by Rebecca Tope
‘So it’s not the farm. It’s just him – Gordon. I fell in love with him. It happens.’
‘So they tell me,’ Nugent nodded, a little bleakly. ‘Well, thanks for talking to me. I think that’s all for now.’
Nugent hurried back to the station, mulling over the implications of Lilah’s statement. Mostly it felt like a desperate attempt to find a scapegoat for the crime she knew her boyfriend must have committed. She had been randomly slinging mud in all directions. But underneath all that, there was an uncomfortably solid thread of logic. Lilah had conjured a network of passions and wounded feelings that might quite credibly have led to Deirdre Watson hurling herself at Sean O’Farrell for what she believed him to be doing to her precious young son. And then there was the animal rights angle … which could also lead indirectly to Deirdre Watson.
Oh well, she concluded, as she swung her car out of the homeward stream of traffic and into the quieter street containing the police station, It’s not down to me to judge who’s right and who’s wrong.
She encountered Den and Mike in the canteen and followed them to a table, where she gave them a severely edited version of her interview with Lilah. ‘Sorry I had to do that, Den,’ she said. ‘But there was no way around it.’
‘No problem,’ he assured her, his face tight and pinched. ‘Just give us the bits you think we need to know.’
‘She claims – wait for it – Sean O’Farrell was gay and having it off with Eliot Speedwell, and young Matthew Watson, the milk recorder’s son, is that way inclined as well and might have got himself involved with them. At least, that was what she implied. She’s got no hard facts whatsoever.’
‘Did you believe her?’ Mike stared incredulously at Jane. ‘Sean O’Farrell gay?’
‘It does make things look a bit dodgy for Mrs Watson,’ Nugent pressed on. ‘If it’s true and she knew about it, she’d be furious with O’Farrell.’
‘We’re going to see Eliot Speedwell tonight,’ said Den calmly. ‘We’ll have to hope he sets us right, won’t we?’
‘What about young Matthew? Have you seen him yet?’ Nugent asked.
‘Not until after we’ve spoken to Speedwell,’ Den said. ‘If this is all a story, we’d be in deep shit making that sort of suggestion to the boy – in front of his mother, most likely.’
Jane Nugent sipped her tea and nodded slowly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Den and Mike were both quite taken with Eliot Speedwell and his pretty little house, which had apparently once been a two-bedroomed artisan’s cottage. Tall and slim, unlike his gnomish father, Eliot had a self-deprecating air.
‘We understand you were a close friend of Sean O’Farrell?’ Den opened, without much preamble. Eliot nodded, his pain well hidden but not invisible. ‘His death must have been a shock.’
‘Of course it was. More so because I only heard about it this morning.’
‘Really? That suggests you weren’t in especially close touch?’
‘And that you never watch the local news on TV,’ added Mike.
‘Both true, more or less. I tackled my father about it earlier today. He should have been the one to tell me. I still can’t understand why he didn’t.’
‘Slipped his mind, I suppose,’ said Den. ‘Or he expected you’d hear from somebody else.’
‘Silly old bugger,’ said Eliot, with a hint of fondness mixed into the anger.
Den asked if they could all sit down around the table at one end of the kitchen. Everything was small and neat, the space used intelligently. Eliot’s offer of coffee was declined.
‘You can probably imagine what we’re up against,’ Den began. ‘We have to try and build up a picture of what this man was like, from an assortment of descriptions and comments from people who knew him. And just when you think there’s something coming into focus, a whole new viewpoint turns up that throws it all out of shape again. For example, we have one picture of a man who was good to his invalid wife, sympathetic to his daughter, conscientious at work. But we’ve also had people telling us he was brutal, shallow, secretive. The young animal rights campaigners call him the enemy. As his friend, we wondered whether you’ve got anything to add?’
‘People are complicated,’ Eliot offered. ‘What more can I say?’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Den agreed. ‘But when a man is murdered with considerable brutality, in his place of work, complicated doesn’t quite cover it. Wouldn’t you agree? It looks as if someone was driven to extreme rage and acted on it.’
