A Death to Record (10 page)

The phone rang again as he got into the car. ‘Den?’ came Hemsley’s voice, ‘just thought I’d tell you –
the most recent fingerprints on the fork belonged to Sean O’Farrell. Looks as if he grabbed hold of it as he was being attacked. We’ve also got another set, both hands, including palm prints. They match Ted Speedwell’s.’

‘That’ll be because it’s his fork, that he uses every day for chucking silage about,’ Den said.

‘Very likely,’ said Hemsley neutrally.

Young Mike was hovering outside the Speedwells’ cottage when Den arrived a few minutes past the appointed time.

‘How’d you get on?’ Den asked him.

‘Well, I went with WDC Nugent to collect the daughter – Abigail – from Tavistock this morning and we told her what had happened to her dad. She’s in the house now with her mother. Nugent took the car, so I’ve got to stick with you from now on.’

‘How was she? The girl, I mean.’

‘Very flat. Didn’t react much at all. She’s at the age where they just talk in grunts. Didn’t even get anywhere when I told her I’d fed her animals.’

‘Oh?’

‘Seemed to scare her, if anything.’

‘She maybe thinks she needs a licence or something,’ Den surmised vaguely. ‘I’ll have to speak to her later on. How did it go with the old granny?’

Mike’s face, with its big, mobile features, expressed a mixture of emotions: amusement, frustration, bewilderment. ‘Could barely understand a word she said,’ he admitted.

‘Why? Is she foreign?’ Den was confused.

‘She might as well be. The thickest Devon accent I have ever heard. Plus she’s got no teeth, so she mumbles. I didn’t think there were any people left who talked like that. Oh, and cows are all male, to hear her talk. They should put her on telly – she’s the last of her kind, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘So how much did you get out of her about yesterday?’

‘Not a lot. She was in her room, in a big old chair she’s got up there, watching the racing all afternoon. She thinks she fell asleep for a bit. Can’t be sure what won the three-thirty, but she knows she was awake for the two races before that.’

‘Did you ask her about family history? How Gordon gets on with his mother and sister?’

Mike grinned. ‘There was quite a lot under
that heading, but it wasn’t easy to follow. Gordon was a very difficult baby, born “afore his time” and his mother not yet twenty. His granny had a lot of the rearing of him, and he’s very much her favourite. Something about him being sickly on and off for years. She seems disappointed in him these days. Says Mary’s been a “gude little maid” but she’s given up all hope of ever being a great-grandma.’

Den winced and struggled to breathe past the tightness that was suddenly in his chest. ‘So this is her entire family? Gordon’s father was her only child?’

‘As far as I know, yes. Nobody else was mentioned.’

‘What did she think of Sean?’

‘Didn’t seem too clear who I was talking about,’ Mike said. ‘She obviously doesn’t go outside much – if at all. She’s got a bad leg, very swollen up. Started talking about somebody called Wilf, who can do anything with a cow. Magic hands, he do ’ave, an if’n a cow be bad, Wilf can do wonders for ’e. I have a feeling Wilf was on the scene about the time Gordon was born.’

‘O … kay,’ said Den, making it a long, drawn-out expression of ironic summary. ‘It doesn’t sound as if
she’ll
be called to the witness box.’

Mike laughed. ‘I can see it now,’ he said.

‘So what’s happening about the Speedwells?’

‘There’s nobody at home. Mr Hillcock’s back, of course, doing something important with a cow’s rear end. Ted Speedwell’s driving a tractor …’ He cocked his head to listen for a moment. ‘Yes, you can hear it. I told him we’d want to talk to him, and he just nodded.’

‘How was his manner? Did he seem worried or scared?’

‘I only spoke to him for a minute. He didn’t say anything. He did look a bit scared, I suppose. But maybe he thinks he’s going to be murdered next.’

‘Maybe he does,’ Den agreed. ‘Well, time we had a word with him. Do we go to him, or is he coming to us?’

Mike looked at his watch. ‘I told him we’d like to see him at about eleven-thirty. It’s that now. We’ll probably have to go and find him. I got the impression that the farm work comes well before anything we might want.’

It wasn’t so much the painful rush of memories that Den found so disturbing, as the unpredictability of their onset. For a minute, he experienced total recall of the early days of the investigation into the murders on Lilah’s family’s farm, when the burden of milking had weighed heavily on the girl and her young
brother and Den had found himself stumbling in Lilah’s wake, trying to catch a word with her between innumerable vital farm tasks. It was disabling, as he stood there in the bleak January chill, recalling the rawness of the farming life, the completely different rules that pertained in this world.

