A Death to Record (23 page)

‘Right, sir,’ said Den.

It was three o’clock before WDC Nugent caught up with Lilah. The girl finally answered the phone at Redstone and Nugent requested her to stay there until she arrived, which she did, eventually, via deep Devon lanes.

Lilah’s manner was edgy, which was hardly surprising. ‘I can see I’m in a funny sort of situation here,’ she said at the outset. ‘Neither fish nor fowl, you might say.’

‘You’re well placed to get an overview of how things have been at Dunsworthy,’ Nugent suggested.

Lilah breathed a short satirical laugh. ‘Not really,’ she corrected. ‘The truth is I spend most of my time there in the house. In Gordon’s bedroom, actually.’ Her tone was deliberately provocative.

Jane smiled thinly.
Lucky old you
, she thought. ‘So how much did you see of Sean O’Farrell?’

Lilah wrinkled her nose and cast her eyes upwards. ‘I’d say I spoke to him no more than five times in total. Saw him around, of course.’

‘And how did Mr Hillcock feel about him?’

‘I don’t think he gave him very much thought at all. They’ve worked together for
most of their lives, just getting on with it. They were very different characters. Gordon’s clever, sensitive. Sean seemed a bit thick. Rather a shallow sort of person – I never saw any sign that he cared about anything much. Although he did have a sly sort of look to him, I suppose. He’d never look me in the eye. Maybe he didn’t like women.’

‘There seem to be various rumours going around concerning him.’

‘You mean the badger baiting?’ Lilah became more animated. ‘Yes, I heard that. Filthy business. It would match his character, though. The way he seems to have been with the cows, getting his kicks from an animal’s suffering. I don’t think he had the brains to imagine how another creature was feeling.’

‘Right,’ said Jane slowly. ‘And what about his family?’

Lilah tossed her head in a quick display of contempt. ‘The wife’s been out of it for years. Abigail seems to have a bit more about her, though.’

‘You know Mrs O’Farrell, do you?’

‘I went to see her last night, to offer my condolences.’

Playing at being Lady of the Manor
, Jane surmised. ‘That was nice of you,’ she said.

‘I think Abigail’s connected with the animal
rights people,’ Lilah offered casually. ‘All the local kids seem to be into it these days, don’t they? She’s going out with Gary Champion and his brother Davy is one of the main organisers. He’d know all about Sean and the badger baiting, from Abby.’

Jane pursed her lips doubtfully. ‘Doesn’t seem that relevant,’ she judged.

Lilah looked her in the face, eyes narrowing. ‘Well, I think it is. I think your answer is in there somewhere – with the animal rights people, I mean. They believe in direct action, don’t they? And I think you should remember that there were two people at least in the yard on Tuesday afternoon. Three, with Ted, though nobody seems to be taking much notice of him.’

Nugent had been carefully briefed. ‘Why did you drive your tractor over the police tape?’ she asked suddenly.

Lilah laughed, a single high note. ‘Oh, wasn’t that awful of me! I got the gears muddled up. It’s different from the tractor we used to have here, and I never drove that very much anyway. I’m a hopeless novice, quite honestly. It’s lucky I didn’t hit one of the cows. Mrs Watson was there – she’ll tell you what a mess I was making of it.’

‘Did you know Mrs Watson before this week?’

‘Never seen her, as far as I can remember. We
had a milk recorder for years, of course, but it wasn’t her. I know Sam by sight, that’s all.’

‘Ted Speedwell,’ Nugent changed tack again. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

‘He seems quite a sweet old chap. Doesn’t say boo to a goose, just gets on with the work. Never heard of him falling out with anybody. Except Eliot, of course.’

‘Eliot?’

‘His son. This is just gossip, but people are talking about him being gay. That’s why he was thrown out of the Army. But the interesting thing is, he was extremely matey with Sean. I think there’s an obvious inference to draw there.’

‘You’re suggesting a homosexual relationship between the two of them?’

Lilah widened her eyes. ‘I suppose I am,’ she said innocently.

‘Which would mean O’Farrell was gay as well?’

‘It would explain their friendship. Funnily enough, young Matthew Watson’s apparently gay as well, according to one or two of my brother’s friends.’

‘Matthew, son of Deirdre Watson?’

‘The very same. He’s only sixteen, but he’s one of those boys that people notice. Good at drama, had a big part in the school play at Christmas.’

