Shallow Ground (Detective Ford)

by Andy Maslen

  Harvey drags him into the kitchen, positions him and takes out the cannula with its razor-tipped trocar.

  When he’s finished, he takes a scummy-looking pan scourer from the dirty sink, dips it in the pool and paints a number on the wall.

  With the number behind him, he smiles into his phone’s lens and takes a selfie. Another one for you, Dad.

  At 3.47 p.m. Ford parked on Terry Road in Morland’s Field, a run-down area of the city known for high levels of petty crime, from drug-dealing to bike thefts.

  Five minutes later, shaking his head, he stood on the threshold of the filthy kitchen.

  ‘Who found him?’ he asked Nat.

  ‘Social worker. I’ve started house-to-house enquiries. All we’ve got so far is, he was an Olympic-level pain in the arse.’

  ‘Keep on it.’

  Looking at the body seated in the pool of blood, the yanked-down jeans, the puncture wound, the number daubed on the wall, Ford knew what he was dealing with. ‘Multiple linked offences’ be damned. He closed his eyes, ignoring the seasick feeling as his world tilted.

  He saw a man. Strong, but non-threatening. Older? In a suit and tie? Well spoken? An authority figure? He opened his eyes as his gut heaved, and reached into his pocket for a bag.

  He was back at Bourne Hill by 5.00 p.m. and pulled everyone into a briefing. He turned on the projector and beamed the latest outrage on to the wall.

  ‘Paul Eadon, twenty-eight years old. Lived in Raymond Molyneaux House. Identical MO to Angie Halpern.’

  ‘Any link between him and Angie, guv?’ Olly asked.

  ‘That’s what we’re going to find out. I want you to talk to his social worker. She’s happy to give you chapter and verse. See if his and Angie’s lives overlapped. Maybe she treated him once.’

  ‘Cause of death?’ Jools asked.

  ‘I could see the edge of recent bruises on the back and sides of his neck. Dr Eustace will confirm, but I’m thinking the killer stunned him with a punch then throttled him and stuck him with a needle like before.’

  He clicked the mouse to bring up the next image, a bloody 500, dripping down the wall towards a tattered calendar, the current month featuring a picture of a golden retriever.

  ‘He wrote this on the wall,’ Ford said, as if they hadn’t got the message.

  ‘Shall I run Eadon through the PNC?’ Jan asked.

  Ford nodded. ‘OK, thanks everyone. Hannah, you got a minute?’

  He waited for the room to empty, noting the way Mick glared at Hannah.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, holding a sheaf of papers in front of her like a shield.

  ‘It’s the same guy, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t be one hundred per cent sure.’

  Ford sighed with exasperation. ‘Yes, but, on balance?’

  ‘On balance, yes. Identical MO. Identical signature. I would say both murders were carried out by the same individual.’

  ‘Is this a serial killer? On balance,’ he added, hurriedly. ‘You worked with the FBI. You must have talked to people about them.’

  A shadow flitted across her eyes. ‘I did. It looks probable. I would expect to find a third body very soon, unless we catch him.’

  ‘“Him?” Not them?’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s a man. I’m certain.’

  ‘I’d be interested to know what else you could come up with about him.’

  Her eyes widened, and she smiled. ‘You mean you want to profile him? And you want me to help you?’

  ‘Yes. If you’re up for the challenge.’

  ‘You said no before. You said . . .’ She closed her eyes, frowning. ‘“It’s unnecessary. The young ones always want to go outside for profilers at the merest sniff of something unusual, instead of doing proper coppering.”’

  Trust you to nail me with my exact words, Hannah. ‘Yes, I did. And at the time I meant it. But I think we need to work a bit harder at getting inside his head. It means extra work, and I’m afraid there won’t be any overtime authorised.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I have more than enough money for me and Uta Frith to live on.’

  ‘Good. Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.’

  Sandy looked up from her computer.

  ‘Henry! And you must be the Dr Fellowes I’ve been hearing so much about,’ she said effusively, standing and rounding her desk to shake hands with Hannah. ‘Have a seat. You offered our new deputy forensics chief a coffee, Henry?’

