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

‘That’s not true. I’m doing the best I can. But since my promotion, I’m taking on a lot more responsibility. It’s going to get better, I promise.’

‘“It’s going to get better, I promise,”’ Sam said in a mocking little voice.

‘For Christ’s sake, Sam, I’ve got a mortuary with four dead bodies in it, three bled dry by some psycho with a thing for blood. I’m here, aren’t I? Driving you to the paintball party, as agreed. What’s the problem?’

‘What’s the problem?’ Sam’s voice cracked as he yelled at Ford. ‘The problem is you care more about dead people than me!’

Ford slammed his right foot down on the brake pedal. The Discovery lurched to a stop on a patch of grass verge, the anti-lock brake system juddering, a dust cloud swirling past the windscreen.

He spun round in his seat, glaring at Sam, who was red-eyed, on the verge of tears, staring out of the side window.

Ford’s pulse was painful in his throat. He felt his own held-back tears threatening to burst their banks beneath his eyeballs. He inhaled and let the breath out gently.

‘I miss her, too. I miss her so much it hurts,’ he said quietly. ‘Every day. And when I look at you, my darling boy, I see her. And that makes it better, and worse, because you look so much like her.’ He watched as Sam sniffed and dragged a sleeve across his nose. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been ignoring you. I’m trying my best, but it’s hard bringing you up on my own. You know, the way Gran brought me up on her own. It’s hard,’ he finished, lamely, wishing he could spin back the hands on the clock of his life to ten minutes before he and Lou set off to climb Pen-y-holt for the final time.

‘Can we go, please?’ Sam asked.

Ford took his foot off the brake and pulled away. He dropped Sam at his friend’s house at two minutes to seven.

Later that night, as he sipped from a bottle of beer while reading interview transcripts, a pair of texts from Sam arrived:

Staying at Max’s.

His dad’s bringing a few of us home tomorrow

A second later, a follow up.

Sorry

He tapped out a reply. Equally terse.

Me 2

That was what you did. Ford had learned the hard way. Less is more. Desperate to narrow the gap between them but not knowing how, he took a fresh bottle from the fridge door and climbed the stairs to the spare room. He opened his guitar case, lifted out the red guitar, plugged it in and switched on the amp.

DAY ELEVEN, 9.05 A.M.

The next morning, another of Ford’s lines of enquiry collapsed in on itself. Olly knocked on his office door and told him William Farrell’s alibi was watertight.

‘Like you said, guv. I checked with the gym’s CCTV, everything. He’s there in glorious technicolour, arriving and leaving when he said he did,’ he said. ‘Plus, I’ve got corroboration from the receptionist, a couple of lads working out with him and one of the personal trainers.’

‘What about the drugs angle? You think anyone might have been covering for him? He could have arrived then slipped out again.’

‘I had a quiet chat with the manager there. He told me they had some trouble with steroids a couple of years back – one of the trainers.’ He shrugged. ‘They sacked him, and now there’s an instant ban for anyone caught with them. I think they’re clean.’

‘Thanks, Olly, good work.’

Ford looked down at the list in front of him: the staff of the Haematology Department at SDH. He’d had them all interviewed informally, pulling in a couple of PSIs to help with the task. All the males with a high score on his suspect matrix had alibis. The low-scoring males, and the women, he discounted for now. The PSIs’ interview notes all came back with different versions of the same story. Basically ‘I don’t see him/her as a serial killer.’

Sighing, he cradled his cheeks in his palms and stared at the now-useless list. Had his instinct for a wrong ’un deserted him? He’d felt sure Abbott was involved somehow, but he had an alibi and Ford knew he had no evidence to take to Sandy, let alone the CPS. The porter was looking like a dead loss, too, with his own alibi.

He screwed up the list and tossed it into the bin in the corner.

‘Follow the evidence, Henry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Follow the bloody evidence.’

And he started to reread the files from the beginning.

The conference room at Bourne Hill was packed: Ford’s immediate team, plus Hannah, Alec Reid, the PSIs, CID detectives drafted in and a few uniforms, including Nat Hewitt.

The door opened and everyone turned to see who’d arrived after the scheduled start time.

There was a chorus of ‘ma’ams’ as the latecomer revealed herself to be Sandy, resplendent in a tailored mustard top and black leather skirt.

‘How’s it going, Henry?’ she asked, pulling out a chair and sinking into it with a grateful sigh.

‘Good.’ Bad, but that’s not what the troops need to hear.

‘OK if I say a few words?’

He nodded.

She pushed back from the table and made her way round the edge to the front, squeezing past a couple of the chairs whose occupants were too slow to pull themselves in. She ran a hand through her hair and took her time looking around the room, building the tension.

Then she released it. ‘Serial killers. Don’t you just hate the twisted little sods?’

The room erupted in laughter. Ford joined in, grateful for the chance to let off some steam in their own safe space, free of the prying eyes and ears of journalists, police and crime commissioners and all the other people who reckoned they knew better than the cops how to do the job.

Once a semblance of order was restored, apart from a few sniffs as the female officers dabbed at mascara tears, Sandy continued.

‘Three’s the charm,