A Death to Record

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Well, they do say everybody marries their mother. Looks as if you’re the exception.’

  Lilah flushed. ‘Nobody mentioned marriage,’ she said, fearful of tempting fate.

  Den was itching to bring Hillcock in for more questions. Let me put it to you, Mr Hillcock, that you killed your herdsman last Tuesday. You drove a heavy fork into his body, twice. Why did you do that, sir? He wanted to watch the man’s face as he observed Den’s certainty of his guilt.

  He made his feelings known to the DI. ‘What exactly do you want to ask him?’ Hemsley enquired.

  Den gave him a diluted version.

  ‘Wouldn’t do any good,’ the Inspector opined. ‘He’s told us his story and he’ll stick to it. He’s not stupid; he knows we haven’t got anything firm enough to warrant charging him. All he has to do is watch himself, and live with himself, and he’s safe. If you bring him in and start bullying him, you’ll just strengthen his resolve. Assuming he’s the one, of course. Which I’m still quite inclined to doubt.’

  ‘So what do we do now, then?’

  ‘More interviews with the people lower down the list. Firm up some more of the detail. You didn’t fool me about that fork, for one thing. I want sworn evidence that it was always next to the silage. Go and see the O’Farrell girl again, if you can do it delicately. Kids notice things, overhear conversations … get her on her own. She might have things she’d like to tell you, but not in front of her mum.’ Den refrained from mentioning that there were draconian rules about interviewing underage girls, and that anything she might say would comprise inadmissable evidence. He knew all too well that there was a mile-wide gulf between the rules and what actually took place.

  Abigail seemed paler than before, when he caught up with her. She had the defiant air that typified the modern teenager; self-sufficient youngsters, accustomed to their mothers being out all day at work, and yet over-protected and supervised by teachers and childminders to within an inch of their lives. Abigail was an exception to this pattern, with her invalid mother, and father only a shout away, but she had managed to conform to the general appearance.

  Den sat in his car and watched the girl walk a few yards from the bus stop, towards the cottage. Already it was getting dark, Abigail’s face white in the fading light.

  He got out to meet her, trying to make it look like a coincidence that he was there at all. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Fancy seeing you! Had a good day?’

  She dipped her chin wordlessly, but her eyes were on his and he thought he detected a flash of hope in them. Either that or something very nearly as positive. She certainly didn’t seem sorry to see him.

  ‘Are you in a hurry or could we sit and chat in the car for a minute?’

  She followed him without protest and they got into the front seats. ‘Haven’t you arrested Gordon yet?’ she demanded. ‘He killed again on Thursday, you know. He’s a bastard!’

  Den shifted sideways, his long legs folded uncomfortably under the steering wheel. He could see the likeness to Hillcock, now he knew of her parentage, in the way her eyes were set deep in her skull and the jawline bowed out at the lower edges. But if Jilly Speedwell had kept quiet, would he ever have noticed? ‘What happened on Thursday?’ he asked. ‘Nobody reported anything to us.’

  She laughed sarcastically. ‘They wouldn’t, would they? Not when thousands of badgers are being killed all across Devon.’

  ‘Gordon Hillcock killed a badger?’

  ‘Not a badger. My badger.’ Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘He shot him.’

  Den was genuinely saddened. ‘Oh no – not the one we fed for you the other night?’

  She nodded. ‘Bodgy. He got out.’

  Den’s stomach lurched. ‘We didn’t leave his cage unlocked, did we? Me and Mike?’

  She shook her head. ‘Lucky for you, no. It was me. I was doing them in a rush, after school. He was clever, you know. If you didn’t push the stick right in, he could wriggle it out again and open the door.’

  ‘Did Gordon know it was yours?’

  ‘He says he didn’t. Dad told me to keep it secret. Gordon thinks badgers carry TB, so he’s stupid as well as a bastard. Even if he doesn’t agree with the cull. A cow can’t catch TB from a badger just by being in the same field as a badger – even if that badger has got it. It’s passed by droplets in the breath. You’d have to be about a millimetre away from it for ten minutes to stand any chance of catching anything from it. They’re all idiots, the government and MAFF and all those stupid scientists. And they’re criminals. It’s genocide.’

