A Death to Record (13 page)

Den made another note, and closed his book. ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he told them. ‘You’ve been very helpful – thanks.’

As he walked away, he heard Susie Marchand say excitedly, ‘Well, if Sean O’Farrell’s
dead
—’ before the others hushed her.

‘It’s nice in here, eh?’ Mike commented peaceably, when Den went back to him. The ploughmans he’d ordered had arrived, and he tucked into his lunch with enthusiasm.

Sitting across the low table from them were two men in their seventies, a Jack Russell and a springer spaniel curled contentedly at their feet. It made a pleasing picture – the men could almost be in their own home, enjoying retirement and the sense of finally having all the time in the world. They stared at Den and Mike unashamedly while they ate their lunch. Finally one of them leant forward. ‘You’ll be the Cooper boy,’ he said to Den. ‘The one as got jilted by young Beardon maid. Best get it sorted now, though, and not when there’s two or three kiddies in the picture.’

Whoever first spread the idea that only women were interested in gossip must have been a complete moron, Den decided, forcing himself not to recoil at the unexpected recognition.

‘That your partner?’ asked the other man, nodding towards Mike. ‘Doesn’t ’n get to ask any questions of his own?’

Den grinned, and shook his head. ‘His job’s to save me a place by the fire,’ he said. ‘And he assists me in putting together all the bits and
pieces I pick up from helpful gentlemen like you.’

‘Bad business at Dunsworthy,’ the first one said, with an air of having considered and then dismissed the idea of teasing Den for a bit longer. He had thick grey hair and a low brow; his eyes peered out from under an overhang of untidy thatch. His friend was bigger and wore a greasy-looking cap. Both had straight backs, and the stiff movements suggestive of bad hips. Both faces carried weathered wrinkles around the eyes, and deeply-carved grooves between nose and mouth. The one with the cap had a canyon between his eyes deep enough to lose yourself in. How many decades of frowning must it have taken to form such a feature? Den wondered. And yet he looked an amiable fellow in every other respect.

‘You know the Hillcocks?’

‘Oh, aye,’ they both smiled. ‘Everybody knows the Hillcocks. Last June – no, tell a lie, June before that – they gave a party for old Hilda’s century, in the village hall. Still going strong, they say – though no one ever sees her any more. Dare say your Beardon lass gets a glimpse now and then.’ The old man twinkled at Den, but not unkindly.

‘What about Sean O’Farrell?’

‘Herdsman that got n’self killed.’ The two men nodded, all trace of amusement suddenly wiped away. ‘Not a thing to joke about. Don’t get many
murders in these parts – leastways …’ Den could see them remembering the events surrounding Lilah’s family, three years earlier, and the unsavoury killing of a young Quaker since then.

‘You’re right,’ he assured them. ‘Only two or three a year at most.’

‘Reckon you must get a bit out of practice,’ the man with the cap observed, deadpan. Den found that, despite the personal remarks, he was rather enjoying himself. He sipped his beer appreciatively, and glanced at Mike; the young detective constable raised his tankard amicably.

Den returned to his informants. ‘So you knew Sean, did you?’

Both men regarded him steadily. ‘Can’t say we saw a lot of him,’ said the low-browed one.

‘Wouldn’t have come here, anyhow,’ said the other. ‘Drank at the Bells, over to West Tavy. That’s the farm workers’ meeting place. Quite a club they’ve got going, so they say.’

Den swigged more Bass, and nodded. ‘So I’ve been hearing,’ he agreed. ‘I bet you two’re thankful to be out of farming, things being the way they are. Though Hillcock seems to be doing well enough.’

‘He’s lucky there’s no loan on Dunsworthy. ’Tis that makes the difference. And he’s not only reliant on milk, like some. Though it’s bad all round this time – never seen it like this
before. Hillcocks’ll come through, all the same. Leastways, ’e
would
have done, without this business.’

‘Oh?’

‘Hillcock lands himself in gaol, that’ll knock ’em right back. Can’t see poor old Speedwell running the place.’ Both men laughed. ‘Dare say your girlfriend’s going to find herself taking charge – if she sticks around.’ Den watched as the same penny dropped as had dropped with Claudia Hillcock, and Lilah herself. ‘Come to think of it, you’d be well pleased then, shouldn’t wonder. Chances are she might go back to you, if her new bloke turns out to be a murderer.’

