Shallow Ground (Detective Ford)

by Andy Maslen

  ‘We have a great deal of evidence. As I’ve already said. Blood transfusion paraphernalia in his bedroom. During our search we also found a chart listing his victims, alongside the numbers he daubed on their walls.’

  ‘My client has instructed me to say that the medical items were simply research tools he kept at home. The rest proves nothing. I could drive my Bentley through the holes in your case.’

  Ford ignored the solicitor – yes, there were holes, and a halfway-decent defence barrister could make hay with them, but they were closing fast, and the DNA results would seal them for ever. In the meantime, he wanted a confession. He stared into Abbott’s eyes. Felt his stomach churn. It was like staring into the depths of a well. He saw no humanity there, just his own reflection.

  ‘Worthless. It’s a horrible thing to call your own son, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I never call Gawain that.’

  Ford changed tack – all part of the interview strategy. ‘We did a little digging into your background, Charles. When you were six, you were admitted to A&E at SDH with a fractured wrist,’ he said, tapping the folder that contained Abbott’s medical notes.

  ‘The doctor you spoke to breached the General Medical Council’s code of patient confidentiality,’ Rowbotham interjected. ‘Anything you gained will be inadmissible in court.’

  ‘No, Mr Rowbotham. I’m afraid you’re wrong in law,’ Ford said, enjoying seeing the lawyer’s face redden. ‘We requested voluntary disclosure of Charles’s health records under Section 29 of the Data Protection Act 1998, citing an overriding public interest.’ He turned back to Abbott. ‘Your mother claimed you’d fallen out of a tree, but the doctor who set it added a note saying, and I quote, “bruising consistent with twisting”. Who did that, Charles? Your dad? Did he beat you?’

  Abbott shook his head, a languid movement as if easing off a tense muscle. ‘He did not.’

  ‘I also found a complaint made to the police by one of your neighbours in 1981. She heard your father yelling at you in the back garden, thought he might be beating you. She made a note of the words.’ Ford shook his head. ‘Terrible stuff to say to a little kid.’

  ‘If it was the old biddy with the cats, I’d take her complaint with a large mouthful of salt,’ Abbott said. ‘She was probably on antidepressants. They can make you say all sorts of funny things.’

  ‘You can’t remember him calling you worthless, Charles? Over and over and over again, how stupid and worthless you were? Is that what drove you to kill?’

  ‘You should give up policework and move to Hollywood,’ Abbott said. ‘You’d make a fortune with ideas like that.’

  ‘Did your mother think you were worthless, Charles?’

  ‘Not at all. She said I should always remember I was a special person.’

  ‘But not your father?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Simple question. Does your father think you’re worth something?’

  Abbott brushed the backs of his fingers under his eye. ‘Yes. He would never say anything else. He has never said I was not worth something.’

  ‘No? He’s never called you, I don’t know, a worthless little shit? No good for anything? A useless waste of sp—’

  ‘You’re badgering my client, Inspector,’ Rowbotham interrupted, frowning.

  But Ford wasn’t paying attention to the lawyer. He was looking at Abbott. Glaring at him.

  ‘My son’s fifteen,’ Ford said, switching to a conversational tone of voice. ‘In that respect, we’re similar, you and me. I love him so much. And I always tell him that. Whenever I can. He’s worth the world to me. I can’t imagine the effect on him if I yelled at him the way your dad yelled at you. Can you, Charles? You know, “I can’t believe you share my blood. You’re worthless. Useless. A worthless piece of shit who should never have been born.”’

  ‘Detective Inspector!’ Rowbotham roared.

  ‘Did your dad ever give you a hug, Charles?’ Ford asked in a quiet voice.

  Abbott said nothing. Ford knew he had to keep going. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence, plenty more than he needed to hold Abbott. But he wanted something that would send him away for life. A confession was a prize worth chasing.

  ‘Amusing as this little piece of play-acting is,’ Abbot said finally, ‘I feel we’ve reached the end of the road. You have nothing but some rather’ – he stretched out the pause to several seconds – ‘baroque ideas about my childhood that sound like they’ve come from a correspondence course in pop psychology. I want to go home.’

  ‘One more question, Charles,’ Ford said. ‘Why won’t you give me your phone password?’

