A Death to Record

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Looks like he took a while to die,’ Den persisted.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Writhed about a bit, is all we can say for sure. And that can happen in two or three seconds. Muscular spasms and so forth. The damage is mainly to the abdominal region – that tends to be fairly painful. Well, I’ve done all I can for now. Has someone been on to the undertaker’s? They’ll have to open the mortuary at Exeter for us.’

  ‘PM tomorrow?’ asked Den, knowing there was little chance of the pathologist turning out for a post-mortem in the evening, murder or not.

  ‘It’ll keep till then,’ the doctor shrugged.

  Den found his way down to the O’Farrells’ cottage by car, not from any lazy reluctance to walk but because he needed his headlights to illuminate the way. It was a distance of perhaps four hundred yards from the main farm buildings. The track was rutted and curved round in a tight bend; he rattled over a cattle grid just before reaching the houses. The sky was deeply black and he wondered how Young Mike had managed to find his way.

  Both cottages had lights coming from their front windows; Den had no way of knowing which one belonged to Mrs O’Farrell. He examined what he could see of the two dwellings. The further one seemed to be less well kept; its modest patch of garden appeared to be home to various pieces of defunct equipment. In the shadows he could see two bikes on their sides; an aluminium ladder missing some rungs; a metal bucket without a bottom and other bits of scrap metal. By comparison the nearer cottage boasted a tidy winter garden and no clutter. None of this, however, told him which was the house he sought. Was Mrs O’Farrell a slut or a paragon? Had Sean been a slob or Mr Pernickety? As he dithered, the door of the nearer house opened.

  ‘Den?’ came Young Mike’s voice. ‘Are you out there?’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Den answered him. ‘It’s bloody dark out here. Couldn’t tell which house it was.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I fell in a ditch walking down here.’

  ‘Glad I brought the car then. Have you got Mrs O’Farrell in there?’

  ‘She’s in the living room. I told her you’d want a word.’ They were speaking in low tones and Den was conscious of anxiety building inside him. Confronting a new widow was never easy.

  Mike led the way through a short passage to a warm room, where Den found a huddled woman looking so white she was almost green. She sat in a large, well-upholstered armchair beside an open log fire. ‘Good evening, madam,’ Den said tentatively. ‘I’m really sorry we’ve had to give you such bad news.’

  ‘I’m never going to manage without Sean,’ she bleated, her voice high and quavery. She looked at Den piteously. ‘How am I going to manage?’

  ‘Mrs O’Farrell isn’t very well,’ Mike explained. ‘And her daughter’s away for the night. She isn’t sure she’ll be able to cope by herself.’

  ‘Perhaps the people next door …?’ Den suggested. ‘Otherwise we can contact Social Services for you. Although …’ He knew from experience there wasn’t a chance in a million that anyone would be provided at this time of night, just to sit with a relatively young woman who didn’t look too sick to fend for herself. ‘The best thing would be to contact your daughter and ask her to come home. How far away is she? She needs to be told about her father anyway.’

  ‘She’s in Tavistock, at her boyfriend’s house. But she can’t come back by herself. She’s only fifteen. Her father would have to fetch her.’ Hearing her own words, the woman clapped a hand over her mouth. Den noted the vigour of the gesture.

  ‘Well, I’m sure we can work something out,’ he said briskly. ‘But for now, would you just answer a few routine questions for me?’ He didn’t give her time to respond, but quickly produced his notepad and pencil. ‘First, your full name, please.’

  ‘Heather Elizabeth O’Farrell.’

  ‘And your husband’s full name and age.’

  The strategy worked as it almost always did. ‘Sean James O’Farrell,’ she said promptly. ‘He was thirty-eight on Christmas Eve.’

  Den took her full postal address and phone number, before asking, ‘And when did you last see him today?’

  ‘After dinner. He made me some soup and scrambled eggs and then went back to see to something in the yard.’

