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

round on her swivel chair to face him. ‘What favour?’

He sighed. ‘Sam’s in trouble at school. They’ve suspended him for fighting. Could you go and pick him up, then run him home for me? I know it’s not your job and I have absolutely no right to ask you, but he likes you, and . . .’ He stopped, aware he was on the point of gabbling.

Hannah was already on her feet. ‘It’s Chequers, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded. ‘On my way, guv,’ she said, and winked.

He watched her go, wondering if he was doing the right thing. He knew how Sam would see it: Dad’s too busy to come and get me, yet again. His son’s words came back to him – ‘You care more about dead people than me.’ Was it true? Because the one dead person he’d never stop loving was his wife, Sam’s mother.

‘Sam, you in, mate?’ Ford called out as he closed the front door behind him, after making a huge effort to leave Bourne Hill before six. He’d left the nick with a briefcase stuffed with reading matter and a force-issued laptop with the Operation Shoreline HOLMES account downloaded on to its hard drive.

The house was silent. No distant thud from Sam’s wireless speaker upstairs. Though that meant nothing: Sam had some new earbuds. Ford took the stairs two at a time and knocked on his son’s bedroom door. No response. Wary of just barging in, Ford held up his fist to knock again, then stayed his hand. He placed his lips close to the bare wooden panelling.

‘Sam, you in there?’ he said softly.

No response.

Fearing a volley of abuse, yet needing to know his son was in, and OK, Ford twisted the doorknob and peered in. A heady mixture of Lynx body spray and teenage fug wafted out. But the room was empty.

He completed a circuit of the downstairs rooms. All empty. The garage, then.

Sam was sitting in his usual spot behind the steering wheel. The earbuds were in place, his eyes were closed and his mop of curls was nodding in time to the beat of whatever band he currently favoured.

He turned round as Ford sat beside him. His eyes looked puffy, and the left one sat in the centre of a yellowish bruise that had spread down on to his cheek.

He plucked the buds from his ears. ‘All right?’

‘Long day, sorry,’ Ford said. ‘You want to tell me what happened?’

‘A fight happened.’

‘I heard. Who with?’

‘You don’t know him.’

Ford’s stomach clenched. ‘Who, mate? Never mind if I know him or not.’

‘Oscar Welling.’

‘OK, and what were you and Oscar Welling fighting about?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Ford twisted round on the worn leather seat. He reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers across Sam’s undamaged cheek. Sam pulled away.

‘Yes. It does matter,’ Ford said. ‘Why, Sam? You never get into trouble.’

‘I just did, didn’t I?’

Ford wanted so much just to cuddle his son, like he used to. But now that he was as tall as his dad, Sam had changed. Ford felt their days of cuddles were vanishing.

He tried a different tack. ‘I care about you, mate. If you’ve been fighting, I need to know why.’

‘Fine!’ Sam shouted, the single word echoing in the hard-surfaced cube. ‘Mr Super-cool Detective. If you must know, we were fighting about you!’

Sam’s chin was quivering.

‘Me? Why?’

‘Welling said his dad reckoned if you were up to the job, you’d have caught the killer by now,’ Sam said, as tears rolled over his lower lids. ‘He said you must be a really shit detective not to catch someone leaving a trail of blood over half of Salisbury.’

‘So you hit him?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘But I thought you said—’

‘Not then. I just told him at least my dad did something interesting for a living instead of moving numbers around on a screen.’

‘So why the fight, Sam? Come on, buddy, I’m trying here.’

‘Welling’s dad said if you’d been a better husband, you’d have saved your wife from drowning,’ Sam blurted, before wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Then I hit him. Happy now?’

Ford felt his love for his teenage son surge through him. Sam knew Ford didn’t need anyone fighting his battles. But his mother? No, that would have been a step too far.

‘I’ll write to the head. Explain. See if we can’t—’

‘No, Dad! Don’t you get it? I was fighting. I deserved to get punished. Please don’t wade in and try to get me off because it was all about Mum. Just let it go, OK?’

Ford laid a hand on Sam’s left knee. He was pleased when Sam let it rest there. And he fantasised about taking Oscar Welling and his father to a remote piece of woodland and beating the crap out of the pair of them.

DAY SIXTEEN, 11.00 A.M.

He pulls on jeans and a jacket. Slips the ID badge over his head. Frowns. What he did at Aimee’s place was a mistake. Those stupid plods won’t catch him, but even so, it won’t hurt to up his game a little.

He dons three items purchased from a vintage shop in town: plain-lensed glasses, black wig and matching moustache. The overall effect is surprisingly realistic, and under the straw hat – well, his own mother wouldn’t know him. If there are any witnesses to his arriving at Lisa’s, they’ll be seeing a phantom.

He winks at Harvey.

Harvey winks back.

DAY SIXTEEN, 11.45 A.M.

Lisa Moore repeated her mantra as she unpacked the tins and packages from her battered shopping bag: ‘It’s just temporary.’

Somewhere along the line, things had got out of control. A few debts that piled one on top of the other like Jenga blocks. An abusive ex who stole five hundred quid – her entire savings – from her. A zero-hours job with too much zero and not enough hours. And she’d ended up using the food bank.

While she waited for a salaried job in the police force to come up, she was volunteering as an