‘You’re telling me the killer was somebody who knew Sean?’
‘Oh yes, I think so. Although we shouldn’t entirely rule out a crazed drug addict, I suppose. Let loose on the community perhaps, and found himself wandering down a country lane to Dunsworthy Farm?’ Den spoke ironically, deliberately trying to provoke a reaction.
‘Not many of them around in January,’ Eliot conceded. ‘Might get a few in August.’
‘Where were you on Tuesday afternoon, between one and four o’clock?’
‘At work. In the pasty factory. I’m in personnel. About ten people can vouch for me.’
‘When did you last see Sean?’
The answer came promptly, with scarcely a second’s thought. ‘Sunday afternoon.’
‘Where was that?’
‘Here.’
‘When did you last visit Dunsworthy? Before today, I mean.’
‘Christmas Day.’
‘What time did you go there today? Weren’t you at work?’
‘About ten-thirty. I took the morning off. I couldn’t have gone in, the state I was in. Three days before I heard he was dead. My oldest friend! So much for a close community!’
‘How did you hear?’
‘I saw it in the paper. I get it delivered on a Friday.’
‘Weren’t they talking about it at the factory?’
‘I realise now that they were, yes. Just odd references, without any names. Nobody there would know I was Sean’s friend. I didn’t take any notice.’
‘What did your father say when you tackled him?’
‘Nothing much. Sean was murdered and the police were investigating, obviously. I wondered a bit why you’d not been to see me sooner. Looks as if I was completely out of the loop, doesn’t it.’
‘Your father was on the farm at the time of Sean’s death, of course. Did he approve of your friendship with him?’
‘Approve? I’m thirty-two years old, Sergeant. I can choose my own friends, without my father’s permission. In any case, we grew up together, pretty much. We were more like brothers than friends.’
Den took a breath. ‘Mr Speedwell, there has been a suggestion that you and Mr O’Farrell were more than just good friends, if you take my meaning. Assuming this to be true – or at least to be the general perception – what would your father’s reaction be to that?’
Eliot stared unblinkingly at Den for half a minute. ‘What?’ he said finally. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘You and Sean O’Farrell weren’t lovers?’
Eliot exploded into a raucous laugh; a much bigger noise than he looked capable of making. ‘Sean, gay?’ he spluttered. ‘My God, that’s a good one.’
Den found that he didn’t particularly mind feeling foolish. ‘It’s not true, then?’
‘It most definitely is not true,’ Speedwell assured him. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that Sean never had any sex drive of any sort. Something happened in his childhood – he never told me the details. Scared him off the whole business.’
‘Was he impotent?’
‘Put crudely, I should think he was. Except it never came to the point of him trying, as far as I could tell. Drove poor Heather crazy, of course, even though he tried to make up for it, looking after her so well.’
Den tried to keep his eye on the ball. ‘So – forgive me, but you do seem an unlikely pair of friends. From what we’ve gathered about Mr O’
Farrell … well …’
Eliot spread his hands. ‘We were young together. I learnt a lot from him in those early years; stuff like self-sufficiency and when to keep your mouth shut. I was always rather a loner, shy and awkward. A misfit. Then I joined the Army, like a fool, and it almost destroyed me. I crawled home with a breakdown. Sean was next door, and was really good to me. Told me I was well out of it. I kept the friendship going out of gratitude, I suppose.’
‘And you? Are you gay?’
Speedwell took a long breath. ‘I thought I might be,’ he said. ‘I experimented – went to a gay club in Plymouth a couple of times. Sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? At my age, I really should know at least that much about myself. I’ve always found it really hard to form relationships with women. None of them matched up to my mother, who is utterly sweet and good and kind and patient and all that sort of thing. But just lately I’ve started to get things straight. New house, new job last year, and maybe if I’m lucky, a new girlfriend. Someone who’ll give me what I need.’
Den knew enough about psychology to doubt whether such a specification would bear fruit. He saw Speedwell as spoilt by the self-sacrificing mother, forever greedy for attention, giving nothing in return. He wanted to offer bland assurances and leave. But there was more to be asked.
