Shallow Ground (Detective Ford)

by Andy Maslen

  ‘I have seen it, and you, Mr Ford. But the rules are there for a reason. If we make an exception for one parent, pretty soon every parent would be demanding one.’

  ‘Look, I understand the rules. I am a policeman, after all,’ he said, striving to inject a jocular tone into his voice. ‘But surely, just this once, you could bend them. Just a little?’

  She sniffed. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’ll be waiting in reception.’

  I bet you wouldn’t be such a stickler if your family member was lying dead in a lake of their own blood, he wanted to shout.

  ‘I can’t get away from the office right now,’ were the words that escaped his lips. ‘I’ll’ – his thoughts raced, then crossed the finishing line – ‘I’ll send someone for him.’

  Ford pushed through the swing doors into Forensics. Hannah was at her desk, staring at a split-screen fingerprint image on her monitor. She looked round as Ford approached. Smiled. He was relieved after his attempted gentle brush-off the previous evening.

  ‘Hi, Henry,’ she said.

  ‘Hi. Listen, I need to ask you a massive favour.’

  Her forehead creased and she swung round on her swivel chair to face him. ‘What favour?’

  He sighed. ‘Sam’s in trouble at school. They’ve suspended him for fighting. Could you go and pick him up, then run him home for me? I know it’s not your job and I have absolutely no right to ask you, but he likes you, and . . .’ He stopped, aware he was on the point of gabbling.

  Hannah was already on her feet. ‘It’s Chequers, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded. ‘On my way, guv,’ she said, and winked.

  He watched her go, wondering if he was doing the right thing. He knew how Sam would see it: Dad’s too busy to come and get me, yet again. His son’s words came back to him – ‘You care more about dead people than me.’ Was it true? Because the one dead person he’d never stop loving was his wife, Sam’s mother.

  ‘Sam, you in, mate?’ Ford called out as he closed the front door behind him, after making a huge effort to leave Bourne Hill before six. He’d left the nick with a briefcase stuffed with reading matter and a force-issued laptop with the Operation Shoreline HOLMES account downloaded on to its hard drive.

  The house was silent. No distant thud from Sam’s wireless speaker upstairs. Though that meant nothing: Sam had some new earbuds. Ford took the stairs two at a time and knocked on his son’s bedroom door. No response. Wary of just barging in, Ford held up his fist to knock again, then stayed his hand. He placed his lips close to the bare wooden panelling.

  ‘Sam, you in there?’ he said softly.

  No response.

  Fearing a volley of abuse, yet needing to know his son was in, and OK, Ford twisted the doorknob and peered in. A heady mixture of Lynx body spray and teenage fug wafted out. But the room was empty.

  He completed a circuit of the downstairs rooms. All empty. The garage, then.

  Sam was sitting in his usual spot behind the steering wheel. The earbuds were in place, his eyes were closed and his mop of curls was nodding in time to the beat of whatever band he currently favoured.

  He turned round as Ford sat beside him. His eyes looked puffy, and the left one sat in the centre of a yellowish bruise that had spread down on to his cheek.

  He plucked the buds from his ears. ‘All right?’

  ‘Long day, sorry,’ Ford said. ‘You want to tell me what happened?’

  ‘A fight happened.’

  ‘I heard. Who with?’

  ‘You don’t know him.’

  Ford’s stomach clenched. ‘Who, mate? Never mind if I know him or not.’

  ‘Oscar Welling.’

  ‘OK, and what were you and Oscar Welling fighting about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Ford twisted round on the worn leather seat. He reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers across Sam’s undamaged cheek. Sam pulled away.

  ‘Yes. It does matter,’ Ford said. ‘Why, Sam? You never get into trouble.’

  ‘I just did, didn’t I?’

  Ford wanted so much just to cuddle his son, like he used to. But now that he was as tall as his dad, Sam had changed. Ford felt their days of cuddles were vanishing.

  He tried a different tack. ‘I care about you, mate. If you’ve been fighting, I need to know why.’

