A Dirty Death (7 page)

‘Of course,’ replied the charming voice. ‘I’ll just call my wife. I’m sure you’d like to speak to her as well?’

‘Thank you,’ Den mumbled.

‘Cappy! Cappy?’ the man called, turning his head towards a large, well-made shed close to where Den had parked his car. ‘Just a moment – I’ll fetch her.’ And he set off, moving as gracefully as a dancer – or as his own lovely dog, which followed him.

A small dark woman emerged from the shed, brushing her hands down her white cotton trousers. Den had wondered at the funeral just where she had originated from; her skin was too
dark to be European, her features impossible to place. Her accent, when she spoke, was American.

The Mabberleys offered him a seat on the verandah and the red dog laid its long muzzle on his leg and watched him with liquid eyes throughout the conversation. He found this unnerving. Especially when he became uncomfortably aware of a patch of doggy drool seeping through his trousers.

He ploughed through his list of questions, feeling increasingly that he was being humoured, even toyed with, by this uncannily relaxed couple. Jonathan had lived all his life in this house; Cappy had joined him when they had married five years ago. They knew the Beardons quite well, and as for the Grimsdales – well, they were part of the local furniture, so to speak. They’d been born in that cottage. Jonathan had sometimes gone with his mother to visit them, as a youngster, but had to admit he’d not had much to do with them since then. There wasn’t much by way of a link between Guy and the Grimsdales, except of course that Guy had bought up almost all of their land. Jonathan had wondered whether that was entirely sporting, but Amos and Isaac hadn’t seemed to mind. It didn’t seem very likely to the Mabberleys that Guy’s death had any connection with the murder of Isaac. At least, neither of them could think of anything that might suggest such
a connection. They had been in bed till nearly eight the previous morning – since giving up the milking cows there hadn’t been any need to rise at dawn like the olden days. Now they kept beef cattle, God help them, which could wait until a more civilised hour before needing any attention.

Asked how they had felt about Guy Beardon, they looked at each other, part amused, part doubtful. ‘What can we say to that?’ Jonathan asked his wife in an ironic tone.

‘Well,’ she drawled, ‘all we can
truthfully
say is that he was a very exasperating man. Unreasonable. Volatile. Not an easy neighbour.’

‘He was bloody rude,’ added her husband. ‘Especially to you, my sweet.’

‘But he did care about his animals and his family. He doted on Lilah – nobody could argue with that. Treated her like a little princess, even when she’d left school and ought to be growing up a bit. A good farmer, a good father, but … a difficult man,’ she summarised.

Driving away again, Den thought grimly that everyone he’d questioned seemed to have prepared their answers in advance. They had at least provided a consistent picture: a community prepared to tolerate an irascible neighbour with general good humour. Not one person had a respectable alibi for the murder of Isaac; but
nobody seemed worried by the lack of one.

It was four o’clock when he reached Hetty Taplow’s cottage. Contrary to his expectations, she was by far the least forthcoming of all his interviewees. She seemed frightened of him, impatient for him to be gone. Her round cheeks, normally rosy with good cheer, were pale and creased, making her look older than her thirty-five years. Her brother, who lived with her, arrived home from work while Den was there and glared at him suspiciously. No, Hetty insisted, she had no idea why anyone should kill poor old Isaac. It was a shame and a sin to do such a thing. And Amos not much better, lying there in hospital – he’d hate that, away from all his things. Scarcely been outside the village in their lives and now look what’d happened. ‘You go and talk to that Phoebe Winnicombe,’ she said as a parting shot. ‘Her’s the one you need to ax all these questions of.’

But Den was too tired to try Phoebe’s cottage again. That would have to wait for another day. It was time to return his overflowing but repetitive notebook to the Incident Room and let old man Smith make what he could of it.