  ‘No, boss.’

  ‘Well, go and get her one, then. Poor woman looks parched. How do you take it, Dr Fellowes? Your coffee, I mean?’

  ‘White, no sugar, please,’ she said.

  Sandy looked at Ford. ‘Off you go, then. I’ll have my usual, please.’

  When Ford returned with the drinks, it was to the sound of the two women laughing. He took it as a good sign. He slid papers aside on the desk before placing the mugs down on the small clearings he created.

  ‘Here you go. White, no sugar, for you, Hannah. Black, two spoons, for the boss. And a peppermint tea for me.’

  ‘I thought you preferred coffee,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Just trying not to OD on caffeine.’

  Sandy picked up her mug and took a sip. ‘Not bad. So, Hannah, how are you finding life at Bourne Hill?’

  ‘I am enjoying it very much. The work is very stimulating and I’m learning people’s nicknames. Like Henry and Jools. They work quite well. And yours, of course. The Python.’

  Ford winced, hiding the grimace behind his tea mug. People never called Sandy the Python to her face.

  ‘And does mine work?’ she asked, arching one eyebrow.

  ‘It’s hard to say. It doesn’t relate to your name. Pythons are snakes, constrictors. They’re slender and muscular. You’re tall, and more generously proportioned, though still very beautiful. I would call you Juno.’

  ‘And Juno would be?’

  ‘To the Romans, Juno was the queen of the gods. Her associations are the subject of much controversy among scholars, but all agree she embodies vital force, energy and eternal youthfulness.’

  Sandy laughed loudly. Ford relaxed. No blood on the carpet today.

  ‘I’ll take that, Dr Fellowes. I’ll take that. You should come up for a chat more often.’

  ‘You heard we’ve got another body?’ Ford said.

  ‘Someone may have mentioned that little fact to me.’

  ‘Hannah and I think we’ve got a serial killer, unlikely as that sounds. We need to get ahead of him before this gets nasty. Nastier,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘Agreed. What do you want?’

  ‘Press conference later today. Keep the invites to the locals for now. If Sky or whoever gets wind of it from social media, they’ll be down here anyway.’

  ‘Done,’ she said, making a note with a gold propelling pencil in a small red-leather-covered notebook. ‘What else? I said budgets were tighter than a gnat’s chuff, if you remember.’

  ‘I do. But we need to get inside his head. Hannah has high-level experience in forensic psychology. I want her to help me work up a suspect profile.’

  Sandy looked at Hannah. ‘You’re going to accompany Henry into the dark recesses of the human psyche? Is that it?’

  ‘I’ve never heard it put quite so poetically before, but, yes, broadly speaking.’

  Sandy nodded, her eyes never leaving Hannah’s. ‘What are your first impressions?’

  ‘What, tell you now?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind. We do have a nutjob bleeding the good citizens of Salisbury dry out there.’

  Hannah tugged on her plait, then began, in a quiet voice. ‘To the untrained eye, the crime scenes may appear horrible, but they are meticulous,’ she said. ‘The victims were both bled out the same way. The killer removed whatever equipment he used to take their blood.’

  Ford observed the way her voice grew stronger as she became involved in explaining her thinking. He liked what he was seeing.
‘He was controlled. There is no blood spatter, which indicates he didn’t lose control. No evidence of torture. Or of sexual assault. He just did what he had to do and left.’

  Sandy nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Killers relate to blood in one of three ways. To the first group, it’s just a liquid, sloshing around the crime scene after they’ve stabbed, bludgeoned or shot their victims,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s an inconvenience. Something to be avoided in case it sticks to them or takes a print.’

  ‘And the second group?’

  ‘To them, it’s part of the pleasure. Watching it spurt out, spattering the walls, the floor, the designer sofas and expensive art on the walls. They masturbate into it, or defecate in the middle of it, none of which our killer did.’

  ‘Which leaves—’

  ‘The group for whom blood signifies. It’s part of what they’re doing. Even why they’re doing it. That’s what I’m seeing with our killer,’ Hannah said. ‘He bled both principal victims dry. And he painted numbers with the blood.’

