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

kilos. Pop quiz: how much of the human body comprises blood?’

‘Seven per cent.’

‘Yes. So if fifty kilos equals ninety-three per cent of her original body weight, the body and the blood together should weigh roughly fifty-four kilos.’

‘Which means there should have been closer to four litres in the bath.’

She pulled a calculator towards her and tapped a few buttons. ‘Factor in the higher density of blood compared to water and you get three point six litres.’

‘We’re missing a litre,’ they said together.

‘Could it have seeped away?’

Georgina shook her head. ‘The plug was in tight.’

‘Left in the body?’

She took him over to the gurney and indicated the needle puncture with a gloved finger.

‘He suspended her from a window. That’s right at the lowest point of her body. He drained her.’

‘So he took it.’

‘Or drank it. I need to call Ford.’

Ford tried to ignore the squirming anxiety he felt twisting his insides into knots. In his initial euphoria after Sandy had confirmed his promotion, he’d prayed he wouldn’t have to wait long for his first major crime investigation.

A murder would have been his first choice. It was a grim truth, but coppers in Major Crimes were never happier than when they had a juicy murder to investigate. It was what they did. What they were born to do, some reckoned.

But five? Five! He felt he was drowning in paperwork. Every action – and there were now hundreds – had to be noted, rationalised and duplicated, with top copies to the designated officer and the original for his policy book.

There were tips coming in from the call handlers at all times of the day and night. Some well meant, others the work of cranks and fantasists. Still others were malicious: angry neighbours or envious colleagues, ex-lovers or disaffected spouses. All out to cause mischief, and bugger the waste of police time. And every single, mother-loving one of them had to be followed up, documented and entered into HOLMES.

To top it all, Sandy had told him the PTBs wanted him replaced.

His phone rang. He unwound a crick in his neck and put it on speaker.

‘Henry, it’s Georgina. I have something odd for you.’

His pulse ticked up a notch. Georgina had a way of underemphasising things she found interesting. ‘Odd’ promised much. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ll spare you the maths, but your latest victim was missing a litre of blood.’

‘Say again?’

‘OK, I won’t spare you the maths. The human body is seven per cent blood. Aimee Cragg should have been dabbling her feet in three point six litres of her own blood. We recovered two point six.’

‘You’re certain? None was splashed about or lost in transit?’

‘I’ll assign your apparent doubt in my professionalism to investigative rigour. No mistake. None lost in transit. She was missing a litre.’

Ford sat back and stared at the ceiling. Saw in his mind’s eye a patch of blood like the one that had appeared on the Gregorys’ kitchen ceiling.

‘Are you drinking it, after all?’ he muttered to himself.

‘Is who drinking what, after all?’

He straightened. Hannah was standing in the doorway to his office.

‘Georgina Eustace just called me. Aimee Cragg was missing a litre of blood. But you said before that he wouldn’t be drinking it.’

‘I did.’

‘We found no vomit at the latest scene?’

‘No. Nor at any of the others.’

The others. He had an idea. ‘Hannah, is there any way you could estimate the volume of blood found at any of the other scenes?’

She took the seat facing him across the desk. ‘Marcus Anderson’s was too decomposed and dried out. Angie Halpern was on a vinyl floor, but some of her blood had leaked away through a crack into the floorspace,’ she added, looking upwards, as Ford had been doing earlier. ‘But Paul Eadon might be easier. His blood was reasonably fresh and contained.’

‘Could you try it?’

‘Of course. I have a contact in the FBI who wrote the book on blood-spatter analysis,’ she said. ‘Literally. Because he wrote a book called Blood Spatter Analysis.’

‘Talk to Georgina, too. She may be able to help.’

Hannah rose from her chair. ‘On it. Guv,’ she said, smiling nervously. ‘Was that OK?’ she said immediately. ‘I heard one of the DCs call you that.’

‘It’s fine. Though I like it better when you call me Henry.’

‘OK. Henry.’

‘Was there something you wanted?’

‘What?’

‘You came to me, remember?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do remember.’

She was blushing. Which was odd, because he’d only seen that reaction when she was in a stressful situation.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘Fine! It’s fine. I’ll start work on the calculations.’

She turned on her heel and was gone. He watched her navigate the open-plan office, noticing how she picked a circuitous route that allowed her to avoid getting too close to other people.

DAY FOURTEEN, 9.30 A.M.

Ford leaned against the doorjamb to his office and scanned the incident room. He saw Jools at her desk and called out, ‘Hey, Jools, got a minute?’

She hurried over. ‘Guv?’

‘I need someone to bounce ideas around with. Got time for a walk?’

‘You’re saving me from paperwork. What do you think?’

They headed across the city to the Town Path, a raised pedestrian walkway across the water meadows bordering the Cathedral Close. They stopped at a gate into a field inhabited by a couple of hundred sheep. Water-filled channels criss-crossed the tussocky grass.

A man in waders approached the gate from the other end of the path and nodded to Ford as he arrived. He carried a worn iron crank.

‘Morning,’ he said. He glanced at Ford’s ID on its lanyard. ‘You detectives, then?’

‘That’s right,’ Ford said.

‘You’ll be investigating them murders?’

‘Right again.’ Ford glanced at the crank. ‘Changing a wheel?’

The man smiled and pointed into the water meadow. ‘Got to raise a sluice gate, haven’t I? Cathedral’s getting a bit low.’

Ford frowned. ‘Low? Sorry, what do you mean?’

‘No foundations, are there? Ground’s too soggy. So it rests on a six-foot-thick gravel pad filled with water from the meadows. We manage the water level so the gravel doesn’t dry out.’

‘What would happen if it did?’

The man