  ‘Fine!’ Sam shouted, the single word echoing in the hard-surfaced cube. ‘Mr Super-cool Detective. If you must know, we were fighting about you!’

  Sam’s chin was quivering.

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Welling said his dad reckoned if you were up to the job, you’d have caught the killer by now,’ Sam said, as tears rolled over his lower lids. ‘He said you must be a really shit detective not to catch someone leaving a trail of blood over half of Salisbury.’

  ‘So you hit him?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘But I thought you said—’

  ‘Not then. I just told him at least my dad did something interesting for a living instead of moving numbers around on a screen.’

  ‘So why the fight, Sam? Come on, buddy, I’m trying here.’

  ‘Welling’s dad said if you’d been a better husband, you’d have saved your wife from drowning,’ Sam blurted, before wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Then I hit him. Happy now?’

  Ford felt his love for his teenage son surge through him. Sam knew Ford didn’t need anyone fighting his battles. But his mother? No, that would have been a step too far.

  ‘I’ll write to the head. Explain. See if we can’t—’

  ‘No, Dad! Don’t you get it? I was fighting. I deserved to get punished. Please don’t wade in and try to get me off because it was all about Mum. Just let it go, OK?’

  Ford laid a hand on Sam’s left knee. He was pleased when Sam let it rest there. And he fantasised about taking Oscar Welling and his father to a remote piece of woodland and beating the crap out of the pair of them.

  DAY SIXTEEN, 11.00 A.M.

  He pulls on jeans and a jacket. Slips the ID badge over his head. Frowns. What he did at Aimee’s place was a mistake. Those stupid plods won’t catch him, but even so, it won’t hurt to up his game a little.

  He dons three items purchased from a vintage shop in town: plain-lensed glasses, black wig and matching moustache. The overall effect is surprisingly realistic, and under the straw hat – well, his own mother wouldn’t know him. If there are any witnesses to his arriving at Lisa’s, they’ll be seeing a phantom.

  He winks at Harvey.

  Harvey winks back.

  DAY SIXTEEN, 11.45 A.M.

  Lisa Moore repeated her mantra as she unpacked the tins and packages from her battered shopping bag: ‘It’s just temporary.’

  Somewhere along the line, things had got out of control. A few debts that piled one on top of the other like Jenga blocks. An abusive ex who stole five hundred quid – her entire savings – from her. A zero-hours job with too much zero and not enough hours. And she’d ended up using the food bank.

  While she waited for a salaried job in the police force to come up, she was volunteering as an unpaid police community support officer and topping up her weekly shop at the Purcell Foundation.

  At least she’d been able to give something back. They’d organised a blood drive earlier in the month and she’d been glad to donate. Anything to pay it forward. Or back, she supposed, given she was in receipt of their charity.

  The doorbell rang.

  She broke off from unpacking and went to the front door. When she opened it, she smiled. ‘Hi. Can I help you?’

  The unassuming-looking guy standing on her doorstep returned the smile, though there was something unreadable in his expression. The primitive part of her brain, the part that would once have ordered her to run at the first whiff of a predator, was screaming. But she ignored it. Had she not, things might have turned out differently over the next five minutes.

  ‘Hi, Lisa,’ he
said. ‘My name is Harvey. From the Purcell Foundation?’ He looked embarrassed behind those old-fashioned glasses.

  He seemed vaguely familiar, but she didn’t want to seem rude by saying she couldn’t remember him. She felt a sudden rush of shame and stared at her feet.

  ‘Harvey, yes. Did you want something?’

  ‘It’s a bit delicate . . .’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, wondering if they were going to cut her adrift. Maybe there was a limit on how many times you were allowed visit the food bank, and she’d overdone it.

  ‘Could I come in, please? I’d prefer not to discuss it on the street. You know, where people might overhear us.’

  She nodded, fighting down an urge to explain, to plead for a little more time. Just until the permanent post came up and she was back on her feet again. She turned and led him down the hallway, intending to offer him a cup of tea.

  He closed the door behind him. She heard the click. Then a scuffling as his shoes slid over the worn flooring in the hall. Now she did listen to her hind-brain. Her old training kicked in, hard.

