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

opened the door and showed her his ID. ‘Detective Inspector Ford and Dr Hannah Fellowes. We’re here to see Lord and Lady Baverstock,’ he said.

The maid – what had Dan called her, housekeeping assistant? – or whatever rich people called the servant they paid to admit visitors, smiled. The expression dissipated the severe impression created by the sober uniform. ‘They’re expecting you. Please follow me.’

She led them into a wood-panelled room, large enough to house a grand piano as well as a seating group of two tan leather Chesterfield sofas and several armchairs covered in yellow and grey chrysanthemum-patterned chintz.

Tall windows gave on to a landscape so artful Ford wondered whether it had been designed by human hands rather than Mother Nature’s: a winding river, sparkling in the middle distance, beyond which a forest of deep-green trees rolled away to the horizon. To one side, a ruined classical temple. Closer to the house, an ornamental pond with a two-tiered fountain playing on to its water-lilied surface.

‘Inspector Ford?’ A woman’s voice.

He turned, smiling – going for the genial look he’d seen Mick use on people he unironically referred to as his ‘betters’.

The woman in her late sixties who had just entered the room wore a creased navy sweatshirt over faded jeans. Below tousled, honey-coloured hair, the suggestion of a smile lingered on an intelligent face. She shook hands with Ford. Her skin felt rough and dry against his.

Hannah pumped Lady Baverstock’s hand in what Ford had come to think of as her ‘signature shake’ and introduced herself.

‘Thank you for seeing us at such short notice, Lady Baverstock,’ Ford said.

She took one of the armchairs and motioned for them to sit. ‘Do take a sofa. And please call me Coco. Lady Baverstock makes me sound like some ghastly old bat out of an Austen novel.’

‘My colleagues call me Wix,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s short for Wikipedia.’

Lady Baverstock smiled. ‘Are you something of a brainbox, then?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve always been clever. Cleverer than most people, in fact. Some people find it off-putting, but in my work it’s actually very useful.’

‘I’m sure it is, my dear.’

‘We met your daughter outside with a very big black horse named Woodstock. Is that after Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince?’

Lady Baverstock’s social smile widened into the real thing. ‘Well, technically she’s my stepdaughter, but nonetheless, how very clever of you! Now I can see why your colleagues awarded you such a brilliant nickname.’

Hannah beamed. Ford marvelled at the easy charm the upper class could deploy. Must learn it at their posh private schools was his conclusion.

Lady Baverstock’s features assumed a serious expression. ‘You said a man was murdered? Do you have his name?’

‘Tommy Bolter. Did you know him?’

She sighed. ‘It’s probably better you wait for Bumble. He’s just cleaning up.’

Ford frowned. ‘Bumble?’

‘My husband. It’s his old boarding school nickname. Like the bee? He used to hum when concentrating. I think it even stuck when he went into the army.’

‘I sometimes talk to myself to help me concentrate,’ Hannah said.

While Lady Baverstock engaged Hannah in small talk, Ford’s phone buzzed. A text from JJ.

Find my brother’s killer. I meant what I said.

Fighting down the brief surge of adrenaline that elevated his heartbeat, he pocketed his phone just as Lord Baverstock walked in. Tall and, like his wife, dressed casually, he sported a crumpled denim shirt and mustard-coloured cords over boat shoes with knotted laces. Old-fashioned glasses with heavy black frames magnified a questioning gaze. He ran a hand through damp hair: short and dark brown, with a little grey at the temples.

‘Inspector Ford, isn’t it? And you’ve brought a colleague. Excellent. Two heads better than one, eh?’

Ford and Hannah got up to greet him. Hannah advanced and deployed her signature shake.

‘I’m pleased to meet you, sir,’ she said.

‘Oh, please. Didn’t my wife tell you to call me Bumble?’

‘She did, yes.’

‘Well, then! Can’t have you both calling her Coco and me “sir” or “Your Lordship” or whatever, can we?’

Lord Baverstock took the armchair beside his wife’s and motioned for Ford and Hannah to sit.

Ford decided to press on with his reason for coming. ‘As I told your wife—’

‘Coco,’ she interrupted.

‘—Coco, a man was murdered, and then dismembered. He’s been formally identified as Tommy Bolter. The body parts were put down a badger sett on land farmed by Mark Ball. I believe he’s one of your tenants?’

‘That’s right. I should tell you, Inspector,’ Lord Baverstock said, ‘I did actually know Bolter.’

Ford maintained a bland expression. People like Tommy Bolter didn’t exactly move in the same social circles as Salisbury’s landed gentry.

‘How?’ he asked.

‘Our gamekeeper caught him poaching a couple of times,’ he said, wrinkling the bridge of his bulbous nose. ‘Nothing serious, just a couple of trout and a rabbit or two, but it’s the principle of the thing. He brought Bolter up to the house once to see me.’

‘What happened?’ Hannah asked.

‘I gave him a bloody good talking-to. He reminded me of some of the young lads under my command. Did Coco tell you I was in the army?’

Ford nodded. ‘Out of interest, what regiment?’

‘Grenadier Guards. Bit of a family tradition,’ he added with a smile.

‘Quite a long one, by the looks of it,’ Ford said, pointing at a painting on the wall. It depicted an extravagantly bewhiskered man in a bright scarlet jacket festooned with gold braid and brass buttons. A sabre gleamed at his hip.

Lord Baverstock glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to Ford. ‘That is my great-great-great-great-grandfather. They called him Butcher Baverstock. Pretty ferocious-looking fellow, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You were telling us about your conversation with Bolter?’

‘He put me in mind of some of the boys I took out to Afghanistan. Plucky as hell, but they hadn’t had all the advantages. Or if they had, they didn’t make use of them,’ he said.

‘Rough diamonds?’

Lord Baverstock nodded. ‘A bit wild, some of them. One always felt they’d have ended up in prison if one hadn’t got them first, d’you see?’

Ford did see. He’d met his fair share of