Shallow Ground (Detective Ford) Read online

  ‘That’s a nice headline. You should come and work as a sub-editor for us. The pay’s better.’

  ‘I’m sure it is. So, do we have a deal?’

  ‘Let’s call it a working arrangement.’

  At that afternoon’s case meeting, the whiteboard was in heavy use. Ford stood to one side as he drew suggestions and links from his team.

  ‘Let’s look at people we know of who might have had a reason to kill Angie.’

  ‘I tracked down the son of the woman Angie gave the wrong drugs to, guv,’ Olly said. ‘William Farrell. Lives in the St Marks area.’

  ‘Background?’

  ‘Working on it.’

  ‘Go and see him. Check if he’s got alibis for the murders.’

  After a few more minutes of discussion, Ford held up a sheet with the names of the people who’d treated Paul Eadon’s blood poisoning.

  ‘Our two adult victims are on this list. Angie nursed Paul. It may be that the others are on a kill list. I want them contacted, discreetly, and offered advice on staying safe.’ He held up a warning finger. ‘And before anyone asks, we’ve no money for officers to do guard duty, so if anyone requests it, explain we’ll be doing everything in our power to catch the killer up to but stopping short of police protection.’

  ‘I’ll assign calls,’ Jan said.

  ‘Leave Abbott to me,’ Ford said. ‘Now, on to the victimology. Superficially, Angie and Paul had zero commonalities. She’s a nurse, clean as a whistle, not even a parking ticket.’

  ‘Don’t forget that malpractice thing, guv?’ Mick called out.

  ‘Noted. Eadon had a string of convictions for petty crime. So dig deeper. The blood-poisoning incident might be something, but don’t let’s get stuck in a rut.’

  Ford’s phone rang. Sandy.

  ‘Henry, got a minute?’

  ‘What is it, boss? I’m in the middle of something.’

  ‘My office?’

  Sighing, he closed the database screen and headed for the Python’s lair.

  He sat in the chair facing his boss, saw her expression and felt his stomach turn over.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  She ran her hands through her hair. Sighed. Plucked at the front of her blouse. ‘I think you’re a bloody good detective, you know that.’

  ‘Yes. What’s going on?’

  He had a flash of the most unwelcome insight. My God, was she going to take over the case?

  ‘I’ve just had the chief constable on the phone.’

  Shit! Abbott had executed a pre-emptive strike. Normally, men like him rattled their sabres but never swung them.

  He tried to ignore his racing pulse and fluttering stomach. ‘And?’

  ‘Have you been questioning a Charles Abbott about the murders?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a consultant haematologist. I wanted to know about blood.’

  Sandy sighed. ‘According to the chief con, you behaved in a, and I quote, “threatening and intimidatory manner, without cause or provocation”, end quote.’

  ‘That’s bollocks! Abbott’s hiding something, or he knows something. I just tried pushing a couple of buttons and he went into the standard “I know your big boss” spiel.’

  ‘Trouble is, Henry, he really does. You need to back off. Find out about blood from Google.’

  Ford leaned forward, placed his hands on the edge of her desk, glaring at her. ‘Back off? There’s something off about him, boss. I can feel it!’

  Sandy stared him down. ‘One, please don’t shout at me, Henry, I’m not deaf. Two, what I am is your boss and the SIO on this case. So if I say back off, you back off. You’ve got other leads, lines of enquiry?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ford answered, hearing the surliness in his voice and thinking of Sam in one of his strops.

  ‘Then pursue them. If you get evidence that points to Abbott that doesn’t come from your famous gut, let me know first. Do not – I repeat, do not – go barging into Abbott’s office uninvited again. Understood?’

  Ford stood. Barely trusting himself. ‘Understood.’

  He managed to leave her office without slamming the door, but it was a close call.

  He didn’t have time to brood for long; Jools told him Matty was due in thirty minutes.

  ‘Let’s have a quick chat about how to handle him,’ he said.

  They decamped to Ford’s office to discuss interview strategy. On the way, Ford phoned Hannah and asked her to join them.

  ‘I want to get Hannah’s take on this. Did you know she worked with the FBI?’

