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

‘I couldn’t help seeing your little boy’s . . . he’s tired, I suppose. You left the door open and as I was coming to this address anyway . . .’ He tailed off, looking embarrassed, eyes downcast.

‘You were coming here?’ she asked.

He looked up at her again. ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was looking for Angela Halpern.’

‘That’s me.’ She paused, frowning, as she tried to place him. ‘Do I know you?’

‘Mummee!’ Kai hissed from her waist, where he was clutching her.

‘Quiet, darling, please.’

The man smiled. ‘Would you like a hand with your bags? I see you have your hands full with the little fellow there.’ Then he squatted down, so that his face was at the same level as Kai’s. ‘Hello. My name’s Harvey. What’s yours?’

‘Kai. Are you a policeman?’

Harvey laughed, a warm, soft-edged sound. ‘No. I’m not a policeman.’

‘Mummy’s a nurse. At the hospital. Do you work there?’

‘Me? Funnily enough, I do.’

‘Are you a nurse?’

‘No. But I do help people. Which I think is a bit of a coincidence. Do you know that word?’

The little boy shook his head.

‘It’s just a word grown-ups use when two things happen that are the same. Kai,’ he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘do you want to know a secret?’

Kai nodded, smiling and wiping his nose on his sleeve.

‘There’s a big hospital in London called Bart’s. And I think it rhymes with’ – he paused and looked left and right – ‘farts.’

Kai squawked with laughter.

Harvey stood, knees popping. ‘I hope that was OK. The naughty word. It usually seems to make them laugh.’

Angie smiled. She felt relief that this helpful stranger hadn’t seen fit to judge her. To tut, roll his eyes or give any of the dozens of subtle signals the free-and-easy brigade found to diminish her. ‘It’s fine, really. You said you’d come to see me?’

‘Oh, yes, of course, sorry. I’m from the food bank. The Purcell Foundation?’ he said. ‘They’ve asked me to visit a few of our customers, to find out what they think about the quality of the service. I was hoping you’d have ten minutes for a chat. If it’s not a good time, I can come back.’

Angie sighed. Then she shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine . . . Harvey, did you say your name was?’

He nodded.

‘Give me a hand with the bags and I’ll put the kettle on. I picked up some teabags this afternoon, so we can christen the packet.’

‘Let me take those,’ he said, bending down and snaking his fingers through the loops in the carrier-bag handles. ‘Where to, madam?’ he added in a jokey tone.

‘We’re on the third floor, I’m afraid.’

Harvey smiled. ‘Not to worry, I’m in good shape.’

Reaching the top of the stairs, Angie elbowed the light switch and then unlocked the door, while Harvey kept up a string of tall tales for Kai.

‘And then the chief doctor said’ – he adopted a deep voice – ‘“No, no, that’s never going to work. You need to use a hosepipe!”’

Kai’s laughter echoed off the bare, painted walls of the stairwell.

‘Here we are,’ Angie said, pushing the door open. ‘The kitchen’s at the end of the hall.’

She stood aside, watching Harvey negotiate the cluttered hallway and deposit the shopping bags on her pine kitchen table. She followed him, noticing the scuff marks on the walls, the sticky fat spatters behind the hob, and feeling a lump in her throat.

‘Kai, why don’t you go and watch telly?’ she asked her son, steering him out of the kitchen and towards the sitting room.

‘A film?’ he asked.

She glanced up at the clock. Five to six. ‘It’s almost teatime.’

‘Pleeease?’

She smiled. ‘OK. But you come when I call you for tea. Pasta and red sauce, your favourite.’

‘Yummy.’

She turned back to Harvey, who was unloading the groceries on to the table. A sob swelled in her throat. She choked it back.

He frowned. ‘Is everything all right, Angela?’

The noise from the TV was loud, even from the other room. She turned away so this stranger wouldn’t see her crying. It didn’t matter that he was a colleague, of sorts. He could see what she’d been reduced to, and that was enough.

‘Yes, yes, sorry. It’s just, you know, the food bank. I never thought my life would turn out like this. Then I lost my husband and things just got on top of me.’

‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘That was careless of you.’

‘What?’ She turned round, uncertain of what she’d heard.

He was lifting a tin of baked beans out of the bag. ‘I said, it was careless of you. To lose your husband.’

She frowned. Trying to make sense of his remark. The cruel tone. The staring, suddenly dead eyes.

‘Look, I don’t know what you—’

The tin swung round in a half-circle and crashed against her left temple.

‘Oh,’ she moaned, grabbing the side of her head and staggering backwards.

Her palm was wet. Her blood was hot. She was half-blind with the pain. Her back met the cooker and she slumped to the ground. He was there in front of her, crouching down, just like he’d done with Kai. Only he wasn’t telling jokes any more. And he wasn’t smiling.

‘Please keep quiet,’ he murmured, ‘or I’ll have to kill Kai as well. Are you expecting anyone?’

‘N-nobody,’ she whispered, shaking. She could feel the blood running inside the collar of her shirt. And the pain, oh, the pain. It felt as though her brain was pushing her eyes out of their sockets.

He nodded. ‘Good.’

Then he encircled her neck with his hands, looked into her eyes and squeezed.

I’m so sorry, Kai. I hope Auntie Cherry looks after you properly when I’m gone. I hope . . .

Casting a quick glance towards the kitchen door and the hallway beyond, and reassured by the blaring noise from the TV, Harvey crouched by Angie’s inert body and increased the pressure.

Her eyes bulged, and her tongue, darkening already from that natural rosy pink to the colour of raw liver, protruded from between her teeth.

From his jacket he withdrew an empty blood bag. He connected