A Death to Record

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘I haven’t heard a word about any of this.’

  ‘Well, people don’t talk in front of you, do they? At least not when you were engaged to Den.’

  ‘But surely nobody approves of badger baiting?’ There were times when Lilah felt disablingly young, with the world still hopelessly difficult to comprehend.

  Miranda sighed, evidently feeling something similar about her daughter. ‘It’s not a matter of approval. They know it goes on. And it’s their own sons and brothers doing it. And they’re all convinced that badgers spread TB. They don’t want the stigma of a police prosecution, do they?’

  ‘Well, if Sean O’Farrell was involved in it, he deserved to be killed. He should have been ripped to pieces, like one of the poor badgers.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he was murdered for being into badger baiting,’ Miranda smiled. ‘Even the keenest animal rights activist isn’t likely to have gone that far.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Lilah, narrowing her eyes, and suddenly feeling quite a lot better. ‘I wonder.’

  Den had as unpleasant a time observing the afternoon milking as he’d expected. Gordon ignored him completely, having asked the detective to stand on the steps leading out of the sunken area, and to be as quiet as he could. ‘They’ve had enough upset for one week,’ he said. ‘Christ knows what sort of a job Lilah made of them this morning.’

  Den clenched his fist, conscious of an urge to thrust it violently towards the mouth of this man who could utter her name so naturally. There was no sign in the man’s eyes that he knew how Den was feeling – which, oddly, made it easier to relax and concentrate on the matter in hand, after the first awkward minutes.

  He acknowledged with a stab of surprise that he had never once helped Lilah with the milking at Redstone, so he had never before witnessed the routine. In spite of himself he was absorbed by it.

  It was less cold than he expected. The cows themselves provided a barrier between the parlour and the wintry gusts from the gathering yard. At first, he breathed shallow, cautious breaths, afraid of the olfactory onslaught. But as his nostrils detected no more than a sweetish whiff of what he supposed was silage on the animals’ breath, he relaxed. Even the smell of a fresh deposit of dung close by, from a cow on its way out of the parlour, was not nearly as obnoxious as he’d expected. As the minutes dragged by, he found his thoughts wandering to the cows themselves.

  The way they were positioned for milking, the only part visible was the backside and udder, except for the first one in each row. Without exception, each time a new row arrived the first cow noticed Den, paused, and turned a watchful eye on him, before slotting herself into her stall and setting about eating the cattle cake provided. The others followed suit, reassured by their leader’s behaviour.

  Den found himself involuntarily identifying with the creatures and their routine. It was clear that some were much more resigned to the process than others. Some hung back, and seemed to have a tension about them as the cluster was applied to the heavy udder.

  There was an unmistakable sympathy between Hillcock and his beasts. The farmer moved amongst them easily, responding to interruptions or delays with equanimity. There was a sense of a shared goal between the man and the cows: they all wanted the milk taken from the udders. The patient, unemotional face of the front cow was always the same. Having finished the food in the hopper, she would simply stand there, moving minutely in time to the sucking rhythm of the milking machine, in no hurry for it to finish, perhaps permitting the illusion that her own calf was sucking the milk, perhaps not caring what it was that eased the tightness of her udder.

  For the first time in his life, Den wondered how it was to be a cow on a modern dairy farm. He tried to persuade himself that there were worse existences – that they were mostly healthy and free from pain. But he couldn’t ignore the obscenely huge udders on some of them, the swellings on the joints of their back legs. And he couldn’t forget the carnage of the BSE experience, with death coming to whole herds en masse, a waste beyond calculation, mostly conducted in too much of a hurry to care about precision in handling the stun gun. He had no illusions about the certain fate of every one of these cows. Almost none of them would die a death free from fear and horror. Those who did would drop down dead in the yard from some injury or illness that would almost certainly involve a degree of suffering.

  His head hurt with the brutal knowledge of what was done every day to livestock such as these. They were living, breathing, feeling beings, and he was suddenly not at all sure it was right to drink their milk or eat their bodies.