  ‘You applied for an order to compel me to give it to you, did you not?’

  ‘We did. But if you’ve nothing to hide, why not help us out?’ Ford brought out a sealed evidence bag. ‘For the tape, I am showing the suspect evidence item JL/SHORELINE/EF9114/76/3. A Samsung smartphone the suspect was carrying when arrested. Can you confirm this is your phone, Charles?’

  Abbott leaned forward and peered at the phone through the evidence bag. ‘It is, yes.’

  ‘What’s the password?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t remember. It must be the shock of being wrongfully arrested.’

  Ford heard Hannah clear her throat, and turned to her as she spoke.

  ‘You have a personalised number plate,’ she said to Abbott. Her face was impassive.

  ‘How very observant of you,’ Abbott said with a smile. ‘I said you were a clever girl. Didn’t I, Jacob?’

  The lawyer smiled, nodded.

  ‘I do, too,’ Hannah continued. ‘Mine’s SC13NCE. Science.’

  Ford looked back at Abbott, content to let Hannah work whatever FBI-level voodoo she had in mind.

  ‘How very original.’

  ‘Yours is A88OTT. Abbott.’

  Abbott ignored Hannah and focused his gaze on Ford. A small muscle had started to twitch beneath his right eye. ‘Are all your colleagues as brilliant as this one? Or is she’ – he paused, looking straight at Hannah – ‘an aberration?’

  ‘They’re the same, aren’t they, our plates?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Are they?’ The muscle was firing twice a second. ‘I don’t see it.’

  ‘Mine is the thing I worship. Science. Yours is, too. You’re a vain man,’ she said. ‘Clever, competent, superficially charming, yes. But also egotistical and arrogant. There’s only one human being who matters in your world, isn’t there? Yourself.’

  ‘Bravo!’ Abbott said, clapping lightly, three times. ‘Did you complete the same mail-order psychology course as the inspector?’

  ‘I think we’re done here,’ Rowbotham said, rising. ‘I demand you let my client go.’

  Ford recognised the lawyer’s action for the desperation it was. He looked him in the eye. And what he saw there gave him renewed optimism. Rowbotham knew Abbott was headed for a cell.

  ‘I think we’re almost done,’ Ford said. ‘Please, Mr Rowbotham, stay in your seat, just for a few more minutes. Go on, Hannah.’

  She picked up the evidence bag and peeled away the red tape. She slid the Samsung into her palm. Ford noted with satisfaction that Abbott’s eyes were glued to his phone. He was breathing more heavily, though he was doing a decent job of hiding it. And the eye muscle was flickering like an insect hatching beneath the surface.

  Hannah prodded the locked screen into life. She looked at Abbott. ‘It’s asking for the password.’

  ‘As I said, I can’t remember.’ Flicker, flicker, flicker.

  ‘Don’t worry. I think I can work it out.’

  Hannah tapped the screen, speaking aloud as she did so. ‘A, 8, 8.’ She looked across at Abbott – flicker, flicker, flickflickflickflick. ‘O, T, T.’ Hannah placed the unlocked phone in Ford’s hand. ‘Try Photos,’ she said.

  The four most recent images he found in the folder would, Ford knew, put Abbott away for life. In each of them, Abbott grinned into the camera beside a huge, bloody nu
mber. In the first, the body of Angie Halpern cradling her dead son could be seen at the foot of the frame, surrounded by her own blood.

  He turned the screen towards Abbott. Then angled it towards the lawyer, whose face paled.

  ‘Now we’re done,’ Ford said. ‘Anything to say, Charles?’

  Abbott didn’t speak. Ford counted. Reached twenty-one.

  Finally, Abbott smiled. It was a sly expression, delivered with lowered eyes that stared at Ford from beneath those long, thick brown lashes. He broke the silence in the room.

  ‘You asked me if I could imagine what it’s like to be told you’re worthless,’ Abbott said.

  ‘Charles, please,’ Rowbotham hissed, still pale.

  ‘Be quiet, please, Jacob. I’ll need you later, but not right now, thank you.’

  ‘Charles, is there something you want to tell me?’ Ford asked.

  DAY TWENTY-TWO, 4.02 P.M.

  Abbott leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. The sleeves of his grey sweatshirt rode up to reveal the scratches on the insides of his wrists.