As the days passed, letters of condolence continued to arrive, along with cards etched in silver, some featuring religious themes, proffering hope of a life beyond this one. ‘This is all very strange,’ said Miranda. ‘Like a morbid sort of Christmas. When are they going to stop?’ It seemed that the news was rippling outwards very slowly, as if passed by osmosis. People who had known Guy and Miranda in South Devon on their first rented farm; people who had sold them cattle feed or grass seed; parents of Roddy’s schoolfriends; all wrote, sending futile words of sympathy and encouragement. Other letters came, too, addressed to Guy himself. Bills, mostly, but also a long-awaited diploma for Agatha, his prize cow.
For six consecutive years, Agatha had produced prodigious quantities of top-quality, super-creamy milk; her butterfat content was phenomenal. Now she was rewarded by a fancy piece of paper, which would have made Guy glow with pride. A highly competitive character, he was justly boastful of the way he had built up his milking herd from nothing, his pretty, little, fawn-coloured Jerseys, fed organically and treated as individuals, a deliberate deviation from the endless repetition of black-and-white Friesans with numbers stencilled on their backsides. His small beef herd, now victim to the BSE regulations, comprised mostly crossbreeds.

Miranda didn’t know what to do with Agatha’s prize. Helplessly she showed it to Lilah, tears in her eyes. It was the small things that jumped out and snagged your emotions, she was discovering. The girl was equally ensnared. ‘Oh, no,’ she choked. ‘And he isn’t here to see it. Oh, Mum, it’s so sad. After waiting for it so long. It doesn’t mean anything now.’

‘It’ll make Agatha more valuable,’ said Miranda, before she could stop herself. She didn’t mean to be callous, she inwardly defended. It was just her way, to try and see the bright side.

But Lilah was offended. ‘We’re not selling Agatha,’ she shouted, through tears that made her seem terribly young. ‘We’re not selling
any
of the
cows. We’re not selling anything. This is my farm, now. I’m going to see that we keep it going just as it was.’

‘It’s not your farm, Li. Don’t be silly. Whatever makes you think that? If we have to sell, then it’ll be my decision, and Sam’s, whatever you might think about it.’

She hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but Lilah had been provocative. Without another word, the girl turned and ran outside, slamming the door behind her.

Miranda knew what Lilah had meant, of course. She was aware of a higher moral law which decreed that the farm certainly ought to be her daughter’s. Guy had always assumed that Lilah would take over as he got older, and had begun to train her years ago. Roddy had never shown the same interest; his academic courses at school would over-qualify him for a life of mud and EC regulations. Guy had never tried to hide his pride in his clever son, talking about Oxford and the satisfactions of an indoor life with complete sincerity. Miranda understood that he was claiming both children as his own, doubly possessive now because of the two abandoned and neglected sons from his past. Roddy was reliving Guy’s early professional dreams, and making them come true this time; Lilah was to continue the work he’d done at Redstone, and build on
the milk herd until it was the best in the country. Always a man to have his cake and eat it too, she remarked to Sylvia, more than once.

Now Miranda wandered through the house, the certificate in her hand, trying to think where to put it. Everything to do with the cows was in the office outside, where Guy had an old filing cabinet and a second-hand computer. She put the certificate down on top of a dusty pile of magazines beside Guy’s armchair and forgot about it. The farm office was foreign territory to her; it didn’t occur to her to enter it now. If anyone were to inherit mastery of the office, it was Sam, not her.

Sam’s mood was one of conflict and confusion. His grief for Guy was muted by self-pity. His workload was doubled, and nobody remembered to thank him properly or to reassure him that this situation wouldn’t last forever. Counterbalancing this was the strong sense of obligation that he carried towards Miranda and the children. They were the only family he had, and it satisfied him to know they were dependent on him now. As he fell exhausted into bed each night, in the little annexe to the main farmhouse which was his home, having ensured that the cows were all as they should be, and the equipment clean and ready for the morning, his customary last thoughts were grimly contented. Once the family settled down a
bit, they’d be grateful, all right; until then he just had to make sure he carried out his duties as Guy would have wished and expected.

Lilah was his chief helpmate; he was pleased by the effective team they made. Both were in agreement that morning milking would always be the worst part of the day. The ghost of Guy hovered in the yard at any time of day, but those moments before breakfast, when Sam and Lilah met to begin their day, were hard to bear. They exchanged looks of pain and understanding; they avoided glancing towards the now empty slurry pit. ‘Will they send an official to make us fill it in, do you think? said Lilah.

