Shallow Ground (Detective Ford)

by Andy Maslen

  Hyoid bone broken. Bruising round throat indicates manual strangulation (non-fatal).

  Coarse toxicology fast-tracked. No fentanyl. Presence of alcohol.

  You’ll have my full report by the end of today.

  G

  The rest of the day passed in a flurry of meetings, briefings and a court appearance on an unrelated case. At 5.00 p.m., Ford made his way to Forensics. He found Hannah squinting at a screen on which two partial fingerprints were displayed.

  ‘What have you got there?’ he asked.

  ‘On the left you have a partial latent I lifted from the tin of beans the killer used to stun Angie. On the right, one from Paul Eadon’s front door.’

  ‘Any points of comparison?’

  ‘That’s what I’m looking for. I’ve found three, but you know that’s insufficient evidence to even think of taking to the CPS.’

  ‘I’m leaving for the day. I need to be in for Sam. Do you want to start work on our profile? I thought, if you didn’t mind, we could work at mine.’

  She scrubbed at her eyes and smiled up at him, nodding. ‘I drove in today, so I’ll see you at Windgather.’

  ‘OK. I have a few things to finish up, so don’t worry if you get there before me. Sam can always let you in.’

  A little later, Ford pulled on to his drive to see Hannah getting out of a shiny black Mini. Correction: a sparkling black Mini, with glossy, wet-look tyres.

  He pointed at it. ‘Nice. New?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve had it for one year, three months and four days.’

  ‘Wow! Did you just have it valeted?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a note of surprise evident in her answer. ‘I like to look after it myself.’

  Ford turned back and clocked his own car. The Discovery was coated with a fine brown powder. According to the weather forecast that morning, it had been blown all the way to England from the Sahara. Then he saw Hannah’s number plate.

  SC13NCE

  ‘Cool plate for a CSI.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? I bought it at auction and I paid £1,650.73, including VAT and buyer’s premium.’

  Ford smiled, shaking his head. He didn’t think she could help it. In fact, he didn’t think she knew she was doing it. But he liked her for it. How lovely to be that unselfconscious.

  ‘Hi, Sam,’ Hannah said when they arrived in the kitchen. ‘Homework?’

  Sam looked up from under his mop of curls. ‘Biology. It sucks.’

  ‘I got an A-star in A-level biology and studied human endocrinology as a subsidiary during my BSc. I took a starred first. Maybe I can help?’

  Ford watched as his son, sometimes as uncommunicative as a stroppy suspect with a savvy brief, bonded with a virtual stranger over the science of monoclonal antibodies. He smiled, shaking his head and putting the kettle on. His ears pricked as he heard Sam talk about ‘cancer treatment’ and ‘measuring blood hormones’.

  There it was again. Blood. Cancer. Fentanyl. Medics. A dead nurse and a dead inpatient at SDH. Are you the key, Abbott?

  Later, after a brief meal, Ford took Hannah up to the spare room he’d kitted out as a home office.

  ‘Have a seat,’ he said, indicating a worn leather armchair.

  He grabbed an A4 notepad and a sharp pencil from a clay pot on his desk, glazed with ‘Daddy’ in childish brushstrokes.

  ‘Do you want to start?’ he said.

  ‘We’re looking for a man. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure. It could be a tall, powerfully built woman, but’ – she wrinkled her nose – ‘I don’t think it is.’

  ‘Agreed. A man fixated by blood.’

  She nodded. ‘As I said to Detective Superintendent Monroe, I am prepared to say that we are looking for a psychopath.’

  ‘No emotions.’

  ‘That’s a common misconception. Psychopaths have what we call shallow affect. It means his emotional responses are very basic. Anger, frustration, lust. When interviewed they will talk about love, but if you probe, all they mean is sex.’

  Ford had a flash of insight. ‘Have you ever interviewed a psychopath? Is that what you were doing in the US?’

  Immediately, she dropped her gaze from his. ‘I prefer to not talk about that.’

  There it was again. That closed-down look in her eyes. A fractional shift in her posture to shield herself.