  He grunted as he hit her. A vicious blow to the back of the head that would have knocked her cold had it connected properly. But she was already spinning round to face him and the blow glanced off the side of her skull, dizzying her but leaving her fully conscious.

  ‘You’re worthless,’ he murmured as he stepped back, preparing to strike again.

  The fist came up and over a second time.

  It passed over her head as she crouched. Then she drove her own, hard, into his solar plexus. He doubled over, with a groan, and she danced back a step, intending to kick him in the head and put him down.

  But he thrust forwards, grabbing her shoulders and slamming her back into the wall, walloping her head into a door frame.

  He reared up in front of her, hands outstretched, going for her throat. She grabbed his forearms, digging her nails in, spread them wide and stepped forward. She jerked her right knee up into his balls. With a howl, he turned, scrabbled at the door handle and escaped into the sunlit street.

  Panting, she slammed the door and with shaking fingers slotted the security chain home.

  ‘What the hell?’ she shouted to her empty flat.

  She fled to the bathroom and retched into the toilet bowl, bringing up a thin steam of yellow bile. She straightened, flushed, and was about to grab a flannel when she looked at her hands. Her fingernails were bloody and clogged.

  She went to the kitchen and separated two clear sandwich bags from a roll she kept in a drawer. She placed one over her right hand and secured it with an elastic band. She repeated the process with her left hand. Then she grabbed her keys and left the flat, heading towards Bourne Hill.

  ‘Guv?’ Jools called from across the incident room.

  Ford turned away from the whiteboard.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s the front desk. There’s a female down there says she was just attacked and she thinks it’s our guy. She wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Tell her I’m on my way,’ Ford said, grabbing a notepad and a pen and sprinting for the stairs.

  He arrived on the ground floor in under a minute to see a young woman with reddish hair pulled back into a ponytail chatting to the receptionist. She had a smear of blood on her face, although she was smiling and didn’t seem to be in any pain. Her hands were jammed into the pockets of a pair of pale grey jogging bottoms.

  He hurried over. ‘I’m Inspector Ford,’ he said to the woman, trying to bring his breathing under control. ‘You were just attacked, yes?’

  ‘In my flat, yeah.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Lisa Moore.’

  He smiled. ‘OK, Lisa, I’d like you to come with me, please.’

  He ushered her into the lift and hit the button for the fourth floor. As the lift ascended, he had a chance to take a look at someone who just might have escaped the killer’s clutches. She was wearing a racerback gym top that revealed tanned, muscular arms. Not quite the ‘guns’ displayed by Jasmin Fortuna, but the woman worked out.

  Physically, she bore no resemblance to Angie Halpern. Nothing in her facial features or colouring, either. But then, the target was killing men and women, so if he had a preferred type it had nothing to do with looks.

  ‘Did you come straight here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I fought him off and then got here as fast as I could.’

  ‘That was incredibly brave of you.’

  ‘Thanks. I hope I hurt the bastard.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  The doors opened. He motioned for her to leave the lift car ahead of him. ‘Let’s get you along to see the police surgeon. She can check you over.’

  In the doctor’s office, having been seated on the examination couch, legs swinging over the edge, Lisa pulled her hands from her pockets.

  ‘I scratched him,’ she said simply, holding her bagged hands up for Ford and the doctor to see.

  Ford shook his head with admiration. ‘You fought him off and collected his DNA. We should get you a job in the nick.’

  To his surprise, she laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the plan. I’m a PCSO at the moment. I’m on the waiting list for a proper job to come up.’

  ‘Right. We’ll get you looked over by Dr Perry and then we’ll go along to the incident room. And I’ll have a word later with my guv’nor. See if we can’t fast-track you in the system.’

  ‘Wow! Thank you. You’d do that for me?’

  ‘What can I say? I’m a sucker for women who fight back.’

  Dr Perry was fifty years old, a small-boned woman known for her collection of rainbow-hued Dr. Marten’s boots.

