Shallow Ground (Detective Ford) Read online

  Matty shook his head as he thrust her arm back under the covers. ‘You left it at home. You remember? In your jewellery box.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes. It’s perfectly safe. Now, close your eyes and go back to sleep. Sweet dreams.’

  Her eyes closed. ‘Night, night, Daddy.’

  ‘Night, night, Junie.’

  He met Marisol on his way out.

  ‘Hi, Matty. Everything all right?’

  ‘I was just dropping off some clean bedding. Mrs Evans had a funny turn. I managed to quieten her down before she woke the others.’

  Marisol smiled. ‘You’re a star.’ She looked past him at the old lady’s bed. ‘Poor old dear, doesn’t know what day it is any more.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Tragic.’

  Ford looks down at Lou. She dangles beneath him from a rope. She’s screaming the same three words over and over again.

  ‘Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!’

  The blood spurts from the trocar protruding from her naked thigh. Who goes mountaineering naked? It’s not worth the risk. On the Pembrokeshire coast, the weather can change in an instant.

  He looks up. Hannah’s at the top of the stack, reaching down to him.

  ‘Take my hand, Henry,’ she says. ‘You have a seventy per cent chance of living if you do.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I can’t. I have to stay here, with Lou!’ he bellows, as the wind whips across the stack, chilling him to the bone.

  A gout of blood issues from Lou’s thigh. It sways beneath her, trailing all the way to the rocks below. She’s caught between the two ropes, the white nylon and the scarlet blood, suspended in time, in the ‘now’, between ‘then’ and ‘to come’ . . .

  . . . then: happy family. Mummy, Daddy, Sam.

  . . . now: screaming wife, weeping husband.

  . . . to come: widower. Motherless boy. Corpse.

  The rope parts with a snap. She falls, screaming, ‘It’s the blood! Follow the blood!’

  He wakes, sweating, shouting, ‘Lou!’, his face wet. His digital alarm clock tells him it’s 3.23 a.m.

  DAY FOUR, 8.23 A.M.

  Five hours later, Ford was drinking coffee while he waited for the team to assemble. His eyes felt as though someone had poured sand into them. Once everyone was seated, or standing, in front of him, he assigned jobs. He asked Jan to search Angie’s workplace.

  ‘She must have had a locker. Check that, and anywhere else she could have stored stuff.’

  Jan nodded and made a note.

  ‘Everyone else, I want you up at the hospital. I want you to find anyone and everyone who knew Angie. What was she like? Who did she pal around with? Any difficulties with patients, or their relatives? You know the drill.’

  ‘What are you doing, Henry?’ Jan asked him.

  ‘I’m up there, too. I want to know more about blood.’

  After the nightmare, he hadn’t been able to sleep, so he’d gone online and found SDH’s Haematology Department and its head of service, Charles Abbott.

  As soon as the meeting closed, he called the hospital and found his way to Charles Abbott’s secretary.

  ‘He’s extremely busy, Inspector. His list is absolutely crammed as it is. Can’t this wait? I’m sure we could slot you in later this week.’

  ‘Someone murdered a nurse at your hospital. I am the lead investigator,’ he said. ‘So I’m afraid it can’t wait. If you could slot me in any time this morning, that would be perfect.’

  At 9.28 a.m. he knocked on Charles Abbott’s office door.

  ‘Come!’

  That single syllable set his hackles rising.

  The broad-shouldered man behind the desk radiated power and confidence. His office was a stage, set for its leading man. The wall behind him groaned under the weight of framed medical diplomas and photographs of their holder in evening dress beside minor royalty, the city’s mayor in full regalia and a couple of locally based TV and film actors. A type Ford had met before. And never liked.

  Abbott stood and offered his hand, smiling. They shook, briefly, and he gestured to the chair facing him.

  ‘Please, take a seat.’

  Despite the heat, Abbott wore a crisp pink shirt and navy tie. An expensive-looking suit jacket swung on a hanger from a wooden coat-rack in a corner. Sunlight streaming in through a large south-facing window gilded his tanned skin. An arrow-straight parting revealed white scalp beneath his short brown hair. Ford caught a whiff of expensive aftershave.