  What is it, Hannah? What happened to you? I sense it was bad, because you’re so open about everything else. Wanting to help her but unwilling to probe her well-established defences, Ford decided to leave it. For now.

  ‘Let’s talk about the killer. Our killer,’ he said instead.

  ‘He has no empathy,’ Hannah said flatly. ‘He sees other human beings purely as things he can use to gratify his desires.’

  ‘So he won’t understand that other people have feelings?’

  ‘He might know it, on an intellectual level. But he won’t care. And he won’t be able to imagine what those feelings are. Plenty of psychopaths enjoy inflicting pain,’ she said. ‘So we can assume they at least understand the pain response as some sort of feeling. But he’ll feel no remorse.’

  ‘Clever? Below-average IQ?’

  ‘He can talk his way into people’s homes. He’s forensically aware, as we’ve not found any DNA so far, and minimal physical evidence. Psychopaths can be very high achievers. Plenty of corporate CEOs score highly on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.’

  ‘What if I go out on a limb and say I think he’s organised and therefore on the clever end of the spectrum?’

  She blinked. ‘What do you mean, “spectrum”?’

  ‘The scale of how intelligent psychopaths tend to be. You just said—’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Let’s say cunning, though,’ she said. ‘For your information, we tend not to talk about organised versus disorganised killers these days. Many cases have come to light where the perpetrator’s levels of control shift over time. But using the term for now, organised serial killers often live with a partner,’ she said. ‘So we won’t find a six-foot-tall, shaggy-haired monster driving a grey transit van with a red stripe over the roof. And I think he has some level of medical knowledge.’

  Ford picked up on the oddly detailed hypothetical description. Filed it. Moved on.

  ‘Although he could just have got that off the internet,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, or by working in a hospital.’

  ‘When you were investigating the scenes, did you get any sense he might have taken a trophy?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not from the bodies. The trouble is, you can’t see what’s missing if you don’t know what was there before. What philosophers call a known unknown.’

  ‘Fair enough. We’ll leave that for now. But if we find something on a suspect or at their property, it’ll be fantastic in court,’ he said. ‘So we have an MO: talk his way inside, bludgeon, throttle and exsanguinate. We have a signature: the numbers.’

  ‘Yes. The numbers.’

  ‘What do you think they mean?’

  ‘We’ve covered 666, although, as I said, it’s a misconception that it’s the number of the beast. But in any case, I think the biblical angle is too obvious. Too clichéd. As to 500, it could be the Indianapolis 500. You know?’

  ‘The road race.’

  She nodded. ‘Or cars. The Fiat 500. Or lots in the US made by Ford. Henry Ford!’ She grinned. ‘The Ford Five Hundred, the Galaxie 500 and the Custom 500, to name just three. It’s also a web status code for internal server error.’

  ‘Or “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Scottish band. The geeky-looking guys with glasses?’ Ford tried a few lines of the song.

  Hannah stared at him blankly. ‘You’re not a very good singer,’ she said when he petered out.

  ‘True. Although I play a mean blues guitar.’

  ‘Really? When?’

  He shrugged and sighed. ‘Whenever I can. Me and a few guys from the station started a band a few yea
rs ago. We’re called Blues and Twos. There’s me on guitar. Alec Reid plays bass and sings. A DS from the drugs squad plays piano and Georgina Eustace’s mortician, Pete, plays drums. We’ve done a couple of gigs up at the Wyndham Arms.’

  ‘That is very cool. Tell me when you’re next playing somewhere. I’d like to come. Where’s your guitar?’

  ‘D’you want to see it?’

  ‘I’d love to! Yes, please.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Wait there.’

  He returned a minute later with a battered brown leather case. He laid it on the floor, popped the four brass catches and opened the lid. The electric guitar within gleamed in the light, though its cherry-red finish had faded and its surface bore scars, scuffs and chips. In some places, hard use had worn the thin skin of paint through to the bare wood so that the grain was visible.

  ‘What make of guitar is that?’ she asked.

