A Death to Record (18 page)

It took Danny five minutes to round up Mike and DC Jane Nugent. Den spent the time rereading the entire forensic report. Eventally they adjourned to the larger briefing room and settled themselves into the square plastic-seated chairs.

The Inspector gave a brief summary of his exchange with Den and then recounted all the salient points of the investigation. ‘I’ve made a few enquiries myself,’ he revealed. ‘And I can tell you that there’s a chap called Fred Page, unpopular local farmer. Keeps some very nasty dogs. There’ve been complaints. One individual, by the name of Brewster, has a reputation all of his own. Kills cats for fun, apparently. The significance of this is that Fred Page and Sean O’Farrell were mates, by all accounts. So keep an eye out for anything there. Cruelty to animals is a big issue these days. It might sound over-dramatic, but it’s a viable motive for killing.’

‘Are you suggesting anything in particular, sir?’ asked Young Mike.

‘No speculation, Smithson. Just keep it in mind, okay?’

Mike nodded.

‘Cooper and I were going over the pathology
and forensic reports, and we think there’s a chance the attack could have come from a woman or even a sturdy youngster.’

‘Do you mean Mrs Watson?’ Mike demanded.

‘Among others. Would you describe Mrs Watson’s manner on Tuesday for us again, lad? Just to refresh our memories.’

Mike gulped. ‘She was very much in control. No signs of shock. She called the death in, initially, and she gathered up all her pots and papers very efficiently. Didn’t drop a single thing.’

‘That’s good, Constable. Very well observed,’ said the DI.

‘And she did have the opportunity,’ added Mike, more boldly. ‘If Hillcock was in the house, or doing something in a cowshed, she could have gone out into the yard and attacked O’Farrell before they started milking.’

Den could not quite stifle the gurgle of protest that rose up in his throat. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said meekly. ‘I just don’t see it, that’s all. I do agree it’s theoretically possible,’ he added dutifully.

‘It’s on file that Mrs Watson and Gordon Hillcock have known each other most of their lives. That makes her interesting.’

‘You mean …’ Mike bounced irrepressibly, ‘O’Farrell might have seen them together and threatened to tell her old man?’

‘I mean, Smithson, that if and when it comes
to establishing a motive, the lady’s feelings for Mr Hillcock might just turn out to be significant,’ Hemsley said firmly. ‘Meanwhile, I repeat – we’re a long way from closure here. It could still be just about anyone.’

‘Except Granny Hillcock,’ Den muttered. Only Mike laughed.

‘Sir,’ put in Nugent, ‘nobody’s said anything about concealing the body, have they?’ She looked round the room invitingly. Nobody replied. ‘I mean, why didn’t the killer try to hide the body?’

‘Cooper?’ Hemsley invited.

‘Several possibilities, sir. That little barn might have seemed like a reasonable hiding place, in the short term. Even the gathering yard is out of sight from most directions. Full of cows, in poor light, the body wouldn’t have been seen if it was left out there. We don’t know whether O’Farrell got himself into the barn, or if the killer dragged him there. Forensics think, on balance, that he got there by himself. His back showed none of the abrasions you might get from dragging.’

‘Very thorough, Cooper,’ said Hemsley carelessly. ‘Now, it’s this milk recorder woman that interests me, as I might already have suggested. She’s been to that farm every month for five years. She’s seen those two men having their disagreements. I dare say she took sides, and I wouldn’t expect it to be O’Farrell’s.’

‘We know she preferred Hillcock,’ said Den. ‘Is that suspicious, sir?’

‘I didn’t say it was suspicious. I’m just saying it’s interesting.’ Without waiting for further comment, he moved towards the door, still talking, not looking at any of them. ‘Another bit of gossip I gleaned yesterday – Hillcock’s reputation with women. They might not all approve of him, but they’re bloody attracted to him. Most of them drool at the mention of his name. I doubt if the Watson woman is any exception. Sorry, Cooper, I know this is sensitive for you, but you’ll confirm the point, I think.’

Den gave a neutral nod.

‘So, that’s enough for one morning. Keep at it, and keep each other posted – as well as me.’

Den stood up. He’d keep at it all right, even though he knew it was all for nothing. Hillcock had killed O’Farrell. It was blindingly, screamingly obvious.

