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

Ruth nodded. ‘He took a manual one with him, but we share an electric one at home. Owen’s was the blue head, by the way.’

‘Thank you. Tell me, did Owen have a study at home? Or a spare room he used as a home office?’

‘Upstairs. The back bedroom.’

‘Did he have a computer?’

‘A rather flashy one.’ Her mouth formed the ghost of a smile. ‘He called it the Gaia Engine. He mostly used it for his vlog.’

‘Did he use a password, do you know?’

She nodded, sniffing. ‘He made me copy it to my phone. Hold on.’ She tapped and swiped for a few seconds, then held the phone up to him.

Ford pulled a biro from his jacket pocket and copied out the password: Gaia_Needs_Owen!

‘Thank you. I’d like to look at his vlog. What did he call it?’

‘The Circle of the Earth. It’s a quote from Isaiah – Owen loved it. It was his favourite book of the Bible,’ she said. ‘He said it combined beautiful prose with eternal truths about our relationship with the planet God created.’

Ford made a note. ‘I know this is painful for you, but can you think of anyone who might’ve wished Owen harm?’

Her eyes flashed defiantly. ‘Yes! Plenty of people. Every one of the greedy sods whose development plans he opposed. You could start with them.’

‘How many people are we talking about?’

‘I don’t know – hundreds? Owen was very active in the movement.’

‘Did he receive threats from any of them? Visits from thugs trying to warn him off? Anything like that?’

She shook her head. ‘No, nothing.’

Ford left Ruth in the company of a young female PC and caught up with Jan in the car park. ‘Thanks, Jan. I knew she’d take to you.’

‘What do you want me to do while I’m there?’

‘I want you to get into his computer. I’ll text you the password. Look through his emails, see if there are any threatening ones.’

‘Or I could bring it back?’

‘Yes. She gave me permission to do whatever it takes. He sounds like he got bitten badly by the eco-bug. It’s like Mick said. Sometimes those folk rub people up the wrong way.’

Yes, and it’s a long list of people. Farmers, shooters, hunters, bankers, oil company CEOs, politicians – even ordinary people just trying to catch the Tube to their workplaces.

If Owen Long had got in somebody’s face, would that have been enough of a motive for murder?

He tried to imagine a pissed-off corporate type shooting a retired vicar then dumping the body in a pond in the middle of farmland outside Salisbury. Couldn’t see it. No, this crime belonged to its location, and there would be a local culprit. That’s where he would focus the team’s energies and limited resources.

The lines of enquiry were converging, turning two cases into one. Ford could see a glimmer of hope he might be able to arrest the culprit before Tommy Bolter’s wake. That was if the leaker inside Bourne Hill didn’t queer his pitch by alerting JJ, who’d made it plain his preferred method of justice had nothing to do with due process.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On Monday morning, Jools retrieved Adlam’s guns from the armoury and took them to Hannah, who looked up and smiled as she saw Jools approaching her desk.

‘Hi, Jools. Did you have a good weekend?’ Hannah asked.

‘Not bad. I spent all of yesterday redecorating my spare room. You?’

‘I was doing research.’

Jools waited for more, but Hannah didn’t elaborate.

‘Cute,’ Jools said, pointing at a plastic giraffe at the end of a line of zoo animals arranged in order of height along the base of Hannah’s workstation. ‘Is he new?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Did you know, a male giraffe can grow to be eighteen feet tall and weigh up to one and a half tons?’

‘I did not.’ Jools hefted Adlam’s guns. ‘Did you know I have here two rifles, in .22 and .308 calibre?’

Hannah grinned. ‘I did not. Whose are they?’

Jools laid the cases on Hannah’s desk. ‘Tom Adlam’s. The guy who found Owen’s body.’

‘This is excellent. You realise you could have found both murder weapons?’

Jools widened her eyes. ‘My God, Wix. I never thought of that!’

Hannah’s eyebrows drew together. ‘You should have, because—’ She stopped. Smacked herself on the forehead. ‘You were being ironic, right?’

‘Right. Sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. It’s good training for me. And you’re kinder about it than Mick.’

‘He’s such a dick, isn’t he?’

‘I couldn’t say for sure. But he does exhibit a number of biases that could impede his ability to be impartial and rational as a detective.’

‘Like I said. A dick.’

‘I need to get these to the ballistics lab in Trowbridge,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t suppose you could come, too?’

‘Sorry, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to do.’

Jools saw Hannah’s expectant face drop into a frown. ‘No, of course. Sorry, I just thought it would be nice to drive over to HQ together.’

‘You know what? Yes. Let me grab some reports. If you can drive, I’ll read on the way there. Who knows, if we meet some brass we can impress them with our commitment to collaborative teamwork, proactive investigative strategies, and best practice in cross-disciplinary learning.’

‘I think you swallowed the latest guidelines from the College of Policing.’

Ballistics tests normally took anywhere from two weeks to a month, so Jools was surprised when Hannah said she’d arranged for the test to be done while they waited.

‘One of the technicians owes me a favour,’ she said, when Jools asked how she’d managed it.

They arrived back four hours later with a sheaf of colour photographs of the rounds test-fired from Adlam’s rifles. Hi-res digital images were waiting on a secure shared server for Hannah to download.

Jools dragged a chair over to Hannah’s desk and watched as she aligned the pairs of images. She sighed. Neither pair matched. Tom Adlam was off the hook.

‘Sorry you had a wasted morning, Wix,’ she said, feeling the weight of the four lost hours heavy on her shoulders.

Hannah turned to her, her face serious.