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

Several generations of the Bolter family had turned up, from white-haired grandparents to babies being bounced on laps. He could see the backs of the two surviving brothers in the front row. Tight shirt collars cinched their bull necks, tanned flesh bulging over crisp white cotton. JJ turned in his chair to survey the room. His eyes locked on to Ford’s. His lips moved. Tick. Tock.

Ford held his gaze until JJ looked away. It was a minor victory, but Ford felt it all the same. If JJ was looking for answers today, though, Ford knew he was going to be disappointed.

A steady murmur of strong Salisbury accents died away as the coroner and his staff entered the courtroom. A portly figure in an old-fashioned three-piece suit complete with gold watch chain slung across his belly, he looked as much of an anachronism as the room he now dominated.

He smiled. He sat. The courtroom stilled.

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ he said in a soft, cultured voice. ‘My name is Raymond Beaven. I am the coroner. I hereby open this inquest. It is my job to ascertain three important things, and three things only.’

He gazed around the room, as if daring somebody to ask what this holy trinity might be. There were no takers. A baby started crying. JJ turned to the young woman on whose lap it writhed. Eyes downcast, she rose from her seat and hurried out. Silence reigned once more.

Beaven cleared his throat. ‘It is my job to determine the identity of the deceased, the circumstances of their death, and the manner of their death. Thanks to the efforts of the police’ – he glanced at Ford and offered the most minuscule of nods – ‘the identity of the deceased is already known. Thomas William Bolter.’

A sob echoed through the courtroom and was just as suddenly choked off.

‘The forensic pathologist has completed her post-mortem examination and has concluded that Mr Bolter was killed by a single gunshot wound. She concludes, and I agree, that the manner of his death was homicide,’ he pronounced. ‘At this point, no other definitive answers are available. As is usual in such cases, I hereby adjourn the inquest until such time as the police investigation is complete and a verdict is brought in the Crown Court. Thank you.’

Beaven rose and left through a side door, followed by his assistant and the court stenographer. The hubbub that Beaven had silenced with his arrival arose at twice its previous volume.

Ford knew the cause of the raised voices and complaining tones. Inquests were daunting affairs. Attendees would armour themselves in their best suits and dresses. They’d reinforce their already fragile nerves with nips from hip flasks or pints in the pub round the corner. They entered the court expecting answers there and then.

Witnesses would be called. Police officers would deliver their findings. And, at the end, the coroner would announce his verdict and give everybody a measure of closure.

To find themselves at a loose end after little more than two minutes was a bewildering experience.

Ford followed them out on to Endless Street, where they congregated in a ragged knot that spilled off the pavement and into the road. He hung back, not wanting to intrude. He also wanted to observe. It was never too early to start looking at the family in a murder case.

JJ and Rye Bolter were holding their own kind of court at the centre of the group. Ford couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he could guess.

When a family like the Bolters lost one of their own, especially in the flower of youth, the word would go out that they wanted justice. He doubted they were even waiting for their own deadline before asking questions. That was to put pressure on him alone.

He crossed the road to a grand Georgian house with a recessed front door. The bright sun threw deep shade beneath the scalloped portico and he was in virtual darkness. Ideal cover from which to see the comings and goings.

Then he spotted someone on the edge of the group who he’d never in a million years have thought to see at the inquest into Tommy Bolter’s death. Joe Hibberd.

Like the other people milling around at the top of Endless Street, Hibberd wore a dark suit. He kept plucking at the fabric under his arms and across his shoulders. He couldn’t keep his hands still, first shoving them into the trouser pockets, then pulling them free and adjusting the waistband. His face was red and his slicked-down hair glistened with either water, like Ford’s, or a great deal of gel.

But it was the young woman seemingly glued to his side who interested Ford. Hibberd was in his late thirties. His companion couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Realising he’d been taken in by her sophisticated hairdo and elaborate make-up, including heavily kohled eyes, he revised his estimate down by a couple of years.

Nothing wrong with that sort of age gap, Ford reminded himself. But they made a decidedly odd couple. Whereas Hibberd’s body language gave him away – as a countryman stuffed into a suit he probably only wore once a year – she appeared an entirely urban creature.

Her dress, though modest, managed to suggest a great deal of her figure, which was slender and athletic. Though she was shorter than Hibberd by a head, a pair of staggeringly high heels elevated her closer to his level. She linked her arm through his and leaned closer to say something into his ear. He nodded, and they turned to leave the group.

A shout killed the noise outside the court as effectively as the coroner’s quieter welcome had inside.

‘Hey! Who are you? And what are you doing with Tommy’s girlfriend? He’s not even in his coffin, you bastard!’

JJ steamed through the crowd, a suited-and-booted Moses parting a black sea. Hibberd turned and manoeuvred his companion to one side, out of harm’s way.

Ford tensed. He didn’t