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

password. As it was Hannah, he didn’t. He knew better. She’d have gone through everything, methodically, obsessively – until the small hours, probably.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Ford had photographic evidence that placed Tommy and Owen within feet of each other when Owen was killed. He had a pool of potential suspects, topped by Joe Hibberd, hot on whose boot-shod heels galloped Lucy, Philip and Stephen Martival.

He also had the nagging threat posed by JJ Bolter. The deadline had passed, and he was nowhere near making an arrest.

What would give Ford reasonable grounds to arrest Hibberd for Tommy’s murder? Or Owen’s, come to that? The photo was good, but still just strong circumstantial evidence. He’d no doubt the sort of barrister Lord Baverstock would line up to defend his gamekeeper would scoff at it.

What he really wanted was a bullet from the gun Joe Hibberd had been shooting when he went out to the rearing field to interview him. No wonder the man had reacted so violently when Ford had gone to retrieve the rabbit he’d just shot. He knew it would link him to the murder.

If only he’d insisted. Then he’d have a bullet Hannah could compare to the one George had dug out of Owen’s skull. He could go back now, but he had a feeling Lord Baverstock would send him packing. Unless he had a warrant. Which he felt sure Sandy would block. For now.

He needed another approach. Something creative.

And then he gasped and laughed out loud. ‘Idiot!’

He wanted a bullet from Joe Hibberd’s gun. He’d had one all along. In his own freezer. ‘Stodgy’ Stephen had given him a rabbit as they were leaving Alverchalke Manor. What had he said? The self-assured young nobleman’s words floated back to him. Joe bagged them this morning with a .22.

Ten minutes later he climbed out of the Discovery, ran round to the garage and let himself in at the side door. Gleaming in the blue-white light of the fluorescent tubes sat a silver E-Type Jaguar. IOPC investigators might see such a vehicle and wonder, ‘Where does someone on an inspector’s salary get the funds to buy a car worth the thick end of a hundred grand?’

On asking DI Ford, they would be respectfully directed to a photograph in said officer’s wedding album. Father of the bride posing beside groom, both grinning into the camera with the E-type in the background. Successful bankers did that kind of thing for their newly married offspring. They’d named it – well, Lou had allowed Ford to name it – Izabella, the name Jimi Hendrix had given one of his guitars.

Ford skirted the car and yanked up the lid of the freezer. He pulled out the carrier bag containing the rabbit he’d dumped there eight days earlier.

In the kitchen, he put the rabbit on a chopping board. The fur was stiff to the touch, rimed with frost. He probed the left-hand side, finding the tiny bullet hole with the tip of his finger. Somewhere inside the insignificant, freezing carcass was a bullet that might be enough to arrest Joe Hibberd.

He considered taking it back to the garage and having a go at dissecting it with a jigsaw. Then he dismissed the idea. He could afford to wait for it to defrost. Should he do it himself, even then? Or would he damage the bullet with an ill-judged cut? He had a better idea, and called George.

George had been amused at Ford’s request that she perform an autopsy on a rabbit. Once he’d persuaded her it wasn’t a joke, she’d agreed readily. ‘A bit different to my normal work. It could be fun,’ she’d said.

She was waiting for him in the dissection room, gowned and masked, her instruments resting on a wheeled tray.

‘Thanks for doing this, George. It’s going to break the case.’

‘Let’s hope so, eh?’ She pointed at the bag swinging by his side. ‘Is that the deceased?’

Ford laid the defrosted rabbit on the dissection table.

George peered at the bullet hole. She rolled the soft little body over.

‘No exit wound. Right, let’s see what we can find, shall we?’

She took a pair of long thin forceps from the tray and gently inserted them into the entry wound. Ford found he was holding his breath, and let it out in a controlled sigh.

After a few more seconds, George nodded. ‘Got it,’ she said.

In a slow, deliberate movement, she withdrew the forceps. Gripped in their serrated tips was a small, dark grey bullet. She dropped it into a stainless-steel kidney bowl with a tinny clink.

‘Looks like a .22. I’ll just clean that up for you,’ she said.

Having run it under a tap for a few seconds, she handed Ford the bullet. He held it up to the light. The tip had deformed on impact, but not by much. The real result for him was the shaft, which was intact. He dropped it into an evidence bag, thanked George, who reminded him of his offer of a drink, and was on his way to Bourne Hill five minutes later.

Once there, he took the stairs up to the third floor and ran down the corridor to Forensics to see Hannah.

He gave her the bagged bullet. ‘Can you photograph this for me and run it against the .22 from Owen Long? It’s urgent.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, of course. Where’d it come from?’

‘The rabbit Stephen Martival gave me.’

Hannah nodded. ‘Give me an hour.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

While he waited for Hannah to report back on the bullet from Joe Hibberd’s .22, Ford went to see what Olly was up to.

The DC swivelled round in his chair. ‘Guv, you should see this.’

‘What is it?’

Olly pointed at the screen. ‘Lord Baverstock’s service record. He was a major in the Grenadier Guards. He served in Afghanistan and got the Military Cross for exemplary gallantry.’

‘Brave man.’

‘Yeah, but look, guv. The details are totally relevant to our case.’

Ford dragged over a chair and sat to read the narrative entry.

In an action