted an arrest, not a revenge killing. The pressure of a shootout, the real thing, would test these young officers to a degree no amount of training had prepared them for. Mishandled, this operation could turn into a nightmare.
They were driven fast through Upper Westwood. With his acute discomfort at any speed over forty, Diamond now regretted choosing the front seat, the more so when they swung left and started down the ultra-narrow Jones Hill. Tall hedgerows caught in the headlights accentuated the velocity. Occasionally an overgrown
bramble scraped the side of the bus. He put a hand to his face as if scratching his head and peered through the slits between his fingers.
‘Where do I put you down?’
‘What?’ he uncovered his eyes. They’d done the descent and were approaching the Frome Road, the southern route into Bradford on Avon.
The driver didn’t repeat the question. It was plain enough.
Diamond unfolded the map and took a rapid decision. ‘There’s a place called Victory Field. Over the bridge and sharp left.’
Before they disembarked, he conferred with the senior man. Protocol mattered now. The armed response team expected to run their own show, but the strategy, such as it was, was being decided at a higher level.
It was agreed Diamond should issue instructions to everyone. ‘We can’t say which side of the canal the suspect is, so we’re covering both. As you get out we’ll send you in pairs to various points. By the look of it, we have some open spaces here. Tough for you, but a lot tougher for him. Find whatever cover you can. Keep in radio contact and listen up. It’s not impossible there are people out walking, even at this hour, so for God’s sake don’t shoot the first thing that moves. The suspect is wearing a baseball cap and probably armed with a sniper rifle and will be coming from the Avoncliff direction. I’ll try and let you know when we have a sighting. Let’s get this job finished tonight.’
He stood outside with the sergeant in charge and dispatched them as they stepped down. They looked incredibly young, some of them plainly scared. The majority fanned out across Victory Field to find points of cover. Some huge trees and the famous fourteenth century tithe barn and a two-storey granary building offered possibilities. Other pairs looked for positions above and beneath the road bridge over the canal.
He and the sergeant moved to the second bus and repeated the instructions before everyone disembarked. He stressed what he’d said earlier to the first lot, about the need to be responsible, not vengeful.
Both buses were driven off to park in front of the railway station.
This had the making of an effective stake-out, but would it work? He was about to find out.
He used the radio again. ‘Oscar One, report your position. Over.’
Oscar One remained silent.
On the bridge over the canal Diamond watched the shadows of clouds crossing the moonlit Victory Field. His mood was uneasy. He wasn’t trained for this role, making life or death decisions on the hoof. He preferred the more measured detective work.
To make sure his radio was working he called John Leaman. The response was immediate. The Avon and Somerset men were still in place in the village.
‘You’ve been following what’s happening, I expect.’
‘All the way. No joy yet?’
‘Not yet.’
Jack Gull came on air from his chosen position at the aqueduct. No one had been sighted there. ‘Looks like he headed your way.’
‘We can hope.’
‘If it’s a no show, you owe me, Diamond.’ Still negative and still quick to blame.
Three minutes went by.
The static alerted him again. ‘Sierra Three at Barton Bridge, repeat, Barton Bridge. We have a sighting.’
Barton Bridge, another of Bradford’s ancient structures, seven hundred years old, spanned the Avon only a few hundred yards from where Diamond was.
Pulses raced.
‘Description?’
‘Average height and build, baseball cap, holding something, could be the gun, moving at a fast step southeast towards the barn.’
He pressed the radio close to his mouth and spoke softly. ‘Stand by, everyone. Hold your fire and let him come. We’ll challenge him near the barn. I repeat: hold your fire.’ He’d posted enough armed men in the area to handle this. As the suspect approached the building he’d find it acted as a barrier closing off one of his escape routes and the police would surround him.
With cruel timing, a large cloud scudded across the moon and drastically reduced the light. The marksmen had night-vision glasses, Diamond told himself. This shouldn’t hamper them too much. Personally he was finding it difficult to make anything out. But if his sight was impaired, then so was the suspect’s. Use the dark to your advantage, he told himself. Maximise your opportunity. You have the chance to get closer in reasonable safety.
He started limping across the turf towards the barn. His heart was pounding against his ribcage, not with the exercise, but the stress.
Could he rely on those young firearms officers to act responsibly?
A series of sharp sounds close at hand pulled him up sharply.