‘Hang on,’ Jane interrupted. ‘This is just more gossip, isn’t it?’

‘That’s how it is around here. All these people go to the same school, so they all know each other. The catchment area’s enormous.’

Nugent observed a sudden cloud pass across Lilah’s face, a flinch as if at a painful thought. She concentrated hard on the implications. ‘It sounds as if you’re suggesting something fairly nasty to do with two adults and an underage boy. Are you serious about it?’

‘Sixteen isn’t underage, is it?’

‘That depends.’

Lilah wriggled. ‘I said it was all gossip. But it would link Sean to Deirdre Watson – and she was there when he was killed.’ She looked up, almost eagerly. ‘Don’t forget I went out with Den for nearly three years. I got used to making sense of apparently random connections, listening to him talking about his work.’

‘Ah yes,’ murmured Nugent. ‘I was hoping we’d get around to Den.’

‘I realise it can’t have gone unnoticed that I think it’s wrong to have him on this case at all. He’s going to be very happy if Gordon gets done for murder.’

‘But you think it was just a sort of coincidence, do you, that there should be a murder on a farm where you spend most of your time?’

Lilah frowned. ‘What do you mean? It is a coincidence as far as Den is concerned, of course.’ She blinked rapidly, her jaw tightening. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting … Christ! Is
that
why you’ve come to talk to me? That’s utterly ludicrous.’

Nugent said nothing, sitting motionless, watching closely.

‘You think Den might somehow have set this all up, in some totally sick and devious plot to incriminate Gordon?’ She laughed disbelievingly. ‘That’s crazy. Den would
never
do anything like that. It wouldn’t even occur to him. Den’s as straight as they come, surely you know that? Besides, it would have to be the daftest possible way to wreak revenge …’ She threw herself back in the chair in exasperation.

‘So why object to him being on the case?’

Lilah looked cornered. ‘Well … because he’s human; because he hates Gordon. Even without meaning to, he’s likely to be selective about the way he investigates the whole thing. There’s a world of difference between setting something up, and taking the opportunity to capitalise on it after the event.’

‘It sounds to me as if you’ve still got some feeling for him.’

‘Of course I’ve still got some feeling for him. We were
engaged
.’

‘But Hillcock’s got something that Den hasn’t?’

‘You’re implying I’m a gold-digger, after his farm?’ Lilah giggled at the idea. ‘I’ve already got a farm, thank you very much. Besides, I always promised myself I’d never take up with a farmer. It’s a mug’s game.’

‘So what happened?’

‘So it’s not the farm. It’s just him – Gordon. I fell in love with him. It happens.’

‘So they tell me,’ Nugent nodded, a little bleakly. ‘Well, thanks for talking to me. I think that’s all for now.’

Nugent hurried back to the station, mulling over the implications of Lilah’s statement. Mostly it felt like a desperate attempt to find a scapegoat for the crime she knew her boyfriend must have committed. She had been randomly slinging mud in all directions. But underneath all that, there was an uncomfortably solid thread of logic. Lilah had conjured a network of passions and wounded feelings that might quite credibly have led to Deirdre Watson hurling herself at Sean O’Farrell for what she believed him to be doing to her precious young son. And then there was the animal rights angle … which could also lead indirectly to Deirdre Watson.

Oh well
, she concluded, as she swung her car
out of the homeward stream of traffic and into the quieter street containing the police station,
It’s not down to me to judge who’s right and who’s wrong
.

She encountered Den and Mike in the canteen and followed them to a table, where she gave them a severely edited version of her interview with Lilah. ‘Sorry I had to do that, Den,’ she said. ‘But there was no way around it.’

‘No problem,’ he assured her, his face tight and pinched. ‘Just give us the bits you think we need to know.’

‘She claims – wait for it – Sean O’Farrell was gay and having it off with Eliot Speedwell, and young Matthew Watson, the milk recorder’s son, is that way inclined as well and might have got himself involved with them. At least, that was what she implied. She’s got no hard facts whatsoever.’

‘Did you believe her?’ Mike stared incredulously at Jane. ‘Sean O’Farrell
gay
?’

‘It does make things look a bit dodgy for Mrs Watson,’ Nugent pressed on. ‘If it’s true and she knew about it, she’d be furious with O’Farrell.’

‘We’re going to see Eliot Speedwell tonight,’ said Den calmly. ‘We’ll have to hope he sets us right, won’t we?’