  He watched Gordon reach out to pick a piece of straw from the flank of a cow. It was lightly attached by a bit of dry manure, so he had to pull it slightly. The cow’s hide rippled with the sensation, which could hardly have been more than the briefest tug on a few hairs. Hardly more than a fly walking on her. The obvious sensitivity made Den’s own skin quiver in sympathy.

  The moment passed and he hardened his resolve. Where would it lead if he allowed himself to start empathising with farm animals? Donkeys in Greece, dogs in China, bulls in Spain and live exports all across the world – wherever there were animals, they were exploited. It was the way things were – and it was definitely not part of his job to start letting it get to him.

  Forcing his attention yet again onto the man rather than his animals, he tried to make an objective assessment of Gordon Hillcock, without allowing the thought of Lilah to intrude. He resolved to be friendly: The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief, he reminded himself. It had always been a pleasing thought.

  Hillcock manifested self-confidence. There was nothing to indicate that this was a killer, seen barely twenty-four hours after taking another man’s life. But Den knew how people could conceal their own guilt from themselves as well as others. He had seen bereaved parents appear at news conferences to appeal for public help in catching the killer of their own child – only to turn out to be guilty of the crime. Hillcock was following an everyday routine, every move for which was familiar to him. He wasn’t being asked to explain himself, or to demonstrate his innocence. It would be more surprising if he suddenly did or said something that would incriminate him.

  Den made a big show of writing down every move, with timings. Gordon left the parlour three times, and Den forced himself to ask him exactly what he’d been doing, on each occasion.

  ‘Checking the tank isn’t overflowing. Making sure the gates are right for them to go back into their stalls. Having a piss.’ He was gone for less than a minute, two minutes, and ninety seconds respectively. If this was typical, there was clearly no opportunity to commit a murder during milking. And Den had a strong suspicion that the piss would not normally require a removal from the parlour. If the cows could do it all over the floor, he saw no reason why the man shouldn’t, if he was sure of being unobserved.

  ‘Does it take longer to milk them when it’s Recording Day?’ he asked, when the ordeal was finally over and the last cows had been released.

  Gordon nodded.

  ‘How much longer?’

  ‘Ten, fifteen minutes. Longer to set it all up, too. Have to put sixteen meters up.’

  ‘How long does that take?’

  ‘Ten, fifteen minutes,’ he said again.

  ‘When did you do it yesterday?’

  ‘Around one-thirty.’

  ‘Before Mrs Watson arrived?’

  Gordon nodded again.

  Den wrote it all down, but he knew there were glaring gaps. In his mind’s ear, he could hear Gordon’s defence lawyer making a mockery of their case. Nobody to say whether or not Mr Hillcock was in the yard at the relevant time … The nature of the buildings could easily conceal … Why, why, why … Is this the likely behaviour … Phrases designed to throw doubt and confusion into the minds of a jury, to highlight the complexity of a modern farm and the numerous comings and goings that could take place unobserved. Den gritted his teeth and avoided Hillcock’s complacent gaze.

  CHAPTE
R TEN

  ‘I have to interview your relatives,’ Den announced, when the milking was well and truly finished. ‘Including a quick word with your grandmother,’ he said, on a sudden whim; the brief flash of alarm on the farmer’s face was profoundly encouraging. ‘I know my colleague spoke to her this morning, but I have one or two further questions for her.’

  ‘She’s a very old lady,’ Gordon objected. ‘Surely she has a right not to be brought into all this? I doubt she even knows who Sean O’Farrell is, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘I won’t upset her, I assure you. Your sister led me to believe she’d be quite glad to have someone to talk to.’

  ‘Did she now,’ Gordon snorted dismissively.

  Den had noticed one lighted window on the upstairs floor of the farmhouse, the previous evening, as he and Mike had driven away from Dunsworthy with Mary and Gordon in the back. A corner room looking out obliquely over the gathering yard where Sean had been found. Something told him that the Hillcock family would not be inclined to leave lights on in empty rooms. It was probable, then, that this was Granny’s room – and what more likely than that the old lady would spend her afternoons sitting by the window, looking for anything unusual that might be going on outside? Young Mike had gleaned very little from her, beyond the fact that she had indeed been sitting near the window, but Den hoped this was only because he hadn’t asked the right questions.

