A Death to Record

by Rebecca Tope

  Mike shrugged. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said easily. ‘So where to next?’

  Den fingered his chin meditatively. ‘I want to give Dunsworthy itself a rest. Let Hillcock think we’re off on some other scent. It’s not going to do any good just repeating the same questions.’ He closed his mind to the deep reluctance he felt at the prospect of setting foot again on the farm, thereby risking another encounter with Lilah. He felt her presence all over Dunsworthy, even if he didn’t meet her in the flesh.

  ‘Has anyone run a check on sightings of strangers, vagrants, travellers, ramblers?’ he asked. ‘Weren’t they sending out a couple of uniforms to sniff round for that sort of thing?’

  ‘It’ll be in the file,’ Mike pointed out, nudging the collection of papers on the desk between them. Den flipped slowly through them all, right down to the bottom. His own notes comprised a substantial portion, but the forensic findings did their bit to pad it out.

  ‘Can’t see anything,’ he concluded, sitting back slackly in the chair.

  ‘Is this the second-day blues Nugent was talking about?’ Mike asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She says when there’s a murder, everyone rushes round at fever pitch on the first day, taking statements, getting as much of the story as they can. It’s all new territory then. But on the second day, it sometimes all seems to grind to a halt. Going over the same old ground for the third or fourth time, trying to pick up the inconsistencies. Compared to Day One, it all feels a bit futile.’

  ‘That must be it,’ Den agreed.

  ‘So maybe we should try looking for inconsistencies?’

  With a sigh, Den acquiesced. He fetched a large blank jotter pad from a shelf across the room, and took up his pen. ‘Okay, let’s start over again with the timings.’ Together they listed the precise times of every movement as provided by the witnesses. Mike suddenly stabbed the pad forcefully with his forefinger.

  ‘Surely it can’t be credible that Hillcock never saw Sean at all, when he went back to the yard after his dinner? I know we asked him about it, and I know all that about the place being like a maze with all the buildings. Even so, unless the man was deliberately hiding from his boss, I can’t see how they’d miss each other.’

  Den sighed. ‘It was only an hour or less. I think if Hillcock insists he never saw Sean, we can’t hope to prove that he did. He says O’Farrell had his routines and was pretty much left to get on with them. Hillcock didn’t keep tabs on him.’

  ‘Can we go through the actual attack again?’ Mike suggested doggedly. ‘Now we’ve got all this forensic stuff.’

  Den slumped. ‘I already had a long talk with the DI about it. He agrees that it could conceivably have been someone relatively weak – a woman or a teenager, if Sean slipped onto his back. It was icy, remember, as well as mucky. It looks as if the bleeding was mainly from the first set of injuries, the lower ones.’ He couldn’t resist demonstrating his newfound medical knowledge. ‘Although the aorta is the body’s main artery and any rupture leads to extremely rapid loss of blood, it doesn’t always spurt out of the body like it does from other arteries. The reason the upper set didn’t bleed so much was that his circulation was already slowing down, from the first injuries, which would have been the more painful part.’

  Mike looked confused. ‘So?’

  ‘So I visualise him writhing about after the first jab, probably on the ground. Then the attacker drove the fork into him again, higher up and deeper in. And that was the killer blow.’

  ‘And? How the hell did he then get up and reach the barn?’

  ‘Sheer willpower, probably. His hands and legs weren’t especially mucky, which suggests he walked, rather than crawled. It’s not far.’

  Mike seemed unconvinced. ‘And the fork was found in one of the sheds running at an angle from the house?’

  Den nodded. ‘Just thrown down for anyone to find. Wooden handle, greasy and cracked. Speedwell and O’Farrell’s finger and palm prints all over it. Nothing to link it with Hillcock.’

  ‘He might have been wearing gloves. It was cold,’ Mike said.

  ‘True.’

  ‘I wonder about young Abigail,’ Mike went on. ‘Don’t ask me why, when it seems so daft. She was obviously upset about her dad. Although, in the car yesterday, she seemed different. She hardly said a word, just stared out of the window. I was surprised when we went back to the house and she was showing so much more feeling.’