  Jools gave a wry chuckle. ‘I think everyone knows that. Including the cleaners. She’s fairly open about her life, or hadn’t you noticed?’

  Ford smiled. ‘I had.’

  ‘We’ve got half an hour before the interview,’ Ford said, once all three were seated round the small table in his office. ‘Jools, what’re your thoughts?’

  ‘Right from the moment I met him, I felt as though he was toying with me. All innocence and campy hand gestures one minute. Then, I don’t know, he just—’

  ‘Said something that brought you up short?’

  ‘Yes! Exactly.’

  ‘Did you ask him any direct questions?’ Hannah asked.

  Jools consulted her notes. ‘A few. Mainly innocuous stuff just to put him at ease. Except for one.’

  ‘What did you ask him?’

  ‘If he had anything to do with the murders.’

  ‘How did he answer?’

  ‘Strangely. First, he repeated my question back to me. Then he sort of looked into the middle distance. Then he denied it. Made quite a fuss about it. As if it was an insult that anyone would dare to think that.’

  ‘When people with nothing to hide get asked straight questions, they tend to answer readily,’ Ford said. ‘It’s the dodgy ones who begin blustering. As if they can’t believe what they’ve just been asked and are frightened of incriminating themselves.’

  ‘The FBI agents I worked with called it GSS, which meant “guilty secret syndrome”,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Suppose you get interviewed by the police about a serial murder. Or a rape,’ she said, adopting a more authoritative tone of voice than Ford had heard her employ before. ‘You know you’re innocent, and you have an alibi as well. But you’re also having an affair with your wife’s best friend. Or you’re fiddling your work expenses.’

  ‘I get it,’ Jools said, interrupting and earning a cross expression from Hannah. ‘They’re not talking about your guilt, but that’s how you interpret it. So you start dodging the question.’

  ‘It could mean one of two things,’ Ford said. ‘He could be such a good person, as the staff and patients described, that your questions horrified him, Jools . . .’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or he’s hiding something.’ He turned to Hannah. ‘Any advice on handling Matty?’

  ‘You said he was acting camp, Jools?’

  ‘As a row of tents, which is odd, given he’s married. To a woman,’ she added.

  ‘Then he won’t mind being interviewed by you,’ Hannah said.

  ‘I know you can have camp-acting straight guys, but what if he is gay?’ Jools asked.

  ‘Then the presence of a man, especially a good-looking man like Henry’ – Hannah glanced at Ford – ‘may throw him off balance. Maybe you could be the bad cop, Jools, and Henry could be the good cop.’

  ‘It’s a voluntary interview,’ Jools said, smiling. ‘I don’t think we’re quite ready to start working him over.’

  Hannah blushed. ‘Yes. I see that. Sorry. But I meant it. Henry, if you were to flirt with him, it could destabilise him.’

  ‘Yeah, or he could file a complaint for sexual harassment against me,’ Ford said. ‘And I just know how much the Python would love me for that.’

  Hannah sighed. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘play the traditional softer role that often goes to the female detective. Be empathetic. Smile.’

  ‘Flutter my eyelashe
s?’

  She frowned. ‘I think that would be inappropriate.’

  ‘Boss?’ Jools said, winking at Hannah.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You could always undo another button on your shirt.’

  She and Hannah burst out laughing, and Ford smiled. It was good that they could still find time for a safety valve, given the case surrounding them.

  ‘All right, enough. I get it,’ he said. ‘Of course, if he’s not our man, he’ll start to wonder about our methods.’

  ‘No, he won’t, Henry,’ Hannah said. ‘He’ll just ask you out.’

  More laughter. Ford closed the meeting and they agreed Hannah would go down to meet Kyte.

  Paula called Hannah when Matty arrived at Bourne Hill. Feeling a squirming anxiety in the pit of her stomach, despite the medication she took to keep it at bay, she rose from her desk and made her way to the stairs.

  He was waiting for her in reception. She could tell it was him because there were no other men in the sunlit space; that, and the fact that Paula had whispered, ‘He’s very good-looking,’ before hanging up.