  ‘What about the little boy? What’s your thinking, Henry?’

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know. Was he part of the ritual? Or just surplus to requirements? But there are a couple of features that I find interesting. Maybe you saw them too?’

  ‘I saw him placed in his mum’s arms. I saw his hands folded in prayer. I saw him killed, but he wasn’t bled out.’

  ‘Exactly. The killer isn’t a nonce. Or not the common-or-garden variety anyway. If he took pictures, I don’t think he’s getting off on them.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. There was nothing sexual about the way he posed the boy,’ Ford said. ‘It looked reverential to me.’

  ‘Reverential?’

  ‘If it was a painting, it would be called something sickly-sweet like “Asleep at Last”. I think Kai was incidental,’ Ford said. ‘At home with his mum and a witness to her death.’

  Sandy nodded. ‘Compared to what these men can get up to with kids, I’d say this was unusually merciful,’ she said. ‘Like he didn’t want to inflict pain on him at all. What about the numbers?’

  ‘First six-six-six, then five hundred,’ Hannah said. ‘Apart from the rather obvious – though incorrect – biblical association for the first one, they could mean all sorts of things.’

  ‘Smart girl, not jumping off at the deep end. What else does the physical evidence tell you?’

  ‘The killer knows the exact location of the femoral artery and how to insert a trocar to drain the blood out,’ Hannah said. ‘Those two facts tell me he has medical experience. That he chooses to leave us messages in blood also suggests he is confident.’

  ‘Are you about to say the p-word?’

  ‘That depends on which word you have in mind.’

  ‘Psychopath.’

  ‘I think it’s too early to comment on whether he suffers from antisocial personality disorder, which is the clinical term used in America’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, by the way.’

  ‘But he could be. A psychopath?’

  ‘Psychopaths are organised, cunning, able to blend in, despite their lack of empathy. They’re deceitful. They use people to get what they want. They can come off as arrogant, even hyper-confident. Our killer appears to fit those criteria, yes.’

  Ford’s mind flew back to his encounter with Abbott. She could have been describing the consultant haematologist from life.

  ‘Does their pathology give them any weak spots?’ he asked.

  Hannah nodded. ‘Psychopaths believe they are omnipotent. It can lead them to make errors. Even quite basic errors.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Their compulsion to kill and their sense of godlike power can make them careless. They may leave physical evidence at the crime scene. Even their own DNA.’

  ‘What about sociopaths?’ Ford asked. ‘Are they basically the same thing?’

  ‘Sociopaths are far less controlled. When they turn to violence, it is often chaotic, unplanned, brutal. They make very little effort to hide their tracks. If this killer fits into one of these two layperson’s terms, it’s “psychopath”.’

  ‘Shit!’ Ford inhaled, closed his eyes, took himself back to the two crime scenes and the glaring images of blood loss and degradation. It’s all about the blood, isn’t it? ‘I think he was calm throughout,’ he said. ‘No practice jabs. Just one puncture wound, straight into the femoral artery. No shaking hands or sweat clouding his vision. Also,’ he carried on, leaning forward in his chair, ‘most murderers, even if motivated by extreme rage, would find it hard to switch from a brutal, bloody killing of an adult to a precise, drug-induced murder-by-injection of a small child.’

  Sandy leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head. She looked at them in turn. ‘Fine. I sanction the two of you working as a profiling team. And while we’re on the subject, I’ve read your file, Hannah. We’re a small team down here. Not exactly overburdened with resources, if you know what I mean? It would be a criminal waste, no pun intended, not to make use of your US experience.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If Henry wants to involve you in the wider investigation, interviewing suspects, say, and you think you can add value, go ahead. OK with you, Henry?’

  ‘Fine by me, boss.’

  Sandy pointed a finger at Ford and Hannah in turn. ‘But that’s in addition to your normal CSI duties, not instead of, understood?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Understood, Juno.’

  To the sound of the Python’s unrestrained laughter, Ford led Hannah out of the office.

  DAY EIGHT, 9.15 A.M.

