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

of arresting the previous evening? He called Abbott.

‘What now, Inspector? If it’s the list of hotels, I said I’d get it to you, and I will, but I also have a department to run. A great many people are depending on me for life-saving treatment. You’ll just have to be patient, I’m afraid.’

‘I understand that, but I have further questions for you. Please remember, you are being interviewed in connection with five murders and one attempted murder.’

Abbott sighed. ‘Very well. I suppose it can’t wait until later?’

‘Not really.’

‘Fine. Come and see me now.’

Before leaving for the hospital, Ford pulled up the medical records of the adult victims and checked their blood types. All were A-positive. He called Lisa Moore and discovered her blood type was the same.

Ford reached the hospital twelve minutes later. Four minutes after that, he was outside Abbott’s office. He squared his shoulders and knocked on the door.

‘Come!’ The voice was loud, confident.

Abbott smiled at Ford and waved him to a chair.

‘Thank you for seeing me again, Mr Abbott.’ Especially as half my team seem to think I’m barking up the wrong tree.

‘No thanks needed,’ Abbott said. ‘As we seem to be seeing so much of each other, perhaps you should call me Charles.’

‘I wasn’t sure you’d see it that way.’

‘Really? Because of your campaign of harassment, threats, prying and intimidation, you mean?’

Ford replied in kind, hardening his voice. ‘My questions were legitimate ones. If I caused you any embarrassment, I’m sorry, but you’ve not been straight with me.’ A beat. ‘Charles.’

Abbott’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Embarrassment? No, it wasn’t that,’ he said. ‘But for some strange reason, I resent your accusation that I’m a murderer – a serial murderer, come to that – in my own home. In front of my wife.’

‘You said you’d be happy to answer my questions.’

‘I know. I lied.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I lied. I just wanted you up here to give you a piece of my mind,’ Abbott said.

It wasn’t the first threat of this nature thrown Ford’s way, and he supposed it wouldn’t be the last.

He decided to get his retaliation in first. ‘Yes, you did lie. When you fabricated an alibi,’ he said, matching Abbott’s tone. ‘And as I said before, that makes you and Mrs Abbott guilty of the twin criminal offences of obstruction and wasting police time. The second offence carries a maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment.’

‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘I mean, Charles, either you get off your high horse right now or I will arrest you here in your elegantly furnished office, handcuff you and march you out to my car past the disbelieving gazes of your patients and colleagues, charge you and have you in a cell at Bourne Hill nick without your belt or shoelaces inside the hour. I will also issue a press release naming you as a suspect in custody.’

The colour left Abbott’s face, just as it had done in his house. Only this time it didn’t return. The arrogance left him, too.

He slumped back in his chair. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in a quiet voice.

‘A quick seminar on blood transfusions.’

Abbott sighed. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Who can have what type of blood in a transfusion?’

Abbott adopted a scholarly tone, as if addressing a classroom full of medical students. He clasped his hands on the desk. ‘Your ABO blood type can be A, B, AB or O. Clear?’

‘Clear.’

‘Your Rhesus type can be positive, indicating the presence of the Rhesus, or D, antigen, or negative, indicating its absence. Clear?’

‘As mud.’

A frown from Abbott. ‘Thus, one’s blood may be, for example, A-positive, indicating the presence of A and D antigens. Or O-negative, indicating neither A nor B nor D antigens.’

‘If you know the blood type of the donor, is it possible to narrow down the blood type of the recipient?’

‘That’s a very good question,’ Abbott said with a smile. ‘And the answer is, it depends. For example, a recipient with AB-positive blood can accept donations of any other blood type. We call them the universal recipient. And an O-negative donor can donate to any other blood type, making them the universal donor.’

‘Are there tighter pairings?’

‘I’ll get you a chart that shows all the possibles,’ Abbott said, pressing a button on the old-fashioned intercom on his desk, and asked his secretary to print off a ‘blood-comp’ chart.

Ford’s pulse had kicked up a notch. The theory was looking stronger by the second. ‘What blood type are you?’ Ford asked.

‘O-positive.’

‘Which means you can accept?’

‘O-negative or O-positive.’

‘I’d like to check that, Charles.’ And your DNA.

‘I’m sure you would, Inspector,’ Abbot said smoothly. ‘Have you a warrant?’

‘If you’ve nothing to hide, why would you need me to get a warrant?’

‘Perhaps the small matter of my rights? Even such a lowly figure as a consultant haematologist enjoys protection from police intrusion into his private life.’

‘You could give me a blood sample right now.’

Abbott laughed. ‘You’re right! Why, I’ll just grab a scalpel and open a vein for you. Got anything to catch the blood in? You could—’ He stopped the sarcastic outburst and fixed Ford with a smile. ‘Actually, you know what? I’m sick and tired of your pursuing me like a common criminal. Come on, we’ll go down to my consulting room now. I’ll even let you watch.’

Ford watched, mesmerised, as Abbott fastened a black Velcro strap around his upper arm, then swabbed the inside of his elbow with an alcohol-soaked wad of cotton wool. Why had he agreed? And then the answer presented itself. Because he knows he’s innocent! Shit!

Abbott slid in the hypodermic, then withdrew the plunger with his thumbnail. Dark blood flowed into the syringe. He picked up a transparent plastic tube, squirted in the blood and snapped the green plastic cap shut.

‘Hand me a label, would you, Ford?’ he said, jerking his chin in the direction of a cupboard on the other side of his office. ‘There’s a roll of them in that box beside the golf trophy.’

Ford fetched one,