  She hung back for a few seconds, making herself as unobtrusive as possible beside a tall potted plant. She took her time to assess his body language.

  He was leaning against a wall, legs crossed at the ankle, arms folded in front of him. That much limb-crossing could be interpreted as defensive. It could just as easily mean he was finding a comfortable way to stand. It was important to see the person as a whole.

  He smiled at a couple of female police staff crossing the reception area on their way to the lifts. Hannah noticed the way they smiled back, then leaned their heads closer together and giggled.

  I can’t read you, she thought. Which is fine, because it’s not my job. It’s Henry’s. And Jools’s.

  She stuck on her best social smile and strode across the reception area.

  ‘Matty?’ she said, from six feet out.

  ‘That’s me,’ he said as he turned, smiling. His face fell as he saw her. ‘You’re not Julie.’

  ‘No, I’m not. My name is Dr Hannah Fellowes. I’ll take you upstairs.’

  In the lift, he made no attempt to start a conversation, for which she was grateful. It allowed her to control their interaction. She noticed the forefinger of his right hand twitching against his thigh, beating out a tight little rhythm.

  ‘I was nervous, too, the first time I came here,’ she said.

  He looked down at her. ‘Why did you say that? I’m not nervous.’

  ‘I’m trying to make you feel at ease. Members of the public often get anxious inside a police station.’

  He laughed. ‘Maybe they should visit more often. Get it out of their systems.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Have I what?’

  ‘Visited more often?’

  He pointed up at the row of orange numbers. The ‘4’ had just illuminated. ‘Is this us?’

  She nodded.

  ‘On with the show!’ he said, waggling jazz hands at her.

  Ford smiled at the man Jools had just introduced. Clearly fit, and strong enough to lift a dead body. Smart, too, for a hospital porter. Jacket and tie, pressed beige chinos. But then, being invited in ‘for a chat’, however informally, often had that effect on people.

  He was finding it easy to maintain eye contact, which a lot of suspects couldn’t, looking anywhere but into the eyes of the cop who’d nicked them.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Mr Kyte,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Can we get you something to drink? There’s tea, coffee, or a glass of water?’

  ‘Please, call me Matty. Do you have anything herbal?’ Matty asked. ‘Chamomile? I’m feeling a little, uh, you know . . .’

  ‘There’s no need to feel nervous, Matty,’ Ford said, ‘and I’m sure there’s a box of chamomile somewhere. Sometimes I like peppermint myself. Can you sort them, Jools?’

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ she said brightly. ‘Back in a jiffy.’

  The exaggerated matiness and office small talk was part of their strategy: keeping Matty as relaxed as possible as they probed for the truth.

  Jools returned after a few minutes with three steaming mugs, setting them on a low table in the centre of an arrangement of three armchairs.

  Ford watched as Matty took a cautious sip of the herbal tea, blowing first across its steaming surface. He winced. ‘Ouch! Burnt myself!’

  Jools pooched out her bottom lip. ‘I know just how that feels, did it myself last week. Silly cow!’ she finished, smiling sympathetically.

  Matty grinned back at her.

  ‘Matty,’ Ford said softly, to catch his attention. ‘First of all I need you to know that, as this is a voluntary interview, you can leave whenever you like. You are also entitled to legal advice. And you don’t have to answer any of our questions, OK?’

  Matty nodded, and tried his tea again. ‘I’m happy to help, honestly. What with all these awful’ – he dropped his voice to a whisper – ‘murders, I think it’s the least I can do.’

  Ford looked at him. How shall I present myself to you? He wasn’t as tall as Matty, but he was in good shape, broad through the shoulders and with a flat stomach. People told him his brown eyes turned dark when he was angry and that he clenched his jaw in a way that gave him a mean look, as if he wanted to hurt the person he was interviewing. Which, he reflected, was often true.

  Lean back and look relaxed, or forward, hands clasped loosely: interested.

  He leaned back and nodded for Jools to begin.

  ‘Did you know Angie Halpern?’ she asked.

  ‘Angie Halpern,’ Matty repeated, looking at the ceiling. ‘No.’

  ‘She was a nurse.’

