by Andy Maslen
‘How?’ he asked.
‘Our gamekeeper caught him poaching a couple of times,’ he said, wrinkling the bridge of his bulbous nose. ‘Nothing serious, just a couple of trout and a rabbit or two, but it’s the principle of the thing. He brought Bolter up to the house once to see me.’
‘What happened?’ Hannah asked.
‘I gave him a bloody good talking-to. He reminded me of some of the young lads under my command. Did Coco tell you I was in the army?’
Ford nodded. ‘Out of interest, what regiment?’
‘Grenadier Guards. Bit of a family tradition,’ he added with a smile.
‘Quite a long one, by the looks of it,’ Ford said, pointing at a painting on the wall. It depicted an extravagantly bewhiskered man in a bright scarlet jacket festooned with gold braid and brass buttons. A sabre gleamed at his hip.
Lord Baverstock glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to Ford. ‘That is my great-great-great-great-grandfather. They called him Butcher Baverstock. Pretty ferocious-looking fellow, wouldn’t you say?’
‘You were telling us about your conversation with Bolter?’
‘He put me in mind of some of the boys I took out to Afghanistan. Plucky as hell, but they hadn’t had all the advantages. Or if they had, they didn’t make use of them,’ he said.
‘Rough diamonds?’
Lord Baverstock nodded. ‘A bit wild, some of them. One always felt they’d have ended up in prison if one hadn’t got them first, d’you see?’
Ford did see. He’d met his fair share of young men who’d reached a fork in the road and chosen the wrong path. ‘How did he respond?’ he asked.
‘Oh, lots of forelock-tugging and “yes, my lord; no, my lord”. Joe escorted him off the estate and he behaved himself until the urge took him and he tried his luck again.’
‘Did Joe catch him that time, too?’
Lord Baverstock snorted. ‘Yes. It was two weeks ago. Bolter gave poor old Joe a bloody nose. He would have made a fine regimental boxer if I’d had him early enough.’
Ford jotted down: ‘Gamekeeper – Joe – fight with TB’. Maybe he’d have something to tell JJ after all. Gamekeepers knew how to shoot. They had to. It was part of the job. And according to Old Dan, the gamekeeper was ex-army. So presumably he was a good shot with a rifle and not just someone content to blast away with a shotgun.
Would coming off second best in a fight be motive for murder? Of course it would! He’d seen men murdered for less. He looked at the two unassuming aristocrats in front of him. He saw open faces. Direct gazes. Not challenging, but enquiring. The sorts of expressions worn by people with nothing to hide.
A uniformed maid arrived with a tray of tea things. She discreetly offered and poured cups for all four people in the room, then retreated on silent feet. Ford wondered how she’d known to bring it in. Perhaps the upper classes had prearranged signals for that sort of thing.
As he was pondering the puzzles of aristocratic hospitality, the door swung open again. A young man stood there in jodhpurs and a sky-blue T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Rockbourne Polo Club’ clinging to his torso. His blonde hair flopped over one eye. To Ford, it looked studied rather than casual, as if he’d arranged it in a mirror.
‘You’ve got company, Pa,’ he said, while staring at Ford.
Lord Baverstock turned to him. ‘They’re police, Stephen. Come and say hello.’
The man now revealed as the Baverstocks’ son advanced on Ford, hand outstretched. After the introductions, he fell back into an overstuffed chair and slung a booted foot over one arm.
‘What’s all this about, then?’
‘We’re investigating a murder,’ Hannah said.
‘Awesome! Can I stay and listen in while you interrogate Pa and Coco?’ He turned to Lord Baverstock and winked. ‘Going to go “no comment”, are you?’
Hannah wrinkled her nose. ‘We’re not interrogating them. We just came to ask a few questions.’
‘Whatevs. Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here and absorb the atmos.’
‘Darling! Be serious. This poor man, Tommy Bolter, has been found murdered on Mark Ball’s land,’ Lady Baverstock said. ‘Or found there, at any rate. In pieces, may I add. I hardly think this is a time for levity.’
Stephen’s eyes widened. ‘Tommy bloody Bolter? Good riddance! Chap was always stealing from us, wasn’t he, Pa?’