‘Yeah,’ he breathed. ‘That’s about the way of it. We’d better go and look for him, then.’

Ted Speedwell was forking up stray clumps of silage when they found him. Gradually the system for feeding the cows became clear to Den, as he assessed the scene. A long row of aluminium troughs lay beside a double row of metal railings. From the positioning of yards and gates, it would seem that the cows lined up behind the railings and pushed their heads through to eat from the troughs. A reasonably tidy operation, but some silage spilled out in the process and lay beyond the reach of the animals. Ted was carefully collecting it and putting it back in the now-empty trough.

The fork he was using was a narrow, two-pronged pitchfork, which appeared to be causing him some difficulty. A quantity of silage fell off repeatedly, and the police officers could hear him muttering crossly about it.

‘That isn’t the fork you usually use, is it?’ Den asked him as they approached.

‘No, ’taint. You fellers ’ave tooken my normal one,’ he replied.

‘And where is that one usually kept? The normal one, I mean?’

Ted nodded vaguely towards the silage pit. ‘Round there someplace,’ he mumbled.

‘Where anybody could lay their hands on it?’

The man shrugged and nodded.
Obviously
, he seemed to be saying.

Den took a moment to examine Ted Speedwell in the cooler light of day, supplementing the impressions he’d gleaned the previous evening. There was something gnomish about him. He wore a woolly hat pulled down over his ears, and strong leather boots, not the rubber wellingtons that most farm workers adopted. His face was small and pinched; the features clustered together gave him a defensive look. His stained and gappy teeth appeared to be reaching the end of their useful life.

‘How long have you worked here?’ Den asked him.

‘Thirty-five years, must be. Since I left school.’

‘You knew Mr Hillcock’s father, then?’

‘Aye.’

‘Where were you yesterday, between one and four o’clock?’

Speedwell turned his attention back to the silage, speaking over his shoulder. ‘Ditching,’
he muttered, and then seemed to think more detail was required. ‘That is, had dinner till two, then up Top Linhay to clear out bottom ditch. Got n’self filled up with dashles and muck o’ that sort. Next time ’e rains, ’twill run over, see?’

Den blinked and carefully avoided Young Mike’s eye. Granny Hillcock might not be quite the last of her kind, after all.

‘What time did you finish?’

‘Near four. When ’twere too dark to go on. Days be short just now,’ he added, as if this was a piece of information they’d be glad of.

‘Did you go home then? Did you come back into the yard?’

‘Went for some tea. I starts at half-seven of a morning, cutting out the silage. Eight-hour day takes me to half-three. Never used to count it, in the old man’s time, but now we all get to clock-watching.’ He shook his head at the folly of modern life. ‘Din’t come near the yard, no. The boss can shift for n’self then.’

‘Even when it’s Recording Day?’

Ted gave a blank look. ‘Makes no odds to me,’ he said.

‘So when did you last see Sean?’

‘Yesterday mornin’,’ came the prompt reply. ‘Before dinner. He was having the milking off yesterday. Proper vexed ’e were about that. I said
to ’e, “You be daft to let ’un do it.” But—’ He stopped abruptly at the sound of approaching footsteps. Gordon Hillcock appeared from a small side barn, carrying a plastic bucket.

He paused at the sight of the three men – a rather contrived show of surprise, it seemed to Den. He must have heard their voices from where he was, if not the actual words.

There was something about the appearance of the man who’d so recently been held overnight in a police cell, now strolling around his farm as if nothing had happened. For a moment it seemed that the death of Sean O’Farrell was a mere dream, or an event that had happened a long time ago. The strands of blue police tape cordoning off one part of the yard had been broken and trodden into the muck and mud of the yard, he noted; now they just looked irrelevant. In Den’s opinion they
were
irrelevant. Any minute traces of forensic evidence still undiscovered after the previous evening’s searches were almost certainly lost for ever, beneath the countless bovine feet and the comings and goings of Ted’s tractor.

‘Excuse us, sir,’ said Den formally. ‘We are conducting an interview with Mr Speedwell which we would prefer to be in confidence. If we’re in your way here, perhaps there’s somewhere private we can use?’

Gordon Hillcock spread his free arm in a generous arc. ‘Take your pick,’ he said, indicating two or three buildings and doorways. ‘Office over there, as you’ll remember. Straw barn – that’s quite cosy. You’ll let me know when I can use the barn next to the parlour again, won’t you? My lame cows aren’t at all happy where they are.’

His tone was clipped, his head held high. Den understood the struggle to recapture the dignity that had been lost in the events of the past eighteen hours or so.
I am not a criminal
, was the subtext.
I will not become your prisoner again
.

