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

previous year on holiday with Sam. He tried the next drawer down. A rat’s nest of cables, chargers, earbuds and a couple of outdated iPhones.

He tugged at the third drawer, which rattled but didn’t open. He frowned and looked closer. On the side facing the bed, a chromed cylinder protruded by a half-inch. His pulse kicked up a beat or three. You locked it!

Not wanting to wait for CSIs or fiddle with lock picks, he decided to break it open. But first, a little bit of necessary arse-covering for his policy book. He fished out his force-issued mobile and launched the voice recorder. ‘Having spent vital minutes searching for the key, I decided to break into the drawer, as I believed it might contain evidence vital to the case.’

He went back downstairs, fetched a screwdriver from his murder bag and ran back to the bedroom. He bent to the drawer, inserted the flat blade between it and its upstairs neighbour and pushed down. The flimsy lock cracked out of its housing and the drawer flew open.

And there it was. The evidence he needed.

‘I knew it!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got you.’

His background nausea subsiding, he placed the items on the bed. The trocars, the tubes and clamps, the blood bags, the vial of fentanyl and a pack of unused hypodermics, a leather sap and a Purcell Foundation ID on a lanyard, printed with Abbott’s photo and the name Harvey Williams.

As he surveyed his haul, he pulled out his phone and called Jan.

‘I want you to set up a search at Abbott’s house.’

DAY TWENTY-TWO, 10.45 A.M.

Just as Matty Kyte had done before him, Charles Abbott sat across the metal-topped table from Ford in Interview Room 4. The pungent aroma of disinfectant and fear-sweat had the man wrinkling his nose. The light bulb above their heads emitted an intermittent hum. Ford had screwed it into the socket himself.

Abbott’s solicitor had arrived thirty minutes earlier, striding into Major Crimes and bestowing a look of world-weary contempt on the police officers around him. He was tall and cadaverously thin, with steel-grey hair cropped close to his skull.

After introducing himself – ‘Jacob Rowbotham, of Rowbotham, Plummer, Minghella’ – and demanding to be taken to his client ‘at once’, Olly had taken him to Abbott.

Ford had assigned Jools and Mick to interview Lucinda Abbott. For his own interview with Charles Abbott, he’d asked Hannah to join him.

After everybody had identified themselves for the recording, Ford began.

‘You almost pulled it off, Charles.’

‘I’m not hearing a question,’ Abbott said.

‘You killed those people.’

‘No. I did not kill those people.’

‘Would you like to hear a story?’

‘Inspector Ford,’ Rowbotham said gravely. ‘My client is a respected member of this community as well as a very busy, and talented, medical man. If you arrested him, you must imagine that you have good grounds. Let’s hear them, rather than engaging in childish games.’

Abbott glanced sideways. ‘It’s fine, Jacob. Really.’ He turned back to face Ford. ‘Please continue. I love a good yarn.’

‘For some reason, one day this summer, you decided being a consultant haematologist and playing God up at SDH and that private place in the New Forest wasn’t doing it for you any more,’ Ford said. ‘The respect, the money, the kowtowing: they just got stale. You needed something more exciting. Something to impress the little people.’

Abbott smiled. ‘I’m gripped already.’

‘You gave yourself a whole new lease of life by transfusing yourself with the blood of strangers,’ Ford said. ‘You selected your victims from the food bank, organised a blood drive to check their blood groups were compatible with yours, then you murdered them. How am I doing so far?’

Abbott spread his hands. ‘It’s all utter fabrication, but your imagination – well, I take my hat off to you. Is there more?’

‘You lied about your alibis, and when the so-called truth came out, that threw me. I thought I had you on the back foot, so I ignored your second lie. And that was the big one, wasn’t it?’

‘Second lie? I don’t follow.’

‘The bait and switch over your blood sample. You told me you were O-positive. In fact, you’re A-positive.’

Abbott smiled and shook his head. ‘O-positive is what I said, and O-positive is what I am.’

Ford changed tack. ‘You attacked Lisa Moore in her home. She fought you off and scratched your arms.’

‘Brambles, as I told you.’

‘When we booked you in, was the cheek swab conducted professionally, would you say, Charles?’

‘It was conducted adequately.’

‘How will you feel when we identify your DNA in the samples we took from under Lisa Moore’s fingernails?’

Rowbotham leaned over and muttered behind his hand. Abbott’s eyes never left Ford’s as he listened.

‘No comment.’

‘And when we match the scrap of fabric we found near Marcus Anderson’s place to one of the garments we’ve taken from your house?’

‘No comment.’

‘If you’re innocent, Charles, now would be an excellent time to explain how I found a fake Purcell Foundation ID in your bedroom cabinet in the name of Harvey Williams.’

‘No comment.’

‘What were the trocars and blood bags for?’

‘No comment.’

Ford was ready with another question when Hannah leaned over and whispered in his ear. Ford nodded, and leaned back. This should be interesting.

‘Mr Abbott, what does the sequence .167, .333, .500, .666, .833, 1.000 tell you?’ she asked.

He yawned, covering his mouth with a fist. ‘Tell me?’

‘Do you recognise it? It’s very simple. Even a child could solve it.’

‘Then you’d be well placed to enlighten me.’

‘It’s sixths, isn’t it? Approximately.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do. Do you know how many litres of blood are present in the average human body?’

‘It varies.’

‘On average, though. That means—’

‘Yes, I know what “average” means, thank you. Six.’

‘Correct again. Two for two, as the Americans say. I taught there.’

‘Clever girl,’ Abbott replied.

‘Would you like to know where?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘Quantico. That’s the FBI Academy. Though it’s also a Marine Corps base.’

‘Bravo. Do we have a Clarice Starling in our midst?’

‘Does that make you Hannibal Lecter?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Well, I know you’re not eating people, so I would