  ‘Did he hit you, Lisa?’ she asked, shining a pen torch into Lisa’s eyes and moving the beam from side to side.

  ‘Back of the head. A glancing blow. I heard him coming for me and was already turning into it.’

  ‘Most commendable. Any other strikes?’

  ‘He pushed me back into the wall. I caught the back of my head on a doorjamb.’

  ‘Let’s have a little look, shall we?’ Perry said, manoeuvring Lisa’s head round and peering at the back of it. ‘No lacerations.’

  She probed a little with her fingertips, and Lisa yelped.

  ‘You’ll have a nice goose egg there for a few days, but other than that, you’re fine. If it hurts, just take the normal dose of paracetamol, and you can double up with ibuprofen if you need to,’ Perry said, switching off her torch. ‘When you’re back at home, if you feel at all woozy, or sleepy, get yourself to A&E. Say I sent you – it may help you get triaged faster.’

  The examination over, Ford took Lisa to Forensics office.

  ‘Tell me, Lisa, do you have any links to the hospital?’ he asked her as they walked.

  She shook her head. ‘Never been up there.’

  Then he asked her the question that might unlock the case. He knew it could embarrass her, but he needed to know.

  ‘How about the food bank?’

  She winced. ‘Money’s a bit tight, so . . .’

  He smiled. ‘Listen, I’m not here to judge you.’

  ‘Thanks. People do, you know,’ she said, feelingly. ‘In fact, the bastard said he was from there. Can you believe it?’

  Oh, Ford could believe it.

  He pushed through the doors into Forensics. Hannah was nowhere in sight, but Alec was peering at a colleague’s screen.

  ‘Alec, got a minute?’ Ford said.

  ‘Of course, dear boy,’ Alec said, smiling. ‘Hello, who do we have here?’

  ‘Lisa Moore. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Lisa just fought off an attacker who I’m ninety-nine per cent sure is our boy,’ Ford said.

  Alec glanced down at Lisa’s hands. His smile widened and his eyes twinkled. ‘And you preserved the evidence, smart girl. Come with me, Lisa.’

  Alec sat Lisa at a desk, then hurried away and returned with
debris pots and a fingernail scraper. He widened the elastic bands and placed them in a pencil pot.

  ‘Waste not, want not,’ he said, with a wink for Lisa.

  He removed the bags and took her right hand in his own.

  ‘Be gentle with me,’ she said, grinning.

  Ford marvelled at her resilience. Having just fought off a murderous assailant, she was bantering with the chief CSI. Yes, you’d make a great copper.

  Exercising his usual care and keeping up a muttered commentary, Alec ran the slim tip of the scraper under each of Lisa’s fingernails. When he’d finished, he held the lidded pot up to the light.

  ‘Lots to be going on with,’ he pronounced. ‘We’ll fast-track these.’

  ‘What does that mean these days?’ Ford asked.

  ‘It all depends on their workload. Anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. At the moment, “fast” means forty-eight. Which is fast, by the way, Henry, before you unleash a tirade.’ He turned back to Lisa. ‘Now, let’s get your face cleaned up as well.’

  He swabbed a sample stick across the blood smear on her forehead, bagged and labelled it and then fetched a bowl of water and a cloth. With infinite care, he dabbed, wiped and blotted until, with a flourish of the now pink washcloth, he said, ‘Much better! You don’t look like an extra from a horror film any more.’

  With Lisa patched up, Ford took her back to Major Crimes and a seat in his office.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘Tea, coffee, a medicinal brandy? A bar of chocolate?’

  ‘I’ll pass on the choccy, but a tea would be lovely. Milk, no sugar, please.’

  When two mugs of tea were placed on the circular table between them, Ford opened his notebook.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘how on earth did you come off best in a fight with a possible serial killer?’

  By way of answer, Lisa twisted round in her chair and pulled the straps of her top to one side, revealing a tattoo of a bugle suspended from a crown with the word RIFLES beneath it.

  ‘Regimental judo champion,’ she said. ‘I left the army two years ago. I kept up my training, plus a ton of cross-fit. I heard him coming and all my instincts kicked in.’