Shallow Ground (Detective Ford) Read online

  He inhaled and, as he breathed out, pushed a little at that part of him that allowed him to inhabit the mind of a murderer. He felt the killer’s presence. Became the killer.

  Now he did look at the bodies. The dead woman and the dead child.

  You trusted me. Even at the point when I attacked, you didn’t think it was going to happen. You didn’t fight back. I didn’t give you time to. I didn’t give you a reason to.

  I’m taking a final look around at my handiwork before I leave you. I wasn’t angry, or not at you, at any rate. That’s why I didn’t mutilate you. I could have, if I’d wanted to. Cut. Stabbed. Bitten. Worse. I could have played around and had some fun, especially with the boy. So small. So defenceless.

  But I like blood. I love the stuff, the more the better. Look at it! I’ve left it everywhere for the cops to find. Because I know they’ll find you. And I don’t care. What will they make of my mural? I wonder. Idiots! Nothing.

  They won’t catch me. They can’t. I’m too smart for them. They’re not good enough.

  Someone spoke to him. The voice sounded blurry, as if underwater.

  ‘DI Ford?’

  He snapped into the present, shuddered, felt a runnel of sweat crawling down his ribcage from his armpit.

  One of the CSIs was standing in front of him. China-blue eyes.

  ‘Sorry, Hannah, what is it?’

  ‘I asked if you wanted to get a closer look at the bodies. We’ve finished taking samples.’

  He squatted down, one foot on each of two yellow tread plates placed square on to the bodies. He concentrated on the bruises around the woman’s throat, the way they extended around her neck. A textbook pattern.

  Among the reddened swellings at her throat, two dark oval bruises stood out, one each side of her windpipe. My thumbs did those. More bruising at the sides of the neck, including well-defined round bruises in a cluster. My fingers. I throttled you from the front. I looked into your eyes. I watched you die.

  He looked down at the boy. Her son. ‘Kai and Mummy’. He looked peaceful, curled up into a comma shape. Enclosed by the woman’s splayed legs. No visible wounds. Why did they have to hurt kids? Poor little lad hadn’t lived long enough to cause anyone any pain. Growing up without his dad would’ve been hard enough.

  He let the killer speak again.

  I’ve got nothing against kids. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’s the one I wanted.

  ‘So why did you pull her trousers down?’ he murmured.

  He looked around the side of her hips and lifted the tail of her shirt up with the end of his pen. Her underwear was in place. Not sex, then.

  The posing of the bodies felt wrong. Almost tender – if you ignored the hideous fact that some stranger had burst into this family’s life and snuffed out two of its members. Which prompted him to think. Where’s the dad? Jools was a good copper. She’d be on it already.

  Ford peered at the side of the woman’s head. Her hair, mid-brown and worn loose, was matted with blood on the left side. Yeah, it’s matted. Because I smacked her one, didn’t I? That’s how I subdued her.

  He moved to the wall with the blood-daubed numbers. He knew the photographer would have taken plenty of shots. Different angles to capture the light falling across the surface of the marks, the better to determine what the killer had used to make them. He pulled out his phone and took a picture himself, anyway.

  You bastard. You heartless, soulless, evil bastard. You did this, and you enjoyed yourself, didn’t you? And this is your idea of a joke, isn’t it? To taunt me. Well, it’s working. Because I’m going to find you. And I’m going to send you away for a very long time.

  Ford left the kitchen. He walked the length of the hall, the clicks from the photographer’s high-end digital camera whirring behind him, adding its buzz to that of the flies. He swatted one away from his face as it zigzagged along the narrow space. He found Jools flicking through a photo album in the sitting room, a little blue railway engine on its side by her right toe.

  ‘She was married,’ she said, pointing at the mantelpiece.

  Silver-framed wedding photos clustered together in the centre. Ford’s gaze travelled right, to a large photo on the wall, mounted in a pale wood frame.

  A man, a woman and a toddler were laughing and looking at the camera. They wore white, and the photographer had chosen lighting, or some sort of Photoshop effect, to blur their edges, as if they were fading into the white background.

  The woman, he recognised from the kitchen. The toddler was blond and bore enough of a resemblance to the boy for him to be sure on that count, too.