Lord Baverstock frowned. ‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean he deserved to be murdered, does it?’
Stephen’s grin vanished, and Ford watched him effortfully rearranging his features into something more serious, though the resulting expression looked stagy. ‘Yah. No, of course. Dreadful business.’ He stood. ‘Think I won’t stay after all. I’ll go and give Loopy a hand with the horses.’
Ford took another sip of tea and looked past Lord and Lady Baverstock to the paintings on the wall behind them. Landscapes, mostly, some obviously of their own estate. Animal pictures featuring sad-eyed greyhounds, statuesque horses and the occasional pile of dead game. And more military portraits.
One painting caught his eye. A younger version of Lord Baverstock stood beside an attractive woman holding the lead of a shaggy grey wolfhound. Flame-haired and dark-eyed, she looked nothing like Lady Baverstock.
‘A lovely portrait,’ he said, pointing.
They swivelled in their seats. ‘That’s Bumble and Sasha,’ Lady Baverstock said, with a small smile. ‘She was a true beauty, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ Ford answered, picking up on the past tense. A dead daughter?
‘My first wife,’ Lord Baverstock said. ‘Stodge and Loopy’s mother.’
‘Ah,’ Ford said.
‘She died. Motor neurone disease.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Ford said, instantly regretting the trite phrase that they’d all started using nowadays. ‘It’s a terrible illness,’ he added, trying for a more personal touch.
‘Indeed,’ said Lord Baverstock, his eyes dropping to his lap.
Ford realised he’d opened a painful wound. There was nothing else he wanted to ask right now. Time to go.
‘I’d like to speak to your gamekeeper.’ He handed Lady Baverstock one of his cards. ‘Please could you ask him to call me?’
Once they were outside again, Ford saw Stephen peering in through the driver’s window of the Discovery. A couple of dead rabbits swung from his right hand.
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said as Ford and Hannah approached. ‘I just love Discos. What year’s yours?’
‘It’s a 2002.’
Stephen nodded his appreciation. ‘Nice.’
Ford pointed at the rabbits. ‘Been shooting?’
‘Joe bagged them this morning with a .22. I was just going to dress them. You a sportsman, Inspector?’
‘I used to go shooting with my grandad sometimes,’ Ford said. ‘Rabbits, mostly, like those. My mum made them into pies.’
Stephen smiled and held one out to Ford. ‘Here, have one.’
Ford accepted the rabbit. He looked down into its glazed-over eyes. Then at the small bullet hole in its flank. Hardly any blood.
He made a brief stop at home, and asked Hannah to wait in the Discovery. In the garage, he put the rabbit in a carrier bag then placed it in the chest freezer.
As they drove back to Bourne Hill, his thoughts turned to the gamekeeper bested by Tommy Bolter. Was it just a punch-up, of the sort that occurred outside dozens of pubs across the city on Friday and Saturday nights? Or something worse?
What was the game Sam played with Josh? Mortal Kombat? If you pitted a local gangster, even a junior one, against an ex-soldier, there’d be a hell of a lot of pride resting on the outcome. Losing the fight would be losing face. Maybe it had turned mortal after all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning, once Sam had left the house to meet up with Josh before school, Ford drove away from Salisbury, heading out into the Chalke Valley. Twelve minutes later he arrived in a small village called Broad Chalke.
He turned off High Road on to The Causeway and parked in the small gravelled space behind All Saints’ Church.
He locked the doors and walked through the gap in the hedge. Her grave was on the outer fringe of the churchyard. The stone, a simple rectangle of rough red granite, stood in the dappled shade cast by an old apple tree.
He kneeled before it and, as he always did, read the inscription.
LOUISA KATHRYN FORD
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
‘THE MOUNTAINS QUAKE BEFORE HIM AND THE HILLS MELT AWAY.’
At the time, Lou’s parents and Ford’s mum had been against the quote. After all that had happened, they said, how could he think of even mentioning the word ‘mountain’, let alone carving it into her gravestone?
What could he say? That he wanted to be reminded, always, of what he had done? That he wanted to be forced to remember he had killed her? That he needed the granite to be scarred as deeply as his soul?