  ‘Was she one of the victims?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I wish I could help. But I don’t know her. Didn’t,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘We think whoever killed her was interested in blood. You know, a bit like you.’

  ‘Me?’ he said, raising his voice. ‘I’m not interested in blood.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you told me yesterday you were.’

  ‘No. You’re wrong. I said I was interested in all sorts of things. Not blood specifically.’

  ‘And you didn’t draw a face in a pool of blood after a doctor dropped it?’

  ‘No! I already told you,’ he said, scratching his right cheek then rubbing the tip of his nose. ‘That woman’s so short-sighted, I’m surprised they let her dish out drugs. She’ll end up giving fentanyl to someone in for a minor op and killing them.’

  Ford’s antennae twitched. Fentanyl.

  ‘I checked with Sister McLaughlin,’ Jools said. ‘She was adamant she saw you. And she seemed perfectly clear-sighted to me,’ she finished pleasantly.

  ‘You don’t know her like I do,’ Matty said. ‘She’s got it in for me. Just because I’m a porter.’

  Ford sat forward. ‘Are you married, Matty?’ he asked.

  Matty stumbled over his reply. ‘Er, yes. I am. Five years now. Her name’s Jennifer. I call her Jen, though.’

  ‘Nice name. Does she work?’

  ‘She wanted to be a nurse. But they want everyone to be a graduate nowadays.’

  ‘Like the police,’ Ford said. ‘Soon you won’t be able to mend the road without a degree.’ He added a spread-hands, ‘Whaddya gonna do?’ gesture.

  ‘She works in a care home now. For the elderly. She loves it there. The old ladies like her to read to them.’

  ‘A caring soul.’

  ‘She is,’ Matty said.

  Ford smiled. ‘This is going to sound a bit official – sorry. Are you able to provide details of your whereabouts on the dates the murders were committed?’

  Matty pulled his head down so that his chin tucked in and thin rolls of fat appeared beneath it. ‘I can try. When were they?’

  Ford handed him a sheet of paper with the times and dates printed out in two rows.

  Matty looked up at Ford. ‘I’m not sure, but I was probably
at home with Jen,’ he said. ‘We try not to go out much because we’re saving up for a deposit on a new house. I could check with her, if you like. She does everything on her calendar. A real one. Paper,’ he added.

  ‘Of course. Ask her at home and call me once you’ve checked on the calendar.’ He handed Matty a business card.

  Matty slipped the card into a worn leather wallet. ‘Was there anything else?’ he asked, looking at his watch.

  ‘No, I think that’s everything for now. Thank you so much for coming in, Matty, you’ve been really helpful.’

  Ford stood and extended his hand. They shook. Matty’s grip was firm but damp.

  ‘Hard work, being a hospital porter, I should imagine,’ he said, holding Matty’s hand for a fraction longer.

  ‘I manage,’ Matty said, with a small smile.

  After Matty had left the nick Ford called Jools into his office.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘He’s lying. About a lot of things. I checked his last few weeks’ shifts. He worked with Angie five times.’

  ‘Maybe he has other reasons for lying. But if his alibi checks out, we’re back to square one.’

  ‘What, “I was at home watching telly with the missus”? That old one?’

  ‘People have been known to do that.’

  She shook her head, as if denying the reality that ordinary people did, in fact, spend their evenings slumped in front of the flat screen watching soaps or reality TV.

  ‘I want to keep an eye on him,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no budget for surveillance, you know that.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I want to dig into his background a bit more.’

  ‘Go for it.’ It’s not him.

  DAY NINE, 8.35 A.M.

  The next morning, Ford arrived to find an email from Georgina.

  Subject: Prelim PM findings on P. Eadon

  Hi Henry,

  I know you’ll be champing at the bit, so here are my top-line findings on Paul Eadon.

  MOD Homicide

  COD Exsanguination (trocar inserted into left femoral artery)

  TOD Between 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m.

  Large bruise on back of neck consistent with a ‘rabbit punch’. Clear imprints of knuckles. Eadon was 5’8”. Angle of blow indicates attacker to be 5’10” or taller.