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

the finger of blame was pointing at Angie. She’d got careless, he said. Administered the wrong medicine.’

‘Was she disciplined?’

Mick shook his head. ‘They transferred her to a new ward and the hospital authorities covered it up. Nothing dodgy, but they paid off the family and got them to sign an NDA. Apparently, that way they can keep the death off their stats and it doesn’t affect their performance data or their ranking in the league tables.’

Various tuts accompanied this last revelation. ‘Sounds like the force,’ someone said, to general groans of agreement.

‘Thing is,’ Mick continued, stroking the top of his head, ‘the dead woman’s son wasn’t happy. He said he was, and I quote, “going to get justice for Mum”.’

Ford nodded and made a note. ‘Good work, Mick. Find out the son’s name. He’s a person of interest. Have a chat with him and establish his whereabouts for the time of Angie and Kai’s deaths, which, people, I have circulated, along with the PM reports. Check your emails. Speaking of administering medicine, and for anyone who hasn’t read the PM report on Kai yet, he was killed with an injection of fentanyl. That means we look at local druggies and the medical community. Someone find out if vets use it as well.’

‘Also, guv,’ Mick said, holding up a finger.

‘Yes?’

‘I spoke to Christos Fariakis this morning.’ Various officers shook their heads at the mention of Salisbury’s biggest loan shark. ‘He said he hadn’t heard a word of anyone in the business doing Angie and Kai. Or anything like it. In his words’ – Mick assumed a kebab-shop Greek accent that had eyes rolling – ‘“Maybe a couple of slaps or a broken bone if it was a bloke, Mr Tanner, but killin’ a lady and a kid? Never. I swear before the Virgin.”’

Feeling mounting frustration, Ford turned to Hannah and asked her to summarise where Forensics had got to. The blush was less pronounced this time. Maybe she was settling in. She concluded with the news that although she’d been able to lift a couple of partial fingerprints from the Heinz beans tin she’d recovered from the crime scene, there was no match from the IDENT1 database.

‘So they have no evidential value until we have a suspect in custody,’ she concluded.

‘This is all great, but ruling things out isn’t ruling them in. We need to break this – soon,’ Ford snapped. ‘Anyone remember the golden hour? Because I do. It ended a long, long time ago. Every passing hour we don’t catch him is an hour closer to when the killer gets away with it.’

After the briefing ended, Ford retreated to his office. He’d barely sat down when Jools knocked and entered, closing the door behind her.

‘You all right, guv?’

‘Yeah, fine. What do you want, Jools?’

‘Don’t let it get to you, that’s all.’

‘It’s a big case. My first as a DI. How can I not?’

‘You’ve got a good team. We’ll catch him.’

Ford smiled. ‘Listen, when I was talking to Charles Abbott this morning, he mentioned a porter, name of Kyte. Said the guy was drawing in a puddle of blood or something. I want you to go and have a chat.’

Jools wrinkled her nose. ‘Charming.’

DAY FIVE, 8.15 A.M.

The quartet enjoying eighteen holes together on Saturday morning weren’t unusually powerful, by the standards of the others making their way around the sunlit course. The cathedral’s canon treasurer. An army colonel. The chief constable. And Charles Abbott. But their influence overlapped in the four critical organisations bound into the fabric of the city.

Abbott swung his driver, smiled at the clean metallic click as the club head made contact, and followed his ball’s progress as it flew in a beautiful arc down the centre of the fairway.

‘Nice shot, Charles,’ the canon treasurer said.

‘Thanks, David.’

The men walked on.

Abbott hung back a little and touched the chief constable’s left elbow. ‘Eamonn, I know you hate talking shop on the course, but one of your chaps barged into my office yesterday and, well’ – he sighed – ‘he really upset me.’

‘Upset you how?’

‘Despite my making every effort to help him out, he actually threatened to arrest me and drag me into his police station to be interrogated.’

‘Name?’

‘A detective inspector, name of Ford,’ Abbott said. ‘He insinuated I was mixed up in this ghastly murder of one of our nurses and her little boy. Just because I’m the blood expert at the hospital. I mean, it’s outrageous!’

The chief constable smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. ‘Leave it with me, Charles. I’ll see he’s put back in his box.’

DAY SEVEN, 8.35 A.M.

After a precious Sunday off, Jools parked her silver Mondeo in the vast Number 8 car park at SDH. On three sides, it looked out over mile after mile of rolling countryside, a patchwork of greens, golds and yellows smeared here and there with a hazy brushstroke of scarlet poppies. The fourth side faced the collection of red-brick-and-steel buildings comprising the hospital.

She made her way through the labyrinth of corridors, nodding to the odd staff member she recognised, until she came to the main reception.

‘Hi,’ she said, showing the middle-aged black woman on the desk her police ID. ‘I’m looking for one of your porters. What would be the fastest way to track him down, please?’

‘What’s his name, dear?’ asked the receptionist.

‘Matthew Kyte. Might be known as Matty?’

The receptionist’s eyes lit up, and she beamed at Jools. ‘Now there’s a true Christian. You know, dear, if I ever find myself in here, God forbid,’ she said, crossing herself, ‘I hope Matty’ll be working my ward. That boy, oh, my stars!’

‘Popular, is he?’

‘Popular? Did you know, darling, relatives buy him flowers when they come to collect their loved ones.’

Jools liked to think that she’d managed to avoid falling into a copper’s easy cynicism about people. Although it was many a year since she’d been to church, she did try to follow the old rule: ‘Judge not, lest ye be