by Andy Maslen
He leaned back in his usual spot on the worn leather sofa and looked at Sam, who was poring over a magazine, his long legs folded beneath him.
‘What yer readin’?’ Ford asked.
Sam looked up, then held the magazine out towards him. The cover shot showed a woman in neon pink and green Lycra traversing a rock face.
‘Climber,’ Sam said. ‘There’s an article all about your first ascent.’
‘Learning much?’ Ford managed.
Sam nodded. ‘I’m reading about knots at the moment.’
‘That’ll be handy for your trip,’ Ford said, grateful Sam hadn’t asked him to show him how to tie any.
‘I want to be safe, Dad. I’m doing a ton of research before we go.’
‘I’m pleased.’
‘You know I’m going to be fine, right? You don’t need to worry.’
‘Yeah, I know. It’s just . . .’
‘I understand. I do. But I think this will be good for me. For both of us.’
Ford felt such a flood of love for his son it threatened to overwhelm him. Who was parenting whom? And when had the little boy who’d stood silently, shocked into tear-free immobility at his mother’s funeral, turned into the young man reassuring him that all would be well and all manner of things would be well?
‘I know it will, Sam,’ he said, swallowing down his fears and trying not to picture his son suspended above the void on nothing more substantial than a length of nylon rope.
‘Really?’ Sam asked with a smile.
‘Really.’
Sam turned back to his climbing magazine. Ford checked his watch. Just before eight. Plenty of time.
‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘Don’t answer the door to anyone.’
Sam held up his right hand, thumb and forefinger in a circle.
Ford drove back to Bourne Hill. The traffic was light and the trip only took ten minutes. Instead of heading upstairs, he made his way to the response and patrol shift sergeant’s office. The woman in uniform behind the desk looked up and smiled.
‘Evening, sir. Don’t often see you in R&P. Everything OK?’
‘Hi, Nat. Listen, Rye Bolter threatened Sam this afternoon on his way home from school.’
Her eyes popped wide. ‘Oh my God, is he all right?’
‘Yeah, he’s fine. Too fine, actually. Giving it the whole “I showed no fear” bit. Listen, I need a favour. Can you put a body on him for a day or two? Nothing obvious. Just on his way to and from school?’
‘Of course. Are you going to arrest Rye?’
Ford looked at her levelly. ‘Something like that.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll sort out a little roster. Off the books.’
‘Thanks, Nat. I owe you one.’
Next, Ford stopped off in the training suite. The sergeant in charge of the Method of Entry team had been running through the equipment with a couple of trainees. Ford collected two items, and five minutes later was stowing them in the back of the Discovery.
It was 8.31 p.m. The sun had just set, and the Bolters’ hacienda was glowing in the last remains of the orange light.
Ford stopped the Discovery just in front of the gates. He retrieved the first item he’d borrowed from the training room: a hydraulic spreader. He inserted its jaws between two of the bars and started pumping the lever.
As if they were made of soft plastic, the steel bars bowed outwards until they hit their neighbours. As soon as he had a wide enough gap, Ford put the tool back in the Discovery.
He returned to the gate and squeezed through, gripping the second item from the training suite, a stubby object made of bright yellow plastic that sent twin red dots playing over the front of the hacienda.
He approached the front door and rang the bell. Stepping back, he waited. Breathing slowly. Rolling his shoulders.
Rye opened the door, holding a baseball bat by his side.
Ford squeezed the taser’s trigger. The two barbs shot out on their fine wires and embedded themselves in Rye’s hoodie. As it delivered the charge, Rye went down like a stunned animal, convulsing.
‘JJ Bolter,’ Ford roared. ‘Get out here now!’
Seconds later, JJ emerged into the wide hallway, face dark with fury. Ford saw with pleasure the way his expression changed as he clocked his brother, supine and unconscious on the floor.
‘What the fuck is this, Ford?’