Den spent a frustrating afternoon on Thursday. He caught the Inspector early, knowing there’d be little new material to talk about, but eager to make a good impression and to provide further proof that he wasn’t pursuing a vendetta against Hillcock.

He began by returning to the topic of the morning meeting. ‘If O’Farrell was on his back, how did he manage to get up and into the barn where they found him? Assuming he wasn’t dragged. Surely he’d be too badly hurt to get there himself?’

Danny rubbed the back of his thick neck. ‘Not necessarily; haven’t we been over this? There was a period – a minute or two – between the
rupture of the aorta and loss of consciousness.’

‘I wonder,’ Den mused, ‘whether the attacker thought he’d done much less damage than he actually had? Then, if O’Farrell was actually getting up again, seeming not too badly hurt, whoever-it-was left him in the yard, thinking he’d get home and call a doctor or something.’

The two detectives fell silent for a moment, trying to work out the permutations consistent with the forensic report. ‘And what was he doing there, anyway, if it was his afternoon off?’ Hemsley added.

‘Apparently he didn’t properly regard it as an afternoon off. It was just that Hillcock had swapped milkings. Mrs O’Farrell said she assumed there were things he had to do around the yard.’

‘What things?’ demanded Hemsley.

‘I don’t know,’ Den admitted. ‘She suggested he might have been chopping logs, but we found no evidence of that.’

‘And why did he make for that barn? Why not go to the house for help?’

‘Ah,’ said Den triumphantly, ‘I think I worked that one out. There’s a phone in the farm office and the quickest way to reach it would be through that barn. It has a door that opens onto the milking parlour and from there it’s only a few feet to the office. I’ll have to draw it for you,’ he smiled, noting Hemsley’s frown.

‘I’ll take your word for it. So he staggers into the barn, closes the door behind him, and collapses into the straw. All just a few feet from where the recorder was working in the office before milking started. Wouldn’t she have heard him?’

‘Thick cob walls round the barn, sir,’ Den offered. ‘And he might have been too far gone by then to cry out.’

The Inspector scratched one ear. ‘Hypothetical, of course, but it sounds all right to me,’ he concluded. ‘Now, have we finished?’

‘There is something else,’ said Den conscientiously. ‘Mary Hillcock told me Mrs Watson put in a complaint about O’Farrell’s treatment of his cows. I should have mentioned it during the briefing.’

‘When?’

‘Nearly five years ago. She’d only recently started as the recorder at Dunsworthy.’

Hemsley considered. ‘Suggests there’d have been animosity between them, but he’d have been the one with the grievance, not her. And it’s too long ago, surely, for us to worry about?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Den nodded.

‘Look, there’ll be another briefing in a little while. We’ll sort out exactly where everybody was on Tuesday afternoon and how convincingly they can prove it. In effect, the Watson woman
and Hillcock are covering for each other, aren’t they? They’re the only two people we know for sure were on the spot at the time in question. And there’s some sort of history between them.’

Den didn’t respond. It was Hemsley’s habit to keep going over old ground and Den had learnt not to encourage him. He was already suffering from a strong sense of stuckness, which was not helped by the DI’s repetitions. Neither did he much like his superior’s growing interest in Deirdre Watson. He waited quietly for whatever might come next.

‘You spent yesterday afternoon in the milking parlour with Gordon Hillcock – how was it?’

‘Uncomfortable,’ Den admitted. ‘Claustrophobic.’

‘As I expected,’ Danny nodded. ‘Intimate, even? Just the two of you enclosed by all those cows, and the noise and everything getting dark outside. Am I right?’

Den stared at him. ‘Exactly right. How did you know?’

The DI shrugged. ‘I’ve got an uncle who runs a herd of Jerseys. Used to spend a week or two there most summers.’ He matched Den’s stare with one of his own. ‘And this woman – is she attractive? She’s no great age, I see.’

Den wanted to shout,
But Hillcock is screwing Lilah – not the milk recorder! This is nothing to do with it!
‘She’s nothing special. A bit on the
heavy side,’ he said. ‘I really don’t think …’

‘You’re probably right. But we should take a look, all the same.’

Den shuddered. ‘I can’t believe a woman would have done it,’ he muttered.

‘You mean you don’t
want
to believe it,’ Danny corrected him. ‘But I promise you, it’s a possibility. Especially if she thought her own life depended on it.’

‘Self-defence?’ Here was another angle that Den had scarcely considered. ‘But there was no other weapon. Nothing Sean might have used to hurt anyone.’

