Land Rites (Detective Ford) Page 3

  ‘Thanks, Mick,’ Ford said. ‘Now, it appears to be a homicide. But until Doc Eustace tells us otherwise, there’s a slim chance it could just be a natural-causes-slash-accidental-death with a particularly grisly aftermath.’

  ‘Really, guv?’ Olly asked. ‘You don’t dispose of a body like that if they just died of natural causes, do you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, for a start, there’s no need, is there? You just call the undertaker. Or the police. And second, it’s so brutal. Who chops up a body and stuffs it down a badger sett unless they want to conceal a crime?’

  ‘I don’t know. But,’ Ford added, as murmurs of the same basic flavour as Olly’s assertion broke out, ‘either way, I’m launching a murder enquiry. We found hardly any blood at the scene, so I’m thinking the killer did it somewhere else and took the pieces there in an off-roader of some kind.’

  ‘You want me to, er, head off and check all local 4x4 owners, guv?’ Mick asked, his face a mask of innocent enquiry.

  Ford ignored the provocation. Caught Jools’s eye. ‘Please.’

  Mick nodded. ‘Sure. I don’t mind noggin on a few doors.’

  A couple of people sniggered. Ford didn’t like it. Black humour was one thing, but he’d just dragged a decapitated head out of the ground by its jaw.

  ‘OK, that’s enough!’ he snapped. ‘Save it. Love him or loathe him, Tommy Bolter’s been murdered and chopped into bits. The clock’s already ticking, so let’s focus on finding whoever killed him, yes?’

  The murmur of agreement pacified him a little. But he was still dreading his impending visit to the Bolter place.

  ‘I was thinking, guv—’ Mick said.

  ‘Makes a change,’ Jools interrupted.

  Ford shot his bagwoman a grateful glance.

  Mick pointed at the photos of the body parts. ‘Whoever did that knew what they were doing.’ He looked around for support. A few heads dipped in agreement. ‘Not necessarily at the medical level, but maybe a butcher or a slaughterman? Somebody who knows how to cut joints cleanly, anyway.’

  Ford nodded. People could say what they liked about Mick, and plenty did, but his copper’s instincts were honed by years of dogged police work. And he knew all the local villains – ‘nominals’, in the parlance. Hell, he’d been at school with half of them. Including, as he often boasted, JJ and Rye Bolter.

  ‘Start putting a list together of all the butchers and abattoir workers round about. Say within a five-mile radius of Salisbury.’

  ‘Butchers aren’t the only people who know how to cut up bodies,’ Jools said. ‘What about surgeons? Pathologists, even?’

  ‘You think Doc Eustace has been moonlighting?’ Mick asked with a grin.

  ‘Ha ha. But I’m right, aren’t I, guv?’ Jools said.

  ‘It could be a medical professional, but it could just as easily be a painter and decorator. In my experience, I’d say all you really need is a sharp tool and sufficient willpower,’ Ford said. ‘We’ll keep it under consideration, but this isn’t screaming surgeon at me.’

  ‘Search, guv?’

  Ford turned to face DS Jan Derwent. As his qualified POLSA – police search advisor – she was unbeatable. She’d find a needle used as a murder weapon in a field full of haystacks.

  ‘As soon as possible. I’ll see how many uniforms I can scare up to join the team.’

  ‘You want me to do the death knock, guv?’ Jools asked.

  He shook his head. No way was he sending a DC, even an ex-military cop like Jools, to deliver the worst possible news to men like JJ and Rye Bolter.

  ‘Thanks, but it’s got to be me.’

  Ford ended the meeting with a request to be kept informed of every new development as it happened.

  Before he left to see the surviving Bolter brothers, he went to have a wash. The Noddy suit had done its job of protecting him from the filth down the sett, but still he felt the stink of death on his skin. Drying his hands, he thought back to the day the older two Bolters had emerged from the Crown Court free men.

  From arrest to acquittal had taken three months. JJ had sauntered over to him, smirking. He’d leaned in close and muttered in Ford’s ear, well below the volume anyone else would catch. ‘You’re lucky you only got your nose rubbed in it by our brief, Ford,’ he’d said. ‘The last cop to cross me walks with a stick now.’

  Ford returned to his office and pulled the blinds. He called Pete.

  ‘How are you getting on with Tommy?’

  Pete sniffed. ‘I’ve patched his face up, but the rest’s going to take me a while given what they did to the body. Can you hold off for a couple more hours?’

  Ford checked his watch. ‘Yeah, I can manage that. How’s he looking?’

  ‘Pretty rough, to be honest. It was a bit of a rush job. Best I could do in the time, but it should be fine through the window. I was just sticking the photos in the family folder when you called.’

  ‘Thanks, mate. I’ll see you in a bit.’

  Ford filled in the time he’d promised Pete updating the murder book and reading all the initial reports. When it was time to go, he changed into the spare black suit he kept in his office. If only they made body armour that would fit underneath it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ford turned off the Coombe Road on to Old Shaston Drove. The road predated the modern city of Salisbury by a few hundred years. In Saxon times, herders had driven their beasts from pasture to market along the simple rutted track. Over the centuries, it had grown and widened, eventually acquiring a patchy coat of tarmac. It ran in a sinuous curve from deep in the Wiltshire countryside towards the city centre, with its market and famous cathedral.

  As he drove away from the city, the quiet country lane assumed a grittier character that would have nervous hikers turning back. Negotiating the increasingly challenging surface, dodging potholes, lumps of scrap metal and fly-tipped garbage, Ford swore, cursing the attitudes of people who’d take so little care of their own road.