  ‘What did your dad think about it? Did he agree with the boss?’

  She turned her face away abruptly. ‘Sort of,’ she muttered.

  ‘Abigail, I shouldn’t really be here with you. It’s not the proper way to do an interview, but I thought you might prefer to talk to me without your mum listening. You can get out and go, any time you feel like it – okay? I’m trusting you as much as you’re trusting me. Do you understand?’

  ‘Course I do. I know about girls shouting rape. I won’t do that. It’s stupid.’

  ‘Good. So tell me a bit more about your dad and what you first thought when you heard someone had killed him.’

  ‘I obviously hadn’t been expecting it, but somehow I wasn’t surprised.’ She looked at him with big eyes. The gathering darkness blurred the detail, making it somehow safer to talk. ‘You know about Fergus?’ she said suddenly.

  ‘The dog. Yes.’

  ‘Dad poisoned him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I saw him mixing the stuff and putting it in some dog food. I tried to pretend to myself it was something else – medicine maybe, or vitamins, something that wouldn’t hurt him – but I always knew really. You know how you can fool yourself over things?’ She threw him a brief sideways glance. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said slowly. ‘Sometimes things are too horrible to seem real.’

  ‘Right,’ she agreed forcefully. ‘Like the time …’ she paused.

  ‘I’m listening,’ he murmured. ‘The time—?’

  ‘I saw him in the copse, with Mr Page’s dog, Brewster. Another man was there, too. And another dog – a smaller one. He was making them fight, even though the little dog hadn’t got a chance. I wanted to make him stop them, but his face – he was loving it. He was all, you know, red and grinning. It was like a different person. I pretended it was a different person. You know – possessed. I thought an evil demon had got inside him, making him do it. And I don’t know where the little dog came from. I’d never seen it before. I think it must have died.’ She wiped a hand across her nose. ‘Why are men so horrible?’ she asked with a whimper.

  ‘I don’t think I can answer that,’ breathed Den. ‘Who was the other man?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know. He was walking away when I saw him. I think he was upset. His hand was over his face, like this.’ She put her fingers over her eyes.

  They were silent for a moment, before Abigail spoke again. ‘It’s worse, being on a farm. Farms are killing places. Cows, sheep, rats, badgers, dogs, calves – the poor little calves …’ she faltered. ‘Even Dad was upset about them.’ Den blinked before remembering the dead bull calves in the yard the first evening he’d come to Dunsworthy.

  ‘And now people,’ he offered.

  ‘It isn’t much different,’ she confided. ‘I’m as sad about Bodgy as I am about Dad. Is that terrible of me?’

  Den paused. ‘You know, sometimes two sadnesses can get muddled up,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Remember when Princess Diana died and everybody started crying about it, even though they never even knew her? Well, I think that’s probably because they all had someone they really did love who’d died or gone away, and they had that sadness stored up inside them. So when the news was all about the tragic princess, with the flowers and the prayers and everything, that worked as a sort of unplugging – it opened up the feelings they’d already got inside them. Does that make a
ny sense?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ she admitted. ‘Or not the way you think. I was already sad about Dad before he died. Because I couldn’t love him any more.’

  Den made no comment. She looked up at him in the near darkness. ‘Last night I dreamt he was still alive,’ she whispered. ‘And when I woke up and remembered, I was glad. That’s the truth. I’m glad he’s dead.’

  You and everyone else, thought Den.

  It wasn’t until he was driving back to the station that he remembered the gun. Hillcock’s gun was still securely in police custody, waiting for such time as it might be deemed safe to return it to its owner. So how had he managed to shoot the badger?

  The final encounter with the DI that day was brief, but shocking. Den’s report on the Sam Watson interview was on the desk. ‘I think we have to bring Deirdre Watson in first thing tomorrow,’ the Inspector said. ‘There’s too much against her now; at least as much as we had against Hillcock when we brought him in. She’s got to give us some answers in a formal interview.’

