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

the front door. Although the grounds immediately surrounding the house were crawling with police, all he could hear was a solitary blackbird warbling its fast-beating heart out.

Richen tried again. ‘Lucy Martival! Armed police! Come to the front door with your hands on your head. Armed police!’

Jan was sitting beside a male AFO in a BMW 5 Series. All four teams had plotted up in a lay-by just east of the Junction 3 slip road on the M3. The car reeked of the guy’s aftershave. She’d already sneezed twice and had to explain it away as hay fever.

The tactical firearms commander – Zulu Control – had parked on the flyover directly above the motorway. He was monitoring the traffic below, ready to give the signal when the black Bentley passed underneath.

Beside Jan, the black-clad AFO flexed his gloved hands on the steering wheel. Looking at his stubbled cheeks and shaved head, she wondered whether they issued all new members of the firearms teams with a cut-out-and-keep guide to male grooming. In all her years of service, she’d never seen anyone deviate from ‘the look’.

He turned to her and caught her staring.

‘OK?’ he asked.

‘Yup.’

Nine minutes later, the radio crackled. ‘Zulu commander, all units. Target just passed us. Go!’

Jan gripped the armrest as the driver put his foot down. With a screech from the rear tyres, the car leaped forward. She glimpsed the speedometer as they joined the traffic. They were already doing eighty.

Twenty minutes later, as they were nearing the exit for the A303 and Salisbury, the radio buzzed into life again. She took her eyes off the rear end of Lord Baverstock’s black Bentley to glance at the screen.

‘Zulu Control, all units. Target is indicating left, left, left, confirm.’

‘One.’

‘Two.’

‘Three.’

‘Zulu Four.’

Jan held tight as the unmarked silver BMW swung off the motorway behind the Bentley. She glanced sideways into the door mirror. She saw the other three cars in tight formation, plus the commander’s.

‘What do you think?’ Jan asked the driver.

‘Skip said he wants to take him on the A303, about five miles further on. If he takes the A30 and heads for Stockbridge, so much the better: it’s a quieter road.’

She nodded. It made sense. They needed four cars for the hard stop and one to hang back and set its flashers going, to hold up the traffic till they’d completed the arrest. The fewer cars driven by the general public in the vicinity, the lower the risk of something going wrong.

Lord Baverstock enjoyed driving. The Bentley had been an extravagance when he’d bought her, but that was fifteen years ago and the old girl had more than done her duty. He let the softly padded leather seat cosset him as he headed back to Alverchalke.

He hummed along to the opera he’d been listening to obsessively for the last week or so, smiling as the soprano created the most unimaginably beautiful sounds. How could a human voice do that? The aria reached its crescendo, and Lord Baverstock felt the pricking of a tear at the unearthly sound.

He remembered he wanted to ask Coco if she’d managed to get the opera tickets he wanted, and glanced at the touchscreen. He frowned. No signal. Not even one bar! The mobile company called it – with irritating flippancy, he thought – the ‘Wiltshire Banana’. A broad, sweeping crescent where mobile reception was as patchy as the food at his club.

He yawned. Meeting lawyers, as he had been doing for much of the previous couple of days, always left him tired and bad-tempered. Seized with a need for a coffee, he indicated left for the services.

Jan prepared herself for the action just minutes away. Then, in an instant, the plan changed.

‘Zulu commander, all units. He’s signalling left, left, left for the services. Do not let him enter! Go now. Go, go!’

Jan’s pulse accelerated, though not as hard as the car, which lurched forward as the other cars raced up. One overtook; one moved in on the Bentley’s right side.

In perfect synchrony, the three high-performance cars slowed from sixty to fifty, forty, thirty, then twenty. They boxed in the Bentley, forcing Lord Baverstock to match their speed or hit the car in front.

Ten.

Five.

Stop.

At the last minute, the fourth pursuit car shot up on the inside of the Bentley and stopped so close the passenger door couldn’t open. Blue smoke from the screeching tyres drifted past them.

Barely had the BMW’s wheels stopped turning than the two AFOs in the back seat were out of the car. They raced forward, one to the left and one to the right. Up went their rifles. Aimed straight in at Lord Baverstock. She could see pistols and rifles aimed from the stationary cars to left and right.

Jan watched the AFOs yell their commands in through the glass. She found she could lip-read quite easily. ‘Armed police! Exit the car now! Hands above your head!’

The AFO aiming in through the driver’s-side window took a step back. Lord Baverstock, white-faced, emerged with his hands clasped on top of his head. A third officer darted in and yanked his hands behind his back before snapping on a pair of Quik-Cuffs.

As the AFOs frog-marched him to one of the pursuit cars, Lord Baverstock cast a look back at Jan. She saw a look of passivity on his face. No scowling or bared teeth, no rage distorting his features.

Ford sighed out a breath he’d been holding while Richen called Lucy Martival through the loudhailer. What the hell was she doing? Loading a rifle? Please God, not that. Richen brought the loudhailer to his lips for a third time.

Then a shout went up from the side of the house designated blue.

Ford didn’t hear shots, so she’d not left by a side door and opened fire. He only had to wait a few more seconds for an answer.

With a clatter of hooves, Woodstock burst through the shrubs at the side of the