‘I expect you checked recent releases from prison.’
‘You bet. And not just Erlestoke, Pucklechurch and Horfield. The whole goddamn country. An embittered ex-con would be the prime suspect. Too bad no one fits.’
‘Unless he got out years ago and it was festering all this time.’
Gull looked away, out of the window. ‘You’re a real comfort. How could we possibly know that?’
The road ahead was mercifully free of traffic, a steep climb up a stretch overhung with tall trees. The engine needed a lower gear and Diamond recovered enough to say, ‘Another angle would be the trigger-happy young hoodlum out to impress his mates.’
‘You’re not telling me anything.’
‘I’ll save my breath, then.’
‘Trust me, some good minds are working on this. We’re using a profiler.’
‘What for?’ He’d had enough of Gull’s put downs.
‘Don’t you believe in them?’
‘I believe in them. I’ve met them.’
‘This one is on the Home Office list. He’s good. He suggested possible areas where the sniper might live.’
‘Like midway between Wells and Radstock? Say, Chilcompton?’
Jack Gull turned to glare at Diamond. ‘How did you know that?’
‘You only have to look at a map. I’m not a big fan of geographical profiling. I was reading about a serial killer in America who had the profilers going spare. Each time they settled on a location, he popped up somewhere they hadn’t thought of. Turned out he had a motor home.’
Gull wasn’t amused. ‘I believe in using all the help going. If you can come up with a theory, I’ll even listen to you.’
‘What if the killer was one of our own, then?’
Another glare. ‘A cop, you mean?’
‘A bad apple. I’ve met a few.’
‘He’d have to be psychotic.’
‘Are you saying the sniper isn’t? An evil cop would know how to get hold of that police-issue sniper rifle you mentioned. And he’d have inside knowledge of local foot patrols.’
They were still climbing steadily, and now overtaking all the way. Diamond was thinking it only wanted one dozy truck driver coming towards them and three more of Avon and Somerset’s finest would join the list of dead.
‘The bad cop theory was raised at one of our brainstorming sessions,’ Gull said. ‘Personally, I don’t buy it. If he was picking off hard bastards like you and me, maybe, but these were foot soldiers killed because of where they were, not who.’
‘All right,’ Diamond said. ‘Try this for size. It’s rare, but not unknown: the guy fixated on guns and killing.’
‘Yeah?’
‘He isn’t content with bagging rabbits and pheasants. He kills with the indifference of a marksman hitting clay pigeons. It’s his sport. He’s out of his mind, but that’s how he sees it, picking off policemen.’
After a pause, Gull said, ‘Wild.’
‘Too wild?’
Gull shrugged. ‘It’s one we haven’t talked about, I’ll give you.’
They left the A36 at the top of the hill and swung left. In a few hundred yards it was white-knuckle time again, one of those West Country lanes no wider than the car and without passing spaces. High hedges added to the claustrophobia. On went the siren.
Soon after, the lane opened up to a street with terraced cottages and a few parked cars.
The driver said, ‘Almost there, gentlemen. Hold on. It gets a little hairy going down to Avoncliff. They use it for motocross.’
A bend that was a virtual hairpin started them down the scarp of the Limpley Stoke Valley and into Becky Addy Wood. Grit-bins at intervals testified to the steepness. The road surface was potholed and the wood so dense that headlights were needed. Mercifully they didn’t have far to go before reaching a glade where a number of police vehicles were parked.
It was bliss to get out. Diamond’s legs felt unsteady, his arms ached from being flexed, but his stomach rejoiced.
Someone yelled, ‘Why isn’t that man wearing body armour?’
‘Does he mean me?’
Jack Gull opened the car boot and handed Diamond the protective jacket and helmet. ‘As you’re not armed you’d better not get close to the action.’
‘Are we expecting some?’
‘That’s why we’re here. Shots were heard from the woods over the last couple of days. Not unusual in these parts, but this isn’t shotgun fire. This scumbag uses bullets. A tree was used for target practice.’
Two people-carriers delivered more coppers for the stake-out, all in their protective Kevlar jackets. Most were from the Wiltshire force, for the wood was just across the county border, a remnant of the ancient Selwood Forest which had stretched from Chippenham to Cerne Abbas, fifty miles south on the Dorset Downs. The air of excitement was tempered by the sight of the terrain, dark and difficult to penetrate. This would be no walk in the park.
Gull made himself known to the local chief inspector directing the operation and made it clear he wasn’t aiming to take over. ‘Treat Mr. Diamond and me the same as any other members of your team.’
Diamond doubted if that was a wise offer.
In a few minutes the small army, about forty of them, drew close to get instructions. Barely forty minutes ago, the chief inspector told them, an Avoncliff resident walking her dog had seen a figure in black running through the wood with a rifle. In view of the reports of gunfire in recent days and bullets embedded in trees she’d phoned the police. Becky Addy Wood had good possibilities as a hideout for the Somerset Sniper.
A few officers had gone ahead to scout the area where the gunman had been seen. Cordons had been set up at the obvious escape points. The entire wood was not large — barely two hundred yards across and half a mile in length — but difficult. For a start, it was on a steep escarpment of the Avon valley. Little had been done to manage the dense woodland except clearing the rutted motocross tracks. Thick scrub and fallen and rotting timber was everywhere. In places the search party would be knee deep in leaf mould. As if that were not enough, the remains of a stone quarry were sited at the near end. A tramway had once delivered the precious limestone blocks down the steep gradient and across the Avoncliff aqueduct to a wharf where they were dressed and loaded onto barges and transported along the Kennet and Avon Canal. Little of this industrial history was visible any longer. The trees, blackthorn and nettles had taken over. But hidden blocks of stone and open mine workings presented extra hazards.
The searchers were to spread out across the strip and advance slowly from west to east looking for signs of recent activity, in particular small fires, encampments and evidence of shooting. At any point if they sighted the suspect, they were to take cover at the nearest available place.
‘No problem,’ Gull said to Diamond.
‘Hitting the ground, you mean?’
‘Finding some cover. All these fucking trees.’
‘It is a wood,’ Diamond said.
‘I hate them. I could take a chainsaw to them.’
Diamond quite liked trees usually and they were here in variety, oak, beech, larch, fir, pine and spruce. Unfortunately many were dead. The place had a neglected look. Maybe Gull was right and some felling was wanted.
Staying upright would be a challenge. The body armour made him top-heavy, a novel experience for him. The ceramic shield inside the Kevlar padding was like a ton weight. Still, it could be a life-saver. The pockets at the front contained helpful items including a torch, a taser and, not to be thought about, a personal first aid kit, for use by medics if he were injured.
He and Gull were side by side, twenty feet apart, in the line that presently started a slow rake through the wood. He had mixed feelings about this search. It was difficult to understand why the sniper would have thought it necessary to hide in Becky Addy Wood when no one knew what he looked like. Instead of skulking in this godforsaken place, he could have taken tea in the Pump Room without any risk of being recognized provided he tucked the gun out of sight.