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

cold between them. Maybe his confidence showed. JJ backed up a little.

‘Don’t take the law into your own hands,’ Ford said. ‘You’ll regret it.’

JJ sneered. ‘I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done in my entire life, Ford. I’m not about to start now.’

‘Friendly warning, JJ. Your last,’ Ford said, walking away.

‘How’s Sam?’ JJ called after him. ‘Still happy at Chequers?’

Ford strode on, fighting an impulse to turn back.

As soon as he walked into Major Crimes, Mick came over. ‘Hannah’s looking for you.’

Ford nodded and headed to Forensics, noting that Mick tended to avoid using Hannah’s nickname.

‘Hi, Wix,’ he said when he arrived. ‘You called?’

She frowned and shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I asked Mick to tell you I need to see you.’

Ford smiled. ‘Figure of speech. What did you want to tell me?’

‘We’ve analysed the prints from the rifles seized at Alverchalke. No prints match Joe’s, which I’d expect because he said it was his habit to clean guns after using them. We did find prints and partials from at least two other users on each gun, probably family members. But these would have been left after Joe cleaned them. Therefore, also after the murders. The prints don’t match each other or IDENT1.’

Ford sighed. ‘Joe cleaned off the murderer’s fingerprints along with his own. Everything after that is useless.’

Hannah nodded. ‘We also found blood in the barrel of the .22,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s a match to Owen Long’s blood group and we’ve sent it off for DNA analysis. We should have the results back mid-morning tomorrow.’

‘Brilliant. We’ll have a chat about them later. Right now, I’m going back for round two with Hibberd.’

Ford didn’t need anyone else for the second round of questioning. The evidence was mounting that it wasn’t him, although he clearly knew the killer’s identity.

Ford suspected the interview would be short. No lead-up questions this time. Straight into the middle of it. He glanced at Rowbotham, composed and immaculate. Then fixed Hibberd with a stare.

‘When you decided to kill yourself, how did you plan to do it?’

Hibberd blinked twice, and wetted his lips with his tongue. The first proper chink in his armour. ‘What?’

‘Your shot placement. Head? Heart? You can’t have been going to shoot yourself in the foot.’

‘Head.’

‘Really?’

Hibberd recovered. He leaned back. ‘Why not? Guaranteed to work. Don’t know if you’ve seen what a shotgun round does to a human head at point-blank range.’

‘Actually, I have. Nasty business a couple of years back. One of the local farmers went into a deep depression when the bank wouldn’t extend his overdraft. Poor sod blew his brains out in his barn.’

‘Yeah, well, you know, then.’

‘But that’s the thing, Joe. The barn where this poor bloke took his own life? It looked like an abattoir. In the end, his widow burned it to the ground. Couldn’t bear to be reminded of her husband’s suicide, I suppose.’

‘Inspector, do you have a question?’ Rowbotham intoned gravely.

‘Yes, Mr Rowbotham, I do. Joe, you told us in our first interview that’ – he consulted his notes – ‘“I like to keep things clean and tidy.” Now, if we accept that the balance of your mind was disturbed, I can just about understand you leaving your pristine kitchen looking like the inside of a slaughterhouse. But what about your dogs?’

Hibberd’s eyes flashed fear. ‘What about them?’

‘You told me on the first day we spoke that the girls were like family to you. “Better than kids,” you said. Are you seriously telling me you planned, coolly, calmly and deliberately, to put a shotgun barrel into your mouth and pull the trigger while your children looked on?’

Hibberd’s eyes were darting all over the place. ‘I—’

‘And then what? You’ve just unloaded a shotgun into the roof of your mouth. Your head has basically exploded. There’s blood and whatnot all over the place. You’ve closed the front and back doors, and the door to the kitchen itself,’ Ford said. ‘You’ve locked the kitchen window. The dogs would have been terrified at first. But eventually they’d have got hungry. They would have started on what was left of you. Like Bess did when you murdered Owen. Do you remember? You said she licked the blood. Wouldn’t you have sent them outside first?’

‘I don’t know, do I? Like I said, my PTSD affects my memory.’

‘But not your ability to be rational about disposing of Tommy’s body. You remember where you put it and that you cut it up, even if not in how many pieces.’

‘It’s unpredictable.’

‘Is that what your doctors told you?’

‘What doctors?’

‘Whoever diagnosed your PTSD.’

‘I . . . I never went to the MO about it.’

‘What about after leaving the army? Did you go to see your GP? Or a psychotherapist? A charity?’

Hibberd closed down. His eyes dropped and his mouth drew into a thin line.

‘It’s quite acceptable to talk about PTSD these days. Were you ashamed?’

‘No!’

‘So why, then, Joe? Why didn’t you go to the doctor about what is, by all accounts, a pretty terrible illness?’

Hibberd’s breathing had become shallow. Sweat had broken out on his forehead and the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought I’d be all right just working through it. Lord Baverstock’s very understanding.’

Ford nodded. Time for a change of tack. One that would bring him closer to the endgame.

‘He saved your life in Helmand, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘It placed you in his debt.’

‘You could put it that way. I wouldn’t.’

‘No? OK, but how about when he gave you a place to live and a secure job after you were fired for stealing in Scotland?’

Hibberd’s face changed. His mouth tightened. His eyes flicked to the solicitor. Ford knew why. He’d been assuming that in the absence of a criminal record, that detail would have remained a secret.

‘So, what if he did?’

‘Joe, listen to me. It’s clear to me you staged your suicide. I don’t think you had any intention of going through with it,’ Ford said. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the tabletop. ‘It was just a piece of set dressing that allowed you to present