by Andy Maslen
Ford leaned closer. ‘Be careful,’ he said into Mick’s ear. ‘I know you went to school with them, but they’re pissed and they’re grieving.’
Mick nodded, then threaded his way through the crowd. Ford wondered if Hibberd would be at the wake, then dismissed the idea. Whatever had drawn him to the inquest would surely be overridden by a sense of self-preservation.
As he turned to place his mineral water on the bar, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He found himself facing the young woman he’d seen on Joe Hibberd’s arm at the inquest. In contrast to the sober black number she’d worn then, today she was dressed to kill in a strappy coral dress. Her eyes were unfocused and she swayed on her high heels. Her hair had come unpinned, and blonde tresses looped down to brush her bare shoulders.
In her right hand, she held a pint glass three-quarters full of something pink and fizzy. Clamped between her fingers and the sweating side of the glass, a photo of the dead man bore on its white border the words ‘Tommy Bolter RIP: Heaven gained a new angel’.
‘Are you a copper?’ she asked, brushing at a stray lock of hair that had stuck across her kohl-rimmed left eye. ‘You look like a copper.’
‘I’m a detective,’ Ford replied.
‘So, like, that’s a yes?’
He nodded. ‘Were you a friend of Tommy’s?’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor little Tommy. He never did nobody no harm, did he? I mean, who’d want to shoot him?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. How well did you know him?’
She sniffed. ‘Me and him went to school together, didn’t we? St Jude’s over Laverstock way.’
‘Tell me . . .’
‘Gwyneth. Like the actress. My mates call me Gwynnie, but I hate that.’
‘Tell me, Gwyneth, do you know of anybody who wanted to hurt Tommy?’
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean, like, enemies and that?’
Ford shrugged. ‘Not necessarily enemies. But somebody he got on the wrong side of. Something like that.’
She shook her head then took a gulp of her drink. She belched loudly. ‘Oh, God! Sorry. It’s this cider. Forest fruits. It’s really gassy.’
‘Tommy?’ he said gently.
‘Oh, yeah. Look, if I tell you something, I won’t get into trouble, will I?’
‘Have you done something wrong?’
‘Me? No! Definitely not.’
‘Then you should be fine. What did you want to tell me, Gwyneth?’
She leaned forward, then overbalanced as someone barged past her, and slopped some of her sweet-smelling cider over the front of his suit.
‘Oh, no! Your lovely jacket. I’ve ruined it.’ She started to cry again.
Ford shook his head, thinking that his decision to buy only black suits from Marks & Spencer was a sound career move. ‘Don’t worry. It’s washable. Now, take a deep breath and then tell me whatever it is you wanted to tell me. I’m sure you’ll feel better if you get it off your chest.’
She took a breath. ‘Well, Tommy, right? He was a lovely bloke. But, you know, some of what he did wasn’t exactly, like, legal.’
‘What kind of things are we talking about? Drugs?’
She shook her head violently. ‘No! Not drugs. I mean, he smoked a bit of blow now and again, but, like, who doesn’t?’
‘I don’t.’
She grinned drunkenly. ‘Yes, but you’ – she poked him in the centre of his chest – ‘are a p’liceman, aren’t you. A dee’ – poke – ‘teck’ – poke – ‘tive.’
Gently, Ford removed her fingertip from his chest. ‘What else was Tommy involved in? Look, we can’t touch him now, so you can tell me, whatever it was. You’re just helping me catch the person who murdered him.’
She nodded and took another swig of her drink. Ford began to wonder if she’d pass out before divesting herself of whatever insider knowledge she had on Tommy Bolter.
‘He had a, like, scheme,’ she hissed. ‘You know, to make some money.’ She glanced at the back room again, just as a gust of male laughter boomed out. She flinched. ‘I need my bag. I wanna smoke. Wait for me?’
He watched her disappear into the crowd. While he waited for her to return, he peered through the side door, looking for Mick. He caught sight of his shaved head, one among many, nodding as JJ Bolter held court. The image disturbed him. If JJ was holding court, was Mick one of his courtiers? Eager to please?
The young woman arrived back at his side, clutching a gold-sequinned handbag.