‘What about young Matthew? Have you seen him yet?’ Nugent asked.

‘Not until after we’ve spoken to Speedwell,’ Den said. ‘If this is all a story, we’d be in deep shit making that sort of suggestion to the boy – in front of his mother, most likely.’

Jane Nugent sipped her tea and nodded slowly.

Den and Mike were both quite taken with Eliot Speedwell and his pretty little house, which had apparently once been a two-bedroomed artisan’s cottage. Tall and slim, unlike his gnomish father, Eliot had a self-deprecating air.

‘We understand you were a close friend of Sean O’Farrell?’ Den opened, without much preamble. Eliot nodded, his pain well hidden but not invisible. ‘His death must have been a shock.’

‘Of course it was. More so because I only heard about it this morning.’

‘Really? That suggests you weren’t in especially close touch?’

‘And that you never watch the local news on TV,’ added Mike.

‘Both true, more or less. I tackled my father about it earlier today. He should have been the one to tell me. I still can’t understand why he didn’t.’

‘Slipped his mind, I suppose,’ said Den. ‘Or he expected you’d hear from somebody else.’

‘Silly old bugger,’ said Eliot, with a hint of fondness mixed into the anger.

Den asked if they could all sit down around the table at one end of the kitchen. Everything was small and neat, the space used intelligently. Eliot’s offer of coffee was declined.

‘You can probably imagine what we’re up against,’ Den began. ‘We have to try and build up a picture of what this man was like, from an assortment of descriptions and comments from people who knew him. And just when you think there’s something coming into focus, a whole new viewpoint turns up that throws it all out of shape again. For example, we have one picture of a man who was good to his invalid wife, sympathetic to his daughter, conscientious at work. But we’ve also had people telling us he was brutal, shallow, secretive. The young animal rights campaigners call him the enemy. As his friend, we wondered whether you’ve got anything to add?’

‘People are complicated,’ Eliot offered. ‘What more can I say?’

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Den agreed. ‘But when
a man is murdered with considerable brutality, in his place of work,
complicated
doesn’t quite cover it. Wouldn’t you agree? It looks as if someone was driven to extreme rage and acted on it.’

‘You’re telling me the killer was somebody who knew Sean?’

‘Oh yes, I think so. Although we shouldn’t entirely rule out a crazed drug addict, I suppose. Let loose on the community perhaps, and found himself wandering down a country lane to Dunsworthy Farm?’ Den spoke ironically, deliberately trying to provoke a reaction.

‘Not many of them around in January,’ Eliot conceded. ‘Might get a few in August.’

‘Where were you on Tuesday afternoon, between one and four o’clock?’

‘At work. In the pasty factory. I’m in personnel. About ten people can vouch for me.’

‘When did you last see Sean?’

The answer came promptly, with scarcely a second’s thought. ‘Sunday afternoon.’

‘Where was that?’

‘Here.’

‘When did you last visit Dunsworthy? Before today, I mean.’

‘Christmas Day.’

‘What time did you go there today? Weren’t you at work?’

‘About ten-thirty. I took the morning off. I couldn’t have gone in, the state I was in. Three days before I heard he was dead. My oldest friend! So much for a close community!’

‘How did you hear?’

‘I saw it in the paper. I get it delivered on a Friday.’

‘Weren’t they talking about it at the factory?’

‘I realise now that they were, yes. Just odd references, without any names. Nobody there would know I was Sean’s friend. I didn’t take any notice.’

‘What did your father say when you tackled him?’

‘Nothing much. Sean was murdered and the police were investigating, obviously. I wondered a bit why you’d not been to see me sooner. Looks as if I was completely out of the loop, doesn’t it.’

‘Your father was on the farm at the time of Sean’s death, of course. Did he approve of your friendship with him?’

‘Approve? I’m thirty-two years old, Sergeant. I can choose my own friends, without my father’s permission. In any case, we grew up together, pretty much. We were more like brothers than friends.’

Den took a breath. ‘Mr Speedwell, there has been a suggestion that you and Mr O’Farrell were more than just good friends, if you take my
meaning. Assuming this to be true – or at least to be the general perception – what would your father’s reaction be to that?’

Eliot stared unblinkingly at Den for half a minute. ‘What?’ he said finally. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘You and Sean O’Farrell weren’t lovers?’