Of course not. Instead he had said Lou loved the mountains. Always had. That love was bigger and more powerful than a mere million tons of rock. That, in the end, he and Lou would be reunited, free to climb together without fear.
They’d relented. They’d had to. And now here he was, kneeling at her feet, striving to feel the forgiveness they’d all assured him she would have bestowed on him in an instant. It was an accident. A tragic accident. Nothing more.
He looked up into the branches of the apple tree, thick with blossom, the petals white and fringed with pink. Two sparrows hopped about in its leafy embrace, twittering crossly at each other as they scrapped for the best spot from which to sing. As one flew off and the victor began cheeping loudly from its victory perch, he stood and looked around. The graveyard was empty.
‘I wish you were still here,’ he said. ‘Sam’s such a big lad now. You’d have loved the way he’s turning out. He’s fearless. Just like you.’
Then he turned and walked back to the Discovery, brushing the wet from his cheeks. He reached the station at 8.30 a.m.
Ford’s phone rang five minutes later. Unknown caller.
‘My name’s Joe Hibberd. You wanted to speak to me?’
The man’s accent wasn’t local. Somewhere in London.
‘I did. Could you come into Bourne Hill police station?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m investigating a murder and I have a few questions for you.’
‘But I’ve got a rearing field full of pheasant chicks. It’s a twenty-four-seven job.’
‘So’s mine, Mr Hibberd.’
He heard Hibberd sigh. Waited him out. Nothing like a copper’s silence to push people out of their comfort zone. So what Hibberd said next surprised him.
‘I can’t. Sorry. If you want to speak to me, you’ll have to come up to the field.’
Ford found himself listening to the hiss and faint crackles on the line. He thought he could hear cheeping in the background. What to do? Far too early to start throwing his weight around.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’ll text you my GPS.’
Twenty minutes later, Ford turned off the track. Two minutes elapsed while he opened, drove through and closed a five-bar gate. Then he was bumbling across an expanse of lumpy grassland dotted with bushes thick with creamy-white blossom. He switched off the satnav, because in the distance he could see a man who appeared to be shooting. He stopped a hundred yards back.
Outside the Discovery, he smiled as the sun warmed his face. Up here, the wind was keener than it had been in the city centre, and it brought the pungent, farmyard smell of muck-spreading up from the south.
He walked upwind towards the man who was stood side-on to Ford, a long gun to his shoulder. It emitted a sharp crack. Hibberd took the rifle from his shoulder and walked away. Not wanting to engage in a slow-speed walking chase through the Wiltshire countryside, Ford called out.
‘Mr Hibberd! Wait!’
Hibberd turned and began walking back, the rifle swinging by his side. He arrived a minute later. Dressed in a forest-green polo shirt, jeans and heavy work boots, he was in his late thirties: solidly built, with short dark hair and tattoos on both exposed forearms. He had the weathered skin of a man whose job kept him outside year round.
‘You Ford, then?’
Ford showed his ID. He looked at the rifle. ‘Nice little gun.’
Hibberd looked down as though he’d never seen it before. ‘This? Yeah, it’s all right, I suppose. Just got a bunny before you showed up. For the pot.’
‘Do you want to go and pick it up? Be a shame to waste the meat.’
Hibberd shook his head. ‘Nah. Don’t worry. I’ll get it later. Or shoot another one if a kite gets it.’
Ford thought of the rabbit in his freezer and that two might make a decent pie. ‘Can I have it, then?’
Hibberd’s face flushed alarmingly and he moved to block Ford’s way. ‘No! Leave it! Jesus, why does every townie always think they can come out here and have whatever they like? I should never have agreed to meet you.’
Ford held his hands up. ‘It’s fine, I’ll leave it. I’m sorry.’
Hibberd sighed and rolled his head on his neck. ‘What did you want to see me about?’
Ford smiled, intending the expression to be taken as reassurance. He stored Hibberd’s extreme reaction away for later consideration. Sweat had beaded on the gamekeeper’s forehead and the bridge of his nose. His deep-set eyes darted left and right as if searching for an escape route. And he was biting his lower lip.
‘Thanks for agreeing to talk to me, Mr Hibberd,’ he said. ‘Or can I call you Joe?’