  The satnav directed him to turn right into a caravan park, and announced that he’d reached his destination. He looked around at the rundown static vans and rusted-out cars. Surely the Bolters didn’t live here? He’d spoken to a DS in General CID and formed the impression they were doing well for themselves, albeit on the proceeds of crime. He’d never had cause to visit them at home, but the DS had told him, with a wry smile, that they lived ‘on the park’.

  He pulled up on 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.

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nbsp; 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 in that shitheap you came in.’

  Ford turned to see that JJ had been joined by his younger brother. Where JJ was well over six foot and looked gym-fit, Rye was shorter by a head and built like a barrel. His forehead bulged oddly above pale blue eyes buried in puffy cheeks.

  Grateful that he wouldn’t have to drive JJ and Rye back from the mortuary, Ford nodded. He didn’t know which he feared more – showing them the preliminary photos or the actual body.

  Once they arrived at the hospital, JJ cracked jokes as the trio walked from the car park. In the mortuary, Ford ushered JJ and Rye into the family room, officially called the Chapel of Rest. No outside sound penetrated the softly lit space. Ford gestured at the sofa, but neither man sat.

  JJ had stopped joking. Ford knew why. Coppers didn’t bring you to a mortuary for a laugh. JJ knew he was about to be shown a body and asked whether it belonged to Tommy. Amusement had been replaced by hope. And fear.

  Rye had sunk into a silence so total it felt like it exerted its own gravity. Now he, JJ and Ford stood in an awkward triangle. A black vinyl folder lay on a low table in one corner of the room.

  Ford fetched it. ‘I’m going to show you a photo first. If it’s not him, tell me and we can get out of here. If you think it’s him, just nod or say yes and then we’ll go next door and see him’ – horrified, Ford realised he was about to say ‘in the flesh’ – ‘for real. I want you to prepare yourselves. It’s not pretty. Ready?’ he asked.

  Dumb question. Who was ever ready to see a photo of a corpse that could be their dead brother?

  JJ nodded.

  Ford opened the cover. As JJ stared at the ravaged face, Ford saw a vein begin to pulse in his left temple. His broad chest heaved in and out and the whistling breath through his pinched nostrils broke the silence.

  Rye crowded in next to him and looked down. He gasped. ‘No! Tommy!’

  He backed away and flopped on to the sofa, staring dead-eyed at the curtained viewing window.

  ‘Is it him?’ Ford asked quietly.

  JJ nodded. Lifted the cover of the folder with his index finger and closed it with a small slap as it hit the plastic sleeve containing the photo.

  Pete had entered the room. He stood ready to the left of the curtains, his hand on the pull cord. He raised his eyebrows at Ford in a mute question. Now?

  But JJ forestalled the answer. ‘Not through that,’ he said. ‘I want to see him.’

  Ford shook his head. He’d been dreading this moment. ‘I don’t think that’s such a great idea. You know why.’

  JJ whirled round and grabbed Ford’s lapels. Stuck his face, contorted now into a mask of fury, into Ford’s. ‘Yes, I do know why. Now, either you take me to him or I’m going to go through you and Lurch over there and see him anyway.’ A beat. ‘Your choice.’

  Ford took hold of JJ’s thick wrists and pulled them out and down. Jesus, the guy was strong! ‘Come on, then.’

  Pulse bumping in his throat, Ford signalled with a shake of his head that Pete could go. He followed him out into the corridor with JJ close behind him. Turned right through the next door. Took JJ into the room where Tommy’s corpse waited.

  The family room smelled of lavender. Pete had told him once that it had a calming effect. Hadn’t bloody worked on JJ, had it? The body room – its informal name – didn’t smell of lavender. Instead, a mixture of pin
e disinfectant and the sharp, sappy, broken-branch smell of formalin swirled in the air. And beneath both, the whiff of decay. Well advanced in Tommy’s case, but never pleasant, even with fresh ones.

  Ford led JJ to the table. Pete had draped the corpse in a sheet of a soft dusty blue. No doubt this colour had also been chosen by the hospital authorities for its so-called calming properties. Ford had his doubts.

  He turned to JJ. ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  JJ nodded. A stiff jerk of his head. He turned his gaze to Ford. A deep, unfathomable hatred burned in those dark brown irises. At that moment Ford knew he’d be under additional, unwelcome pressure to solve this one fast. God help the man who’d slaughtered JJ Bolter’s kid brother. And then a most unpolicemanlike thought chased the other away. He shouldn’t have killed him and cut him into bits, then, should he?

  Ford took the edge of the sheet at the top end of the table and drew it down slowly to reveal Tommy’s face. JJ hissed in a breath.

  Beside him, Ford couldn’t take his eyes off Tommy. Pete had done an amazing job of patching up the badger bites, or whatever the hell they were. But the cheeks had the uneven look of car body panels loaded with filler. And the skin colour was wrong. Under the foundation and powder, that horrible greenish-brown shade still showed through.

  Only an idiot would say he looked peaceful. Something had happened to the skin. It didn’t look properly joined to the muscles beneath. Wrong, somehow.

  Ford knew the source of the problem. Whatever gave the skin its elasticity – collagen, presumably – had broken down. That’s why Tommy’s face looked the way it did.

  No, not Tommy. He was staring at a joke-shop ‘Tommy’ horror mask.

  With a sharp tug, JJ whisked off the sheet and flung it into a corner. The scream he emitted raised the hairs on the back of Ford’s neck.

  Ford knew Pete had put Tommy back together. But he hadn’t followed the thought through to its real-world conclusion. Now he knew. Now he could see. And so could JJ.