oi that house. She was like that French tart all over again. Evil.
o
So he picked up a stone …’ Harry’s eyes tocused on Fry, as it seeing her for the first time and wondering why she was there. ‘It was just a moment’s mistake, you see. You can’t forget sixty years of friendship for that,’
‘Friendship?’
‘Aye. Friendship.’
Harry studied Diane Fry. On her first visit to the cottage, he had ignored her as completely as he had during the interviews at die police station. Now, though, he was looking at her in a different way, as if he sensed a change in her. He looked from Fry to Ben Cooper, assessing them both curiously.
‘You knew, didn’t you, lad?’
Cooper nodded. ‘It was die pigs, of course.’
Fry looked at him in amazement. ‘The ones in the compost heap? Come on. The pigs were a joke.’
‘No. It was after I had diat bit of bother in the pub, you remember —? Anyway, one of diose youths in the pub said something about pigs. And it stuck in my brain. Like diat music you were playing in die car. Tanita Tikaram? They’re about die only two things I can remember.’
The old man was nodding at Cooper like a proud fadier, encouraging him to do his stuff.
‘What die hell have die pigs got to do with it?’ asked Fry.
‘Well, it suddenly dawned on me what was going on at die smallholding. They were helping Wilford get rid of all die animals. He didn’t want to leave them behind. He couldn’t just abandon them, because he cared about diem too much. They were his family, if you like. Apart from the pigs, every last one of diem went during die course of a week.’
‘Honestly?’
‘You remember the hens, when we went to Thorpe Farm that first time? He sold all of diem. When I went up a couple of days later, die goat had gone too. And there were no geese. I should have figured it out dien, but I didn’t. It was die pigs that really clinched it. You can’t just sell swill-fed pigs, you see. You’ve got to get movement permits from
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the Ministry of Agriculture before they can leave the premises.’
‘Because of Swine Vesicular Disease,’ put in Harry.
‘But there wasn’t time to do that, was there? He had to get rid of them quickly, and there was only one way he could think of. That was to have them humanely killed and bury them in the compost heap.’
‘So everything went? All that menagerie.”
to O
‘Everything. The place is deserted now. All that’s left of
^ O 1
Wilford’s family is the dog.’
Harry nodded. ‘We kept her out of the way after we heard about the bird-watching bloke. You nearly saw her once, in the pub, but she was out the back with jess. You see, Wilford needed time, that’s all. That’s what I was doing for him — buying him time. We couldn’t let him get arrested. He knew what he had to do, but he needed more time. We helped him do it, me and Sam. Like you say, there’s just the dog now.’
‘So he took all his family with him. As a matter of interest, Diane,’ said Cooper, ‘what gave you the idea that Wilford Cutts was married?’
‘I don’t know,’ she frowned. ‘Wasn’t he?’
‘His wife died years ago.’
‘Oh well, I don’t suppose it’s important. I just remember wondering how on earth Connie managed to put up with him and his friends. He spoke about her once, when I was there. Perhaps he’d just forgotten she was dead.’
‘His wife was called Doris,’ said Cooper.
Harry nodded. ‘Maybe you’re almost Inspector Morse, after all.’
‘You also did your best to throw suspicion on Graham Vernon. Did you really see him on the Baulk that night? Or was that a lie?’
‘No, lad, no lie. He was there, all right. He was out looking for the girl, I reckon. No doubt he had an idea in his mind of what she would be up to. The mother hadn’t a clue, of course. She always thought the lass was some sort of angel.’
The old man curled his lip contemptuously. ‘Aye, Vernon was there, all right. I would have had a few words to say to him
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too. if I’d got near him. You know Iiat about, lad, if Helen’s told you. You don’t need to ask me what I would have said to the man. But he saw me coming, and he cleared off sharpish. I wasn’t complaining. It kept him out of the way. And it did no harm for you lot to be asking him your questions, did it?’
‘And then you even tried to attract suspicion to yourself.’
Harry shrugged. ‘It didn’t matter if you thought I had killed the girl anyway.’
‘Didn’t matter?’
‘Well, I was innocent, wasn’t I? I knew Wilford would prove it, in the end. He did the right thing, you see. He always said he would.’