  ‘I’ll be out here for another half-hour at least,’ Gordon told him. ‘My mother and sister’ll be home by now. Why don’t you go and make a start? They’ll be grateful you haven’t disrupted them at work, I’m sure.’

  Den hesitated, trying to assess Hillcock’s tone. It was cooperative, even considerate. It was obvious that he habitually gave some thought to other people’s needs as well as his own. His handling of his cows had been deft, gentle, compassionate. And yet to Den it all felt like a façade – as if Hillcock’s real thoughts and feelings were happening somewhere else; somewhere much deeper and darker.

  The ramifications of the situation were beginning to snag at Den’s smouldering and instinctive dislike of Hillcock. There was Lilah, and the acute awareness that they had shared intimate knowledge of her body. There was the shadow of Sean’s dead body in the adjacent building. And there was the looming, threatening void that was Hillcock’s future. It wasn’t possible that the man was unafraid. Den could feel it himself, somewhere just below his stomach – a sharp acid turbulence, when he thought of how it must be inside Gordon Hillcock.

  Dunsworthy farmhouse was solidly built, with large square rooms, high ceilings and quarry-tiled floors throughout much of the downstairs rooms. The house had been designed for airiness and space, with a dairy, pantry and generous kitchen. Some of its original furniture was still in place – a great oak dresser, a set of straight-backed chairs and a strange piece comprising nine drawers, kept in the former dairy for the storage of all kinds of assorted oddments. Claudia’s mother-in-law had introduced an Aga, and Claudia herself, in her first weeks at the farm, had bought a handsome oak table to replace a rickety predecessor. The living room was well filled with three unmatching armchairs, a large sofa and a big mahogany writing desk. An old carpet was almost invisible under a varied collection of handmade rugs, mostly the work of Gordon’s grandmother.

  There was another large ground-floor room, which the family rather eerily referred to as Daddy’s Room. In it were two glass-fronted cases containing the best china; a filing cabinet used by Mary for her school paperwork; and a large polished walnut writing desk.

  Den had assimilated some of this information on his first visit to the house, an hour or so after the discovery of Sean O’Farrell’s body. He had described it to himself as comfortable, well-kept, unpretentious, traditional. There had been few shocks or surprises – no unclean corners or signs of unusually messy indoor animals. He had in his line of duty encountered pet lambs, incontinent puppies and even a Vietnamese potbellied pig, all making free with every downstairs room in a succession of houses. Nothing so uncouth met his gaze here. Dunsworthy was not obviously a farmhouse at all.

  It had been dark for well over an hour already, and the sky was bright with stars. A sliver of new moon was rising over the fields, and the air was biting. Twenty-four hours ago he had just arrived here, summoned to a sudden death, holding himself in a state of suspension until he knew whether it was Gordon Hillcock who’d got himself killed. What a lot could happen in a day, he sighed.

  ‘More questions for you, I’m afraid,’ he said, when Mary opened the front door to his knock.

  She looked as if there were a number of questions she’d like to ask him, but she couldn’t quite find the words. After all, what could she say? Are you any nearer to proving my brother’s a murderer? wouldn’t have been acceptable, in the circumstances.

  The two Hillcock women had changed dramatically from his previous encounter with them. Claudia was unsmiling, monosyllabic, subtly hostile; Mary looked tired and anxious. ‘What happens now?’ she asked. ‘With Sean, I mean? I said I’d drop in on Heather again this evening. When will she be able to go and see the body?’

  ‘That’s a matter for the Coroner’s Officer,’ Den told her. ‘And the undertaker. It’ll be a few days yet, I would think. It’s good of you to be so concerned about her.’

  ‘The woman’s ill, for heaven’s sake. What else would you expect me to do?’ Den glanced at the mother, sitting stiffly beside the kitchen table, a large glass of white wine close to her hand. The bottle, already half-empty, stood nearby.

