Shallow Ground (Detective Ford)

by Andy Maslen

  ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘That was careless of you.’

  ‘What?’ She turned round, uncertain of what she’d heard.

  He was lifting a tin of baked beans out of the bag. ‘I said, it was careless of you. To lose your husband.’

  She frowned. Trying to make sense of his remark. The cruel tone. The staring, suddenly dead eyes.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you—’

  The tin swung round in a half-circle and crashed against her left temple.

  ‘Oh,’ she moaned, grabbing the side of her head and staggering backwards.

  Her palm was wet. Her blood was hot. She was half-blind with the pain. Her back met the cooker and she slumped to the ground. He was there in front of her, crouching down, just like he’d done with Kai. Only he wasn’t telling jokes any more. And he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Please keep quiet,’ he murmured, ‘or I’ll have to kill Kai as well. Are you expecting anyone?’

  ‘N-nobody,’ she whispered, shaking. She could feel the blood running inside the collar of her shirt. And the pain, oh, the pain. It felt as though her brain was pushing her eyes out of their sockets.

  He nodded. ‘Good.’

  Then he encircled her neck with his hands, looked into her eyes and squeezed.

  I’m so sorry, Kai. I hope Auntie Cherry looks after you properly when I’m gone. I hope . . .

  Casting a quick glance towards the kitchen door and the hallway beyond, and reassured by the blaring noise from the TV, Harvey crouched by Angie’s inert body and increased the pressure.

  Her eyes bulged, and her tongue, darkening already from that natural rosy pink to the colour of raw liver, protruded from between her teeth.

  From his jacket he withdrew an empty blood bag. He connected the outlet tube and inserted a razor-tipped trocar into the other end. He placed them to one side and dragged her jeans over her hips, tugging them down past her knees. With the joints free to move, he pushed his hands between her thighs and shoved them apart.

  He inserted the needle into her thigh so that it met and travelled a few centimetres up into the right femoral artery. Then he laid the blood bag on the floor and watched as the scarlet blood shot into the clear plastic tube and surged along it.

  With a precious litre of blood distending the bag, he capped it off and removed the tube and the trocar. With Angie’s heart pumping her remaining blood on to the kitchen floor tiles, he stood and placed the bag inside his jacket. He could feel it through his shirt, warm against his skin. He took her purse out of her bag, found the card he wanted and removed it.

  He wandered down the hall and poked his head round the door frame of the sitting room. The boy was sitting cross-legged, two feet from the TV, engrossed in the adventures of a blue cartoon dog.

  ‘Tea’s ready, Kai,’ he said, in a sing-song tone.

  Protesting, but clambering to his feet, the little boy extended a pudgy hand holding the remote and froze the action, then dropped the control to the carpet.

  Harvey held out his hand and the boy took it, absently, still staring at the screen.

  DAY TWO, 8.15 A.M.

  Arriving at Bourne Hill Police Station, Detective Inspector Ford sighed, fingering the scar on his chin. What better way to start the sixth anniversary of your wife’s death than with a shouting match over breakfast with your fifteen-year-old son?

  The row had ended in an explosive exchange that was fast, raw and brutal:

  ‘I hate you! I wish you’d died instead of Mum.’

  ‘Yeah? Guess what? So do I!’

  All the time they’d been arguing, he’d seen Lou’s face, battered by submerged rocks in the sea off the Pembrokeshire coast.

  Pushing the memory of the argument aside, he ran a hand over the top of his head, trying to flatten down the spikes of dark, grey-flecked hair.

  He pushed through the double glass doors. Straight into the middle of a ruckus.

  A scrawny man in faded black denim and a raggy T-shirt was swearing at a young woman in a dark suit. Eyes wide, she had backed against an orange wall. He could see a Wiltshire police ID on a lanyard round her neck, but he didn’t recognise her.

  The two female civilian staff behind the desk were on their feet, one with a phone clamped to her ear.

  The architects who’d designed the interior of the new station at Bourne Hill had persuaded senior management that the traditional thick glass screen wasn’t ‘welcoming’. Now any arsehole could decide to lean across the three feet of white-surfaced MDF and abuse, spit on or otherwise ruin the day of the hardworking receptionists. He saw the other woman reach under the desk for the panic button.

