Shallow Ground (Detective Ford) by Andy Maslen (to read list txt) 📕

much chatter as the teams discussed their assignments.

‘Do you want me to have a word with Olly?’ Jan asked from beside Ford.

‘Why?’

‘You were a bit sharp with the lad. He’s only being keen.’

‘He’ll be fine. Just needs to learn to walk before he can run. Like we all did.’

She smiled. ‘I know, boss. But I could just . . .’ She paused. ‘. . . fill him in on why you’re extra-moody today.’

‘Because of Lou, you mean?’ Ford asked in a low, hard-edged voice. ‘Is that what you’re driving at?’

She held his gaze. ‘I’ve known you how long, boss?’

‘Eight years.’

‘Nine. I was here when it happened,’ she said. ‘Maybe you don’t remember, but I took you home a couple of times after you’d had a few too many at the Wyndham Arms. Made sure Sam was staying with your neighbours.’

He frowned. Of course he remembered. ‘What’s your point, Jan?’

‘My point is that you need to forgive yourself.’

His heart flipped. A wave of nausea rolled through him. ‘What?’

‘It’s called survivor guilt. I read a book about it. You weren’t to blame, but you feel you were because you lived and Lou – well, Lou died. And you can be a bit hard to be around on the anniversary.’

He forced himself to smile. Felt the muscles and ligaments in his jaws creaking. ‘I’m OK. Really. But don’t talk to Olly. If I’m the worst boss he ever has, he’ll look back on this time with great fondness.’

Jan shrugged. ‘You’re the guv’nor.’

She left him alone in the meeting room.

Ford checked his watch. Four hours gone out of the magic twenty-four, the so-called ‘golden hour’. Nobody knew when inflation had turned one hour into twenty-four. He had a sneaking feeling this one wasn’t going to be filed in the ‘Solved inside a day’ file, where the vast majority of brawl-based homicides and domestics resided.

THREE WEEKS EARLIER

Is there a God? he wonders, smiling, as he squats in the crook of two thick tree branches. Because if He does exist, He must have a soft spot for me.

His pleasure stems from his discovery that his chosen victim lives in the middle of nowhere. Some sort of eco-cottage on the edge of a farm. It squats between a bramble-choked copse and a boggy field cut in two by a fast-flowing river.

He is hyper-alert, senses fine-tuned. A crow hops towards a greyish-cream clump in the middle distance he suspects is a dead sheep. Stink from muck-spreading in a field three over drifts on the breeze. The bark is rough against his skin. Then he catches sight of his quarry through the lenses of his binoculars, and everything else fades away.

Marcus will be his first human. But he’s not inexperienced. Far from it. The cats will testify to that. And the rabbits, the badger and the lamb he stole from under its mother’s nose in the depths of the night. But this is different. This is for the project.

Marcus strolls towards the cottage, swishing at the long grass with a stick. He resembles a tramp, in an old army jumper and greasy-looking jeans. He’s tied his long, raggedy blond hair into disgusting tangled lumpy strings. What do they call them? Dreads?

Well, Marcus, my boy, you’ll have a lot of dreading to do when you meet me for the first time.

He waits for the tree-hugger to go inside, then climbs down, straightens his jacket and saunters over to the door.

He pastes that dopey smile on to his face, the one that charms the old dears up at the hospital, and he knocks. Three times.

The door opens. Marcus smiles at him. Stupid, trusting human beings.

‘Hi, Marcus. My name’s Harvey. From the food bank. May I come in?’

DAY TWO, 6.30 P.M.

Ford finished updating his policy book and grabbed his car keys. On the way out to the car park, a shout made him turn round. Hannah was hurrying towards him.

‘DI Ford, wait!’

He waited for her to reach him.

‘Can I speak to you, please?’

‘What is it?’

She was twisting the ring around her finger again. ‘When DS Cable asked about psychologists in the briefing, you dismissed the idea.’

‘Only because it’s unnecessary. The young ones always want to go outside for profilers at the merest sniff of something unusual, instead of doing proper coppering.’

‘I didn’t mention this before, but my PhD is in cognitive neuroscience. I went on to develop expertise in forensic psychology. I specialised in the psychology of lying. That’s what I was working on with the FBI.’

‘Which is amazing. But I don’t see—’

‘If you think there’s some value in discussing the killer’s mental state, you wouldn’t need to spend money on an external profiler. I could help you.’

Ford checked his watch. ‘I have to get home to my son. Can I offer you a lift? We can speak in the car.’

‘Yes, please. I live in Harnham. It’s—’

‘I know it. We live there, too. Rainhill Road.’

‘I’ve walked that way. Which house is yours?’

‘Jump in. I’ll show you.’

She cast an appraising eye over the dusty Discovery. ‘Your car isn’t very smart. I thought all detectives drove classic cars. You know, old Rovers or Saab convertibles.’

He smiled. ‘I think you’ve been watching too much TV.’

A summer shower had created wide puddles on both sides of the narrow road leading to Ford’s house, and he took childish delight in running his nearside wheels through as many of them as possible, making Hannah laugh.

‘Sam used to love doing that,’ he said. ‘He’d beg me to take him puddle-hunting after a big rainstorm.’

He turned off the road and parked on a gravel drive encircling a flower bed. Somehow, on the short journey home, he’d invited Hannah to stay for something to eat. She had a way of speaking that he found unsettling, yet fascinating; direct, seemingly unembarrassable and ready to discuss anything and everything under the sun.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll introduce you to Sam.’

She pointed at an engraved slate rectangle set into the wall beside the front door, half-hidden by honeysuckle. ‘Windgather. What’s