Land Rites (Detective Ford) by Andy Maslen (best ereader for manga TXT) 📕

‘Have you done something wrong?’

‘Me? No! Definitely not.’

‘Then you should be fine. What did you want to tell me, Gwyneth?’

She leaned forward, then overbalanced as someone barged past her, and slopped some of her sweet-smelling cider over the front of his suit.

‘Oh, no! Your lovely jacket. I’ve ruined it.’ She started to cry again.

Ford shook his head, thinking that his decision to buy only black suits from Marks & Spencer was a sound career move. ‘Don’t worry. It’s washable. Now, take a deep breath and then tell me whatever it is you wanted to tell me. I’m sure you’ll feel better if you get it off your chest.’

She took a breath. ‘Well, Tommy, right? He was a lovely bloke. But, you know, some of what he did wasn’t exactly, like, legal.’

‘What kind of things are we talking about? Drugs?’

She shook her head violently. ‘No! Not drugs. I mean, he smoked a bit of blow now and again, but, like, who doesn’t?’

‘I don’t.’

She grinned drunkenly. ‘Yes, but you’ – she poked him in the centre of his chest – ‘are a p’liceman, aren’t you. A dee’ – poke – ‘teck’ – poke – ‘tive.’

Gently, Ford removed her fingertip from his chest. ‘What else was Tommy involved in? Look, we can’t touch him now, so you can tell me, whatever it was. You’re just helping me catch the person who murdered him.’

She nodded and took another swig of her drink. Ford began to wonder if she’d pass out before divesting herself of whatever insider knowledge she had on Tommy Bolter.

‘He had a, like, scheme,’ she hissed. ‘You know, to make some money.’ She glanced at the back room again, just as a gust of male laughter boomed out. She flinched. ‘I need my bag. I wanna smoke. Wait for me?’

He watched her disappear into the crowd. While he waited for her to return, he peered through the side door, looking for Mick. He caught sight of his shaved head, one among many, nodding as JJ Bolter held court. The image disturbed him. If JJ was holding court, was Mick one of his courtiers? Eager to please?

The young woman arrived back at his side, clutching a gold-sequinned handbag.

Outside, the noise dropped away, although the louder voices were still clear through the glass-panelled door. She offered him her cigarettes, raising her dramatic brown eyebrows in enquiry. Ford shook his head.

She lit her cigarette and drew on it luxuriously, blowing out a stream of blue smoke into the warm early-evening air. She smiled at him. The expression transformed her face. He saw a pretty, young girl who, for whatever reason, had got mixed up with a crowd her parents had almost certainly warned her about when she was growing up.

‘Me and Tommy, right? What we had was special. He, like, trusted me. And I trusted him. We weren’t exclusive or nothing. But it was OK, you know?’

Ford nodded. Was there a point to all this, or had she just wanted some company while she smoked?

‘I saw you at the inquest with Joe Hibberd. What’s the story there?’

‘We’re sort of together.’

‘Bit soon after Tommy, isn’t it?’

She sipped her drink. ‘Like I said. We weren’t exclusive. Anyway, Joe’s helping me grieve.’

‘Tell me about this scheme of Tommy’s.’

‘Scheme?’

Had she forgotten already? He improvised. ‘You know. The thing he had going on to make a little cash.’

‘Oh, yeah. You know JJ and Rye?’ she murmured, standing close, holding her cigarette out to one side. ‘They never let Tommy do anything for himself. Said he had to keep his nose clean while they, you know, made the money.’

Ford saw at once how the relationships between the Bolter brothers played out. ‘He wanted to prove himself to them.’

She nodded and took a sip of cider. ‘Yeah. So, he told me he was going to do something for himself. Make some money and then they’d have to take him seriously.’

‘What was this thing he was going to do?’

‘Hare-coursing. He wasn’t doing any harm. Not really. He said loads of hares get, like, killed by foxes. It’s nature’s way.’

‘I’m not worried about that, Gwyneth. I’m a murder detective, OK? I investigate murders. Like Tommy’s. Did he tell you where he was going to do the coursing?’

‘Not exactly. But he sent me a picture. D’you wanna see it?’

‘Yes, please.’

She brought out her phone, spent a few moments tapping and swiping, then rotated the screen to show him a photo of Tommy grinning into the camera, countryside stretching away behind him.

Ford saw a grassy field, white-flowered hedgerows and, in the distance, the cathedral spire. Puffy clouds decorated a clear blue sky. A long, branching shadow stretched away from him across the grass. A tree. A big tree, at that. Tommy must been standing facing it, so the selfie revealed the shadow but not the tree itself.

He got her to send him a copy.

‘So you didn’t go with him, then?’

She shook her head, then staggered and grabbed his arm to steady herself. ‘Sorry ’bout that,’ she said, releasing him. ‘No, I did go with him. But I stayed in his truck while he went off to the actual, you know, secret location.’ She giggled.

‘Where in his truck?’

‘Like, the passenger seat?’

He sighed. ‘I meant, where did Tommy park the truck?’

‘Oh. Just off the lane.’

‘Which lane?’

She looked at Ford as if he were stupid. ‘The one up to the place! Opposite Pentridge Down. It’s sort of part of a private estate. You know’ – she adopted an upper-class accent, which sounded comical with its underpinning of broad Wiltshire – ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted.’

Ford had studied the maps long enough to know instantly which private estate she was talking about. Alverchalke. Where all roads in the case seemed to lead.

‘What was his state of mind when he got back?’

‘He was buzzing, like after doing a line. I asked him if he’d found the right place and he’s like, “I found something much better than that, babes. I just found the golden effing ticket.”