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

you know you can only have O or B blood? You said you didn’t know anything about blood transfusions.’

‘They told me at the blood drive.’

‘But you didn’t donate. You were on antibiotics, remember.’

‘I was chatting to one of the staff. She told me.’

‘What was her name?’

Matty smiled. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember. She was pretty, though. I do remember that.’

Ford was certain Matty was lying, just giving random answers, sure he wasn’t going to get caught out in a big enough lie to matter.

‘What are you hiding, Matty?’

‘Nothing! Nothing,’ he repeated. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘Because I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth. I think you murdered five people, and attempted to murder a sixth. And unless you give me something to explain your, frankly, erratic behaviour during the two times we’ve spoken, I will see you charged with those crimes.’

Matty looked at Kenney, then back at Ford. The clock ticked. The tape spools hissed. He dropped his gaze for a moment, then locked on to Ford, his lower lip quivering. He swallowed, Adam’s apple jumping in his pallid throat.

‘I’m afraid I’ve been a bit of a naughty boy, Mr Ford,’ he said, finally.

This was it. The moment the case ended.

Ford leaned forward, heart pounding. ‘What have you done, Matty?’ he asked quietly.

DAY TWENTY-ONE, 10.03 P.M.

A tear ran down Matty’s left cheek. ‘I’ve been taking stuff from the hospital. Laptops, stationery, bed linen. Sometimes even from the patients. And I’ve been selling it on eBay. For our deposit.’

Ford jerked his head back. ‘What?’

‘I’m a thief, Mr Ford. We’re so far from our target, me and Jen, what with our wages not being much, even together,’ he said. ‘And she wants it so badly.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘She said if I could just get hold of a few hundred extra quid a month, we’d be, you know, closer.’

Ford’s mind was racing. He desperately wanted not to believe Matty, but saw that it could explain everything: his evasiveness, his wife’s hostility. Bloody Guilty Secret Syndrome!

‘I don’t believe this,’ Ford said, unable to resist the pull of his earlier conviction that he had his man. ‘You’re not seriously trying to tell me that, faced with life in prison as a serial killer, your best line is “I’ve been nicking stuff from work”?’

‘I can prove it!’ Matty said. ‘Our back bedroom’s full of it. It’s why I didn’t want that Detective Cable poking around the house. Check my eBay account. You’ll see what I’ve sold. Ask up at the hospital. Procurement have a record of all thefts from the hospital.’

And then he burst into tears, sobbing loudly and wiping his nose on his sleeve.

‘I’d like to suggest we break here, Inspector,’ Kenney said. ‘You have my client’s explanation for his behaviour, which, as it’s the admission of guilt in another crime, I think you can take seriously. It’s late and he’s entitled to sleep.’

Ford stared at her, then at Matty.

‘Interview suspended.’

Pulling off the road into his drive, Ford realised he had no memory of the drive home. The traffic guys had told him about it once. You were on a familiar route, your mind drifted to other, more interesting topics and then WHAM! – you’d rear-ended a mum driving her brood to school, or hit a pedestrian too busy on their phone to look before crossing the road.

He’d been so sure he had his man. Under pressure from the PTBs, he’d followed the evidence like a proper detective. They’d identified Kyte as a psychopath masquerading as a goody-two-shoes: keeping under the radar as a shy, mild-mannered doormat, running errands, soaking up abuse from the consultants at the hospital while all the time conducting a twisted murder spree.

He’d wait for the DNA profile to come back the following day, but in his heart, he knew Matty was innocent. And not just because of a ‘not guilty’ verdict. He really hadn’t done it, in a black-and-white, God-sees-you-and-He-knows-you’re-innocent way.

He cursed himself for ignoring his gut and focusing on Matty when he should have been pursuing Abbott. So what if other people thought it was him. Jools could go by the numbers if she wanted, but he was the lead investigator. He was the DI. Not her, not Mick. Him.

He stabbed his front door key into the lock and went inside.

‘Sam, you up?’ he called.

‘In the kitchen!’ Sam shouted back.

Slinging his suit jacket over the newel post and dumping his briefcase by the hall table, Ford wandered into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of beer from the fridge.

Sam was assembling thick slices of bread, ham, cheese and sliced tomatoes into a sandwich. He squashed the snack down before trapping it in a hinged cage and slotting it into the toaster. He turned.

‘You look like your dog died.’

‘I don’t have a dog. As I think you know.’

‘Yeah, but if you did, and it died, that’s what you’d look like.’

It was an old routine. They’d use it whenever one of them was looking down in the mouth.

Ford took a pull on the beer. ‘The case just went sideways. No,’ he said, wiping his lips, ‘sideways would have been good. It went backwards. At speed.’

‘What happened?’

‘The guy I arrested—’

‘The porter?’

‘Looks like he didn’t do it.’

‘Clever brief?’

‘Nope. He’s just confessed to being a common or garden thief.’

‘Bummer.’

‘Megabummer.’

‘Hyperbummer.’

‘Bummerpocalypse.’

Sam touched his lower lip. ‘You’ve never talked to me about a case before. Not like this one. You know, the Latin, and now this porter guy.’

‘I wanted to protect you. It’s pretty horrible stuff I have to deal with.’

‘I’m fifteen, Dad. I’ve seen all kinds of stuff on the internet. Plus, it’s cool that you asked, you know? I could be, like, your asset.’

Ford grinned. ‘My asset?’

Now Sam was grinning, too. ‘You always say I’m smart. Let me help. Not with, like, confidential stuff, but tricky stuff. Puzzles, weirdness. You could bounce ideas off me.’

Ford frowned, looked up at the ceiling, then back at his son. ‘Hmm. Maybe I