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

won’t have used anything simple to guess. We might be better off approaching GoPro themselves for help.’

‘I’ll put Olly on it.’ Ford pointed ahead. ‘Here we go.’

A road sign pointed left to Pentridge Down and right to Woodyates. Ford indicated right and turned into the side road. It led past some chocolate-box thatched cottages with roses growing round their ancient timbered porticos, and began climbing and narrowing at the same time.

‘How are we doing on the red line?’ Ford asked.

‘We were veering south of it but we’re going to cross it in about half a mile.’

Slowing down as the hedges on each side of the narrow lane reduced visibility to fifty yards or less, Ford came round a bend to find a rudimentary crossroads. To the left, a track led into a wheat field. To the right, a metalled road would take them back to Salisbury. Straight ahead, past a white house with a grey slate roof, the lane carried on northwards.

Hannah looked up from her map. She pointed straight ahead through the windscreen.

‘Up there,’ she said.

Ford motored on, and after a few more minutes they emerged on to a grassy plain offering an uninterrupted view all the way to Salisbury, and the spire.

In the absence of a lay-by, he simply pulled off the road and parked on a wide grass verge, the Discovery canted at an angle so he had to climb out over the sill. Hannah had to grab the door pillar to avoid falling out.

‘Which way?’ he asked.

Hannah consulted the map, then, shielding her eyes with the folded sheet, pointed off to the right. ‘Thataway!’

Ford saw a gate, secured with a heavy chain and a padlock. The sign screwed to the bars bore an unequivocal message:

ALVERCHALKE ESTATE – PRIVATE LAND

NO PUBLIC RIGHT OF WAY

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

Ford climbed over the gate and waited for Hannah to join him. They set off across a stretch of grassland, pockmarked here and there with cones of crumbly soil.

‘What are they?’ Hannah asked.

‘Molehills,’ Ford said.

‘Are you a nature expert, then?’

He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t say expert. But we used to take Sam on nature rambles. He used to love finding feathers, birds’ eggs, owl pellets. Anything he could take home and display on a table in the garden.’

‘Look over there,’ she said. ‘That dead tree.’

‘What about it?’

‘The branches remind me of the shadow in Tommy’s photo.’

Ford looked again. He could see what Hannah meant. They spread out like grasping arms. At some point, lightning had struck the tree and killed it, splitting the massive trunk. It had burned the bark away, too, turning the once-magnificent tree into a bleached skeleton.

‘Where are we in relation to the red line?’

‘We’re close. The scale’s not large enough and the margin for error in my calculations means this is as precise as we’re going to get. But if we can find the right spot and look back towards the cathedral, we’ll know.’

‘It’ll look right?’

‘A tree behind us, a hawthorn hedge to our left. A single oak tree in leaf. A hedge falling away on the right.’

‘And the spire in the distance.’

By the time they reached the blasted tree, Ford’s shirt was soaked with sweat. He took off his suit jacket and folded it over his arm. A breeze from the west brought a sweet, sappy smell. He flapped the front of his shirt in and out, enjoying the cool sensation.

Overhead, on a thermal rising off the hillside, a buzzard wheeled in circles, keening.

Standing side by side, they faced the tree and looked over their shoulders. The shadow stretched away from them on the grass. In the distance, the spire gleamed in the sun, the same golden hue as in Tommy’s photo. Sheep and cows grazed in the neighbouring fields. For a moment, Ford allowed himself to enjoy the freedom of being out here, away from the forms and the admin and the paperwork.

Hannah pointed. ‘Look, a hawthorn hedge.’

‘Lone oak,’ Ford said, nodding towards a broad-branched tree.

Ford looked towards the spire. Beside him, he could hear Hannah’s breathing.

‘This is it,’ she said. ‘I was right.’

‘Were you in any doubt?’ he asked, unused to her expressing anything other than total confidence in her ability to solve problems.

She shrugged. ‘I had to make more assumptions than I would normally feel comfortable with, but I had no alternative.’

Ford turned to the tree. ‘I wonder,’ he said.

He peered inside the hollow trunk. Insects or fungi had eaten the wood and transformed what they hadn’t digested into a thick layer of soft powder resembling ground cinnamon. He saw two footprints of regular diamonds, dots and chevrons. Half-buried in the sawdust, he noticed a couple of cigarette butts.

Ford saw how it had unfolded. Tommy taking the selfie to send to Gwyneth waiting in the truck. Unknowingly, capturing Owen striding up the hill in the distance. Then clambering into the hollow tree to hide while he scanned the landscape, imagining people betting on which lurcher would catch the unfortunate hare.

‘Come and look,’ Ford said. ‘I think Tommy sat in here.’

Hannah joined him and peered in, then started taking photos with her phone. When she’d finished, she took a clear plastic evidence bag and a pair of tweezers out of her pocket and collected the butts.

‘Why bother hiding?’ she asked. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’

‘You saw the sign. This is private land, and he had hare-coursing in mind. Trespass is a civil tort. But coursing’s a criminal offence. He wanted cover for his recce.’ Ford frowned. ‘Do we know where Lord Baverstock plans to build that housing development?’

Hannah nodded. She pointed back the way they’d come. ‘You know that white house we passed?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you’d turned right at the crossroads and gone on for another mile, you’d have arrived in the centre of the plan.’

‘I wonder why Owen didn’t make his film there, then. Why come up here?’

‘Better backdrop? Or he filmed it there and came on up here to get some footage of the unspoiled version. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? The point