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

young men who’d reached a fork in the road and chosen the wrong path. ‘How did he respond?’ he asked.

‘Oh, lots of forelock-tugging and “yes, my lord; no, my lord”. Joe escorted him off the estate and he behaved himself until the urge took him and he tried his luck again.’

‘Did Joe catch him that time, too?’

Lord Baverstock snorted. ‘Yes. It was two weeks ago. Bolter gave poor old Joe a bloody nose. He would have made a fine regimental boxer if I’d had him early enough.’

Ford jotted down: ‘Gamekeeper – Joe – fight with TB’. Maybe he’d have something to tell JJ after all. Gamekeepers knew how to shoot. They had to. It was part of the job. And according to Old Dan, the gamekeeper was ex-army. So presumably he was a good shot with a rifle and not just someone content to blast away with a shotgun.

Would coming off second best in a fight be motive for murder? Of course it would! He’d seen men murdered for less. He looked at the two unassuming aristocrats in front of him. He saw open faces. Direct gazes. Not challenging, but enquiring. The sorts of expressions worn by people with nothing to hide.

A uniformed maid arrived with a tray of tea things. She discreetly offered and poured cups for all four people in the room, then retreated on silent feet. Ford wondered how she’d known to bring it in. Perhaps the upper classes had prearranged signals for that sort of thing.

As he was pondering the puzzles of aristocratic hospitality, the door swung open again. A young man stood there in jodhpurs and a sky-blue T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Rockbourne Polo Club’ clinging to his torso. His blonde hair flopped over one eye. To Ford, it looked studied rather than casual, as if he’d arranged it in a mirror.

‘You’ve got company, Pa,’ he said, while staring at Ford.

Lord Baverstock turned to him. ‘They’re police, Stephen. Come and say hello.’

The man now revealed as the Baverstocks’ son advanced on Ford, hand outstretched. After the introductions, he fell back into an overstuffed chair and slung a booted foot over one arm.

‘What’s all this about, then?’

‘We’re investigating a murder,’ Hannah said.

‘Awesome! Can I stay and listen in while you interrogate Pa and Coco?’ He turned to Lord Baverstock and winked. ‘Going to go “no comment”, are you?’

Hannah wrinkled her nose. ‘We’re not interrogating them. We just came to ask a few questions.’

‘Whatevs. Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here and absorb the atmos.’

‘Darling! Be serious. This poor man, Tommy Bolter, has been found murdered on Mark Ball’s land,’ Lady Baverstock said. ‘Or found there, at any rate. In pieces, may I add. I hardly think this is a time for levity.’

Stephen’s eyes widened. ‘Tommy bloody Bolter? Good riddance! Chap was always stealing from us, wasn’t he, Pa?’

Lord Baverstock frowned. ‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean he deserved to be murdered, does it?’

Stephen’s grin vanished, and Ford watched him effortfully rearranging his features into something more serious, though the resulting expression looked stagy. ‘Yah. No, of course. Dreadful business.’ He stood. ‘Think I won’t stay after all. I’ll go and give Loopy a hand with the horses.’

Ford took another sip of tea and looked past Lord and Lady Baverstock to the paintings on the wall behind them. Landscapes, mostly, some obviously of their own estate. Animal pictures featuring sad-eyed greyhounds, statuesque horses and the occasional pile of dead game. And more military portraits.

One painting caught his eye. A younger version of Lord Baverstock stood beside an attractive woman holding the lead of a shaggy grey wolfhound. Flame-haired and dark-eyed, she looked nothing like Lady Baverstock.

‘A lovely portrait,’ he said, pointing.

They swivelled in their seats. ‘That’s Bumble and Sasha,’ Lady Baverstock said, with a small smile. ‘She was a true beauty, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ Ford answered, picking up on the past tense. A dead daughter?

‘My first wife,’ Lord Baverstock said. ‘Stodge and Loopy’s mother.’

‘Ah,’ Ford said.

‘She died. Motor neurone disease.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Ford said, instantly regretting the trite phrase that they’d all started using nowadays. ‘It’s a terrible illness,’ he added, trying for a more personal touch.

‘Indeed,’ said Lord Baverstock, his eyes dropping to his lap.

Ford realised he’d opened a painful wound. There was nothing else he wanted to ask right now. Time to go.

‘I’d like to speak to your gamekeeper.’ He handed Lady Baverstock one of his cards. ‘Please could you ask him to call me?’

Once they were outside again, Ford saw Stephen peering in through the driver’s window of the Discovery. A couple of dead rabbits swung from his right hand.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said as Ford and Hannah approached. ‘I just love Discos. What year’s yours?’

‘It’s a 2002.’

Stephen nodded his appreciation. ‘Nice.’

Ford pointed at the rabbits. ‘Been shooting?’

‘Joe bagged them this morning with a .22. I was just going to dress them. You a sportsman, Inspector?’

‘I used to go shooting with my grandad sometimes,’ Ford said. ‘Rabbits, mostly, like those. My mum made them into pies.’

Stephen smiled and held one out to Ford. ‘Here, have one.’

Ford accepted the rabbit. He looked down into its glazed-over eyes. Then at the small bullet hole in its flank. Hardly any blood.

He made a brief stop at home, and asked Hannah to wait in the Discovery. In the garage, he put the rabbit in a carrier bag then placed it in the chest freezer.

As they drove back to Bourne Hill, his thoughts turned to the gamekeeper bested by Tommy Bolter. Was it just a punch-up, of the sort that occurred outside dozens of pubs across the city on Friday and Saturday nights? Or something worse?

What was the game Sam played with Josh? Mortal Kombat? If you pitted a local gangster, even a junior one, against an ex-soldier, there’d be a hell of a lot of pride resting on the outcome. Losing the fight would be losing face. Maybe it had turned mortal after all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next morning, once Sam had left