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

an area of hard standing between two of the slab-sided dwellings, and climbed out. Sunlight glinted off a pile of broken glass. He saw nobody around to ask where he might find the Bolters.

A caravan door opened with a rattle. Out stepped a skinny young girl who didn’t look old enough to vote, carrying a grizzling baby on her hip.

She turned in his direction, and squinted. ‘You police?’

He nodded, smiling. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m looking for the Bolters. Have they got a van here?’

She laughed, a hard-edged cackle that set the baby wailing. Casually she retrieved a dummy from the back pocket of her skin-tight jeans and plugged it into the round red O of the baby’s mouth.

‘That’s a joke, right?’

‘Do you know where they live?’ he asked.

She jerked her chin at a narrow concrete lane between the two static homes. ‘Down there.’

She turned away from him and wandered off, jiggling the baby and pulling a packet of cigarettes from her other jeans pocket.

‘Thanks,’ he called after her.

She flapped a hand in the air. Ford chose to interpret the gesture as ‘you’re welcome’ and not ‘whatever’.

He drove between the caravans and followed the winding roadway for a couple of hundred yards, passing broken-down toy prams and pedal cars, piles of scaffolding poles, discarded white goods, stained mattresses, and rolls of soggy-looking carpet from which sprouted leggy weeds bearing acid-yellow flowers.

The wall came as a surprise.

Eight foot tall, topped with razor wire and constructed from unmarked red and sand-coloured brick, it loomed over him as he drew up to a pair of wide wooden gates overlooked by security cameras. At the gates, he got out, pushed the button on the aluminium intercom box and placed his ear to the speaker grille.

It buzzed and clicked. ‘Yes?’

‘This is DI Ford, Wiltshire Police. I’m here to see JJ or Rye Bolter.’

‘Step back. I want to get a look at you.’

Ford thought he recognised JJ’s voice. He did as he was asked and looked into the lens of the left-hand camera.

The intercom crackled again. ‘What do you want, Ford? Come to try and fit me up again?’

Ford ignored the provocation. ‘It’s personal, JJ. Can you let me through, please?’

His pulse had picked up as JJ began speaking, and he was aware of a runnel of sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. His only consolation was that he’d refused Jools’s offer.

‘What do you mean, personal? You’ve got nothing personal on us. Piss off!’

Ford felt a tap on his right shin. A scruffy little dog was nosing against his trousers. It went to cock its leg and he pushed it away with his foot.

‘It’s about Tommy,’ Ford said, desperate not to have to deliver the news via a squawk box. ‘It’s important. Can you let me in, please?’

Five seconds of silence passed. The mutt returned to his leg and began whining. Ford squatted to scratch it behind the ears. The latch above his head clacked and the solid wood gates swung inward on silent hinges.

‘Got to go,’ he said to the dog.

As he drove through, Ford whistled. Facing him from behind a landscaped lawn was a long, low, white-painted bungalow. Roofed with terracotta barrel tiles, it looked as though it belonged on the Costa del Sol rather than in the Wiltshire countryside. He imagined the Bolters would refer to it as a ‘hacienda’.

He retrieved a tie from the glovebox and slipped the loop with its ready-made knot over his head. Tightened and adjusted it. Settled his suit jacket down on his shoulders, which he squared before marching up to a limed oak front door with a square of rippled glass in its upper half.

He rapped on the window. Stood back. Waited.

A shadow materialised behind the glass. The door opened wide to reveal JJ Bolter, his black hair gelled back from his forehead revealing dark brown deep-set eyes, a long straight nose and a sensuous mouth. His strong-smelling aftershave wafted towards Ford, making him wrinkle his nose.

JJ stared down at Ford.

‘Nice suit,’ he said. ‘Where d’you get that, then? Oxfam?’

‘M&S.’

JJ puffed out a dismissive breath. ‘Yeah, that’s about your level.’ He ran the lapel of his navy linen jacket through thumb and forefinger. ‘Versace.’ He pointed down at his shoes, black alligator-skin loafers with oversized gold snaffle bits across the insteps. ‘Gucci.’

Ford felt his shoulders tensing inside his suit jacket, which was uncomfortably hot. ‘JJ, please. I—’

‘Yeah, yeah. All right. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. What’s this about Tommy, then?’

‘Can I come in, please?’

‘Not without a warrant, you can’t.’

Ford tried again. ‘It really would be better if we could do this inside.’

JJ folded his arms across his chest, completely blocking the doorway. ‘I haven’t seen him for a few days, if that’s what you’re asking.’

Dreading the bigger man’s reaction, Ford tried to ease his way into what he knew would be the most difficult moment of his day so far. ‘JJ, we found a body. I’m sorry, but it’s looking like it might be Tommy. From the tattoos. We need someone to make a formal ID. One way or the other,’ he added.

JJ pulled his head back, frowning. Then he did something that surprised Ford. He laughed. Loudly. ‘Loads of people have tats, you muppet.’ He shook his head. ‘You must be really bored over at Bourne Hill if you came all the way out here to tell me that.’

‘I recognised one. Can you come to the mortuary with me, please, JJ? Just take a look. And I want you to prepare yourself.’

Still shaking his head, JJ retreated into the depths of the house. ‘Wait there. I’m going to get Rye.’

While he waited, Ford wandered over to a double garage built on to the side of the house to form a shallow L. In the shade, he saw a black Mercedes estate, a sporty AMG model, parked beside a couple of Japanese motorbikes in white, lime green and purple.

JJ called to him from the front door. ‘We’ll follow you. I’m not going anywhere