‘Other than the fork,’ Danny reminded him. ‘With Sean’s fingerprints on it. We don’t know whether he had it first and the other person snatched it off him. Or he had something else, and the killer took it away with them, for disposal where no one would find it.’

Den was careful to appear open-minded; he pursed his lips and nodded slightly. ‘Could be,’ he said. It sounded like a flight of fancy to him.

‘So – we meet in the briefing room at nine-thirty tomorrow – okay? We’ll sift through the alibis and get Mike and Jane to check them all. If nothing else emerges, I suggest you go for another nice long chat with your milk recorder friend.’

Den knew better than to protest at the implication.

Deirdre reached home five minutes late, to find her daughter standing impatiently on the path up to the house. She was hugging herself in the hopelessly inadequate garment she used for a coat, and dancing on the spot. Before Deirdre could fully stop, Sam had run to the car and jumped in.

‘For God’s sake, Mum. I’ll be late for third lesson,’ was all she said.

‘Too bad,’ Deirdre snapped back. ‘I warned you I couldn’t be certain of getting back in time.’

‘Well, I’m not going to freeze to death waiting for the bus. It’s been late every day this term.’

‘So they won’t be surprised if you’re late again today, will they?’

Sam grunted something inarticulate, and Deirdre left a few minutes’ silence before trying again. ‘I hear you’ve got a new boyfriend.’

‘
Boyfriend
,’ the girl sneered. ‘He’s not my
boyfriend
.’

‘Well, whatever he is, I’m interested to know about him. Jeremy something, right?’

‘Right. And before you say anything, yes, he is related to Fred Page. That’s his dad, as it happens.’

‘Bloody hell, Sam.’ Deirdre couldn’t stop herself. ‘That man’s a monster. He’s deranged. You should see the way he is with cows.’

‘Well, Jeremy’s not like that. Not at all. He’s
with us in the protest group, if you must know. He was the first to give a cheer when we heard Sean O’Farrell’s been killed. Oh yes – and thanks for keeping me informed,’ she added sarcastically. ‘I felt a right idiot yesterday when the police had to tell me about it.’

‘What? When?’

‘We were in the Limediggers at dinner time.’

‘For Christ’s sake – you’re meant to be at
school
, not trekking round the countryside to sit in pubs. How did you get there?’

‘In Jez’s car, if you must know. And I didn’t miss any lessons. Never mind that – why didn’t you tell me about it?’

‘I didn’t really feel up to it. It would have brought it all back and I was trying to put it out of my mind. Anyway, what were you saying about raising a cheer about Sean?’

‘Keep up, Mum. Fred Page and Sean O’Farrell are the main anti-badger blokes.
Were
, I should say. They’ve been lamping them for months now.’

‘Nasty,’ was all Deirdre would allow herself to say to that. But her thoughts were galloping. ‘I hope Jeremy’s not getting himself into trouble – or you, come to that.’

The girl didn’t bother to respond. Deirdre chewed her lower lip. ‘Did the police ask for your names?’ she said, after a short silence.

‘They did, yeah. It was the tall chap – the
one Lilah Beardon used to be engaged to. You probably don’t know Lilah Beardon. She’s got a brother, Roddy, in the year above me. He left last summer.’

‘I know her now – she did the milking yesterday morning when I was there.’

‘Small world,’ said Sam drily. ‘Pity the poor police people, trying to work it all out. They ought to ask you to help them. I bet you know all the farmers and their rotten little secrets, don’t you?’

Deirdre ignored the challenge, putting her foot down for the last mile into town. She was hungry, thirsty and irritable. She had no reason for going into town and the round trip was going to take forty minutes at least. ‘Tomorrow you can jolly well get the bus,’ she said, as she drew up at the school gate. ‘Or get your precious Jeremy to ferry you around.’

‘Thanks, Ma, I love you too,’ said the girl, as she slammed the door.

Mary Hillcock slumped dramatically into one of the sagging chairs in the staff room at the start of the mid-morning break. ‘Coffee,’ she begged. ‘Someone fetch me a coffee. I’ve just been asked by Peter Stevens, arch-wit of Year Eight, whether they’re going to hang my brother or put him in the electric chair!’