‘Oscar One to Bravo. Over.’
Oscar One. Finally.
He tucked the crutch under his arm and grabbed the radio. ‘I hear you. Where are you?’
‘I lost him, sir. I’m sorry.’
‘How? What do you mean?’
‘He gave me the slip near the swing-bridge. I reckon he legged it over the fields. I followed the trail into some kind of park, thinking he must have gone that way.’
Some kind of park? ‘It’s okay, Oscar One, you did all right. We have a sighting of him.’
‘Thank Christ for that.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘I’m not sure, sir. It’s gone dark. I must be quite close to the river, I think. I can hear it on my left.’
‘If you’re that close, you’re not far from where we are.’
‘I can just see some buildings up ahead.’
A chill crept over Diamond’s flesh. ‘Are you wearing a baseball cap?’
‘My police issue cap.’
‘Are you carrying anything?’
‘Only my PR24, sir, for protection.’
‘Your what?’
‘My baton.’
He pictured the standard side-handle baton: two feet long, black, metal, easily mistaken for a firearm in this poor light.
‘Stop where you are, Oscar One. Don’t take another step. Drop the baton and stand still.’
‘Sir, I think he’s away out of it.’
‘Do as I say.’
If he was right, Oscar One was the man at Barton Bridge, seconds away from being ambushed by armed police.
Fumbling with the radio controls, Diamond managed to get out a general message that the sighting at Barton Bridge was now believed to be of a police officer. On no account was anyone to fire a shot. He insisted on getting responses from each of the firearms teams.
In addition he got one from Jack Gull. ‘Fuck you, Diamond, what are you playing at? Has the killer got clean away again?’
12
O
scar One was not the rookie constable Diamond had pictured. With hair turning silver at the sides, he was one of the unsung majority who see out their time without moving up the ranks. No discredit in that. In Diamond’s experience the promotion system was designed to reward conformity rather than imagination and risk-taking. You found more likeable blokes, more kindred spirits, among beat officers than in senior positions.
His name was Henry Shilling and he wasn’t used to finding himself in conversation with someone of superintendent rank.
‘Not your fault, but we almost gunned you down.’ Diamond told him. ‘You could have been front page news. The papers like a friendly fire story.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What for?’
‘Saving my life.’
‘Self-interest. Sensitive ears. I can’t stand gunfire.’
PC Shilling frowned and blinked. He wasn’t on the Diamond wave-length yet.
The big man was thinking the sensitive ears quip wasn’t bad for four-thirty in the morning. He went on more straightforwardly, ‘But I’m glad you finally used your radio. That’s what saved you. Saved my career, come to that, so I owe you. Tell me something.’ He paused, not wanting to make this sound like a rebuke. ‘Why didn’t you get in touch before?’
‘Two reasons, sir.’
Diamond raised his palms. ‘No one “sirs” me. “Guv,” if you must. What are your two reasons?’
‘At the start I didn’t want him to overhear me.’
‘You got as close as that?’
‘You told me to go in pursuit and I did. Reason two: towards the end I lost him, so I couldn’t report his position. I was hoping I’d catch up again.’
‘And be able to report something positive?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Understandable.’ It was easy to grasp what had run through PC Shilling’s mind while he was legging it along the towpath in pursuit. Diamond would have felt the same, torn between confessing to failure and trying to reverse it. ‘But you’re still the main player.’
‘How come?’
‘The only sighting of this killer. If you don’t hold the ace of trumps I don’t know who does. What can you tell me about him?’
A troubled look surfaced on PC Shilling’s features. ‘I didn’t see much.’
‘Even when you were so close it wasn’t safe to use the radio?’
‘The light wasn’t good.’
‘Think back. Get him in your mind’s eye again. What’s he wearing?’ There was a touch of the hypnotist in Diamond’s manner, but it was only a surface effect. He couldn’t get anyone to relax if he tried.
‘Like I told you. Baseball cap and dark clothes.’
‘Jacket or shirt?’
‘Tight-fitting jacket. He’s slim. Moves like a fit man. I think he was in jeans and trainers. And he carried the gun.’
‘Ah, the gun. What type?’
‘Short-barrelled, chunky, like our own lads use, and with extra bits.’
‘Extra bits such as?’
‘I don’t know much about firearms, guv.’
‘I gathered that. You know what a telescopic sight is?’