Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery (Inspector Banks 22)

by Peter Robinson

  John Beddoes sighed. ‘It’s probably in bloody Albania by now, then. It’s worth a hundred K at least.’

  His wife came in with a tea tray and served everyone. Annie could hear the radio in the kitchen. Ken Bruce playing golden oldies on Radio 2. ‘Runaway’. She knew the song but couldn’t remember who sang it.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea exactly when the tractor went missing?’ Annie asked. Doug Wilson pushed his glasses up again and bent over his notebook.

  Beddoes shook his head. ‘We were only gone a week. We’re not that big an operation, really, and it’s mostly arable. Some cereals, vegetables, potatoes. Rapeseed’s our biggest crop by far. We supply a specialist high-end oil-maker. As you probably noticed, we also have a few pigs and chickens to keep the local quality restaurants supplied. Free-range chickens, of course, when it’s possible. And the pigs are British Landrace. Excellent meat. So there really wasn’t much to do last week.’

  ‘I’ve heard that certain breeds of pig can be valuable,’ Annie said. ‘Are yours?’

  ‘Quite, I suppose.’

  ‘I wonder why they weren’t taken, too?’

  ‘I should think these people specialise, wouldn’t you? There’s a lot of difference between getting rid of a tractor and a pig. Also, you’ve got to know how to handle pigs. They can be nasty when they want to be.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Annie, though she knew absolutely nothing about pigs except they smelled and squealed and she didn’t eat them. ‘Now the thieves know that the pigs are here, though, perhaps you should think about improving your security?’

  ‘How am I supposed to do that, apart from standing outside the sty all night with a shotgun in my hands?’

  ‘I’d forget about the shotgun, if I were you, sir. They only get people into trouble. There must be special fences, alarms, Country Watch, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Where was the key?’

  Beddoes looked away. ‘What key?’

  ‘To the tractor. I imagine if it’s modern and expensive it has various security features.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where did you keep the key?’

  ‘Hanging on a hook in the garage.’

  ‘And the car keys? The Beemer and the Range Rover.’

  Beddoes patted his trouser pocket. ‘They’re on my key ring. I carry them with me.’

  ‘But you didn’t take the tractor key with you while you were away?’

  ‘Are you here to interrogate me or to help me recover my stolen tractor?’

  Annie and Wilson exchanged glances. ‘Well, sir,’ Annie went on, ‘at the moment we’re trying to establish just how the tractor was stolen, and it would seem to me that being able to start it is a major issue. I mean, you could hardly push it into a waiting lorry, could you?’

  ‘How could I know something like this was going to happen?’ Beddoes had reddened and started waving his arms around. ‘We were running late. Pat . . . The bloody taxi was waiting. I just didn’t think. The garage was securely locked when we left, for crying out loud.’

  ‘John,’ said his wife. ‘Calm down. Your blood pressure.’

  Beddoes smoothed his hand over his hair. ‘Right. Sorry.’ He turned to Annie again. ‘In retrospect I know it looks stupid, and I didn’t want the insurers to know, but I . . . I mean, mostly we’re around, so it’s not a problem. I often just leave the tractor in the yard with the key in the ignition. When you get on a tractor, you want to just start it and get going, not search around for bloody keys. In this case, the garage was well locked, I had someone keeping an eye on the place. What more was I supposed to do?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Annie. ‘Who took care of the place for you while you were away?’

  ‘Frank Lane from over the dale said he’d feed the pigs and chickens and keep an eye on everything for us. Not that we blame Frank for what happened, of course. He can’t stand on twenty-four-hour vigil any more than I can. Besides, he’s got his own farm to take care of, and it’s far bigger than ours.’ He laughed. ‘Frank’s a real farmer, as he never ceases to inform us. And he’s got that tearaway son of his to worry about. We’re just grateful he was able to help at all.’

