A Death to Record (26 page)

‘It’s a bloody mess at the moment,’ he agreed, relaxing into a more familiar gloom. ‘But never mind that. Come here.’ He tightened his arm, drawing her closer, and she moved irresistibly into his embrace. After a moment she sat on his lap in a conjunction they often adopted. Gordon had substantial thighs and a broad chest. Lilah was slight and fitted his contours very neatly. She closed her mind against a sudden image of Den, ten inches taller than her, wrapping himself around her in a very different way.

‘What happens next with the police?’ she asked him suddenly.

He drew back his head to focus on her face, eyebrows raised. ‘We don’t have to talk about that, do we?’

‘We do,’ she insisted. ‘What do you think’ll happen?’

‘If they think they can find enough evidence to bring a charge against me, I’ll probably be held in custody until it comes to trial. That would be months.’ He shivered and leant his head on her shoulder. ‘And that’d be the end of this place.’

‘That should be part of your defence,’ she said
eagerly. ‘You’d have to be crazy to risk wrecking everything here in a moment of anger.’

He huffed a cynical laugh. ‘I don’t think murderers often consider the consequences of what they do. It’s a pretty stupid career move, whoever you are.’

‘They won’t charge you,’ she assured him. ‘It’s only Den being so jealous that’s got you listed as chief suspect. If they had more manpower, he’d never have been allowed on the case at all. It’s quite unprofessional, as it is.’ She thought a moment. ‘But he’s not going to invent evidence, however jealous he is. So I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the long run.’

‘Poor old Den.’ Gordon smiled strangely. ‘He must hate my guts. I know I would in his place.’

Lilah wriggled. ‘These things happen,’ she said softly.

Briskly he pushed her off his lap and patted her bottom. ‘Come on. Ma’s right, there’s work to be done. Ted’s not supposed to be doing anything today, and I left him all the yard work when I went off to that meeting. I’ll have to make up for it this afternoon, before milking.’

‘Do you want me to stick around? I don’t have to be anywhere.’

‘Are you staying the night, then?’

‘If I’m invited,’ she said primly. For invitation, she received another deep kiss, his tongue
thrusting thick and solid into her mouth, his hands large on her back. As he let her go, he cupped one breast, holding it tight for a moment, hurting and inflaming her in equal measure.

Den wrote up his report on the dead calves after a snatched lunch. He tried to get a grasp of the suspected scheme that Lilah had described, wondering just how Sean could have hoped to get away with it or indeed make any money out of it. With bull calves worth nothing, it seemed an odd sort of scam to be operating, but he assumed there must be
some
expectation of profit. Although not acquainted with market prices for veal or beef, he supposed that a bullock of a year or so in age, reared on rich Devon grass, would fetch a few hundred pounds. Given that there’d be no need to buy fodder for it, this would be clear profit and no doubt worth the risk involved in keeping such animals hidden from sight.

‘But why not be upfront about it?’ he wondered aloud, talking to the pad in front of him. ‘Would anybody have stopped him, if he’d asked Gordon for some milk and a shed to keep them in?’

‘Talking to yourself?’ Danny Hemsley put his head around the office door.

‘Look at this,’ Den invited him, showing him the report.

‘I bet Hillcock would have made him pay for
them,’ he said, after reading it quickly and asking a couple of questions. ‘But you’re right – it seems a funny sort of trick to pull, right on the boss’s doorstep. Surely he never meant to keep them until they were grown up? How would he hide them?’

‘Beyond me,’ Den admitted. ‘And whatever he thought he was doing, the poor little beasts died a very nasty death.’

The DI examined a stubby fingernail, thoughtfully, clearly not satisfied that the matter could be dropped. ‘How would you say this fitted with O’Farrell’s murder?’ he asked.

Den shook his head slowly in defeat. ‘I can’t see that it does. Only if Hillcock knew what he was doing, and was so disgusted by it, it drove him to homicide. But if he had known, he would have fed the calves after Sean was dead, so he can’t have known. And if he didn’t know, it can’t possibly be a motive for the killing.’

‘What if someone else knew about it?’

‘Ted Speedwell, you mean? I’d swear by all that’s holy he had no idea.’

‘Not necessarily him. There’s all those women around the place. Four of them, if you don’t count the old granny. Five if you count the girlfriend.’

‘I can’t make it fit, whichever way you look at it. How could keeping illegal bobby calves have any connection with O’Farrell’s death?’

‘I don’t
know
,’ said the DI in exasperation. ‘But I think you should do everything you can to find out. There might be something you’ve missed. This case is going to slip through our fingers at this rate. I can feel it – these local farm crimes are always messy. Things are hardly ever what they seem, and even if they are, it’s the devil’s own job to prove it. If we went by your gut feelings and brought Hillcock in and charged him, he’d get off. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Den.