Eliot exploded into a raucous laugh; a much bigger noise than he looked capable of making. ‘Sean,
gay
?’ he spluttered. ‘My God, that’s a good one.’

Den found that he didn’t particularly mind feeling foolish. ‘It’s not true, then?’

‘It most definitely is
not
true,’ Speedwell assured him. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that Sean never had any sex drive of any sort. Something happened in his childhood – he never told me the details. Scared him off the whole business.’

‘Was he impotent?’

‘Put crudely, I should think he was. Except it never came to the point of him trying, as far as I could tell. Drove poor Heather crazy, of course, even though he tried to make up for it, looking after her so well.’

Den tried to keep his eye on the ball. ‘So – forgive me, but you do seem an unlikely pair
of friends. From what we’ve gathered about Mr O’Farrell … well …’

Eliot spread his hands. ‘We were young together. I learnt a lot from him in those early years; stuff like self-sufficiency and when to keep your mouth shut. I was always rather a loner, shy and awkward. A misfit. Then I joined the Army, like a fool, and it almost destroyed me. I crawled home with a breakdown. Sean was next door, and was really good to me. Told me I was well out of it. I kept the friendship going out of gratitude, I suppose.’

‘And you? Are
you
gay?’

Speedwell took a long breath. ‘I thought I might be,’ he said. ‘I experimented – went to a gay club in Plymouth a couple of times. Sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? At my age, I really should know at least that much about myself. I’ve always found it really hard to form relationships with women. None of them matched up to my mother, who is utterly sweet and good and kind and patient and all that sort of thing. But just lately I’ve started to get things straight. New house, new job last year, and maybe if I’m lucky, a new girlfriend. Someone who’ll give me what I need.’

Den knew enough about psychology to doubt whether such a specification would bear fruit. He saw Speedwell as spoilt by the self-sacrificing
mother, forever greedy for attention, giving nothing in return. He wanted to offer bland assurances and leave. But there was more to be asked.

‘And why was Sean here on Sunday?’

‘To borrow money,’ came the prompt reply. ‘He’s done it before.’

‘Did you give it to him?’

Eliot shook his head. ‘I told him I’d had enough of his silly schemes. Most of them were on the wrong side of the law.’ The man sounded careless of his own liability in having financed shady dealings.
Or fundamentally weak, more likely
, thought Den.

‘What kind of schemes?’

‘Oh, buying and selling. Nothing fancy. Scrap metal, unregistered animals, bits of scruffy land. None of it ever worked out to his advantage. I got involved a few times – helped him over a few of the practicalities.’ Den remembered the jumbled accumulation of objects on the Speedwells’ front lawn, and mentally ticked off that small anomaly. It had niggled at him that neither Ted nor Jilly seemed likely to be responsible for such a mess. Seemingly, Eliot had invited Sean to use it as storage, rather than his own premises.

‘But you did lend him money on other occasions?’

‘Now and then, yes. Never very much. It
was easier to give it to him than listen to all the bravado about how it was going to make us both rich this time.’

‘Tell me, Mr Speedwell – did you actually
like
Sean O’Farrell?’

Eliot slowly shook his head, an ironic twist on his lips. ‘No, Sergeant, I can’t honestly say I did. Not for the last few years, anyway. I shouldn’t think
anybody
really liked poor old Sean. Not deep down.’

The interview ended swiftly and Mike closed his notebook with a firm snap. Outside, Den said, ‘That’s it for today. We were right to leave young Matthew alone. If you’re lucky, you won’t be needed again till Monday, but I’ve a feeling Hemsley’s going to send me back to Dunsworthy tomorrow. It’s all coming down to the way O’Farrell treated his animals, as I see it. Somewhere on that farm, there must be more to learn.’

‘Have fun,’ said Mike.

As predicted, Hemsley detailed Den to go back to the farm on Saturday morning.

‘But Hillcock won’t be there,’ he remembered. ‘Not if he sticks to his plan. That’s why he swapped milking with Sean. He wanted to go to some meeting or other.’

‘So who’ll do today’s milking?’ Hemsley asked.

‘Probably a relief person. They’ve had time to organise that by now. Or maybe he’ll fit it all in himself.’

‘So talk to Speedwell, and the womenfolk. Maybe it’s best if Hillcock is away, come to think of it. They’ll talk more freely with him out of the way.’

