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

suite. The sergeant in charge of the Method of Entry team had been running through the equipment with a couple of trainees. Ford collected two items, and five minutes later was stowing them in the back of the Discovery.

It was 8.31 p.m. The sun had just set, and the Bolters’ hacienda was glowing in the last remains of the orange light.

Ford stopped the Discovery just in front of the gates. He retrieved the first item he’d borrowed from the training room: a hydraulic spreader. He inserted its jaws between two of the bars and started pumping the lever.

As if they were made of soft plastic, the steel bars bowed outwards until they hit their neighbours. As soon as he had a wide enough gap, Ford put the tool back in the Discovery.

He returned to the gate and squeezed through, gripping the second item from the training suite, a stubby object made of bright yellow plastic that sent twin red dots playing over the front of the hacienda.

He approached the front door and rang the bell. Stepping back, he waited. Breathing slowly. Rolling his shoulders.

Rye opened the door, holding a baseball bat by his side.

Ford squeezed the taser’s trigger. The two barbs shot out on their fine wires and embedded themselves in Rye’s hoodie. As it delivered the charge, Rye went down like a stunned animal, convulsing.

‘JJ Bolter,’ Ford roared. ‘Get out here now!’

Seconds later, JJ emerged into the wide hallway, face dark with fury. Ford saw with pleasure the way his expression changed as he clocked his brother, supine and unconscious on the floor.

‘What the fuck is this, Ford?’

‘Your brother followed and then threatened my son this afternoon,’ Ford said in a voice that was level but still quivering with rage. ‘If it happens again, or if I even think it’s happened again, I will come back and I will kill you both. I will make your bodies disappear like dust in the wind. And when I’ve finished misdirecting the investigation, nobody will ever find you. Nobody will connect anything to me. And you and your pathetic little criminal empire will be history.’

JJ held his hands out towards Ford. ‘Listen, I had no idea Rye was going to pull something like that, OK? I would’ve told him not to if he’d come to me first. You have to believe me.’

At that moment, Rye raised himself on his elbows. ‘Fuck just happened?’ he mumbled.

Ford squeezed the trigger again. He hadn’t taken his eyes off JJ the whole time. He heard Rye’s head hit the parquet flooring.

‘You’ll kill him!’ JJ shouted.

‘Not today. And not with this. It’s like I said. You leave my son alone and everything’s fine. You touch him or go near him, and yes, I will. Rye first. And then you.’ Ford gestured at Rye with the taser. ‘Take the barbs out of his clothing and hand them to me.’

JJ bent down by his brother and unhooked the little metal darts. He passed them to Ford, who backed up and out through the open front door.

‘Sam got him on video,’ he said from the porch. ‘My story is, I came to arrest him and the two of you attacked me. I tasered Rye and staged a tactical retreat. Complain if you want. At worst, I’ll get a rap on the knuckles. And you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.’

JJ nodded, looking up at Ford. ‘Don’t worry. We don’t make complaints. What about Tommy?’

‘I’m close. Goodbye, JJ. By the way, I fucked up your gate. I’m sorry.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ford reached home at 9.10 p.m. Sam had disappeared.

Ford called out, ‘Sam?’

‘In my room!’ came an answering yell.

Smiling, Ford went to the fridge and collected a bottle of beer. He took a long pull, and felt the alcohol ease the edges off the tension he’d felt since leaving to confront Rye and JJ.

Needing a change of scene, and a distraction, he headed upstairs to the room where he kept his guitar and amplifier.

Shit! He’d just crossed a line. A line wound round with crime scene tape and flashing blue lights. But JJ wouldn’t make a complaint, would he? It wasn’t his style. Ford had known that before JJ admitted it. This was a private matter between the two of them. Rye had acted without his older brother’s say-so. And Ford had shown his teeth. Honours even.

Pushing the thought aside, Ford focused on his playing, concentrating on getting the phrasing just right. And gradually, he lost himself in the blues music he’d loved since childhood, his focus shifting from the crimes of today to the heartbreaks, losses and betrayals of the past.

Thoughts of Tommy’s blackmail plot led him to an old Delta blues song: ‘I Seen Just What You Done’. He’d heard it once on a scratchy seventy-eight on a visit to his grandparents’ house. It had stayed with him ever since. On the brittle black disc of shellac, a male singer with a high-pitched, wailing voice had sung the same lines Ford sang now:

‘Oh, baby, I seen just what you done.

Yeah, baby, I seen just what you done.

I’m a witness to your crime

and I’m tellin’ you it’s time

for you to run.’

As the last line left his lips and the notes rang on the strings of his guitar, he let his hand drop away.

Time to return to the problem, which he now saw more clearly.

Assume one shooter.

The charge for Owen’s death would be either murder or manslaughter, depending on what evidence Ford and his team could produce. Even if it had been an accidental shooting, that would still make it involuntary manslaughter. The shooter had been at best grossly negligent and at worst dangerous or unlawful in getting the gun so close to Owen that an accidental discharge had killed him.

Fearing the consequences of going to the police, they’d panicked and dumped the body. Then Tommy turned up with his blackmail threat.

This time there was no heat-of-the-moment scuffle or panicked disposal of