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

to the question that he wanted answering next. The sex of the killer. Ford’s every instinct said the killer was male. The odds on this being a female attacker were tiny. An amelogenin test on a DNA sample would confirm it, but until then he’d content himself with his hunch.

In a notebook he wrote:

Suspect profile

Likely male, or muscular/strong female. (If female, cross-fit/bodybuilder/athlete?)

At some point he would be drawing up a suspect matrix and assigning priority scores. He’d score women low unless they fitted this new criterion.

Later that afternoon, he gathered the team together for a progress meeting. He’d put Olly Cable on victimology – compiling a detailed profile of Angie: her work, hobbies, clubs, where she went grocery shopping, her spending habits, medical history, past relationships . . . the works. It was to him he turned first.

‘Olly, tell us about Angie.’

Olly lifted his chin and squared his shoulders. ‘We’re just starting out, but so far what emerges is a solid, hard-working single mum whom the neighbours all liked. Kept herself to herself, mainly on account of having Kai to look after.’

‘Anything stand out?’ Ford interrupted, not wanting a straight recitation of something they could all read for themselves.

‘The neighbour—’

‘The Gregorys?’

‘No, the ground-floor flat.’ Olly consulted his notebook. ‘A Mr Angus Fairford. Freelance IT worker. Said Angie had money worries. We’re waiting for her financial records to come in.’

‘Maybe she was borrowing off a loan shark,’ Mick said. ‘Got behind on her payments. He decides to make an example to put the frighteners on his other clients. Maybe he goes too far, panics, kills the kid.’

Ford nodded. ‘Good. We’ll call that a line of enquiry. Check on the local nominals. See if anyone’s been throwing their weight around. Maybe even newcomers trying to muscle in.’

‘Any boyfriends?’ Jan asked. ‘Maybe the downstairs neighbours heard rows, stuff being thrown around?’

Olly shook his head. ‘I talked to the Gregorys. They said, apart from Kai having the odd paddy, they were so quiet you wouldn’t have known they were there.’

Ford surveyed his team. It was early days. Maybe not the golden hour any more, but everyone still had that sharp-eyed, eager look about them. He knew it wouldn’t last for ever. Time to broach the subject that was sitting like an uninvited guest in the corner.

‘Let’s speculate about the idea of a stranger murder,’ he said, glancing at Olly, who nodded back. ‘He gains entry using subterfuge. Tells her he’s from the gas company, or whatever. He’s plausible, charming, self-effacing, he makes himself appear unthreatening. And she invites him in. Jools?’

The DC sat up straighter. ‘Right. It’s a stranger murder. But not like in a fight or a random street attack when the pubs close. I think he chose her. Her specifically – otherwise, why take the risk of going to her flat and encountering potential witnesses inside?’

Ford nodded. It was good thinking, and once again demonstrated Jools’s background in the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Military Police. ‘Go on.’

‘The question we need to answer is, why did the killer choose Angie Halpern? And did he also choose Kai? Or was he just’ – she shrugged and pulled a face – ‘having fun?’

‘Why did he choose her, then?’ Ford asked the room as a whole.

‘She turned him on,’ Mick said. ‘He’s got a thing for petite blondes.’

‘No sexual assault, Mick, remember?’ Jan said.

Mick thrust his jaw out. ‘He could still’ve had a thing for her type. He just wants to, I don’t know, possess them.’

‘The scene didn’t look like a sexual fantasy to me,’ Hannah said.

Ford noticed her blush as the rest of the team looked round. ‘Because?’ he prompted.

‘Although her trousers were pulled down, her breasts and genitals were covered. And not mutilated, as we saw at the post-mortem. No bite marks. No semen or other bodily fluids found at the scene in any of the obvious places. Her underwear drawer, her bed, her body. But—’

‘She could still—’ Mick interrupted.

‘—the main reason I say this is the positioning of Kai. He was sitting in her lap, hands tucked up under his chin, head turned in towards her chest. To me it was a tableau of motherhood. Caring motherhood.’

‘What are you saying?’ Mick asked her, turning fully round in his chair to face her head-on. ‘We’ve got a killer with mummy issues?’

‘I’m saying it doesn’t look sexual, as I think I said a moment ago.’ Hannah, though pink to the tips of her ears, held her ground.

Ford was impressed. ‘I’m with Hannah. I don’t see sex as the motive. I think it’s the blood.’

‘You think he’s drinking it, boss?’

The questioner was a retired general CID detective sergeant with thirty years under his belt and a new job as a police staff investigator.

Over brief banter about vampires, Ford said, ‘I hope to God not.’

‘You don’t need to hope to God,’ Hannah said. ‘Ingesting more than a few millilitres of blood produces an emetic reaction.’

‘You’re saying he’d vomit,’ Ford said.

‘It’s the combination of the iron-rich haemoglobin, the warmth, the salt and the viscosity. It also leads to kidney failure.’

‘So any more than that—’

‘—would be far too much to keep down. I took a random sampling at twenty spots in the pool. No saliva. And no vomit at the scene.’

Ford ran a palm down from his forehead to his chin. He groaned. ‘Great. Not sex. Not robbery. No sign of a stalker-ex. No vampirism. Fine. Let’s forget motive for the moment. I want us to be all over her life tomorrow. Interviewing friends, former partners if we can find any, people she worked with up at the hospital, any volunteering she did. I want a suspect pool.’ Before he does it again.

He gave out actions, listened to reports from each team, then dismissed them with an instruction to remember to eat and to get some sleep when they went home. He saw a long evening at his desk stretching ahead of him. Possibly a night, too. He had to make a call before he resumed working. To his neighbours.

Miles