  ‘What makes you call his son a tearaway?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s always been a handful, ever since he was a nipper. Mischievous imp. He got into some trouble with the police a while back.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘Frank wasn’t specific about it, but I think it was something to do with a stolen car. Joyriding. Got probation, community service, something like that. I didn’t like to say anything to Frank, but to be honest, the lad always seemed a bit of a shiftless and mischievous sort to me, if truth be told. He doesn’t live at the farm any more, but he turns up now and again to see his father.’

  ‘Capable of stealing a tractor?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I don’t think he’s basically dishonest.’ Beddoes took a deep breath. ‘Just misguided. Frank calls me a hobby farmer. Laughs at me behind his back, like they all do. It’s true, I suppose. But I was born on a farm and grew up on one, dammit, until I was twelve.’

  ‘I see,’ said Annie. ‘Is there any bitterness between you and the other local farmers?’

  ‘I wouldn’t really call it bitterness. More envy. They tease me, make fun of me, exclude me from their little cliques, but that’s just their way. You know Yorkshire folk. God knows how many years before they finally accept you, if they ever do.’

  ‘Any recent disputes, arguments?’

  ‘None that I can think of.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Patricia said.

  Annie made a note to have a chat with Frank Lane and his ‘tearaway son’ later. Intelligence had it that those responsible for the recent surge in rural thefts used ‘scouts’, usually local delivery drivers, or itinerant labourers, who built trust by helping out the farmers with maintenance, crop-picking or vermin control, as the seasons demanded. A tearaway son could easily get involved in such a racket if the price was right. Or if drugs were involved. There were plenty of cannabis farms around the region. Not that Annie saw any harm in having a few tokes now and then. After all, she had grown up surrounded by the stuff in the artists’ colony outside St Ives, where she had lived with her father and a constantly shifting cast of bohemian types and plain ne’er-do-wells, maybe even a minor drug-dealer or two. But it wasn’t just a couple of spliffs that bothered the police; it was big business, big profit, and that was what drew the nastier type of international criminals and gangs. It was hard to turn a blind eye to them.

  ‘Do you have any security alarms?’ Annie asked.

  Beddoes snorted. ‘What, up here? Waste of bloody money, like I told the constable earlier. Any self-respecting criminal would be long gone before a patrol car got up here, even if one happened to be free when you needed it.’

  He was probably right, Annie realised. Once she had as much detail as she could get from John Beddoes, there seemed little reason to stay. Annie stirred herself and gave Doug Wilson the nod. ‘We’ll be in touch as soon as we know anything,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have a quick shufti around outside before we leave.’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Beddoes. ‘Please keep me informed.’

  ‘We will.’

  Patricia Beddoes lingered behind her husband, her hand on his shoulder. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Beddoes,’ said Doug Wilson, ever the polite young man.

  ‘You’re welcome. Goodbye.’

  Once they had put their rain gear on again, they squelched over to the garage where John Beddoes had housed the tractor. PC Valentine had examined it earlier, of course, and they saw nothing he hadn’t mentioned in his report. It looked like a crowbar job, Annie thought. The entire metal housing had been prised from the wooden door, and the heavy padlock that lay in the mud was still intact. Annie took a photo of it in situ with her mobile phone, then dug a plastic bag out of her pocket and carefully picked up the lo
ck using the end of a pencil and dropped it in the bag.

  ‘A kid could have broken into that garage in five seconds,’ Annie said in disgust. ‘Come on, Doug. We’ll send some CSIs to poke around in the mud when we get back to the station. There’s no hurry.’

  ‘Poor Beddoes,’ said Wilson, as the windscreen wipers slid into action and the police Volvo shuddered to life.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him. That BMW over there looks new to me. And as you said, it’s an expensive tractor.’

  Annie made herself as comfortable as possible in the passenger seat, rubbing at the steamed-up window beside her. Unlike Banks, whom she felt always needed to be in control, she didn’t care who was driving. In fact, all the better if it wasn’t her. She didn’t like driving, especially in this weather. And there were too many arseholes on the roads these days, no matter what the weather. This week wasn’t starting out well, she thought. It was only mid-morning on Monday, but already her back was aching, and she wanted nothing more than to go home and have a long hot bath with a pile of trashy gossip magazines.