  ‘Why are you ignoring me, eh? I just asked where the toilets are, you bitch!’ the man yelled at the woman backed against the wall.

  Ford registered the can of strong lager in the man’s left hand and strode over. The woman was pale, and her mouth had tightened to a lipless line.

  ‘I asked you a question. What’s wrong with you?’ the drunk shouted.

  Ford shot out his right hand and grabbed him by the back of his T-shirt. He yanked him backwards, sticking out a booted foot and rolling him over his knee to send him flailing to the floor.

  Ford followed him down and drove a knee in between his shoulder blades. The man gasped out a loud ‘Oof!’ as his lungs emptied. Ford gripped his wrist and jerked his arm up in a tight angle, then turned round and called over his shoulder, ‘Could someone get some cuffs, please? This . . . gentleman . . . will be cooling off in a cell.’

  A pink-cheeked uniform raced over and snapped a pair of rigid Quik-Cuffs on to the man’s wrists.

  ‘Thanks, Mark,’ Ford said, getting to his feet. ‘Get him over to Custody.’

  ‘Charge, sir?’

  ‘Drunk and disorderly? Common assault? Being a jerk in a built-up area? Just get him booked in.’

  The PC hustled the drunk to his feet, reciting the formal arrest and caution script while walking him off in an armlock to see the custody sergeant.

  Ford turned to the woman who’d been the focus of his newest collar’s unwelcome attentions. ‘I’m sorry about that. Are you OK?’

  She answered as if she were analysing an incident she’d witnessed on CCTV. ‘I think so. He didn’t hit me, and swearing doesn’t cause physical harm. Although I am feeling quite anxious as a result.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Ford gestured at her ID. ‘Are you here to meet someone? I haven’t seen you round here before.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m starting work here today. And my new boss is . . . hold on . . .’ She fished a sheet of paper from a brown canvas messenger bag slung over her left shoulder. ‘Alec Reid.’

  Now Ford understood. She was the new senior crime scene investigator. Her predecessor had transferred up to Thames Valley Police to move with her husband’s new job. Alec managed the small forensics team at Salisbury and had been crowing about his new hire for weeks now.

  ‘My new deputy has a PhD, Ford,’ he’d said over a pint in the Wyndham Arms one evening. ‘We’re going up in the world.’

  Ford stuck his hand out. ‘DI Ford.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, taking his hand and pumping it up and down three times before releasing it. ‘My name is Dr Hannah Fellowes. I was about to get my ID sorted when that man started shouting at me.’

  ‘I doubt it was anything about you in particular. Just wrong place, wrong time.’

  She nodded, frowning up at him. ‘Although, technically, this is the right place. As I’m going to be working here.’ She checked her watch, a multifunction Casio with more dials and buttons than the dash of Ford’s ageing Land Rover Discovery. ‘It’s also 8.15, so it’s the right time as well.’

  Ford smiled. ‘Let’s get your ID sorted, then I’ll take you up to Alec. He arrives early most days.’

  He led her over to the long, low reception desk.

  ‘This is—’

  ‘Dr Hannah Fellowes,’ she said to the receptionist. ‘I’m pleased to meet you.�
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  She thrust her right hand out across the counter. The receptionist took it and received the same three stiff shakes as Ford.

  The receptionist smiled up at her new colleague, but Ford could see the concern in her eyes. ‘I’m Paula. Nice to meet you, too, Hannah. Are you all right? I’m so sorry you had to deal with that on your first day.’

  ‘It was a shock. But it won’t last. I don’t let things like that get to me.’

  Paula smiled. ‘Good for you!’

  While Paula converted a blank rectangle of plastic into a functioning station ID, Hannah turned to Ford.

  ‘Should I ask her to call me Dr Fellowes, or is it usual here to use first names?’ she whispered.

  ‘We mainly use Christian names, but if you’d like to be known as Dr Fellowes, now would be the time.’

  Hannah nodded and turned back to Paula, who handed her the swipe card in a clear case.

  ‘There you go, Hannah. Welcome aboard.’

  ‘Thank you.’ A beat. ‘Paula.’

  ‘Do you know where you’re going?’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ Ford said.