  ‘You think she was play-acting?’

  ‘I think it’s possible. For her mum’s benefit, maybe.’

  Den shook his head. ‘She was just shocked, in the car. It’s far too complicated to include her as a suspect. She’d have to have had some help with transport from Tavistock and back again. How could she do that without someone seeing her? We know she was at school that afternoon, anyway, so it absolutely doesn’t work.’

  ‘School finishes at three-thirty. She could have got a ride home and be there by four easily; do the deed and off again to Gary’s house with nobody the wiser.’

  ‘Except for the person who drove her. They’d have to be an accomplice. And four is too late.’

  ‘Okay – so maybe she can drive and borrowed a car from somewhere earlier. She lives on a farm, around tractors and quad bikes and stuff. I bet she can work a motor, no trouble.’

  Den nodded tightly. Keep an open mind, he told himself.

  They ploughed on, going over the same reports again and then one more time. By then it was half past four and time to wind down for the day.

  Lilah did not go to Dunsworthy that day. She had an essay to finish, and forced herself to spend the morning on it. Carefully drawing comparisons between the soil composition of nitrogen-saturated Devon fields, and that of subsistence-farmed southern India, she let a significant part of her mind address the task of rescuing Gordon from prosecution for murder.

  The first small steps had been taken towards the execution of her plan, but there was much more to be done yet. Her three-year relationship with Den had given her invaluable knowledge that she now had every intention of exploiting for her own purposes. If she could just find a way of directing the police to the first link in the chain of reasoning that she wanted them to follow … a chain of reasoning that was so compelling, anyone noticing it was sure to believe it was true. If she could only be sure that they would listen to her, she would simply phone them and state her case. As it was, she’d have to be more devious.

  Thinking about Den was only tenable if she focused on his failings: his habits and hesitancies, which had become so easy to predict. His anxiety to avoid hasty judgements, his inability to live for the moment: all qualities that led to a good policeman, no doubt, but not to a thrilling lover. Thank goodness I escaped when I did, she thought, for the thousandth time. Gordon was incomparably better in bed. And I love him, she silently shouted. She was in love, body and soul, for better or for worse. This stupid murder was a mere hiccup in their relationship; something sent to test them. And Lilah was growing increasingly sure she could direct the police to the real killer.

  Mary Hillcock drove herself home that day, because Claudia was scheduled for the evening counselling session, as well as a case discussion with the rest of the Relate team. The car would get twenty minutes’ rest before it was needed again – more, given the speed at which Mary was driving.

  The day had not improved since the episode with Peter Stevens and the lack of sympathy in the staffroom. Having become sensitised to her role as sister to a murderer, it had seemed that everyone was watching her warily. As if I’d caught something, she thought. And although there had been no contact from the Head, and therefore no formal repetition of the suggestion that the school might be better off without her for a while, the idea continued to niggle.

  It was her habit to drive fast when she was in a bad mood. How she had survived the months surrounding her separation and divorce from Mark Fordyce, she never knew. It had been summer at the time and only too often she had s
werved recklessly in and out of streams of holiday traffic, completely impervious to horns and angry snarls.

  She reached Dunsworthy with her anger still simmering and slammed out of the car, having left it untidily in the yard. The relentless throbbing of the milking machine told her that Gordon had started promptly, which further annoyed her – this time on her brother’s behalf. Without Sean, he would have to do the work of herdsman in the inexorable twice-daily routine until someone could be found to replace the murdered man. Which alone, she thought defiantly, was sufficient proof that Gordon was innocent. He would never be such a fool as to kill the worker he depended on.

  Her mother was nowhere to be seen, the house silent and dark. Granny would be upstairs, as always, but Mary’s mood was not so dark that she was tempted to dump it on the old lady. Ten or fifteen years ago, that would have been the instinctive thing to do. Granny had always been there, ready to listen and click her teeth over her granddaughter’s tales of treacherous friends or unkind teachers. She’d rummage in her deep old cake tin and come up with flapjack or rock cake as the universal panacea. ‘No wonder Mary’s getting so fat,’ Claudia would say, if she caught them. ‘Stuffing her full of cakes as you do.’