  When DS Winsome Jackman arrived at the abandoned airfield, there was already a patrol car parked at the gate and two uniformed officers, one of them enjoying a cigarette, were talking to a man through the chain-link fence. The man was tall and slim, wearing a camouflage jacket, waterproof trousers, sturdy walking boots and a baseball hat, black with a stylised white ‘A’ on the front. He was taller than Winsome, but stooped a little and leaned on a walking stick. Whether it was a rambler’s prop or a genuine need, she couldn’t tell. It was also hard to tell how old he was under the baseball cap, but he seemed too young to be needing a walking stick unless he’d had an accident. A beagle sat quietly by his side, nose twitching as Winsome appeared.

  The uniformed constable introduced herself and dropped her cigarette and trod on it as Winsome approached. Winsome had been told by dispatch that someone had reported seeing what he thought was a bloodstain in a disused hangar near the railway line. It was her job to go over there and assess the situation, weigh up the pros and cons of bringing in an expensive CSI team. The wind tugged at her hair and seemed to permeate the very marrow of her bones. The rain felt like a cold shower.

  ‘What have we got?’ Winsome asked.

  ‘They’re padlocked shut, ma’am,’ said one of the officers, pointing at the gates. ‘There’s nothing urgent, so we thought it best to wait for you.’

  Winsome looked at the man inside. She couldn’t help but see him as a man imprisoned in some sort of prison camp or compound. He had a military air about him, though she would have been hard pushed to put her finger on what made her think that. ‘How did you get in there, Mr . . . ?’

  ‘Gilchrist. Terry Gilchrist. There’s a gap round the side. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. It’s a tight squeeze, and it’s mucky down there.’ He gestured to the mud-stained front of his jacket and knees of his trousers. Winsome was wearing black jeans and a belted winter coat, not exactly her best outfit, but not something she wanted to drag through the mud, either. She guessed that the uniformed officers also hadn’t liked the idea of crawling through a hole in the fence and getting their uniforms dirty. ‘Do you know who owns the place?’

  ‘Government, probably. You coming in?’

  Winsome sighed. ‘A good detective always comes prepared,’ she said, and returned to her car. She opened the boot, took out a torch and a pair of bolt cutters and approached the gates. She handed the torch through the fence to Gilchrist, and with one quick, hard snip of the bolt cutters she snapped open the padlock, which clattered to the concrete. Then, with Gilchrist’s help, she pushed the gates open. They grated as they followed the semicircular grooves already etched in the crumbling concrete. They might not have been opened frequently, Winsome noted, but they had certainly been opened occasionally, and quite recently by the looks of the tracks.

  Gilchrist smiled at her. ‘Thanks for rescuing me,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to feel I’d never get out of here.’

  Winsome smiled back. ‘You won’t. Not for a while yet.’

  Gilchrist turned. ‘Follow me.’

  As he walked towards the hangar entrance, the dog trotting by his side, his stick clicked on the concrete. Winsome could see by the way he limped that the walking stick was no affectation. What had happened, then? An accident? A war wound?

  Winsome paused in the doorway and took in the hangar. She imagined you could fit a few planes in here, at a pinch. She had no idea how many Lancasters or Spitfires there were in a squadron, or even if the hangar had been used during wartime. Her grandfather on her mother’s side had fought in the Second World War, she remembered, and he had been killed somewhere in Normandy shortly after the D-Day landings. She doubted that there were a lot of fellow Jamaicans with him; he must have been very scared and lonely for his own people. A place like this made her think about such things.

  Gilchrist stood by an area of the concrete floor and the dog’s tail started wagging. Winsome went and stood beside him, taking her torch and holding it up, at eye level, shining the light down on the floor.