  At the lift, he showed her how to swipe her card before pressing the floor button.

  ‘If you don’t do that, you just stand in the lift not going anywhere. It’s mainly the PTBs who do it.’

  ‘PTBs?’ she repeated, as the lift door closed in front of them.

  ‘Powers That Be. Management?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. That’s funny. PTBs. Powers That Be.’

  She didn’t laugh, though, and Ford had the odd sensation that he was talking to a foreigner, despite her southern English accent. She stared straight ahead as the lift ascended. Ford took a moment to assess her appearance. She was shorter than him by a good half-foot, no more than five-five or six. Slim, but not skinny. Blonde hair woven into plaits, a style Ford had always associated with children.

  He’d noticed her eyes downstairs; it was hard not to, they’d been so wide when the drunk had had her backed against the wall. But even relaxed, they were large, and coloured the blue of old china.

  The lift pinged and a computerised female voice announced, ‘Third floor.’

  ‘You’re down here,’ Ford said, turning right and leading Hannah along the edge of an open-plan office. He gestured left. ‘General CID. I’m Major Crimes on the fourth floor.’

  She took a couple of rapid, skipping steps to catch up with him. ‘Is Forensics open plan as well? I was told it was a quiet office.’

  ‘I think it’s safe to say it’s quiet. Come on. Let’s get you a tea first. Or coffee. Which do you like best?’

  ‘That’s a hard question. I haven’t really tried enough types to know.’ She shook her head, like a dog trying to dislodge a flea from its ear. ‘No. What I meant to say was, I’d like to have a tea, please. Thank you.’

  There it was again. The foreigner-in-England vibe he’d picked up downstairs.

  While he boiled a kettle and fussed around with a teabag and the jar of instant coffee, he glanced at Hannah. She was staring at him, but smiled when he caught her eye. The expression popped dimples into her cheeks.

  ‘Something puzzling you?’ he asked.

  ‘You didn’t tell me your name,’ she said.

  ‘I think I did. It’s Ford.’

  ‘No. I meant your first name. You said, “We mainly use Christian names” when the receptionist, Paula, was doing my building ID. And you called me Hannah. But you didn’t tell me yours.’

  Ford pressed the teabag against the side of the mug before scooping it out and dropping it into a swing-topped bin. He handed the mug to Hannah. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’

  ‘Thank you. But your name?’

  ‘Ford’s fine. Really. Or DI Ford, if we’re being formal.’

  ‘OK.’ She smiled. Deeper dimples this time, like little curved cuts. ‘You’re Ford. I’m Hannah. If we’re being formal, maybe you should call me Dr Fellowes.’

  Ford couldn’t tell if she was joking. He took a swig of his coffee. ‘Let’s go and find Alec. He’s talked of little else since you accepted his job offer.’

  ‘It’s probably because I’m extremely well qualified. After earning my doctorate, which I started at Oxford and finished at Harvard, I worked in America for a while. I consulted to city, state and federal law enforcement agencies. I also lectured at Quantico for the FBI.’

  Ford blinked, struggling to process this hyper-concentrated CV. It sounded like that of someone ten or twenty years older than the slender young woman sipping tea from a Spire FM promotional mug.

  ‘That’s pretty impressive. Sorry, you’re how old?’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. We only met twenty minutes ago. I’m thirty-three.’

  Ford reflected that at her age he had just been completing his sergeant’s exams. His promotion to inspector had come through a month ago and he was still feeling, if not out of his depth, then at least under the microscope. Now, he was in conversation with some sort of crime-fighting wunderkind.

  ‘So, how come you’re working as a CSI in Salisbury? No offence, but isn’t it a bit of a step down from teaching at the FBI?’

  She looked away. He watched as she fidgeted with a ring on her right middle finger, twisting it round and round.

  ‘I don’t want to share that with you,’ she said, finally.

  In that moment he saw it. Behind her eyes. An assault? A bad one. Not sexual, but violent. Who did the FBI go after? The really bad ones. The ones who didn’t confine their evildoing to a single state. It was her secret. Ford knew all about keeping secrets. He felt for her.

  ‘OK, sorry. Look, we’re just glad to have you. Come on. Let’s find Alec.’

