A Task Force sergeant in a boiler suit and Wellington boots walked up to the house, where he found Wilford Cutts and Sam Beeley waiting outside, astonished at their sudden arrival. He served the search warrant on Wilford.
‘You want to search my house?’ said Wilford. ‘What for?’
‘Not the house,’ said the sergeant. ‘The outside property.’
‘Outside ?’
‘Starting with the field over there.”
Officers were gathering on the track, fastening their boiler suits and pulling on Wellingtons and gloves as spades and forks were issued from a van.
‘You’re never going to dig my field up,’ said Wilford.
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Sam waved his stick and started laughing as he saw where the policemen were heading.
‘Look at their faces,’ he said. ‘They’re not digging the field up, they’re going to dig up the muck heap.’
The sergeant’s expression told them he was right.
‘What do you think you’ll find?’ called Wilford, but the sergeant walked away without answering.
A Scenes of Crime officer was raking through the remains of the fire and bagging the ashes as Tailby and Cooper came up from their car to the field. The two old men were standing by the top gate to watch the operation, and Cooper could feel their eyes on him as they approached.
‘It was built by craftsmen, that heap,’ said Wilford accusingly. ‘Your bloody coppers are going to ruin it.’
‘Some of them buggers look as though they’ve never used a fork in their lives,’ said Sam, gazing in wonder at the boiler
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suited diggers.
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‘Mr Cutts, I believe you had a young man by the name of Simeon Holmes working here earlier today, said iailby.
‘Oh aye,’ said Wilford. ‘Young Simeon and his mate. Good lads, they are. Hard workers. They mucked out the pig shed for us.’
‘And helped von build the compost heap there,’
‘Well, they did the heavy work, the harrowing and that.’
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‘What’s in the compost heap, Mr Cutts?’
‘Here now,” said Sarn. ‘We told your lad there exactly what was put in it. Didn’t we, Wilford?’
‘We explained it very carefully, as I recall.’
Sam’s attention drifted back down the field. He couldn’t believe what he saw. ‘Some of them’s shifting it, and some of them’s just standing looking at it. What do they think it’s going to do? Dance the hokey cokey?’
‘And there was some burning, I believe? What were you burning, Mr Cutts?’
o’
‘Some old straw. Some dead branches. General rubbish.’
‘Did you allow Simeon Holmes to put any extra items on to the fire or into the compost heap?’
‘You what?’
‘The other lad looked after the fire, in between harrowing,’ said Sam.
‘And who was he?’
‘Name of Doc, that’s all. A mate of young Simeon’s.’
‘A nickname?’
‘I suppose so. Never seen him before.’
‘How did they happen to be working for you, Mr Cutts?’
‘Harry sent ‘em up. I needed a bit of labour, and he said his great-nephew was a willing lad.’
‘His great-nephew! This is to do with Harry Dickinson again?’
‘They’re good lads, those two. You leave ‘em alone.’
The do believe,’ said Sam, staring at the activities around the
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compost heap, ‘that those blokes of yours are actually counting the turds.’
Cooper trailed after the disgruntled DCI as he strode off back towards the bottom of the field. The compost had begun fermenting as soon as the heap had been constructed, and steam
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could be seen rising in several places. The surface of the heap was alive with thousands of the reddish- brown dung flies. They rose in shimmering clouds when they were disturbed, only to settle again on the exposed patches of manure as work began on shifting the entire heap to one side.
The digging was hot and sweaty work, and the policemen could feel the pervasive smell of the manure