Den struggled to maintain his composure, and looked down at the empty plates on the table. ‘Can’t stay here all day,’ he announced heartily. ‘Ready, Mike?’

Mike took the hint, and wiped a hand across his mouth. Together they got to their feet. ‘Thanks for the chat,’ Den said to the old men, who showed every sign of being settled for the afternoon.

They nodded to him in unison, and the one with the cap raised a gnarled hand in a friendly salute. He had a twinkle in his eye that Den found disconcerting. Perhaps by that age everything was amusing, laid on for your personal entertainment.

‘What did those kids have to tell you?’ Mike asked, as they got back into the car. Den didn’t reply; he was too preoccupied with wondering whether everyone in West Devon knew about him and Lilah, and whether or not they thought he ought to be working on the Dunsworthy case. There’d been no hint of disapproval from the two old men – wry amusement and idle curiosity seemed to be their only reactions. But was it possible that locals trusted the police to be entirely objective, in the circumstances? The implication was that Hillcock was so self-evidently guilty that it scarcely mattered who conducted the investigation. Or was that mere wishful thinking?

Belatedly he answered Mike. ‘Sounds as if we
should have gone to the Bells at West Tavy for our lunch,’ he remarked. ‘D’you know it?’

Mike shook his head. ‘Off the beaten track, that is. You wonder how places like that ever keep going.’

In the car, Den invited Mike’s observations. ‘Funny sort of atmosphere,’ the constable responded. ‘I was listening in to that group the other side of the fire from us. The usual stuff about how farming’s going down the tubes. How their wives and daughters are bringing in more money than they are – women running the whole place these days, one of them said. They’re all pretty miserable – even scared, from the sound of it. Not much hope for the future.’

Den nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do you think it makes any sense for us to connect what’s happened at Dunsworthy with the things that’re going on in farming? How would that work?’

Mike scratched his nose. ‘Well, if Sean had asked his boss for more money, say, that might have been the final straw. Or if they’d had some major row about selling off the cows. Maybe Sean told Hillcock they’d never be viable.’

‘Yeah,’ said Den dubiously. ‘But that would be more likely to work the other way around. If Hillcock told O’Farrell he was going out of milk, and didn’t need a herdsman any more – then wouldn’t Sean be the aggressor?’

‘Maybe he was. Maybe he grabbed the fork first but Hillcock wrestled it off him and jabbed him with it in self-defence.’

‘Yeah,’ repeated Den. A gloom was rapidly descending on him, as he assessed his morning’s work. ‘We’ve got nowhere, basically,’ he muttered. ‘Not a thing that would stand up as evidence. The whole neighbourhood’s taking it as read that Hillcock’s the killer – and if we’re not very careful, we’ll never build a case against him. And I bet you the bugger knows it.’

‘Should we call the DI and see if there’s anything new from Forensics?’ Mike had a knack for optimism that Den was only now beginning to appreciate. ‘It’s going to be down to them, basically, isn’t it?’

‘Okay.’ Den reached for his phone and keyed in Danny’s number; the Inspector answered on the second warble. Den gave a summary of the interviews with Heather and Abigail O’Farrell, and Ted Speedwell, plus the oddments they’d gleaned in the Limediggers, before asking, ‘Any progress from Forensics?’

‘Give them a chance,’ Hemsley protested. ‘You don’t get results that fast.’

‘No, but—’

‘We’ve got all the pictures pinned up. Barn, yard, footprints, tyre tracks. Not that they’re very exciting. Everything’s overlaid with about
a million cow footprints. And a muck scraping doo-dah got there before this morning’s team could show up. Did you see what they’d done?’

Den tried to remember. ‘The tapes were a bit messed up,’ he offered.

‘More than a bit. From what I hear, it’s close to deliberately interfering with a criminal investigation. Someone drove a tractor over it.’

Den groaned inwardly. He thought he knew who that might have been. ‘I don’t suppose there’d have been anything left to see, anyway. The cows were all over the yard last night in any case.’

‘Lucky for whoever it was, then,’ the DI growled.

Den shivered at Lilah’s narrow escape. He was in no doubt that she’d taken it into her head to make sure nothing would be found that could incriminate Hillcock any further. She knew about dirty farmyards and police investigations – and must have decided that they’d hardly prosecute a herd of cows for obstructing their enquiries. As scenes of crime went, a cow assembly yard must rate top for obliteration of evidence. But it had been a silly thing to do, all the same, and he felt a twist of irritation with her.

