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

barn about five miles due west of the manor house. Corrugated iron roof. Double doors at the rear. The vehicles are inside, under tarpaulins.’

‘What happened when Tommy Bolter made his blackmail threat?’ Ford asked.

‘Lucy came and told me. I had no choice but to kill him.’

‘You didn’t even consider paying him off?’

‘No. I did not. He’d only come back for more. And as you seem to have surmised, I don’t happen to have a great deal of spare cash at the moment.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Lucy drove out to the woods in her little BMW 4x4. Parked at the meeting place. Then that greedy little bastard arrived. Cocky as all get-out, strolling up to Lucy as if they were at a garden party. She should never have become’ – Martival shuddered – ‘intimate with him. But that’s Lucy. She’s always been a wild one, from the moment she entered this world. Screamed her little lungs out.’

‘And then?’ Ford prompted.

Martival closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘As we agreed, she put the holdall on the ground between them. Told Bolter she’d padlocked it and gave him the combination. She stepped back out of harm’s way and I shot him through his ear.’

‘Did you get her to help you dispose of the body?’

‘Only as far as getting it into the Land Rover. She returned to her BMW and I went to the woodshed I’d prepared. Joe helped me butcher the body – then, alone, I drove out to the badger sett and dumped him down. I told my deputy estate manager, chap called Cox, to fill it in. I said it was a risk to walkers.’

‘Why not use the river again?’ Ford asked, silently thanking Cox’s country-sense for having led him to disobey his master’s orders.

Martival opened his eyes. ‘I didn’t want to push my luck. Thought I’d lessen the risk of discovery by using different methods and locations. Might even have suggested two killers to you lot, eh?’

‘You’re being unusually candid, Philip, for which I thank you. Just to be perfectly clear, do you admit that you murdered Tommy Bolter and disposed both of his body and that of Owen Long?’

‘I think I just said that, didn’t I? But if you need it stating in plain language, yes, I do admit that. I would also like it to go on the record that neither my wife nor my son knew anything of what transpired between Lucy and me and Tommy Bolter and Owen Long,’ he said, dragging a hand across his face. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I should like to rest. I have just confessed to murder and learned that my daughter nearly died. I believe I’m within my rights to request a break.’

Ford checked his watch. ‘Interview suspended at 4.21 p.m.’ He nodded to Jools, who turned off the recorder.

‘Inspector?’ Martival said. ‘Before you go?’

‘Yes?’

‘I did it to protect her, you know? She’s my flesh and blood. My child. Do you have children of your own?’

‘A son, yes.’

Martival nodded. ‘Then you know. A father will do anything for his children. Even murder.’

Ford swallowed. Of course he did. Hadn’t he threatened JJ with just that? ‘And it doesn’t bother you? That you murdered a man in cold blood?’

‘The men of my family have served their country in war, all the way back to Waterloo and beyond. Some died in battle, but they did so with grace, fighting for an ideal in which they believed,’ Martival said. ‘Bolter and his kind embody the absolute opposite of that spirit. They steal, they poach, they brawl, they run dog fights and course hares: they give nothing and take everything.’

‘Lucy didn’t seem to think so.’

Martival sat back in his chair and his arms flopped down by his sides. He blinked rapidly three or four times.

Ford glanced at Jools. She was staring at him. Even Rowbotham, the master of the impassive stare, had registered his words with an expression of shock.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ford muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

Then he stood and left the room.

Ford nodded towards his office. Jools followed him in, disapproval written all over her face. He knew why. The crack about Lucy was unworthy of a senior detective. Yet he’d been unable to hold it back in the face of Martival’s arrogance.

‘I want Hibberd charged with preventing a lawful burial and wasting police time,’ he said. ‘The CPS will throw out anything else so don’t bother asking. And if you’re thinking of saying anything about what just happened, don’t.’

She nodded, and left him alone.

Ford spent the rest of the day completing his policy book, filing a separate report on Lucy Martival’s injuries during arrest, and dozens of other necessary pieces of documentation. His last calls of the day were to JJ Bolter and Ruth Long, informing them he’d arrested the murderers of their loved ones. In JJ’s case, he reiterated his warnings about interfering with the legal process.

In his cell, Philip thought about his family. Not as he imagined Ford would think of his own family. Dad, mum, children. Couple of uncles and aunts, maybe a grandparent or two.

No. Philip was thinking of the family. The Martivals. A thousand years on the land gifted to an ancestor by William the Conqueror. There when the cathedral was just a plan and some shallow trenches in the ground. There as the new city grew up around it. There when wars were fought and invasions repulsed.

The family was more than any single member. So much more.

In that, if in nothing else, he could see how the Bolters and the Martivals obeyed a deeper code of justice than that pursued at all costs by Ford.

Philip had screwed up. He knew that. But he was insignificant compared to the Martival name. His confession would preserve the family, he hoped, from too much lip-licking interest. But either way, it would endure long after he had joined Long and Bolter in the ground. Another thousand years at least, God willing.