Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (39 page)

'Have you got some early lambs?' he said.

'Aye, I'm helping out Rod Whittaker – he's the lad who owns the land here now. He's got fifty head of ewes indoors.'

'We've a few routine questions, sir,' said Fry, who'd learned to ignore agricultural conversations that she didn't understand.

'Oh, aye?' said Malkin. 'You'll have to come to the lambing shed with me, then.'

'Where?'

'This way. I can't leave 'em for long.'

They followed Malkin round the side of the house, through a gate and past a large steel shed with sliding doors that had been left open on their runners. Inside, there was a big articulated DAF lorry, parked next to a powerful Renault tractor with a snowplough blade attachment on the front.

'I take it that's your friend's truck,' said Cooper.

'Aye, he keeps the wagon here.'

'And the tractor?'

'Rod has to get work where he can – when it snows like this, he can't run the big wagon, but the council pays him to clear the roads around here, so he doesn't lose out. He can't afford not to have any money coming in – he has a family to keep. Contract haulage is almost as dodgy as farming, but he'll make a go of it.'

Behind the shed, they walked across a farmyard towards another building.

'Rod grazes his flock on these fields here. That grass comes up in the spring like little green rockets. He can afford to lamb the ewes early – he gets a good start with them.'

'You've split up the farm and kept the farmhouse for yourself,' said Cooper. 'So where does Mr Whittaker live?'

'Up the far end of the village,' said Malkin. 'It was my dad who sold off the land, when he couldn't keep the farm going any more. You could get a good price for land then, and it was enough. Rod has the land and these buildings here. Of course, he has the contract haulage business as well. That's why he can't be here to see the ewes all the time. But he can't afford to pay for hired help, and he knows I don't mind.'

'You'll have lambed a few in your time, I bet,' said Cooper.

'Aye, a fair few.'

They entered the shed. It was much warmer than outside, and it was half-full of steel pens containing black-faced ewes. Cooper breathed in the warm smells of animals and straw. But Fry looked at the sheep and drew away.

'This isn't a very suitable place. Can we go back to the house?' she said.

'This lot are in the middle of lambing – you can see that,' said Malkin.

Fry gazed blankly at the sheep. Cooper knew she could see nothing more than some mutton chops and several nice Sunday roasts milling about in the shed.

'They look all right to me,' she said.

'They can't be left to their own devices. Ask me your questions here.'

'All right. Do you recognize this man?' said Fry, producing the photograph of Nick Easton.

'It's no use showing me that – I haven't got my glasses on.'

'Well, where are they?'

'Back at the house, where I need them.'

'For goodness sake!'

'I don't plan my day around you lot turning up, you know.'

Fry took a deep breath. Cooper could see her face twist as she drew in all the smells of sheep droppings and straw and sour milk.

'We're enquiring about a man called Sergeant Nick Easton. Does the name mean anything to you?'

'Never heard of him.'

'He worked for the Royal Air Force.'

'Oh,' said Malkin. 'Is it to do with the complaint?'

'What complaint?'

'About the low flying. There were some jet fighters came over here so low they almost knocked the chimney tops off. They frightened the sheep to death. Rod put in a complaint about it. He says he might be able to get compensation.'

Fry stared at him. Then she looked at Cooper.

'I think you'd have to prove the aircraft caused some damage or injury to the sheep,' he said. 'Did any of the ewes lose their lambs?'

'It's nothing to do with that at all,' said Fry.

'He's in the RAF, though?' Malkin said. 'He looks like he's in uniform in that photo. I can make out the blue, and the cap.'

'Yes, but you might have seen him in civilian clothes,' said Fry.

Malkin shrugged. 'Like I said – without my glasses …'

'Has anybody been here from the RAF recently? Or phoned you, maybe?'

'Not that I know of,' said Malkin. 'But I don't always answer the phone.'

'Your name was on a list of people Sergeant Easton was planning to visit. Can you think of any reason why that should be?'

'No.'

'Does the name Lukasz mean anything to you?'

Malkin seemed to tense a little. Before he could answer, a ewe in a nearby pen went down on its knees and began bellowing. Malkin turned towards it.

'It's all right,' said Cooper. 'Carry on.' And Malkin nodded at him, accepting his help without question as he handed over a spare pair of overalls.

Fry watched in amazement as Cooper took off his waxed coat and pulled the overalls over his clothes. She almost missed Malkin's next sentence.

'Lukasz. It rings a bell, that name. Something to do with the RAF, is it?'

'You tell me,' said Fry.

Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware that Cooper had climbed into the pen with the noisy ewe. The bellowing continued. It was the full-throated roar of childbirth. Fry couldn't shut out the noise, but she was trying to ignore what Cooper was doing as he bent down at the rear end of the sheep. Whatever it was, it made the sheep's eyes roll and its scream become even louder.

'Ben, what the hell are you doing?'

'There's a foot turned back,' said Cooper. 'Have you got a bit of baler band, sir?'

'Aye, on the pen side,' said Malkin.

Fry watched Cooper take a length of what looked like bright blue string, dip it in soapy water and fold it into a loop.

Cooper bent down again. Fry still didn't know exactly what he was doing, but she was quite sure it wasn't a usual occupation for a detective conducting an interview.

'Ah, here we come,' said Cooper, his voice strained with exertion.

There was a squelching sound, the sudden splash of fluids emptying into the straw, and the ewe fell silent. But then was there another noise. It was only a faint coughing, like the sound of a tiny child with something caught in its throat. It was followed by a sneeze. And Fry suddenly found she was desperate to see what was happening in there.

Malkin turned back towards her. 'The only thing I can think of is that he might have been an old airman. Polish, maybe, with that name? You should try old Walter Rowland. He used to be in the RAF. But that's years and years ago.'