  ‘Thanks for seeing me at such short notice, Dr Abbott,’ Ford said.

  Abbott’s lips compressed into a thin, disapproving line. ‘Justine tells me you gave her little choice but to comply,’ he said. ‘Before we go any further, and forgive me for being pompous, but might you accord me the respect to which my position as a consultant entitles me?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I am a “Mr” as in Mr Abbott. Not “Dr”. That’s for my less successful colleagues and the pill-pusher you visit when you have a sore throat or whatever. I’m sorry to insist, but I worked hard to reach my position, as I’m sure you did.’

  Ford smiled. Breathed in, softly, and out again. ‘Pompous’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  ‘My apologies, Mr Abbott.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Abbott checked his watch, a chunky gold number that Ford suspected was a Rolex. ‘Now, please be brief, Inspector. I have patients who depend on me, rounds, and so forth.’

  ‘What can you tell me about blood?’

  Abbott frowned. ‘That’s a rather . . .’ he paused, ‘unfocused question. I have spent the last twenty-seven years studying blood in all its many and varied forms, and the diseases that affect it, particularly cancers. I’m afraid you’ll have to be a little more specific.’

  ‘I am investigating the murder of a nurse who worked here. You may have read about it on the Salisbury Journal website.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t. I take the Telegraph for news. Old-fashioned, I know, in this digital age, but there we are,’ he said, spreading his hands wide.

  Ford forced himself to stay calm. ‘She was exsanguinated. Bled out.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know my Latin.’

  ‘We are working on the assumption that blood is significant to the killer, and I want – I would like – to know what blood might mean to him. Or her.’

  Abbott’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What it might mean? Oh, for heaven’s sake. I thought you were coming here to access my scientific knowledge. Not waste time discussing psychology.’

  Ford’s initial dislike of the man sitting opposite him had mutated into a deeper feeling: a sense that this alpha male was using his power to intimidate him. Or to hide something.

  ‘Isn’t psychology scientific?’ Ford asked, clenching and unclenching his fist in his lap.

  Abbott snorted. ‘I am a medical man, Inspector. I look, rather as I imagine you do, at the evidence. Are these red blood cells sickle-shaped? Is this patient’s blood deficient in clotting factors? Why is this patient’s haemoglobin level so low? Facts, do you see? Not fancies.’

  Ford nodding, feeling as if he were the one being interviewed, and not the other way around.

  He decided to try one more time. ‘Is there anything you can tell me that might help our investigation? Anything at all?’

  Abbott sighed and looked at the ceiling. ‘In history, blood has been associated with three principal forces. First, rather obviously, life. Second, the soul. Third, heat – from the Greek haema, meaning “hot” or “incandescent”,’ he said, in a professorial tone. ‘If you force me to venture into psychology – and, may I add, I feel extremely uncomfortable doing so – I should imagine your killer believed he was somehow releasing his victim’s life-force.’

  Ford caught Abbott’s suppressed shudder as he spoke the last word. What was that? Discomfort at being forced to use psychobabble, or disdain for the murder victim?

  Ford nodded, writing up the insight on his mental whitebo
ard. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Though he would have preferred something less nebulous.

  ‘Thank you. Before I go, I’d like a list of everyone who works in this department, please. From nurses up to consultants.’

  Abbott steepled his fingers in front of his face. ‘I’m sure you would.’

  ‘Shall I ask your secretary?’

  ‘You can ask her, but I’m afraid she won’t be able to help you. Not without a warrant.’ Abbott smiled ruefully. ‘I’d love to help, Inspector, really I would. But it’s these damned privacy regulations. GDPR: ever hear of it?’

  ‘General Data Protection Regulations.’

  ‘Then you see the bind I’m in,’ Abbott said.