Outside, the noise dropped away, although the louder voices were still clear through the glass-panelled door. She offered him her cigarettes, raising her dramatic brown eyebrows in enquiry. Ford shook his head.
She lit her cigarette and drew on it luxuriously, blowing out a stream of blue smoke into the warm early-evening air. She smiled at him. The expression transformed her face. He saw a pretty, young girl who, for whatever reason, had got mixed up with a crowd her parents had almost certainly warned her about when she was growing up.
‘Me and Tommy, right? What we had was special. He, like, trusted me. And I trusted him. We weren’t exclusive or nothing. But it was OK, you know?’
Ford nodded. Was there a point to all this, or had she just wanted some company while she smoked?
‘I saw you at the inquest with Joe Hibberd. What’s the story there?’
‘We’re sort of together.’
‘Bit soon after Tommy, isn’t it?’
She sipped her drink. ‘Like I said. We weren’t exclusive. Anyway, Joe’s helping me grieve.’
‘Tell me about this scheme of Tommy’s.’
‘Scheme?’
Had she forgotten already? He improvised. ‘You know. The thing he had going on to make a little cash.’
‘Oh, yeah. You know JJ and Rye?’ she murmured, standing close, holding her cigarette out to one side. ‘They never let Tommy do anything for himself. Said he had to keep his nose clean while they, you know, made the money.’
Ford saw at once how the relationships between the Bolter brothers played out. ‘He wanted to prove himself to them.’
She nodded and took a sip of cider. ‘Yeah. So, he told me he was going to do something for himself. Make some money and then they’d have to take him seriously.’
‘What was this thing he was going to do?’
‘Hare-coursing. He wasn’t doing any harm. Not really. He said loads of hares get, like, killed by foxes. It’s nature’s way.’
‘I’m not worried about that, Gwyneth. I’m a murder detective, OK? I investigate murders. Like Tommy’s. Did he tell you where he was going to do the coursing?’
‘Not exactly. But he sent me a picture. D’you wanna see it?’
‘Yes, please.’
She brought out her phone, spent a few moments tapping and swiping, then rotated the screen to show him a photo of Tommy grinning into the camera, countryside stretching away behind him.
Ford saw a grassy field, white-flowered hedgerows and, in the distance, the cathedral spire. Puffy clouds decorated a clear blue sky. A long, branching shadow stretched away from him across the grass. A tree. A big tree, at that. Tommy must been standing facing it, so the selfie revealed the shadow but not the tree itself.
He got her to send him a copy.
‘So you didn’t go with him, then?’
She shook her head, then staggered and grabbed his arm to steady herself. ‘Sorry ’bout that,’ she said, releasing him. ‘No, I did go with him. But I stayed in his truck while he went off to the actual, you know, secret location.’ She giggled.
‘Where in his truck?’
‘Like, the passenger seat?’
He sighed. ‘I meant, where did Tommy park the truck?’
‘Oh. Just off the lane.’
‘Which lane?’
She looked at Ford as if he were stupid. ‘The one up to the place! Opposite Pentridge Down. It’s sort of part of a private estate. You know’ – she adopted an upper-class accent, which sound
ed comical with its underpinning of broad Wiltshire – ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted.’
Ford had studied the maps long enough to know instantly which private estate she was talking about. Alverchalke. Where all roads in the case seemed to lead.
‘What was his state of mind when he got back?’
‘He was buzzing, like after doing a line. I asked him if he’d found the right place and he’s like, “I found something much better than that, babes. I just found the golden effing ticket.” Only, he didn’t say “effing”, he said, you know, the actual f-word.’
‘What else?’
‘He said he’d seen this old bloke up on the hill making this film, yeah?’
Ford nodded, feeling the link between the two murders crystallising right in front of his eyes.
‘Then there’s this other, you know, person, comes up and starts shouting and it all kicks off and they, like, have this massive row or whatever, loads of pushing and shoving, anyway, and then this gun goes off and the old bloke falls down dead.’