Nobody moved to get the requested coffee. The room was hot and stuffy, the heating in the whole school turned well up against the January chill. Except the chill had given way to something much milder, while the heating persisted relentlessly in driving up the temperature. Five other teachers were present. They all exchanged glances and raised eyebrows, but said nothing.

‘Hey!’ Mary protested. ‘Is this a conspiracy? Guilt by association? Well, blow you, then.’ She heaved herself up and went to the kettle on a shelf in the corner. There was enough hot water in it for half a mug of coffee and she contented herself with that, carrying the drink back to her chair.

‘They haven’t got any real case against Gordon, you know,’ she continued, facing her silent accusers. ‘You’re all reacting to gossip, the same as the kids. Nobody knows what really did happen to Sean.’

‘Except that he’s dead,’ said Teresa Franklin, the newest and youngest member of the staff. ‘And not by accident.’

‘Even that hasn’t been demonstrated for certain,’ Mary argued. ‘Farms are full of dangerous implements—’

‘Come off it,’ put in Gillian Dee. ‘You don’t get police crawling all over your yard and putting up all that tape for an accident.’ Gillian Dee’s husband was the Unigate tanker driver, who’d
done more than anyone to spread the news of events on Dunsworthy Farm.

Mary sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. But why take it out on me?’ She glared at them all again. ‘You’re like a Wild West mob, looking for someone to lynch.’

‘We just want justice,’ Teresa mumbled. ‘That’s all.’

‘And what would
justice
consist of, exactly?’ Mary challenged her. The concerted hostility of her colleagues was unexpected and upsetting. Never inclined to submit herself to anything unpleasant, Mary was shaking with the effort of standing up for her brother. She had assumed the news of Sean’s death would have got round in a couple of days, perhaps with the added angle of Gordon’s being taken in for questioning. She’d also assumed that the general reaction would be one of concern, even sympathy, for Gordon’s relatives. One assumption was right and the other badly wrong, she was now discovering.

‘There’s only one person under suspicion,’ said Teresa.

‘You mean Gordon? Well, why don’t you have a nice chat about it to young Peter Stevens? Shall we hang my brother or put him in the electric chair?’ Her voice was rising to a shrill note, close to breaking into tears. ‘I never thought—’
she choked on the words. ‘You don’t even
know
Gordon, any of you. You’re just letting gossip control you. The justice of the lynch mob,’ she finished with a glare at Teresa.

‘You don’t understand,’ Gillian Dee put in calmly. ‘This is a school and we’re under the scrutiny of the children and their parents. Any suggestion of something criminal or violent connected with a teacher gets blown up – maybe out of proportion, but if the children are asking you questions like the one you’ve just told us about, then that’s a serious matter. Do you see? We have a duty to shield them from this sort of event – and here you are, large as life, apparently thinking everything can carry on as usual.’

‘Of course it can carry on as usual,’ said Mary, sitting up straighter. ‘What else can we do?’

Nobody spoke, and Mary felt a chill of real apprehension wash through her. She swept the room with a worried glance. ‘What? You want me to stay at home? Just because our herdsman’s been killed? This is absolutely unreasonable, don’t you see that?’

‘It’s for Rachael to say, of course,’ Gillian pronounced. ‘She’s the Head; she’ll have to do what she thinks best for the school.’

‘If she tries to suspend me, I’ll take it to arbitration,’ Mary said emphatically. ‘And there is
no way
she’d get away with it.’ She slammed
her mug down on the unsteady table beside her and stood up. For a moment she didn’t move, standing tall, looking defiantly at each face in turn. It was several seconds before she was aware that her anger was not, after all, directed at her fellow teachers. The person she felt really furious with was Sean O’Farrell.

For Den it was turning into one of those scrappy, wasted days when nothing gets accomplished. He was sitting with Young Mike, going through lists of names, times, relationships, assessing where they most needed to turn their attention now.

‘Local farmers?’ Mike suggested. ‘Any of them could have had a quarrel with O’Farrell. And what about the Speedwell son? You’ve put a query over him, look.’

Den murmured a half-hearted agreement. More than ever he felt these peripheral enquiries were just a waste of time and effort. If it hadn’t been for his unfortunate connection to Hillcock, he was sure Danny would never have ordered such extensive investigations. But in spite of himself, his curiosity about Sean was growing. There was something bleak about the man, signalled by the lack of mourning over his death. Eliot Speedwell had been his friend, according to Mary Hillcock. Perhaps he at least would show some grief.