  Yet again, Den had cause to be thankful for his time with Lilah. How many policemen would be so au fait with the jargon? The yard meant not just a single piece of ground surrounded by buildings, but the entire complex of farm structures – which, on Dunsworthy, stretched to close to half an acre of covered barns, sheds, pens, all connected by a byzantine arrangement of gates and fences. ‘What time was that?’ he asked.

  ‘Two o’clock.’

  ‘You’re sure you can be that precise?’

  ‘Oh yes. He only takes the hour for lunch. Exactly one till two. Gordon’s very particular about time-keeping.’

  ‘And was there anything unusual about today? What sort of mood was Sean in?’

  She faltered at this deviation from the recounting of hard fact. ‘Well, he wasn’t doing the milking, even though it should have been one of his days. Gordon asked him to swap shifts so he could go to some meeting or other in Okehampton. That’s quite unusual. And Sean couldn’t just take the time off and go somewhere because there were still things he had to do. He wasn’t that bothered about it for himself, but he didn’t like it on principle. Being messed about just for some whim on the part of the boss.’ Den could hear the quotation marks and assumed that Sean had probably used those very words. He felt the familiar handicapping sense of ignorance at the outset of any murder inquiry: he didn’t know what Sean O’Farrell had been like, how he got on with Hillcock, what was important in his life. So much to discover, and probably little of it directly relevant. But he squared his shoulders and breathed deep. He had to press on.

  ‘So you were worried when he didn’t come back? If he wasn’t milking, wouldn’t you have expected him to be home for at least part of the afternoon?’

  She sighed. ‘To be honest with you, I was asleep. And even if I’d been awake, I wouldn’t have worried. I’d have thought he might have been held up with a cow calving or something. There’s always plenty to do on a farm.’

  ‘So the time-keeping isn’t always so precise?’ Den said.

  She blinked up at him. ‘It is at dinner time,’ she insisted petulantly. ‘And Sean knows I depend on him for almost everything these days. He wouldn’t have left me alone for long. This young man arrived before I really missed Sean. He woke me up.’

  ‘You were asleep here? In the chair?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s cold upstairs when the weather’s like this.’

  ‘How long had you been sleeping?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ The impatience was mixed with self-pity. ‘Since about half past three or four, I suppose.’

  ‘The fire had almost gone out,’ Mike offered. ‘I built it up again for the lady.’

  ‘Very kind of you,’ Den remarked. ‘It’s certainly pretty warm in here now.’ He glanced around and noticed as well as the blazing fire, a free-standing gas heater behind her chair, going full pelt. No wonder the room was so stifling. He decided not to make any further notes for now. There was still the matter of who, if anyone, was to sit with the widow, to support her in her shock and grief.

  ‘Would you like us to find your daughter and bring her home?’ he suggested. ‘She ought to be back as soon as possible, in the circumstances.’

  The woman shuddered. ‘No, no. God, I can’t cope with her throwing tantrums at a time like this! Let her alone for tonight. You can go and get her in the morning. I’ll give you the address. Although …’ A new, disturbing thought seemed to have struck her.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s her animals. Normally, when she’s out, Sean does them for her.’

  ‘Animals?’

  ‘She keeps some … pets … outside. A sort of amateur rescue shelter in the back garden.’ Mrs O’Farrell frowned.

  ‘And they need to b
e fed?’

  She nodded. ‘There’s a bag of pellets and some hay in the back scullery.’

  ‘I’m afraid you might have to do it yourself,’ he told her, trying to keep the severity out of his voice.

  She threw him a look of pure amazement. ‘Me?’ she squawked. ‘But I never do it.’

  Mike stepped forward. ‘Let me,’ he offered. ‘Is it rabbits – that sort of thing?’

  The new widow had shifted into uncooperative mode. ‘All sorts of things,’ she mumbled, shrinking down in her chair. Den felt a great urge to shake her, force her onto her feet, urge her to take some sort of control of her own life.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he snapped, angry with Mike for volunteering and himself for being so churlish.

  Outside, the land sloped downhill, a half-acre plot littered with ramshackle hutches. They had a torch each – one from the police car and one from the O’Farrell scullery. It looked like a miniature shanty town. A copse was a dark mass at the bottom of the hill. Den played his torch over the area in astonishment.

