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

all the way back to Bourne Hill. Maybe she was telling the truth. He suspected she didn’t really know how to lie. So, had his own guilt been riding him when he’d seen the title on her PC screen?

He hoped so. He had enough to think about without trying to fend off Hannah if she started asking questions about the accident.

Like JJ’s threat.

A week was plenty of time when you were investigating a domestic where the husband was sitting in the flat drenched in blood and weeping into his lager. But this one was different. This screamed complex.

Olly came to see him as soon as he reached Major Crimes.

‘I contacted Tommy’s network provider. His phone stopped pinging on Saturday – the one just gone, May the first. The last tower it shook hands with was a few miles south of Coombe Bissett.’

That particular landscape contained nothing but farm animals, and not very many of them. No significant settlements until you reached Blandford Forum. What was he doing? Who had tracked him there? And who owned the land?

Ford thanked Olly, registered the smile the young DC tried to hide, and continued his walkaround. Mick’s voice – raised and angry – broke the silence. He caught Ford’s eye and dropped his voice, though Ford could make out every hissed word.

‘Yeah, I know that, but I . . . That’s why I want you to . . . OK, I’m sorry! I would like you to at least talk about it before you . . . You can’t—’ Mick scowled at the phone, breathing heavily. Obviously the other party had hung up on him.

Ford waited for Mick to look at him again. It took a while.

‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

Mick pocketed the phone, his face red; whether from anger or embarrassment, Ford couldn’t tell.

‘It’s nothing. Kirsty’s just bending my ear as usual. Women, eh. Can’t live with ’em . . .’ Mick went for a shrug and a comedy eye-roll.

Ford continued towards his office. The door was open. Odd. He always closed it when he left. Entering, he had to suppress a scowl of his own.

Martin Peterson, police and crime commissioner for Wiltshire, sat behind Ford’s desk. Was leaning back in Ford’s chair. Leafing through Ford’s paperwork. About which Ford now found he cared a great deal.

Peterson looked up. His smile revealed gleaming teeth. To Ford they looked veneered.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ Peterson said. ‘Someone told me I could wait in here.’

Ford doubted that. On a scale of one to ten as to how much people disliked the PCC, Ford rated himself a nine. Most of his team would rate themselves a ten. Or above.

He rounded the desk, forcing Peterson to vacate the chair. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Peterson?’

‘No need for all the formality. I am here as your colleague. Your friend, if you’ll let me. Call me Martin. Do you know,’ he said, frowning, ‘I don’t think you’ve ever told me your first name.’

Ford sat in the chair and shuffled the papers into a pile. He said nothing.

Clearing his throat, Peterson touched the knot of his fuchsia-pink tie. ‘I hear you’re investigating another murder,’ he said.

Ford nodded. ‘It’s what we do in Major Crimes.’

‘Yes, well, I want you to know I’ll be taking an active interest in the case.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘Oh, come now. No need to be so defensive. A gruesome murder. Body parts’ – he shuddered – ‘disposed of in a hole in the ground—’

‘A sett.’

‘Fine, a set of body parts—’

‘No. They were dumped down a sett. You know . . . where badgers live?’

There. A flicker of irritation on Peterson’s smooth-cheeked face let Ford know he’d got to him. He’d pricked that bubble of fake affability.

‘I don’t, actually, care whether they were dumped down a badger sett or in the cathedral font,’ Peterson said. ‘The point is, it’s a highly unusual situation and I want to see it resolved quickly. As I told you before, the city needs publicity of this kind like a hole in the head.’

‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly what the corpse had.’

Paling, Peterson stood and extended his hand, which Ford shook briefly. ‘I expect to be kept posted. Cheers, now!’

‘Prick,’ Ford muttered as the door closed behind Peterson’s suited frame.

His PC bleeped to announce the arrival of an email. His heart rate picked up when he saw the sender: George.

She’d found the bullet. Although she cautioned against taking her word as gospel, it appeared to be a .308 calibre ballistic tip, a typical deer-hunting round. After bouncing around in Tommy’s skull, it had travelled south and lodged in his liver. For time of death, the copper’s friend and pathologist’s major irritant, she’d estimated two to five days. Whoever cut him up had used a large-bladed knife and a hacksaw.

Thanking whichever stars had aligned to bring George to Salisbury, he called one of his contacts, the news editor of the Salisbury Journal.

‘Hello, Inspector, what can I do for you?’

‘You might have heard there’s been a nasty murder. Tommy Bolter?’

‘I did hear something, yes. We put a little piece on the website ahead of the next issue.’

‘We need people to come forward if they saw him in the days or hours before his death. Even if they didn’t know him, they might recognise him,’ Ford said. ‘He had some distinctive tattoos. If I sent you some photos, could you print them and ask your readers to contact us?’

‘Of course. You’re in luck. We’re going to press this evening. Can you give me some more details?’

Ford spent ten minutes running through the details of the case, securing a promise to have the story in the following day’s paper. Then he went to find Jools.

‘We’ve got the bullet. It’s a .308 ballistic tip.’

‘Wix told me. It just arrived from the hospital.’

‘I want you to start canvassing local gun shops, starting with Berret & Sartain in the city centre. We need lists of customers who bought that type of ammunition.’

‘On it.’

Ford wanted to know who owned the land where they’d found the body. He’d asked