And Den’s unspoken reply, as he smiled thinly and said, ‘All in due course, Mr Hillcock,’ was
Oh yes, you will, matey, if I have anything to do with it
.

‘Perhaps we’ll go into the office,’ he said to Mike and Ted. ‘Just for one or two more questions, if that’s convenient?’

They settled themselves awkwardly into the small space, and Den prompted the little farm worker to continue where he’d left off. ‘Sean wasn’t happy about the change to the rota? And you were telling him to make a stand. What did Sean say to that?’

‘Nothing, really. What’s to be said, when it comes down to it? Precious little work any more
for the likes of us; we stick it, like it or not.’ He looked nervous and spoke in a low mutter. The realisation that Gordon might have heard what he’d been saying outside appeared to worry him. Den cursed himself for embarking on a sensitive conversation in such a public spot.

‘You’re saying that you and Sean have both been unhappy working here?’ Den tried to clarify the point.

‘Tidn’ all the boss’s fault,’ Ted said. ‘Same all over, nowadays. All runnin’ downhill into the shit.’

The image was graphic, and Den took a moment to savour it.

‘But Mr Hillcock and Sean didn’t always get on together, did they?’ Den prompted.

Ted Speedwell looked sideways at the floor, indicating an unwillingness to commit himself on that point. Den squared his shoulders. ‘Mr Speedwell, I shouldn’t need to remind you that we’re here to investigate a vicious murder. Mr O’Farrell died here, just a few yards away, after a violent attack. What do you have to say about that?’

The little man looked up and met Den’s look full on. ‘I say, more fool he. I say, ’e ’ad it comin’ to ’im. I never met a man in my whole life more provoking than Sean O’Farrell. But I’ll tell you another thing – ’ee won’t find no blood from
Sean on any of they clothes ’ee took last night. I can tell ’ee that for nothing.’

Den exchanged a long, thoughtful look with Young Mike before speaking. ‘So – who did he provoke, Mr Speedwell? Who would you say killed him here yesterday?’

‘Why,’ the man’s eyes widened, ‘how would I know that?’

Den and Mike walked back towards the car, comparing impressions. ‘
Dashles?
’ Mike queried.

‘Thistles, I think.’

‘Ah. So what d’you reckon?’

Den glanced over his shoulder. ‘Reckon we’re nearly there,’ he said.

‘But Speedwell hasn’t got an alibi. How do we know it wasn’t him?’

‘Good question,’ said Den, feeling irrepressibly cheerful. Mike went back for another look at the assumed scene of the killing while Den called in his report to Danny. ‘I’ve seen Ted Speedwell, sir,’ he began. ‘His wife isn’t due back from work till two. Mike’s had a chat with the granny. Any idea how we should use the time till two?’

‘Hillcock’s there, is he?’

‘He is, yes. Business as usual, as far as I can see.’

‘What about your girlfriend? Is she lending a hand?’

‘Ex-girlfriend, sir,’ said Den stiffly. ‘No sign of her at present. She’s got her studies, you see …’

‘Right, right. Well, keep clear of her if you can. It’s only going to complicate matters if you start going at each other’s throats.’

‘So where to now, sir?’ Den repeated, ignoring the coded reference to that morning’s encounter with Lilah.

‘I suggest another word with the widow – and what’s happening with the daughter? Has she been tracked down?’

‘Yes, sir. She was driven home this morning. She’s with her mum now, having a day off school.’

‘Go and see them. Keep it shortish, then treat yourself to a bit of lunch. Go back just after two. Talk to Mrs Speedwell when she gets home. I take it the Hillcock women are both out?’

‘Hang on, sir.’ Den leant out of the car and called to Mike. ‘There’s only the granny in the big house, right?’

Mike nodded. ‘Right,’ he said, and began to walk back across the yard. From his thoughtful expression, Den suspected something was bothering him.

‘As you say, sir. They’re both out,’ Den told Hemsley.

‘Then play it by ear after you’ve seen the widow. Oh – and Cooper?’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Forensics tell me they’ve found blood on Hillcock’s clothes. Not a lot, mind. But they’re analysing it now. It’ll only take a little while to make a preliminary comparison with O’Farrell’s. An exact match’ll take longer, of course. But if it’s a totally different blood group, we’ll have to think again.’

It wasn’t exactly excitement that Den felt – more a sense of closing in on his quarry; another potential avenue of escape sealed off. He had no doubt that the blood would be of the same group as Sean O’Farrell’s. ‘Come on,’ he said to Mike. ‘We’ve got to go back to the cottages. Might as well walk. Time to have a proper talk with the wife and daughter.’