  ‘I’m rather afraid you’ve discovered my secret,’ he said. ‘The kid was incidental to my plan. Call it collateral damage. But the rest? Sure. I killed them.’

  ‘You’re admitting to the murders of Angie and Kai Halpern, Paul Eadon, Marcus Anderson and Aimee Cragg, and to the attempted murder of Lisa Moore?’

  ‘I think I just said that, didn’t I?’

  ‘Why, Charles? Why them?’

  Abbott sighed. ‘He used to beat me. I suspect he also beat my mother, but she always denied it. Once, he drew blood and made me lick it up. I can still taste it.’

  ‘Your father,’ Ford said.

  ‘My father. Nicholas Ralph Augustus Abbott. Stalwart of the rugby club, the local Conservative association, the Masons, and a sadistic bully who made my childhood hell.’

  ‘He called you worthless? That’s what set you off on a killing spree?’

  ‘Oh, the trigger, you mean?’ Abbott rolled his eyes. ‘I think I’ve always been – what shall we say, predisposed? – to a lack of empathy. Maybe even possessing certain not entirely attractive traits as far as harming small animals goes,’ he said, with a small frown. ‘But there was always a chance I might have continued in my more or less blameless life, rising through the ranks of my chosen profession. If not for one thing.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘My mother died. It was this May, not last. We were always close. She worried about me. My father couldn’t stand it. He thought she’d turned me into a homosexual, though his preferred epithet was “poofter”. Very retro.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘The official cause of death was suicide. She washed thirty sleeping pills down with a bottle of vodka. But I know what really killed her. He drove her to it. He said it was a lifetime’s grief for birthing me that did it. “You killed your brother in your mother’s barren womb, and now you’ve killed her, too, you worthless little shit!”,’ Abbott growled. ‘But it wasn’t. It was him. He controlled every aspect of her life.’

  ‘What did he mean? How did you kill your unborn brother?’

  ‘They wanted children for ages but they couldn’t conceive. Nick sprang for IVF. Three cycles it took and, finally, when my mother was forty-three, it worked. Twins. It’s surprisingly common, did you know that? Roughly forty-six per cent of IVF conceptions are multiples, mostly twins.’

  ‘I had heard, yes.’

  ‘Well, the pregnancy was fine until, one day, Mother went for a scan and they gave her the old “We have some sad news, Mrs Abbott” speech.’

  Ford felt he knew what was coming. Kept quiet while Abbott was happy to talk.

  ‘One of the babies had died in the womb. In utero, as one might say. A boy. I came out alive and kicking three months later. My brother didn’t kick so much.’

  ‘That must have been hard for her,’ Ford said.

  Abbott shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. Other people’s emotions aren’t my strong point, as you may have noticed. Anyway, from that day on, dear old Nick had it in for me.’

  ‘Why? It was sad, obviously, but he had a son, didn’t he? Someone he could love?’

  Abbott ran a hand over his hair. ‘You’d think, wouldn’t you? But it turned out I was the wrong kind of son. Useless at kicking a ball, or catching it. More interested in solo nature rambles than joining his bloody rugby club. He despised me. And he made sure I knew it.’

  ‘So you decided to kill six people and transfuse their blood into yourself. What, to wash his out of you?’

  ‘Give the man a big round of applause, folks!’ Abbott said in a cod-American accent, before resuming in his own voice. ‘In one. He said he couldn’t believe his blood ran in my veins. Well, now it doesn’t.’

  ‘Why kill for it? You’re a haematologist. Surely you could just have stolen it from the hospital?’

  Abbott snorted. ‘That’s where I told Lucinda it came from. She believed me, as well.’

  ‘She did the transfusions, didn’t she?’

  ‘I told her it was a sex thing. She’s very’ – he paused – ‘accommodating in that area.’

  ‘So why not steal them?’

  ‘For one thing, the security and tracking at the blood bank are state of the art. Every single bag has an RFID chip on it. You know what one of those is?’

  ‘Some sort of radio signal device?’

  ‘I won’t bore you with the technical details, but, yes, broadly speaking.’

  ‘And for another thing?’

  Abbott grinned. ‘It wouldn’t be as much fun, would it?’