  But Granny was too old now to be of much comfort. She was a marvel for her age, and could be wickedly funny at times, but it was no longer possible to get her to follow a logical narrative thread.

  Mary and Gordon had both been stunned when their mother had announced her intention to apply for counsellor training. ‘She’s just about the last person I’d have thought would be any good at that,’ Gordon had said to his sister, and Mary had agreed with him. But they’d been wrong. Claudia had become very much more balanced and confident as the training progressed. She had even admitted that she’d finally realised what a poor mother she’d been to them in the early years. ‘It’s probably too late to make up for it now,’ she said. ‘But at least I won’t run away from problems like I used to.’

  Mary and Gordon had been dubious, but it turned out that their mother had in fact become better company since then. She listened, sympathised, even offered constructive suggestions whenever difficulties arose. But many of the old habits persisted: and in this current crisis, Mary still could not summon the necessary trust in her mother to completely confide in her.

  And anyway, where was Claudia? She was supposed to be leaving in fifteen minutes and there was no sign of her. ‘Mum?’ Mary called, investigating first the sitting room and then the rooms at the back of the house, known to the family as ‘Daddy’s Room’ and ‘The Dairy’. Neither was much used, though Gordon kept a lot of farm records in the former, and Claudia had adopted the latter as a study in which to write up her counselling notes, cool and damp though it was.

  There was no answer. A flicker of anxiety made itself felt in Mary’s stomach and she mounted the stairs in further pursuit. The most likely explanation was that Claudia was sitting with Granny, probably over a cup of tea. But there was no sound of voices coming from Granny’s room. With her usual half-knock, Mary opened the door and peered in. Her grandmother was in the chair by the window, a standard lamp lit beside her. She was reading – or looking at the pictures – from a heavy book she often favoured. A Young Person’s Illustrated Treasure House, produced in the 1880s, had somehow survived, along with its owner, and had now become a kind of Bible. Its aura was unmistakable, every picture and page imbued with familiarity and nostalgia. Mary could only guess at the memories and associations it conjured in the old lady’s mind, but she always liked to see it in place on her lap.

  ‘Have you seen Mum?’ she asked, as Granny looked up.

  The question was ill-considered. ‘Mum?’ Granny repeated. ‘I haven’t seen Mum for a long, long time.’

  ‘Never mind then. Sorry I bothered you.’ And she left quickly, going into her own room to change her clothes and to wonder again where Claudia might have got to.

  A shout from outside made her jerk her head up, as she fastened the button on her cord trousers. A man’s voice that could only be Gordon’s was yelling inarticulately. Nobody seemed to be responding, so Mary, from age-old habit, went running downstairs to see what was required. She might not have been actively involved in the animals or the crops for some years now, but it was never going to be possible to ignore such a call when it came.

  The nearer part of the yard was lit by the outside light on the corner of the house, and another pool of illumination lit the area around the milking parlour. In between were shadows and slippery mud. ‘What’s the matter?’ she shouted from the doorway, unable to see anybody. She had grabbed a pair of boots from the front porch, where assorted footwear had accumulated for years, and was thrusting her feet into them.

  ‘Mary!’ came Claudia’s high voice from the calf shed, down on Mary’s right. ‘Come here, will you?’

  Mary obeyed. ‘Where’s Gordon?’ she called, as she got closer to the shed. ‘I heard him shouting. What’s going on?’

  The shed was partitioned into four small pens, each containing a young female calf, leaving a larger area for fodder, buckets, rolls of wire, tools – the normal paraphernalia that littered every farm building. Gordon was poking in a corner with a stick, swearing frustratedly, while his mother hovered behind him.

  ‘It’s a badger!’ Claudia said shrilly. ‘I saw it in the yard, and went to tell Gordon. He chased it in here.’

