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

‘It’s a crag in the Peak District.’

‘Why did you name your house after a crag in the Peak District?’

‘My wife and I loved climbing there when we were beginners.’

‘OK,’ she said.

Inside, his head still full of the honeysuckle’s sweet perfume, he led her through to the kitchen, yelling up the stairs as he went. ‘Sam. Come down. We’ve got a visitor.’

Upstairs, a door slammed. Then came a thumping on the stairs, as if a heavy item of furniture had toppled over and tumbled all the way to the bottom. Hannah turned to Ford and raised her eyebrows in a question.

He smiled. ‘Wait.’

The door opened. Framed in the rectangle stood a boy, nearing six foot, dressed in skinny jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. His shoulders were narrow, his hips slim, his legs long. His curly hair drooped over dark brown eyes above a prominent nose waiting for the rest of the face to catch up with it.

He looked at Hannah.

‘Hello,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I’m Hannah.’

Not Dr Fellowes, Ford mused.

Sam said, ‘Hi,’ as he took her hand and had his pumped up and down three times.

‘Hannah’s a colleague at work. She’s a CSI,’ Ford said.

At this, Sam’s eyes, projecting biblical levels of boredom just a moment earlier, flashed wide. He pushed hair away from his forehead. ‘Like on the TV?’

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling. ‘In fact, I am a senior CSI. I am also the deputy manager of the CSI team, and I have a PhD. I used to teach at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.’

‘That is so cool.’

‘What? You never say my job’s cool,’ Ford protested.

‘Yeah, and there’s a good reason for that, Dad. It’s not.’

‘Today I investigated a murder scene,’ Hannah said. ‘It was very gruesome. The victims were seated in a pool of blood.’

‘Whoa! No way. Like, what happened?’

‘We don’t know yet. But I expect we’ll find out. How old are you, Sam?’

‘Oh, er, fifteen.’

‘And is Sam your nickname?’

‘Not really. At school they call me Mondeo. You know, because of—’

‘Ford. Your surname. The Ford Mondeo was the best-selling large family car in the UK until 2007. At that point it was overtaken, which is a joke, by the way, by the new-look Vauxhall Vectra.’

‘Awesome. Do you, like, know all about cars and everything?’

‘I don’t know all about everything. But I looked it up on Wikipedia today. Because DI Ford is called Henry at work. After Henry Ford, who founded the Ford Motor Company on June the sixteenth, 1903.’

‘Wait, what? Does he make you call him DI Ford at work?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me his Christian name, so yes, I call him DI Ford.’

Ford held his hands out. ‘I said Henry was fine. Or plain Ford. I think Dr Fellowes is having some fun at my expense.’

She put her hand flat against her chest. ‘Me? No. I would never do that.’ Then she winked at Sam.

‘Ooh, burn! Dad, she totally owned you!’ Sam held up his right hand, palm towards Hannah. ‘High five!’

She cocked her head to one side and looked at Sam’s upraised palm. Ford noticed a fleeting tightness around her eyes. Then she raised her own right hand and smacked it hard against Sam’s, producing a loud pop in the kitchen. For some reason he couldn’t explain to himself, Ford found Sam’s shocked expression amusing.

Sam cooked a scratch meal of pasta and pesto with a pile of grated Parmesan. As his son placed heaped bowls in front of the two adults and a third for himself, Ford’s eyes prickled and he had to swallow down a lump in his throat. Hannah was sitting where Lou used to. Back when it had been the three of them together.

After taking a few mouthfuls, Hannah looked up at Ford. ‘Your wife,’ she said. ‘Is she travelling on business?’

Ford shook his head. Sighed. Why did it never get any easier? Even after all this time? He caught Sam’s eye. Sam looked down at his bowl of pasta. Poor kid. He doesn’t deserve to have this raked over every time someone new comes to the house.

‘She died six years ago,’ Ford said quietly, looking at a photo of the two of them taken at Windgather. Lou was smiling, her eyes sparkling in spring sunshine, a loose strand of hair whipping in front of her face.

‘How did she die?’ Hannah asked, eyebrows raised.

That was interesting. No confused attempt to say something sympathetic.

‘It was a climbing accident.’

‘Was she not roped on properly? That is one of the five main causes of death for climbers.’

Ford glanced at Sam, who had frozen, a fork laden with green-tinged pasta halfway to his open mouth.

‘Something like that,’ Ford said, finally.

‘I’m sorry she died.’

‘Thanks.’

Looking down so a floppy lock of hair covered his eyes, Sam scraped up the last of his food, clanked his spoon and fork into the bowl and left the table, already fishing his phone from a trouser pocket.

Hannah watched him go, then turned back to face Ford. ‘If you try to climb Everest, you have a one in sixty-one chance of dying. If you reach the summit, it’s one in twenty-seven.’

Something about the way the woman sitting opposite him saw the world made him smile, despite Sam’s earlier reaction.

She frowned. ‘Did I say something funny? I was just telling you about mortality rates on Everest.’

He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t you. Tell me, what did you make of the crime scene this morning?’

‘He’s organised. We found very little physical evidence. No DNA. And he didn’t mess up her flat. I think he was focused on the blood.’

‘And the 666? That’s the number of the beast.’

‘According to the latest theological research, the number of the beast is 616,’ she said. ‘But if our killer is following the text of Revelation 13:15, which I suspect he may be, then he could think that.’

‘What is its significance for us?’ Ford asked.

‘I have no idea. It depends on its significance for the killer. If he’s sane, it could be a taunt, or an attempt to throw you off