‘Your brother followed and then threatened my son this afternoon,’ Ford said in a voice that was level but still quivering with rage. ‘If it happens again, or if I even think it’s happened again, I will come back and I will kill you both. I will make your bodies disappear like dust in the wind. And when I’ve finished misdirecting the investigation, nobody will ever find you. Nobody will connect anything to me. And you and your pathetic little criminal empire will be history.’
JJ held his hands out towards Ford. ‘Listen, I had no idea Rye was going to pull something like that, OK? I would’ve told him not to if he’d come to me first. You have to believe me.’
At that moment, Rye raised himself on his elbows. ‘Fuck just happened?’ he mumbled.
Ford squeezed the trigger again. He hadn’t taken his eyes off JJ the whole time. He heard Rye’s head hit the parquet flooring.
‘You’ll kill him!’ JJ shouted.
‘Not today. And not with this. It’s like I said. You leave my son alone and everything’s fine. You touch him or go near him, and yes, I will. Rye first. And then you.’ Ford gestured at Rye with the taser. ‘Take the barbs out of his clothing and hand them to me.’
JJ bent down by his brother and unhooked the little metal darts. He passed them to Ford, who backed up and out through the open front door.
‘Sam got him on video,’ he said from the porch. ‘My story is, I came to arrest him and the two of you attacked me. I tasered Rye and staged a tactical retreat. Complain if you want. At worst, I’ll get a rap on the knuckles. And you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.’
JJ nodded, looking up at Ford. ‘Don’t worry. We don’t make complaints. What about Tommy?’
‘I’m close. Goodbye, JJ. By the way, I fucked up your gate. I’m sorry.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ford reached home at 9.10 p.m. Sam had disappeared.
Ford called out, ‘Sam?’
‘In my room!’ came an answering yell.
Smiling, Ford went to the fridge and collected a bottle of beer. He took a long pull, and felt the alcohol ease the edges off the tension he’d felt since leaving to confront Rye and JJ.
Needing a change of scene, and a distraction, he headed upstairs to the room where he kept his guitar and amplifier.
Shit! He’d just crossed a line. A line wound round with crime scene tape and flashing blue lights. But JJ wouldn’t make a complaint, would he? It wasn’t his style. Ford had known that before JJ admitted it. This was a private matter between the two of them. Rye had acted without his older brother’s say-so. And Ford had shown his teeth. Honours even.
Pushing the thought aside, Ford focused on his playing, concentrating on getting the phrasing just right. And gradually, he lost himself in the blues music he’d loved since childhood, his focus shifting from the crimes of today to the heartbreaks, losses and betrayals of the past.
Thoughts of Tommy’s blackmail plot led him to an old Delta blues song: ‘I Seen Just What You Done’. He’d heard it once on a scratchy seventy-eight on a visit to his grandparents’ house. It had stayed with him ever since. On the brittle black disc of shellac, a male singer with a high-pitched, wailing voice had sung the same lines Ford sang now:
‘Oh, baby, I seen just what you done.
Yeah, baby, I seen just what you done.
I’m a witness to your crime
and I’m tellin’ you it’s time
for you to run.’
As the last line left his lips and the notes rang on the strings of his guitar, he let his hand drop away.
Time to return to the
problem, which he now saw more clearly.
Assume one shooter.
The charge for Owen’s death would be either murder or manslaughter, depending on what evidence Ford and his team could produce. Even if it had been an accidental shooting, that would still make it involuntary manslaughter. The shooter had been at best grossly negligent and at worst dangerous or unlawful in getting the gun so close to Owen that an accidental discharge had killed him.
Fearing the consequences of going to the police, they’d panicked and dumped the body. Then Tommy turned up with his blackmail threat.
This time there was no heat-of-the-moment scuffle or panicked disposal of the corpse. Tommy had been murdered in cold blood, coolly dismembered and disposed of down a deep hole in the ground. The shift in attitude to killing didn’t feel right.
So, assume two shooters.
Given the two deaths were linked, the two shooters also had to be linked. Shooter one killed Owen and, on being blackmailed, told shooter two. Shooter two took over and murdered and disposed of Tommy. Given the differences in MO, this felt like the most likely scenario.