Leaving it until ten o’clock, Den drove the winding route to Dunsworthy again, pondering on how repetitive murder inquiries tended to be. Innumerable visits to the scene of the crime; interviews with the same dwindling group of witnesses or suspects; going over and over the same forensic reports, like sifting through the same bran tub, handful by handful, on the off-chance that some forgotten little clue had been left sitting at the bottom.

He found the farmyard almost empty of vehicles; only the car shared by Claudia and Mary Hillcock sat under the corrugated tin roof of the makeshift garage that stood to one side of the house. No sign of Lilah’s Astra, which came as some relief. And Den began yet another search for Ted Speedwell, discovering even more permutations of doors and gates and openings amongst the interconnected buildings than he remembered from before.

He looked into two of the cavernous cowsheds, then headed for the door of a third, smaller, one.
He savoured the atmosphere of the place: there was a timelessness about it that struck him. Some of the items hanging on the walls, sitting on rickety shelves or propped in corners, had clearly been there undisturbed for decades. Dust had become so thick that it formed a near-solid tissue, grey-brown, crumbly, all-pervasive. It would be obvious to a careful scrutiny which objects had been moved within the past few months. Even a relatively modern farm like Dunsworthy, with its vast buildings, was not qualitatively different from the more traditional Redstone, where Lilah had grown up. It was a world entirely at odds with urban life, where animal hair and cobwebs were instantly dusted and vacuumed into oblivion. With a sigh, Den acknowledged his envy of those who were born into such a habitat. Even in January, with the hostile weather conspiring with the forces of consumerism and health hysteria to annihilate the entire farming industry, he thought he would cheerfully exchange it for his safe, tidy little flat. He might even have been persuaded to change his career with the police for that of a farmer – if things had gone differently with Lilah.

He heard the car engine, but didn’t show himself. He waited to see whether it was someone on farm business, whether Speedwell would manifest himself to deal with it. When no voices were heard, he ventured out of the shed from a
doorway that did not open onto the yard. His former fiancée came striding round the corner and almost bumped into him.

Her presence, within easy touching distance, made his skin feel raw and exposed. If she wanted to, she could rake her nails down his chest or cheek; for a moment it seemed to him that that was what she would indeed do.

‘Why are you back here?’ she demanded. ‘Sneaking round like a thief. If you want to speak to Gordon, why don’t you go and knock on the door like a civilised person?’

‘I’m looking for Ted Speedwell, as it happens,’ he retorted coldly. The memory of her furious treatment of him on Wednesday revived him. Her aggression now made much less impression on him. It felt forced and unconvincing.

She said nothing for a long moment. ‘Is Ted a suspect now?’ she finally asked.

‘I’m not at liberty to reveal any details of our investigation,’ he said stiffly, hating himself and her in equal measure.

‘Pardon me for asking,’ she mimicked, with exaggerated pomposity. He hoped desperately that the situation they were in would bring back to her at least some echoes of their first farmyard encounter, on the morning her father had died, and Den had been kind and protective and instantly concerned. How was it possible that
she did not remember it? He was welded to the ground, paralysed by her dogged hostility, unable to move until she released him.

‘You know,’ she said, in a milder tone, ‘it wasn’t anybody on this farm who killed Sean. You won’t get anywhere until you wake up to that fact. Sean was involved in a lot of nasty business, with some nasty people. I know you won’t take my word for it – you’ll think I’m just trying to protect Gordon. But ask the milk recorder and her kids. Ask Fred Page. Though if you send a policeman to see him, they’d best go in disguise.’

He couldn’t let it pass. ‘Lilah – did you send an anonymous letter to the police station about Mrs Watson and her family? And what on earth were you trying to do, suggesting to Nugent that Sean and Eliot were gay lovers? It was pretty imaginative, I’ll give you that, but completely irresponsible and stupid, as well.’

Her face told him a lot: discomfort, cunning, a delayed denial, all spiced with satisfaction at having got to him. ‘I was just passing on the local gossip,’ she said self-righteously. ‘And of course I didn’t send any anonymous letters. Why, what’s been going on?’

‘I told you as much as I can. I don’t believe you about the letter. Now, where do you think Ted might be?’

She ignored his question, standing obstinately
in her thick quilted jacket and black wellington boots. He was almost sure she’d sent the letter about Deirdre and her family. What sort of desperation had driven her to do that? It could only be the prospect of losing Hillcock that was motivating her to go to such extreme lengths. She must really care about him. But how could she?