  Den was struggling not to show his feelings. He clenched his fists in his jacket pockets. ‘You’re not arresting her?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘But everyone thinks it was Hillcock.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Hemsley advised. ‘Trust me, okay?’

  Den’s shoulders slumped. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then,’ he said.

  On Tuesday morning, Den and the DI interviewed Deirdre together. There was no doubting that she was nervous; much more nervous, in fact, than she had been in the aftermath of finding Sean’s body. Den was struck by how much she had changed in a week.

  ‘As you might expect,’ Hemsley began, ‘we’ve uncovered a lot of information about Mr O’Farrell and the people who knew him, in the course of our investigation. In a number of instances, your name, or that of one of your children, has been mentioned. All we’d like to establish this morning is just how this comes about.’ He spoke softly, both hands on the table in front of him, no trace of anger or accusation in his tone. Deirdre sat on the edge of the chair, elbows tight against her sides, breathing in shallow gasps. She nodded rapidly, to indicate her willingness to cooperate.

  ‘We understand that O’Farrell was consistently inhumane to the animals on the farm,’ he said.

  Deirdre twisted her hands together. ‘I can see you think I have reason to object to Sean’s activities,’ she said. ‘And I admit I didn’t tell the sergeant everything when he came to question me last week.’

  ‘Could you tell us now – honestly – what your feelings towards Sean O’Farrell were?’

  ‘He sickened me.’

  ‘And from what I hear, you’re not easily sickened?’ Hemsley suggested.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘But this was different?’

  She directed her gaze at him, ignoring Den. She knew where the real power lay. ‘Yes, it’s different,’ she agreed. ‘Last month, he had five newly-calved heifers to milk. They were all terrified of him – wouldn’t come into the parlour, wouldn’t stand still for him. And he just flipped. He hurt them as much as he could without leaving marks.’

  ‘With you there as a witness? Wasn’t there some trouble a few years ago, where you reported him for the same sort of thing?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s it, you see. Nothing changed when I complained before, so he thought he was safe. He thought I’d got used to it – which I had, up to a point.’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘But I didn’t kill him,’ she added, almost inconsequentially. ‘If I’d been going to, I’d have done it there in the parlour, last month.’

  Hemsley swerved onto another tack. ‘Did Sean know your son Matthew?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Not that I know of. Matthew knows Abigail slightly. They go to the same school. Why?’

  ‘Just a hunch. We picked up some comments about O’Farrell inviting locals to badger baiting sessions. We wondered …’

  ‘Matthew would never do that!’ she shouted. ‘He’s the softest, gentlest boy in the world. There’s no way …’

  ‘Okay,’ Hemsley placated her. ‘You just never quite know with boys, do you? No parents can be sure to keep tabs on them, or guess what they might get up to.’

  ‘Not Matthew,’ she insisted. Then her expression changed. ‘Although I have been a bit worried about him. It’s got nothing to do with Sean, though.’

  ‘You’re certain of that?’

  She sagged. ‘I am now, but I wasn’t to start with. Sam got me started, saying there was talk about Eliot Speedwell being gay and going to places in Plymouth. Matthew’s been trying to tell us for ages that he’s … that way. We’ve been keeping very cool and calm about it, but suddenly it all seemed to be closing in. There are so many predatory men around and he’d be sure to get terribly hurt. I knew Eliot was friendly with Sean. He talked about him during milking sometimes. But it was only a few months ago – when I heard the rumours – I wondered if the two of them were … although I don’t think Sean was really the type. It all seemed rather silly when I really stopped to think about it.’

  ‘But not before you’d imagined the sickening Sean trying something with your son?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she admitted. ‘I knew it was stupid, of course. I just panicked for a little while. I never thought I could be at all homophobic, but when it’s your own son, and he’s only sixteen …’

  ‘I know,’ said Hemsley softly.

  She sniffed sharply and gained more control of herself. ‘Well, that’s about all there is to it.’

  ‘Not quite. Your encounter with Sean at the school bazaar, when he said something about your “mucky ways”. What was all that about?’

  She flushed deep red and twisted in her chair. ‘That’s extremely embarrassing,’ she mumbled, ‘and completely irrelevant.’

