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

he returned to the snag he’d been worrying at like it was a shred of loose skin on the side of a nail. The ‘Lucy Problem’, he’d started calling it.

The lying about Tommy didn’t help her case. But he could imagine plenty of upper-class women feeling acute embarrassment or shame at having enjoyed a sexual relationship with someone so far below them on the social scale. She’d lied about not liking shooting, too. Add the unresolved question – why two guns? – and the Lucy Problem got worse from there. And ‘my family’ could have been spoken by any of the Martivals.

On the plus side, Gwyneth’s jogged memory – although as hearsay, virtually worthless in court – gave him reasonable grounds to arrest Lord Baverstock.

With him in custody, Ford would be free to conduct a second search of his house, his outbuildings, the whole bloody estate if he wanted to, including Lucy’s quarters. They’d get his phone and his computer. They wouldn’t even need Gwyneth’s testimony. And they’d have his DNA. And Lucy’s. Nothing to compare it with yet, but Hannah might return from HQ with good news.

Jan’s search of Hibberd’s place had come up with nothing. He hadn’t even password-protected his computer. But that spurred Ford on, rather than depressing him, because it reinforced his feeling that Hibberd had nothing, or very little, to do with either murder. Jan had also confirmed with Berret & Sartain that Joe had taken in his .22 on the twenty-eighth.

He wrote ‘The Lucy Problem’ at the top of a sheet of paper, and tapped the pencil against his front teeth. He tried to bring the problem into sharp focus.

He was ready to arrest Lord Baverstock. But now, Ford wondered whether Lucy had shot Owen, even if by accident. The trouble was, he didn’t have a shred of evidence linking her to either death.

Well, an internal voice said, why don’t you go back over the case documents and see if you’ve missed anything? And don’t forget, Hannah’s over at HQ taking Hibberd’s Land Rover to pieces. Maybe she’ll come up with something.

He had other priorities, though, and one of these needed sorting. He straightened his tie and went to see Sandy.

‘You’re a star,’ she said, smelling the coffee in front of her. ‘That’s not the usual muck.’

‘It’s from CID’s secret stash,’ he said, taking the chair facing her across her paper-strewn desk. He pointed at the documents slithering every which way. ‘Having fun?’

She glared at him over the rim of the coffee mug. ‘It’s lucky you just pinched a decent cup of coffee for me, DI Ford, or I would have torn you a new one for that little question. But to answer it honestly, no, I am not having fun. Having fun would be enduring a root canal without anaesthetic. Having fun would be . . . would be . . .’

‘A romantic dinner with Martin Peterson?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘Let’s not get carried away! What did you bring me?’

‘A suspect. You’re not going to like it, but I do have strong and compelling grounds for suspicion. Plus a ton of high-quality circumstantial evidence we can build on once we start the search.’

‘Why do I get the feeling I know who it is?’

‘Because you haven’t lost your razor-sharp copper’s instinct for a wrong ’un?’

She shook her head. ‘Flattery will get you nowhere. Plus I leave all that gut-feel bullshit to you. I don’t know how you do it, but it works.’

Ford looked at Sandy calmly.

‘It’s Lord Baverstock, isn’t it?’ she asked at last.

‘It is.’

‘Jesus, Henry! You do like to go after the rich and powerful, don’t you? I thought his gamekeeper wrote out his confession in a suicide note?’

‘He did. But it’s so flimsy you could poke holes in it with a feather. I think he’s protecting someone, probably his boss.’ No need to mention Lucy. Not yet. ‘Remember, this is the man who saved his life. That’s a big debt to carry.’

Sandy sighed. ‘How do you want to handle the arrest?’

‘I believe he committed murder with a firearm. He’s got access to an arsenal of weapons. He’s ex-army, and from an infantry regiment, which means he’s used to fighting. On the fight-or-flight matrix, he scores maximum on likelihood to fight,’ Ford said. ‘It has to be a firearms arrest.’

‘Agreed.’

‘This is a full-fat firearms deployment. No softly-softly to catch this monkey. We take him at home: contain and call-out. It’s a big house. We’ll need a dozen AFOs, attack-dog handler, negotiator, the works. Plus we’ve only got Joe’s word the guns were all locked up in the stable block.’

‘Fine. Write up the risk assessment and get it in your policy book. But in principle, that’s agreed. I’ll be gold commander and I’ll talk to HQ and the firearms guys. It’ll be Gordon again as tactical firearms commander.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I want you to help set up the arrest. Do a bit of honest police work for a change instead of playing with spreadsheets.’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘You cheeky sod! Right, come on, then. Brief me.’

‘I rubbed him up the wrong way when we first met. And when I went out to see him last time, I pissed him off further.’

‘So?’

‘So, we use it. Call him and lay it on thick about how disappointed you were in my actions. Say we’ve got compelling evidence beyond the suicide note that points to Joe’s guilt in both murders,’ Ford said. ‘That will relax him and nudge him into dropping his guard. Ask him if you can personally come to see him at home because you have some questions for him about Joe’s background in the army. Say we suspect Joe has PTSD and we need to get a read on how seriously it affected him after the time Lord Baverstock saved his life.’

‘Then instead of me, he gets the full “come out with your hands up” treatment. You’re a devious man, did you know that, Henry?’ she said, grinning.

‘I like to say “creative”. You’re a detective superintendent. That plays to his sense of