Land Rites (Detective Ford), Andy Maslen [best way to read ebooks .txt] 📗

nasty little wounds trying to burst open beneath them. And the genitals. Jesus Christ! Ford looked away, tried to pull JJ with him by the shoulder.

JJ wrenched himself free and staggered into the table. Which Ford could now identify as a standard hospital gurney. Pete had locked the wheels; good practice normally. But it meant it couldn’t move when JJ went into it. Or not along the carpet, at any rate. Instead, it toppled over, throwing Tommy Bolter’s mortal remains to the floor.

Pete rushed in. He was too late. Howling, JJ picked up the gurney and flung it at the viewing window. It shattered, showering him, Ford and Pete with shards of glass.

JJ barged Ford aside and ran out. Through the jagged-edged aperture Ford watched, in shock, as JJ grabbed Rye by his elbow and dragged him to his feet, then out the door.

The mess at the mortuary would mean even more form-filling than was usual at the start of a murder investigation. Ford tried to see the positives in the whole sorry situation. They had an ID. And, given who it was, they could start on victimology straight away.

After a decent interval, he returned to the Bolter place and sat down with JJ. The meeting did not go well.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ford sat opposite JJ in a room furnished with a long boardroom table and eight chrome-framed office chairs upholstered in white leather. Through a picture window that gave on to the garden at the rear of the house, he could see Rye pacing up and down. He was lighting a cigarette from the butt of another. In one meaty paw he clutched a bottle of golden liquid, which he brought to his lips every ten seconds or so.

Dry-eyed and staring at Ford as if he was the person responsible for dismembering Tommy, JJ worried him more than Rye. Rye was a bruiser who enjoyed inflicting pain for its own sake. But JJ was the cunning, ruthless brother who’d built on his parents’ business and turned it into something more akin to a big-city crime gang. He was concealing his grief so effectively, all that was left was this emotionless exterior.

‘Who killed Tommy?’ he asked.

‘That’s what I’m going to find out. You can help me. I need to know if Tommy had any enemies.’ As he said it, he was aware of how lame it sounded.

JJ confirmed his opinion. ‘You do know who you’re dealing with, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Well, then.’

‘Fine. Has Tommy had any run-ins with anyone recently? Anything serious enough to have caused’ – he paused – ‘all this?’

JJ shrugged. ‘Not that I know of. He was our baby brother, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. He did what he wanted. He had plenty of places to bed down if he didn’t want to sleep here. Girls loved Tommy.’

He clenched his fist on the polished tabletop as he spoke these words, and sniffed loudly. For a moment, Ford thought he was about to burst into tears. He found himself wondering if he’d brought a packet of tissues with him.

The bang as JJ slammed his fist down startled Ford. JJ leaned across the table and pointed a thick finger between his eyes like a pistol. His eyes were cold, and his face had paled so that blue veins were clearly visible at his temples.

‘Somebody,’ he ground out, ‘some bastard murdered my little brother. Murdered him and then cut him up and chucked him down a hole like he was rubbish. I want him found and I want him punished.’

‘And I do, too. I promise you we’ll do all we can to—’

‘No!’ JJ shouted. ‘Not good enough. Don’t give me all that bullshit. I’ve got a funeral to organise. I reckon it’ll take a week to get it sorted. You’ve got till then to find the fucker who killed Tommy.’

Ford had a terrible suspicion he knew where this was going, but he forced himself to continue. ‘We’ll do our best, JJ. But murder investigations don’t always run to plan. They can take longer than—’

‘I said a week. After that, we’ll do it our way. We’ll find out who did it. And we’ll punish them. And that’s a promise I will keep,’ JJ said. ‘As for you, your cosy little career will be over. You built it on that dodgy arrest of me and Rye just after you pitched up down here. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’

‘You were covered in the victim’s blood. I’d hardly call that dodgy.’

JJ waved his hand as if dismissing a servant. ‘Old news. Give me your card. I want your number.’

There didn’t seem any point staying after that. Ford was used to working under pressure, but it was usually the reasonably good-natured pressure from Sandy. Or the interfering but easy-to-ignore bleating from Martin Peterson, Wiltshire’s busybody police and crime commissioner.

A threat from JJ Bolter belonged to a completely different place. A place where industrial-strength cable ties stood in for Quik-Cuffs, iron bars for extendible batons, shuttered outbuildings for interview suites, and, from time to time, deserted woodland for sentencing hearings.

He pushed the thought down. He could cope with it. He had to. He had no choice.

Ford left the station at seven feeling frustrated with the lack of early progress. In the lift, he texted Sam to say he’d cook as soon as he got home.

He got behind the wheel of his Discovery. His phone pinged. Sam’s reply couldn’t have been any shorter.

K

He sighed. Sam had been going through a stroppy phase. He texted again.

How about pizza out instead?

cool where

Italian place on New Canal?

Ye

I’ll pick you up in 5.

K

As they ate their huge thin-crust pizzas, slice by slice, Ford looked across the table at Sam. He saw, as always, echoes of Lou’s face beneath that mop of dark curls. Not in the eyes: Sam’s were brown. But the expression.

Sam’s lanky frame hadn’t filled out yet, but Ford had noticed a broadening of his shoulders recently. The