If it were true, it would resolve a secondary niggle Ford had been uncomfortable about. The sort of person who could accidentally kill someone close up with a rifle didn’t feel like the sort of person who could kill someone with a sniper shot. One sounded like a leisure shooter out of their depth. The other, something altogether more professional.
Assassins being short on the ground in Wiltshire, he leaned towards the idea that shooter two was a soldier. Either serving. Or former.
Like Joe Hibberd.
Or Lord Baverstock.
The switch from .22 to .308 had to be about effective range. A .22 was a vermin gun. Useful at close range. On small targets. The irony was, if Owen had been shot at long range, he could well have survived.
Tommy’s killer had used a .308 ballistic tip. A long-range round, as George had confirmed at Tommy’s PM. A round you’d choose to take down a deer, or a man.
Ford did a quick internet search. British soldiers in Afghanistan had used sniper rifles chambered for the 7.62mm round, which was effectively the same as the .308. The maximum effective range was around the thousand-metre mark. He performed a rapid calculation and discovered to his horror it yielded a circle of 3.14 square kilometres.
No. Combing that much ground looking for a sniper nest would swallow up too many people on a search. And they’d probably never find it. Even if they did, the chances of it yielding anything useful in the way of forensics were slim.
Forget forensics for now. This was about pursuing the family he was increasingly sure lay behind both murders.
First thing the next morning, Ford called Alverchalke Manor. He wanted Lord Baverstock to feel a little heat. And to confirm the possibility that one of his offspring could have shot and killed Owen Long.
Because that was where Ford had got to overnight. No way would an experienced former soldier allow himself to be bested in a tussle over a rifle and end up accidentally shooting his opponent. It would have been deliberate or not at all.
Lord Baverstock himself answered. ‘Alverchalke.’
‘Good morning, Lord Baverstock, it’s Inspector Ford here. I hope you can help. I need to identify anybody who was out and about on the land you own opposite Pentridge Down nature reserve on the morning of Thursday, the twenty-ninth of April.’
‘That’s close by the rearing field. Joe would have been the only chap up there. It’s strictly private. Can I ask what this is all about?’
‘And when you say “Joe”, you’re talking about Joe Hibberd, your gamekeeper?’
‘Yes. But I fail to see—’
‘Nobody else? Stephen? Or Lucy?’
He could hear Lord Baverstock’s breathing. Pictured the man struggling to remain calm. Either from suppressed anger at what he no doubt thought of as an unwarranted intrusion, or because he was guilty.
‘Not as far as I’m aware. Why do you ask?’
‘Do your children have access to your gun safe?’
‘Of course they bloody do! Have done since they were in their teens. Again, why?’
‘Is it possible either Lucy or Stephen was up near the rearing field shooting between nine a.m. on Thursday April the twenty-ninth and the same time the following day? With or without your knowledge?’
The silence stretched out to five seconds.
‘Lord Baverstock?’
‘It’s possible. As it is that almost anybody else in my employ was out there. Was there anything else, Inspector?’
This was the first of Lord Baverstock’s questions Ford answered. His lips curved as he spoke. ‘Not at the moment. Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.’
Ford ended the call just as Jan placed a mug of tea and a home-made chocolate muffin on the desk in front of him.
‘Eat that,’ she said. ‘You’re wasting away.’
Ford bit into the muffin and smiled. A great detective and a superb baker.
Olly came into his office.
‘Stephen Martival sent through all the stuff about his movements. It all checks out. I’ve got CCTV from The Beckford Arms, copies of the bill, statements from waiters. He was there with his mum till about eleven thirty.’
‘What about his trip to London?’
‘Got CCTV and statements from his colleagues. But it’s not complete, is it, guv? He could still have done it. Just at night.’
Ford shook his head. ‘No, it’s not completely out of the question. The man acts like a bloody psychopath, but I just didn’t get a killer vibe off him.’
Olly was still standing in front of the desk, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
‘What is it?’ Ford asked, impatient to be on to the next stage of his pursuit of Lord Baverstock.
