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

her desk to shake hands with Hannah. ‘Have a seat. You offered our new deputy forensics chief a coffee, Henry?’

‘No, boss.’

‘Well, go and get her one, then. Poor woman looks parched. How do you take it, Dr Fellowes? Your coffee, I mean?’

‘White, no sugar, please,’ she said.

Sandy looked at Ford. ‘Off you go, then. I’ll have my usual, please.’

When Ford returned with the drinks, it was to the sound of the two women laughing. He took it as a good sign. He slid papers aside on the desk before placing the mugs down on the small clearings he created.

‘Here you go. White, no sugar, for you, Hannah. Black, two spoons, for the boss. And a peppermint tea for me.’

‘I thought you preferred coffee,’ Hannah said.

‘Just trying not to OD on caffeine.’

Sandy picked up her mug and took a sip. ‘Not bad. So, Hannah, how are you finding life at Bourne Hill?’

‘I am enjoying it very much. The work is very stimulating and I’m learning people’s nicknames. Like Henry and Jools. They work quite well. And yours, of course. The Python.’

Ford winced, hiding the grimace behind his tea mug. People never called Sandy the Python to her face.

‘And does mine work?’ she asked, arching one eyebrow.

‘It’s hard to say. It doesn’t relate to your name. Pythons are snakes, constrictors. They’re slender and muscular. You’re tall, and more generously proportioned, though still very beautiful. I would call you Juno.’

‘And Juno would be?’

‘To the Romans, Juno was the queen of the gods. Her associations are the subject of much controversy among scholars, but all agree she embodies vital force, energy and eternal youthfulness.’

Sandy laughed loudly. Ford relaxed. No blood on the carpet today.

‘I’ll take that, Dr Fellowes. I’ll take that. You should come up for a chat more often.’

‘You heard we’ve got another body?’ Ford said.

‘Someone may have mentioned that little fact to me.’

‘Hannah and I think we’ve got a serial killer, unlikely as that sounds. We need to get ahead of him before this gets nasty. Nastier,’ he corrected himself.

‘Agreed. What do you want?’

‘Press conference later today. Keep the invites to the locals for now. If Sky or whoever gets wind of it from social media, they’ll be down here anyway.’

‘Done,’ she said, making a note with a gold propelling pencil in a small red-leather-covered notebook. ‘What else? I said budgets were tighter than a gnat’s chuff, if you remember.’

‘I do. But we need to get inside his head. Hannah has high-level experience in forensic psychology. I want her to help me work up a suspect profile.’

Sandy looked at Hannah. ‘You’re going to accompany Henry into the dark recesses of the human psyche? Is that it?’

‘I’ve never heard it put quite so poetically before, but, yes, broadly speaking.’

Sandy nodded, her eyes never leaving Hannah’s. ‘What are your first impressions?’

‘What, tell you now?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind. We do have a nutjob bleeding the good citizens of Salisbury dry out there.’

Hannah tugged on her plait, then began, in a quiet voice. ‘To the untrained eye, the crime scenes may appear horrible, but they are meticulous,’ she said. ‘The victims were both bled out the same way. The killer removed whatever equipment he used to take their blood.’

Ford observed the way her voice grew stronger as she became involved in explaining her thinking. He liked what he was seeing. ‘He was controlled. There is no blood spatter, which indicates he didn’t lose control. No evidence of torture. Or of sexual assault. He just did what he had to do and left.’

Sandy nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Killers relate to blood in one of three ways. To the first group, it’s just a liquid, sloshing around the crime scene after they’ve stabbed, bludgeoned or shot their victims,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s an inconvenience. Something to be avoided in case it sticks to them or takes a print.’

‘And the second group?’

‘To them, it’s part of the pleasure. Watching it spurt out, spattering the walls, the floor, the designer sofas and expensive art on the walls. They masturbate into it, or defecate in the middle of it, none of which our killer did.’

‘Which leaves—’

‘The group for whom blood signifies. It’s part of what they’re doing. Even why they’re doing it. That’s what I’m seeing with our killer,’ Hannah said. ‘He bled both principal victims dry. And he painted numbers with the blood.’

‘What about the little boy? What’s your thinking, Henry?’

‘Honestly? I don’t know. Was he part of the ritual? Or just surplus to requirements? But there are a couple of features that I find interesting. Maybe you saw them too?’

‘I saw him placed in his mum’s arms. I saw his hands folded in prayer. I saw him killed, but he wasn’t bled out.’

‘Exactly. The killer isn’t a nonce. Or not the common-or-garden variety anyway. If he took pictures, I don’t think he’s getting off on them.’

‘No?’

‘No. There was nothing sexual about the way he posed the boy,’ Ford said. ‘It looked reverential to me.’

‘Reverential?’

‘If it was a painting, it would be called something sickly-sweet like “Asleep at Last”. I think Kai was incidental,’ Ford said. ‘At home with his mum and a witness to her death.’

Sandy nodded. ‘Compared to what these men can get up to with kids, I’d say this was unusually merciful,’ she said. ‘Like he didn’t want to inflict pain on him at all. What about the numbers?’

‘First six-six-six, then five hundred,’ Hannah said. ‘Apart from the rather obvious – though incorrect – biblical association for the first one, they could mean all sorts of things.’

‘Smart girl, not jumping off at the deep end. What else does the physical evidence tell you?’

‘The killer knows the exact location of the femoral artery and how to insert a trocar to drain the blood out,’ Hannah said. ‘Those two facts tell me he has medical experience. That he chooses to leave us messages in blood also suggests he is confident.’

‘Are you about to say the p-word?’

‘That depends on which word you have in mind.’

‘Psychopath.’

‘I think it’s too early to comment on whether