  Ford decided he’d had enough of this supercilious consultant. My gut never lies to me, Abbott. I don’t like you. ‘When I return with a warrant, I will obviously want to interview each person on the list, yourself included, in a more formal setting. I’m thinking Interview Room 1 at Bourne Hill Police Station. The interviews shouldn’t take long. No more than an hour each. Of course, as the head of service, yours would take longer.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Abbott asked smoothly. ‘Because, you should know, I don’t take very kindly to intimidation. I am also on rather good terms with the chief constable of Wiltshire. So tread carefully.’ He smiled. Wider than before, exposing immaculate and expensive-looking dentistry. ‘Just a friendly piece of advice.’

  Ford breathed deeply. Observing the man facing him, but listening to his gut. You’re hiding something. That’s why you’re warning me off. Are you protecting someone?

  ‘Noted. But as I’m simply trying to solve the murder of one of your colleagues, perhaps you could try to help me. I’m sure the chief constable would appreciate your efforts.’

  Abbott sighed. ‘Very well, though if HR find out, I’ll be for the high jump.’ He picked up the phone on his desk. ‘Justine? Would you print out a list of Haematology Department staff for Inspector Ford, please. He’s just leaving.’

  The secretary appeared a few moments later with a single sheet of A4. She dropped it into Ford’s lap. The look she gave him would have cut steel.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She closed the door behind her with what he felt was rather more force than was needed.

  ‘Have you always been interested in blood?’ Ford asked.

  ‘It’s my life’s work, as I believe I told you before.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Listen, Inspector,’ Abbott said, his voice softer now. ‘I understand the pressures under which you’re working. As a public servant myself, I have the same issues. Too many demands on my time, too little budget. Oversight, watchdogs, patients’ rights groups, managers with their infernal targets. All I want to do is practise medicine – heal people – but they have me chained to a PC half the time, filling out forms like a bloody pen-pusher.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘My point is that whilst I sympathise with your professional desire to follow every avenue, however’ – he laid a flat palm on his chest – ‘unlikely, you’d be better off pursuing those with a greater chance of leading you to the killer.’

  Ford frowned. ‘Sorry, you’ve lost me. What do you mean?’

  ‘If you really want to find your killer, why don’t you look somewhere you’re more likely to find him?’

  Ford stood his ground, and offered Abbott a smile. ‘Where would you suggest?’

  ‘Among the lower classes, obviously.’

  Ford counted to three before responding. ‘Do you have any names or addresses we could investigate?’

  Abbott smiled. ‘Please don’t patronise me. I mean, look at my own ward, for example. There’s this dreadful man. A porter, for God’s sake. Forever addressing me as if we’re colleagues. He’s always asking me about my work. Why don’t you interview him?’

  ‘Maybe I will. What’s his name?’

  ‘Now, there I can’t help you. We move in completely different circles, both professionally and’ – he shuddered – ‘socially.’

  Ford shrugged. ‘Not much to go on, then.’

  ‘No, wait!’ Abbott said. ‘One of my junior staff spilled some blood earlier this week. I asked this chap, the porter, to mop it up, and the ward sister found the damned fellow drawing in it, muttering all sorts of language about me as he did it. That’s odd, wouldn’t you say?’

  Ford’s pulse kicked up a notch. Abbott was a gold-plated snob with an ego that would overshadow the cathedral, but what would Sandy say? A hunch is all very well, love, but bring me some bloody evidence. Maybe this porter could supply it.

  ‘Name?’ he pressed.

  ‘He said his name was—’ He looked up for a second, then back at Ford. ‘Matty!’

  Ford looked at the list. At the bottom he found ‘Kyte, Matthew, porter’. He underlined the name. ‘Thank you, that’s very helpful.’

  Major Crimes was humming when Ford returned. He announced a meeting for 4.00 p.m.

  He checked his emails. Georgina had sent him a copy of her post-mortem reports on Angie and Kai. Ignoring all the other messages, he opened the attachments. He skim-read the report on Angie first and made notes, including the manner, cause and time of death.

  Angie Halpern

  MOD: homicide.

  COD: exsanguination.

  TOD: likely between 5.00 p.m. on July 2nd and 5.00 a.m. on the 3rd.

  No sexual assault.

  No mutilation.

  Other injuries: head wound; hyoid bone broken and bruising consistent with manual strangulation; puncture wound extending from inner left thigh into femoral artery consistent with large-bore needle such as trocar.