Lilah was in bed before Gordon, waiting with naked openness for his attentions, committed in every cell to whatever sensations he chose to inflict on her. Despite the slight awkwardness arising from the presence in the house of Claudia and Mary, Lilah felt no embarrassment in sleeping in Gordon’s bed. It was a generous queen-sized double, abandoned by Claudia when widowed and it made for luxurious sexual activity. The thick mattress was unfashionably soft, and the many woollen blankets took all the sting out of winter nights in an underheated house.

Gordon always slept naked, his broad, hairy body giving off heat which drew Lilah to him even in her sleep. She curled up against him, loving the round fuzzy contours of his belly. He was liberally covered all over with hair – arms,
legs, back, as well as chest and stomach. Even his pubic hair was thick and bushy. Much of it was beginning to turn grey, while some remained dark brown, giving him a mottled appearance that she had labelled ‘brindle’ – the multi-coloured hue of some dogs. To lay her hands on Gordon’s naked body – which never seemed really naked because of the hair – was a simple but powerful pleasure for her.

He had silvery puckered scars under the hair on his stomach, which she had found on the first time in bed together. ‘What happened here?’ she had asked in concern.

‘Oh, just some childhood thing,’ he replied airily. ‘They removed my spleen. It all settled down in no time. I never even think of it.’

‘But …’ She’d tried to remember what role the spleen played, what the implications might be of not having one. Gordon had put his large hand across her mouth.

‘I was fourteen,’ he said. ‘And I’ve never missed it. Don’t I seem healthy to you?’

He did, of course, and she obediently thrust the whole thing from her mind.

He was sixteen years older than she was, an age gap almost exactly the same as that between her own parents. Gordon had a past; he could remember things from long before she was born, and he had the compelling power of the mature
man. Gordon Hillcock’s body was the thing that mattered most in the world to her. It was like having a secret source of wonderful food, or like having a million pounds hidden away in a hollow tree. She could go and tap into this joyous elixir any time she liked.

Unless Gordon was in prison, of course.

Deirdre Watson had a tendency to dislike Sundays, whatever the season. In winter they were especially unsatisfactory. Moving restlessly around the house, she was aware of how dusty and cobwebby much of it was, and how untidy from the residue of Christmas. Pine needles from the tree were still scattered on the living room carpet and screwed-up wrapping paper that had missed the Boxing Day collection lay behind chairs and in odd corners. Dabs of Blu-tack on the ceiling showed where Sam and Matthew had fixed the decorations, and not scraped it off properly when they took them down again. The open fireplace was choked with ash under the grate, and there were nutshells underfoot on the hearthrug.

‘This place is a mess,’ she announced to nobody in particular.

She received no reply. Robin was reading the sports section of the Sunday paper and Matthew had all his attention on the kung fu game he was involved in on his Play Station. At least, Deirdre guessed it was kung fu. People seemed to be kicking each other a lot and turning backward somersaults. As far as she could tell, Matthew played this same game about five hundred times a day.

Tension in the household was high since the police had interviewed Sam. Her daughter had told her nothing of what had been said, but she was subdued and irritable afterwards, going up to her bedroom and firmly shutting the door. This had made Deirdre resentful. In fact, more than mere resentment burnt in her breast. She was desperate to know what Sam had been asked and how she had replied. ‘It’s all wrong,’ she had repeated. ‘I’ve got a right to know what they think. This is a
murder
inquiry.’

‘That’s right, Mum,’ Sam had snapped back. ‘Exciting, isn’t it.’

‘Don’t be so cheeky,’ Robin had warned his daughter, before lapsing back into a silence that Deirdre judged to be sheer cowardice.

Sam had gone out immediately after lunch, taking her mother’s car and refusing to say
when she’d be back. ‘I can’t stand any more of your prying into something that’s none of your business,’ was her parting shot.

None of my business?
Deirdre had repeated to herself.
When I detested Sean O’Farrell so violently and made little secret of the fact? When that policeman is bound to think I’m in some conspiracy with Gordon
?

Matthew’s head was pushed forward, his gaze unwavering on the screen in front of him. Deirdre watched him, savouring the long lashes, the curly hair. He’d always been a handsome boy; as a baby he’d been far more beautiful than his sister. People had made the predictable comments:
Such looks, wasted on a boy. He’ll have all the girls after him when he’s older
. He’d never caused her or Robin any serious anxiety, until recently. Now, suddenly, he seemed to be unbearably vulnerable, prey to forces and proclivities that she perceived as wholly malign. Her arms twitched with the desire to clutch him to her protectively. Silently she prayed that the danger had passed.

She sighed noisily and Matthew glanced up at her. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

‘Oh – just Sundayitis. You know how I hate Sundays.’