  On the patch of cracked concrete Gilchrist pointed to Winsome saw a large dark stain shaped like a map of South America. It certainly resembled congealed blood. There was the familiar smell of decaying matter, too. She squatted closer. Just around where Brazil would have been, she saw fragments of bone and grey matter stuck to the scarlet stain. Brains, she thought, reaching for her mobile. Maybe they were both wrong, maybe it was paint, or a mixture of water and rust, but now that she had seen it for herself, she could understand exactly why Gilchrist had been concerned enough to ring the police. It could be animal blood, of course, but a simple test would determine that.

  Winsome keyed in the station number, explained the situation and asked for AC Gervaise to be informed and for the forensic bloodstain analyst, Jasminder Singh, and DC Gerry Masterson to come out to check the blood at the hangar.

  The Lane farm seemed a lot less grand than the Beddoes’ spread, Annie thought, as DC Doug Wilson parked behind a muddy Rav 4 outside the front porch, a cobwebbed repository for inside-out umbrellas, wellington boots and a couple of rusty shovels. The farmhouse was smaller and shabbier, with a few slates missing from the roof and a drainpipe leaning at a precarious angle, water dripping from the gutter. The yard seemed neglected, and the outbuildings were fewer in number. They looked old and in need of repair. One barn was practically in ruins. A couple of skinny chickens pecked at the wet ground inside their sagging wire coop. Annie doubted that Frank Lane had a Deutz-Fahr Agrotron locked in his garage, if his garage even had a lock, and she wondered what the relationship between the two farmers really was. Beddoes hadn’t given much away, but surely Lane had to envy the newcomer’s obvious wealth? Or resent it? And was Beddoes patronising or honestly supportive of his neighbours? Perhaps in their eyes he was merely playing at being a farmer while they were living the very real hardship of it. He had hinted at so much himself. These considerations might matter down the line, she told herself.

  They got out of the car and tried to avoid the worst of the mud, which seemed even squelchier than that at the Beddoes’ farm. At least the rain had abated to a steady drizzle over the short drive, and there were now a few patches of blue sky visible through the cloud cover. Not enough ‘to make baby a new bonnet’, as her father used to say, but a small handkerchief, perhaps.

  Annie knocked on the door, which was opened by a broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties. Wearing jeans and a wrinkled shirt, he had a whiskered, weather-beaten face that conformed more closely to Annie’s idea of a farmer. Satisfied by their credentials, he invited them in. There was a weariness and heaviness about his movements that told Annie he had perhaps been overdoing it for years, maybe for lack of help, or because the stress of survival was eating away at him. Farming was a hard physical job and often involved long hours of backbreaking work with little or no relief, though it was also seasonal and subject to the vagaries of the weathe
r. But whereas Beddoes had seemed fit and fluent in his movements, Lane seemed hunched over and cramped up.

  The living room smelled musty and stale, no scented air-freshener. No offer of tea, either. Everything in the living area demonstrated the same quality of neglect and plain utility as the farmyard itself.

  Frank Lane moved some newspapers aside and bade them sit on the worn sofa while he settled himself into what was no doubt his usual armchair by the fireplace. There were cigarette burns on the armrest beside an overflowing glass ashtray.

  When everyone had made themselves as comfortable as possible, and Doug Wilson had taken out his pen and notebook, Lane looked at Annie as if to tell her to get on with it.

  ‘We’re here about your neighbour’s tractor, Mr Lane. I understand Mr Beddoes asked you to keep an eye on his place while he and his wife were on holiday in Mexico?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Lane, lighting a cigarette. ‘Bloody Mexico. I ask you. But you can’t keep your eye on a place unless you’re living there, can you, and I’ve more than enough to do here. I did my best.’

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ said Annie. ‘Nobody’s saying it was your fault. But how did you manage it? What did your duties consist of?’

  ‘I drove over there every day, fed the pigs and chickens, checked that everything was still under lock and key. He never told me to keep a particular eye on his tractor. I saw nowt amiss.’

  ‘That’s very neighbourly of you.’

  Lane gave a harsh laugh. ‘Neighbourliness has nothing to do with it. Beddoes paid me well enough.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  ‘A man deserves to be paid for his labour. And it’s not as if he can’t afford it.’