Ford picked up on her use of the word ‘person’. It sounded wrong on her lips, let alone Tommy’s. But inside, he was rejoicing. She’d just confirmed his own intuition that the two deaths were linked, and strongly at that. Tommy had witnessed Owen Long’s murder. And he’d planned to blackmail the perpetrator. Which meant Tommy had known the murderer’s identity.
‘Did Tommy tell you the name of the person with the gun?’
Gwyneth shook her head, sending his hopes flying away. ‘I asked him, but he’s, like, “I knew ’em, that’s all you need to know.”’
‘And he definitely said he knew them, not he recognised them?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s the same, isn’t it?’
‘No, it isn’t. Think hard. It’s important.’
‘He said he knew them.’ She dropped her cigarette and ground it out beneath her stiletto. ‘Have you finished? Can I go now, please?’
‘In a moment. Why didn’t you come forward sooner?’
‘It’s JJ and Rye. They frighten me.’
‘But they wouldn’t hurt you, would they?’
She laughed, and it sounded bitter to Ford. ‘Wouldn’t they? Look, JJ spoke to me after the inquest. He said if I heard anything about Tommy I was to go to him, not the cops – sorry, I mean the police – or he’d make my life uncomfortable.’ She made air quotes round the final word. They both knew what that word would mean coming from JJ Bolter’s lips.
It made a kind of sense. JJ may well have given Ford until the wake to find Tommy’s killer, but he could have changed his mind and decided to go for his own brand of justice.
Ford reached for something reassuring to say. ‘JJ’s all talk. He’d never hurt you. He just likes to frighten people.’
‘Promise?’ she asked him with pleading eyes, reddened by crying.
‘Promise.’
She nodded, then turned away, wandering over to a group of women in high heels and higher spirits. They embraced her, and soon all five were laughing at some shared joke.
She’d said Tommy claimed he ‘knew’ the shooter. Who would Tommy have known on Alverchalke land? The answer leaped out at him: Joe Hibberd. He might have been gentle with Gwyneth, but he had a hot temper bubbling just below the surface. Ford had seen that up by the rearing field.
A minute later, the pub’s front door flew open and JJ burst out on to the pavement. Weeping or drink, or both, had made his face puffy.
He turned his red-rimmed eyes on Ford and grabbed his lapels. ‘My little brother’s dead, chopped into pieces like Frankenstein’s monster, and I see you hanging round his wake boozing when you should be out catching his murderer. I told you what would happen if you didn’t catch the bastard who did it.’
Ford was too slow. JJ’s fist smashed into the side of his face, spinning him round and making him stagger into a couple leaning against a windowsill stacked with empty glasses. They shattered as Ford stuck his hands out to stop himself falling.
His face blaring with pain, Ford turned and saw JJ’s meaty right fist heading towards his eyes. He ducked and drove forwards, jamming both hands into JJ’s left shoulder and spinning him in a half-circle.
JJ bent forward, then kicked out backwards with his right heel. But Ford had already sidestepped, thus avoiding having his knee broken or the ligaments sheared.
The kick glanced off the side of his leg. Ford punched hard, aiming for a spot at the base of JJ’s neck where nerves ran close to the surface. JJ yelled out as Ford’s knuckles crushed the fragile fibres.
In that moment, Ford grabbed JJ’s right wrist, yanked it up behind his back, then pushed him against the wall beside the front door. He punched JJ in the side, over his kidney, drawing forth a low moan.
Ford felt able to ease off the pressure. He leaned closer and spoke into JJ’s left ear, between panting breaths. ‘If that’s your idea of fucking up my career, then I’ll give it to you. Call it a Get Out of Jail Free card. But don’t try it again.’
JJ offered a grunted laugh in response. ‘You have no fucking idea, Ford. I had a chat with Rye. We thought of something much better. Your boy. Sam, isn’t it?’
Ford’s heart stuttered. He felt a wave of pure fear crash over him. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he growled.
‘He goes to the grammar school, doesn’t he?’ JJ twisted his head round to look straight at Ford. He dropped his voice. ‘Schools can be dangerous places. Chemistry labs full of acid. All those sharp edges in the workshops. Bullies. Anything could happen.’
Ford yanked JJ’s arm back up, drawing forth a hiss of pain. ‘If I hear you’ve even looked at Sam, I’ll come for you,’ he muttered. ‘And your brother. And I will finish you.’