Sam shrugged. Who knew? Officialdom had never much disturbed him – other people had always handled that side of things on his behalf. How he would manage now, without Guy’s individual mix of scorn and kindness, was something he still couldn’t think about.
Wouldn’t
think about. That way lay grief and fear.

Lilah got up early the day after the attack on the Grimms, and went to help Sam in the final stages of the milking. Not having a dog to help bring the cows in was a nuisance. Lydwina, the most beautiful, intelligent collie they’d ever owned, had died, tragically, on Easter Monday, carelessly kicked in the head by a frisky young heifer let out into a field for the first time. The family’s grief
had been intense; Guy had threatened to shoot the offending heifer in the first hysterical moments of the disaster. They’d had the dog only a year, a special acquisition beloved by everyone. Roddy, however, had taken her to his heart the most, and many of her skills were learnt at his instruction. When she died, Roddy had gone numb and cold with disbelief.
Perhaps
, thought Lilah,
that has something to do with the way he is now
.

She talked a lot that morning: a stream of words coming from her, about the cows and the weather and the clock – would they finish in time for the tanker? Would Cornelia finish her heat before the AI man arrived? Would the hay be spoilt if they didn’t get it cut by the end of the month? Would the heifers escape if they didn’t patch that gap in the hedge today? Much of what she said was lost beneath the steady throbbing of the milking machine. Sam understood that she was talking more to herself than to him, that she required only the occasional nod and smile in reply. Perhaps he realised also that unleashing so many anxieties was cathartic, a welcome release. Sam was surprised at how much the girl knew about the farm; he had previously seen her only as a useful second assistant to Guy, given peripheral tasks. Now he understood that she knew and understood the daily routine very nearly as well as he did. But then it was only what you’d expect,
he thought with some sourness; her father had always given her his undivided attention. A girl her age should have been off working at a proper job, a career, not hanging about at home with her father, merely enrolling for occasional short courses at the local college as the whim took her. Still, if she hadn’t stayed under Guy’s wing for so long, Redstone would have been finished now.

Roddy, by contrast, was almost useless. He came out to the parlour or the barn, looking helpless and lost, and stood waiting for orders he clearly wasn’t keen to fulfil.

‘That mouldy hay’s got to be shifted,’ Sam had said hopefully, a few mornings ago, cocking his head at the grey musty bales.

‘Shifted where to?’ Roddy vaguely asked, hands still in his pockets.

Sam had shrugged. Mouldy hay was just …
shifted
. It came in useful as bedding for calves, or mulch for the vegetable patch, or … It ought to be obvious. But he couldn’t show his irritation with the boy. Sam could see how tightly the jaw was clenched, how desperately Roddy wanted to be somewhere else. Partly he sympathised. He knew Guy had been as unpleasant with his lad at times as he had been to Sam himself. If either of them made a mistake, the vitriolic tongue would reduce them both to ashes, effectively killing any tendency to show initiative.
Without him, they were headless. Lilah, by contrast, had been encouraged and praised by her father much more than she’d been criticised, and thus sustained a self-confidence that the others lacked. Sam knew that Guy had always wanted a daughter just like her; pride and pleasure had shone from him whenever he was with her.

The police displayed an odd mixture of suspicion and neglect. Two men came back, that morning, and asked Miranda to explain the precise connection between the two properties – Redstone and the Grimsdales’ smallholding. In some detail, she recounted the process whereby Guy had bought the eighty acres which had once belonged to the brothers. The first purchase had been ten years ago, three large fields amounting to nearly forty acres, triangular in shape, running alongside the road. She found a map and showed them. Five years later, a similar transaction had been conducted, this time involving a patch of woodland on the other side of the road, which Guy had used for keeping
free-range
pigs. ‘It was nice, having those pigs,’ she added wistfully. ‘I like pigs.’

‘That’s all right, madam,’ said one of the men heavily. ‘We don’t need to know what he used it for.’

