Colin used the protective screen offered by the trees and shrubs to remove his pistol from his jacket inside pocket. He loaded it and replaced it. As he watched another two golfers play their approach shots to the green through the foliage, he stifled a yawn. He stretched his body and took a look at his watch. His target was on his way!
The undulating nature of the course high up on the downs meant it was just as tricky for Colin to pick out Armitage with his binoculars as it was for anyone using the fairways and greens to see him hidden away in the undergrowth. The footpath was some distance off to his right and behind him and Colin frequently kept a look out to see if there were any ramblers about, but the clouds had closed in and up here almost as far from the clubhouse as it was possible to be it wasn’t a case of was it going to rain, but when!
It started to drizzle about a quarter past three and it got steadily harder and harder; the breeze had picked up earlier and as two married couples made their way up the eleventh fairway Colin saw they were using their wet weather gear and keeping their umbrellas pulled tightly about themselves so that he could have run naked across the green and they wouldn’t have looked up.
They were hardy annuals these golfers Colin thought. Gentlemen too, he realised as he watched them carefully dry their wife’s clubs and keep their partner covered with their umbrella until the last few moments before they played their shot. All very chivalrous; it reminded Colin of Sir Walter Raleigh.
“Get on with it! You’re holding up play; the last thing I need is people backed up on the tee because of slow play!” muttered Colin, commenting knowledgeably on a game that he knew very little about and cared about even less. He shook his head; the stuff you have to read up on if you want to do a job properly.
He needn’t have worried; the course wasn’t too busy further back towards the clubhouse; the threat of rain had put off a few that were considering turning up on the off chance of getting a round in. They left their clubs in the boot of the car and walked over the road to get a round in at The Snowdrop Inn. A pint or two was a much better way to pass an afternoon.
Richard Armitage was with one of his regular playing partners, a solicitor from Lewes called Peregrine Watts-Williams. Today was no different from any other occasion they played together; it was a money game, a fiver a hole. Perry, as he liked to be called was a rank amateur whose handicap was that he couldn’t play golf; subsequently it was no surprise that the crafty copper was forty quid up as he put the pin back in the hole at the tenth.
“Unlucky Perry; it’s not your day today is it?” said Armitage without a hint of irony.
“Eight holes left Richard” said Perry “the come back starts here!”
The wind and rain were unrelenting as the pair made their way over to the eleventh tee. Colin had walked back towards the point on the hole where the right hand dog leg came into play about five minutes earlier to watch their first shots through his binoculars.
Planning is everything; the operative who visited the Lewes course had given a blow by blow description of the type of shot that these two were prone to play, given their proficiency. Armitage had a better than even chance of finding the middle of the fairway, while poor old Perry would probably be zigzagging his way up as he negotiated the three hundred odd yards.
He watched the pantomime unfold as both Richard Armitage and Perry Watts-Williams shuffled onto the tee. There were umbrellas, golf trolleys, towels and technicolour wet weather clothing everywhere! Colin ran back through the trees and awaited the arrival of the first shot. He had a small window of opportunity where he could dart out and do what he planned and be hidden from view of the players.
Armitage drove first and as he watched it sail away he made a mental note to work on correcting a slight tendency to slice his tee shot; maybe he was relaxing because he was finding it easier than usual to pick up sixty or seventy quid from the old fart next to him. The ball landed about five yards from the thick rough and Colin congratulated himself on picking the perfect place to hide. He walked over to the ball, picked it up and dropped it in amongst the more dense vegetation.
Perry had creamed his drive across towards the left hand side of the fairway, perhaps twenty yards further on than his opponent; it was probably the best shot he had played all afternoon. Colin groaned and ran after it; he picked it up and lobbed it into the rough. Job done! The two men would be far enough apart for what he had in mind. They wouldn’t see each other play their second shots.
Colin watched and listened for the arrival of the two golfers. There they were! Bang in the middle of the fairway; ever hopeful! They walked up the couple of hundred yards together, and then they parted company to start the search for their ball.
“Can’t see either of them Perry” called Richard Armitage “I could have sworn I would have been on the fairway, even though I admit I tweaked it a touch.”
“I smoked mine Richard; I told you it wasn’t over just yet. I’m going to start looking over there way up on the left.”
“You wish!” replied the policeman. Perry laughed and the two men set off.
Colin slipped the pistol from his jacket and waited. Richard Armitage parked his trolley and started to hunt for his ball in the grass at the edge of the fairway. When he looked further into the trees he saw the spot where Colin had placed it; a little puzzled, the crafty copper moved quietly towards it, wondering how it had ended up this far right.
He knew that Perry couldn’t see him from the other side of the fairway, so he picked it up, found a decent lie and placed it down. Colin watched him from his hiding place.
“I’ve got mine” shouted Perry “it’s in the rough but at least I’ve got a shot; any luck with yours?”
“Just found it in the light stuff Perry” Richard called back “my turn I believe?”
He selected his club and after a few flashy waggles he hit the ball. It sailed away into a stiff Lewes breeze. He was so engrossed in his shot and hoping Perry hadn’t seen him pick up his ball that he didn’t realise that someone had emerged from the trees and bushes and was now right behind him.
“Cheating bastard” whispered Colin and squeezed the trigger.
DCI Richard Armitage pitched forward onto the fairway, dead before he hit the ground. The PSS pistol lived up to its reputation; silent and deadly. Perry was twenty yards ahead; there were very few people left on the course and absolutely nobody on the footpath away in the distance, so no one was any the wiser.
Perry had seen the ball flying straight as an arrow towards the green and cursed.
“Lucky sod; I was hoping he might not have had a shot” he muttered, totally unaware that indeed he had. Just not the one he was expecting.
The corpulent solicitor tried his best and hacked the ball out of the rough. Disconsolately he trudged after it dragging his trolley behind him.
“Still my turn Richard” he called out to his playing partner “you carry on and I’ll see you on the green in a tick.”
There was no reply.
Colin had not been idle in the minute or so since he had murdered the corrupt police officer. He reversed his jacket, stuffed the bobble hat in the rucksack and took a couple of items out; as he walked quickly back to the footpath he was now wearing a maroon top and a white baseball cap. When he had put sufficient distance between himself and Richard Armitage’s body he took the shaver out of his pocket and removed the designer stubble. When he was clean shaven he took off his glasses and put both the shaver and the glasses in the rucksack. His transformation was now complete. There weren’t any eye witnesses in the vicinity but if people remembered a walker in town this morning, a customer in The Snowdrop Inn or a bird watcher on the footpath by the golf course, then the man seen coming away from the scene of the crime late in the afternoon wouldn’t have rung any bells.