  ‘I’d like a few more words with you both, as well as with Mrs Hillcock senior,’ he said firmly. ‘Perhaps I should start with the old lady? I won’t keep her long, but there are one or two things I’d like to clarify.’

  ‘Have you been here all afternoon?’ Claudia asked suddenly.

  Den nodded. ‘I wanted to see what went on during a typical milking.’

  ‘My God! Three hours of uninterrupted tedium, I should think. I don’t suppose Gordon was very chatty either.’

  Den retained his dignity with only minor effort. ‘It’s surprising how fast the time passes,’ he smiled. ‘Now would one of you kindly show me up to the old lady’s room? And then I’m afraid I’ll have to speak to each of you separately, for half an hour or so.’

  Mary unlatched a door opening onto a staircase that turned and turned again, so that Den had to look back and check that he still had his bearings. The room they went into was the first on the left, as they moved along a short landing. Yes, it would be the one over the downstairs living room – the one to the left of the front door. The corner room, where he’d seen the light.

  The old lady was in bed, sitting up against a pile of pillows, a large fluffy cat snuggled against her side. The bed was facing the window, but some distance from it; Den doubted that she would be able to see much activity outside from where she was. But, more promisingly, there was a Parker Knoll armchair closer to the window, with a good-sized round oak table beside it. A jigsaw was laid out, half-finished, alongside a pile of thick books that he thought might be photograph or stamp albums. A good-sized television occupied another corner, visible from either bed or chair; it was switched off. The room was far from overheated, which Den found surprising.

  Mary moved to close the velvet curtains across the window. ‘Chilly this evening, Granny,’ she said. ‘Shall I get you an extra blanket?’

  The old woman shook her head vigorously. ‘Can’t abide to be too hot,’ she said firmly.

  Mary smiled. ‘It’s the secret of her long life,’ she told Den. ‘Isn’t it, Granny?’

  ‘Not ’ealthy to be too hot,’ came the confirmation.

  A pair of dark brown eyes stared keenly at him from beneath straggling white eyebrows, as he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, the ceiling only a few inches above his head. Her hands lay on the covers, brown and bent and mottled. She was shrunken and fleshless, but an energy radiating from her filled the room. ‘’Oo be thiccy?’ she de
manded, her voice high and reedy. Den noticed that she appeared to have no teeth at all; it plainly affected her speech, giving her words a lisping fuzziness that was rather endearing.

  ‘This is one of the policemen I told you about this morning,’ Mary said. ‘One of the men got killed yesterday – remember? They’re asking a lot of questions about it.’

  Granny Hillcock narrowed her eyes, and looked shiftily from one side of the room to the other. Apparently Mary knew the significance of this. ‘It’s all right, Granny. You probably don’t remember.’

  ‘One of my colleagues came up this morning to speak to you,’ Den ventured. ‘Your grandson brought him up, about coffee time.’

  ‘She doesn’t drink coffee,’ Mary interrupted. ‘You’ll just muddle her saying that.’

  ‘Do it be zupper time?’ the old woman asked.

  ‘Another half an hour. Gordon’s not in yet,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll go and get it ready, and you can talk to the man.’

  Den let Mary go with a sense of helplessness. ‘Mrs Hillcock—’ he began, approaching to within a foot of her and speaking much louder than normal.

  ‘I can yere ’ee,’ she interrupted. ‘I idn deaf.’

  ‘Do you sit over there in the afternoons? Where you can see out of the window?’

  She nodded, frowning slightly. ‘That be my chair. Can’t bide in bed all day.’

  ‘Quite right,’ he smiled. ‘So do you watch Gordon out there working?’

  A repeat of the eye movements, darting to left and right like the evasive glance of an uncooperative child. It was a disturbing trick. ‘What should I watch ’un vurr?’ she said slowly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. For interest. Do you know Sean O’Farrell? The herdsman. The one who does most of the milking?’

  She tucked her chin down tightly into her neck. ‘They cows is proper mucky,’ she observed. ‘Dan’l’d have zummat to zay bout that.’