  He took Hannah round the rest of CID and out through a set of grey-painted double doors with a well-kicked steel plate at the foot. The corridor to Forensics was papered with health and safety posters and noticeboards advertising sports clubs, social events and training courses.

  Inside, the chatter and buzz of coppers at full pelt was replaced by a sepulchral quiet. Five people were hard at work, staring at computer monitors or into microscopes. Much of the ‘hard science’ end of forensics had been outsourced to private labs in 2012. But Wiltshire Police had, in Ford’s mind, made the sensible decision to preserve as much of an in-house scientific capacity as it could afford.

  He pointed to a glassed-in office in the far corner of the room.

  ‘That’s Alec’s den. He doesn’t appear to be in yet.’

  ‘Au contraire, Henry!’

  The owner of the deep, amused-sounding voice tapped Ford on the shoulder. He turned to greet the forensic team manager, a short, round man wearing wire-framed glasses.

  ‘Morning, Alec.’

  Alec clocked the new CSI, but then leaned closer to Ford. ‘You OK, Henry?’ he murmured, his brows knitted together. ‘What with the date, and everything.’

  ‘I’m fine. Let’s leave it.’

  Alec shrugged. Then his gaze moved to Hannah. ‘Dr Fellowes, you’re here at last! Welcome, welcome.’

  ‘Thank you, Alec. It’s been quite an interesting start to the day.’

  Ford said, ‘Some idiot was making a nuisance of himself in reception as Hannah was arriving. He’s cooling off in one of Ian’s capsule hotel rooms in the basement.’

  The joviality vanished, replaced by an expression of real concern. ‘Oh, my dear young woman. I am so sorry. And on your first day with us, too,’ Alec said. ‘Why don’t you come with me? I’ll introduce you to the team and we’ll get you set up with a nice quiet desk in the corner. Thanks, Henry. I’ll take it from here.’

  Ford nodded, eager to get back to his own office and see what the day held. He prayed someone might have been up to no good overnight. Anything to save him from the mountains of forms and reports that he had to either read, write or edit.

  ‘DI Ford? Before you go,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said I should call you Ford. But Alec just called you Henry.’


  ‘It’s a nickname. I got it on my first day here.’

  ‘A nickname. What does it mean?’

  ‘You know. Henry. As in Henry Ford?’

  She looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  He tried again. ‘The car? Model T?’

  She smiled at last. A wide grin that showed her teeth, though it didn’t reach her eyes. The effect was disconcerting. ‘Ha! Yes. That’s funny.’

  ‘Right. I have to go. I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again.’

  ‘I’m sure, too. I hope there won’t be a drunk trying to hit me.’

  She smiled, and after a split second he realised it was supposed to be a joke. As he left, he could hear her telling Alec, ‘Call me Hannah.’

  DAY TWO, 8.59 A.M.

  The 999 call had come in just ten minutes earlier: a Cat A G28 – suspected homicide. Having told the whole of Response and Patrol B shift to ‘blat’ over to the address, Sergeant Natalie Hewitt arrived first at 75 Wyvern Road.

  She jumped from her car and spoke into her Airwave radio. ‘Sierra Bravo Three-Five, Control.’

  ‘Go ahead, Sierra Bravo Three-Five.’

  ‘Is the ambulance towards?’

  ‘Be about three minutes.’

  She ran up the stairs and approached the young couple standing guard at the door to Flat 3.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Gregory, you should go back to your own flat now,’ she said, panting. ‘I’ll have more of my colleagues joining me shortly. Please don’t leave the house. We’ll be wanting to take your statements.’

  ‘But I’ve got aerobics at nine thirty,’ the woman protested.

  Natalie sighed. The public were fantastic at calling in crimes, and occasionally made half-decent witnesses. But it never failed to amaze her how they could also be such innocents when it came to the aftermath. This one didn’t even seem concerned that her upstairs neighbour and young son had been murdered. Maybe she was in shock. Maybe the husband had kept her out of the flat. Wise bloke.

  ‘I’m afraid you may have to cancel it, just this once,’ she said. You look like you could afford to. Maybe go and get a fry-up, too, when we’re done with you. Put some flesh on your bones.