Hemsley was still on the line.

‘It’s not looking too promising, is it?’ Den said. ‘We’ve got no proof at all that it was Hillcock – and it’s not easy to see how we’re ever going to get any.’

‘Give Forensics a chance. It’s barely twenty-four hours. If we find O’Farrell’s blood on Hillcock’s clothes, then with a bit of fancy footwork on the angle of the fork, weight, height of the attacker – we’re in with a chance. You don’t think it was the Speedwell chap, then?’

‘I don’t think so, no. But at this rate it wouldn’t be hard to put together a case against him as good as the one against Hillcock. It stinks, sir.’

‘Calm down, Cooper. Some of that stuff you’ve got from the pub could do with a bit of processing. There might be something in there. Go and talk to the Speedwell wife – then the Hillcock women – you haven’t even started on them yet, have you? Oh, and be there for this afternoon’s milking. Check noise levels, and the way it all works.’

‘Right.’ Den was trying to work out the timetable. ‘First Mrs Speedwell, then the milking – he starts about three – then the Hillcock women. They don’t get back from work till nearly six. Do I keep Mike with me for all this?’

‘Has he got wheels?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then leave him to do the Speedwell lady, and you go and shadow Hillcock. See what he does before milking starts. Where are the cows? Does he do it all on his own, or does someone else usually help? It was this time yesterday the deed
was done. Just see what gets thrown up from watching the routine – okay?’

Den wasn’t happy. The prospect of spending more than a minute in the company of Lilah’s new lover was horrible. ‘Yes, sir,’ he managed.

Claudia Hillcock was so distracted that she could barely pretend to be listening to the wretched woman who sat facing her. The counselling room was small, with the blandest of furnishings: modern, upright chairs, a low table useful for the occasional drawing of geneagrams or arrangements of coins, in one of Claudia’s favourite symbolic games.

‘He just won’t
listen
to me,’ the woman was complaining. ‘Every time I start to speak, he leaves the room. What am I supposed to do about that?’

‘You might have to accept that he’s afraid to hear what you have to say.’

‘He’s not afraid – he’s bored. That’s what he says. That he can’t be bothered to stay and listen because it’s always the same old thing.’

‘And is it?’

‘Well …’ The client stopped; Claudia hoped she was genuinely trying to answer the question. The brief silence gave her thoughts an opportunity to return yet again to the topic of Gordon and the murdered Sean.

The antipathy between the two men had been building up for years. Claudia had listened to supper-time tirades from her son scores of times. Sean had ignored an instruction; Sean had been overfeeding some of the poor milkers; Sean had ordered the wrong semen from the AI place; Sean had sent the whole herd through the footbath three times in one week, which anyone could see was sheer madness, as well as very cruel.

‘Then sack him, why don’t you?’ she’d asked, many a time. ‘Get someone else, who’ll do things your way. God knows, there’s plenty of herdsmen out there looking for a job.’

‘I can’t,’ Gordon always sighed. ‘Not after all these years. And what about Heather?’ In his twenties, Gordon had been rampant, working his way through every nubile female for miles around, including the pretty young wife of the herdsman. Sean had been nerveless and – even then – disaffected, and Heather must have been impossible to resist. Claudia had turned a blind eye: something she had always been skilled at doing. There had been several incidents over the years where she had badly failed her family.

During her training as a counsellor, some of this had inevitably been revived, and much of her residual guilt expunged. Her supervisor was a deeply wise woman, who had gentled Claudia through the initial wracking self-recriminations,
at the same time forcing her to confront the aspects of her nature that she preferred to avoid. Claudia had emerged reborn, changed – at least in her own eyes – almost out of recognition. The relationship she had now with Gordon was as good as anyone could expect. They gave each other plenty of space, with Mary as a useful buffer between them.

Her experience after three years as a counsellor was that every family had secrets. There had been times, in the counselling room, when wives had disclosed the true parentage of their children, that she had wanted to say:
But this is a commonplace. Why, I could tell you a story of my own
– but she never did.

Not that Gordon ever showed the slightest hint of claiming Abigail for his own. When Granny started her accustomed rant about great-grandchildren, Claudia never caught a flicker in her son’s eyes. When Abigail was involved with a group of Year Nines at school who’d been identified as running a not-so-amateur racket, cheating younger children out of their pocket money, and Sean had been distraught about it, Gordon had seemed merely amused. But Claudia believed she knew better than to take his feelings at face value. She believed that Gordon himself stuck with Sean as his herdsman because he wanted the girl where he could see her.