  ‘She must spend most of her time coping with all this,’ he said.

  ‘Quite a responsibility,’ Mike agreed. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  ‘We can’t feed everything,’ Den decided. ‘Must be eight or ten cages here. God knows what’s lurking inside them.’

  ‘Just a scattering to keep them going,’ Mike insisted, already filling a metal bowl with small brown food pellets. ‘Looks like it’s mostly rabbits and guinea pigs.’

  Den left him to it. Mike moved from cage to cage, aiming his torch through the netting, trying to locate food bowls. One of the boxy constructions had a long netting run attached to it. Den could see movement inside. ‘What’s that?’ he called.

  ‘A badger!’ came Mike’s enthralled reply. ‘Seems to have a bad leg – it’s limping.’

  ‘Do badgers eat rabbit food?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. I think they eat mice, or slugs. I don’t know.’

  ‘Rabbits, probably,’ said Den grimly. ‘Well, they’ll have to make do for now. We should get a move on. Hillcock’s waiting.’

  They went back indoors to report that the animals would be fine until morning. But instead of thanking them, Heather O’Farrell just sank her chin lower onto her chest. Her face was pale and soft, like that of a much older woman; although not lined, it seemed to sag downwards, an impression strengthened by her hair, which was straight and long and colourless. If the daughter was only fifteen, and the husband thirty-eight, Den supposed she must be something under forty, yet she looked like a woman in her late fifties. In fact, she observed, she looked at least as old as his own mother.

  ‘How about asking someone from next door to come and sit with you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mary Hillcock,’ she said waveringly. ‘I think Mary might be kind enough …’

  ‘She’s up at the big house, is she?’ Den remembered a sister accompanying Gordon to one or two village events that he’d attended in his younger days. And once more, he remembered Hillcock waiting for further questioning and probable retribution. The thought revived Den and he came close to rubbing his hands together in anticipation. ‘Okay, then,’ he said briskly, ‘we’ll ask her if she’ll come down. Thank you for your time. We hope you’ll soon get better. I’m afraid we’ll have to come back tomorrow for further questions. The Coroner’s Officer, Mr Newcombe, will contact you, too. And … we’re both very sorry about what’s happened.’

  She nodded unresponsively and let them make their way unaccompanied out of the room. At the last minute, Den heard her murmur, ‘I won’t ever get better, you know,’ before he left.

  Outside, Mike let out a long breath. ‘I thought you were never coming,’ he said. ‘She was sending me round the twist in there.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Did you find out?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘But you can’t help feeling sorry for her husband, can you?’

  Den drove carefully back up to the farmhouse, where the scattered cars of the forensics people had been joined by a discreet undertaker’s vehicle. The body was being loaded onto a shelf at the back when Den and Mike arrived.

  ‘Now, you find Hillcock while I go and talk to the family,’ Den said, with ill-concealed relish.

  The big house had windows looking over the farmyard, as well as down towards the road and the workers’ cottages. Lights were on in most of the ground floor rooms, and as he approached, Den could see through the uncurtained windows to the domestic scene inside. To the left of the front door was a large living room, lined with bookcases and illuminated by three standard lamps. A woman sat sideways-on to the window, in a comfortable-looking armchair, writing on a thick pad perched on her lap. Den wondered at this – surely she must be aware that something untoward was taking place in the yard just outside? To look at her, anyone would think it was just an ordinary winter’s evening.

  Curiosity aroused, Den moved to peer through the window on the other side of the door. It revealed a kitchen cum dining room, cluttered on every surface with saucepans, mugs and assorted paraphernalia, with a dense forest of pot-grown plants along the windowsill. It took a moment to locate the human being in the room. A youngish woman stood at the sink halfway along the right-hand wall, washing up. That must be Mary, thought Den, although he didn’t really recognise her.

  He didn’t want Young Mike to hear anything these women might say about his ex-girlfriend. He gestured at two cars still parked in the yard, one of which was being approached by a young woman from forensics. ‘When you’ve found Hillcock and brought him to the house, I bet she’d give you a lift back to the station, if you ask nicely.’