  Ford took a moment before carrying on. Until this moment he had never heard another human being admit he killed people because it was fun. He’d read about them. About their incapacity to feel empathy, remorse, or any normal human emotion beyond the most basic. And now he was talking to one of these creatures. He composed himself before answering.

  ‘Why the numbers, Charles?’

  Abbott smiled. ‘Being an accountant at the time, he was rather obsessed by numbers. Before he dies, I want him to know how completely and utterly wrong he was about me.’

  ‘How will he know?’

  ‘He’s enjoying a little slideshow I put together using those photos,’ Abbott said, gesturing at the phone.

  Ford felt anxiety bloom. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Safe and sound. Don’t worry about him.’

  Ford made a mental note to come back to Nick Abbott, who he felt was anything but safe, and very far from sound.

  ‘Tell me about the trophies.’

  ‘Oh, that. I wanted to distract you. Too obvious?’

  ‘Not at all. Given that when we find them, they’ll help convict you, I’m glad you took them.’

  Abbott frowned. ‘Ah,’ he said, with a note of finality. ‘On that subject, I’m afraid they’re gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ But we still have you on tape admitting to taking them.

  ‘Yes. I burned them last night.’

  ‘Where, Charles? Where did you burn them?’

  ‘Revelstoke Hall. In the incinerator. I had to, you see. A cleaner discovered them in my office. I forgot to lock my cupboard door. Silly, really. Stress, I suppose,’ he said, looking pained. ‘It wasn’t her fault. But I couldn’t risk her blurting it out to one of her friends or posting something on social media.’

  Ford felt a fresh wave of nausea wash over him. ‘What did you do to her, Charles?’

  Abbott frowned. ‘I killed her, of course! Took me ages to clean up after myself. If you’re quick, I suppose you might find some bones in the incinerator,’ he said. ‘The soft tissue’s all flying about up there somewhere,’ he finished, looking up at the low ceiling.

  Ford made a note: Contact RHH, suspend use of incinerator. Check for bones. Missing cleaner?

  Forcing himself to remain calm, when what he felt like doing was launching himself across the table and punching the smug expression off Abbott’s face, For
d resumed his predetermined line of questioning. ‘The trophies were for our benefit, I understand that. Very clever of you, Charles. But it was always about the blood, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘You were transfusing your father’s blood out and your victims’ blood in. That’s right, isn’t it? You wanted to rid yourself of him.’

  ‘In one.’

  ‘Why did you pick people with A-positive blood? Why not use O-negative – the universal donor?’

  Abbott smiled. ‘Oh, I looked at both, Inspector, believe me. But the ones I selected just had a more pathetic aspect to them.’

  Ford fought down his revulsion.

  ‘You’re two litres short.’

  ‘True. But soon I’ll have more blood in my veins than he has in his.’

  A sense of foreboding grew from nothing to a dark grey cloud in Ford’s mind. ‘Because?’

  Abbott smiled his sly smile. ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Was he going to be your final victim?’

  ‘Was?’ he said, pausing. ‘I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong tense. Is would be more accurate. I said he’s nice and safe. I hooked him up to an IV line to keep him hydrated. Oh, and a second line in the median cephalic vein in his right arm. I put a tap on it. Took a few experiments to get the drip-rate correct. He’s bleeding to death. Very slowly. I injected him with low-molecular-weight heparin to make sure it doesn’t clot. I had intended to complete my six transfusions and then open the tap wide.’

  ‘Where is he, Charles?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Where is he? Let us save him. You’re sick. I think you know that. You’ll end up in a secure hospital rather than prison, with the help of Mr Rowbotham here and a clever barrister. But this is premeditated. This is revenge. No jury will ever believe you killed your father out of a helpless compulsion.’

  Abbott pulled his mouth to one side and tipped his head by ten degrees. ‘No? I’m not so sure. I’ll have them weeping at my tale of childhood abuse before they’ve had their first coffee break,’ he said, grinning. ‘And don’t count on a guilty plea, either. I have a very strong suspicion – no pun intended – that my barrister will be entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.’ He leaned forward, slowly. ‘He’s very good. I dare say he spends more on a weekend’s shooting than you earn in a year.’ Then Abbott winked, before leaning back and folding his arms.