  ‘Fender Stratocaster – 1962. Ash body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard. The colour’s Fiesta Red.’ He paused. In his mind’s eye, he saw the case encircled by a huge silver ribbon. It was his birthday. Lou was laughing as he unwrapped it. ‘My wife gave it to me.’

  ‘Can I hold it?’ she asked, reaching out both hands.

  He hesitated, just for a second, before handing it to her. ‘Careful. It’s vintage.’

  He watched as she settled the guitar on her knee and plucked at the strings.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Yuk!’

  Ford laughed. ‘Well, of course “yuk”. You need to play a chord.’

  ‘Teach me one.’

  Ford reached forward and took the tip of her index finger between his own finger and thumb. She flinched at the contact, then relaxed as he placed the tip on one of the strings.

  He pointed at her middle and ring fingers.

  ‘Put that one there, and that one, no, not there – there, yes! Now strum it. Gently.’

  She drew the pad of her thumb across the strings and smiled as the guitar emitted a soft, musical sound.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘E major. The start of a million blues songs.’

  She handed the guitar back to him. ‘Play one for me.’

  He noticed his hand trembling and felt a fluttering in the pit of his stomach. Ignoring both, he began a simple blues shuffle, muting the strings with the palm of his right hand. He sang a few lines quietly, then, as she smiled, built up the volume.

  When he finished, with a few little flourishes on the top strings, she clapped loudly.

  ‘You’re an excellent guitarist. Did you play for your wife when she was alive?’

  Ford wiped the neck of the guitar with a soft cloth. He put the guitar back in its case and snapped the catches shut. Something about Hannah made him feel OK talking about things he’d been keeping tamped down ever since . . . it happened.

  ‘Sometimes. It’s how we met. I was playing in a pub. She came up to me in the break and we got talking.’

  ‘You’re still mourning her, aren’t you? Even though it’s been six years since she died. Many widowers work through the five stages of grief quicker than that.’

  ‘You’re very direct, did you know that? Most people try to pretend it never happened. Either that, or they think I should have got over it by now.’

  ‘Why haven’t you?’

  He hesitated. Should he just tell her? This unusually frank young woman with a forensic brain might understand why he did – why he had to do – what he did. And how it had affected him ever since. No. Not worth the risk. Stick to the story.

  ‘When Lou died, it fractured everything. I lost faith in the universe for a while.’ Especially since the universe made me choose between leaving her to drown or making Sam an orphan.

  ‘I don’t think death is fair or unfair. I think it just happens. Your wife died. You didn’t. Tomorrow you might get killed in a car crash. Or I might. Or Sam.’

  ‘Are you always this blunt, or are you making a special effort just for me?’

  Ford meant it as a joke, but Hannah frowned and her eyes darted towards the door. Her lips parted, as if she was about to speak. Then she clamped them together again. She looked straight at him, and he felt as though he was being evaluated. Tested against some criterion only she knew about. The muscles in her face relaxed again.

  ‘It’s my Asperger’s,’ she said, her face impassive.

  Now he understood. The foreigner-in-a-strange-country vibe he picked up at their first meeting. Her precise way with numbers and dates. Her lack of a filter. He felt pleased she trusted him enough to share this part of herself with him.

  ‘Is that why you frowned when I said our killer was on the intelligent end of the spectrum?’ he asked gently.

  She nodded. ‘I thought you were making fun of me.’

  ‘But you hadn’t told me then.’

  ‘I thought you could tell. I know some people think I come across as odd.’

  He smiled. ‘Listen, for a CSI, believe me, you are way down the oddness scale. Have you met Alec?’

  ‘Of course I’ve met him! You introduced me to him on my first day, remember?’

  ‘Joke?’

  ‘That’s another thing you might notice about me. Word-jokes are hard for me to understand.’

  ‘Sorry. What sort of jokes do you like?’

  ‘I like slapstick. Charlie Chaplin. Buster Keaton. Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘I used to watch them with Sam when he was little. He used to laugh so hard.’

  ‘He’s nice. You’re lucky.’

  Ford nodded. ‘He’s OK. He misses his mum, though.’