  Mike dithered uncertainly. ‘Are you going to take Mr Hillcock in for questioning?’

  ‘What would you do, in my place?’ Den asked him, really wanting to know.

  ‘Well,’ Mike reacted nervously, as if being tested. ‘It … er … looks as if he’s been around the yard all afternoon, which makes him a key witness, if nothing else. He does seem a bit … unstable. We’ve got to take him in.’

  ‘That leaves them with nobody to do the milking in the morning,’ Den reminded his junior.

  Mike shrugged as if this was a minor detail. Townie, thought Den. But he was disproportionately relieved to have Mike endorse his own inclinations. It wouldn’t be responsible to leave Hillcock at large, given what had happened. The timing was unfortunate, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Off you go. I’ll be okay. I’ll fetch Hillcock; you needn’t wait.’

  The forensics girl was already in her car and looked ready to drive off. Mike sighed. ‘Sorry, Sarge, but I don’t think I should leave you on your own. What if Hillcock plays up in the car? It wouldn’t look very good, would it? I’ll stay.’

  With an uncomfortable cocktail of emotions, Den nodded. ‘You’re probably right,’ he admitted. ‘That’s our man, look. Over in the tank room.’

  Gordon was clearly waiting for them with some impatience. He had taken off the rubber apron. ‘First, make him account for his guns – there’s sure to be at least one around the place. The doctor said O’Farrell wasn’t shot, but we can’t be too careful. Then get him to give you that thing he was wearing.’ Mike nodded cooperatively. ‘Take him upstairs and make him change. Bag up everything he takes off. Quick as you can, okay?’

  Alone, Den knocked on the farmhouse door. It was answered by the younger woman, who looked anxious. ‘What on earth is going on out there? My mother went out to ask, and some officious idiot told her to stay in the house. We do live here, you know.’

  ‘I know. I’m very sorry for all the disturbance. I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything for another few minutes. Mr Hillcock will be coming in very shortly and we’ll speak to you then.’

  She looked up into his face and he tried to analyse her expression. She was pale and frowning, but he could detect no real fear. Nobody she loves is under threat, he concluded. Not yet, anyway. It sounded
as if her mother was just the same, as if she’d meekly withdrawn to the house when asked to, content to wait for explanations. There was no sense of urgency to these women. ‘I’m assuming you are Mr Hillcock’s sister Mary,’ Den said. ‘Is that your mother in the living room?’

  ‘That’s right. She decided that if we were confined to quarters, she may as well get on with some work until officialdom condescended to enlighten us.’

  Mike and Hillcock arrived quickly, Mike carrying the rubber apron in an evidence bag and Gordon pushing ahead, striding into the passageway and making straight for the stairs. His sister put out a hand to stop him. ‘Gordon?’ she said. ‘What happened? What were all those cars doing in the yard?’

  ‘Sean’s dead,’ he told her briefly. ‘I found him in the barn. These are the police. But I suppose you know that already. You’ve missed all the excitement – the body was taken away ten minutes ago.’ He stood rooted to the floor of the hallway, breathing heavily. To Den, he seemed bovine, a bullock waiting for the next incomprehensible move from the humans around him.

  ‘What?’ Mary said with a bemused frown. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Den studied her, aware of having taken almost no notice of her on their previous brief encounters. In her early thirties, with the same round cheeks as her brother, but none of his high colour, she gave a similar impression of rootedness, like a piece of large furniture. Her hair was light brown, cut very short, but still betraying a persistent curl. She wore a sloppy jumper, which came well down her thighs, with narrow leggings underneath. It partly concealed her generous girth, but not entirely. Mary Hillcock was a big woman, of a shape once greatly admired, but currently dismissed as overweight. Den was sorry for her.

  ‘What’s going on?’ came a voice from the doorway. The woman from the living room stood there, tall and stern. She resembled neither Gordon nor Mary; Den would have labelled her as a visitor, rather than a blood relative, if he didn’t know better.