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

your confession as a dying declaration. A man about to kill himself would have no reason to lie about being a murderer. But you’re not a murderer, Joe, I can tell. I think you were covering for someone. Who was it? Lord Baverstock? The man who saved you twice over? Once from death, once from ruin? Or was it someone else in the family? Stephen, perhaps.’ He paused for a couple of seconds. ‘Or Lucy?’

Ford watched Hibberd’s chest rise and fall. A drop of sweat rolled from the bridge of his nose to the tip, hung there for a couple of seconds, then fell on to the table. Hibberd didn’t so much as twitch.

Finally, without taking his eyes off Ford, he uttered two words that Ford knew would be his last. ‘No comment.’

Ford nodded. Hibberd wouldn’t yield. He wouldn’t incriminate Lord Baverstock or anyone else in the family. Here was a man who knew how to keep his mouth shut. Had Lord Baverstock ordered him to take the fall? Calling in the debt owed since Helmand? It seemed possible.

He closed his folder of notes. ‘Joseph Hibberd, under caution, you have confessed to murdering Owen Long and Tommy Bolter. And to disposing of their bodies. But owing to your self-diagnosed PTSD, you can’t remember certain details of either crime. Is that correct?’

Hibberd’s head jerked up and down twice.

‘For the recording, the suspect nodded, indicating acceptance of my summary. Interview suspended at 2.05 p.m.’

Ford remained in the smelly little room after Hibberd, Rowbotham and the uniform in silent attendance had left for the custody suite.

The suicidal farmer had been Ford’s own invention. A composite. Becky Gaisford, the rural crimes officer, had told him that, nationally, farmers killed themselves at a rate of one a week. He doubted a single farming family in Wiltshire had been unaffected by suicide, one way or another.

But Joe wasn’t suicidal. Nor a murderer. However, after their chats, Ford now thought he had a shrewd idea who was.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Hannah drove over to Trowbridge in her Mini, looking forward to spending some time with machines. She liked machines. They were logical and you didn’t need to empathise with them, which she could do with people but found tiring. On arrival, she signed in, then made her way to the garage.

The vast concrete-floored space smelled of motor oil. The heaviness of it didn’t bother her the way strong aftershave or perfume did. When Juno – her private nickname for Sandy, after a Roman goddess renowned for her strength, vigour and statuesque beauty – wore her Chanel No5, it made conversation with the big boss difficult.

In a protective visor, navy boiler suit, leather gauntlets and steel-toed boots, Hannah brought the blades of a large pair of hydraulic cutters to bear on the load bay of Hibberd’s Land Rover.

The motor-pool manager had introduced himself as Robbie Harris, but said that she should call him Tweed. She’d got it at once and felt inordinately pleased with herself. ‘Because of Harris Tweed,’ she’d said, to a nod from Robbie. She’d explained to him about her aversion to loud noise and he’d found her some ear defenders, which she’d gratefully settled over her ears.

Just as well, she thought, wincing at the muffled screech as the blades sliced through the steel as if it were cheese.

With two cuts through the side wall of the load bay, she placed the hissing cutters on the ground and signalled to Tweed for help. Together, they pulled on the metal flap, and with barely a protest it folded down like the side of a cardboard box.

Now she could get at the layer of dirt she’d seen when peering into the corners on her preliminary inspection. Kneeling, she brought her face closer to the channel in the pressed steel.

She pushed up her visor so she could look even closer, and there! She saw it. A dark patch in the dry, gritty earth. Something stuck to it caught the light.

Sliding the gauntlets off first, she fished out the magnifier from the boiler suit’s pocket. What she saw made her smile. From the other pocket she fetched out an evidence bag and a pair of tweezers, picked up the hair and deposited it into the bag.

She scraped some of the stained earth into a debris pot and screwed the lid on tight.

Over the next two hours, she and Tweed reduced the Land Rover’s rear half to so many bright-edged pieces of otherwise grimy steel. She found further traces of what, with ninety-five per cent certainty, she’d identified on sight as blood. But no more hairs.

It didn’t matter. Ninety-five per cent was enough. Once she was back at her workstation at Bourne Hill, she’d spend some pleasurable time on her own, delivering the other five per cent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The entire case against Hibberd rested on a single bullet fired from a gun not bearing his fingerprints, and his written confession. Ford suspected neither would last five minutes under the scrutiny of a skilful defence barrister. Not that he had any intention of letting things progress that far.

Everything else pointed away from Hibberd, from the staged suicide to the medically improbable PTSD. As far as Ford was concerned, Hibberd was off the hook for murder. But he knew who he’d caught on its sharp point instead. The gamekeeper was protecting his boss: the man who’d saved his life in Afghanistan. Or, just possibly, his daughter. Maybe Ford could yet forestall JJ’s taking the law into his own hands.

Jools came into his office. Her eyes were bright.

‘I spoke to Gwyneth Pearce this afternoon. She remembered something Tommy said after he witnessed Owen’s murder. Tommy overheard the killer saying . . .’ Jools consulted her notebook. ‘Hold on, here it is. “This land’s been in my family for a thousand years.” You know what that means, don’t you, guv? My family. It’s His toffee-nosed Lordship himself. You were right!’

Ford nodded, offered her a smile and some well-earned praise. But once she’d gone,