  Gordon turned on her furiously. ‘If it’s come into the buildings, it must be diseased. If the cattle get anywhere near it, we’re totally in the shit. Go and get my gun, will you? I’ll have to shoot the bloody thing.’ Then he clapped a furious hand to his head. ‘Bugger it – the police have taken it,’ he remembered.

  ‘Your father’s is still in the case under his desk,’ Claudia said coolly. ‘We forgot to tell them about that one. If you’re really sure about this—’

  ‘Yes, yes, fetch it,’ he snapped to Mary.

  ‘But … the milking …’ Mary hesitated, the sound of the motor in the parlour still throbbing across the yard. ‘You haven’t finished, have you?’

  ‘That can wait,’ he blazed at her. ‘Do as I tell you.’ He jabbed his stick into the gap between a sturdy cast-iron beet chopper and a pile of paper sacks full of sand. The low growl of a creature in pain or distress was the response.

  Mary lifted her chin. ‘Just the gun, or a box of cartridges as well? And Ma – you’re going to be late for work if you don’t go in about two minutes.’

  ‘Gun and cartridges,’ Gordon grated, as Claudia squawked and started to leave the shed.

  The women went into the house together, separating at the foot of the stairs. ‘Ma?’ Mary stopped her mother as a thought struck her. ‘What were you doing out there in the first place?’

  ‘What? Oh, I just wanted to have a talk with Gordon, and I knew he’d try to avoid me if I waited until he was in the house. So I decided to tackle him while he was milking and couldn’t get away.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mary with a frown. ‘Well, don’t tell me about it now. And mind how you drive. I’d better help him finish off that wretched badger, poor thing. Except they’re protected, aren’t they? And surely they’re not really such a threat to the cows? Do you think he knows what he’s doing?’

  ‘He went mad when he saw it, chasing it across the yard and yelling his head off. Must be stress over the Sean business, I suppose. Normally, he’d be the first to give the thing the benefit of the doubt. He’s not his normal self at all.’

  The gun was kept unloaded in a wooden box in Daddy’s Room. Cartridges were in a drawer of the desk. She had no doubt they’d all genuinely forgotten about it when the police asked about firearms. Gordon had his own newer one, never having cause to use Daddy’s. Mary had been enthusiastic about shooting in her teens and had always taken on the job of cleaning the gun for her father. Handling it confidently, she went back to Gordon and his prey.

  ‘Torch!’ he ordered, as he loaded the shotgun. Mary hurried back yet again to the
house, uncomplaining, her head full of partly-answered questions and slowly growing suspicions.

  The badger died quickly, but not before giving a heart-stopping scream of rage and pain, the sound merging into the shattering explosion of the gunshot in the enclosed space. Gordon left it a moment and then thrust his hand into the gap and pulled out the bloodied body. ‘Doesn’t look old or diseased to me,’ said Mary mildly. ‘Seems rather a fine specimen.’ The strong alien smell of the animal filled their nostrils, hinting at a secret other-world existence, disturbing and somehow shocking. Mary closed her mind to the way it had died.

  Gordon threw it out into the yard, with an effort. It was a dense, heavy body. Then he handed her the gun. ‘Time I got back to the cows,’ he muttered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Heather and Abigail O’Farrell cared no less than Lilah or Den about the solution to the mystery of who had killed their husband and father. But their need to know the truth was diluted by the change wrought on their daily lives. Abigail had ridden home on the school bus, for once, instead of hanging around in town and then cadging a lift from her boyfriend, surprising her mother by arriving at four-fifteen. She came in through the back door, having first visited her collection of animals and topped up their food and water pots.

  ‘Fallen out with Gary?’ Heather asked, looking up from her chair by the fire and displaying little curiosity.

  ‘No,’ said the girl with a scowl. ‘Of course I haven’t.’

  ‘So how come you’re so early?’

  Abigail’s shoulders drooped and she flung her schoolbag violently onto the sofa. ‘I had to see to the animals. And I’m starving. Is there any food in the house?’