  A silence thickened between them. Ford looked out of the window, watching the tremulous leaves of a silver birch flutter in the breeze.

  ‘Let’s get back to our killer,’ he said.

  After another thirty minutes, Ford held up a sheet of paper on which he’d written notes on their tentative assumptions about the murderer.

  MO: bludgeon/throttle/bleed

  Signature: writes number in blood on wall

  Motive: not sex – stealing life-force (Abbott hypothesis)?

  Profile

  Interested in/fascinated by blood

  Male, strong, fit and over 5’10”

  Organised/intelligent/in control

  Prob lives with partner

  Charming – gift of the gab

  Lacks empathy

  Shallow emotional responses

  Some medical experience as well as knowledge

  – not necessarily doctor, could be nurse or even aux. staff – porter?

  May have been abused as child

  Hannah left at 11.00 p.m., turning down Ford’s offer to walk her home.

  DAY NINE, 11.45 P.M.

  He leans back against the soft cushions she’s plumped up for the latest procedure. His heart is racing. That’s good. It makes the whole process more efficient.

  If it was at the hospital, he’d have just rolled up his sleeve. But here, at home, there’s no need for modesty. Especially given what’s coming afterwards.

  So he’s hard. And completely naked. She’s not, though. She’s got her uniform on. The upside-down watch, everything.

  ‘You’re going to feel a little prick,’ she murmurs before she slides the needle in.

  He leers up at her. ‘You’re going to feel a big one when we’re done.’

  ‘Naughty,’ she says, grinning as she releases the clamp.

  He watches as the polluted blood drains into the plastic measuring jug he bought from the kitchen shop in town. When the blood reaches the topmost mark, she chokes off the flow.

  ‘Be back in a minute,’ she says.

  He watches her behind as she carries the jug to the sink and tips the blood away, anticipating the rush when she replaces it.

  DAY TEN, 9.15 A.M.

  Pale’s Mead Farm occupied 243 acres on the south-west side of Salisbury, in a fertile V between the Ebble and Avon rivers. As many farming families had done, faced with global competition and predatory s
upermarket prices, the Pales had diversified from agriculture, in their case into renting out sustainable eco-cabins on their land.

  Outside the cabin furthest from the farm’s main buildings, Rory Pale’s two-year-old border collie Gem was signalling fear with short, sharp barks. Her tail was tucked between her legs. Her ears lay flat against her skull. Body rigid, she turned and crept back to her master, where she lay down, whining softly.

  Rory hadn’t seen his tenant for a couple of weeks and had made the two-mile trip on a quad bike to check on him. He stroked the dog’s silky head, shushing her, trying to ignore the anxiety he felt at Gem’s behaviour.

  ‘Quiet now, girl. Quiet now.’

  He walked up to the front door. And caught it immediately. The smell of death. He’d come across enough dead badgers, deer and foxes to recognise it. Knowing in his churning gut that he’d be calling the police in a minute or two, he tried the handle.

  The door opened.

  He tried to call out his tenant’s name. ‘Mar—’

  The ‘—cus’ died in his throat.

  He turned and ran for the quad bike, fumbling his phone out of a pocket.

  ‘So, Sandy, if you could try just a little bit harder, the mayor, the City Council and I would all regard it as a sign of your renewed commitment to getting Salisbury back on its feet again. Cheers, now!’

  Sandy slammed her phone down. Her heart was thumping against her ribs like a drunk whacking his head against the cage in a Black Maria. Conversations with the police and crime commissioner rated on her list of favourite activities somewhere above being shot at but below having a smear test.

  She stood, knocking her chair back into a framed photo of her shaking hands with a minor royal on his visit to the cathedral. The glass smashed.

  ‘Shit!’ she yelled.

  Feeling that her options were limited to taking some brisk exercise or suffering a heart attack, she left the shards on the carpet and headed down to see Ford.

  She found him in the kitchen on the fourth floor, staring at a jar of coffee and a box of peppermint tea bags.

  ‘I’d go for the caffeine, if I were you. You’re going to need it,’ she said.

  He turned. And he frowned. ‘You all right? Someone dent your new Merc?’