A Death to Record (25 page)

She sighed impatiently. ‘It’s the first time I’ve come across it personally. But the facts make it pretty obvious. Without ear-tags, they’re illegal. The calves down in that barn were officially dead at birth. And it can only have been Sean keeping them there. Gordon would never have let them starve, if he’d known about them. There was a terrible run of bull calves, right through
November and into December, with another three last week. Sean must have seen a chance to make some money out of them. Or thought he did.’

It had been a gruelling morning, with the disturbing discovery likely to haunt him for some time. Casting around for a ray of light in this dark place, Den’s eyes fell on the soft-faced Ted, cradling the sickly calf.
If Ted Speedwell killed Sean O’Farrell, I’ll eat Granny Hillcock
, he thought passionately. The idea cheered him and he forced a swing into his walk as he went back to his car and coiled himself into the driving seat.

Gordon put in an appearance at the meeting on Saturday morning because he’d said he would. Although he had asked Sean to swap milkings to make it easier for him to attend, it was actually going to be possible to do both, if he got a move on. This, he acknowledged wryly to himself, was what Sean had insisted all along.

‘Why can’t you do the milking first?’ the herdsman had demanded. ‘They won’t start before ten-thirty, and you can easily get away from here in time for that.’

‘Because I don’t want to do three hours’ work beforehand. I don’t want to rush the washing down, change my clothes and then get my head straight enough to concentrate on what they’re
saying. What difference does it make to you anyway?’

Sean’s answer to that had been vague and inarticulate.

Most of the local farmers had made the effort to attend. They’d hired a room at the White Hart in Okehampton, with coffee and lunch laid on, and a speaker from the NFU brought in – though nobody was too sure how that might turn out if things got militant.

Gordon had done the morning milking, washed everything down, changed his clothes and assembled his thoughts in plenty of time to be amongst the first to arrive. He took a seat in the middle of a row not far from the back of the room. He braced himself for the looks he would get as people recognised him and remembered the news stories from local TV and radio over the past few days.
The Western Morning News
had carried a story about Sean’s death and the weekly papers had made much of it at the end of the week. Gordon had no illusions as to how notorious he had become and how ambivalent many of his neighbours’ reactions were going to be.

Tom Beasley was the first to approach him, taking the adjacent seat to Gordon’s. ‘Heard about the trouble you’ve been having,’ he said flatly. ‘Must be hard, with everything else that’s going on.’

Gordon nodded. ‘That’s the way of it, but we have to keep going. This thing is too important to miss.’

Tom shook his head sceptically. ‘Can’t see any good coming of it. What can us do? Storm Westminster with a herd of bullocks?’

‘It’s what they’d do in France.’

‘They don’t care so much for their beasts in France. Us’d be too bothered about they hurtin’ themselves in the traffic.’

Gordon laughed his agreement. ‘True,’ he chuckled. ‘And the media would crucify us if anything happened to a cow.’ He tapped a copy of the local paper on the seat next to him. ‘If they mention
Cold Comfort Farm
again, I’ll not be responsible. Why can’t they take us seriously for a change?’

Beasley laughed sourly. ‘Us be nothing more than a setting for kids’ stories and telly sitcoms,’ he agreed. ‘’Tis enough to make men weep.’

‘Can’t go on, all the same,’ said Gordon grimly. ‘Milk money dropping again this month, no sign of any shift in lamb or pig prices, either.’

Beasley took up the refrain with weary familiarity. ‘My missus says us’d be better off breeding pedigree dogs for city folk than this. Her sister’s friend just paid five hundred quid for a golden retriever. Say nine or ten in a litter, two litters a year – you could live on that.’

Gordon snorted. ‘You have to think bigger than that, Tom. Keep four or five bitches, advertise in America – you’d clear twenty thousand a year, no problem. And no need to go out in the rain, either.’

‘Sell stock and machinery, and let the fields go back to nature.’

‘You get a grant for that. Not just set-aside, but special conservation areas for wildlife. You with that bit of river, too. You’d get more for otters and Christ knows what.’

The conversation was a well-worn one, laced with bewildered irony arising from the knowledge that, crazy as it might sound, their hypothesising was actually based in reality. There really would be more money in breeding lapdogs or letting their land lie undisturbed. Or in offering livery services to middle-class children with ponies. Or in renting out fields for paintballing games or historical re-enactment groups. Anything would be more lucrative than traditional agriculture. This awareness ensured that the farmers in the room carried with them a strong sense of alienation from their lifelong assumption: that they were of some importance to the fabric of society. The denigration of their way of life had not been subtle, especially in recent years. Nothing was now impossible and they sat with their heads drawn down between their shoulders
awaiting whatever further extraordinary blows might rain down on them.

