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

he crunched across the gravel in front of Alverchalke Manor, straightening his tie and buttoning his suit jacket.

Directed to the stables, Ford found Lucy in a paved courtyard, brushing the gleaming ebony flanks of the big horse he’d seen her with before. What was its name? Woodstock. That was it.

Above chocolate-brown jodhpurs and gleaming black riding boots, she wore a sleeveless top. She glanced up as his own boots scuffed in a patch of grit.

‘Hello,’ Ford said.

She looked up, but didn’t stop grooming the stallion. ‘Were you just checking me out, Inspector?’

‘Just the horse,’ he said with a smile.

She grinned back at him. ‘Liar!’

‘I wanted to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?’

She pulled the stallion’s nose down to her face. ‘We don’t mind, do we, Woody?’ she asked, maintaining long steady strokes with the brush.

‘He’s a magnificent animal,’ Ford said, aiming to establish a rapport before hitting her with the big question.

‘Thank you. We have this special bond, don’t we?’ she said as she nuzzled the horse’s neck.

‘Do you ever ride out towards Pentridge Down?’

‘No. It’s too far from here.’

‘Ever go up there shooting?’

She looked back at the horse and resumed vigorously brushing its coat. ‘I’ve never been one for shooting, Inspector.’

He thought back to his chat with the gun club secretary. He could remember Jim’s words exactly. They’re not bad shots, either of them. Especially Lucy. She’s won a few competitions in her time, as well. Registered the lie.

‘Of course, I understand. Only, we’re looking for people who were out there on the day Owen Long was killed.’

She turned and flashed a crooked smile at him. ‘It weren’t me, guv!’

Time to move a step closer.

‘Tell me, did you ever see Tommy Bolter on the estate?’

‘Nope. But I know Joe had a couple of run-ins with him.’

And closer.

‘How would you describe your relationship?’

‘With Joe?’

‘With Tommy.’

The brush caught a tangle in the horse’s mane and made it whinny. She frowned. ‘Sorry, darling, Mummy wasn’t concentrating.’ She continued, though speaking to the horse, not Ford. ‘Well, he used to poach on our land, but I’d hardly call that a relationship.’

And close enough to smell a second lie . . .

‘You weren’t sleeping with him, then?’

She straightened and turned to face Ford.

‘What did you say?’ she demanded, hands on hips.

‘Were you in a sexual relationship with Tommy Bolter?’

‘My God, you’ve got a bloody nerve, haven’t you?’ she asked, raising her voice. ‘Do my parents know you’re here interrogating me like this?’ Her face flushed and her chest heaved.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Ford said.

She rubbed the back of her neck. ‘No, and I’m not bloody going to, either.’

‘You know, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ Ford said, committed to his line of questioning no matter what the blowback. ‘Not nowadays. I certainly wouldn’t judge you for sleeping with Bolter. I took a quick peek at his mugshots. Lovely curly hair!’ He offered her a leer as he spoke. Surely that would push one or two of her buttons?

Her cheeks were blazing as she glared at him. ‘Inspector, do I look like the sort of woman who’d shag a lowlife like Tommy?’

That was interesting. Under stress, she’d called him ‘Tommy’. Not ‘Bolter’. Had she just told him lie number two?

‘Honestly, I don’t know. What do those women look like?’

‘Well, not like me, for a start,’ she said, her breath still shallow and catching in her throat as she spoke. She spread her arms wide. ‘I mean, he had a tattoo of a porn model, for God’s sake!’

Ford took a couple of steps back. ‘Sorry. My mistake. I’ll let you get on with your grooming.’

He turned and walked back to the Discovery. Smiling. Yes. She had delivered a second lie. Because Tommy did have a tattoo of a nude woman. But on his chest. And the Journal had refused to publish it on grounds of taste. Only someone who’d seen him with his shirt off would have known about it. And Ford hardly thought Lucy had found him sunbathing on Alverchalke land.

What if Tommy had seen Lucy shoot Owen? Tommy tried to blackmail her – a person he definitely ‘knew’ – and she told her father, who then murdered Tommy? It worked. Better than that, it felt right. JJ and Rye were ready to kill to avenge the murder of their baby brother. Ford could quite imagine Lord Baverstock – a man who had willingly flown his first wife to her own death – doing the same to keep his daughter out of trouble.

He checked himself. Because if Tommy was a regular poacher on the Alverchalke estate, there was every chance he ‘knew’ Stephen, too. Who, as Ford had seen for himself, was a good enough marksman to bring down a deer with a clean shot through the heart.

He started the engine. ‘Well, it was one of you,’ he said to the empty cabin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Ford parked the Discovery and walked towards the station. JJ emerged from between two parked cars and strode across the tarmac towards him. Ford looked him in the eye. Had he been waiting? Patiently staking out the car park until Ford’s blue Discovery reappeared? He wouldn’t put it past him.

‘What do you want, JJ?’

‘Just came to tell you something. You better get a move on, because we’re getting close to knowing who killed Tommy.’

‘Really? Because we’ve arrested a suspect. So you can lay off the threats.’

‘But it’s not Joe Hibberd, is it, Ford? We both know that.’

Ford didn’t want to think how JJ knew so much about the case. ‘Do we?’

JJ smiled. An expression utterly devoid of good humour. ‘Yeah, we do. And if we find the real killer before you do, they’re going to regret the day they ever saw my little brother.’

Ford took a step closer to JJ. Squared his shoulders. They were about the same height, and though JJ was broader, Ford had bested him physically once already, outside The White Lion. Not to mention the standoff at the hacienda with Rye out