‘I spoke to the GoPro people, too, guv. Got the runaround. They bounced me from marketing to corporate communications, then HR, finance and finally, guess where?’
‘Legal?’
Olly screwed up his face. ‘In very helpful language they informed me they couldn’t help. They have a strict data privacy policy and can’t do anything without written authorisation from the account holder.’
‘But he’s dead!’
‘I know. And I did explain. They said in that case they’d need written authorisation from the executors of his will.’
Ford sighed. Lawyers. ‘Get on to Ruth Long. And be tactful, yes?’
‘Of course,’ Olly said, looking affronted.
Ford went down to Forensics. Hannah was at her desk, sitting in a pool of yellowish light cast by the incandescent bulbs she’d used to replace the neon tubes overhead.
‘Any joy with cracking Owen’s GoPro password?’ he asked her.
‘No. No joy at all. Not even a little moment of bliss. But I’ll keep trying.’
Had it been anyone else, Ford would have asked if they’d tried permutations of the elements from the PC’s main password. As it was Hannah, he didn’t. He knew better. She’d have gone through everything, methodically, obsessively – until the small hours, probably.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ford had photographic evidence that placed Tommy and Owen within feet of each other when Owen was killed. He had a pool of potential suspects, topped by Joe Hibberd, hot on whose boot-shod heels galloped Lucy, Philip and Stephen Martival.
He also had the nagging threat posed by JJ Bolter. The deadline had passed, and he was nowhere near making an arrest.
What would give Ford reasonable grounds to arrest Hibberd for Tommy’s murder? Or Owen’s, come to that? The photo was good, but still just strong circumstantial evidence. He’d no doubt the sort of barrister Lord Baverstock would line up to defend his gamekeeper would scoff at it.
What he really wanted was a bullet from the gun Joe Hibberd had been shooting when he went out to the rearing field to interview him. No wonder the man had reacted so violently when Ford had gone to retrieve the rabbit he’d just shot. He knew it would link him to the mu
rder.
If only he’d insisted. Then he’d have a bullet Hannah could compare to the one George had dug out of Owen’s skull. He could go back now, but he had a feeling Lord Baverstock would send him packing. Unless he had a warrant. Which he felt sure Sandy would block. For now.
He needed another approach. Something creative.
And then he gasped and laughed out loud. ‘Idiot!’
He wanted a bullet from Joe Hibberd’s gun. He’d had one all along. In his own freezer. ‘Stodgy’ Stephen had given him a rabbit as they were leaving Alverchalke Manor. What had he said? The self-assured young nobleman’s words floated back to him. Joe bagged them this morning with a .22.
Ten minutes later he climbed out of the Discovery, ran round to the garage and let himself in at the side door. Gleaming in the blue-white light of the fluorescent tubes sat a silver E-Type Jaguar. IOPC investigators might see such a vehicle and wonder, ‘Where does someone on an inspector’s salary get the funds to buy a car worth the thick end of a hundred grand?’
On asking DI Ford, they would be respectfully directed to a photograph in said officer’s wedding album. Father of the bride posing beside groom, both grinning into the camera with the E-type in the background. Successful bankers did that kind of thing for their newly married offspring. They’d named it – well, Lou had allowed Ford to name it – Izabella, the name Jimi Hendrix had given one of his guitars.
Ford skirted the car and yanked up the lid of the freezer. He pulled out the carrier bag containing the rabbit he’d dumped there eight days earlier.
In the kitchen, he put the rabbit on a chopping board. The fur was stiff to the touch, rimed with frost. He probed the left-hand side, finding the tiny bullet hole with the tip of his finger. Somewhere inside the insignificant, freezing carcass was a bullet that might be enough to arrest Joe Hibberd.
He considered taking it back to the garage and having a go at dissecting it with a jigsaw. Then he dismissed the idea. He could afford to wait for it to defrost. Should he do it himself, even then? Or would he damage the bullet with an ill-judged cut? He had a better idea, and called George.