‘And why was Sean here on Sunday?’
‘To borrow money,’ came the prompt reply. ‘He’s done it before.’
‘Did you give it to him?’
Eliot shook his head. ‘I told him I’d had enough of his silly schemes. Most of them were on the wrong side of the law.’ The man sounded careless of his own liability in having financed shady dealings. Or fundamentally weak, more likely, thought Den.
‘What kind of schemes?’
‘Oh, buying and selling. Nothing fancy. Scrap metal, unregistered animals, bits of scruffy land. None of it ever worked out to his advantage. I got involved a few times – helped him over a few of the practicalities.’ Den remembered the jumbled accumulation of objects on the Speedwells’ front lawn, and mentally ticked off that small anomaly. It had niggled at him that neither Ted nor Jilly seemed likely to be responsible for such a mess. Seemingly, Eliot had invited Sean to use it as storage, rather than his own premises.
‘But you did lend him money on other occasions?’
‘Now and then, yes. Never very much. It was easier to give it to him than listen to all the bravado about how it was going to make us both rich this time.’
‘Tell me, Mr Speedwell – did you actually like Sean O’Farrell?’
Eliot slowly shook his head, an ironic twist on his lips. ‘No, Sergeant, I can’t honestly say I did. Not for the last few years, anyway. I shouldn’t think anybody really liked poor old Sean. Not deep down.’
The interview ended swiftly and Mike closed his notebook with a firm snap. Outside, Den said, ‘That’s it for today. We were right to leave young Matthew alone. If you’re lucky, you won’t be needed again till Monday, but I’ve a feeling Hemsley’s going to send me back to Dunsworthy tomorrow. It’s all coming down to the way O’Farrell treated his animals, as I see it. Somewhere on that farm, there must be more to learn.’
‘Have fun,’ said Mike.
As predicted, Hemsley detailed Den to go back to the farm on Saturday morning.
‘But Hillcock won’t be there,’ he remembered. ‘Not if he sticks to his plan. That’s why he swapped milking with Sean. He wanted to go to some meeting or other.’
‘So who’ll do today’s milking?’ Hemsley asked.
‘Probably a relief person. They’ve had time to organise that by now. Or maybe he’ll fit it all in himself.’
‘So talk to Speedwell, and the womenfolk. Maybe it’s best if Hillcock is away, come to think of it. They’ll talk more freely with him out of the way.’
Leaving it until ten o’clock, Den drove the winding route to Dunsworthy again, pondering on how repetitive murder inquiries tended to be. Innumerable visits to the scene of the crime; interviews with the same dwindling group of witnesses or suspects; going over and over the same forensic reports, like sifting through the same bran tub, handful by handful, on the off-chance that some forgotten little clue had been left sitting at the bottom.
He found the farmyard almost empty of vehicles; only the car shared by Claudia and Mary Hillcock sat under the corrugated tin roof of the makeshift garage that stood to one side of the house. No sign of Lilah’s Astra, which came as some relief. And Den began yet another search for Ted Speedwell, discovering even more permutations of doors and gates and openings amongst the interconnected buildings than he remembered from before.
He looked into two of the cavernous cowsheds, then headed for the door of a third, smaller, one. He savoured the atmosphere of the place: there was a timelessness about it that struck him. Some of the items hanging on the walls, sitting on rickety shelves or propped in corners, had clearly been there undisturbed for decades. Dust had become so thick that it formed a near-solid tissue, grey-brown, crumbly, all-pervasive. It would be obvious to a careful scrutiny which objects had been moved within the past few months. Even a relatively modern farm like Dunsworthy, with its vast buildings, was not qualitatively different from the more traditional Redstone, where Lilah had grown up. It was a world entirely at odds with urban life, where animal hair and cobwebs were instantly dusted and vacuumed into oblivion. With a sigh, Den acknowledged his envy of those who were born into such a habitat. Even in January, with the hostile weather conspiring with the forces of consumerism and health hysteria to annihilate the entire farming industry, he thought he would cheerfully exchange it for his safe, tidy little flat. He might even have been persuaded to change his career with the police for that of a farmer – if things had gone differently with Lilah.