‘Joe’s fine. Let’s get it over with. I need to get back to the chicks. I was just taking a little break.’ His lip-chewing had pulled loose a sliver of skin and produced a bead of blood.
‘Busy job being a gamekeeper, I should imagine.’
‘Yeah, it’s not a job for slackers. Shoots to organise, dogs to train, vermin control,’ he said. ‘Even working with you lot trying to stop those bloody bastards badger-digging and hare-coursing.’
‘Ever come across a bloody bastard called Tommy Bolter?’
Hibberd’s reaction to Ford’s question developed in several discrete steps. His Adam’s apple bobbed twice in his neck. He rubbed his chin fiercely. He bit his lip again, then sucked it into his mouth. ‘Is that what this is about?’
‘He was found dead on land owned by your boss. According to Lord Baverstock, you had a bit of a scrap with him a couple of weeks back. He gave you a nosebleed.’
Hibberd shrugged. ‘Lucky punch.’
‘Did you hit him back?’
‘Of course I did! But it was just a fight. Nothing more.’
‘You didn’t feel he’d humiliated you in front of your employer?’
‘No! People like Bolter are just vermin. Foxes bite, poachers throw punches. That’s if they’re not pulling a knife. No difference.’
‘So you weren’t tempted to control this particular vermin, then? Shoot him in the head, for example?’
Hibberd smiled, shaking his own – intact – head. ‘No point, is there? Put one down, there’s two more to take his place. Plus, I wouldn’t fancy getting on the wrong side of that family, know what I mean?’
Ford did. He’d crossed that line years back. ‘If I were to give you some dates, would you be able to tell me your whereabouts?’
Hibberd touched the back of his hand to his lip and inspected the red dots stippling the skin. He looked at Ford. ‘Don’t need you to do that. I can tell you now. Working.’
‘All day, every day?’
‘Pretty much. If I’m not working, I’m asleep.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
‘Bess and Molly.’
‘Can I talk to them?’
Hibberd shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Can you speak collie? They’re over there somewhere,’ he added, pointing off towards a small patch of woodland.
Ford decided it was time to rein in the uncooperative gamekeeper. ‘Yo
u know, Joe, it’s looking like you were one of the last people to see Tommy Bolter alive,’ he said quietly. ‘You were involved in a fight with him a week or so before he died. You obviously know your way around guns. You work for the family on whose land his body was found. Save the jokes for the pub, yes?’
Hibberd folded his arms. ‘Fine. But if you’re looking at people who’ve had fights with Tommy Bolter, that puts me at the end of a long queue.’
‘They don’t all have guns, though, do they?’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Half the people who live in the countryside have them.’
‘Fair point. And please don’t think I’m trying to pin anything on you. I’m just trying to get to the truth.’
‘If it’s the truth you’re after, you should talk to the lowlifes Bolter used to hang around with,’ Hibberd said. ‘They’re all into drugs, thieving, fly-tipping. Anything they can make a bit of money from without doing honest work.’
‘Anyone in particular?’
‘No idea. I didn’t exactly ask him to show me his Facebook friends.’
Ford heard barking. He looked over towards the woods. Two black and white border collies were racing towards them. Ten feet out, they dropped to their bellies and began creeping along, their eyes not leaving his.
‘Easy, now,’ Hibberd crooned. ‘Inspector Ford’s a friend, girls. Friend!’
As if they understood him perfectly, the two dogs stood and trotted up to Ford. He offered the back of his hand for them to sniff. Apparently satisfied he presented no threat to their master, they went to nuzzle Hibberd’s free hand for a second or two, then, with joyous yelps, streaked back towards the woodland.
Hibberd watched them go, smiling. ‘Best two dogs I’ve ever had,’ he said. ‘They’re like family to me. Better than kids.’
Ford looked at the dogs, then back at Hibberd. ‘Do you own a gun?’
‘Of course I do! I’m a gamekeeper.’
‘What guns, specifically?’
‘A .22 like this one and a Browning Phoenix 12 gauge. Check your database. My certificate’s all in order.’
‘I will. You said “like this one”,’ Ford said, pointing at the rifle. ‘That not yours, then?’