  ‘Find the husband. That’s our number-one priority. If he’s at work, we need to get to him before some idiot leaks this or posts a video online,’ he said with a scowl. ‘I don’t want him finding out his family’s been murdered from Facebook.’ Assuming he doesn’t already know.

  Jools shook her head. ‘Too late for that, guv. He’s dead.’

  ‘What? Where’s the body?’

  ‘Not here. I found the death certificate in her bedroom. In the dressing-table drawer with her underwear.’

  A widow, then, and a single mum. Ford’s heart lurched. You were doing your best for Kai. But in the end it wasn’t enough. You couldn’t protect him, and you couldn’t save him.

  ‘Next of kin, then. Brothers, sisters, parents. Find them, inform them.’

  ‘Me, guv? I did the last death knock. Can’t one of the others do it?’ Ford stared her down. ‘OK, fine, I’ll do it. I’ll sort out a family liaison officer as well.’

  Ford sat on the sofa, registering the sagging springs beneath his thighs as it took his weight. Old. Second-hand?

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Jools.

  She got to her feet and pulled an armchair round to face him. She clasped her hands between her knees. Fixed those brilliant green eyes on his. ‘If it’s a domestic, an angry boyfriend or whatever, I’ll buy everyone in the team a curry and unlimited beers.’

  ‘Too weird?’

  ‘Too weird.’

  ‘So, what then?’

  ‘It didn’t look frenzied, did it? He took his time. And I haven’t found any evidence of robbery as a motive. I spoke to Nat. There was a handbag on the kitchen table and her phone and purse were still inside,’ she said. ‘Not a lot of cash, mind, but a fiver and some change. She still had her wedding and engagement rings on, too. The bedroom’s untouched.’

  ‘No perv stuff?’

  Jools shook her head.

  Ford rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘He left her knickers on, so sex is out as a motive,’ he said. ‘What do you make of the numbers on the wall?’

  ‘My Lord High Satanic Majesty Beelzebub made me do it!’ she growled in a passable imitation of a movie Satanist.

  ‘Or it’s a jealous ex and he’s trying to throw us off.’

  ‘Could be, but it’s a hell of a bit of set-dressing.’

  ‘Maybe we are dealing with a nutter,’ Ford said. ‘But when we catch him, I’m going to do my damnedest to see him locked up, not sent to a hospital where some shrink’ll try to understand him.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘At this stage the number’s just another piece of information,’ Ford said. ‘Let’s clear the ground under our feet. It was probably someone she knew.’

  ‘I’ll start with the neighbours downstairs. They called it in.’

  With Jools gone, Ford returned to the kitchen. Keeping his gloves on, he retrieved the dead woman’s bag and took it back to the sitting room. He sat on the sofa, leaned forward and emptied it on to the coffee table.

  A plastic ID on a royal-blue NHS lanyard skittered across the polished surface, face down. He turned it over. And met the dead woman.

  ‘Angela Halpern. Staff nurse. Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust,’ he intoned.

  So he had a name and an occupation and a place of work: Salisbury District Hospital, which made Angie’s co-workers his first line of enquiry. He made a note i
n his policy book.

  DAY TWO, 10.00 A.M.

  On the other side of the city, the staff on Bodenham Ward were feeling the full force of their master’s displeasure. Charles Abbott, consultant haematologist, was not happy.

  ‘My God, woman, this blood is contaminated!’ Abbott employed a level tone he knew frightened even the most experienced of his colleagues. ‘A week’s research down the tubes because you didn’t check the seal. What did you keep it in back in India? Milk bottles?’

  The junior doctor had arrived at SDH from a hospital in Mumbai a week earlier to take up a coveted research post.

  ‘I’m—’ She coughed and started again. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Abbott.’

  Abbott observed the young woman’s trembling lower lip with interest. He thrust the open bag at her. ‘Take it. And get it out of my sight.’

  She reached out a hand and took it from him, but it slipped from her shaking fingers. Abbott jumped back. She stood, rooted to the spot, as the bag burst, spattering her shoes, ankles and calves. Not one drop hit Abbott’s dark pinstripe suit.