  With the help of a social worker and a friendly GP, Ford had Eadon’s medical records open in front of him. One phrase leapt out at him:

  In-patient, SDH, 15–17/03/18, blood poisoning.

  The hospital again. Four people, all connected by this one workplace: Angie Halpern, Charles Abbott, Matty Kyte and now Paul Eadon. His heart beat a little faster as he picked up the phone. While he waited for the hospital records office to answer, he circled the phrase ‘blood poisoning’.

  He requested information on Eadon’s stay – specifically, which ward he was on and who was involved in his treatment and care. The records clerk promised to call him back.

  He walked over to Jools, who nodded at him, one hand clamped over the mouthpiece of her desk phone. The call finished, she tapped a couple of keys on her PC.

  ‘There you go, guv. Our Mr Eadon had a record going back to the early noughties. Mainly low-level thievery and public order offences. Nothing I can see linking him to Angie, though.’

  His mobile rang. It was the records clerk from the hospital. He noted down the names of doctors and nurses who’d looked after and treated Paul Eadon, underlining two:

  Seema Patel (N)

  Rajnesh Kumar (N)

  Jean Stretton (N)

  Becca Gordon (N)

  Angela Halpern (N)

  Dr Vida Katalammy

  Dr Cameron Thorne

  Mr Charles Abbott

  He rubbed his chin, frowning. A concrete link between both adult victims and Mr Abbott, God’s gift to haematology. He added Paul Eadon and doodled a couple of extra words.

  Paul Eadon – victim

  Seema Patel (N)

  Rajnesh Kumar (N)

  Jean Stretton (N)

  Becca Porter (N)

  Angela Halpern (N) – victim

  Dr Vida Katalammy

  Dr Cameron Thorne

  Mr Charles Abbott – blood/cancer (fentanyl?)

  He imagined red lines linking the different players. Was someone targeting everyone who’d treated Eadon? Was that it? Did it mean other people on the list were potential targets of the killer? Abbott knew all about blood. His life’s work. No motive as yet, but according to Hannah’s typology, for the killer, blood signified.

  His phone rang again. ‘No caller ID’ message.

  Scowling, he answered. ‘Ford.’

  ‘Hi. Kerry Ba
ttle, Sky News?’

  Ford swiped a hand over his face. He knew without having to be told what this meant. Someone had gone social with the news and now it was a matter of hours before the London media and the world’s descended on his city.

  ‘Yes, what can I do for you, Kerry?’

  ‘A source tells me you’re investigating three rather unusual murders down there. Would you care to comment on that?’

  Play hard to get or softly-softly? Try to keep a lid on it and risk alienating the media? Or feed the killer’s appetite for notoriety and get press help with public engagement?

  No contest. He pulled a face and nodded at Jan, who was miming, ‘Coffee?’ as she passed his desk. He mouthed, ‘Media,’ back at her – grimaced as Jan rolled her eyes.

  He remembered words of advice on a media training course he’d attended. ‘Don’t say anything you don’t want to see on the front page of the Daily Mail. And there’s no such thing as off the record.’

  ‘Your source is correct. Five days ago, a woman was murdered, along with her young son. Yesterday, a man was murdered. We believe we are looking at the same killer.’

  ‘My source tells me he’s bleeding them dry. Can you confirm that?’

  ‘The adults, yes.’

  ‘Not the little boy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘We’re holding that back. To screen out nut— I mean, people who enjoy confessing to crimes they didn’t commit.’

  ‘So it’s a serial killer.’

  ‘The offences are linked.’

  ‘Which makes it a serial killer, yes? Three victims?’

  Ford mouthed a ‘thank you’ as Jan put a fresh mug of coffee and a home-baked flapjack on his desk.

  ‘Kerry, I need to be straight with you. You can help us get people who might have seen something or know somebody dodgy. But you can also help the killer by feeding his fantasies, which I absolutely want to avoid. Is there a way we can work together?’ he asked.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning you get your story and I get help, but we don’t get lurid headlines. I’d like to keep it as low-key as possible. We don’t want to start a public panic. You know, “Blood-soaked city living in fear of vampire killer.”’