'Yes, yes,' said Fry impatiently.

'Here, don't you want to know this? I thought you had to ask some questions.'

She could hear Cooper rustling in the straw, muttering to the sheep, crooning like some demented goatherd.

'It's a ewe lamb,' he said.

'Aye, that's good,' said Malkin, without looking round. 'Single, is it?'

'I'll tell you in a minute.'

Fry couldn't see anything except for Ben Cooper's back in the blue overalls. She tried to edge towards the pen, but Malkin was in her way.

'Any road,' he said, 'I don't know what else I can tell you. What else do you want to know? I don't understand what all this business is about the RAF.'

'Oh, shush!' she said.

Now a distinct high-pitched squeak came from somewhere in the wet straw. Fry leaned over to get a glimpse of something dark and wet, which hadn't been there a few seconds before. It was a creature with tiny, thin legs splayed in the straw and a head that was too big for its body. She watched in amazement as it began to struggle to its feet, wobbling dangerously, with its ears folded on to its head as it tried to get its balance. Although its eyes could hardly focus, its mouth was puckered and it was trying to move forward towards its mother. It had been in the world for only thirty seconds.

'Good, strong lamb,' said Cooper. 'We'll just get her suckling.'

'Where?' said Fry.

'From her mother's teats, where else?'

'It's too small. It won't be able to reach,' she said. 'Will it?'

'Don't you believe it.'

Within a few moments, the lamb had reached up and found a teat and was butting strongly with its head at its mother's belly. The ewe curved its neck and sniffed and licked at the lamb, which wagged its tail like a puppy.

'Look at it,' said Fry.

'A new life coming into the world,' said Cooper. 'It's always a bit of a special moment.'

'I can never see it often enough,' said Malkin, and they exchanged a meaningful look that Fry couldn't interpret, but which excluded her from its meaning.

'Have we finished?' Cooper asked her, unbuttoning his overall.

'Er, yeah,' she said, though she barely felt able to drag herself away from the lambing pen.

'If Mr Malkin remembers anything, I'm sure he'll contact us.'

Fry took the hint and presented Malkin with her Derbyshire Constabulary business card. Malkin took it between his thumb and forefinger, so as not to stain it. The card was white and shiny and pristine, and it looked as out of place in the lambing shed as if it had been an alien artefact from Mars.

*    *    *    *

Fry walked back to the car while Cooper asked to wash his hands. Malkin tapped him on the shoulder before he left. 'You're not a bad lad,' he said. 'I reckon you live on your own, am I right?'

'How on earth can you tell?'

Malkin gave him a sly wink. 'Like they say, it takes one to spot one. Have you got a good-sized pocket inside that coat? I bet you have.'

'Yes.'

'Stick this in it then. It's very fresh – you'll just have to clean it.'

He pushed a parcel wrapped in newspaper into Cooper's hand. Cooper felt at it for long enough to be sure that it wasn't a couple of kilos of crack cocaine or an illegal weapon he was being handed.

'I don't think I can take it,' he said.

'Don't be daft, lad. There's no harm in it. But don't tell your sergeant, eh? She wouldn't understand.'

Malkin winked at him again. Cooper was aware of Fry waiting for him outside, but he was also conscious of the need to preserve this man's goodwill if he was going to get at his memories.

'I can only take it if I pay you something for it, Mr Malkin,' he said.

'Well, if you must. Fifty pence will do.'

Cooper dug out a fifty-pence piece. Living was proving cheap, so far. And he even knew how to prepare and cook rabbit. He and Miranda would have a good supper from it.

'That's all open and above board then,' said Malkin, and winked again.

*    *    *    *

When the two detectives had gone, George Malkin went straight back to the sheep. He had to spread iodine on the navels of the newest lambs to stop them getting infections through their cords. And at the far end of the shed, there was another job he had to do, which he'd postponed when the police arrived. The woman sergeant wouldn't have liked it much, and he'd been reluctant to let them see what was in his pocket, the thing that he'd gone to fetch from the house when they arrived.

Malkin enjoyed looking after the ewes. He was glad to be of use, happy to be working at his old job again for a short while. He'd lambed hundreds of sheep in his time, and there was no need for anyone to tell him what to do. He could work alone, with his own thoughts for company. His help during the day meant that Rod Whittaker could go off to work on his driving job and take over in the shed when he came home in the evening.

He felt sorry for Rod, struggling to make a go of it. Farming was in the lad's blood, but he had no money to go into it properly, and little hope of making enough profit from his sheep to earn a living. Trying to get into farming was no life for a man now. Rod would be a lorry driver for the rest of his days, forced into earning his living some other way. Every morning, when he set off for work, he looked tired and bleary-eyed from a night dozing uncomfortably in the lambing shed.

Shortly before the police arrived, one lamb had been born dead. Across the aisle, another ewe had produced two and was rejecting the second, refusing to allow it to feed. The tiny lamb was bleating, but its mother repeatedly butted it away in favour of its larger, stronger sibling, which was sucking vigorously at the teats.

Neither the dead lamb nor the rejected one was unusual, and Malkin knew exactly what he had to do. The fleece had to be skinned from the dead lamb and tied round the body of the rejected one, to give it the right smell for the bereaved ewe to accept it as her own. It was the old way, but the best one. The sheep were stupid – they never knew that they'd been fooled.

24

Fry sat rigid and silent in the passenger seat of the Toyota on the way back from Harrop. Cooper wanted to tell her that she had some straw sticking to her hair, but he daren't say anything. They were almost in Edendale before he felt her start to relax a little. It seemed to be the street lamps that did it, and the appearance of houses and petrol stations, with more light from their security systems and forecourts.