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

Ford’s phone rang: the head of the covert team at Alverchalke Manor.

‘Confirmed sighting of Lucy Martival, sir. Indoors. She’s in a downstairs room, working on a PC.’

Ford’s phone rang again five minutes later. The investigator he’d sent to plot up outside Bigwood’s told him Lord Baverstock had just come out of the club, visited a shop, then gone back inside.

The rest of the morning passed in a flurry of briefings. Firearms teams, additional CID and uniforms for the two arrests; the media team at Bourne Hill; even the PCC. How Martin Peterson had got wind of the arrests, Ford didn’t want to think about.

‘You’re serious,’ he said, when Ford told him the identity of the suspects.

‘As I can be.’

Peterson puffed his cheeks out. ‘All I can say is, I hope to God you’re right, Ford. Because if you’re not, the optics on this are going to be terrible. Absolutely bloody terrible.’

Ford stared at Peterson. How things looked to the outside world were about ninety-ninth on Ford’s list of priorities.

‘We have the media team for the optics,’ he said in as calm a voice as he could manage. ‘My main concern is preventing anyone being hurt. You know. For the brand.’

‘Oh, yes, well, of course,’ Peterson blustered. ‘I understand that, of course I do.’

‘Then we’re on the same page.’

‘And you really need all the firearms guys? Surely you have all the family’s guns now?’

Sighing, Ford repeated the point he’d made earlier to Sandy about there being the possibility of further, concealed weapons.

Peterson nodded. ‘Yes, yes, I see. What can I do to be helpful? Shall I call Lady Baverstock and tell her and Stephen to leave the house – you know, give your firearms guys a clear line of fire?’

‘Absolutely not! No!’ Ford took a calming breath. ‘The best thing you can do is’ – a phrase of Peterson’s that Sandy had mimicked earlier came to him – ‘maintain an overwatch role here at Bourne Hill.’

Peterson nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ll go and speak to Sandy.’

With that, he hurried off.

Two hours later, Ford’s phone rang in the middle of a briefing with Sandy and the senior firearms officers.

‘Sir, it’s Met traffic control. Just picked up your suspect vehicle, black Bentley Continental GT, index number Charlie One Seven Seven Papa Romeo Foxtrot. M3 westbound, Junction One.’

Ford checked his watch: 12.45 p.m. – right on schedule. Traffic permitting, Lord Baverstock would be leaving the motorway on the A303 at 1.15 p.m.

He called Jan to update her. Yes, she was qualified as a POLSA, but she was also an experienced DS and had taken part in plenty of dynamic arrests. She was his link to the team on Baverstock.

Ten minutes later, at the wheel of the Discovery, he waited for the firearms team to climb into their unmarked BMW X5 SUVs. Behind him, the other members of the arrest teams sat in pool cars, all in anonymous shades of grey, blue and silver, plus marked Skodas and a couple of transit vans.

With a roaring of a dozen or more high-performance engines, the convoy peeled out from Bourne Hill car park, headed north towards Stockbridge and west towards Alverchalke Manor.

CHAPTER FORTY

Gordon Richen had designated colours to each side of the house to avoid confusion regarding different directions. Nobody wanted to be running right instead of left. And colours were easier to remember than compass points in a ‘kinetic’ situation.

Ford watched him give orders in crisp language shorn of all ornamentation: ‘Cover the four sides: yellow, blue, red, white. Radio when you’re in position and eyes on. Go.’

In crouching runs, black rifles held diagonally across their bodies, the AFOs took up positions around the perimeter of Alverchalke Manor, their dun-coloured rural camouflage blending into the background vegetation of shrubs and trees.

Minutes later, Richen’s radio crackled into life.

‘Yellow team. Eyes on.’

‘Red. Eyes on.’

‘White. Eyes on.’

‘Blue. Eyes on.’

Richen lowered his binoculars and turned to Ford. ‘We’re on. I’ve got the other four covering the access road to the south and the main drive. If she rabbits, they’ll go for the tyres. Failing that, we’ve got roadblocks set up at the gates. It could get messy, though.’

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far, then.’

‘Copy that.’

Ford walked over to the firearms team’s dog handler. Shorter than Ford by six inches, what he lacked in height he made up for in bulk. Muscle, mostly, though his flak jacket looked snug around his midriff.

A large, mostly black German shepherd stood erect at the other end of a short length of thick navy webbing. It quivered with excitement, drool spotting the dry earth beneath its jaws.

As Ford approached, the dog turned its head and growled deep in its throat.

‘Quiet, Kessler!’ its handler said sharply.

The dog stared malevolently at Ford, but the growling ceased.

‘Morning, sir,’ the handler said.

‘Morning, Johnno. Been a while.’

Johnno smiled. ‘That business over in Swindon, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah. New dog?’ he said, nodding at the slavering beast by Johnno’s side.

‘Sheba retired. Kessler’s a right bastard.’

‘In a good way?’

Johnno grinned. ‘For us, yes. Not for the bad guys.’

Ford had seen Johnno’s previous charge earn her role as a firearms attack dog. Three men tooled up with sawn-offs had attempted to knock over a cash transport van. Two dropped their weapons, the third made a run for it. He got ten yards, thirty stitches and fifteen years.

‘Sir, we’re ready to go,’ Richen said from behind him. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll take over from here. Could you wait by your car, please?’

Ford nodded and returned to his Discovery. Opening the driver’s door, he took up position behind it, a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun.

Richen marched to a position fifty feet from the grand front door of the manor house. He held a pistol in his right hand and a loudhailer in his left, which he now brought up to his mouth.

‘Lucy Martival! This is the police. Come to the front door and exit the building with your hands on your head. Follow instructions.’

Ford stared at