She stood close to him, where he knelt on the carpet, the game console in front of him. ‘The only things I can think of to do are boring old
housework. It’s all right for you men, with your papers and games.’

‘You can play if you like,’ he offered with a grin. ‘You can be Mighty Magnus – he always wins.’

She was tempted. After all, why not? But she’d watched enough to know that two minutes would be the limit of her attention span. ‘No thanks,’ she declined. ‘It’s not really my thing.’

‘Okay,’ he accepted easily. Another rush of fear for him engulfed her. He was always so easy, so accommodating, not wanting to hurt anybody’s feelings. She wanted to tell him to stop being so nice, to stand up for himself and be a bit more … well,
manly
.

It had to all be her fault. She’d let him play with dolls and dress in girls’ clothes when he was small. She and Robin had encouraged him never to fight his way out of difficulties, but to negotiate and compromise. They’d been happy with his obvious awareness of how other people were feeling, his willingness to hug and touch at an age where most boys avoided physical contact. Now it seemed it was backfiring on them.

Robin discarded the newspaper abruptly. ‘These dark afternoons are enough to depress anybody. Roll on spring, I say. We should all hibernate like bears and skip January altogether.’

Deirdre managed a laugh. ‘It won’t last for ever, I suppose. I’ll go and make us some tea, shall I?’

‘Good idea,’ Robin approved.

Den missed Lilah most forcibly on Sundays. On this one, with a murder inquiry rapidly running into the sand and nobody sympathetic to talk to about it, he was feeling profoundly sorry for himself.

Danny Hemsley had been right to chastise him for failing to keep his mind open from the very outset of the case. From here on, as the investigation started to go cold and desk work on the forensics became the default focus of attention, he was resolved on a renewed and detailed exploration of any and every possible candidate for prosecution.

Doodling on a sheet of paper, he compulsively listed names.
Ted Speedwell, Eliot Speedwell, Heather O’Farrell, Abigail O’Farrell, Jilly Speedwell, Deirdre Watson, Sam Watson, Claudia Hillcock, Mary Hillcock.
Then he crossed them all out again, one by one. Either they had excellent alibis or they just didn’t make credible murderers. Even though he had first-hand experience of unlikely killers – people you could never imagine would do such a thing – once the story was laid out logically, it was plain to see
how the situation had arisen. He saw very little prospect that this same reasoning would apply to the Dunsworthy murder.

Ted Speedwell had to be the first person to consider. He couldn’t prove his whereabouts and his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. If he were to be charged now, the case for the prosecution would be almost as good as that against Hillcock – which is to say they would both be hopelessly weak. It would never reach the courts. Den found himself feeling rather glad about that: the idea of Ted in prison made him shudder. Even Hillcock, proud and independent, accustomed to taking control of his own life and organising his own time as he saw fit, would probably not survive a long sentence other than as a mental and physical wreck. It gave Den pause to think about it. Did he hate the man enough to want that to happen to him?

One day, Den knew, he would let slip just what his real feelings were towards custodial punishments for criminals. With every month that passed, his ambivalence became more acute, despite his stern self-admonishments. A year and a half earlier he had begun attending Quaker Meetings every five or six weeks, and had slowly become aware of their thinking on the subject of prison. They didn’t like it. They believed it to be counter-productive, barbaric and wasteful. It cost
the state ridiculous sums of money and turned out people who were simply more determined and skilful miscreants than before, as well as addicted to drugs. Den could not argue with any of this.
But it’s my job
, he insisted to himself.
I’m paid to locate and capture lawbreakers, and when they’re caught they get sent to prison. What happens after that is none of my business
.

Murderers, of course, were different. They’d put themselves beyond the pale and nobody – not even Quakers – would seriously suggest they should not be sent to prison; people had to be protected against their violent impulses. It was a commonplace that those prisoners serving time for murder were the most interesting. They often made constructive use of their time inside, and even sometimes showed remorse. So why was he getting himself in a stew over Gordon Hillcock all of a sudden?

He returned to his list. Deirdre Watson had aroused Hemsley’s interest largely thanks to the anonymous note, which Den suspected had come from Lilah. The report on the interview with Sam Watson had highlighted the issue of badger culling, lamping and baiting, as well as other sorts of animal exploitation. How or even
whether
these concerned Mrs Watson was still unresolved, apart from her membership of Compassion in World Farming. Den couldn’t
see her as a killer, try as he might. Hemsley had reminded him of his own comments on how calm she had been at the scene of the murder, and how shocked Hillcock was by contrast – and still Den was not convinced.

Lilah’s inflation of the rumour that Matthew Watson was gay and prey to Sean and Eliot had already been discounted as troublemaking.