JJ laughed. ‘Finish us? What, with some underpaid CPS brief and a half-baked case my lawyers’ll destroy before the tea break? I don’t think so.’
‘I’m not talking about lawyers, Bolter.’ Ford pushed JJ once more against the wall, then took his hands off his shoulders. But he was fully ready for a counter-attack.
Instead, JJ headed for the pub door. Then he stopped and turned back. ‘Carry on with your investigation, Ford. But all bets are off. Me and Rye are doing our own digging,’ he said. ‘Keep an eye on Sam,’ he added with a wink, then went back into the pub.
Mick emerged a minute later.
‘Christ, H! What happened to you?’
‘Ah, the cavalry,’ Ford said ruefully, rubbing his cheek. ‘JJ happened. I could have done with some backup.’
‘Sorry. I was in the toilet.’
Ford grimaced. ‘Next time, eh? I’m leaving now, Mick. Take care, yes?’
Jaw throbbing, Ford pulled on the handbrake and climbed out of the Discovery on to his own drive. He glanced in the wing mirror to see a purplish bruise spreading over his cheekbone. He limped up to the front door and let himself in.
He called out to Sam, who came hurtling down the stairs, his face creased with concern.
‘Are you OK, Dad? I saw on Twitter there was a fight at the pub for Tommy Bolter’s wake. It said a policeman was involved.’
Ford accepted his son’s fierce, brief hug. ‘Watch the face,’ he said with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m fine. Mick and I went to the wake. Tommy’s brother, JJ, had too much to drink. He lost his temper and hit me.’
Sam looked outraged. ‘You should have arrested him.’
‘I could have arrested him. But it wouldn’t have served any purpose. He’s just lost his little brother. I let it go.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ Sam said, gently prodding Ford’s bruise and making him flinch. ‘Mick’s a big bloke. You should have got him to beat JJ up.’
‘We need JJ and Rye on our side.’
‘And assaulting a detective inspector is part of that, is it?’
Sam rarely used Ford’s title, so he knew how seriously his son was taking it. Then he saw why. Beneath the adolescent bravado, Sam was down to one parent. He could be as wilful, stroppy and uncooperative as any teenager, bu
t he had a vulnerable side he only occasionally let Ford see.
He realised that Sam’s insistence on going on the climbing trip with school was him forcing himself to face his fears. Even as Ford tried to avoid facing his own.
‘I’ll be fine. Call it an occupational hazard. How about we go out for tea tonight?’
Sam’s face relaxed and he smiled. ‘Burgers?’
‘Biggest they have.’
‘Cool.’
As Sam climbed into the passenger seat beside him, already running through the menu on his phone, Ford’s feelings of anxiety redoubled. What if JJ wasn’t just making idle threats? Ford doubted he’d actually hurt a teenage boy just to get at a cop who’d failed to catch his brother’s killer. But what if . . . what if . . . what if . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ford settled down to review the last few videos on Owen Long’s vlog. Just as he’d pressed ‘Play’ on the first one, Jan entered his office carrying a mug of coffee and a plastic box. She unsnapped the lid and placed two flapjacks beside his elbow on a paper plate.
‘Here you go, Henry,’ she said, putting the mug beside them. ‘Cranberry and chocolate chip. You have to eat.’
‘Thanks, Jan. Have you seen Mick this morning?’
She shook her head. ‘You know Kirsty wants a divorce?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe it’s to do with that.’
Ford nodded, wondering if it was Kirsty keeping Mick from his duties, or JJ Bolter. He bit into the flapjack. Delicious. Chewy and sweet with a sharp tang from the cranberries.
The videos were a bit samey, and after a while he tired of Owen’s arm-waving histrionics about Gaia and the planet. The man’s passion shone through, but Ford wished he’d taken a chill pill occasionally.
He turned to the written posts and began reading. Most of them had either no comments or just a few breathless compliments from followers.
You are a modern-day prophet, Owen! I could watch you all day (and I actually have!!) Gaia is blessed to have you as her saviour. Your love is so inspiring and powerful. Namaste!
EcoGirl999