  He registered the shocked faces of his staff as the junior doctor ran from the room, stifling a sob. Was it wrong to feel a tiny rush of pleasure at the ease with which he could control their emotions? He dismissed the question. They’d be just the same when – if – they became consultants.

  He spotted a man in short-sleeved navy scrubs pushing in through the swing doors, bearing a tray of sterilised instruments.

  ‘You! Porter!’ he barked.

  The porter frowned. ‘It’s Matty, Mr Abbott.’

  ‘I don’t care what your name is, man. Get this mess cleaned up. And quick about it,’ he added. ‘The CEO’s due on one of his interminable inspection tours in half an hour. Then get down to the blood bank and fetch another unit of whole blood, O positive, yes?’

  The porter nodded and offered a small smile. ‘Yes, Mr Abbott.’

  As the ward returned to normal, Matty knelt at the edge of the blood pool and began soaking up the worst of it with paper torn from a roll. He brought the dripping wad to his nose and sniffed, then shoved it into the gaping mouth of a yellow clinical waste sack.

  He kept up a low monologue as he mopped and wiped, combining Abbott’s name with an inventive mixture of obscenities. He flexed the muscles in his right arm and imagined grinding Abbott’s face into the gore. He smiled.

  He looked up to see if anyone was watching him. Everyone was too busy with their own tasks. He stretched out a finger and poked two small dots in the smeary residue. He added a downturned mouth and enclosed them all in a circle.

  ‘Fuck you, Abbott,’ he muttered, jabbing his index finger down to make a nose. ‘I wish this was yours. Then you’d care what my name was.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing, Matty?’

  He looked up, heart racing. Sister McLaughlin was standing over him, hands on her hips. Peering down at him over that sharp beak of hers, through those stupid old-lady glasses. Nosy bitch.

  He gave her his best ‘Who, me?’ smile. ‘Nothing. I—’

  ‘That is a serious health and safety risk. And why aren’t you wearing gloves?’ She tutted. ‘Get it cleaned up, please. Then go and wash your hands. Thoroughly,’ she added, before spinning on her heel and stalking off.

  He watched her swaying rump for a little while. Imagined caning it. Hard. Drawing blood. The fantasy faded, and he bent to his task again, still seeing Abbott’s face before him and feeling the stirrings of an erection.

  On the drive to the hospital, Ford’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and punched the ‘Answer Call’ button on the steering wheel.

  ‘What have you got, Jools?’

  ‘A neighbour said she thought Angie might have a sister. No obvious troublemakers hanging round the victim. The little boy’s her son, Kai. Three years old. Usually with a childminder. Donna Reid.’

  ‘Good work. I’m nearly at the hospital. Going to talk to HR. See what I can get from them.’

  A few minutes later, he was facing the hospital’s HR director across her paper-strewn desk.

  ‘I’m afraid one of your nurses has been killed,’ he said. ‘Angela Halpern?’

  All colour left her face.

  ‘Oh, my God! That’s terrible.’

  ‘Did you know her?’

  She shook her head. ‘We have five thousand people working here. Half of them don’t know anyone outside their own ward. Who’d want to kill a nurse? They’re the kindest, the nicest—’

  ‘They are. And right now what I’m trying to do is identify her next of kin. They need to be notified.’

  She nodded, rapid bobs that set her hair swinging. She tapped her keyboard, speaking as she typed.

  ‘OK. Halpern, A.’ Her red-painted fingernail clicked on a key. ‘Staff nurse. Men’s surgical ward.’ Another plasticky click from the keyboard. ‘Personal details. Contact details. Next of kin. She’s listed her sister. Cherry Andrews.’

  ‘Like the fruit?’

  ‘Yes. C-H-E-R-R-Y. Do you want her contact details?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Ford noted down landline, mobile and work numbers, plus work and personal email addresses.

  Outside again, he walked away from the main entrance towards the A&E department. At the top of the ambulance ramp, he leaned on a rail and looked out over the farmland to the south of the hospital’s sprawling complex of buildings and car parks.

  The sun illuminated the landscape with summer intensity, causing the ripening wheat fields to shimmer like gold. In the distance, silvery threads spread out against the green where the River Nadder meandered through a water meadow.

