A Death to Record Read Online Free Page B

patches, staring sightlessly across the yard. From somewhere behind the complex of buildings, the distant, wavering cry of a surviving calf could be heard.
    Two men stood beside the ambulance. Den got out of the car quickly and walked up to them. ‘Not one for you, then?’ he queried.
    One of the men shook his head. ‘You could say that,’ he confirmed. ‘You’ll be calling out the whole team on this one, I reckon. And after that, you’ll want the undertakers. We’ll be out of your way now.’
    Den let them go without further discussion. A woman came out of the door beside the food hopper, clearly waiting for them. ‘Come on, then,’ muttered Den. ‘Let’s see what’s what.’
    ‘It’s this way,’ she told them, glancing from face to face. She was of above average height, sturdy, wearing a navy blue protective outfit,with large wellington boots. Her hair, a pleasing chestnut colour, was dragged back into a tight knot, and there were splashes of muck across one shoulder. There was a hardness around the eyes and an impression that she seldom smiled. Her accent was barely perceptibly Devon.
    ‘Are you Deirdre Watson?’ Den asked her. ‘Do you live here?’
    ‘I’m the milk recorder,’ she said, as if this explained everything. For Den, it mostly did.
    ‘Recording Day, is it?’ he asked, with a nod. Another agricultural mystery that Lilah had long ago explained to him.
    It was dim inside the barn, even with the light on. Den fished in his pocket for a torch as Deirdre pointed out to them the relevant corner, keeping a safe distance, somehow understanding that she ought not to further disturb the scene. Is it him? Den was bursting to ask her. Is it that swine Hillcock? He’d know the answer soon enough.
    Eagerly, he played the torch beam across the body, taking in the blood, the huddled stiffness. He could see the disturbed straw, the signs of frenzied movement. The hands were clutched to a wound in the abdominal region, and Den understood that there had been great pain in this dying. The hair was lank, greasy and plentiful. The neck was scrawny, under the grubby scarf. Narrow shoulders, narrower hips. A lean cheekand a long jaw. It was definitely not Gordon Hillcock lying there. ‘Who is he?’ he asked resignedly. ‘And who found him?’
    ‘Sean O’Farrell,’ the woman told him. ‘The herdsman. He lives in one of the cottages where you turn in off the road. And Gordon found him, when he came to collect the cows.’
    He isn’t going to live there any more, thought Den to himself. ‘Has he got any family?’
    ‘Wife and daughter. We haven’t told them yet. I didn’t like to leave him … and Gordon—’ She threw a quick glance towards the milking parlour, where the motor was still running, providing a constant background throb to the proceedings.
    ‘Yes – Gordon.’ Den forced the name through his lips. ‘Where’s he, then?’
    ‘He had to finish the milking. We were on the last five, when we came in here and found Sean. He thought he might as well finish them off.’
    ‘It’s taken us twenty minutes to get here,’ Den calculated. ‘Surely they’re finished by now?’
    ‘He’s washing down. There’s forty minutes’ work still to do after the last unit’s off.’ She spoke woodenly, not looking at the figure on the floor. ‘He was upset,’ she added.
    ‘He shouldn’t be disturbing the scene,’ Den said. ‘Everything should be left just as it was.’
    ‘We haven’t moved anything in here,’ she toldhim defensively. ‘The parlour’s got nothing to do with it.’
    Den let it go. She was right, anyway: a farm was one of the hardest places on which to conduct any kind of forensic examination. Work tended to go on however much you insisted things be left untouched. This was not his first experience of the destruction of evidence by water or trampling or newly-deposited manure.
    Thinking quickly, he tried to sort out what had to be done. The witnesses were supposed to be kept