‘Sorry,’ shrugged Miranda. ‘I have no way of knowing what you think is relevant.’

‘No pigs now?’ queried the other, younger, officer, more polite and less cynical.

‘No. They kept getting out into the road, and they’d served the purpose of clearing the land. Guy took all the trees out, only last year.’

‘Bet that made him popular,’ commented the second man.

Miranda pulled a face. ‘You can say that again,’ she agreed. ‘Woodlands are emotive things around here. Fortunately, the Mabberleys do the right thing in that respect, maintaining their ancestral acres.’

‘These land purchases,’ pursued the first man. ‘Were they all done amicably? I mean, the Grimsdales were happy to sell to your husband, were they?’

Miranda’s brows rose. ‘Oh, yes. They got a fair price. They bought a new tractor, and a car. Even had the roof fixed, after the first lot. They needed the cash, you see. They had no idea how to farm effectively. Couldn’t keep up with the times.’

‘Sad,’ said the nicer man. ‘Seems a shame.’

‘Oh, I think they accepted it. And the tractor was their pride and joy. You must have heard about the way Isaac used to drive it up and down the main road every summer. Caused traffic jams for miles, on a Saturday, holding up all the summer visitors. Even Guy thought that was funny.’ She
laughed at the memory. ‘We all enjoy teasing the grockles, don’t we.’

The men pursed their lips and said nothing. Clearly Miranda had said the wrong thing. The older policeman summarised: ‘Can we ask you one more time, Mrs Beardon – have you any idea at all who could have attacked the Grimsdale brothers?’

‘My answer is still the same. I have no idea at all. Just guesses, which are all the obvious ones. A passing tramp. A burglar who went too far. Someone who’d committed a crime further up country, and thought the Grimsdales had somehow found out about it …’ She tailed off. ‘Anyway, I expect you’ll be able to ask Amos any day now. Then everything will be explained, won’t it.’ She settled back in her chair. ‘And then let’s hope we can all get on with our lives in peace.’

‘You seem remarkably unafraid,’ commented the unsmiling policeman. ‘Two deaths and a serious assault happening on your doorstep, and you talk about getting back to normal. Most ladies in your position would be seriously frightened.’

‘We lock the doors at night,’ she said crisply. ‘And keep ourselves busy. I must say I really can’t see any reason to fear. Perhaps I lack imagination?’

She could almost hear him thinking,
Or perhaps you have reason to know there’s nothing to fear
… Forcing herself to say nothing more,
but to show them out calmly, she only realised how tensely she’d been holding herself in when they’d gone. Expelling a great breath, and letting her shoulders slump, she threw herself into her chair by the Rayburn. ‘Oh, God,’ she murmured aloud. ‘Let this whole mess be over with, before it drives me completely mad.’

Lilah had been too busy to think much about Constable Den, but her heart did a decidedly interested double-flip when he turned up the following day. He met her in the yard, having parked beyond the gate and walked in. She wondered whether he’d been exploring the sheds which stood close to where he’d left his car.

‘Could you show me your father’s office, please?’ he said. ‘Forensics have suggested we go through the computer files.’

‘Really?’ was all she could say. ‘You’ll be very disappointed. Dad never really got to grips with the computer, apart from keeping track of the milk yield, and the prices he paid for feed. You can see it’s a very outdated system.’

‘Let’s have a look then.’ He switched the machine on, and scanned the screen. ‘Hmmm, I see what you mean. This is a 286 – a real dinosaur.’

‘He was talking about getting a new one, only a few weeks ago. He wanted to keep up with all the latest technology. He never wanted to stop
learning.’ Her voice sounded hollow, in her own ears. Words with the emotion shut away, reciting facts which threatened to trigger tears and misery if they weren’t kept carefully neutral.

‘He’d been a teacher, I understand.’

Lilah stared at him. ‘Who on earth told you that?’

He spread his hands, a caricature of innocence. ‘It’s in the files somewhere. Perhaps he got a pension? That’s probably it.’

‘Well, it was a million years ago. When he was in his twenties. I wasn’t born until he was nearly forty. Do you always go back into a person’s past history like this?’