  Alec and Jools had been right to ask him how he was feeling. Because he felt shit. Not the background level of shittiness he carried around all the time. Not the sadness that caused him to seek solace in work and to keep Sam at a distance when he knew he should be pulling him close.

  This was the special grade reserved for this one day in the year. The anniversary. He divided his life into two, sharp-edged pieces. Before he killed Lou. And afterwards.

  He turned away from the landscape and called Cherry Andrews.

  ‘My name is Ford. I’m a detective inspector with Wiltshire Police. In Salisbury. Are you at work?’

  ‘I am, but you’ve got me worried now. What’s this about?’

  ‘What’s your work address, please?’

  ‘I’m on Churchfields, the industrial estate? Brady Engineering. Harpenden Road. Just ask for me at reception.’

  On the way, Ford rang Jools. ‘You’re in luck. I’ve found the next of kin. A sister. I’m on my way now.’

  ‘Thanks, guv. I owe you one.’

  ‘Yes, you do. In a pint glass.’

  ‘Be gentle, guv.’

  ‘Aren’t I always?’ He knew what she meant. His heart used to sink when he had to deliver bad news. He’d sweat, feel embarrassed and anxious at the same time. But not any more. Not after his wife’s death.

  ‘Just . . .’ Jools hesitated. ‘Be kind, OK? It’s a massive shock. Try not to sound like you’re reciting a script.’

  ‘Noted.’

  Moving stiffly, Cherry Andrews showed Ford into a meeting room off the main reception area. The walls were dotted with grease marks from peeled-off Blu Tack. A pedestal-mounted fan moved the warm, humid air around the room.

  ‘Please have a seat,’ she said, gesturing at one of the hard, plastic-backed chairs around the table. Her face was pale. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

  Her forehead was grooved with concern. Ford looked her straight in the eye. He may not have felt any nerves or dread, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the moment when you planted a bomb in the centre of a family and detonated it. Whatever Jools said, he knew their pain better than anyone. He just couldn’t bring himself to admit how much. Or why.

  ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’ll be straight with you. I’m afraid your sister has been killed. Her son, too. We’re treating their death
s as suspicious. I’m sorry for your loss. Truly, I am.’

  Then he waited. You had to. You had to wait to see how the family member whose emotions you’d just blown to pieces was going to react. Some went into shock, not moving, not talking, barely breathing. Others hit you, beating their fists against your chest until they collapsed, sobbing. Others got angry, the men especially, railing at you, yelling, swearing. Others denied it. Even after you cuddled them and told them how sorry you were, Sam, but it’s true. Mummy’s dead. She’s not coming back. It was an accident.

  ‘How?’ she asked, after ten seconds of silence.

  ‘We’re not sure. But I have to tell you, it looks as though they were murdered.’

  ‘Looks?’ she said, louder this time, her eyes glistening. ‘What do you mean, “looks”? Were they or weren’t they?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. They were.’

  This wasn’t protocol. He was supposed to wait until the results of the post-mortem. But hell, it wasn’t as if Angie Halpern had accidentally killed her son, throttled herself and then bled herself to death.

  The tears overflowed Cherry’s lower lids, spilling down her cheeks and splashing on to the tabletop. A sob broke free, a gluey croak that hung in the air between them. She pulled a tissue from a pocket and wiped her nose.

  ‘Did she . . . I mean, were they . . . ?’ she asked in a voice clotted with sudden grief.

  He knew what she meant. What she wanted to know. Relieved that at least he could offer her this small crumb of comfort, he told her what she wanted to hear. ‘It looks as though they died quickly.’ They didn’t. I’m sure of it. ‘We need to wait for the pathologist to conduct her tests’ – not ‘perform an autopsy’; nobody wants to picture knives and saws at a moment like this – ‘and there were no signs of any sexual assault.’

  The language was brutal. But so was violent death. He’d never found that relatives responded well to euphemisms. It was as if, in this moment of extreme emotion, only the truth would do. The plainer and more unvarnished, the better.

  She looked at him with eyes streaked black as her mascara ran. ‘What do you need from me?’

  ‘I need to find out as much as I can about Angela. Who she—’