The meeting was opened: a local activist made an impassioned speech, stating the obvious. The NFU man strove to tread a middle path, throwing all possible blame onto Brussels and not the national government. Individual farmers got up and told their individual stories, often heartbreaking in their accounts of expenditure exceeding income, month after month and perfectly good cows costing more to keep than they could ever hope to bring in with their milk.

Gordon said nothing, but he was glad he’d come. He was amongst peers, men who shared his lifestyle and who had no difficulty in understanding what was important. If they thought he’d murdered Sean O’Farrell, they weren’t losing any sleep over it, and they certainly weren’t going to break ranks and try to ostracise him for it. It was as if they’d nodded an acknowledgement of Sean’s death, with fleeting regret, concern, puzzlement, and then moved on. They lived for the here and now. This, anyway, was how Gordon Hillcock chose to see it. At the end of the meeting he voted for a petition calling for special urgent recognition of the situation, to be handed in at Downing Street, with renewed efforts to get serious media coverage. But a
picture came into his mind of Arthur Scargill and his distraught miners in the eighties, and he knew it was all futile.

He got home in the early afternoon, after a pleasant lunch with his colleagues, feeling for the first time that life just might settle back into the old groove, in spite of Sean’s death. His mother and sister were at home, and Lilah’s Astra was in the yard, although she was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where is she?’ he asked his sister.

‘There’s been something going on outside,’ Mary told him. ‘It’s just one bloody thing after another these days.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘I really couldn’t say. Apart from that wretched badger the other night, I’ve been doing a very good job of staying out of the action. I promise you, that’s how I prefer it.’

Gordon’s mood took a nose dive. ‘But where’s Lilah?’ he asked again.

‘I told you,’ Mary shouted at him. ‘I have no idea.’

‘And you don’t bloody care a toss, either, do you?’ he shouted back. ‘The whole place could burn down and you’d just stand there making cakes and taking no fucking notice.’

She faced him squarely. ‘Why the hell should I care? I’ve got no stake in the farm. All it is to me
is a great black hole swallowing up practically everything I earn – and for what? The whole thing’s finished, can’t you see? Didn’t they tell you that at your meeting this morning? We’ve got two years at most, the way things are going. Everybody knows it, why can’t you admit it? Without Sean, it’ll probably be less.’

Gordon’s eyes bulged. His younger sister had always known how to enrage him, how to press the button that ran straight to his nerve endings. One of the very few people in the world who wouldn’t be afraid to confront him with unsavoury truths, she always chose her moment unerringly.

‘What the hell difference would Sean have made?’ he blustered. ‘There’s about five hundred redundant herdsmen out there, all looking for work. I just have to snap my fingers and any one of them would start work tomorrow.’

‘So why haven’t you?’

He sneered in her face. ‘That question’s too stupid to bother answering.’

‘Hey, you two – what’s all this about?’ Their mother was in the living room doorway, the usual detached expression on her face. Both her offspring had learnt decades ago that it was useless to appeal to her in such circumstances for protection or arbitration. ‘Sort it out for yourselves,’ was her usual line.

‘Nothing,’ Gordon muttered, and went into the kitchen, intending to make himself a cup of tea. The oak table was stained with spills from the past forty years, the grain embedded with grey streaks. He traced a finger along the decorative edging groove, as he’d done since early boyhood, sulky and defensive now as he had so often been then.

‘Gordon thinks I ought to take more interest in the farm,’ Mary said. ‘He doesn’t think it’s enough that I pour almost all my money into the place.’

Before Claudia could make any attempt at a conciliatory reply, the back door banged and Lilah came in through the scullery. She was wearing thick socks on her feet, and unzipped her jacket as the family watched her.

‘Gordon,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were back. Did they tell you what’s been going on here?’ She looked round the three faces, eagerness and self-importance making her seem impossibly young to them all.

Gordon shook his head.

‘Den came back to speak to Ted, and they found a lot of dead calves down in the tractor shed. Sean must have been keeping them for himself – a little sideline. No ear-tags, of course.’ She paused, suddenly aware of the prickly silence in the room. ‘We told him there was no way you
could have known about them,’ she faltered.

Gordon got slowly to his feet. ‘Dead calves? Where did they come from?’

‘They must have been yours. All those bulls, born in November, remember? He must have pretended to shoot them and kept them on stolen milk, locked away. When he died, they all starved. Except one. Ted’s trying to save it, but it’s pretty far gone.’

