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

‘I don’t know. But,’ Ford added, as murmurs of the same basic flavour as Olly’s assertion broke out, ‘either way, I’m launching a murder enquiry. We found hardly any blood at the scene, so I’m thinking the killer did it somewhere else and took the pieces there in an off-roader of some kind.’

‘You want me to, er, head off and check all local 4x4 owners, guv?’ Mick asked, his face a mask of innocent enquiry.

Ford ignored the provocation. Caught Jools’s eye. ‘Please.’

Mick nodded. ‘Sure. I don’t mind noggin on a few doors.’

A couple of people sniggered. Ford didn’t like it. Black humour was one thing, but he’d just dragged a decapitated head out of the ground by its jaw.

‘OK, that’s enough!’ he snapped. ‘Save it. Love him or loathe him, Tommy Bolter’s been murdered and chopped into bits. The clock’s already ticking, so let’s focus on finding whoever killed him, yes?’

The murmur of agreement pacified him a little. But he was still dreading his impending visit to the Bolter place.

‘I was thinking, guv—’ Mick said.

‘Makes a change,’ Jools interrupted.

Ford shot his bagwoman a grateful glance.

Mick pointed at the photos of the body parts. ‘Whoever did that knew what they were doing.’ He looked around for support. A few heads dipped in agreement. ‘Not necessarily at the medical level, but maybe a butcher or a slaughterman? Somebody who knows how to cut joints cleanly, anyway.’

Ford nodded. People could say what they liked about Mick, and plenty did, but his copper’s instincts were honed by years of dogged police work. And he knew all the local villains – ‘nominals’, in the parlance. Hell, he’d been at school with half of them. Including, as he often boasted, JJ and Rye Bolter.

‘Start putting a list together of all the butchers and abattoir workers round about. Say within a five-mile radius of Salisbury.’

‘Butchers aren’t the only people who know how to cut up bodies,’ Jools said. ‘What about surgeons? Pathologists, even?’

‘You think Doc Eustace has been moonlighting?’ Mick asked with a grin.

‘Ha ha. But I’m right, aren’t I, guv?’ Jools said.

‘It could be a medical professional, but it could just as easily be a painter and decorator. In my experience, I’d say all you really need is a sharp tool and sufficient willpower,’ Ford said. ‘We’ll keep it under consideration, but this isn’t screaming surgeon at me.’

‘Search, guv?’

Ford turned to face DS Jan Derwent. As his qualified POLSA – police search advisor – she was unbeatable. She’d find a needle used as a murder weapon in a field full of haystacks.

‘As soon as possible. I’ll see how many uniforms I can scare up to join the team.’

‘You want me to do the death knock, guv?’ Jools asked.

He shook his head. No way was he sending a DC, even an ex-military cop like Jools, to deliver the worst possible news to men like JJ and Rye Bolter.

‘Thanks, but it’s got to be me.’

Ford ended the meeting with a request to be kept informed of every new development as it happened.

Before he left to see the surviving Bolter brothers, he went to have a wash. The Noddy suit had done its job of protecting him from the filth down the sett, but still he felt the stink of death on his skin. Drying his hands, he thought back to the day the older two Bolters had emerged from the Crown Court free men.

From arrest to acquittal had taken three months. JJ had sauntered over to him, smirking. He’d leaned in close and muttered in Ford’s ear, well below the volume anyone else would catch. ‘You’re lucky you only got your nose rubbed in it by our brief, Ford,’ he’d said. ‘The last cop to cross me walks with a stick now.’

Ford returned to his office and pulled the blinds. He called Pete.

‘How are you getting on with Tommy?’

Pete sniffed. ‘I’ve patched his face up, but the rest’s going to take me a while given what they did to the body. Can you hold off for a couple more hours?’

Ford checked his watch. ‘Yeah, I can manage that. How’s he looking?’

‘Pretty rough, to be honest. It was a bit of a rush job. Best I could do in the time, but it should be fine through the window. I was just sticking the photos in the family folder when you called.’

‘Thanks, mate. I’ll see you in a bit.’

Ford filled in the time he’d promised Pete updating the murder book and reading all the initial reports. When it was time to go, he changed into the spare black suit he kept in his office. If only they made body armour that would fit underneath it.

CHAPTER SIX

Ford turned off the Coombe Road on to Old Shaston Drove. The road predated the modern city of Salisbury by a few hundred years. In Saxon times, herders had driven their beasts from pasture to market along the simple rutted track. Over the centuries, it had grown and widened, eventually acquiring a patchy coat of tarmac. It ran in a sinuous curve from deep in the Wiltshire countryside towards the city centre, with its market and famous cathedral.

As he drove away from the city, the quiet country lane assumed a grittier character that would have nervous hikers turning back. Negotiating the increasingly challenging surface, dodging potholes, lumps of scrap metal and fly-tipped garbage, Ford swore, cursing the attitudes of people who’d take so little care of their own road.

The satnav directed him to turn right into a caravan park, and announced that he’d reached his destination. He looked around at the rundown static vans and rusted-out cars. Surely the Bolters didn’t live here? He’d spoken to a DS in General CID and formed the impression they were doing well for themselves, albeit on the proceeds of crime. He’d never had cause to visit them at home, but the DS had told him, with a wry smile, that they lived ‘on the park’.

He pulled up on