Which, of course, gave rise to some strange logic if Gordon had suddenly flipped and killed his herdsman. Heather and Abigail would have to leave – the cottage would be needed for a new man. Nobody would expect the Hillcocks to extend charity to the point of letting them stay. And if Gordon had killed Sean, then Claudia and Mary would have to rally round to defend him – that much went without saying. Except that she didn’t know how to do that, and the search for an answer to this problem was the main cause of her inattention to the wretched client before her.

‘He told me yesterday that he wouldn’t care if I
did
leave him,’ the client was mewing pathetically. ‘Ever since I started coming here, and trying to talk to him about things, he’s just got colder and more uncaring. It really isn’t going the way I wanted it to.’

‘You wanted me to show you how to change him,’ Claudia returned. ‘You thought I’d explain him to you, and you could just go home and make everything all right. Don’t you remember I said at the start that it doesn’t work like that?’

The woman frowned and pushed out her lower lip. She looked for all the world like a mutinous three-year-old. ‘Yes, but …’ she began.

‘It’s hard, Celia, I know. If we could have had Steve here as well, it might have been clearer – but the fact that he won’t come is a message in
itself, do you see? He isn’t interested in sharing his feelings with you. I think you have to accept that. What you have to do now is to decide whether or not you choose to remain in a marriage that’s conducted on that basis.’

‘But … what should I decide? I never thought it would come to this. It didn’t cross my mind not to stay married.’

‘Nobody’s saying there’s a right or wrong answer. It’s what you – you, yourself – choose to do. Plenty of people live in that sort of marriage, quite contentedly. There’s nothing wrong with it.’ She was speaking automatically, words arising from one of the most fundamental tenets of her work. She had little hope that the client was hearing her. Sometimes she blamed her own profession for the idea that marriage should consist of total union, complete revelation of the contents of each heart and soul to the other. At other times she blamed the endless magazine stories, films, soap operas, novels that built up a picture of relationships as something that went beyond fantasy into realms of utter impossibility.

‘So I should give up then, should I? Stop talking to him altogether? That’s probably what he’d like.’

Claudia sighed. ‘You could try saying less. Leave a vacuum and you might be surprised at what happens.’

‘You think I nag him, don’t you?’

I’m damn sure you do,
thought Claudia. She shook her head. ‘I think you’re very anxious to get him to listen to you. It’s not a nice feeling to be ignored, after all. But he might be hearing a cracked record. It might help if you assume he
has
heard you, but he doesn’t know how to reply.’ Claudia felt like a cracked record herself; she’d said all this for several sessions now. If she could just concentrate a bit more, she might be able to think up a few practical strategies the woman could try – but that always felt manipulative if she only had one half of the couple in front of her. The chances of doing any real good were not high without the wretched Steve in the room as well.

The big clock above the woman’s head showed only five minutes to go. The relief was like a drink of cool water. Claudia picked up the diary on the corner of the low table. ‘I’m not sure about you, but it seems to me that we’ve done nearly everything we can. We agreed six sessions, I think? What would you say to just having one more – cutting it down to five?’

She knew what the reaction would be; the petulant lip pushed out again. ‘I don’t feel as if we’ve got anywhere, really. Steve isn’t the least bit different from how he was at the start.’

Claudia gritted her teeth. How nice it would
be to possess the magical powers that clients so often invested you with. ‘Well, let’s give it one more week, okay? Try to keep in mind what we’ve been saying this afternoon. Give some serious thought to what’s good in your marriage, what you like about Steve, and what sort of circumstances produce the sort of behaviour you’re happy with. Keep on trying to avoid doing the things that you know lead to problems. Think about what you say to him – listen to yourself.’

The lip quivered. ‘You upset me, saying that about choosing whether to stay in the marriage. I never wanted to separate. That would be
terrible
.’

‘There you are then. That’s a tremendous thing to have realised. Just knowing that will give you more strength to help put things right.’ God, she sounded revoltingly
bracing
, to her own ears. It wouldn’t matter if she thought the client understood a word she was saying, but it was her own failure that she couldn’t find the language to get her message across. She knew she couldn’t bear more than another hour of this futile exercise.