Land Rites (Detective Ford) by Andy Maslen (best ereader for manga TXT) 📕

Ford asked his standard question. He used it as a way in, more than a genuine enquiry. ‘How was school today?’

Sam swallowed his mouthful then took a gulp of water. What would he get, Ford wondered, the ‘OK’ or the thumbs-up?

‘We had a careers talk today.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Mrs Chantry asked if anyone had any ideas about what they wanted to do.’

‘And did they?’

Sam groaned. ‘Darius Finney said he wanted to be a hedge fund manager, ’cause he wants a Lambo by his thirtieth birthday. He’s such a posh twat.’

‘What did Mrs Chantry say to that?’

‘Once we’d all stopped laughing, you mean? She said in that case he should definitely do maths and economics for A level. And psychology, ’cause he’d meet a lot of psychopaths.’

Ford raised his eyebrows. ‘She sounds kind of cool.’

Sam nodded as he bit off the corner of a new slice. ‘She is,’ he mumbled around the pizza. ‘I volunteered too.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told her I wanted to do something I loved.’ He paused. ‘Like my dad does.’

Ford felt tears prickle behind his eyes and had to fight down the urge to round the table and hug his son.

He swallowed and nodded. ‘Thanks, mate. I caught another case today.’

‘Murder?’ Sam asked, the slice of pizza stopping halfway to his mouth.

‘Usual rules, yes?’

In a sing-song voice, Sam said, ‘Don’t repeat anything. Don’t post anything. On pain of no Wi-Fi. So?’

Ford looked around. The nearest diners were far enough away that he could keep his voice low and not worry about being overheard. ‘Looks like it. A dead body in thirteen pieces stuffed down a badger sett.’

Sam frowned and looked up at the ceiling for a second, then back at Ford. ‘D’you think thirteen means something?’

Ford shook his head. ‘Head, hands, feet, arms, lower legs, thighs and two chunks of the torso. Just the logical number.’

‘It would have made it easier to take the body and dump it down the hole, wouldn’t it?’

Ford nodded. He remembered the promise he’d made to himself when he’d been squeezed into a black funk in the badger sett. That he’d let Sam into his world a little more. A world that clearly didn’t frighten him. Here was his chance.

‘Much easier. Say a grown man weighs twelve stone. As a dead weight, that takes a lot of muscle to carry, or even to drag.’

‘How much does just a leg weigh?’

Ford rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘Hannah would know. I haven’t got a clue.’

‘She likes to be called Wix now,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll text her.’

Ford watched in amazement as Sam pulled out his phone. He hadn’t realised they’d swapped numbers or that they were on nickname terms.

Sam’s thumbs danced over the screen. A few moments later he smiled, tapped in a final few words and put the phone down. ‘A leg is roughly ten per cent of your body weight. For a twelve-stone man, that’s sixteen point eight pounds.’

‘Which is typical Wix, but also interesting. So, over a stone.’

‘Yeah, but you could still carry one.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Why dump it down a badger sett?’ Sam asked.

‘When you’ve committed a murder there are two big things you have to do pretty much as soon as you can. One, dispose of the murder weapon. Two, dispose of the body,’ Ford said.

‘Yep. I’ve seen CSI, Dad. I just watched the whole of the first season on Netflix.’

‘So, you just killed a guy. Now you need to get rid of the evidence. And the body is the biggest piece.’

‘Not if you’ve chopped it up, it isn’t.’

‘Thank you for that. Which just goes to show that teenagers have the same black sense of humour as coppers.’

‘If you think that’s bad, you should come to Chequers with me one day and hang around at break.’

Ford shook his head. ‘Not sure I could cope with that much testosterone in one place.’

Sam smiled. ‘Why not bury it properly? Dig a hole?’

‘People with bodies to bury are often in a hurry. And, to be honest, buried bodies have a habit of popping up again,’ Ford said. ‘Farmers plough fields. Forestry people plant new trees. Disturbing the earth enough to bury a body makes a big visual change to the ground. It’s noticeable. Maybe not straight away, but grass can grow differently, or the ground can subside.’

‘Do you know who he was?’

Ford sighed. ‘Yes. And right now that’s my biggest problem.’

‘Who is it?’

Ford hesitated. But Sam would hear about it on social media or on the radio. ‘A guy called Tommy Bolter. Part of a bad family who live up towards the racecourse.’

Sam just shrugged. ‘OK.’

Ford felt relief that at least the Bolters hadn’t touched Sam. Their world and his didn’t intersect at any point. He prayed it would always stay that way.

Sam’s phone buzzed. He looked at Ford pleadingly. They had a strict rule at home: no phones at the table. But Sam’s friends were important to him and Ford felt he could relax the rule today. He nodded and smiled. ‘Go on then.’

While Sam engaged in a long series of messages on whichever social media app he and his mates currently favoured, Ford reached behind him and picked a magazine off the windowsill: one of the local glossies, Salisbury Life. All the local shops and cafes had them lying around, on counters, tables, racks by the door. The cover featured a photo of a goldfinch.

He flicked through and came to another bird photo. ‘Lords and Lapwings’, the headline blared. The article profiled one of the local landowners, Lord Baverstock. In it, he expressed a passion for birdwatching. He’d taken the front cover image himself.

‘I’m playing Mortal Kombat with Josh later,’ Sam said. ‘Can we go now? I don’t want any pudding.’

At home, the house Ford and Lou had named Windgather – after the place where they’d first started climbing – Ford and Sam went their separate ways: Sam to do biology homework, Ford for a twenty-minute music break playing his guitar before returning to the day’s paperwork. Because it all started in