He heard the car engine, but didn’t show himself. He waited to see whether it was someone on farm business, whether Speedwell would manifest himself to deal with it. When no voices were heard, he ventured out of the shed from a doorway that did not open onto the yard. His former fiancée came striding round the corner and almost bumped into him.
Her presence, within easy touching distance, made his skin feel raw and exposed. If she wanted to, she could rake her nails down his chest or cheek; for a moment it seemed to him that that was what she would indeed do.
‘Why are you back here?’ she demanded. ‘Sneaking round like a thief. If you want to speak to Gordon, why don’t you go and knock on the door like a civilised person?’
‘I’m looking for Ted Speedwell, as it happens,’ he retorted coldly. The memory of her furious treatment of him on Wednesday revived him. Her aggression now made much less impression on him. It felt forced and unconvincing.
She said nothing for a long moment. ‘Is Ted a suspect now?’ she finally asked.
‘I’m not at liberty to reveal any details of our investigation,’ he said stiffly, hating himself and her in equal measure.
‘Pardon me for asking,’ she mimicked, with exaggerated pomposity. He hoped desperately that the situation they were in would bring back to her at least some echoes of their first farmyard encounter, on the morning her father had died, and Den had been kind and protective and instantly concerned. How was it possible that she did not remember it? He was welded to the ground, paralysed by her dogged hostility, unable to move until she released him.
‘You know,’ she said, in a milder tone, ‘it wasn’t anybody on this farm who killed Sean. You won’t get anywhere until you wake up to that fact. Sean was involved in a lot of nasty business, with some nasty people. I know you won’t take my word for it – you’ll think I’m just trying to protect Gordon. But ask the milk recorder and her kids. Ask Fred Page. Though if you send a policeman to see him, they’d best go in disguise.’
He couldn’t let it pass. ‘Lilah – did you send an anonymous letter to the police station about Mrs Watson and her family? And what on earth were you trying to do, suggesting to Nugent that Sean and Eliot were gay lovers? It was pretty imaginative
, I’ll give you that, but completely irresponsible and stupid, as well.’
Her face told him a lot: discomfort, cunning, a delayed denial, all spiced with satisfaction at having got to him. ‘I was just passing on the local gossip,’ she said self-righteously. ‘And of course I didn’t send any anonymous letters. Why, what’s been going on?’
‘I told you as much as I can. I don’t believe you about the letter. Now, where do you think Ted might be?’
She ignored his question, standing obstinately in her thick quilted jacket and black wellington boots. He was almost sure she’d sent the letter about Deirdre and her family. What sort of desperation had driven her to do that? It could only be the prospect of losing Hillcock that was motivating her to go to such extreme lengths. She must really care about him. But how could she?
Looking at her, Den felt as if the gods were deliberately playing with him, bringing together such an unlikely couple as Lilah and Hillcock, just to teach him that he should never take anything for granted. But if he would never understand what had made her fall for Hillcock, it was all too easy to grasp what had prompted the farmer’s behaviour. He was close to forty and must be facing his last chance of finding a wife. It wasn’t unusual for farmers to retain bachelor status for longer than most men, but after forty, they became much too set in their ways. They didn’t want the upheaval. With Granny Hillcock in her last few years or months, there’d be a nice big room in the house for a new wife to spread herself in, and perhaps use for a nursery before long. And a girl who knew about farming, educated, cheerful, robust – a girl such as Lilah – was now, as always, quite perfect for the purpose.
The waste of it, the sheer unnecessary stupidity of her thinking herself in love with a man so transparently on the lookout for a suitable mate, made Den want to scream. And he still wondered how in the world Hillcock had done it.
‘Speedwell?’ he prompted, unable to bear any further contemplation of her.
‘I’ve only just arrived,’ she said. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. Look—’ she burst out before he could continue his search ‘—won’t you just tell me how it’s going? What do the forensic findings say?’