Mary was the first to notice Gordon’s mounting rage. Even she, his brave sister, took a small step away from him.

‘And that police boyfriend of yours saw them?’

Lilah refused to be baited. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘So now I’ve got another reason to have wanted Sean out of the way. Didn’t that occur to you?’

She gazed at him in bewilderment. ‘But you didn’t know about it. If you had, you’d have made him get rid of them, or tag them, wouldn’t you? Nobody in their right mind could think you’d kill him just for that.’

Without further warning, Gordon brought his fist down on the table with such force that the extending flap screeched against its sliding mechanism and a plate at the other end crashed to the ground. Claudia gave a cry of alarm and Lilah went white. ‘You’ll frighten Granny if you do that,’ said Mary calmly. ‘Pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Can you blame me?’ he demanded. ‘With all this going on, it’s one bloody thing after another.’

From upstairs, they heard Granny Hillcock knocking on the floor with a stick. ‘There – I told you,’ said Mary. ‘You can jolly well go up to her and explain. And don’t come back until you’re in a better mood.’

With no further argument, Gordon did as she ordered. The three women breathed sighs of relief at his departure. Lilah attempted a giggle. ‘He’s just like my father used to be,’ she said. ‘I guess that’s farmers for you.’

Mary glowered at her. ‘I can’t think what you see in him. All he does is throw his weight about. Great big bully.’

‘He’s not,’ said Claudia softly. ‘He’s being pushed too far by this business with Sean. It must be terrible knowing you’re under suspicion for such a thing. You shouldn’t needle him, Mary. It isn’t fair.’

‘Since when was anything around here
fair
?
’ Mary demanded; nobody made any effort to reply.

Gordon came back within ten minutes and Lilah went to him, as if drawn by a magnet. He sat in a wide carver’s chair and she leant against him, inhaling the strong smell of his skin and hair. The presence of his mother and sister mattered little to her in these moments. Gordon raised his
head and put his arm tightly round her waist. She met his gaze steadily, seeking to rekindle the sexual passion that had been so strong between them only days before. She put out a hand to grasp his and then let him draw it to his cheek in an old-fashioned gesture of intimacy. Her whole body throbbed at his touch. She cupped his jaw in her palm, rubbing the scratchy stubble. Gordon only shaved every two or three days and his abrasive chin was highly sensual. His blue eyes, deep-set beneath arched brows, were fixed on hers. But the knowledge of the events of the past days lay between them. Lilah imagined she knew the circles his thoughts were whirling around in, the guesses and suspicions that preoccupied him.
Does she really think I did it? Will people think we did it together? Will anything ever be the same again?

‘Come on, you two,’ Mary chided them, clearly embarrassed. ‘Let’s have none of that.’

‘You sound like an old maiden aunt,’ Gordon told her, looking around Lilah at his sister. ‘Go get yourself a boyfriend, why don’t you? Maybe that’d loosen you up a bit.’

The unkindness, following so quickly on his noisy violence, disturbed Lilah and she withdrew from him.
He’s just upset about the calves
, she assured herself.
He isn’t usually like this
.

‘I don’t need loosening up, thanks very much,’
Mary responded tightly. After a moment’s clattering at the sink, she wiped her hands roughly on a towel hanging over the Aga and left the room, her face averted awkwardly. Claudia remained in her own chair for a moment, and then slowly got up.

‘I’d better get some notes written up,’ she murmured. ‘Can’t sit here all day.’

Lilah and Gordon let the door close behind Claudia before indulging in a long, hungry kiss. Lilah felt the split between mind and body as a painful conflict.
If only we could leave it all to our bodies
, she lamented to herself. Instead, she spoke her mind. ‘You’ve made Mary cry,’ she said. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘She always was a cry-baby.’

‘Well, I’m glad I never had a big brother, if this is what they’re like. Poor Mary, with you still on at her, at her age.’

‘She knows what she can do about it.’

‘Except she can’t, because you need her money to keep this place running,’ Lilah rashly reminded him. The scowl that greeted her words made her heart thump painfully, for two or three fearful beats. But she stiffened her spine and resolved not to be afraid of him, just as she’d done with her father. This was the man she had chosen, and everything was going to be all right. She faced him steadily. ‘It’s the same
for everybody these days. Farming isn’t
self-sustaining
for anyone. It’s bound to get better, though. It goes in cycles. We did history of agriculture last term, and you should hear what it was like in the 1880s!’