  ‘Please tell me.’

  ‘He meant the time I desperately needed a pee, during milking one afternoon. It was Sean doing it that day. They haven’t got a loo outside, and I’d never ask to use the one in the house, so I made some excuse about needing more sample pots and dashed out to one of the sheds and just peed on the floor. It’s not so unusual, really. But the swine followed me and totally freaked out. He went green in the face and said I was disgusting. It was all very unpleasant, but I decided it was some hang-up of his, and not my problem. Most men would just laugh it off, or be ashamed of having seen me. Sean acted as if I’d done something utterly unspeakable.’

  Hemsley and Den said nothing and avoided each other’s glance, each recalling their theory involving a very similar incident. The DI jotted a few notes on his pad. Deirdre’s nervousness increased and she clearly felt she should say more. ‘It’s not as if I ever wished him dead. Of course not. But you said there were other things on your list. Badgers and other animals. Well, I have heard rumours about Sean and badger baiting, but not until after he died. Tom Beasley – he said something about it. And of course, Sean upset a lot of people, his own daughter amongst them, with the things he did.’ She prattled on, scarcely drawing breath; Den could hardly bear it.

  Hemsley held up a hand. ‘It won’t do, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘And although I will have some further questions for you, I must first give you the usual caution. I’m sorry to tell you, Mrs Watson, that you are under arrest …’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘It does fit, Den,’ said Young Mike, aware of Den’s outrage, as were the whole team. ‘Remember how she was when we arrived at the scene. No sign of any hysterics or squeamishness. She even had some blood on her hand.’

  ‘But—’ Den could hardly speak. ‘Evidence!’ he exploded. ‘There’s nothing at all that amounts to a case against her.’

  Hemsley pursed his lips and said nothing. Jane Nugent jumped in to ease the tension. ‘Reminds me of that poem by Ted Hughes,’ she remarked. ‘The one about nasty beasties at the bottom of the pretty pond. I forget the title.’

  Miserably, Den jerked his head at Mike and got to his feet. The Inspector
was making a ghastly mistake and Den didn’t want to see more of it than he had to. There were times, he grumbled to himself, when the job stank.

  Gordon Hillcock was feeding the sick calf that had been found by Ted and Den, patiently cupping his hand into a bucket of warm milk, reminding it of a skill it must have possessed for weeks. He thought it was getting slightly stronger as the days wore on. He’d ask Mary to take over, if she’d condescend to set foot in one of the farm buildings for once. Ted was going to be fully occupied filling in for Sean in the yardwork. He’d already been given the job of burying the dead calves, despite the hard ground. ‘Just get them out of my sight,’ he ordered. ‘I’ve seen enough death for one week.’

  If it hadn’t been for that policeman witnessing the whole business, he’d have made up an identity for the surviving calf – giving one of his cows a twin birth instead of a singleton. As it was, he supposed he’d be questioned and investigated because of what bloody Sean had been doing. There’d be reports and warnings and even the risk of a fine. It probably wouldn’t matter to the RSPCA or whoever chose to prosecute, whether or not the man really responsible was dead. It was a sickening mess and Gordon just wished it could all be over and done with. The business with Abigail and the badger had merely added to his troubles. How Sean could have allowed her to keep the creature defied comprehension. The man was impossible, anyone could see that.

  As he crossed the yard from the calfpen to the big shed, intending to rouse the cows for the afternoon milking, he heard a familiar tapping on an upstairs window in the house behind him. He turned and waved. Granny Hillcock often rapped on the glass if she saw him from her window. She’ll break it one day, he thought to himself, not for the first time. The image of the old lady bleeding to death from such an ironic accident brought a thin smile to his lips. Granny Hillcock was a permanent fixture at Dunsworthy: she’d been there for almost eighty years, a length of time impossible to comprehend. She’d milked twenty-five cows by hand, night and morning, reared pigs and lambs and ducks and geese, and invariably had a book to read in the few minutes of rest after dinner, which was always served promptly at noon. She’d given birth to three children in her thirties and lost two of them to diphtheria. The disease had come unexpectedly to this sparsely-populated area of Devon.