He nibbled his pencil and then circled
Jilly
Speedwell
on his list. She had freely admitted to having been at home at the relevant time on Tuesday afternoon. She could have gone up to the yard unobserved, and got into conversation with Sean. If something he’d said had enraged her, she might have snatched up the fork and thrust it at him – twice. Then she would have had time to get back to her cottage, wash herself and her clothes, calm down and be sipping tea when Ted came in from wherever he’d been before darkness fell.

A familiar sense gripped him of being in possession of only the most scattered fragments of the complete picture. It wasn’t only that he was missing something that had been pushed under his nose, it was that some facts were so completely absent that he couldn’t hope to understand how these people all fitted together. Police detectives were handicapped more or less by definition. Even knowing the right questions to ask, focusing in on hard evidence and using past experience to
assess probabilities, it all came down in the end to lucky breaks. Some crisis or tragedy from the distant past might surface to explain the passions that made no sense otherwise. Or, more likely, they would not surface, and the whole thing would crumble into a condition of stalemate for lack of this crucial comprehension.

Lucky breaks did happen, of course, quite frequently. People became careless or they cracked under the strain of the fear of discovery. Information filtered in from suspicious friends and relatives. Or the killer was forced to commit further crimes in an effort to remain safe from detection. Or, less often, Forensics finally unearthed incontrovertible evidence. But even apparently rock-solid physical evidence tended to fall apart when attacked by skilful defence lawyers.

There was no human blood on Hillcock’s clothes, or on Speedwell’s. The marks and fluids in the yard had told a story of a swift and violent attack, followed by the dying victim’s dragging himself, or possibly being dragged, into the barn. The stark scenario explained nothing.

In gathering gloom, both actual and spiritual, Den concluded that the case was definitely sliding out of their grasp. It wasn’t going to end in a successful prosecution of the person responsible for Sean O’Farrell’s death. The thought of returning
to Dunsworthy to ask more questions of Jilly Speedwell or Claudia Hillcock or the others struck him as futile. It didn’t matter that Sean had been cruel to animals. It didn’t matter that he was inconsistent by nature – kind to his wife, patient with his daughter, yet disliked and mistrusted by just about everyone else who knew him. Most people were inconsistent once you started to delve into their personalities. Even if everyone who knew him had wished him dead, there was still almost nothing that comprised a viable line of enquiry.

Moodily, he tossed his notebook onto the chair beside him and got up to make himself some cheese on toast. It was still only five o’clock and there was nothing watchable on telly. He’d always thought it pathetic when people claimed to have nothing to do; it could only mean an empty head and an empty life. Now it had happened to him. The evening stretched blank and boring; the wind was getting up outside, and nobody he could think of would welcome a phone call or visit. Nobody, if he was honest, that he wanted to see or speak to, anyway.

Nobody, that is, except Lilah Beardon.

Despite his reluctance, Den returned to Dunsworthy on Monday morning, in time to catch Jilly Speedwell before she went to her job
at the school. She answered his knock quickly, her frizzy hair seeming to stand out horizontally from her head, her fleshy shoulders and forearms filling the bright blue sweatshirt she was wearing. She sparked with impatience.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Just a few more questions, if you don’t mind.’

‘Waste of good time and money,’ she asserted. ‘Everybody knows who ’twas who did that to Sean, without all this circus.’

‘Oh?’

‘’Tis plain as can be. Gordon Hillcock’s temper has got the better of’n before now. And Sean never knew when to keep un’s mouth shut, dozy sod. Wouldn’ take much these days, with milk prices so bad and calves being shot, and the whole place falling round our heads, for it to lead to this.’

‘You’re telling me that you believe Gordon Hillcock murdered Sean O’Farrell?’ Den said formally. ‘Have you any evidence that this is what happened?’

‘
Evidence!
’ she scoffed. ‘Us never saw it happen, more’s the pity. But ’tis right, all the same. But ’ee won’t get a confession out of’n. Not like on the telly, where the chap breaks down and tells the whole story. This be real life, and real life is messy. Sean’s dead and his wife as weak as a rabbit and his girl going off with some boy
like an alleycat. An’ us stuck here with a man who could kill my Ted any time ’un likes. So pampered he is, by that houseful of women.’ She stopped abruptly, clamping her lips together, as if belatedly aware of saying too much.

Den took a deep, careful breath, acutely conscious of the web of history and emotion that he couldn’t hope to fully disentangle. Conscious, too, that Mrs Speedwell was echoing many of his own thoughts of the previous afternoon. ‘Perhaps I could come in?’ he suggested.

‘I leave for work at half past,’ she warned him.

‘I won’t take long.’

‘Can’t tell ’ee any more than I said already.’

‘I’d just like to go through it again. We’ve got the picture a bit clearer now, the sort of man Mr O’Farrell was, how people felt about him …’

‘Talked to Eliot, did ’ee?’

‘He didn’t tell you?’