  Toxicology: clean. Trace amounts of ibuprofen and paracetamol, female contraceptive pill.

  He repeated the process with Kai’s.

  Kai Halpern

  MOD: homicide

  COD: lethal injection.

  TOD: likely between 5.00 p.m. on July 2nd and 5.00 a.m. on the 3rd.

  No sexual assault.

  No mutilation.

  Other injuries: puncture wound to left side of neck consistent with hypodermic syringe.

  Toxicology: sufficient fentanyl to cause death.

  Ford stared at his last note. Fentanyl? Wasn’t that a powerful painkiller they gave to cancer patients? That meant the killer had taken it with him. Who had access to fentanyl? Three thoughts flashed through his mind in rapid-fire succession. Junkies. Cancer patients. Medical staff.

  At four that afternoon, with most of the team assembled and another cup of strong coffee in front of him, Ford asked Olly to kick off.

  ‘I’ve collated the relevant data from the interviews with hospital staff. Angie Halpern was as close to the stereotypical angel as you could imagine,’ Olly said, miming a halo over his own head. ‘Nobody had a bad word to say about her. I even talked to a couple of patients. I’m surprised they hadn’t put up a statue to her.’

  The door banged back on itself. Mick came in, a grin gleaming from the black nest of his moustache and goatee. ‘Sorry I’m late, Henry. Just finishing up an interview. One of Angie Halpern’s work colleagues is off sick. I went round to his house to talk to him. Quite interesting, actually.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ford said, ignoring Olly’s frown.

  ‘Earlier this year, one of her patients died. They investigated, and the finger of blame was pointing at Angie. She’d got careless, he said. Administered the wrong medicine.’

  ‘Was she disciplined?’

  Mick shook his head. ‘They transferred her to a new ward and the hospital authorities covered it up. Nothing dodgy, but they paid off the family and got them to sign an NDA. Apparently, that way they can keep the death off their stats and it doesn’t affect their performance data or their ranking in the league tables.’

  Various tuts accompanied this last revelation. ‘Sounds like the force,’ someone said, to general groans of agreement.

  ‘Thing is,’ Mick continued, strok
ing the top of his head, ‘the dead woman’s son wasn’t happy. He said he was, and I quote, “going to get justice for Mum”.’

  Ford nodded and made a note. ‘Good work, Mick. Find out the son’s name. He’s a person of interest. Have a chat with him and establish his whereabouts for the time of Angie and Kai’s deaths, which, people, I have circulated, along with the PM reports. Check your emails. Speaking of administering medicine, and for anyone who hasn’t read the PM report on Kai yet, he was killed with an injection of fentanyl. That means we look at local druggies and the medical community. Someone find out if vets use it as well.’

  ‘Also, guv,’ Mick said, holding up a finger.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I spoke to Christos Fariakis this morning.’ Various officers shook their heads at the mention of Salisbury’s biggest loan shark. ‘He said he hadn’t heard a word of anyone in the business doing Angie and Kai. Or anything like it. In his words’ – Mick assumed a kebab-shop Greek accent that had eyes rolling – ‘“Maybe a couple of slaps or a broken bone if it was a bloke, Mr Tanner, but killin’ a lady and a kid? Never. I swear before the Virgin.”’

  Feeling mounting frustration, Ford turned to Hannah and asked her to summarise where Forensics had got to. The blush was less pronounced this time. Maybe she was settling in. She concluded with the news that although she’d been able to lift a couple of partial fingerprints from the Heinz beans tin she’d recovered from the crime scene, there was no match from the IDENT1 database.

  ‘So they have no evidential value until we have a suspect in custody,’ she concluded.

  ‘This is all great, but ruling things out isn’t ruling them in. We need to break this – soon,’ Ford snapped. ‘Anyone remember the golden hour? Because I do. It ended a long, long time ago. Every passing hour we don’t catch him is an hour closer to when the killer gets away with it.’

  After the briefing ended, Ford retreated to his office. He’d barely sat down when Jools knocked and entered, closing the door behind her.

  ‘You all right, guv?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. What do you want, Jools?’